History

The story of the amazing reign of this one man, Joseph F. Smith, the Mormon Prophet, a religious fanatic of bitter mind, who claims that he has been divinely ordained to exercise the awful authority of God on earth over all the affairs of all mankind, and who plays the anointed despot in Utah and the surrounding states as cruelly as a Sultan and more securely than any Czar.

Christianity is an historical religion and must be judged historically. We trace its course along the stream of time and show its character and achievements. Without dwelling unnecessarily on individual cases of fanaticism and folly, we exhibit its action on society, and its principles as formulated by Councils and illustrated by general practice.

The resident official, travelling from place to place, spends a great deal of time seated in railway stations or on the banks of the Nile, waiting for his train or his boat to arrive; and he has, therefore, a great deal of time for thinking. I often try to fill in these dreary periods by jotting down a few notes on some matter which has recently been discussed, or registering and elaborating arguments which have chanced lately to come into the thoughts. These notes are shaped and "written up" when next there is a spare hour, and a few books to refer to; and ultimately they take the form of articles or papers, some of which find their way into print.

Enter pristine Egypt of 1911 through the eyes of this author and relive the impressions of ancient Egypt, before World Wars, before Industrialization, before the Modern Era. Mildly illustrated with images from the area of Egpyt the author is revealing. Feel the romance that Egypt holds over the world and awe of Egypt the author feels. Egypt holds a spell over all people of every civilization.

In shape Egypt is like a lily with a crooked stem. A broad blossom terminates it at its upper end; a button of a bud projects from the stalk a little below the blossom, on the left-hand side. The broad blossom is the Delta, extending from Aboosir to Tineh, a direct distance of a hundred and eighty miles, which the projection of the coast-the graceful swell of the petals-enlarges to two hundred and thirty.

True stories are not often good art. The relations and experiences of real men and women Trarely fall in such symmetrical order as to make an artistic whole. Until they have had such treatment as we give stone in the quarry or gems in the rough they seldom group themselves with that harmony of values and brilliant unity of interest that result when art comes in-not so much to transcend nature as to make nature transcend herself.