Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-10-24

i was started al astronomer or an archl-
! tect. or mathematician worth men,
tioning Who, then, planned the pyra
mid2 Who superintendent its erectiona
! Who from its first foundation stone to
1 its capstonc erected everything3 1t
must have been God. Isaiah was right
! when he said in my text, "a pillar shall
be ut the border of the land of Egypt
] and it shall be for a sign and wit.
ness" The pyramid is Gods first
bible. Hundreds, if not thousands OF
years before the first line Of the Book
of Genesis was written, the lesson OF
the pyramid was written.
THE SIGN AND SYMBOL OF ETERNITY.
Well, of what is this Cyclopean ma
sorry u sign and witness2 Among
other things, of the prolongation OF
human work compared with the brew
I1ty of human life. In all tile four
thousand years this pyramid has only
I4lost eighteen feet in width, one side of
| its square ut the base changed only from
and sixty-four feet to
seven: hundred and forty six feet, and
/ thesnlo of that. eighteen :feetstaken
lFoffs BY architects to furnish stone for
f5building n.the city OF Cairo.
The Hen who. constructed the pyra.
mid worked at it only a few years and
then put down the trowel, and the COM
pass. and the square and lowered the
derrick which had lifted the ponderous
weights; but forty centuries has their
work stood, and it will be good for
forty centuries more. All Egypt has
been shaken by terrible earthquakes
and cities have been Frustrated OF
swallowed, but that pyramid has defied
all volcanic paroxysins. 1t has looked
upon some of the greatest battles ever
fought since the world stood. Where
are the men who, reconstructed it2 Their
bodies gone to dust and even the dust
scattered. 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 qnadrillion, forty quintillion. For
awhile we WELD the trowel, or pound
with tic hammer, or measure with the
yardstick, or write with the pen, or
experiment with the scientific battery,
or plan with the brain, and for awhile
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
pyramid. All the kind deeds or ma
levoIent deeds we do are spread out
into another layer. All the Christian
or un-Christian example we set is spread
out in another layer. All the indirect
influences of our lives are spread out
in another layer. Then the time soon
comes when we put down the iluple-
ment of toll and pass away, but the
pyramid stands.
The Twentieth century will not rock
it 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 lnodestly say, THAT
is true in regard to the great workers
for good or evil, and of gigantic gen.
fuses, Miltonian or Talleyrandian, but
not OF me, for live and work on a
small SCALE" My nearer, remember
that those who built the pyramids were
common workmen. Not one of them
could lift one of those great stones.
1t took dozen of them to lift one
stone, and others just welded trowel
clicking it on the hard edge, or smooth
ing the mortar between the layers.
One hundred thousand MEN toiled on
those sublime elevations.
If one of those granite blocks that 1
Just touch with my feet on this Decen-
Der morning in 1889, rs the two Arabs
pull Inc and the two other Arabs push
me- could speak out and tell its history,
it would say 1.-The place Of my nativ-
ity was down in the great stone quarry
of Mokattam or Asswan. Then they
began to bore at my sides, and then to
drive down great iron wedges, crushing
against me till the whole quarry quaked
and Numbered. Then l was pried out
with crowbars and levers, scores of
men putting their weight on the lever
age. Then chains were put around
me, and l was hoisted with wheels that
groaned under the weight, and many
workrnen had their hands on the
cranks and turned until the muscles Oh
their arms stood out in ridges and the
sweat rolled from their dusky fore
heads.
'.Then was drawn by long teams Of
oxen, yoke after yoke, yoke after yoke.
Then l was put on an inclined plane
and hauled upward, and how many
iron tools, and how many human arms,
and how many beasts of burden were
employed to get Inc to this place no
one can tell. Then had to be meas
ured and squared and compassed and
fitted in before was left here to do
my silent work of thousands CO years.
God only knows how many hands were
busted in getting me from my geological
cradle in the quarry to this enthrone-
ment Of innumerable ages.
AWFUL RESULTS OF LITTLE SINS.
My hearers; that is the autobiogra
ply of one block of the pyramid.
Cheops didn't build the pyramid.
Some boss mason in the worlds twi.
light didn't build the pyramid. Ono
hundred thousand men bnilt it, and
perhaps from first to last two hundred
thousand men. So with the pyramids
now rising, pyramids of evil or pyra-
mids of good. The pyramid Of drunk
enness rising ever since the time when
Noah got drunk on wine, although
there was at his time such super
abundance of water. All the saloonists