The Penn's Grove record., 1891-10-30
REV. DR.. IALNAGES SERMON.
The Bl,ooEIyE D,vipe's Sunday
Sermon.
s-uaeos:xsaH1xn6Sx@ the pyra.
mids."

TEXT: I'm that day shall there BE- an
altar to the Lord In the midst of the land
Of to tie Lord. And ft shall b for a ssqn
and for a spitnsss."-1saiah xix, 10, 90.
Isaiah no doubt here refers to the great
pyramid at Gixeh, the chief pyramid Of
Egypt The text speaks Of . pillar in Egypt.
and this is the greatest pillar ever lifted;
and the text says II is to be at the border Of
the land, and this pyramid IL ct the border
a witness and the object Of this sermon d TO
tell whatthfs pyramid witnesses. This SER
mon Is the first OF . course Of sermons en-
titled, From the Pyramids TO the Acropolis,
or What I saw in Egypt and Greece Con-
firmatory Of the Scripturss.n
We had, on a morning Of December, 1885.
landed in Africa. Amid the bowling boat
men At Alexandria we had come ashors and
taken the rail train at Cairo Egypt, along
the banks Of the most thoroughly .harnessed
river Of all the world--the river Nile. We
had at eventide entered the city Of Cairo, the
city where Christ dwelt while staying in
Egypt during the Herodic persecution. It
angel sweeping through rs onca. but all the
stars were out. and the sky was nllsd with
angels Of beauty and angels Of Hight, and the
air was balmy as an American June. The
next morning We were early awake and at
the window, looking upon the palm trees In
full glory Of LEAKAGE, n upon gardens Of
fruits and flowers at the very season when
skies and the last leaf Of tho forest has gone
down in the equinoctia1s.
But how can I describe the thrill of e1-
! p~ectation. for to-day we are to see what all
the world has seen or wants to see-the
pyramids. We are mounted for an hour
: l-YD.-sl- -r-sl l-----
stuffed with u and carpets, and curious
fabrics Of all sorts from Smyrna, from Al
giers, from Persia, from Turkey, and through
streets where we meet people of all colors
and all garbs carts loaded with garden pro-
auctions, priests In gowns, women in black
wells, Bedouins In long and seemingly super
tiuons apparel, Janissaries In Jacket Of EN-.
pyramid, for though there are ~sixty-nine
pyramids still standing, the pyramid at Gizeh
Is the monarch Of pyramids. We meet
! camels granting under their loads, and see
buffaioes on either side browsing in pasture
fields.
The road we travel is for part Of the way
under clumps OF acacia and BY long rows OF
sycamore and tamerisk, but after awhile IL
is q path Of rock and sand, and we find WI
have reached the margin of the desert, the
great Sahara desert. and we cry out to the
great dragoman as we see a huge pile of rock
looming in sight, .'Dragoman, what n thatf'
His answer Is, THE pyramid" and then #
minute. Our thoughts and emotions were
too rapid and intense for utterance, and we
ride on In silence until we come to the foot
of the pyramid spoken of In the text, the
oldest structure In all the earth-four thou
SAND years old at least. Here 1t ia We stand
under the shadow OF q structure that shuts
out all the earth n all the sky, and we look
| nm and strain o1rr vteion IN appraciata the
distant top, and are overwhelmed while We
cry, 1.-THE Pyramid The pyramidf'
Each person in our party had two or three
| guides or helpers. One OF them unrolled his
turban and tied il around my waist and he
held the other end of the turban as a matter
Of safety. Many of the blocks of stone are
four or Ave teet high and beyond any ordin-
airy human stride unless assisted. But, W
Arabs to pull and two Arabs to push, l found
myself rapidly ascending from heighth to
heighth. and on to attitudes terrific, and at
last at the tiptop we found ourselves on a level
space Of about thirty feet square. Through
c~learest atmosphere we looked of upon the
desert, and of upon the winding Nile, and
of upon the Sphinx, with its features of
everlasting stone, and yonder upon the min
arsts of Cairo glittering in the sun, and yon.
der upon Memphis in ruins, and on upon the
| wreck Of empires and the battlefeldso of ages
q radius Of view enough to 6ll the mind aud
BLUR II ucA V0s anu hoAt NV
being.
After looking around for awhile. and .
kodak had pictured the group, we descended.
Tn descent was more trying than the
ascent, for climbing you need not see the
depths beneath, but coming down it was I'M
possible not to see the abysms below. But
two Arabs ahead to help Us down, and two
Arabs to hold US back, we were lowered.
hand below hand, until the ground was in
willingly near, and amid the jargou of the
Arabs we were safely landed. Then came
one Of the most wonderful feats OF daring
and agility. One of the Arabs solicited a
dollar, saying he would run up and down
the pyramid in seven minutes. We would
rather nave given him q dollar not 70 go,
but this ascent and descent in sevsn minutes
he was determined on, and so by the watch
In seven minutes he went to the top and was
back again at the base. 1t was q bloodcur-
ding spectacle.
was gray, but in certain lights it seems to
shake off the gray OF centuries and become
q blond, and the silver turns to the golden.
1t covers thirteen acres of ground. What
an antiquity 1t was at least two thousand
years old when the baby Christ was carried
within sight Of it BY His fugitive parents.
sosepn n Mary. The storms Of forty oen-
turtles have drenched II. bombarded Ia
Swallowed 1t flashed upon it but there Il
stands, ready to take another forty cen.
turtles OF atmospheric attack IL the world
should continue to exist. The oldest build.
tngs OF the earth are juniors to this great
senior Of the centuries.
Herodotus says that for ten years prepa.
rations were being made for the building Of
this pyramid. Il has eighty-two million
one hundred and eleven thousand cubic feet
OF masonry. One hundred thousand workmen
atone time toiledi its erection. To bring the
stone from the quarries a causeway sixty
fQnt vida WAN h1rilf Tha 49, ----
lifted by machinery such as the world
knows nothing of to-day. It is seven hun.
dred and forty-six feet each side Of the
square base. The structure is four hundred
and fifty feet high; higher than the cathe-
drals OF Cologne, Strasburg, Rouen. st.
reters and 81. PauPs; No surprise to me
that 1t was put at the head of the seven won
ders of the world. It has a subterraneous
room of red granite called the ''king's cham.
Der" and another room called the queens
chamber, and the probability is that there
are other rooms yet unexplored.
The evident design of the architect was to
make these rooms as inaccessible as possible.
After all the work of exploration and all the
digging and blasting, IL you would enter
these subterraneous rooms you must go
through q passage only three feet eleven
inches high and less than four feet wide. A
sarcophagus Of red granite stands down I'M
der this mountain of masonry. The
%SORoS6e1 CaA IL naNo ootu CdIIltu IN
after the pyramid was built. It must nave
been put there before the structure was
reared. Probably in that ~saroophagus once
lay a wooden coffin containing q dead king,
but time has destroyed the coffin and de-
stroyed the last vestige Of human remains.
For three thousand years this sepulchrai
room was unopened, and would nave been
until to-day probably unopened had not o
superstitious impression got abroad that the
heart of the pyramid was filled with silver
and gold and diamonds, and under AL
Mamoun an e~xcavating party went 70 work.,
and having bored and blasted through q hum
drsd feet Of rock, they found no opening
ahead. and were about to give up the at
tempt when the workmen heard a stone roll
down into q seemingly hollow place, and en-
Outraged by that they resumed their work
and came into the undsrgrou nd rooms.
The disappointment OF the workmeu In
finding the s~arcophagus empty Of all silver
and gold and precious stones was 50 great
that they would have assassinated AL Ma
noun, who employed them, had he not hid
in another part Of the pyramid as much xl.
yer and gold as would pay them for their
work at ordinary rates OF wages and in
duced them there to dig till they TO their
surnrisa aanannnn adonuata rompansot ioD