Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1891 — SAILING UP THE NILE. [ARTICLE]

SAILING UP THE NILE.

The Wonderful River of Egypt and its Living and Dead Cities. Fights Witnessed—The River’s Many Virtues—The Crystal Cradls of Moses—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn, N. Y., Sunday. “Sailing Up the Nile.” Text, Ezekiel xxix., 9. He said: Aha! This is the river Nile. A brown, or yellow, or silver cord on which are hung more jewels of thrilling interest than on any river that ever twisted in the sunshine. It ripples through the Book of Ezekiel, ana flashes in the Book of Deuteronomy, and Isiah, and Zachariah, and Nahum, and on its banks stood the mighties o' many ages. It was the crystal cradle of Moses, and on its banks Mary, th" refugee, carried the infant Jesus. To find the birthplace of this river was the fascination and defeat of expeditions without number. Not many years ago Bayard Taylor, our great American traveler, wrote: “Since Columbus first looked upon San Salvador, the earth has but one emotion of triumph left for her disposal, and that she reserves for him who shall first drink from the fountains of the White Nile under the snow fields of Kilimanjaro.” But the discovery of the sources of the Nile by most people was considered an impossibility. The malarias, the wild beasts, the savages, the unclimbable steeps, the vast distances stopped all the expeditions for ages. An intelligent native said to Sir Samuel W. Bakei’ and wife as they were on their way to accomplish that in which others had failed: “Give cup'Othe mad

scheme of the Nile source. How would it be possible for a lady, young and kill the strongest man? Give it up.” But the work went on until Speke, and Grant and Baker found the two lakes which are the source of what was called the White Nile and baptized these two lakes with the names of Victoria and’ Albert. These two lakes, filled by great rainfalls and by accumulated snows from the mountains, pbur their waters, Lden with agricultural wealth such rs blesses, no other river, on down aver the cataracts, on between frowning mountains, on between cities living and cities dead, on for 4.00!) miles and through a continent. But tiie White Nile would do little for Egypt if this were all. It would keep its banks and Egypt would-re-inain a desert. But from Abyssihaia there comes what is called the Blue Nile, which, though dry of nearly flry half...the year, under tremendous rains about the middle of June rises to a greatmomentum, and this Blue Nile dashes with sudden influx into the White Nile, which in consequence rises thirty fcet. and their combined waters inundate Egypt with a rich Boil which drops on ail the fields and ■gardens-asrit is conducted by ditches find sluices and canals everywhither. The greatest damage that ever came to Egypt came by the drying up of the; river Niley ramdr the greatest blessing by its healthful and abundant flow. The famine in Joseph’s" time came from the lack of sufficient InundatioA from the Niie. Scarcity of Nile is drought; tcio much Nue is freshet and plague.

The rivers of the earth are the mothers of its prosperity. If by Borne convulsion of nature the Mis iissippi should be taken from North America, or the Amazon from South America, or the Danube from Europe, or the Yenesei from Asia, what, hemispheric calamity! Still there are other rivers that could fertilize and save these countries. Our own continent is gulched, is ribboned, is glorified by innumerable water courses. But Egypt has only one great river, and that is harnessed to draw all the prosperities of realms and acreage semi-infinite. What happens to the Nile, happens to Egypt. The nilomcter was to me very suggestive as we went up and down its damn stone steps and saw the pillar marked with notches telling just how high or low are the waters of the Nile. When the Nile is rising four criers every morning run through the city hnriouncing how many feet the river has arisen—ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty feet, twenty-four feet—and when the right height of water is reached the gates of the canals are flung open and the liquid and refreshing benediction is pronounced bn all the land.

As we start where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea we behold a wonderful fulfillment of prophecy. The Nile in very ancient times used to have seven mouths. As the great river approached the sea it entered the sea at seven different places. >lsaiah prophesied: “The Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian Sea and shall smite it in the seven streams. ” The fact is they arc all destroyed but two, and Hero dot us said these two remaining are artificial. Up the Nile we shall go; part of the way by Egyptian rail train, and then by boat, and then we shall understand why the Bible gives such prominence to this river which 1 is the largest river of all the earth with one exception. But all aboard the Egyptian rail train going up the banks of the Nile! Look out of the window and see those camels kneeling for thQ.imposition of their load. And I think we might take from them a lesson, and. instead of trying to stand upright in tour own strength, become conscious

of our weakness, and need of Divine help before we take upon us the heavy duties of the year or the week or the day, and so kneel for the burden. We meet processions of men and beasts on the way from their day’s work, but alas, for the homes to which the poor inhabitants are going. For the most part hovels of mud. But there is something in the scene that thoroughly enlists us. It is the novelty of wretchedness, and a scene of picturesque rags. For thousands of years this land has been under a heavy damnation of taxes. Nothing but Christian civil ization will roll back the influences which are “spoiling the Egyptians.” There are gardens and palaces, but they belong to the rulers. This ride along the Nile is one of the most solemn and impressive rides of all my lifetime, and our emotions deepen as the curtains of the night fall upon all surroundings. But we shall not be satisfied until we can take a ship and pass right out upon these wonderous waters and between the banks crowded with the story of empires. A eeorfii n g to the lead pencil marks in my Bible it was Thanksgiving Day morning, Nov. 28, 1889, that with my family and friends we stepped aboard the steamer on the Nile. The Mohammedan call to prayers had been sounded by the priests of that religion, the Muezzins, from the 400 mosquesrof Cairo as theory went out: “God is great! I bear witness that there is no God but God. I bear witness that Mohammed is the apostle of God. Come to prayers. Come to salvation. God is great. There is no other but God. Prayers are better tnan sleep.” The sky and city and palm groves and shipping were bathed in the light. It was not much of a craft that we boarded. It would not be hailed on any of our rivers with any rapture of admiration. It fortunately had but little speed, for twice we ran aground, and the sailors jumped into the water and on their shoulders pushed her out. But what yacht of gayest sportsman, what deck of swiftest ocean queen, could give such thrill of rapture as a sail on the Nile? The Pyramids in sight, the remains of cities that are now only a name, the villages thronged with population. Both banks crowded With historical deeds of forty or sixty centuries. Oh, what a Book the Bible is when read on the Nile! As we slowly move up the majestic river I see on each bank the wheels, the pumps, the buckets for irrigation and see a man with his foot on the treadle of a wheel that fetches up the water for a garden, “hnd then for the first time I understand that passage in Deuteronomy which says of the Israelites after they had got back to land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye come out, vvhere thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot.” Then I understood how the land could be watered with the foot. How do you suppose I felt when on the deck of that steamer on the Nile I looked off upon the canals and ditches and sluices through Which the fields are irrigated by that river and then read in Isaiah: “The burden of Egypt; the river shall be wasted and dried up, and they shall turn the rivers far away and the brooks of defense shall be emptied and dried up, and they' shall be broken in the purposes there of, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.” That thanksgiving mornmorning on the Nile I found my text of to-day. While sailing on this river or stopping at one of the villages we see people on the banks who verify the bible description, for they are now as they were in Bible times. Shoes are now taken off in reverence to sacred places. Children carried astride the mother's shoulder, as in Hagerls time. Women with profusion of jew elry as when Rebecca was affianced. Lentils shelled into the potage, as when Esau sold his birtheight to get such a dish. The same habits of salutation as when Joseph and his brethren fell on each other's necks. Courts of law held under big trees, as. in olden times. People making bricks without straw, compelled by circumstances to use stubble instead of straw. Flying over or standing on the banks, as in Scripture days, are flamingoes, ospreys, eagles, pelicans, herons,cuckoos and bullfinches. On all sides of this river sepulchers, villages of sepulchers, cities of sepulchers, nations of sepulchers, and one is tempted to call it an empire of tombs. I never saw such a place as Egypt is, for graves. And now we understand the complaining sarcasm of the Israelites when they were on the way from Egypt to Canaan, “Because there are no graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?” Down the river bank come the buffalo and the cattle or kine to drink. And it was the ancestors of these cattle that inspired Pharaoh’s dream of the lean kine and the fat kine. Here we disembark a little while for Memphis, off from the Nile to the right. Memphis, founded 'by the first King of Egypt, and for a while the capital. A.'city of marjjle and gold. Home of the Pharaohs. City nineteen miles in circumference.

colonades, through which imposing processions marched. Here stood the Temple of the Sun, itself in brilliancy a sun shone on by another sun. Memphis, in power over a thousand one hundred years, or nearly ten times as long as the United States have existed. Here is a recumbent statue seventy-five feet long. Bronzed gateways. A necropolis called “the Haven of the Blest." Here Joseph was Prime Minister. Here Pharaoh received Jacob. All possible splendors were

built up into this royal city. JI osea,. Ezekiel, Jetemiah and Isaiah speak of it as something wonderful. Never did I visit a city with such exalted expectations and never d d my anticipations drop so flat. Not a j pillar stands. Not a wall is unbrok- : en. Not a fountain tosses in the ■ sun. Even the ruins have been ruined and all that remains are chips ; pf marble, small pieces of fractured sculpture and splintered human . bones. Here and there a letter of . some elaborate inscription. A toe or ear of a statue that once had stood in niche of palace wall. Ezekiel prophesied its blotting out, and the prophesy has been fulfilled. “Ride on, I said to our party, “and don’t wait for me.” And as I stood there alone the city of Memphis in the glory of past centuries returned. And I heard the rush of her chariots and i the dash of her fountains and the convivialty of her palaces and saw the drunken nobles roll on the floors I of mosaic, while in startling contrast j amid all the regalities of the place I , saw Pharaoh look up into the face of aged, rustic Jacob, the shepherd, sayi But back to the Nile and on and up till you reach Thebes, in Scripture called the City of No. Hund-red-gated Thebes. A quadrangular city four miles frum limit to limit. Four great temples, two of them Karnick and Luxor, once mountains of exquisite sculpture and gorgeous dreams solidified in stone. Statue of Rameses 11, 887 tons in weight and seventy-five feet high, but now fallen and scattered. Walls abloom with the battle-fields of centuries. The surrounding hills of rock hollowed into sepulchers, on the walls of which are chiseled in the picture and hieroglyphics the confirmation of the Bible story in regard to the treatment of the Israelites in Egypt so that, as explorations go on with the work, the walls of these sepulchers become commentaries of thellible.the Scriptures originally written upon parchment here cut into everlasting stone, Thebes mighty and dominant 500 years. But the dead cities strung along the Nile not only demolish infidelity, but thunder down the absurdity of the modern doctrine of evolution which says the world started with nothing and then rose, and human nature began with nothing but evolved into splendid manhood and womanhood of itself. Nay; the sculpture of the world was more wonderful in the days of Memphis and Thebes and Carthage than in the days of Boston and New York. Those blocks of stone weighing 300 tons high up the wall at Karnno imply machinery equal to, if not surpassing, the machinery of the nineteenth century. How was that statue of Rameses, weighing 887 tons transported from the quarries 200 miles away, and how was it lifted? Tell, modern machinists. How were those galleries of rock, still standing at Thebes, filled with paintings surpassed by no artist's pencil of the present day? Tell us, artists of the nineteenth century. The dead cities of Egypt, so far as they have left enough pillars or statues or sepulchers or temple ruins to tells the story—Memphis, Migdel, Hierapolis, Zoan, Thebes. Goshen, Carthage—all of them developing downward instead.of upwards They haveevoluted from magnificence into destruction. The Gospel of JesusChrist is the only elevator of individual and social and national character. Let all th? living cities know that pomp and opulence and temporal prosperity are no'seeuntyrThowe--ancient cities lacked nothing but good morals. Dissipation and sin slew them, and unless dissipation and sin are halted they will some day slay our modern cities and leave, our palaces of merchandise and our galleries of art and our City Hall as fiat in the dust as wc found Memphis on the afternoon of that Thanksgiving Day. And if the cities go down the Nation will go down. “Oh.” you say, “that is, impossible; we have stood so long —yea. over a hundred years as a Nation.” Why, what of that? Thebes stood five hundred years; Memphis stood a thousand years. God does not forget. One day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Rum an debauchery and bad politics are more rapidly working s,he destruction of our American cities than sin of any kind and all kinds worked for the destruction of the cities of Afiicvoneeso mighty and now so prostrate. But their gods were idols, and could do nothing except for debasement. Om- God made the heavens, and sent his son to redeem the nations. And our cities will not go down, and our nations will not perish, because the Gospel is going to triumph. Forward, all schools and colleges and churches! Forward, all reformatory and missionary organizations! Forward, all the influences, marshaled to bless the world! Let “our modern European and American cities listen to the voice of those ancient cities resurrected, and by hammer and c hisel and crow-bar compelled to speak. “The best bill collector,” writes a Georgia editor, “is a shotgun. We have the gun, and if we could afford to buy the shot with a small sprinkling of powder we would have $6 before sundown. ” —Atlanta Constitution.

A Righteous Strike.— * “But,” said the hotel keeper to the striking waiters, you get precisely the same fcod we servo to the guests.” “Yes.” replied the leader, “that’s what we are kicking about."-Hew York Sun,