Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1873-04-03
The Recovery of Jerusalem

The Edinburgh Review has an arti-
Gle on ''The Recovery of Jerusalem y
briefly reviewing the results of recent
explorations in that city. The writer
thus speaks of the magnitude of Solo
mons Temple: -a
The skill, the art, the mighty toll
that have been devoted to the adOrn-
ment, and to the dissertation, of this
most ancient place of worship, have
been of extraordinary magnitude. The
grandest legacy of Egyptian antiquity,
the Great Pyramid, demanded, indeed,
larger amount of naked human Ia
Dor; but i'm Moriah there is compul-
sion of the features of Nature herself to
the service. of the builder. In actual
bulk, the Great Pyramid is to the Tenn
pie rock as five to nine, if we descend
but as far as the sills of the five double
gates of the Mountain of the house. II
we carry the comparison down to the
level at which the lowest foundation of
the walls is inlaid in the rock at the
angels of the inclosure, the bulk is three
times that of the Great 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
honeycombed with chambers and gal
leries; and the declining part to the
south covered with vaults and arches,
to which Gizeh can show no parallel.
No merely artificial structure conld
have SO successfully resisted the reso-
lutte efforts of the two greatest military
nations of the ancient. world to destroy
the existence and obliterate its memory.
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! bel. la s-..-
If we regard not so much the evil
dence of the labor devoted to the work
of the Temple rs the effect produced on
the mind by its apparent magnitude,
we may suggest the following compar-
isons: The length of the eastern wall
Of she Sanctuary is rather more than
double that of one side of the Great
Pyramid. Its height, from the founda-
tion on the rock at the south, and near
the northern angles,was nearly thi ri
of that of the Egyptian structure. II
to this great height of lo2 feet of solid
wall be added the descent of ia feet TO
the bed of the Ketlron, and the further
elevation of 160 feet attained by the
pinnacle of the Temple porch, we have
total height of 426 feet, which is only
80 feet less than that of the Great Py-
ramid. The area of the face of the cas-
tern wall is more than double that of
one side of the pyramid. Thus the
magnitude of the Noble Sanctuary of
Jerusalem far exceed that of any other
Temple In the world. Two amphithea-
ters 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 5000 spectators,
and accommodated $4,000 more in its
arena and passages. For sueh num-
ber to have crammed within its circle,
the space for each person must have
been limited to IL inches by 20 inches
Allowing two cubits each way, or four
square cubits for each worshiper in the
temple, the Sanctuary would have con-
tanned 1900; the Chel, excluding the
Priests Court, 10000 more, and there
yet have been room In the Great Court
and the cloisters to make the total reach
to more than 2l 900. tafl -.....-