The Modern Sphinx

Far out in the desolate plain of Egypt. where burning saodl are cioled by no drop ül' ujoisture and eartli nourishes no livint; thing, there stands a colos-al forui. Historj knows not the time when human hands fashioned that strange object from ihe solid granitc. (Jonjocture oannot reveal the motive of lts builders, nor imagination grasp the meaning which tliey wrought to give an expression which should outlast the ages. Towering there in solitiry grandeur, with stony oyes ovorlooking a lifeless land, the stoadfustgaze seeuis to penétrate the inscrutable uiystery of a liniitless past. It is the gigantic statue of the fabled Sphinx ; but it is more than thu expression of an uu - ciont fable. It is a niamfustation of' the life of a people which existed and fulfilled its destiny in the divine order, and died and left no record of itü life but tliis. It h the memorial of a period in the life of mankind - of a stage in the evolution of society - anterior to bistory. It is an exprossion of the spirit, the mora! poteucy, that dominated society ia that period. It is an embodied revelation of the reality of a dead past to the living present. In other words, it is that, which, in this country, goes by the name of democratie party. .