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 DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE. 
 
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 SEEAETITRE ©F THE ISRAELITES 
 
 OUT OE EGYPT. 
 
 
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 AT N IB L 0’8 GARDEN, BROADWAY, 
 
 FROM a O'CLOCK 'TILL DUSK, 
 ADMlTTAJiCK TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. 
 
 The general ("(feet of the Picture is impressive and powerful in the extreme, and 
 has Iteen painted with such extraordinary illusion as to lead the 
 mind to contemplate it as a subject o reality. 
 
 The Saloon from which Spectators view the Painting is made comfortably warm, and, 
 from the arrangement of the lights, the Picture is seen to as great 
 advantage in dull weather as fair. 
 
 BOOKS DESCRIPTIVE OF THE PICTURE 
 
 For Sale at the Ticket Office, Price 12* Cents. 
 
 Young' Ladies’ Schools admitted on Moderate Terms. • 
 
 -.H$»«-' 
 
 Printed by J. Booth & Sou. 147, Fulton-street, New-York. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE. 
 
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 THE 
 
 BEPASTUES or TMB ISRAELITES 
 
 OUT OF EGYPT. 
 
 AT NIBLO’S GARDEN, BROADWAY, 
 
 FROM 9 O'CLOCK ’TILL DUSK, 
 
 ADMITTANCE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS, 
 
 The genera] effect of the Picture is impressive and powerful in the extreme, and 
 has been painted with such extraordinary illusion as to lead the 
 mind to contemplate it as a subject of reality. 
 
 The Saloon from which Spectators view the Painting is made comfortably warm, and, 
 from the arrangement of the lights, the Picture is seen to as gTeat 
 advantage in dull weather as fair. 
 
 BOOKS DESCRIPTIVE OF THE PICTURE 
 
 For Sale at the Ticket Office, Price 12} Cents. 
 
 Young* Ladies’ Schools admitted ou Moderate Terms, 
 
 
 Printed by J. Booth & Son. 147, Fulton-street, New-York. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 The Picture represents the dawn of day, the morning sun lighting on 
 the gigantic Pyramids in the distance, then falling in slant lines across 
 the stately Obelisks and Pinnacles which adorn the prodigious mass of 
 Palaces and Temples which are richly imagined and exquisitely drawn. 
 
 On a raised terrace in the left foreground of the picture and in the 
 gate of his Palace is seen Pharoah, standing under a superb canopy of 
 peacock feathers, surrounded by his court. Pharoah with evident 
 amazement and consternation is contemplating the departure of the Is¬ 
 raelites, which he dared not oppose. Opposite to him and in front of 
 an. enormous Egyptian statue, are the two leaders, Moses and Aaron, 
 directing the route of the Hebrews, (which are supposed to have 
 amounted to two millions, including men, women, and children,) while 
 the space between the buildings, for an interminable distance appears 
 filled with a continuous mass of Israelites, who are marching out in 
 order with their Banners, Ensigns, Camels, Flocks, and Elephants. 
 The tops of the Palaces, Towers, and Terraces, are crowded wifh 
 Egyptians looking on. 
 
THE 
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE ISRAELITES. 
 
 This subject is beautifully described in the follounng description, 
 from a tradition from the Coptic 
 
 Blessed be the memory of my father Amrou, and of his father Pithom, 
 and of his father Zalapheel. I have built their sepulchre. I have annomt- 
 ed it, perfumed it, and sealed it with the seal of Osarsiph. The dragon, 
 the falcon, and the crocodile, shall guard it from the hand of man- It shall 
 remain for ten thousand years. Egypt shall be dust and ashes, and again 
 she shall be glorious. Again Egvpt shall be dust and ashes. She shall 
 again be clothed in purple, and wave the sceptre over the land; from the 
 stormy and ever rolling sea of the north to the hills where the sun looks 
 down upon the crystal caverns and fathomless gold mines of Ethiopia, and 
 the moon sows the soil with opaz and emeralds. And again Egypt shall be 
 dust and ashes, before the hand of man shall unseal the triple guard of the 
 sepulchre of my fathers. 
 
 In the chest that contains the mummy of my lord and honoured father, 
 Amrou, I have laid the papyrus, which tells of the fate of his son in the 
 most awful transaction of my country. It is not written for the eye of 
 mortal man. But, when the ten thousand years of the sepulchre are fled 
 like a dream, and the sages and warriors, the priests and kings, of Egypt, 
 whom our love embalmed, shall come forth from the places of their rest, 
 and, unswathing their immortal limbs from the mantles of silk wrought 
 with the words of wisdom, and the golden network alone worthy to pre¬ 
 serve the holy and the renowned, shall again behold the sun, and rejoice in 
 the coming of the days of glory, and lead the nations of the earth to the 
 oracles of wisdom; then shall I sit beside the waters of the Nile in the 
 eircle of my forefathers, and my children, even to the hundredth generation, 
 and read the records of the days of our fame and our terrors under the lotus 
 tree of immortality. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I was sitting in my tent, at the close of one of those lovely days which 
 usher in the spring of our matchless land, when I was roused by the intel¬ 
 ligence that a great tumult had begun among the slaves who worked in the 
 fields. I listened with disdain to the idea, that those hereditary beasts of 
 burthen, those tillers of the soil, those hewers of wood and drawers of water. 
 
f 
 
 4 
 
 the abject Hebrews, could lift tbeir eyes against the shining of the spears 
 pf Egypt. General of the fourth army of our illustrious kingdom, the army 
 of the golden shield hearers, who had conquered all the tribes of Nubia and 
 Ethiopia, from the edge of the desert to the highest ridge of the mountains, 
 which make the girdle of the w orld, I only demanded a word from the foot¬ 
 stool of the throne of my king, the son of a hundred kings, to crush those 
 sons of rebellion like the ants of the desert, or scatter them wide like the 
 ashes of the furnace to all the winds of heaven. I had just brought back 
 the army from our conquest. It now lay encamped before me—a magnifi¬ 
 cent sight, spreading to the horizon, with its plunder, its prisoners, and the 
 forest of waving and bright coloured banners torn from the diamond-turban- 
 ed kings of the mountains. Zaraph, the ancient prince of the dwellers in 
 the East Oasis—that spot of living fountains, which looks green in the 
 ocean of sand and fire never passed by man, and whose shores are marked 
 only by the circle of eternity—was sitting at my feet, bound with a silver 
 chain; he w T as the bravest of our enemies, and at the head of the bravest 
 tribe. But what could withstand the shield-bearers of Egypt! His horse¬ 
 men were overthrown, his tern was ashes, and his brazen-headed spear was 
 as the willow' in the hands of a child. In the scorn of the hour I demand¬ 
 ed of my royal captive what he thought of the hope of those Hebrews to 
 break their chains. 
 
 “There i3 no human hope,” said the ancient man, “ while such an army 
 as that before us lies ready to consume them, as flame consumes the chaff 
 of the harvest floor.” 
 
 But he pronounced the words with a solemnity unsuited to my scorn ; 
 and I again asked him. “No human hope,” said I, “Prince of the Oasis 
 of Zophir! and what other hope have they! Are they magicians! Can 
 they call up spirits from the fire or the waves ! Can they bring the thun¬ 
 der and the hail to fight for them! Can they call the great god Apis, to 
 drive his people with his horns into the fathomless surges of the Western 
 Sea!” 
 
 Zaraph was silent, but his eye was fixed above with a calm intensity, as 
 if he gazed into the heights of heaven, and gazed less with his eye than his 
 mind. 
 
 “ Mighty chieftain of the mighty,” he at length said, and bowed his an¬ 
 cient brow before me, “ invincible warrior, favoured pillar of the eternal 
 throne of Misraim, how shall thy servant open the weary lips of age before 
 the son of power and wisdom !” 
 
 I honoured the old man tor his valour and his years, and, taking him by 
 the hand, bad him speak all that rested on his soul. 
 
 “ Prince, said he, “I am this day ninety years old; and it is not from 
 the lips of him who longs to be silent forever that the words of falsehood 
 should flow. But you are a warrior and you cannot know fear; you are a 
 sage, and you must love truth. Then let the truth be told. The day of 
 the evil of Egypt is at hand!” 
 
 I involuntarily half drew my scimetar. Disdain of the slaves whose eye 
 should never have dared to lift itself from the dust of Egypt, and even re¬ 
 sentment at the rashness of the prisoner who could offer this intolerable in¬ 
 sult to the majesty of a kingdom as old as the stars and as imperishable as 
 the foundation of the earth, flashed from my eyes and quivered in my frame. 
 But the laws of Egypt made the prisoner sacred. Reluctantly I checked 
 
'ay wrath; and, dashing the scimetar back into its sheath, bade him go 
 through his whole tale of rebellion. 
 
 The old man saw my wrath, and, thrice bowing his turban to the ground, 
 pronounced in an unchanged voice, “ Let the pleasure of my lord be done 
 upon his servant. But, since it is his command that I speak the truth, the 
 truth shall be spoken. The forefathers of Zaraph—may they rest in the 
 shadow of the stars, until the light of the last morning summons them to 
 glory !—were lords of the dwellers in the mountains beyond the sands of 
 Arabia. There they worshipped the lights of heaven. But a stranger 
 came among them, from the lands beyond the Euphrates—a man of years, 
 of great wealth, and of exceeding wisdom. He was rich in flocks and 
 herds; yet our hand was held back from him. He was bold in his indig¬ 
 nation at our altars, yet no man’s spear was raised against him. He de¬ 
 clared that the time should come when our altars were to bethrown 
 down, our tents turned into coals of fire, and our tribe scattered like the 
 leaves of the date-tree when the fruit has fallen.” 
 
 “ And was there no warrior among you” I exclaimed, “to slay the teller 
 of those evil tidings 1” 
 
 “All were warriors among us,” said the old man, with a look that re¬ 
 minded me of his countenance when I saw him fighting at the head of his 
 fierce horsemen. '“But there was a power round the stranger that blunted 
 the edge of our wild fury. He told us of things beyond the thought of 
 man; of the beginnings of the heavens and earth; of the place of happiness 
 in which our first ancestors dwelt—lovely as the spirits of heaven, and pure 
 as the dew before it reddens in the dawn—the sovereigns of the earth 
 crowned with more than the gold and jewels of earth’s kings; crowned with 
 the supremacy of beauty, of eternal youth, of unclouded wisdom, of the 
 heirship of glories, to which the moon in her midnight splendour, and the 
 sun in his noonday strength, is pale. The altars of my fathers were smit¬ 
 ten down by his hand; the wisdom of our wise men was turned into folly 
 before his mighty words. He was filled with the dark knowledge of things 
 not yet conceived in the womb of the ages of the world. All wondered, 
 many worshipped, and some followed his footsteps through the borders of 
 the land. We would have made him our king: but he declared that he 
 was to be a pilgrim; to wander from land to land, telling the high mysteries 
 of times past and times to come; till, at length, having reached the spot 
 where his course was to be finished, he should there become the father of 
 a nation, vast as the leaves of the forest for number, powerful as the storms 
 of the desert for strength, and bright as the stars of heaven for glory.” 
 
 The old Arab remained with lips moving in secret prayer, his hands up¬ 
 lifted, and his fading eyes fixed, as if he saw some of those descending 
 shapes in which the Gods once visited our fathers. It was impossible to 
 look upon him wuthout reverence; and I felt awed by the solemn sincerity 
 of the silver-haired enthusiast. But, was 1, the chief of warriors, to be 
 overcome by the superstition of slaves 1 
 
 “Prince,” I said, after a pause, “yours is the land of strange things.— 
 The man was a Chaldee, he was a sorcerer, he laid his spells upon your 
 senses. Here we should not have been so willing to listen, and thus not so 
 easy to be deceived. If the slaves have rebelled, their rebellion must be 
 punished; if their sorcerers attempt to mislead them, their sorcerers must. 
 
6 
 
 be convicted by the wisdom of our wise men, and then put to the death 
 that they deserve. 
 
 Our conference was broken off by a sound of a trampling of cavalry. 
 The beating of their shields, and the braying of their trumpets, announced 
 a messenger from the king. Arioch, the royal chamberlain, was the bearer 
 of the message, wrapped in its case of purple. It was a command to march 
 straight for Memphis. The old prince of the Oasis cast a look of sorrow' 
 round him, as I read the order; while I involuntarily smiled at the coming 
 disappointment of his prediction. “Not for myself mighty chieftain,” said 
 he, “do I grieve, but for my lord Pharaoh, in whose hands is the life of his 
 people; not for the rebellious sons of the Hebrews, but for the wise, the 
 wealthy, ar.d the prosperous, the sons of Egypt.” 
 
 The trumpets of the army now sounded for our march without delay. I 
 mounted my star-fronted charger, and was on the point of spurring at the 
 head of my ten thousand cavalry across the plain, when Zaraph, with al¬ 
 most the vigour of youth, sprang to my foot, and, embracing it said, “• Chief¬ 
 tain, you have been generous to the vanquished, and the sorrows of the 
 captive shall never fall in tears of doubled sorrows on your head. Hear 
 me, then, for the last time. Shed no drop of Hebrew blood! Counsel 
 your king as you will; hate, scorn, deride the rebellion, as you will; but, 
 again I say to you, let not your scimitar redden with a drop of Hebrew 
 blood. There is a man of wonders among the people. He has seen sights 
 like those shown to the great pilgrim ot my fathers. He has been where 
 no other foot of man could tread and live. He has walked in the furnace 
 unconsumed; as the Hebrews have walked on the embers of affliction, 
 and yet survive. He comes alone, but he comes with more than armies. 
 His strength is as the feebleness of second childhood; but vain will be the 
 strength of thrones before him! He comes without silver or gold; but the 
 silver and gold of Egypt will be before him as the dust that he tramples 
 with his feet. He comes without the spear in his hand or the shield upon 
 his bosom; but before him the host of Egypt, the conquerors of the moun¬ 
 tain, the desert, and the ocean, will be as the bramble of the mountain before 
 the lightning, the sands of the desert before the whirlwind, and the weeds 
 of the ocean before the storm.” 
 
 His words were pronounced with a deep sincerity which sank into my 
 ■heart. But this was not the time for a soldier of Egypt to pause. The 
 glittering squadrons of the royal guard now passed before me—a superb 
 sight. All human feelings, but those of glory, were extinguished in the 
 blaze of their armour and the tossing of their dragon banners. I was all 
 the warrior again. I gave the word “ Onward !” It was echoed by ten 
 thousand voices. I gave the reins to my charge, and onward we poured, 
 like a cataract let loose from its precipice, rushing, splendid, and irresistible. 
 
 ♦ * * * * 
 
 * 
 
 It was morning when the sound of the harpers and minstrels that salute 
 the risiug of the great lord of the heavens brought me with my horsemen 
 before the city gates. I rode straightway to the palace, and prostrated 
 myself before the footstool of the descendant of the conqueror of conquer¬ 
 ors, the lamp of wisdom, and brother of heaven, Pharoah, the king of the 
 kings of earth. But his countenance was troubled, and no words issued 
 from his lips. All the lords of Misraim stood before him, and all trembled 
 
7 
 
 at the tempest that gathered on his brow, and the fires that dashed from 
 his eye. 
 
 At length he burst forth in a voice of scornful rage. “ Let the rebel be 
 brought before his king: let the slave come and defy the majesty of the 
 throne of Egypt!” 
 
 From the footstool of the royal canopy by which I stood, roy view ranged 
 over the vast plain which surrounded the palace. It was crowded as far 
 as the eye could reach, with troops and people. Under ttie brightness of 
 the ascending sun, this enormous extent of turbans and helmets, of spears 
 gleaming in the rays, and of the scarlet and violet coloured robes of the 
 people, looked like an immeasurable bed of tulips and roses, all animated 
 with sudden life. The sight was such as Egypt alone eouid offer, and I 
 exulted in its stateliness and beauty. I little dreamed then how soon all 
 was to be shadowed with the colour of the grave. 
 
 But, as I fficked the multitude seemed to be moved by some sudden, yet 
 deep impulse: it heaved to and fro ; it shook wildly; and cries of wrath, 
 and shouts of contemptuous laughter, came mingled, even to the royal ears. 
 But the cause remained a mystery, until the portals of the palace opened, 
 and a band of the king’s bearers of the bow came forward to the foot of the 
 throne. As their circle opt .ed out, within it were seen two ancient men. 
 The king burst out into a haughty laughter at the sight of those two heads 
 of the revolt. He cast his eyes round on the myriads of the troops of 
 Misraim, and on the bold and armed circle of his princes, and said, “ Do 
 they war against us with the wind or the straws of their brick-kilns'? Is it 
 with the breath of children, or the white hairs of second childhood, that the 
 eternal throne of the Pharoahs is to be confounded ?” 
 
 The words were echoed and re-eciioed round the circle; a smile was on 
 every lip, and scorn in every heart. The two leaders of the rebellion 
 seemed to all, fitter for the sepulchre than for the field. Both had reached 
 that age when the body, though it were of iron, is melting into its original 
 elav ; and when the mind is but the memory of itself. Yet, there was a 
 difference in their aspect. The younger was bowed by age; his locks, 
 white as snow', were thin, and his limbs were feeble. The elder still re¬ 
 tained something of the warrior. His port was erect, his step firm, and 
 his eye that of the falcon; stately, bold, and endlessly gazing round on the 
 multitude, he looked like one of the princes of the desert. His brother 
 looked like one of ihe sages that in Babylon sit night by night under the 
 date groves interpreting the stars. When he spoke his tongue seemed to 
 refuse its utterance ; he shrank from the king’s presence, as overawed by 
 its lustre, and timidly gave up the office of speaking before the king to his 
 more fearless brother. Yet there was in his bowed form a dignity which 
 threw the princes round me into eclipse, and in his faint and uncertain voicp 
 a tone which penetrated the bosom like the voice from an oracle. 
 
 The humility of their appearance saved them. A thousand axe-bearers 
 stood behind tlie throne, who would instantly have sent their blood reeking 
 into the earth, if Pharaoh had but given the sign. But, what was to be 
 done with two old men? Were the axes of the king to be dipped in blood 
 that was now pale with years ? 
 
 “ Are these the rebels?” Pharoah demanded contemptously of the cap.- 
 lain of the archers. 
 
s 
 
 “ We are not rebels, 0, king !” was the undaunted answer of the elder 
 of the slaves. “ We are the subjects of Egypt; yet neither by war, nor 
 by our law, neither by our will, nor by the will of Him in whose hand are 
 all things.” 
 
 The sound of his powerful voice, the aspect of his vigorous form, which 
 seemed endowed with a sudden majesty, hushed every murmer of the vast 
 assemblage. As if by some powerful spell, the words were borne to the 
 remotest edge of the multitude, and their tumult sank instantly into a si¬ 
 lence like that of the grave. Even from that moment the wisdom of Za- 
 raph came to my mind, and I doubted. But the heart of the king was only 
 as the fire while it sleeps among the roots of the forest. Bending from the 
 height of the throne, with a glance of mock humility, he asked, what re¬ 
 quest those new freeman had to make to the king of Egypt. The answer 
 was prompt and fearless. “ We demand,” said the ancient men, “that 
 we shall be free; and that, as the first and noblest possession of freedom, 
 we shall be suffered to worship the Lord of the Hebrews after the law of 
 our fathers. And tor this we demand to go forth with our people, our cat¬ 
 tle, and our wealth, into the wilderness.” 
 
 My eyes were fixed on the countenance of Pharoah, as the words wmre 
 spoken. It was as the flame of a furnace. Fury, scorn, and hatred, were 
 struggling in every feature of his fierce vissage. With a cry, he started 
 from his canopy, and unsheathing his seimitar, rushed down to take ven¬ 
 geance with his own hand on the insulters of his rights and dignity. But 
 this fate would have honoured them too highly. We threw ourselves round 
 the furious king, and restrained him from an act which would have pollu¬ 
 ted his sword. A sign from Pharoah, as we led him back, brought the 
 thousand axe-bearers instantly into the midst of the multitude. All was 
 flight and confusion at the flashing of those weapons which had laid low so 
 many of the princes of Egypt, in the short duration of this merciless reign. 
 The palace portals were instantly emptied of their multitude. But the two 
 Hebrews still remained, utterly unmoved, and as if waiting to make some 
 new appeal when the confusion had subsided. 
 
 “ Strike them to the earth! Let the rebels be slain, and their flesh given 
 to feed the fowls of the air i” was the command of Pharoah. 
 
 The executioners rushed at them at the word, like the bloodhound upon 
 the deer. Yet still they stood with their arms folded in their robes, and 
 their calm eyes fixed upon heaven. A blaze of steel flashed against the 
 sun as the weapons were raised with one impulse to strike. But no blow 
 fell. They all remained suspended, a3 if by some preternatural impulse. 
 I looked round the circle of princes; all was mute with wonder. 1 looked 
 upon Pharoah. His countenance was as the countenance of a man over¬ 
 whelmed with a sudden sense of the horrors that were so soon to follow. 
 His frame writhed with anguish, as if the arrow of affliction had gone 
 through his soul. With a groan he cried out, “Let the slaves begone!” 
 and fell on the ground convulsed with an agony never sent by man. 
 
 *****•**'#*##* 
 
 The day of the great festival of the Nile came. The multitude poured 
 out of all their cities to worship the god of rivers, the glorious Nile, named 
 in our sacred books “ the Rival of the Heavens,” the supplier of eternal 
 waters, unborrowed from the fountains of the skies. 1 stood at the right 
 hand of the throne, as was my place by virtue of my command. All was 
 
9 
 
 the loveliness of those days when the infant year blushes with the first 
 flowers, and veilg them with the first tender foliage. The pomps of our 
 ancient worship were displayed with a grandeur that awed the heart, and 
 the riches of our people with a profusion that dazzled the eye. The royal' 
 maidens, the sacred tribe, who claimed the hereditary right of first draw¬ 
 ing the sacred waters in their golden urns, and offering this purest of all 
 tributes to the king; the virgin daughters of the heads of cities, cloathed 
 in white and bearing ensers of burning perfumes; the princes of the pro¬ 
 vinces in their war chariots, covered with precious stones; the whole daz¬ 
 zling and stately luxury of the most opulent land of the earth, spread out. 
 before the eye on the banks of the Nile. The river— hallow r ed and honour¬ 
 ed be its name for all generations !—the life-giver of my beloved and fa¬ 
 mous land, looked, at that hour, worthy of all the homage of its worship¬ 
 pers. In this season, no floods from Ethiopean hills rushed down to tinge- 
 its beauty with the pollutions of earth; no sands torn up by the whirlwinds 
 of the desarr. stained its bosom. Its blue expanse looked as if it sprung at 
 the moment from the holy caves, where the spirits of the dead drink the 
 waters of immortality. It was one calm sheet of crystal, one broad pel¬ 
 lucid mirror of the cloudless heaven, calm as the prosperity of our land of 
 luxuriance, and perennial as the fate which had commanded Egypt to be 
 the queen of nations for ever. 
 
 I felt like an Egytian at this sight of beauty, to which the world had no 
 equal; and, when the king descended from his moving throne to throw the 
 first garland, a garland of jewels w r orth the ransom of kingdoms, into the 
 stream, I instinctively laised my voice among the bursts of song and triumph, 
 which hailed, from the whole horizon around, the supremacy of the god of 
 rivers. Even the sullen countenance of Pharoah was lighted up: he looked 
 on the noble display with the pride of a king, and felt, in that moment, that 
 his throne was mighty beyond the power of foreign evil or civil hatred to 
 overthrow. 
 
 I followed his haughty and eager stride towards the borders of the sacred 
 stream. But there stood an obstacle, which broke up all his visions. The 
 two ancient leaders of the rebels stood on the verge of the Nile. The king, 
 indignant at their presence, commanded them to he instantly slain, and 
 their bodies burnt, as was the custom with those who were accused of 
 insulting the dignity of our worship. But, amone the crowd of spearman 
 who rushed forward rope.form his will, none could lay his grasp upon those 
 feeble men. The spear-point hung helpless in the air, the uplifted arm was 
 paralyzed. 
 
 While all stood in astonishment, the Hebrews spoke. They boldly de« 
 manded once more, that their countrymen should be suffered to take their 
 journey into the Desert The king scorned an answer, or gave no other 
 than a fierce gesture to the guards once more to seize them. At that in¬ 
 stant, the feebler of the two lifted his countenance from the earth for the 
 first tune That countenance is before me still. It had an expression of 
 loftiness and intense power, such as I had never seen in man. As hq 
 stood in silent prayer, his brother, without a word, waved his stall'over the 
 Nile. How shall I relate what I then saw ! My soul still sickens aod faints 
 at the recollections. 1 had been a soldier from a youth up. I had fought 
 from the valley of Misraim to the confines of India. 1 had seen armies 
 stretched in their own slaughter. But, until that moment, I had never 
 
(Teen, I bad never conceived, a whole unbroken flood of carnage. The 
 Nile, our lovely, our resplendant Nile, instantly rushed down before our 
 eyes a torrent of blood—of actual blood—red, as if it had at that instant 
 spouted from the heart of the warrior, hut vast, as if the hearts of millions, 
 and empires had been poured in its channel. The stream, too, was filled 
 with living pollution. It had burst over its banks, and all that it reached 
 died, as if its touch were poison. All perished; and its surface was co¬ 
 vered with corpses, all rolling down to ihe sea. The fisb died; the wild 
 beasts, caught in their thickets by the sudden inundation, died : the priests, 
 who had taken their stand on the verge of the sacred stream, were struck 
 with pangs, as if they had plunged into a stream of molten ore. A vapour 
 deadly as ever breathed from the charnel, uprose and darkened the banks to 
 the horizon. 
 
 All was terror. The priests, the minstrels, the royal maidens, the multi¬ 
 tude, were all driven madly into flight across the plain. Even there death 
 seemed to pursue them; and, in the agonies of their fear, they cried out 
 that the final hour of the world was come. Some saw' the gigantic shapes 
 of our ancient kings bursting the tomb, and reaping the human harvest 
 with the sword. Others saw the serpent arms of the gods of Egypt 
 stretched forth from their clouds, and grasping thousands and tens of 
 thousands in folds of flame. I turned to the king. He was still gazing- 
 on the Hebrew leaders with the look of idiotic wonder. They answered 
 uot his gaze. Wrapped in their mantles from head to foot, they stood 
 like statues, with their marble eyes upturned to heaven; they were hold¬ 
 ing high communion with their own thoughts, or perhaps, with mightier 
 things than human thoughts. As I bore the king helpless and fainting 
 from the field, I heard a voice: “This is for the blood of the children of 
 the Hebrews.” 
 
 The voice rang round the plain: it filled the air, it echoed in the forest. 
 I heard it when the sun sank, and the moon shed her solemn light over the 
 afflicted land. In the dead of the night, as I stood in my place by the door 
 of the king’s chamber, I heard that voice ; and heard it answered by a groan 
 
 from Pharoah. as if an Arab shaft had passed through his bosom. 
 
 ****** 
 
 On the seventh morning, the trumpet sounded to proclaim to keep a solemn 
 feast in the temple built by Psarnmis. The diviners had triumphed. The 
 glorious river once more flowed in its crystal purity. The arm of the ene¬ 
 mies ofEgvpt was shortened,and the land rejoiced in the firmness of her king. 
 The Hebrews had demanded the freedom of our slaves in vain. Their in¬ 
 sult to the majesty of the Egyptian’s god had roused the vengeance of the 
 nation, and, from this hour, double chains and tenfold toil wmre to be their 
 portion. On this day the royal proclamation declared, that the recovered 
 majesty of the river, worshipped under the mystic semblance of its crea¬ 
 tures, was to be celebrated by all the lords of Egypt. In the train of Pha¬ 
 roah, I entered the temple of the Nile. 
 
 When will the world see such structures again! In those vast arcades, 
 -those colossal ranges of columns, those boundless roofs that looked like the 
 Canopy of the midnight heavens; so far and so wide were they spread above 
 our heads, the heart felt an instinctive sense of the littleness of man. The 
 whole magnificence of the kingly procession now seemed to sink into thy 
 magnificence of motes in the sunbeam. Our long lines of priests and princes 
 
II 
 
 were diminished into insects, glittering, indeed, with gold and gems, ye'l 
 still but like the glittering of insects’ wings. The clash of our timbrels, 
 the rich uproar of our trumpets, the harmony of our hosts of harpers and 
 singers, was lost in those immense and lofty spaces, like the evening sounds 
 of the grasshopper. All was awful grandeur. We moved along, as if the 
 bowels of some mighty mountain, which had let us into the secrets of its 
 caverns to rebuke the pride of man. 
 
 At length, after winding through these superb recesses to the brazen 
 gates of the central shrine, the priests advanced before all, to begin the' 
 rites. The flame of their perfumed torches was the only light, and the 
 smoke of their censers rose, richly clouding that light, as it flashed against 
 the sculptures of those sacred walls. Those sculptures were in themselves 
 a wonder. There was wrought every creeping thing born of the great 
 generating power of nature; every progeny of heat and moisture; every 
 creature of the prolific soil of the Nile; terrible and strange in their shapes, 
 thus shown by the mysterious light of the worship; more terrible and strange 
 still as emblems of those fearful powers which rule the world of spirits, and 
 appeal to the guilty dead with endless torment. 
 
 But at the moment of sacrifice, when Pharoah was setting his foot on the 
 steps of the high altar, aud the incense was already in his hand to be flung 
 Upon the blaze, the two Hebrews stood in his presence. In that hour I felt 
 appalled. All around me was gloom, mystery, and awe. Even the lifeless 
 shapes that by thousands and myriads were wrought out of the face of the 
 rock might have appalled the heart. But at the sight of those two ancient 
 men, thus standing unshaken in the very footsteps of the tyrant, I felt a 
 preternatural consciousness of some unspeakable evil at hand. With the 
 tone and aspect which had defied the king on the banks ot ’the Nile, they 
 now, in its temple, demanded the instant freedom of the multitudes of Is¬ 
 rael. 
 
 But they were now far from the sacred stream which they had the pow¬ 
 er of polluting. They stood under the centre of that mighty temple which, 
 to them, might be a dungeon ; they were surrounded with spears and axes, 
 from which there could be no escape. Pharoah’s countenance, exulting 
 in the conviction that his enemies had now rashly thrown themselves into 
 his hand, exhibited all the haughty vindictiveness of his nature. “You 
 demand freedom for your fellow slaves,” said he; “ first demand it for 
 yourselves.” The Jewish leaders were silent. “Well, freedom ye shall 
 have. Before this foot stirs from the spot where I now plant it, ye shall 
 both be free; free as the flame on yonder altar; free as the ashes of the 
 guilty scattered into the air; free as the gust that wafts them, a sign to all 
 traitors, rebels, for ever!” 
 
 As he spoke the word, two bands of the priesthood rushed forward; one 
 to heap fire on the high altar, the other to sieze the criminals and throw 
 them into the flame, I shuddered at this horrible sentence, and flung my 
 mantle over my head that I might not see their dying struggles. There 
 was a total silence for a while. I raised the mantle. All was darkness : 
 the furious blaze of the altar had sunk into a glimmer, but, by that expiring 
 light, I could still see the two Hebrews, standing like the shades of the 
 dead, with their pale and solemn faces sternly fixed on the king. At length 
 1 beheld the ominous staff lifted up and waved above the altar. Heavens! 
 what a sight of terror followed ! I saw from the embers, which had sunk 
 
■to their last spark, a volume of sudden fire burst forth, as if from the ver 
 entrails of a volcano. Broad gushes of lurid light that withered the eye 
 shot up to the roof of the temple, aad showed every frowning sculpture 
 every terrible emblem, every mystic motto hid in the endless tracery o 
 those gigantic vaults, as distinctly as if the sun in his noon had brokei 
 through. And still the blaze from the altar spread, till all was conflagra 
 tion. Founts and cataracts of flame, of every intense splendour, from sul 
 phureous blue to the blaze that looked as if it passed through blood, darted 
 rolled, and whirled, round the walls, entwined every column, and coiled 
 like myriads of enormous serpents, along every line and circle of the 
 boundless architecture. All around us, all above us, was fire. Our eyes 
 were dazzled with the glare; our ears were deafened with the roar. Round 
 the foot of the altar a thick and deadly fume arose. It arose from a circle 
 of ashes; the priests, w ho had stood within the sacred circle, had fallen 
 victims on their own shrine. The flame had enwrapped them, and the} 
 were consumed bodily. In this cavern of fire there was now no sound but 
 of the tremendous element that had mastered all. All w'ere dumb with ter¬ 
 ror; king, priest, warrior, alike withered in soul, all prostrate before the 
 majesty of Death. 
 
 From the ground I glanced once more towards the authors of our calami¬ 
 ty. They were standing unmoved, unscorched, unterrified. Their hoary 
 locks were even unw r aved in the whirlwind, that swept the flame in resist¬ 
 less eddies through the whole range of the temple: At that moment I 
 saw the staff lifted again. Thunder rolled, the w r alls shook, the flame 
 swelled and volumed with tenfold fury round the walls; and, could I believe 
 my failing senses; the very walls suddenly teemed with hideous life. Every 
 sculpture moved and quivered; the innumerable tribes of repules, which 
 labour of ages had carved in tha granite, started into unhallowed vitality. 
 The frog, the lizard, the viper, the scorpion, the toad, every loathsome 
 shape of creeping things, the half-formed offspring of slime, the finned, the 
 fanged, the hundred-footed, the poisonous, the pestilential, an endless crowd 
 of those fearful sports of Nature, which in mercy, she conceals from the 
 eye of man in the depths of the w aters, all came forth to the light; all swel¬ 
 led to a size in itself revolting and frightful; all in hideous energy revelling, 
 twining, hissing, and hanging their polluted clusters around. The nostrils 
 turned aw r ay, the eye recoiled, the touch shuddered, the heart sank at the 
 sight. Still, down they poured, as if the very walls were turned into their 
 living substance; still they dropped, they sprang, they showered, from every 
 spot of the mighty architecture. The curse of reptile life was come to the 
 full upon its worshippers. 
 
 At length the very horror of the sight gave us strength. We started 
 from the ground The king dismayed, exhausted, and covered with the 
 pallidness of the grave, made a desperate effort to escape, at least, into the 
 day, if there he was to die. I followed his tottering steps. With inde¬ 
 scribable difficulty we at last reached the portal of the temple. There we 
 breathed-—but no more. All before us was fear and flight. The land was, 
 like the temple, moving with reptile life, Wherever the foot trod, it trod 
 upon reptile life. Wherever the sight glanced, it was startled by some 
 form of loathing. Egypt looked with double horror on the evil done by 
 things which it had once placed on its altars. The food, the drink, the pil¬ 
 low, the hour of rising, the hour of going to rest, all was turned into loath.- 
 
13 
 
 sng: all was fierce repulsion, intolerable disgust, the unspeakable sickness 
 of the senses and the soul. Still on they poured. We were flooded by the 
 reptile tides We crushed, burned, buried them in vain. They over¬ 
 whelmed us by millions of millions. The sky seemed to rain them, the 
 dust to engender them: every tree, every branch, every leaf, cast them 
 forth, till the land grew poisonous; all the employments of human existence 
 stopped, and men, in dying bitterness, cursed the day that they were born. 
 * * ~ * * * * 
 
 New evils were at hand. Our frontier horsemen came flying in with 
 news of war. The Arab chieftains had refused the tribute. They had 
 sent round a banner to all the kindred of Ishmael in the Desert; and the 
 whole border, from Damascus to Pelusium, was in arms, as if by a command 
 of our evil genius. The calamities of Egypt had stirred them up to revolt; 
 and the revolt was about to be followed by furious invasion. I was sum¬ 
 moned to the council held in this emergency. The king demanded my 
 advice. It was plainly given. Reprobating the feeble policy which had 
 withdrawn our frontier armies, to waste their valour in watching slaves, I 
 counselled instant vigour. I declared that war must be met by war, rebellion 
 by speedy punishment; and that the royal tribute, if not brought in the 
 hands of the Beni-Ishmael, must be sought for in the ashes of their tents. 
 AH applauded the advice: andPharoah, throwing over my neck the golden 
 links of his own sword chain, and ordering a jewelled robe of state, worth 
 one of the provinces of Egypt, to be hung upon my shoulders, made me 
 on the spot commander of all the armies of Misraim. 
 
 I rejoiced in this good fortune. The pomps of Memphis had become 
 fearful in my sight. Wild dreams haunted me. Wilder thoughts came 
 over me, like a cloud, in my waking hours. I had begun to feel strange 
 doubts of the wisdom of that worship, which was as old as the foundations 
 of the throne. I involuntarily asked myself, could the gods of Egypt be 
 given for its tormentors 1 Could the power of turning those gods into scorn 
 be given but by some God higher than they! Or, could that higher God, 
 that wielder of the elements, that scorner of the glories and the pride of 
 Egypt, be on the side of injustice! Those feelings rapidly spread over the 
 whole surface of my mind. The sound of war came to me, as the sound 
 of the rushing stream to the traveller in the Desert. The fever of my spirit 
 parched me no more. I put on my armour, took my spear in my hand, and 
 marched forth from Memphis at the head of troops that were fit to bear the 
 dragon banner of Egypt to the end of the world. 
 
 We made rapid marches along the shore of the Sea of the Desert, that 
 we might meet the rebellious sons of Ishmael before a hoof of their camels 
 should defile the sacred soil of Egypt. AH was the exultation of the war¬ 
 rior’s heart, as I looked from the heights along the endless columns of 
 chariots, horse, and spearmen, that moved among the hold hills and rocky 
 valleys bordering that bright and ever billowy sea. But when we entered 
 rn the Desert itself; when we saw the boundless waste spread before us, 
 without path or landmark, without tree or herb, without river or fount, our 
 pearts died within us, and we felt that, in all the grandeur of man, there 
 still is weakness, as the weakness of the sand tossed in the whirlwind. 
 Einemy we saw none, but the most unconquerable of all enemies, the Desert; 
 
 2 
 
 i; 
 
14 
 
 the ground on which we trod, as treading on the floor of a furnace, and th@ 
 sun, which shot down upon our heads rays as fierce as flights of burning 
 arrows. Against this war what was man] Our horses died of pestilence ; 
 our chariots were left broken in the wilderness; the scorching wind pierced 
 us to the bone, withered the nerve of the strong, and made the heart of the 
 bold faint within him. After months of fruitless search for the flying Arabs, 
 whom we could no more reach than we could the clouds of heaven, I gave 
 the word to retrace our steps towards the land of Egypt. Broken and faint 
 as we were, the command was new life to the whole host. It was full of 
 the memory of that luxurious rest which the soul covets in a dry and thirsty 
 land. It told even the meanest heart among our thousands of the pure and 
 refreshing draughts of the Nile, the deep bowers of roses, the olive groves 
 on its banks, the delicious evenings, when, under the vines, in the cool air, 
 all was music, serenity, and the simple and undisturbed delights of nature. 
 
 By sunset of the third day, the army had reached the brow of the moun¬ 
 tains that overlook the valley of the Nile. With the delight of weariness 
 and famine in sight of rest and luxury, we gazed on the immense extent of 
 that richest spot of the bounty of Nature and the labours of man, glittering, 
 like a huge serpent, bright with all the hues of summer, under the light of 
 the descending sun. Groves, gardens, palaces; the solemn beauty of the 
 pyramids, illumined by the rays, like enormous piles of burnished gold; the 
 Nile, the glory of all, floating down in the midst of this unrivalled landscape 
 like a vast vein of molten silver; all lay before us in lovely vision. In 
 universal triumph, we sent up hymns to the protecting gods of Egypt; raised 
 rude altars of stones of the mountain tops; and, after hours of carousal, 
 flung ourselves down to sleep, until the morn should bid us go forth into 
 the richness of the land. It was then that I heard, for the first time, from 
 the peasantry of the hills, the long succession of miseries that the wrath of 
 the Hebrew leaders had laid upon my country. But, while those fell, I 
 had been in the wilderness; and happy I now felt the days of toil and the 
 nights of watching, the fiery wind and scorching sand, which had kept me 
 far from a share in such agonies. Yet, where were their traces now! 
 As if a superior hand had been held over Egypt, to shower fertility on it in 
 recompense for its afflictions, all was now more luxuriant than ever, 
 
 My mind still remained disturbed with many thoughts; and, leaving my 
 tent, I took my spear in my hand and walked forth into the moonlight, 
 which was then lying broad upon the hills, and flooding the tents of my 
 sleeping army with unspeakable lustre, I have never seen a night of such 
 beauty. The sky was a sheet of living azure ; the stars, thick as dew-drop3 
 on the leaves of the forest, sparkled and shot rays of living diamond; the 
 moon was an orb of serene flame. The whole creation seemed to have as¬ 
 sumed a more etherial character. I could have thought that its grosser 
 substance had been suddenly purified and changed into light and life. It 
 was a night on which an irresistable impression of the presence of be¬ 
 ings mightier than man, subdued the mind. In strange awe I prostrated 
 myself, and offered up a supplication to the great invisible Lord, by whom 
 all this world of wonders lived, to guide me into his knowledge: if the gods 
 of Egypt were divine, to make me their more unfailing worshipper, but, if 
 there were another, mightier than they, another, who bore no shape of ere- 
 
15 
 
 ;ated thing, another, not to be worshipped by our fires, nor bowed down to 
 in our temples, nor won by those sad and fearful sacrifices of human life, 
 which Egypt had so long offered to the work of her hands; then, to let me 
 be enlightened by the truth, let the idol have my homage no more, but let 
 me bow down my spirit to the Spirit of Heaven. 
 
 When I lifted up my countenance again, a wondrous change had come. 
 The moon was covered with the hue of blood, the stars had died. All be¬ 
 low was dark as the grave. I looked round. My army was locked in a 
 torpor as profound as if it had been drugged with opium. I alone was 
 awake: and fearfully were my senses kept watching. It was midnight. 
 At that moment, an echo, like the burst of a thousand trumpets, broke from 
 the skies. It was followed by the charge of a tremendous army.—The 
 skies opened, and. showed flames that took the shape of horse and horse¬ 
 man, chariot and charioteer. A mass of living fire rushed down over Egypt. 
 Leading all, and terribly conspicuous above all, was a form, whose gigantic 
 wings seemed to spread from verge to verge of the horizon. Perpetual 
 shafts of lightning darted from the path of the Destroyer, and a sword like 
 an angry comet, waved and blazed before him up to the heights of heaven. 
 
 In the midst of these overwhelming terrors of the air I was recalled to 
 the earth; she had her terrors too, in that night of vengeance. A cry as 
 if the whole agony of the human heart and the whole concentrated affliction 
 •of an undone people could be poured on the ear at once, smote me. 
 
 I looked down on the long valley of Egypt. There all slumber was at an 
 end. All was fierce and instant confusion. The multitude were rushing 
 wildly, with torches in their hands, through the cities, as if seeking each 
 other. Palaces, temples, cottages, all poured out their inmates; and all 
 were filled with one vast echo of lamentation. That night was the slaying 
 of the first-born! In every house, in every field, in every spot where hu¬ 
 man life could exist and be stricken, there was one dead. The eldest born 
 of the throne, the infant in the dungeon; the heir of the mighty, to whose 
 birth so many eyes looked forward as the last crown of the gods to the 
 prosperity of the princes of the land, was a cold corpse; the heir 
 of nothing but the poverty of his outcast father, was equally strick¬ 
 en. The first-born of the cattle in the field, of the sheep in the fold, 
 of the bird in the grove, of the wild beast in the forest, all had fallen. 
 Death had claimed his universal tribute, the first fruits of the land. In the 
 midst of this mortal ruin a tempest rose. Furious blasts rushed from the 
 clouds, that now gathered big with thunder. Rain, like cataracts, burst 
 down, tearing up the fertility of the rich expanse of pasture and tillage, 
 garden and bower beneath. Sheets of lightning that blinded the eye hung 
 quivering over the palace roofs, and they dissolved into dust and ashes 
 under the subtle intensity of the flame. Thunderbolts swept along the 
 ground, and tore up the foundations of tower and temple. It was a night 
 to be much remembered in Egypt. 
 
 In the midst of this convulsion of the storm, there came one evil more, 
 the last aggravation of national ruin. In one of the lapses of the whirlwind, 
 I heard the sound of the Desert horn. My blood curdled at the sound. I 
 knew our fate. The Arab robbers were at hand. They had followed us 
 by thousands from the wilderness, crouching like tigers; and had only 
 
16 
 
 waited till the sight of our home should relax the bonds of discipline. Thei 
 had waited with terrible wisdom; for the night found my army utterly in 
 capable of resisting its wild and wily enemy. Riot, giddy triumph, anc 
 reckless indulgence, had cast them all at the feet of their pursuers. Ven¬ 
 geance was speedily sent forth among them. Hearts that never forgave, 
 guided blows that never failed. Resistance, feeble from the first, soon de¬ 
 generated into fight: but what was the flight of startled and terrified 
 multitudes to the keen assault of the horsemen of the Desert, to the instant 
 pursuit to the iron nerve, to the practised and indefatigable determination 
 of blood ! It was no longer a battle, no longer a flight; it was a rout and 
 a massacre. I vainly tried to stem this torrent of ruin. I vainly tried by 
 hand and voice to collect together a few brave men, to rally the broken co- 
 cover the last relics of the most splendid army of my country. 
 All was lost. There was a spirit of infatuation sent forth among them, 
 that drove them under the very swords of their destroyers. 
 
 The storm still raged. The thunders rolled as if they would rend up 
 the mountains; the flashes from the clouds struck long paths through the 
 forests on their sides, or kindled the thickets into boundless flame. ° Still 
 the Arabs, as numerous as the locust, and as devouring, gleaned the soil of 
 the last remnant of life, and rested only when there was no more to destroy 
 of that renowned army. How I escaped I know not; whether by the 
 chance that sometimes so strangely preserves, or by the protection of some 
 diviner guardian. In the midst of the havoc I found myself carried fighting 
 in a circle of enemies to the summit of the mountain pass. There double 
 darkness shrouded all the world below from my sight, and there I sank dis¬ 
 abled by wounds and intolerable fatigue. I thought that the hand of death 
 was on me. Yet even in that hour I rejoiced that I had fallen, not in the 
 intrigues of the palace ; not in the dungeons which the jealousy of Pharoah 
 had filled with so many of the noble and the wise of Egypt; not in the hour 
 of guilty excess; not in the hot pursuit of still guiltier ambition ; but in the 
 cause of my country. A soldier, I rejoiced in dying the death that does 
 especial honour to a soldier’s grave. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The sun rose over a scene of unparalleled devastation. I found myself 
 on the banks of the Nile. During the night, in my distraction, I had de¬ 
 scended from the mountain ridge, and wandered madly, I knew not whither. 
 On that ridge I had left my undone army; but I had not left them alone, 
 lhe morning air was filled with endless flights of the devourers that make 
 their prey of the fallen lords of the creation. The eagle, the vulture, the 
 kite, the falcon, all came rushing in clouds to feast upon the dead. Never 
 was such a banquet spread for them before. They fed on the hearts of the 
 mighty; the flesh of princes were in their talons; their beaks were red with 
 the gore of the chieftains and conquerors of Asia. 
 
 But a new and deep murmur, as of the sea, yet a voice of rejoicing, ga¬ 
 thered upon the wind. It rapidly swelled; and I could soon distinctly trace 
 the sounds of the Israelitish tongue. From the gates of Memphis to the 
 k* °[ was i n motion. As the increasing light penetrated 
 
 through the vapours that rest so thickly at dawn upon the river, I could 
 mark standards and weapons waving and flashing at the head of columns of 
 
17 
 
 men ; who seemed countless as the sand of the ocean. And those were the 
 conquerors of Egypt! those were the masters of Pharoah in his pride and 
 fury of heart; those were the preserved in the chain of the task-masters, in 
 the war of the elements, in the terrible career of the destroying angel. As 
 they advanced up the valley, by thousands and millions, rolling forward a 
 continual living stream, their hymns ascended, like the sound of distant 
 thunders, when the storm is dying away, and the earth begins to lift up her 
 countenance again. They sang their deliverance, the praises of their king— 
 ‘a King of Glory, who, high above all height, had yet looked down on the 
 sorrows of his people; had brought them out of their place of sorrow; had 
 broken off the fetters of two hundred years, and called them forth from the 
 bouse of bondage.’ 
 
 I was now sunk in the deepest human affliction. My dreams of human 
 vanity were gone. I was a general without an army, a noble without a 
 name, an Egyptian without a country. Still, with the spirit of loyalty 
 strong in my soul, I felt that there was guilt upon that country. I had 
 seen Pharoah in the intimate retirement of his court; and I had known him 
 for a tyrant, remorseless, blind, and bloody. I had bowed myself down to 
 Our altars; but I had known the priesthood to be profligate, and the rites 
 cruel. In the bitterness of my soul I acknowledged that the punishment 
 pf Egypt was righteous. And I cast the dust of affliction.on my head, as I 
 nade the confession to the sun, that I now saw rising before me, and scat¬ 
 hing his beams over the landscape in such cloudless beauty. 
 
 But, while I knelt, the multitude came rolling on, below the rock in whose 
 shelter I shrank from the general eye. First advanced the few bearers of 
 weapons, a bold and sinewy race; but rudely armed, to an eye which, like 
 nine, had seen in succession all the glittering troops of the oriental world. 
 Then followed the princes and elders of the tribes, the ancient sons of those 
 welve blessed by the blessing of increase, from whom the mighty host had 
 lowed—grave and silver-haired councillors, fit to give the law to nations. 
 Then came the innumerable multitude, the twelve tribes, under the banners 
 )f their chieftains, the future terrors of the regions of idolatry, with their 
 household and their cattle, their camels, their oxen, and their sheep, laden 
 ?vith the produce of their harvests, the implements of their husbandry, and 
 he wives, handmaidens, and infants, of the people. It was a moving na- 
 ion, a whole kingdom suddenly rooted up from its foundations, and sent 
 oiling on to crush all resistance, until it should fix itself in some distant 
 and. Human nature never looked so magnificently powerful as in this uni¬ 
 versal movement; the heart of man never contemplated so calm yet so ir- 
 esistable a display of those impulses which change the fates of empires. 
 The eye of man never saw a sight so sublime as this infinite multitude, 
 n all their myriads, advancing into the borders of the wilderness, boldly 
 saving behind them the land of fertility and loveliness, the land which had 
 >een native to them for generations, to march into the desert, where all 
 vas famine, maddening thirst, and superstitious terror. 
 
 On the rock at whose foot I lay, overpowered with emotions, fearful from 
 heir intensity, yet mixed with a strange delight from their grandeur, two 
 tately men now ascended from the number of the elders, and stood, to issue 
 heir commands to the tribes as they successively approached. I at once 
 
 
18 
 
 remembered the two Hebrew leaders. But they were not now as I had 
 seen them before. I had seen them slaves in the presence of their king; 
 victims in the grasp of power; supplicants at the footstool of a tyrant thirst¬ 
 ing for their blood. I had seen them in all, dignified, calm, and resolute. 
 Yet I had seen them in adversity. But now all waschanged. They were in 
 their hour of triumph. They had achieved the greatest work that the powers 
 of Heaven ever gave into the hands of man—the freedom of an entire people. 
 They had inscribed their names among the highest ranks of that roll which 
 gives down the patriot and the hero to immortality. Yet, in those counte¬ 
 nances, which I now saw gazing on the measureless current of human ex¬ 
 istence that flowed far and wide at their feet, I saw no human exultation. 
 There was no touch of scorn for the defeated, none of pride for the conquest. 
 All was joy ; but it was the elevated joy of beings who could know mortal 
 passion no more. Their features w r ere filled with a sublime hope. Grati¬ 
 tude, never taught by man, gave a lofty and sacred animation to features 
 originally formed in the mould of grandeur. They looked up to heaven 
 and seemed to be filled with the spirit of heaven. They looked on earth, and 
 seemed to reflect upon it the lustre which they had caught from the skies, 
 I could have fallen at their feet and worshipped. I could have grasped the 
 skirt of their robe, and felt virtue proceeding out of it into my heart. I 
 could have kissed the dust on which their glorious footsteps trod, and bade 
 them be my gods, and the gods of my children, and my children’s children 
 forever. 
 
 But I was yet only at the gates of the temple, that temple not built by 
 hands; I was still an outcast idolater, an alien from the white-vestured 
 family of the truth and the life. Yet my hour was not far off. While I 
 still lingered in a tumult of contending thoughts, I heard the hymn of an 
 advancing tribe; it was richer and more triumphant than the fullest song 
 of triumph that I had heard among all the host. It told of victories to 
 come, to which all the conquests of the sword were false and feeble; vic¬ 
 tories in which worlds were to be the prize, and which the universe was to 
 witness; defeats of beings of terrible*might and unwearied malignity, the 
 fallen throne of the god of this world, the captive prince of the powers of 
 the air; the triumph of beings whose rejoicing was to be forever; the sons 
 of immortality, the elect of inscrutable wisdom, the heirs of the kingdom 
 which shall shine when the diadems of earth are ashes, when the stars grow 
 dim, and the fabric of the universal world shrinks and consumes like a gar¬ 
 ment in the flame. 
 
 In the midst of this tribe was borne, on the shoulders of a band of priests, 
 a small temple. As it paused at the foot of the rock, the Hebrew leaders 
 prostrated themselves, the priests prostrated themselves, and the whole 
 multitude fell with their faces to the ground. All was sacred silence. A 
 blaze, of a brightness exceeding the broadest intesity of the sun, exceeding 
 the keenest flash of lightning, yet gentle and undazzling as the moonlight, 
 stooped calmly down from the opening skies, and sat upon the temple, a 
 pillar of splendour to the very heights of heaven. 
 
 In that moment of prostration its light seemed to enter into my inmost 
 frame. The darkness of my soul was driven away like the mists of night 
 before the sunbeams. In that hour I made my vow. It was irrevocable 
 
19 
 
 J.* hre £ m r elf f ? e fe ® tof J the hoI y leaders of the people, and implored 
 them that I might be suffered to follow their path through the world P The 
 
 ai /lW ^ C ° t Untry st00 , d b r e ^ re m y thought, and were from that instant 
 an abomination to my soul The people rose from the ground again. The 
 
 hymn began. The march moved onward. I plunged into the first rivulet 
 that wound across the plain, and mystically washed away with its water all 
 the impurities of my old nature. I was thenceforth an Israelite ! I wor- 
 shipped the King of Kings! and, with a broken spirit, yet with a rejoicing 
 
 fh w r id gave the ast °° k t0 Egypt ’ and followed the Ch05en P eo P le int ° 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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