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A more recent traveller than Volney, who visited Egypt in 1835, has drawn a graphic picture of the destruction of the MAMELUKES, and the way by which the unhappy inhabitants of the country were compelled to exchange one species of tyrant master for another :

"The life and character," says the American traveller, George Stephens, "of Mohammed Ali are a study and a problem. He has risen by the usual road to greatness among the Turks-war, bloodshed, and treachery. In early life his bold and daring spirit attracted the attention of beys, pachas, and the sultan himself; and having attained a prominent position in the bloody wars that distracted Egypt under the MAMELUKES, boldness, cruelty, intrigue, and treachery placed him on the throne of the caliphs; and neither then nor since have these usual engines of Turkish government, these usual accompaniments of Turkish greatness, for a moment deserted him. The extermination of the MAMELUKES, the former lords of Egypt, as regards the number killed, is perhaps nothing in comparison with the thousands whose blood cries out from the earth against him ; but the manner in which it was effected brands the pacha as the prince of traitors and murderers. Invited to the citadel on a friendly visit, while they were smoking the pipe of peace he was preparing to murder them; and no sooner had they left his presence, than they were pent up, fired upon, cut down and killed, bravely but hopelessly defending themselves to the last...... Mohammed's cruelty and treachery can neither be forgotten nor forgiven; and when in passing out of the citadel, the stranger is shown the place where the unhappy MAMELUKES were penned up and slaughtered like beasts, one only leaping his gallant horse over the walls of the citadel, he feels that he has left the presence of a wholesale murderer."3

Surely the most determined sceptic to the "Truth of the Bible," must admit that the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, respecting the condition of Egypt, both in the past as well as in the present day, have been fulfilled in a most remarkable way; and as such they are valuable evidence respecting what the apostle Peter calls " a more sure word of prophecy... which came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."4

3 Incidents of Travel in Egypt, &c., by George Stephens, vol. i., pp. 32, 33. Ebers' Egypt contains a fine picture of the last of the Mamelukes taking this memorable leap.

4 2 Pet. i. 19, 21..

414

CHAPTER XX.

PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE RACE OF ABRAHAM.

ALTHOUGH We have fully considered the prophecies relating to the children of Israel, especially in regard to their sufferings in the past at the hands of professing Christians during the darkness of the middle ages, and which, alas! are in a measure repeated with more or less of mob violence both in Germany and Russia at the present time, there remain several other prophecies to be noticed, all of which bear upon the fortunes of the descendants of the great patriarch who was honoured with the double title of "Father of the Faithful" and "The Friend of God;" and which may therefore be succinctly described under the head of prophecies relating to the descendants of the race of Abraham.

1. The prophecy which relates especially to the descendants of Ishmael, the first-born son of Abraham by Hagar the Egyptian, whom Sarai gave to her husband "to be his wife," is thus stated

"The angel of the Lord said unto Hagar in the wilderness: I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. Thou shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name ISHMAEL, (i.e., ' God shall hear'); because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. . . And God said to Abraham, As for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation." 5

These "twelve princes" of the race of Abraham are mentioned by name a little further on.

"These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, according to their generations:

5 Gen. xvi. 3, 10--12; xvii. 19, 20.

the first-born of Ishmael, Nebajoth, &c. These are their names, by their towns, and castles; twelve princes according to their nations." 6 These twelve princes or tribes inhabited a country, which is thus specially marked in v. 18. "They (the descendants of the twelve tribes of Ishmael) dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest towards Assyria.”

It is clear from this statement that the descendants of Ishmael stretched in very early times across the desert to the Persian Gulf, occupying the north and the west of the Arabian peninsula, and eventually forming the chief element of the Arab nation. The Arabian peninsula may be said to have been divided by the descendants of Eber; Abraham and Ishmael being descended from Peleg, the eldest son of Eber, whose descendants occupied the north, while the descendants of Joktan, the younger son of Eber, are said to have colonized the south of Arabia. And this division serves to explain an important portion of the prophecy.

As the inhabitants of southern Arabia are a very different class from the Arabs of the north, being the reverse of wild, like the Bedouin Arabs, therefore scepticism has thought to find in this fact a contradiction to the truth of the prophetic word, through ignorance of the ethnographic fact that all Arabs are not descended from Ishmael; whereas the characteristics of the Ishmaelites are plainly visible in all the more northern tribes of Arabia, fulfilling exactly the prophecy that Ishmael, by his descendants, would "be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.”

Such has been the striking characteristic mark of the Bedouin Arabs during nigh 4000 years, as the historical evidence of the fact, universal tradition, and the boast of the Arabs themselves, confirm the truth of the prediction, which the historian Gibbon has tersely expressed in the term that they are "armed against mankind." The Bedouin Arabs not only subsist unconquered to this day, but the primitive wildness of the race remains just as it did thousands of years ago. Plundering is their sole profession, their only trade. They do not cultivate agriculture; they have no merchandize. Their

6 Gen. xxv. 13-16.

alliance is never courted, and can never be obtained; and all that the neighbouring empires of Turkey and Persia can stipulate for is a partial and purchased forbearance.

A modern traveller, in the account of his travels in Arabia, has well illustrated the force of this prophecy when speaking of the peculiarities of an Arab tribe :

"On the smallest computation such must have been the manners of those people for more than 3000 years: thus in all things verifying the prediction given of Ishmael at his birth, that he in his posterity should be a wild man, and always continue to be so, though they shall dwell for ever in the presence of their brethren. And that an acute and active people, surrounded for ages by polished and luxurious nations, should from their earliest to their latest times be still found a wild people, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren-as we may call those nations-unsubdued and unchangeable, is indeed a standing miracle-one of those mysterious facts which establish the truth of prophecy." "

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2. If prophecy is sufficiently instructive respecting the descendants of Ishmael, the first-born son of Abraham, no less distinct is it respecting another of that mighty race, as set forth in the judgment upon the descendants of Esau, the eldest son of Isaac, and the twin brother of Jacob, the ancestor of the children of Israel. Three of the greater prophets have delivered their testimony respecting God's judgments, and the reason of such judgments upon the country of Edom, which had been conquered and held for so many centuries by the descendants of Esau.

The prophets Isaiah (xxxiv. 5, 14), Jeremiah (xlix. 13, 17), and Ezekiel (xxxv. 1, 15), alike tell the same tale, of having been inspired of the Spirit to foretell the perpetual desolation of the land of Idumea. "From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever." The name EDOM, or in its better known Greek form IDUMEA, included the country between the valley of Arabah and the shores of the Mediterranean. Hence the prophet's warning-"BOZRAH shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste and a curse, and all the cities perpetual wastes. And EDOM shall be a desolation:

7 Sir Robert Ker Porter's Travels, p. 304.

every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof."

The Crusaders of the twelfth century made several expeditions into EDOM without passing through it. They penetrated as far as PETRA, to which they gave the name it still bears of Wady Musa, i.e., "the Valley of Moses." About twelve miles north of PETRA they built a strong fortress called "Mons Regalis," now Shobek, under the mistaken idea that it was the ancient capital of EDOM. From that time until the present century Edom remained an unknown land. In 1812, the famous traveller Berckhardt entered ЕDOм from the north, and was the first to discover the wonderful ruins of PETRA. Since that date several European travellers, chiefly English and French, have reached the famous capital of the descendants of Esau, though with much difficulty, and all of them bear testimony to the complete desolation of the country, according to the word of prophecy.

I give the testimony of two travellers, an Englishman and an American, who have visited PETRA, the famous capital of Edom, and who both bear witness to the truth of FULFILLED PROPHECY.

"We left the valley of PETRA," says Lord Lindsay, "after exploring several of the excavated dwellings, for it is clear, both from the language of Scripture and the appearance of the caves themselves, that the majority, if not all of them, were the abodes of the living, not of the dead .. .. Such is PETRA, the Selah of Scripture, the Hagar of the Arabs, each word implying the same, 'Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the ROCK; though thou make thy nest as high as the eagle, though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.'

"On leaving PETRA, we traversed a country of the most utter desolation, hills succeeding hills, without the slightest picturesque beauty, covered with loose flints, sand and gravel; sterility in its most repulsive garb; it made the very heart ache and the spirits sink: such is EDOм now,' most desolate,' as prophecy foretold it should be."s

Mr. George Stephens describes more fully "the excavated city of PETRA,” which he visited with great difficulty and at some risk, but was fortunate enough to find it unoccupied, save by a solitary Bedouin Arab, by which means he was enabled Lord Lindsay's Travels in Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land, vol. ii., pp. 38, 46.

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