The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-01-18

sons plumO-llue measured Its ErSt
wall, or architects compass swept its
first circle.
The Tai has sixteen great arched
windows, four at each corner. Also at
each of the four corners of the Tai
stands a minaret one hundred and
thirty-seven feet high. Also at each
side of this building is a splendid
mosque of red sandstone. Two hun
dred and fifty years has the Tai stood,
and yet not wall is cracked, nor a
mosaic loosened, nor an arch sagged,
nor panel dulled. The storms OF
two hundred and fifty winters have
not marred, nor the heats of two hun
dred and fifty summers disintegrated
a marble. There is no story OF
age written by mosses on its
white surface. Montaz, the queen,
was beautiful, and, Shah Jehan, the
king, here proposed toilet allthe cen
turies of time know it. She was mar
ried at twenty years ofage and died at
.twenty-nine. Her life ended as an
other life began; as the rose bloomed
the rose bush .perished. To adorn this
dorrnitory of the dead, at the command
of the king Bagdad sent to chis build
ing its carnelian, and Ceylon its lapis
lazuli, and Punjab its jasper, and Per-
sia its amethyst, and Thibet it's tur-
quoise, and Lanka its sapphire, and
Yemen its agate, and Punah its
diamonds; and blood-stones, and sar-
donyx, and chalcedony, and moss
agates are as common as though they
vine beset with, eighty, and another
with one hundred stones. Twenty
thousand men were twenty years in
building it, and, although the labor
was slave labor, and not paid for, the
building cost what would be about
sixty million dollars of our American
money. Some of the jewels have been
picked out of the walls by icono-
clasts or conquerors, and substi-
tutes of less value have taken
their places, but the vines, the
traceries, the arabesques, the span
drels, the entablatures are so won
drous that you feel like dating the
rest of your life from the day you first
saw them. In letters of black marble
the whole of the Koran is spelled out
in and on this august pile. The king
sleeps in the tomb beside the queen,
although he intended to build a pal
ace as black as this was white on the
opposite side of the river for himself
to sleep in. Indeed, the foundation
of such metropolis of black marble
is still there, and from the white to
the black temple of the dead bridge
fn hut hn Inf
him and imprisoned him, and it is won
derful that the king had any place at
all in which to be buried. Instead of
windows to let in the light upon the
two tombs, there is a trellis work of
marble. marble cut so delicately thin
that the sun shines through it as easily
as through glass. Look the world over
and find so much translucency; cano-
pies, traceries, lace work, embroideries
of stone.
But I thought while looking at that
palace for the dead, all this construct
ed to cover handful of dust, but even
that handful has probably gone from
the mausoleum. How much better it
would have been to expend sixty mil
lion dollars, which the Tai Mahal cost,
for the living. What asylums it might
build for the sick, what houses for the
homeless! What Improvement our CEN
tury has made upon other centuries in
lifting in honor of the departed me-
mortal churches, memorial hospitals,
memorial reading rooms, memorial
BY all possible means
let Us keep the memory of departed
loved ones fresh in mind, and let there
be an appropriate headstone or monu-
ment in the cemetery, but there is a
line between reasonable com
and wicked extravaganza.
The Tai Mahal has its uses as archi-
tectural achievement eclipsing all
other architecture, but as memorial
of departed wife and mother
it expresses no more than the plain
est slab in many country grave
yard. The best monument we can
any of us have built for us when we
are gone is in the memory of those
whose sorrows we have al1eviated, in
the wounds we have healed, in the
kindnesses we have done, in the igno-
rance we have enlightened, in the re-
creant we have reclaimed, in the souls
we have saved! Such a monument is
built out of material more lasting than
marble or bronze, and will stand amid
the eternal splendors long after the
TAI Mahal of India shall have gone
Down in the ruins of world of which
It was the costliest adornment. But /
promised to show you not only a tomb
IF India, but a unique heathen temple,
Ind 1T is temple underground.
And now we come near the famous
temple hewn from one rock of porphy-
y at least eight hundred years ago.
On either side of the chief temple is a
chapel, these cut out of the same stone. |
SO vast was the undertaking, and to |
,he Hindoo was SO great the human |
that they say the gods |
,cooped out the structure from the |
.ock, and carved the pillars, and hewed |
is shape into gigantic idols, and dedi- |
,ated it to all the grandeurs.
We climb many stone steps be- |
'ore we get to the gateways. The en-
rance to this temple has sculptured /
ioorkecpers leaning on sculptured |
lewis. How strange! But have seen
loorkeepers of churches and audi |
'orlufnS VINO seemed 10 De leanlng on /
he demons of bad ventilation and as
,hyxia. Docrkeepers ought to be |
Gaming on the angel of health, and
comfort, and life. All the sections and |
anitors of the earth who have spoiled |
ermons and lectures, and poisoned the
ungs of audiences by ineficiency
,ught to visit this cave of Elaphanta
md beware of what these doorkeepers
re doing, when instead of leaning on
he eelic they lean on the demoniac.