DESTRUCTION OF IDOLATRY.

321

This review of the religious history of Egypt impresses
the mind with the fact of a retributive Providence in the
government of nations. The Bible is full of this doctrine,
and history is pregnant with its illustration. Take Ezekiel for
a text, and Egypt for a comment. No doubt natural causes
can be traced that contributed to this destruction. But in
the height of its prosperity, Ezekiel predicted for Egypt a
ruin as remote from all human calculation as is now the
desolation of London or of New York. And the reason
given is the pride and self-sufficiency, the idolatry and
unrighteousness of Egypt, — her departure from the Lord.
Egypt knew the true God ; in the time of Abraham, in the
time of Joseph, in the time of Moses, when these men
of God were near tie person of the monarch. But Egypt
rejected the Lord, and the Lord rejected her. " Them that
honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly
esteemed." This is a great lesson for America to ponder. If
the people of the United States grow proud of their political
and commercial strength, and put their trust in these, and
especially if for the sake of these they sacrifice or neglect
any principle of national justice, or any claim of equity
or of humanity, the God who smote Egypt and Persia and
Greece and Rome will assuredly smite them also. " These
things happened to them for ensamples; and they are
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world are come."

This lesson is the more impressive from the fact that in
Egypt Christianity attained to influence and dominion, trans-
formed the temples of the old idolatry into sanctuaries for
the worship of the true God, and had in her hands the
moulding of the nations ; but proved false to her trust,
baptized the divinities and the superstitions of heathenism
and adopted them as her own, became degenerate and
corrupt, ministered to the ambition of the few at the cost of