p. 42 | CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE by D. F. E.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 7, 1878

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

By D. F. E.

The English people may think they are subserving the cause of science in removing this ancient monument and re-erecting it on the banks of the Thames. The fact that prophets are rarely appreciated in their own country is exactly reversed in the case of inanimate objects; and a thing which will attract tourists thousands of miles, and which will excite unmixed enthusiasm when surrounded by appropriate objects and scenery, will be passed by unnoticed in the busy streets of a city. We may hope, however, that this experience of squandering money and precious lives, in the attempt to bring unwieldy burdens over sea and land, will be a lesson remembered, and that the enthusiasm of archaeologists will be in future tempered with a modicum of common sense. The best cause in the world is weakened and stultified, if wrong times and methods are chosen for endeavoring to serve it.

The fabulous Osiris, Apis, Thoth, Horus, and all the other so-called deities, may have interest so far as mere antiquity is concerned; but what have they in common with our one God? In their mysterious worship some faint glimmerings of a knowledge of the Eternal One may have existed. But we remember that the world by wisdom knew not God. When they discontinued rendering homage to the Creator, and neglected to observe and remember the memorial of his creative work, the Sabbath on which God rested, then the floodgates of every conceivable error and wrong were opened, leading them to worship the things of creation rather than the Creator himself. Hence the veneration of the sun, and that of the unnumbered deities of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot trace all the steps by which the worship of idols was substituted for that of the true and living God; but this we do know: man has in all ages been led astray and has worshiped things which are not enduring when he has broken the divine command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” Let us then cling with tenacity to God's primal law, handed down to us from the beginning: we cannot improve upon it. Why have the sad memento of sun worship paraded before Christians in the last times? Why worship on Sunday? Truly our adversary the devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We condemn the idolatries of the ancients. Are we idolators? D. F. E.