Were we asked to say what country it is which is celebrated alike for the highest antiquity as for early, and unequaled, and long-continued, eminence in science, in the arts, in an enlightened and refined civilization, in luxury and magnificence—which has continued through all history a realm of wonder, and which still plays a part in the commerce and in the politics of the world—there could be but one answer. It is the land of Egypt. Like its own monuments, which, in their colossal greatness, bid a calm but proud defiance to the ravages of time, this land lives on. It is still the home of the descendants of its ancient masters. It still possesses the blessing of that rare fertility which proved the foundation of its past splendor. And if it does, like its monuments, show that in the struggle with time it has not come off unscathed, if the hand of decay has left its impress, it may find some satisfaction in the thought that to its long and proud career there is no parallel in the whole world beside.
But Egypt has also another claim to attention. In no land have the prophecies of the Old Testament received a more striking fulfillment than in this. In the misery of its people and the ruin of its cities it bears overwhelming, though involuntary, testimony to the claims of Scripture. To part of this testimony we shall now listen.
THEBES,
the ancient capital of Egypt, was called by the Greeks Diospolis (the city of Jupiter). This appears to have been a literal translation of the Egyptian name No-Amon which appears in Nah. 3:88Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea? (Nahum 3:8). The latter name signifies the portion, or abode, of the god Amon, in whom the Greeks believed they recognized their own Zeus, the Roman Jupiter. The first part of this name, No, is that by which the city is generally designated in the Scriptures. The praises of the city with its hundred gates were sung of old by Homer; and the graphic picture which the poet presents of its populousness is outshone by the sober statement of Tacitus that it could send into the field an army of seven hundred thousand men. Diodorus Siculus, who visited Egypt about 50 B. C., and who saw Thebes only in its ruin, cannot restrain his admiration. The sun had never seen, he says, so magnificent a city. “Never was there a city,” he exclaims, “which received so many offerings in silver, gold, and ivory, colossal statues, and obelisks, each cut from a single stone. Four principal temples are especially admired there, the most ancient of which was surpassingly grand and sumptuous. It was thirteen stadia (one mile and three-quarters) in circumference, and surrounded by walls twenty-four feet in thickness, and forty-five cubits high. The richness and workmanship of its ornaments were correspondent to the majesty of the building, which many kings contributed to embellish.”
The testimony of Diodorus is amply confirmed by the remains. The stupendous ruins of Luxor and Carnac, parts of the ancient No which are still inhabited, excite today the same feelings of admiration and amazement. The great temple of Carnac “is the largest and most splendid ruin of which, perhaps, either ancient or modern times can boast.” “All here is sublime, all majestic. With pain one tears oneself from Thebes. Her monuments fix the traveler’s eyes, and fill his mind with vast ideas. Beholding colossal figures and stately obelisks which seem to surpass human powers, he says, ‘Man has done this,’ and feels himself and his species ennobled.”
Of the Great Hall Miss Amelia B. Edwards writes: “It is a place that has been much written about and often painted; but of which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarfed and pallid impression. To describe it, in the sense of building up a recognizable image by means of words, is impossible. The scale is too vast; the effect too tremendous; the sense of one’s own dumbness, and littleness, and incapacity, too complete and crushing. It is a place that strikes you into silence; that empties you, as it were, not only of words, but of ideas. Nor is this a first effect only. Later in the year, when we came back and moored close by, and spent long days among the ruins, I found I never had a word to say in the Great Hall.... I could only look and be silent.
“Yet to look is something if one can but succeed in remembering.... I stand once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them swathed in coiled shadows and broad bands of light. I see them sculptured and painted with shapes of Gods and Kings, with blazonings of royal names, with sacrificial altars, and forms of sacred beasts and emblems of wisdom and truth. The shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot of one—or of what seems to be the foot; for the original pavement seems to be buried seven feet below. Six men standing with outstretched arms, fingertip to fingertip, could barely span it round. It casts a shadow twelve feet in breadth—such a shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that juts out so high above my head looks as if it might have been put there to support the heavens. It is carved in the semblance of a full-blown lotus, and glows with undying colors—colors that are still fresh, though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand years and more.”
The impression produced by another of these structures is equally overpowering. “The temple of Luxor presents to the traveler at once one of the most splendid groups of Egyptian grandeur. The extensive propylxon, with two obelisks and colossal statues in front, the thick groups of enormous columns, the variety of apartments and the sanctuary it contains, the beautiful ornaments which adorn every part of the walls and columns described by Mr. Hamilton, cause in the astonished traveler an oblivion of all he has seen before. If his attention be attracted to the north side of Thebes by the towering remains that project a great height above the wood of palm trees, he will gradually enter that forest-like assemblage of ruins and temples, columns, obelisks, colossi, sphinxes, portals, and an endless number of other astonishing objects that will convince him at once of the impossibility of a description.... It is absolutely impossible to imagine the scene displayed without seeing it. The most sublime ideas that can be formed from the most magnificent specimens of our present architecture would give a very incorrect picture of these ruins; for such is the difference, not only in magnitude, but in form, proportion, and construction, that even the pencil can convey but a faint idea of the whole. It appeared to me like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various temples as the only proofs of their, former existence.”
The tombs of the kings, excavated in the rugged, barren mountains which skirt the city on the west have added to the astonishment with which travelers have surveyed this crowning marvel of the wonders of Egypt. “Nothing that has ever been said about them had prepared me for their extraordinary grandeur. You enter a sculptured portal in the face of these wild cliffs, and find yourself in a long and lofty gallery, opening or narrowing, as the case may be, into successive halls and chambers, all of which are covered with white stucco, and this white stucco brilliant with colors fresh as they were thousands of years ago.... They are, in fact, gorgeous palaces.”
But on these ruins another truth is written besides that of man’s greatness, or the vanity of earthly glory. “Such vast and surprising remains are still to be seen,” says Pococke, “of such magnificence and solidity, as may convince anyone who beholds them that, without SOME EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT, they must have lasted forever; which seems to have been the intention of the founders of them.” Of this “extraordinary accident” the Scriptures have something quite as extraordinary to say.
In Ezekiel 30:14-1614And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No. 15And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No. 16And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily. (Ezekiel 30:14‑16) there is mention made of No in each of the three verses. The story of her then future is told in three brief sentences: “I will execute judgments in No” — “I will cut off the multitude of No” — “And No shall be broken up.” “I will execute judgments in No,” seems to point to something more than an ordinary tale of siege and capture. Does the after-fate of Thebes stand out, then, as singular on the page of Egyptian history? The judgments were so marked and awful that historians have, unbidden, supplied the answer. Thebes sank beneath two of the most terrible blows ever dealt by the hand of man, and both fell after the prediction was uttered. The prophecies of Ezekiel were written in the time of Nebuchadnezzar: and, thirteen years after his dynasty was overthrown and Chaldea had passed into the hands of the Persians, Cambyses, during his invasion of Egypt (about 525 B.C.), captured Thebes, and poured out upon its devoted head the wrath of his insane ferocity. Its majestic temples were consumed with fire; and the power of the victorious host was bent to overthrow, or mar, its colossal statues. Although the city sprang up again, it never regained its ancient splendor. The hand of an irreversible judgment was laid also upon the sources of its wealth and greatness. It ceased to be Egypt’s chief city. The capital was removed in turn to Memphis, Sais, and Alexandria. After the Greek conquest, the streams of commerce by which it had been fed were turned in other directions. “Commercial wealth, on the accession of the Ptolemies, began to flow in other channels. Coptos and Appollinopolis succeeded to the lucrative trade of Arabia, and Ethiopia no longer contributed to the revenues of Thebes.”
Yet, notwithstanding its long decline, when the second stroke fell, in the beginning of the first century preceding the Christian era, Thebes was even then one of the wealthiest cities in the land. The blow was dealt by one of Egypt’s own princes, Ptolemy Lathyrus, the grandfather of Cleopatra, about the year 89 B.C.; and the greatness that still remained to the ancient city can be measured by the fact that for three years it defied all the efforts of the besiegers. But the victor exacted a terrible vengeance. It was almost entirely leveled to the ground, and the words of the fourteenth and fifteenth verses found a complete fulfillment. God had executed judgments in No; its multitude was cut off, and has never returned.
It may seem that, in dealing with this prophecy, we are overstepping the limits we set ourselves when we promised to bring forward only such prophecies as have been fulfilled since the beginning of the Christian era; but, if in this instance we had had to go beyond our self-imposed boundary, the case is so clear and striking that it would have been difficult to have passed it over in silence. The third part of the prophecy, however, portraying as it does the after and permanent condition of the great city, falls most assuredly within our limits. “And No,” the prophet continues, “shall be broken up.” Too much stress, it might be thought, should not be laid upon the words; but the student of the fulfilled prophecies of Scripture learns that their words need no screen nor apology—that the very heart of the wonder lies in their complete and minute accomplishment. The prediction finds its interpretation in the event. No was literally broken up. Strabo visited the ruins about 25 B.C., and found the city, which only sixty years before still retained its majestic unity, divided into many separate villages. As Strabo found it, it has remained ever since; and the ruins are today portioned out between nine hamlets. Thebes was to endure, but only in fragments. How came the prophet to pen the words: “And No shall be broken up?” In summing up the destiny of Egypt’s great and ancient capital, how did it happen that the finger was laid upon the very condition which it has maintained for twenty centuries?
The Old Testament contains so many distinct predictions regarding Egypt generally, that we may say they have written its history, and described the present position of the country and the condition of its people. Jeremiah foretells that, with the overthrow of Pharaoh by Nebuchadnezzar, a decline will set in which will deepen evermore, and for which no remedy shall be found. “Go up into Gilead,” he says, “and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt: in vain dost thou use many medicines; there is no healing for thee” (Jer. 46:1111Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured. (Jeremiah 46:11)). We shall confine ourselves, however, to the prophecies concerning Egypt contained in the twenty- ninth and thirtieth chapters of Ezekiel, and the nineteenth chapter of Isaiah. In Ezekiel 29 the approaching conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar is foretold. The Egyptians are to be led away into captivity and the land is to be desolate for forty years. At the end of that time they are to return, but their greatness is not to be restored. In accordance with the words we have quoted from Jeremiah, Egypt will in vain seek healing for her wound. This
DOOM OF DECLINE
is repeated again and again. It shall not “any more lift itself up above the nations; and I will diminish them that they shall no more rule over the nations” (Ezek. 29:1515It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. (Ezekiel 29:15)); “her foundations shall be broken down.... The pride of her power shall come down” (30:4, 6). This great country is, therefore, depicted as undergoing a gradual and total decay.
To be convinced that this prediction was not due to human foresight, we have only to remember what Egypt was at the beginning of the Christian era, and for ages after. Even then she seemed worthy of the fame which fixed the World’s gaze upon her in admiring reverence. She had been the mother of science and letters and art. At the fire which burned upon her hearth, the nations had kindled the lamp of knowledge, which has burned on age after age, and which now flames so brightly. Her greatness was unique. It was more true and human than that of any other ancient land save Greece; and she had the unity, and repose, and calm majesty, which Greece lacked. She stood alone among the nations, great, wise, self-respecting; around her the choicest treasures of earth; her land filled with imperishable monuments of might and skill, and genius; her people, in their order and enlightenment and civilization, a marvel to all time. The foundation of her greatness was not her military power, but the exhaustless wealth of her soil. That still remained; and, though she had felt the touch of decay, there was nothing in the time of our Lord to indicate that Egypt’s day was past. It was within the range, not only of possibility, but of probability that she might yet again be mistress of her destiny, and that her old splendor might return. Her fertility won for her even then the title of “the granary of the world.” Augustus, after the defeat of Antony, found so great wealth in Egypt that with it he paid all the arrears due to his army, and the debts which he had incurred to meet the expenses of the war. “It is said, too, that after all the spoliation the wealth and resources of Egypt appeared to him so formidable, that he was afraid to entrust that province to the charge of any man of rank or interest, lest he should raise up a rival to himself. He therefore committed the government of the country to Cornelius Gallus, a citizen of the equestrian order, and a person of very low extraction; he would not allow the city of Alexandria to possess any municipal council; and he declared all Egyptians incapable of being admitted into the Senate at Rome.” “Till the moment of the Arabian conquest,” says Dr. Vincent, “Alexandria continued the second city in the (Roman) empire in rank, and the first, perhaps, in wealth, commerce, and prosperity.”
Even in the seventh century of our era Egypt was still so powerful that the Mohammedan hosts, though flushed with victory, hesitated to attack it. The event showed that their caution was not uncalled for. Babylon of Egypt, on the ruins of which the town of Fostat was built, detained them seven months. The siege of Alexandria lasted fourteen months, and the Arabs lost before it twenty-three thousand men; and, after all, its capture was due to internal treachery, and not to the superior power of the assailants. The sight of its magnificence and wealth filled the children of the East with amazement. “‘I have taken,’ said Amrou to the caliph, ‘the great city of the West. It is impossible for me to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauty, and I content myself with observing that it contains 4,000 palaces, 400 theaters or places of amusement, 12,000 shops for the sale of vegetable food, and 40,000 tributary Jews.’” The destruction of the royal library, which was distributed among the baths of the city, and which supplied them with fuel for six months, has been regarded as one of the greatest of the world’s calamities. Alexandria did not stand alone. Its condition was an indication of the riches and strength of the whole country. It would have been impossible for the Arabs to have conquered Egypt, or to have afterward held it, had not the people, groaning under the oppression of their Greek masters, thrown themselves into the arms of the invaders.
So late, then, as the year 638, as far as human foresight is concerned, the fulfillment of this prediction could not have been foretold as even probable. What have the after-history of Egypt and its present condition to say regarding it? Have the last twelve and a half centuries proved or disproved the Scripture? Here is the answer:
There has been, as was predicted, a constant decline. From the time of the Babylonian invasion there was no revival of Egypt’s greatness and preeminence among the nations. Many medicines were tried, but she was not healed. In the Egypt of the Pharaohs, of the Persian dominion, of the Ptolemies, of the Roman Empire, of the Mohammedans, we have a gradual but continuous descent. After the Arab conquest the degeneration proceeded with rapid strides, till Egypt has become what it is today. Its science, and learning, and art, no less than its magnificence, and power, and prestige, have wholly perished. Along that pathway of the past everything that made the Egyptians what they were has been wholly lost.
It was believed by many that a change for the better had set in under the present dynasty. The improvement was certainly not to be seen in hopelessly embarrassed finances, or in the character of the reigning class; and, what had a still more important bearing on the question of the prospects of Egypt, no improvement could be discerned in the mass of the people. A letter which appeared in The Times in the beginning of 1875, and gave to capitalists and others a needed note of warning, presented a view of the state of the country which no one who knew Egypt could dispute— “No one, however, can say that, amid the material progress which has been made, any perceptible change in the feelings or condition of the great bulk of the people has been effected; and here, unfortunately, lies the element of instability in the new order of things. A little more Manchester calico is worn by the Arab population, a few more of the upper class of Arabs wear black cloth and French kid boots, and there is less repugnance among the pashas to champagne or claret; but in the essential features and characteristic habits of the people there is no real change or improvement whatever... Such a thorough change in the external features of any nation in so short a time has probably never been witnessed. But it is much more remarkable, it is almost pathetic, when it is remembered that the great mass of the people are utterly rude and unlettered, and only very slightly removed from barbarism. It is here, indeed, that the unstable foundation upon which the Khedive has built his splendid superstructure discovers its weakness.” Every friend of humanity would rejoice had the degradation of Egypt reached its limit, and had the dawn of a brighter day risen upon it. But the advance was not the offspring of awakening life and prosperity among the people; it was solely due to the late Khedive’s aspirations, and strenuous, but individual, efforts. The improvement did not penetrate to the people, and the only result for them was the increased pressure of their burdens.
The British occupation, which began in 1882, has undoubtedly brought a large measure of relief. The following, originally contributed to The New York Nation by its correspondent, Mr. Woodruff, in 1892, is a testimony of which Great Britain may well be proud: “The reforms which England has wrought in Egypt during the past nine years are simply astounding. A looted treasury, a disorganized and almost hopelessly corrupt administration, a rebellious and cowardly army, and a people crushed with unbearable taxation, have in this short space of time, and in the face of Oriental apathy and French obstruction, been metamorphosed into order, plenty, and content.” But while all this is true, it would be a mistake to conclude that Egypt’s trouble was ended and that those predictions ceased to find fulfillment. These reforms are in no sense of native growth. They are imposed by external pressure, and when the pressure is withdrawn they will disappear. And even now the burdens are huge. In 1903 the funded debt of Egypt amounted to 103 millions sterling. The annual interest and other charges on that sum, with the payment of a standing army, and of an extensive civil administration, have all to be met by taxation imposed upon a people struggling with poverty. It is equally true also that the British occupation has produced no regeneration of the people nor the faintest promise of returning greatness.
This second point, then, in the prophetic picture of Egypt has been strikingly fulfilled. There has been “no healing” for Egypt. “The pride of her power” has “come down.” She has been diminished and has no more ruled over the nations. We now turn to a third feature. Though there is to be decline, the Scripture assures us there will be
NO EXTINCTION
either of the people or of the kingdom. “They,” we read, “shall be there (that is, in their own land) a base kingdom” (Ezek. 29:1414And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom. (Ezekiel 29:14)). Had this deepening decay been foreseen by the wise, had it been accepted as certain that Egypt should pass down step by step from prosperity and greatness, the prediction would inevitably have been ventured that at some point of that career of degradation her existence as a nation, or at least as a separate dominion, should cease. This must have seemed the surest of all possible deductions. The national extinction of the Egyptians is an event which in itself would have occasioned little surprise. On the contrary, it was to be expected that Egypt should share the general fate of Eastern greatness. The nations, the waves on this great unresting sea of human life, have their rise and fall. They come towering on in swelling strength and pride toward that strong harrier which a Divine hand has set; but they are only hurrying on to the moment when, brought utterly low and broken, they will be lost in the great ocean whence they sprang. A people cannot continue at the summit of power forever. And when their supremacy is overthrown, they are gradually merged in the conquering race, and lost among them; and their territory, becoming a province of a wider empire, loses, so far as nature will permit, its special character, and its old traditional boundaries.
It seemed highly improbable, therefore, altogether apart from the prediction regarding its decline, that the national existence of Egypt should continue. But, with the full assurance that this prediction should be fulfilled, its continuance must have seemed, to human reason, an utter impossibility. And yet to this paradox the Scripture from of old pledged itself. Egypt should be brought low; it should be set among the basest; and nevertheless it should be preserved. “It shall be there a base kingdom.” And, as the Scripture has said, so has it been. Down through every age, even to our own times, the name of Egypt has lived on men’s lips. The “kingdom” still exists, possessing its distinctive character and its ancient boundaries. Its ruler bears the title today of “Khediv-el-Misr,” King of Egypt, while by the Egyptians he is spoken of as the Effendina, “the Great Lord.” Its people have continued, though for two thousand years they have ceased to be lords of the soil. Fierce persecutions and ceaseless grinding oppression have neither driven them from their fatherland, nor extinguished them as a separate race among their masters. The fellahin (the cultivators of the soil) form more than four-fifths of the entire population of Egypt; and according to the estimate of a recent writer, two-thirds of these may be set down as descendants of the ancient Egyptians who embraced Mohammedanism at the time of the Arab conquest, or who have since apostatized. In addition to these there are the Copts, who, along with their Christianity, retain the proud conviction that they are the lineal descendants of Egypt’s ancient masters. Their number is variously stated, Lane giving it as 150,000, and M’Coan as 500,000. The estimates of both writers agree, however, in representing them as about one-twelfth of the whole population.
People and kingdom, therefore, alike continue. Through all her many changes Egypt has preserved her identity. Downtrodden and oppressed, she has never ceased to hold some place in the commonwealth of nations, small though, in these latter days, that place has been. If to have foreseen the long and steady decay, of which the records of Egypt are the prolonged story, was marvelous, then, in the face of this, to have predicted its preservation was still more astounding.
Let us now examine two other parts of the prophetic forecast. The greatest emphasis is laid upon the then future
DEGRADATION OF EGYPT:
“They shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations; for I will diminish them that they shall no more rule over the nations.” Confronted as men then were, and were still to be for long ages after the Christian era had begun, by the fame, and the wisdom, and the strength, of Egypt, this must have been one of the most astounding features in the whole of the prophetic vision.
It is striking to mark how this astonishment is reechoed by the onlookers of modern times. “It is melancholy,” says Lane, “to compare the present state of Egypt with its ancient prosperity, when the variety, elegance, and exquisite finish displayed in its manufactures attracted the admiration of surrounding nations, and its inhabitants were in no need of foreign commerce to increase their wealth or to add to their comforts. Antiquarian researches show us that not only the Pharaohs and the priests and military chiefs, but also a great proportion of the agriculturists, even in the age of Moses and at a yet earlier period, passed a life of the most refined luxury, were clad in linen of the most delicate fabric, and reclined on couches and chairs which have served as models for the furniture of our modern saloons. Nature is as lavish as she was of old to the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile; but for many centuries they have ceased to enjoy the benefit of a steady government. Each of their successive rulers during this long lapse of time, considering the uncertain tenure of his power, has been almost wholly intent upon increasing his own wealth; and thus a large portion of the nation has gradually perished, and the remnant, in general, has been reduced to a state of the most afflicting poverty.”
The splendor and luxury of ancient Egypt were proverbial, and the monuments prove that refinement and luxury extended, as Lane has said, even to the cultivators. But where the children of Mizraim were once clothed in fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, they now know nakedness and want. The fathers called forth the world’s admiration, and the children now awaken, in almost as great a degree, its pity and contempt. Everything that made Egypt what it was has perished. Its once endless wealth has long ago disappeared. Its arm of power is withered. Its industries, which were its glory, have become a shame and a reproach. “When Bonaparte’s savants entered Cairo they found its handicrafts, as its learning, at the lowest ebb of decadence.” “With a few exceptions, these are still as backward as they were a hundred years ago.” Mehemet Ali made an attempt to revive them, and “costly failure” was the only result. M’Coan finds a main cause of this in “the low level of material civilization among nine-tenths of the population.”
There is as little promise in its commerce as in its manufactures. Its trade received a fatal blow when the discovery was made of an ocean passage to India by the Cape; and it has sustained another stroke in that great triumph of modern engineering which has given to Egypt nearly the whole of its present importance. The Suez Canal “represents a distinct and more or less permanent loss. Not only has it cost the treasury in all more than £17,000,000 in money outlay, but it has diverted from the Egyptian ports and railways a large and increasing transit traffic of great revenue value.”
To some extent the fruitfulness of Egypt remains, it is true; but a fertile soil will not in itself make a people great, and from this people all the elements of national greatness seem to have passed away. Polybius, in giving an account of the various nationalities represented in Alexandria, speaks of the Egyptians as a keen and civilized race. To measure the depth to which they have fallen we have only to set against this the words of Niebuhr: “If an ancient origin and illustrious ancestors could confer merit, the Copts would be a highly estimable people. They are descended from the ancient Egyptians; and the Turks on this account call them in derision ‘the posterity of Pharaoh.’ But their uncouth figure, ignorance, and wretchedness do little credit to the sovereigns of ancient Egypt.” The hopeless bondage of centuries has quenched every spark of ambition in the breasts of the descendants of the Pharaohs; and, under the iron heel of oppression, genius and talent, and even intellect itself, seem to have been extinguished. The race, still physically sound, is mentally effete. The Egyptians are now, what for long ages they were held to be, a race of slaves.
And it is not on the people only that this doom has pressed. The fulfillment of the decree, “They shall be there a base kingdom,” can be read beneath the glitter of the throne itself. The schemes and improvements of Ismail Pasha have resulted, as is well-known, in hopeless bankruptcy. Sir George Campbell says: “The debt incurred by usurious interest had well-nigh swamped the state. It continually increased, and finally the Khedive placed himself in distinguished European hands. He put his income in trust, as it were, for the benefit of his creditors, and it has been so administered under European control for the last year. Let us see the result.... The Khedive was to be put on an allowance, as he expressed it at the time; £4,500,000 being allowed for the expenses of the administration, and the rest applied for the benefit of the creditors.... By dint of whipping and spurring and getting all that it was possible to get by any means, the engagements to the creditors for the first two half-years that is, those due in the beginning and middle of 1877—have been satisfied; but that part of the engagement which affected the Egyptian administration and people has not been carried out. The allowances stipulated to carry on the government have not been paid; and, from the Khedive downwards, all the officials have been kept out of their salaries, till the thing has become past endurance.” Has Egypt ever presented a more humiliating spectacle?
But worse remains behind. Few things show the weakness of the government more than the existence of the mixed courts forced upon the viceroy, and which exercise uncontrolled authority over the whole country in every case in which a foreigner is concerned. “The Khedive and all his government officers and belongings have been made subject to the new courts, and a very large proportion of their larger business—in fact, it seemed to me the main staple of it—is hearing cases and passing decrees against the Khedive.... I hardly see how a government of this kind can be carried on in such subjection to courts in which the foreign element is wholly and absolutely dominant, which have claimed to decide on the illegality of the formal decrees of the ruling power, and which are under no control whatever.”
“The English Consul,” says Miss Amelia B. Edwards, “came to breakfast with us by invitation. He told us of some of the inconveniences of the international muddle which is made up of consular tribunals, international tribunals, capitulations, et hoc genus omne, and which has gone far to render government almost impossible in Egypt. The laws of naturalization there are such that Turkish subjects, and even native Egyptians, can now obtain the privileges of foreigners, and evade the jurisdiction of the Egyptian Government; and Italians, Greeks, and Levantines may outrage the criminal and civil laws of the country they are residing in almost with impunity.”
With all the enterprise and éclat of the reign of Ismail Pasha, the degradation of Egypt was perhaps never so evident before. “While we hear much of the higher titles, higher prerogatives, and more independent position of the Khedive of these days, it is curious to look back a little into history and see how far there has been a practical decadence. Ever since independent Mohammedan Egypt submitted to the Turks, it has never been so dependent as it is now. Till the beginning of the present century it was a suzerainty, and nothing more, that it acknowledged. Then came Mehemet Ali, not really appointed by the Porte, but rising to power by his own energy. It need not be recited how, during his long reign, he and his son Ibrahim set the Porte at defiance, and foreign powers as well. Now all that has changed. The ruler of Egypt has been obliged to surrender his fleet, and in all things to submit to the corruption of the Constantinople offices. He feels himself so weak in the presence of foreign powers, and foreign financial corporations, that he yields many things that he knows he ought not to yield, all to the detriment of his country.”
The events which have transpired since those words were written, have only more fully revealed the misery of Egypt. She is still preserved, but she is there “a base kingdom;” she is “the basest of the kingdoms.” As Egypt mingles in the politics of the present time, the question is not, What will she do? but, What will be done with her? I have already spoken of the effects of the British occupation, but it has been able to achieve its reforms only through deeper abasement of the Egyptian sovereignty. We have had to assume the entire control of the Egyptian finances. The Khedive cannot impose or receive a single tax. He, his ministers, and the entire body of the officials of Egypt, receive their salaries from the representative of the British government. Some time ago the Khedive, not unnaturally restive under such iron control, dismissed his prime minister and replaced him by one less subservient to the British government. The Khedive was immediately informed by Lord Cromer that the new minister must be dismissed and the old minister reinstated within four and twenty hours. The Khedive obeyed. “According to the official Directory,” says Mr. Curtis, “Lord Cromer is merely Consul-General and diplomatic agent of Great Britain at Cairo, but the Khedive is allowed to do nothing without his consent or approval. In the official lists he ranks with the Consul-General of the United States and other countries, and on ceremonial occasions he appears with his colleagues of the Consular corps and makes his bow to the man on the throne. And the man on the throne returns the salute of his master, and is conscious that the quiet-looking gentleman with unostentatious manners and a pleasant smile controls his thoughts as well as his acts, for it is a waste of time for His Highness to suggest or plan or even imagine things that Lord Cromer does not approve.”
In the face of these things need we ask whose word this is which said from of old— “THEY SHALL BE THERE A BASE KINGDOM.... FOR I WILL DIMINISH THEM?”
The last point of the prediction to which we now draw attention is that, though the kingdom was to continue, there should be
NO NATIVE PRINCE
of Egypt. “There shall be no more a prince out of the land of Egypt” (Ezek. 30:1313Thus saith the Lord God; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt. (Ezekiel 30:13)). On this a few words will suffice. The prophecy has been completely and literally fulfilled. It is evident that the words did not mean that Egypt should be without a government. The “kingdom” was to continue. She was to have possessors and masters, but these were not to arise from among her own children. There was to be no longer a native ruler; but the land, with all that was its glory and its strength, was to be made waste under the disastrous dominion of those who were bound to the people by no ties of kindred or of country. In 525 B. C. Egypt was conquered by the Persians under Cambyses, and its king, Psammetik III., was made prisoner. The country became a province of the Persian empire; but, unlike their degenerate offspring, the Egyptians of that period did not tamely bow under the foreign yoke. For the next one hundred and seventy years their history is simply a tale of rebellions, more or less temporarily successful, until they were finally subdued by Ochus in 350 B. C. From that time to the present no native prince has ruled the land. Again and again has Egypt changed masters, but among them all no son of hers is numbered. There has Been “no more a prince out of the land of Egypt.”
Put together these five things: (1) the picture of the final condition of Thebes, Egypt’s ancient capital; (2) that the greatness of Egypt should not return, but that, on the contrary, it should sink into deepening decay; (3) that, notwithstanding decay, it should still have its sovereign and continue a kingdom; but (4) that it should exist in deep humiliation and be the basest of the kingdoms; and (5) that, though the throne should continue, it should never be filled by one of Egypt’s own sons. Place these predictions in the light of Egypt’s present condition and past history, and what do they tell us? Surely, not merely that this is God’s Book. That they do say; for these words were never man’s, but “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” But they tell also that God is Judge, that He will rebuke pride, and punish sin. The Lord ruleth, and forgets neither His threatenings nor His promises,