Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-06-19
SOlOmOn's Temple.

HE skill, the art, the mighty toll, that
have been devoted to the adornment, and
to the Dissertation, of this most ancient
place of worship, have been of extraordi-
nary magnitude. The grandest legacy of
Egyptian antiquity, the Great Pyramid,
demanded, indeed, larger amount Of
naked human labor; but in Moriah there
is compulsion of the features of Nature
herself to the service Of the builder In
actual bulk, the Great Pyramid is to the
Temple rock as five to nine, if we descend
but as far as the stills of the five double
gates OF the mountain of the house. If we
carry the comparison down to the level at
which the lowest foundation of the walls
is inlaid in the rock at the angles of the
enclosure, the bulk is three times that of
the Geat Pyramid. The cubic contents
of the mason's work may not amount to a
tenth part of that piled up by Souphis.
But the hill has been honey combed with
chambers and galleries. and the declining
part to the south covered with vaults and
arches, to which Gheezeh can show no
parallel. No merely artificial structure
could have so successfully resisted the
resolute efforts of the two greatest mill
tary nations of the ancient world to de-
stroy its existence and obliterate it's men,
DRY. No other monument, long surviving
the era of Asiatic and Italian power, can
ever, like the noble Sanctuary, mark by
its very ruins, the successive periods of its
glory and its fall!
If we regard not so much the evidence
of the labor devoted to the work of the
Temple as the effect produced on the
mind by its apparent magnitude, we may
suggest the following comparisons: the
length of the eastern wall of the Sanctuary
is rather more than double that of one
side of the great Pyramid It's height,
from the foundation on the rock at the
south, and near the northern angles, was
nearly third of that of the Egyptian
structure. If to this great height of one
hundred and tifty-two feet of solid wall be
added the descent of one hundred and
fourteen feet to the bed of the Kedron,
and the further elevation of one hundred
and sixty feet attained by the pinnacle of
the Temple porch, we have a total height
offour hundred and twenty-six feet, which
is only fifty nine feet less than that of the
the eastern wall is more than double that
of one side of the pyramid Thus the
magnitude of the noble Sanctuary of
Jerusalem far exceeded that of any other
temple in the world. Two amphitheatres
of the size of the Coliseum would have
stood within its colossal girdle, and left
room to spare. The Coliseum is said to
have seated eighty seven thousand specta-
tors, and accommodated TWENTY-FIVE
thousand more in its arena and passages.
For such a number to have been crammed
within its circle, the space for each per
son must have been limited to seventeen
inches by twenty inches. Allowing two
cubits each way, or four square cubits for
each worshiper in the temple, the Sane
tuary would have contained thirty thous-
and; the Chel, excluding the Priests
Court, twenty thousand more, and there
would yet have been room in the Great
Court, and the cloisters to make the total
reach to more then two hundred and ten
housand.-Ed5nburgh Re0ieeo.