Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1895 — GRAY WITH TIME. [ARTICLE]

GRAY WITH TIME.

Aii Ancient Obelisk that Stands on the Banks of the Nile. ''.'he oldest of all the obelisks is the beautiful one of rose granite which srands alone among the green fields on the banks of the Nile not far from Cairo. It is the gravestone of a great city which has vanished and left only this relic behind. That city was the Bethshemesh of scripture, the famous On, which is memorable to all Bible readers as the residence of the priest of On, Poti-pherah, whose daughter Asenath Joseph married. The Greeks called it Heliopolis, the city of the sun, because there the worship of the sun had its Chief center and its most sacred shrine. It was the seat of the most ancient university in the world, to whicn youthful students came from all parts of the world to learn the occult wisdom'which the priests of On alone could teach. Thales, Solon, Eudoxus, Pythagoras and Plato all studied there; perhaps Moses, too. It was also the birthplace of the sacred literature of Egypt, where were written on papyrus leaves the original chapters of the oldest book in the world, generally known as “The Book of the Dead,” giving a most striking account of the conflicts and triumphs of the life after death, a whole copy of fragments of which every Egyptian, rich or poor, wished to have buried with him in his coffin, and portions of which are found inscribed on every mummy case and on the walls of every tomb. In front of one of the principal temples of the sun in this magnificent city stood, along with a companion, long since destroyed, the solitary obelisk which we now behold on the spot. It alone has survived the wreck of all the glory of the place. It was constructed by Usertesen 1., who is supposed to have reigned 2,800 years B. C., and has outlived all the dynastic changes of the land, and still stands where It originally stood nearly fortyseven centuries ago. What appears of its shaft above ground is 68 feet In height, but its base Is buried in the

mud of the Nile, and year after year the inundation of the river deposits its film of soil around Its foot, and buries it still deeper in its sacred grave.— Fall Mall Gazette.