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THE KING’S BUSINESS
has become in a peculiar sense a ‘deso lation.’” But the archeology of Egypt is related to the New Testament as well as the Old. Once the most influential seat of Christ ian thought it has preserved to us much of the highest importance. Documents recovered connect our Gospel, the four fold Gospel, with the age of the Apos tles, in its integrity and entirety. It is scarcely necessary to sum the momentous consequences of these facts in their relation to the Bible. The tra ditional view of the book is sufficiently vindicated. As Arsenius (whom Athana sius was charged with murdering and mutilating, by cutting off his hands), alive, in his own person, and with both hands extended, confronted Athanasius’ accusers, so the monuments confront the professors. Moses could have written the Pentateuch, would have written it, did write it. “It is incredible that Moses was a religious teacher trained in the schools of Egypt and did not put his precepts in writing.” It is equally in credible that any scribe of a later day, trained in the Jewish schools, and ig norant of the sojourn, would, could or did write what is attributed to Moses. The work is locally Egyptian and Sinai- tic, temporarily it is Rameside. The mis takes of Moses are the mistakes of the critics. The patriarch outlives his perse cutors, his eye undimmed, his natural force unabated. . (i “The facts," says a learned writer, are calculated to make the ordinary student exceedingly wary in accepting the asser tions of documentary criticism conducted under a modern student lamp.” Anouier, “The oriental specialist is in a position to confront the conclusions of the high er criticism” ; and again, “Archeology is daily raising a more emphatic protest against the conclusion of the ‘higher criticism.’ ” Prof. Hommel says, The more I investigate Semitic antiquity the more I am convinced of the utter base lessness of the views of Wellhausen. Prof. Sayce, commenting on tacts tnat almost demonstrate the unity of the open ing chapters of Genesis, remarks, What then becomes of that literary analysis the higher criticism claims to have made?” The answer is ready: It has ■become a back number. From those chapters have been quarried the two Pil lars on which the whole édifice of mis criticism rests, viz, “J” and “E But if the foundations be removed what will (Concluded on Page 45.)
rates the records of Ezra and Nehemiah, and proves the “critics” wrong in several particulars of facts and dates. The land of Egypt as it lies today illus trates and verifies the prophecies and guarantees the literal interpretation of unfulfilled predictions, as the following paragraph from Professor Cobern shows: “The scepter has departed from Egypt, ‘the son of Ham,’ and the land has been laid waste by the hand of strangers (Ge. 10:6; Zee. 10:11; Ezek. 30:12). The arm of Pharaoh is broken and the sword has fallen out of his hand, and all the nations that dwelt under his shadow have been shaken by the sound of his fall (Zee. 30:20; 31:16). The heart of Egypt has melted, and all them that work for hire have been aggrieved in soul, for in truth she has been for centuries groaning under the hand of a cruel Lord. The fisherman laments, for the canals are emptied and dried up (Is. 19) and the reeds and flags have withered. The pa per industry has utterly vanished, and scarcely a single specimen of the papy rus plant can be obtained even for a museum, according to the specific decla ration of the prophet (Isa. 19:6, 7). ‘More over, they that work in combed flax, and they that weave white cloth’ are made ‘ashamed’ in the presence of English merchants, who today monopolize the trade, where at the time this prophecy was written the Theban looms were send ing out fabrics which were then the pride, as they are now the astonish ment of the whole earth. (Isa. 18:9). Truly this has become a land destitute of that whereof it was full (Ezek. 29:3). The seven original outlets of the Nile have been dried up, (the two present be ing artificial ones), and ‘the tongue of the Egyptian sea has been smitten,’ and the waters of the gulf have been driven back a score of miles, -as by a mighty hand, since the days of Isaiah,’ according to the word of the Lord.’ (Isa. 11:15). The ‘obelisks’ and ‘pillars’ of On have fal len, only one remains upright amidst the vast ruins of the ‘houses of the gods, which have been ‘burnt with fire.’ (Jer. 43:13). Of Memphis, beautiful for situa tion, the joy of the whole earth it was written, 'Noph shall become a desolation, if shall be burnt up without an inhabi tant.’ (Jer. 46:19). Today, not even a single obelisk, or prostrate pylon, or shiv ered temple wall, marks the site of that famous capital. It has sunk into obliv ion. It is but a pile of dust and crumbled brick. Unlike other Egyptian cities, it
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