Monuments of The Ages

       During the two or more years when this family of three made it their home, I suppose they occasionally walked forth and found many things looking about as I saw them to-day. As now, there stood the Sphinx with a cold smile, looking down upon the ages. It was old when the distinguished three arrived from Bethlehem in Egypt. It took three thousand years to make one wrinkle in its red cheek. It was then, as now, dreadful for its stolidity. Its eyes have never wept a tear. Its cold ears have not listened to the groans of the Egyptian nation, the sorrows of which have never ceased. Its heart is stone. It cared nothing for Joseph or Mary in the first century. It will care nothing for the man or woman who looks into its imperturbable countenance in the last century. Within the sight of the Bethlehem pilgrims there also stood the Pyramid of Cheops, from the- top of which you may seethe Rnins of Memphis, the living and had Cairos, the Nilometer, that skillful finger of stone which feels the rising and falling pulse of the great river; the place where Moses lay in the boat caulked with bitumen; the deserts of Africa, which have swallowed up in their thirsty sand explorers, caravans and armies. Yes, the immortal three from Bethlehem gazed at the outside of palaces, which within were the most gorgeous of the earth; palaces aflame with red sandstone, entered by gateways that were guarded with pillars; bewildering with hieroglyphics and wound with brazen serpents, and adorned with winged creatures, their eyes and beaks and pinions glittering with precious stones. There were marble columns blooming into white flower buds; there were stone pillars, at the top bursting into the shape of the lotus when in full bloom. Along the avenues, lined with sphinx and fane and obelisk, there were princes who came in gorgeously upholstered palanquin, carried by servants in scarlet, or else drawn by vehicles, the snow-white horses, golden-bitted and six abreast, dashing at full run. There were fountains from stone-wreathed vases, climbing ladders of light. You would hear a bolt shove, and a door of brass would open like a flash of the sun. The surrounding gardens were saturated with odors that mounted the terrace and dripped from the arbors and burned their incense in the Egyptian noon. On floors of mosaic, the glories of Pharaoh were spelled out in letters of porphyry and beryl and flame. There were ornaments twisted from the wood of the tamarisk, embossed with silver breaking into foam. There were beds fashioned out of a single precious stone. There were chairs spotted with the sleek hide of leopards. There were sofas footed with the claws of wild beasts and armed with the beaks of birds. As you stand on the level beach of the sea on a summer day and looking either way see miles of breakers white with ocean-foam dashing shoreward, so it seems as if the sea of the world's pomp and wealth in the Egyptian capital flung itself up in breakers of white marble, temple, mausoleum and obelisk. Yet, Egypt which had so much grandeur and glory for her rulers had only a room twenty feet long and seven and a half feet high for the infant Monarch of the skies.

• History of Egypt - "From the 7th century BC the middle east is controlled by a succession of powerful empires..." 

Back to Dr. Talmage's Journal
Journal Entries:
1. 2. 3. 4. Entry 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.