“Traveller, you have wandered far from your peaceful home in sea-girt England, and you long to gaze upon the crumbling glories of the ages that are passed. You have come to see the marvels of Egypt—the land which in the march of civilization took the lead of all the nations of antiquity. Here as strangers and pilgrims sojourned the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob. This was the adopted land of the princely Joseph, the home of Moses, and the abode of Israel’s oppressed race. I remember them well, for from the land of Goshen they all came to see me, and as they gazed at my countenance they were filled with amazement at my greatness and my beauty. You have heard of the colossal grandeur of Babylon and Nineveh, and the might of Babylonia and Assyria. You know by fame of the glories of Greece, and perhaps you have seen on the Athenian Acropolis those chaste temples of Pericles, beautiful even in their decay. You have visited the ruins of ancient Rome, and contemplated with wonder the ruined palace of the Cæsars, Trajan’s column, Constantine’s arches, Caracalla’s baths, and the fallen grandeur of the Forum.
“Traveller, long before the foundation of Rome and Athens; yea, long before the ancient empires of Assyria and Babylonia rose from the dim twilight, I stood here on this rocky platform, and was even old when Romulus and Cecrops, when Ninus and Asshur, were in their infancy. You have just visited the pyramids of Cheops and Cephren; you marvel at their greatness, and revere their antiquity. Over these mighty sepulchres I have kept guard for forty centuries, and here I stood amid the solitude of the desert ages before the stones were quarried for these vast tombs. Thus have I seen the rise, growth, and decay of all the great kingdoms of the earth. From me then learn this lesson: ‘grander than any temple is the temple of the human body, and more sacred than any shrine is the hidden sanctuary of the human soul. Happiness abideth not in noisy fame and vast dominion, but, like a perennial stream, happiness gladdens the soul of him who fears the Most High, and loves his fellow-men. Be content, therefore, with thy lot, and strive earnestly to discharge the daily duties of thine office.’
“This world, with all its glittering splendours, the kings of the earth, and the nobles of the people, are all mortal, even as thou art. The tombs which now surround me, where reposes the dust of departed greatness, proclaim that you are fast hastening to the destiny they have reached. Change and decay, which you now see on every side, is written on the brow of the monarch as much as on the fading flower of the field. Only the ‘Most High’ changeth not. He remaineth the same from generation to generation. Trust in Him with all thine heart, serve Him with all thy soul, and all will be well with thee, even for evermore.”
CHAPTER IV.
The London Obelisk.
Seven hundred miles up the Nile beyond Cairo, on the frontiers of Nubia, is the town of Syene or Assouan. In the neighbourhood are the renowned quarries of red granite called Syenite or Syenitic stone. The place is under the tropic of Cancer, and was the spot fixed upon through which the ancients drew the chief parallel of latitude, and therefore Syene was an important place in the early days of astronomy. The sun was of course vertical to Syene at the summer solstice, and a deep well existed there in which the reflection of the sun was seen at noon on midsummer-day.
About fifteen centuries before the Christian era, in the reign of Thothmes III., by royal command, the London Obelisk, together with its companion column, was quarried at Syene, and thence in a huge raft was floated down the Nile to the sacred city of Heliopolis, a distance of seven hundred miles. Heliopolis, called in the Bible On, and by the ancient Egyptians An, was a city of temples dedicated to the worship of the sun. It is a place of high antiquity, and was one of the towns of the land of Goshen. Probably the patriarch Abraham sought refuge here when driven by famine out of the land of Canaan. Heliopolis is inseparably connected with the life of Joseph, who, after being sold to Potiphar as a slave, and after suffering imprisonment on a false accusation, was by Pharaoh promoted to great honour, and by royal command received “to wife Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On” (Gen. xli. 45). Heliopolis was probably the scene of the affecting meeting of Joseph and his aged father Jacob. The place was not only a sacred city, but it was also a celebrated seat of learning, and the chief university of the ancient world. “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” and his wisdom he acquired in the sacred college of Heliopolis. Pythagoras and Plato, and many other Greek philosophers, were students at this Egyptian seat of learning.