in the most retired village; it separates and alienates families; and
when the punishment for it comes, everybody rejoices. People say
contemptuously, "Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?" There
is seldom pity for a fallen greatness that rejoiced in its strength, and
despised the weakness of the unfortunate. If anything is foreign to the
spirit of Christianity it is boastful pride, and yet it is one of those
things which it is difficult for conscience to reach, as it is generally
baptized with the name of self-respect.

The next woe which Isaiah denounced was on Egypt, which had played so
great a part in the history of ancient nations. The judgments sent on
this civilized country were severe, but were not so appalling as those
to be visited upon Babylon. With Egypt was included Ethiopia. Civil war
should desolate both nations, and it should rage so fiercely that "every
one should fight against his brother, and every one against his
neighbor, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom." Moreover, the
famed wisdom of Egypt should fail; the people in their distress should
seek to gain direction from wizards and charmers and soothsayers. It
always was a country of magicians, from the time that Aaron's rod
swallowed up the rods of those boastful enchanters who sought to repeat
his miracles; it was a country of soothsayers and sorcerers when finally
conquered by the Romans; it was the fruitful land of religious
superstitions in every age. It was governed in the earliest times by
pagan priests; the early kings were priests,--even Moses and Joseph were
initiated into the occult arts of the priests. It was not wholly given
to idolatry, since it is supposed that there was an esoteric wisdom
among the higher priests which held to the One Supreme God and the
immortality of the soul, as well as to future rewards and punishments.
Nevertheless, the disgusting ceremonies connected with the worship of
animals were far below the level of true religion, and the sorceries and
magical incantations and superstitious rites which kept the people in
ignorance, bondage, and degradation called loudly for rebuke. By reason
of these things the nation was to be still farther subjected to the
grinding rule of tyrants. It was a fertile and fruitful land, in which
all the arts known to antiquity flourished; but the rains of Ethiopia
were to be withheld, and such should be the unusual and abnormal drouth
that the Nile should be dried up