THE STATE OF ETHIOPIA

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4760, 6 October 1924, Page 4

THE STATE OF ETHIOPIA

2000 YEARS UNCONQUERED. SOME HISTORICAL TRUTHS. “ There are not many States which for two thousand years have never ben submitted to the rule of alien conquerors,” says the Daily Telegraph. " The Regent of .the Empire of Ethiopia, who has been visiting London as the guest of the King, may boast that his country has not endured the control of foreigners since Greek kings ruled in Egypt, if, indeed, their tales of victory are true. Ethiopia has to our ears a somewhat mythical sound. Was not the Queen of Sheba sovereign of Ethiopia ? Ethiopia is -now the proper name of Abyssinia, whose Emperor’s title is ‘the Conqueror and the Lion of Juda, the Elect of God, King of Kings cf Ethiopia.’ The authentic history of Abyssinia hills, that the modern Royal house of Abypsinia is descended from the son Menelek whom she bore to Solomon, may be fable. It is certainly true that for sixteen hundred years Abyssinia has been the home of a Christian Church which has never been under the sway of infidel or pagan. No other part of Christendom has that unsullied fame. That it should have been achieved by a community in the Dark Continent is in the nature of a miracle.

“ Abysinia became Christian in the fourth century. In the seventh lislam conquered Egypt, whence its Christianity haa come, and the Abyssinians were cut off from the rest of Christendom. Encompassed by the enemies'of their religion; the Ethiopians slept for nearly a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten.’ So much is ascertained fact, but there are stranger stories still; tha f they were Jewish before they were Christian, that they were converted hot in the fourth century, but much earlier by St. Matthew tne Evangelist. When the great age of exploration began, Portuguese travellers discovered Ethoipia, and its Emperor sent an Embassy to the King of Portugal to ask help aaginst Islam, and with Portuguese musketeers delivered his country from the armies of the Crescent. The Christianity of Et>nopia was again in touch with Christendom, and for a hundred and fifty years received priests from Rome. But from the middle of the seventeenth century the Abyssinians were aagin isolated, save for sucn boild explorers as James Bruce on his. quest of the source of the Blue Nile till the opening of the gates of Africa in the last century. In the division of the continent among the European powers Abyssinia successfully maintained her independence, and now, enrolled in the League of Nations the Abyssinians are undertaking the development of their ow country.”