this building; they agree, they testify
for the same God, yet they witness to the same Christ, the Providence and
history of His chosen people. This stone book could not be read till
now; it even takes the most precise scientific men of the day to read it.
For thousands of years there has been no one in the court of the world
able to question and interpret this witness of the Lord in Egypt. The
scientists have been asking for some other revelation than the Bible, for
the supernatural in a scientific form, for something beyond man, for
something all could see, for something that would answer to pure science,
for something that could be seen, handled, measured, tested, and amenable
to mathematics; something superhuman, for something in which the human
and the Divine blend. Thank Heaven, all they ask is granted in this
stone monument. Here we have science forecast for thousands of years;
here we have the grandest of problems in science solved, and the
sublimest phenomena of religion and science crystalised, symbolising and
teaching the most marvellous facts in religion, sociology, and astronomy.
It is not a tomb, nor granary, nor temple, but a pillar and witness unto
the Lord of hosts. Think of a few facts. 1. Its location, the centre of
the land surface of the whole earth. Hence the best zero point on earth
for meridianal and latitudinal calculations. Central to clime--here is
no rust, moss, nor frosts to destroy, nor earthquake--a well-chosen spot
for such a pillar. 2. Its form and size--symbolising the earth quantity
in its weight of five millions of tons--the freight of 1,250 of the
largest steamers leaving New York. Its shape, or inclination from base
to apex, the same as from the pole to the equator. To express this the
builder sloped in ten feet for every nine in height. On this building
the sun can shine upon the whole of it twice a year without a shadow.
This building is the most correctly orient of any structure on the earth.
It is the highest, largest, and oldest building on earth, rising to the
height of 486 feet and a fraction, which height if multiplied by ten nine
times gives the distance of the earth from the sun; or pile a thousand
million pyramids one on the other, and the last would touch the sun. As
it stood perfect it was the circle squared; for the height is the radius
of a circle, whose circumference, if divided into four equal parts, each
part would equal one of the surface sides of the ba