Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-10-29


50 by the watch in seven minutes be went
to the top and was back again at the base.
/ It was bloodcurdling spectacle.
l I said the dominant color Of the pyramid
was gray, but in certain lights it seems to
shake off the gray Of centuries and become
blond, and the silver turns to the gold.
I en-. It covers thirteen acres Of ground.
What an antiquity Il was at least two
[ thousand years old when the baby Christ
was carried wi Shin sight Of it by his fugi.
/ tive parents, Joseph and Mary. The storms
/ of forty centuries have drenehed il, bonn
barded it, Swallowed it, flashed upon it,
but there it stands, ready TO take another
I forty centuries of atmospheric attack if
| the world should continue to exist. The
I oldest buildings 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. 1t has eighty-two mil
/ lion one hundred and eleven thousand
cubic feet of masonry. One hundred thou
sand workmen at one time toiled in its
erection. To bring the stone from the
| quarries a causeway sixty feet wide was
\ built. The top stones were lifted by ma
| chinery such as the world knows nothing
of today. 1t is seven hundred and forty
| six feet each side of the square base. The
structure is four hundred and fifty feet
high; higher than the cathedrals Of Co
logne, Strasburg, Rouen, St. Peters and
St. Paul's No surprise to me that it was
put at the head of the seven wonders OF
the world. 1t has a subterraneous room
of red granite called the "king's chamber"
] IL =
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, if you
would enter these subterraneous rooms,
you must go through passage only three
feet eleven inches high and less than four
feet wide. A sarcophagus of red granite
stands down under this mountain of ma
sonry. The sarcophagus could not have
been carried in after the pyramid was
built 1t must have been put there before
the structure was reared Probably in
that sarcophagus once lay a wooden coffin
containing dead king, but time has de-
stroyed the coffin and destroyed the last
vestige of human remains.
For three thousand years this sepulchral
room was unopened, and would have been
until today probably unopened had not
Superstitlous impression got abroad that
the heart of the pyramid was filled with
silver and gold and diamonds, and under
al Mamoun an eXcavating party went to
work, and having bored and blasted
through hundred feet of rock, they found
no opening ahead, and were about to give
up the attempt when the workmen heard
stone roll down into seemingly hollow
place. and encouraged by that they re.
sumed their work and came into the under
ground rooms.
The disappointment OF the workmen in
finding the sarcophagus empty of all silver
and gold and precious stones was so great
that they would have assassinated AL Ma
noun, who employed them, had he not hid
in another part of the pyramid as much
silver 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
surprise came upon adequate compensa-
ton.
WAS THE DESIGN GODS OWN?
Iwonder not that this mountain of lime
stone and red granite has been the fascina.
tion of scholars, of scientists, of intelligent
Christians in all ages Sir John Herschel.
the astronomer, said he thought it had as
Economical significance The wise men
who accompanied Napoleon's army into
Egypt went into profound study of the
pyramid. In 1865 Professor Smyth and his
wife lived in the empty tombs near by the
pyramid that they might be as continuous
ly as possible close to the pyramid which
they were investigating. The pyramid,
built more than foGr thousand years ago,
being complete geometrical figure, wise
men have concluded it must have been
divinely constructed. Man came through
thousands of years to fine architecture, to
music, to painting, but this was perfect at
the worlds start, and God must have
directed it,
All astronomers and geometricians and
scientists say that it was scientifically and
mathematically constructed before science
and mathematics were born. From the
Inscriptions on the pyramid, from its pro-
portions, from the points of the compass
recognized in its structure, from the direc-
ton in which its tunnels run, from the
relative position of the blocks that COM
pose it, scientists, Christians and infidels
have demonstrated that the being who
planned this pyramid must have known
the worlds sphericity, and that it's motion
was rotary, and how many miles it was in
diameter and circumference, and how
many tons the world weighs, and knew at
what point in the heavens certain stars
would appearsat certain periods of time.
Not in the four Thousand years since the
putting up of that pyramid has single
fact in astronomy or mathematics been
found to contradict the wisdom of that
structure. Yet they had not at the age
when the pyramid was started an astron-
omer or an architect or a mathematician
worth mentioning. Who then planned
the pyramid? Who superintended its
erection2 Who from it's first foundation
stone to its capstone erected everything?
1t 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 Il sign and a witness" 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.
Well. of what is this Cyclopean masonry
a sign and a witnessP Among other things
of the prolongation of human work COM
pared with the brevity of human life In
all the four Thousand years this pyramid
has only lost eighteen feet in width; one
side of its square at the base changed only
from seven hundred and sixty-four feet to
seven hundred and forty-six 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 con-
structed the pyramid worked at it only
few years, and then put down the trowel,
and the compass, and the square, and low
cred the derrick which had lifted the pom
derous weights; but forty centuries has
their work stood, and it will be good for
forty centuries more.
All Egypt has been shaken by terrible