The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-05-23
SoIomon,s TempIe.

The skill, the art, the mighty toll,
that have been devoted to the adorn-
ment, and to the desecration, of this
most ancient place of worship, have
been Of extraordinary magnitude. The
grandest legacy of Egyptian antiquity,
the Great Pyramid, demanded, indeed,
a larger amount of naked human labor
but in Moriah there is a 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 silIs 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 ia the rock at the an
giles of the enclosure, 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 APPLIED
up by Souphis But the hill has been
honey-combed with chambers and gal
Ieries; 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 reso-
lutte efforts of the two greatest military
nations of the ancient world to destroy
its 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
If we regard not so much the evidence
of the labor devoted to the work of the
Temple as the effect produces on the
mind by its APPARENT magnitude, we
may suggest the following comparison
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 a third of that Of the
Egyptian structure. If to this great
height of one hundred and ffty-two
feet of solid wall be added the descent
of one hundred and fourteen feet to the
bed of the Kedron; and the further ele-
walton of one hundred and sixty feet
attained by the pinnacle of the Temple
porch, we have a total height of four
/ hundred and twenty-six feet, which is
/ only ffty-nine feet less than that of the
/ Great Pyramid. The area of the face
/ Of the eastern wall is more than double
/ that Of one side Of the pyramid. Thus
/ the magnitude Of the noble Sanctury of
Jerusalem far exceeded that of any
other temple IN the world. Two am
phitheatres of the size of the Coliseum
would have stood within its colossal
pirdle. and left room to spare. The
Coliseum is said to have seated eighty
seven thousand spectators, and accom-
modated twenty-five thousand more in
+ its arena and passages. For such a
/ number to have been crammed within
/ is circle, the space for each person
must have been limited to seventeen
inches by twenty inches. Allowing two
/ cubits each way, or four square cublts
for each worshipper IN the temple, the
Sanctuary would have contained thirty
thousand the Chel, excluding the
Priests Court, twenty thousand more,
and there would yet have been room IN
the Great Court and the clolsters to
make the total reach TO more than two
hundred and ten thousand.-Edtie"
6tirgh ReUiet0.