THE GREAT PYRAMID—WHO JOB WAS—WHO BUILT THE PYRAMID—WHAT IT WAS BUILT FOR—AN EPITOME OF THE EARTH—THE HISTORY OF MAN CONTAINED IN IT, PAST AND FUTURE—SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE, ETC., ETC.

The wonderful discourses of the Rev. Dr. Wild, of Brooklyn, were continued last Sunday evening, before a thronged congregation in Elm Place Church. Under the organ gallery, behind the pulpit, was a representation of the Pyramid, or as the learned doctor terms it, “the stone Bible,” its massive rectangular dark stone foundation and some of the most interesting of its interior passages, chambers, and mysteries. All eyes were fastened in scrutiny upon it, well knowing that some revelation of unusual Christian interest would be made by the Doctor from it as soon as his lecture commenced. The preliminary exercises of singing by a well-trained choir and prayer were therefore impatiently listened to by many whose thoughts were concentrated on the wonders of the Pyramid and its astounding confirmation of the prophetic Scriptures. Dr. Wild read a lesson from Job xxxviii., remarking that the author of that book was also the engineering director or architectural author of the Pyramid and identical with Shem and Melchisedec. The book of Job is the oldest book in the world by 200 or 300 years. Shem, or Job, was ninety-eight years old when he entered the ark, and he lived thirty years after Abraham, with whom therefore he shook hands, as well as with Methuselah, who shook hands with Adam. Only one man, therefore, stood between Adam and Shem, and only two, or not quite two, between Adam and Abraham. The book of Berosus, of Babylon, is the only one that compares with Job in antiquity. This was the age of tradition before Moses compiled the first portions of it. In the days of Abraham, Shem was the patriarch, or oldest, of his family; and it was therefore to him he did homage, according to the patriarchal custom, under the name of Melchisedec, when returning from the slaughter of the kings. Shem had brought with him from the days before the flood much of the knowledge and wisdom which had been accumulated in the earth during the 2,000 years previous to that event, and which was swept away when only eight persons were saved in the ark. We have been told that the human race has gradually improved, and that our ancestors in far off ages were monkeys, or something of that sort, but the remains of the ruins and knowledge of antiquity show everything the reverse of this to be the truth. Look at that Pyramid. We could not build it to-day, with all our boasted science. It will bear in every respect the closest scientific scrutiny. Our greatest scientists are only beginning to comprehend the depths of its mysteries, yet it is over 4,000 years old. The capstone on top of it is a Pyramid in itself, in miniature, unlike anything of the kind or any other building on the earth. The reverend gentleman then continued to read from Job xxxviii., and shew that the writer of it was master of astronomical and geographical science and the builder of the Pyramid, which is a miniature of the measurement of the earth and indicates the history of the human race. After this preliminary dissertation he took for his text Isaiah xxviii. 29: “This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”

The Bible is a growing book, being more read and better understood as the years pass by; and as men shall increase in knowledge and power, so the Bible will gain in influence and authority. Opposition to its teaching, and vaunting denial of its authority, shall be made subservient to its interests by goading on the Church to a wiser and more noble defence and exposition of the same. No theology can levy upon the well-defined facts of science in confirmation of the sublime teachings of inspiration. The Christian student need not hold himself in timid dread for fear the scientist will discover aught in the realms of nature that will contradict the Word of God: for as sure as God is the Author of both, so surely shall we find an agreement between revelation and science at every point truly understood—increased light means increased evidence. Nations and men, nature and Providence, are united witnesses for God, and the Scriptures, and the more we know of the past, the better shall we understand the present and forecast the future. Let us recognise the future. Let us recognise the important difference between the Bible subjectively and objectively—that is, between what the Bible really is and what men think it is. Let us be free enough, bold enough, and wise enough, to claim the Bible itself. Let us unyoke it from tradition, which claims to be superior, or even equal. Let us divorce it from councils, from creeds, from sects and denominations; let us lift it up out of the ecclesiastical rut of ages. Let us with a commendable pride count ourselves worthy and able to formulate our own creeds, make our own prayers and confessions, accounting that the liberties of our fathers have been bequeathed to their children, and that the same God who gave them liberty and power is no less gracious to us, their offsprings. Traditions, councils, creeds, and degrees are worth much unto us as aids to a higher life, and a nobler civilisation. The Christian fathers, the Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes, Wesleys, and others, were our servants, as we will be the servants of coming generations. They worked grandly, they wrought well, they procured for us a goodly heritage; to them we are indebted. Yet it was not their purpose nor the design of Providence to enslave us, or to stereotype the Church for the ages to come. Increased light is increased evidence, enabling us the better to understand the Word of God. When a publisher has stereotyped a book, he is naturally loath to make any change or correction; so Churches who have stereotyped the Bible are very unwilling to change, to receive light. Hence, they are sometimes found opposing the march of a better civilisation, proving and sustaining all manner of institutions and tyrannies: the torturing and terrible Inquisition of Spain, the punishment and hanging of supposed witches by England and New England, the bondage and slavery of the South. So, to prove their creeds and systems correct, they each have a mode of their own, Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, &c. So also, theologians have often been impatient to reconcile the Scriptures with history, even to suggest mistakes in the sacred record. Instance Daniel being made the Third Ruler. They supposed it meant second, but later researches show that Babylon had two rulers at that time—namely, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar—so Daniel was made a third. See the remains of Borsippia, near Babylon (Dan. v. 29). Now we know that both Daniel and Berosus, the old Babylonian historians, were right, and the Bible was right in using the word third. God in His revelation has always been equal to man’s need. Tradition—Abraham saw Shem, for Shem lived some thirty years after Abraham’s death. Shem, and Melchisedek, and Job, are likely the same person. Certainly, Shem and Melchisedek are the same, and by Egyptian historians called Philitis. This Philitis was the builder of the Great Pyramid. Now Shem saw Methuselah and Methuselah Adam. Thus, then, tradition would be sufficient. As tradition failed, the written Word began. There is little doubt now but that Shem, called also Melchisedek, was the builder of the Pyramid, being instructed of God, as his father Noah had been in building the ark, and as Moses with the tabernacle, and Solomon with the temple, as the prophet in the text and context shows that the wisdom of the man is often the gift of God. See Moses also. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: See, I have called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the Tribe of Judah; and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship: to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. And, behold, I have given him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the Tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee” (Exodus xxxi. 1–6).

Let us look at this building, for it is a special revelation for these times. For this precise and scientific day God has provided. Science and the Bible are interlocked in 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 base—closer in approximation than Walli’s Indivisibles, or Newton’s Fluxions, or Liebnitz’s Calculus. The door of entrance was some forty-nine feet from its base, and 300 inches East of the centre, so as at once to express the tilt of the earth’s axis from the plane of its orbit, and by its height from the ground express the Precession of the Equinoxes. What a witness outwardly, when complete, of polished marble, covering some thirteen and a half acres, within and without clean and free from idolatrous marks. But God foretold the place and purpose of this huge pile through the prophet Isaiah (xix. 19, 20): “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.” Here we see the altar and pillar are one and the same, and a scientific fact is expressed when the prophet says it shall be in the midst and on the border. The position of the Pyramid is such, being at the sector point of Upper and Lower Egypt, thus being on the border of both, yet in the midst. The sector point of the arm is where the wrist joins the hand. The spreading hand represents Lower, and the arm Upper Egypt. (See on frontispiece the sector plate.)

May we ask what the pillar and witness—the Pyramid—has to say on the Jewish question, for it has not left this fact unnoticed? At the junction of the first ascending passage with the Grand Gallery, on the left-hand side, or East, there is a horizontal passage-way leading to what is called the Queen’s Chamber. This chamber is on the twenty-fifth course of masonry. Now, it is allowed, the Grand Gallery expresses the time of Christ’s advent and fulness of time—enlarged liberty. The ascending passage being only four feet high, men were cramped in passing up, but on reaching the Grand Gallery they were free, for it is twenty-eight feet high.

The passage to the Queen’s Chamber is only four feet, and is it not strange that it is altogether Jewish? This low horizontal passage terminates in a grand Sabbatic room, which symbolises the Jewish Sabbath-week, feasts, and time periods.

From this passage we learn that the Jews rejected Christ, and went off by themselves, refusing the liberty of Christ. So as truly as the coming of Christ had been forecast in this Pyramid, so had His rejection by the Jews.

The very mortar in this chamber is mixed with salt. The chamber is seven-sided. The last seventh of the passage-way sinks down, giving more room to move in. Salt was an article used freely with the Jews in sacrificing. Seven was a sacred number. The sinking of the last seventh part of the passageway floor may mean the enlarging privilege of the Jews in this latter day. Of the civilised nations, only Russia and Spain forbid them citizenship. Even Turkey admits them now as citizens.

The Jews have been represented as being blind in part. The passage-way and chamber have been difficult to explore because of foul air, there being no ventilating tubes as in the King’s Chamber.

But, strange to say, a gentleman exploring this chamber a short time ago, found two tubes by an accident in striking the side wall with a hammer. The tubes had been left entirely closed over with a thin unbroken scale. These tubes extended inward through the masonry, and into the stones forming the walls of the room, all nicely cut, but for about one inch they were not cut through into the room itself. Thus the whole was designed is evident. This thin scale no doubt symbolises the condition of the Jew. His eyes are now open, the time of his wandering nearly spent, as told by this Pyramid.

The curses foretold upon the Jews have been terribly fulfilled. So shall the blessings foretold now in reserve. It was foretold that he would reject Christ; so he did. But it is also foretold that he will yet look upon Him whom he pierced, and mourn and repent, and accept the true Messiah. Lo-ruhamah represents Lost Israel; Lo-Ammi represents cursed Judah; Ruhamah represents Israel found; Ammi represents the curse removed from the Jews. So now we must say, as the prophet Hosea long ago instructed us—we Saxons—“Say ye unto your brother, Ammi,” and you Jews, “say to your sisters, Ruhamah.”

We have esteemed the Jews as cursed; we will soon esteem them blest. The Jews have never thought we were their brethren, the descendants of Abraham. But God is revealing in this latter day His own great plan; and Christ will be the Saviour of both.

“In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, which brought up, and which led the seed of the House of Israel out of the North country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land” (Jer. xxiii. 6–8).

Glorious times are near at hand for the Church and the world. Great things hath God promised, all of which He will in His own good time bring to pass.

The very dimensions of the doorway are of thrilling import, expressing in square inches the time of the Adamic world, which, when added to other figures, forecast the time of the end, or the 6,000 years, and point out the date of the beginning of the Millennium morn, or Sabbath of the earth—the period spoken of by Daniel when he says, “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” This period we approximated in our last Discourse, and made it out to be about 1,957. The door-way in square inches is 1,949; take these inches for years, and we have, before the building of the Pyramid, of years 1949 a.m., time of building 2170 b.c., and length of Grand Gallery, 1,882, and we get a total of 6,001. This is indeed a close approximation.