Year: 1873

The Recovery of Jerusalem.


The Edir burgh Revie,o has an article
on "The Recovery Of jerusalem"
briefly reviewing the results of recent
explorations in that city. The writer
thus speaks of the magnitude of Solo
mons Temple:


The skill, the art, the mighty toll,
that have been devoted to the adorn-
ment, and to the desertion, of this
most ancient place Of worship, have
been of extraordinary magnitude. The
grandest legacy of Egyptian antiquity.
the Great Pyramid, demanded, indeed,
a larger amount of naked human la
Dor; but in Moriah there is a compul-
sion of the features of Nature herself
to the service of the builder. In actual
bulk, the Great Pyramid is to the
Temple rock as five to nine, if we de-
scend but as far as the sills of the five
double gates of the Mountain of the
house. If we carry the comparison
down to the level at which the lowest
foundation of the walls is inlaid In the
rock at the angles of the inclosure, the
bulk is three times that of the Great
Pyramid. The cubic contents of the
mason's work may not amount to a
tenth part of that piled up by Souphis.
But the bill has been hOneycombed
with chambers and galleries; and the
declining part to the south covered
with vaults and arches, to which Gizeh
con show no parallel. No merely ar
tifcial structure could have so success
fully resisted the resolute efforts of the
two greatest military nations of the
ancient world to destroy its existence
and obliterate its. memory. No other
monument, long surviving the era of
Asiatic and Italian power can ever,
like the noble Sanctuary, mark by its
very ruins, the successive periods of
its glory and its fall!


If we regard not so much the evil
dence of the labor devoted to the work
of the Temple as the effect produced
on the mind by its apparent magnitude,
we may suggest the following COM
parisons. The length of the eastern
wall Of the Sanctuary Is rather more
than double that of one side of the
Great Pyramid. Its height, from the
| foundation on the rock at the south,
and near the northern angles, was
nearly third of that of the Egyptian
structure. If to this great height OF
152 feet of solid wall be added the de-
scent of ia feet to the bed of the Ke-
dron, and the further elevation of 16O
feet attained by the pinnacle of the
Temple porch. we have total height
of 426 feet, which is only 5S feet less
than that of the Great Pyramid. The
area of the face of the eastern wall is
more than double that Of one side Of
the pyramid. Thus the magnitues o.
the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem fal
exceeded that of any other temple il
the world. Two amphitheaters of the
size of the Coliseum would have stood
within its colossal gridle, and left room
to spare. The Coliseum is said to have
seated fS7, 900 spectators, and accom-
modated $4,000 more in its arena anC
passages. For such q number to have
been crammed within its circle, the
space for each person must have beer
limited to II inches by 20 inches. AL
lowing two cubits each way, or foul
square cubits for each worshiper in the
temple, the Sanctuary would have con
tanned 10000; the Chel, excluding the
Priests Court, 10000 more, and there
would yet have been room in the Great
Court and the cloisters TO make the
total reach to more than 100000.