The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1891-11-21

|
time.
Not in the 1000 years since the put
ting up of that pyramid has single
fact in astronomy or mathematics been
found to contradict the wisdom Of that
structure Yet they mad not at the age
when the pyramid was started an as
tronomer or an architect or mathe-
matician worth mentioning. Who.
then, planned the pyramid? Who su.
perintended its erection? Who, from
| its first foundation stone TO its cap
stone, erected every thing? II must
have been God. Isaiah was right when
he said in my text "A pillar shall be
at the border OF the land of Egypt and
it shall be for n sign and witness"
The pyramid is Gods first Bible. Hun
dreds, If not thousands, Of years before
the first line of the Book of Genesis
was written, the lesson OF the pyramid
was written.
Well, of what is this cyclopean ma
sonry sign and n witness? Among
other things, of the prolongation of hui
man work compared with the brevity
of human life. In all the 1000 years
this pyramid has only lost eighteen
feet in width one side of its squares ut
the base changed only from 764 feet to
746 feet, and the most OF that eighteen
feet taken off by architects to furnish
stone for building in the city OF Cairo.
The men who constructed the pyramid
worked nj IL only Il few years and then
put down the trowel and tho compass
and the square and lowered the derrick
which had lifted the ponderous weights;
but forty centuries has their work
stood and il will he good for forty CEN
turtles more All Egypt has been
shaken by terrible earthquakes, and
cities have been Frustrated or swallow
ed, but that pyramid has defied all vol
CAMS paroxysms. 1t has looked upon
some of the greatest battles ever fought
since the world stood. Where are the
men who constructed it? Their bodies
gone to dust and even the dust scatter
ed. Even the sarcophagus in which
the Kings mummy may have slept is
empty.
so men die but their work lives on.
We are all building pyramids not to
last four thousand years, but forty
thousand, forty million, forty trillion,
forty quadrillion, forty quintillion. For
a while we WELD the trowcl or pound
with the hammer or measure with the
yard stick or write with the pen, or eX-
pertinent with the scientific battery. or
plan with the brain, and for while
the foot walks and the eye sees, and
the ear hears and the tongue speaks.
All the good words or bad words
we speak are spread out into one
layer for n pyramid All the kind
deeds or malevolent deeds we do are
spread out into another layer. All the
| Christian or unchristian example we
set is spread out in another layer. All
the indirect influences of our lives arc
spread out in another layer. Then the
time soon comes when we put down
the implement of toll and pass away,
but the pyramid stands. The TWEEN
tieth century will not rock IL down,
nor the thirtieth century nor the one
hundredth century. The earthquake
| that rocks this world TO pieces will not
stop our influence for good or evil You
modestly say THAT is true in regard TO
the great workers for good or evil, and
a gigantic geniuses, Miltonian or Tai
| leyrandian, but not of me, for live and
work on n small scale"
NV hearers, remember that those
who built the pyramids were common
workmen. Not one OF them could lift
those great stones 1t took a dozen OF
them to lift one stone, and others just
welded a trowel, clicking it on the hard
edge. or smoothing the mortar between
the LAYERS One hundred thousand men
toiled on those sublime elevations. III
one of those granite blocks that / just
touch with my feet on this December
morning in 1889, as the two Arabs pull
me and the two other Arabs push me,
could speak out and tell its history 1t
would say: THE place OF my nativity
was down in the great stone quarry OF
Mokattam or Assawan. Then they be-
gan TO bore at my sides, and
then TO drive down great iron
wedges, crushing against me till the
whole quarry quaked and Numbered,
then ! was pried out with crow-bars
and levers, scores of men putting their
weight on the leverage. Then chains
were put around me and was hoisted
with wheels that groaned under the
weight, and many workmen had their
hands on the cranks and turned until
their muscles on their arms stood out
in ridges and the sweat rolled from
their duslSy foreheads. Then was
drawn by long teams of oxen, yoke af-
ter yoke, yoke after yoke. Then was
nut on an inclined plane and hauled
upward, and how many iron tools and
how many beasts of burden were EN-
ployed to get me TO this place no one
can tell. Then / had TO be measured,
and squared and comprised, and fitted