The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

"'Son of earth, there is but one GOD, invisible, eternal, uncreated, and whose glory He will not share with another; worship Him with the spirit and with the understanding.'"

"This is remarkable," I said, "for such also is the mystery taught by the priests of Chaldea, of whom Melchisedec was the first high-priest. I have read their sacred books in Damascus."

"I have never seen them; yet this voice forces itself upon me everywhere, my Sesostris. All is dark and inscrutable to us mortals. We hang our faith upon a tradition, and our hopes upon a myth. We feel ourselves equal or superior to the deities we worship, and find no repose in the observances our religion demands. Would that I had the power to penetrate the blue heavens above us and find out God, and know what life means, and whence we came and whither we go."

"Once across the Lake of the Dead," I answered, "and all will be revealed. Osiris in his vast judgment-hall will give each soul the key of the past and the future."

"So say the priests, and so we believe. But to return to the Hebrews. Another time we will discourse on these themes. The new king hearing that two hundred thousand and more foreigners dwelt here, called all the elders and chief men before him; and when he had questioned them and heard their history, and had learned that the Prince Joseph, who had done so much to uphold and consolidate the Phœnician rule, was one of their ancestors, his wrath was presently kindled against them. He saw in them the friends and adherents of the overthrown dynasty; both as allied by blood to the great Hebrew prime-minister, and as originating from the same country with the expelled Phœnician king. He, therefore, perceiving they were not a warlike people, and could not be dreaded as an army, instead of declaring war against them and driving them out of Egypt, as he had done the Syrian kings, resolved to reduce them to servitude like captives taken in war. Having come to this resolution, he held as prisoners the chief men before him, and placed the whole people under the yoke of bondage, enrolling them under task-officers, and putting them to work upon the cities, temples, palaces, and canals, which the Phœnicians had either destroyed, or suffered to fall into ruin. This was the beginning, my Sesostris, of the subjugation to perpetual labor of these Syrians or Hebrews in the very land where one of their family had ruled next to the throne. They have been engaged since in building cities, and walls, and in cultivating and irrigating the royal wheat-fields; aiding in hewing stone in the quarries, and in all other works of servitude: but as the making of bricks requires no intelligence, and as it was not the policy of Amunophis-Pharaoh to elevate their intellects, but the contrary, lest they should prove troublesome, they have chiefly been kept to this, the most degrading of all labor."

"How long is it that they have been in this condition?" I asked.

"About one hundred and five or six years have elapsed since the death of Prince Joseph. But they were gradually reduced to their present state. During the latter years only of Amunophis were their tasks increased. They, nevertheless, multiplied in such numbers that the king began to apprehend danger to his crown from their multitude."

"Were there men among them who sought to free their fellows?" I inquired.

"Always, and to this hour. They are a proud, haughty, resolute, and stubborn race. They bend to the yoke, indeed, but with hatred of the oppressor, not with the willing submission of the Libyan or Nubian captive. The king had reason to fear from the increase of their numbers, when he found the census of this people gave more than a million of souls, while the number of his own subjects in both provinces did not exceed six millions; his own Thebans not amounting to as many as the Hebrews numbered. Upon this he became alarmed, for he was about entering into a war with the kings of Syro-Arabia, and apprehended that being of the same Syrian stock they might join themselves to his enemies. He, therefore, increased their burdens and taskmasters in order to keep them in closer subjugation; but the more he oppressed them the more they multiplied. In relating these facts, O prince, do not think I approve of cruelty even in my royal ancestor. It was, no doubt, a great wrong in the beginning inflicted upon them, in making them servants, and the subsequent series of oppressions were but the natural results of the first act. It was one unmixed evil throughout. Having committed the manifest error in the outset, of enslaving them to the crown, it now became a necessary policy to prevent their dangerous increase. He would not send them with his army into Arabia lest they should join his enemies. He, therefore, to keep down their numbers, ordered all the male infants as soon as born to be put to death by the Egyptian women."

"A dreadful alternative!" I exclaimed.