The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-02-17


All that wealth and love could give were
lavished upon him as a child. boy and
man Now as a handsome prince ana
as once of the keenest intelleets oil the
world, as an epicurean, who looked upon
the rarest mxuries of life as his neeessl-
ties. we suddenly find him hunted fu-
gitive. fleeing from his foster mother
home with a price upon his head. lie IS
charged with the crime of murder. But
worse than that. his crime Is aggraFa'eu
by the fact that the murdered man was
an Egyptian who was cruelty abusing
one of the Hebrew slaves. In other
words Moses was hated as the champion
of an alien race, that race race Oh
slaves. As an Egyptian prince he had
dared stand up and espouse the cause
and the rights of the Hebrew slaves, VINO
we're the unpaid laborers of the Kingdom
of the pharaohs.
Moses Blessing.
want to dwell this morning on the
blessings which came to Moses ne -
his forty long years of exile in the lahu
of Mldianites l want to speak about
the blessings which came to Moses III
midlife The period he spent IN Mlulah
extended from the age of forty TO my,
and from fifty to sixty, ana from SHY
to seventy, and from seventy TO eisheS'
These twoscore years OF Moses Hle Weie
in some respects the most momentous oI
all Moses career Moses spent his nrsl
fartv wears as a beloved prince in Pha-
raoh's palaces. The second forty years
he lived in the land of the Mldlahltes.
The third forty years of his life he spent
in the wilderness with the Hebreks, ledu-
ing them from the scene OF ESyplidh
enslavement to the crystal gates OF the
Jordan 1t is about the second epoch OF
Moses life that ! would speak today.
In the first place, God had purpose IN
permitting Moses to be driven into exile
1t was to teach him that Gods thoughts
are not as mans thoughts nor COD S
ways as mans ways. The great Jehovah
seemed to say to the future emancipation
of the Hebrew race: MY son, | want TO
take YOU away from the palaces of Meh-
phis and the temple of Karnak and all
the repulsive heather worship or the
Egyptians, / want you to be alone with
me out In the desert sands. | want to
talk with you and have you talk with me-
/ want you to learn about the God or
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. ] want
you to be truly my child and not be
worshiper of COWS. and cats, and hons,
and frogs, and fishes, and hawks, and
falcons. 1t is almost an impossibil1ty Tor
any man to live in the COMMUNICATING
spiritual atmosphere where his loved ones
are worshiping false gods without haV-
ing his own spiritual ears dulled. Come,
my child to the far off INDIAN lands
where in the stiffness of the day and
I'm the stiffness of the night ] can talk
with thee and thou canst talk with me-
Thus God led Moses far away from the
Egyptian temples into the quietude or
,frfIf laaf Df
him and study what God wanted him
to do.
Was, this not very wise plan? Where
in all the world was the abomlnation of
heather worship made more attractive
than in old Egypt? When we stand amid
the ruins of Memphis, we find there that
the sacred Deity was worshlped In the
form of a bull These bulls were allowed
to live for twenty years. Then they were
put to death and their bodies embalmed
like those of kings. Then, with great GER
emony. their bodies We're carried to mag
nincent tombs, which tombs thereafter
were looked upon as sacred shrines. He
rodotus, the Greek historian. tells us that
during the reign OF Rameses IL. the
funeral of one of the bulls cost over
$40 600 When YOU estimate that penny
I'm olden times would hire laborer for
a whole day. that funeral cost in modern
money at least a half million of dollars.
AT Sakkara the tombs for these sacred
bulls were cut out of the solid rock a
quarter of mile long. The sarcophagi,
or huge collins, In which the embalmed
bodies of these bulls We're placed. were
cut out of one monster stone thirteen
feet long seven feet wide and eleven feet
high.
Egyptian Temples.
Then what beautiful temples were erect
ed for the worship of these Egyptian ami
malsl Never in all the wide world have
there been more beautiful buildings than
those ancient temples of Kardusseh and
Phiae aud Aboo and Esnek and kar-
max. where the Pharaohs worshped, and
Medeenet aaboo and Luxor and Kurneh.
Truly like Paul standing on Mars hill,
when we see these huge structures we can
exclafm. We men of old Egypt, l per
ceive that in all things we are too SUI
perstitious." Why, the great hall of pill
lars" at Karnak looks as though the pill
lars had been heWed out OF the very CEN
Ter Of the earth and set up in long rows
for the dome Of the heavens TO rest upon
so massive are they. Each one OF those
columns is covered with the most eNquis o.
lite carvings. So infinite are these cary
ings that. like a prairie full of Wild
flowers. Their individual beauties are lost
in the multitude of the wonders. DO YOU
wonder amid the pernieious influences or
such heather worship, that God sala 10
Moses, the adopted son of Pharaoh 5
daughter: Come my child-come 10
INDIAN lands Come into the duietude or
a desert exile. Come and learn of me
and hear the duty REQUIRED of thee Now
my friends just as Moses had his INDIAN
exile to learn of Gods thoughts and God $
WAYS. we. as Gods children, should nave
our INDIAN eXiles.
God had another purpose in arranging
the events which eliminated in driving
forth Moses from Pharaoh's palace. The
adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter had
to be taught by bitter experience what
il was to suffer injustice before he was
fitted to be the emancipation of a Hebrew
race grooming and suffering amid the
fortunes of Egyptian slavery He had to
lift to his lips the chalice OF woe filed
with his own scalding tears and drink the
Gun of sorrow to the dregs before he
was fitted TO wipe away the tears from
the eyes of his fellow men. No man
can truly svmpathize with a sick man
unless he has first been sick himself.
No man can truly svmpathize with the
poor unless. like John Howard Payne,
he has not a place to call his home,
or unless In the winter night he has
gone to the rooms of tenement where
there was no fire in the cold stove be-