A DAY IN EGYPT

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 27 May 1915, Page 3

A DAY IN EGYPT

[ NOT "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY." '

The Rev. C. .J. Bush-King writesras follows "of his experiences on Easter Monday in Egypt:—f'May we never have another day similar to'this in &gypt or anywhere else, Tfie sun rose a gkring red mass;1 "We never sa.w % set for the sand. A terrific gale from the Equator has been blowing all day. We cannofc see -far through the one enormous sandstorm. *Sand and filth aiid dirt, wind, and an overpowering heat all-day—everything, all our food and-drink and clothes are full of sand. And our chapel: it is a wrecked mass of timber and* grass-matting lying crumpled up on the desert. We do not seem able to get anything wherewith to miench our burning thirst, and if our Blessed Lord endured, oh the CrojSs what we to-day • endured of heat, semi-darkness caused by the sandstorm, and the intolerable thh-6t, no wonderhe cried: '1 thirst.' As I have mentioned in- a previous letter, we find our men on the whole so ■ ready to turn 'their x minds to Bible history, and, some have mentioned to-day, just in a casual way and while going about their work, thoughts which showed they had been thinking of our Lord. One man I distinctly remember, said: 'I can scarcely ■bear this for a day, yet Christ had &5 years of it.' The.longer we are away from New Zealand the more we realise it really is ''God's own" country.' An old "wiiter said: 'I. Kate the vulgar crowd,' and if it were not for Christianity we, would .undoubtedly say the wr>& of theseypeoplerwho live here—-the undesirable, filthy, noisy people.. No woii^er Mos^s t'»ok the Hebrews out of it all, and the longer we live here the niore we 6e'e the need of the Ten Commandments—for here we have a people who do everything eke but keep any such laws. . . Some people think we New Zealander4 are more English than the Englishmen, especially when they learn our New Zealand way of doing things—our social life, etc.—and especially when we tell them that our women, on the whole, do nat smoke. Nearly all the women here do.''