But the Egyptian doctrine of a future life, while very curious and interesting as a study of ancient belief, is utterly unsatisfying. The ideas are detached and fragmentary, and wholly without evidence or authority; they are merely the crude fancies of mythology, and not the precise teachings of Revelation. And so in all the tombs and temples of Egypt there is nothing which can relieve the doubts of a troubled mind, or the sorrows of a heavy heart.
I have had some sober thoughts while floating on the bosom of the Nile. We cannot but see the world through our own eyes and through our moods of mind. To those who have left their dead beyond the sea, foreign travel has many sad and lonely hours. The world seems cold and empty, and even the most religious mind is apt to be haunted with gloomy thoughts. This is not a mood of mind peculiar to atheists and unbelievers. Many devout men, in seasons of mental depression, are tortured with doubts whether, after all, their religious faith is not a delusion and a dream.
And so many dark and bitter questionings come to me here in this land of sepulchres. I have come to Egypt to learn something of the wisdom of the Egyptians. Tell me then, ye tombs and temples and pyramids, about God; tell me about the life to come! But the Pyramids speak not; and the Sphinx still looks towards the East, to watch for the rising sun, but is voiceless and mute. This valley of the Nile speaks of nothing but death. From end to end its rock-ribbed hills are filled with tombs. Yet what do they all teach the anxious and troubled heart of man? Nothing! All these hills are silent. Not a sound, or even an echo, comes from these dark sepulchres. No voice of hope issues out of the caverns hollowed in the bosom of the hills. The hard granite of the tombs itself is not more deaf to the cry of human anguish, or the voice of supplication.
I turn from the monuments of man to nature. I stand on the bank of the Great River, and ask if it brings not some secret out of the heart of Africa? Tell me, ye night winds, blowing from African deserts; tell me, ye stars shining in the African heaven (this sky of Egypt is so pure and clear that the stars seem higher and more distant from this lower world), what light can ye throw on this great mystery of death? And the stars twinkle, but speak not, and the palm trees quiver in the night wind, but give no answer; and the great Nile flows on silently to the sea, as life flows on to eternity. Nature is dumb; the great secret is not revealed.
For the revelation of that secret we turn not to Egypt, but to Jerusalem. While the Egyptians groped darkly after the truth, how do these dim shadows, these poor emblems and analogies, set forth by contrast the clearer and better truth of revelation! All that is written on the tombs of Egypt; all that is carved in stone, or written in hieroglyphics on ancient sarcophagi; all that is built in temples and pyramids; is not worth that one saying of our Lord, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
We spent Christmas day at Thebes, where a number of English boats had drawn up to the landing to keep the day, so dear to the hearts of Englishmen throughout the world. On Christmas eve they were decorated with palm branches, and at night were lighted up with Chinese lanterns, while row-boats were floating about, the Arab boatmen singing their wild, plaintive melodies.
Christmas brought a scene, if not so picturesque, yet far more sweet and tender. It had been our good fortune to meet there Rev. Dr. Potter of New York, the rector of Grace Church. He was going up the Nile with Miss Wolfe, of Madison square. They were on two dahabeeahs, but kept company, and anchored every night together. On Christmas day there was a service on board Miss Wolfe's boat, which was attended by all the English parties. It was held on the upper deck, which was spread with carpets and covered with an awning on the top and sides to protect us from the sun. Whether it was the strange scene, occurring in a distant part of the world, or sad memories which were recalled by these anniversary days, seldom has a service touched me more. It was very sweet to hear the old, old prayers – some of them almost as old as Christianity itself – to which we had so often listened in other lands, and to join with the little company in the Christmas hymn:
"Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild;
God and man are reconciled."
Dr. Potter read the service in his clear, rich voice, following it with a sermon which was quite extempore and brief, but so simple and so appropriate to the day that it went to every heart. And when at the close was celebrated the communion, we all felt how pleasant it was in such a place, so far from home, in a country surrounded by the ruins of the temples of old idolatries, to join in the worship of Him who on this day was born to be the Light and the Hope of the world. Better is this than all that Egypt can teach us about a life to come.
And so we turn from these great temples and tombs, which only mock our hopes, to Him who has passed through the grave, and lighted the way for us to follow Him. Let scholars dispute the first intent of the words, yet nothing in the Old Testament or the New, more distinctly expresses what I rest upon than this: "I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God!"
CHAPTER V
In a review of the faiths of Egypt, one cannot overlook that which has ruled in the land for more than a thousand years, and still rules, not only in Egypt, but over a large part of Asia and Africa. We arrived in Cairo a few days too late to witness the departure of the pilgrims for Mecca. Once in the year there is a gathering of the faithful for a journey which is the event of their lives. The spectacle is one of the most picturesque in the East, as a long procession, mounted on camels, many of which are richly caparisoned, files through the streets of the city, amid the admiring gaze of the whole population, and takes the way of the desert. Slowly it moves Eastward to the Red Sea, and passing around it, turns South to the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.
A caravan of pilgrims crossing the desert to visit the birthplace of the prophet, is a proof that religious enthusiasm still lives even in this unbelieving age. Perhaps the Moslem spirit is not so bigoted here as at Constantinople. The Turk, with his heavy stolid nature, is a more obstinate religionist than the Arab. And yet Mohammed was not a Turk; he was an Arab, and the faith which he taught still fires the heart of his race.
In one view Cairo may be considered the capital of Islam, as it is the seat of the great University, from which its priests go forth to all parts of the Mohammedan world. This University is nine hundred years old – older than Oxford, and still flourishes with as much vigor as in the palmy days of the Arabian conquest. A visit to it is the most interesting sight in Cairo. There I saw collected together – not one hundred or two hundred students, such as are found in our Theological Seminaries in America – but ten thousand! As one expressed it, "there were two acres of turbans," assembled in a vast inclosure, with no floor but a pavement, and with a roof over it, supported by four hundred columns, and at the foot of every column a teacher, surrounded by pupils, who sat at his feet precisely as Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel. As we entered there rose a hum of thousands of voices, reciting the Koran. These students are not only from Egypt, but from all parts of Africa, from Morocco to Zanzibar. They come from far up the Nile, from Nubia and Soudan; and from Darfour beyond the Great Desert, and from the western coast of Africa. Asia too is largely represented in students both from Western Asia, from Turkey, Arabia, and Persia; and from Central Asia, from Khiva and Bokhara, and Turkistan and Afghanistan, and the borders of China. They come without staff or scrip. There is no endowment to support them; no Students' Fund or Education Board. They live on the charities of the faithful, and when their studies are ended, those who are to be missionaries on this continent mount their camels, and joining a caravan, cross the Desert, and are lost in the far interior of Africa.
This strange sight has set me a-thinking, and the more I think, the more the wonder grows. A religion that supports great universities from generation to generation; and that sends forth caravans, that are like armies, on long pilgrimages, is not dead; it is full of life, and can bring into the field tremendous forces to