ABYSSINIA—THE SWITZERLAND OF AFRICA.
By N. Y. Examiner
THE Abyssinians are descendants from Abraham through Ishmael, Abyssinia being the western of the two Ethiopias, divided by the Red Sea. Their kings have always claimed descent from the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon. The Abyssinian language, as the Arabic, is of the same family as the Hebrew. That they had accepted the Hebrew Scriptures is seen in the treasurer of Queen Candace, who received also the Christian faith through Philip. Acts 8. From that day no nation has been more firm in maintaining the faith first received. They have maintained the duty of observing the Old Testament rites, and while Jewish converts, after the fall of their city and state, ceased this observance, the Abyssinian Christians have seen no reason for omitting their adherence to both the Old and New Testament rites. They are naturally allied to the Oriental instead of the Western Church. From the time of Mohammed they have been subject to the most bitter antagonism from the Mohammedan power. It is to be remembered that Mohammed was rejected at Mecca by his own countrymen. His bitter denunciations, in a professed divine vision, are preserved in the Koran, that at the same time his heralds, who were sent across the Red Sea to neighboring Abyssinia as an expected ally, were rejected. These links of history, emphasized by King Menelek asking the prayers of English Christians, and defending his church in maintaining the Old Testament faith, are a lesson perhaps needed amid western skepticism.—N. Y. Examiner.