aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

Egypt's catacombs and pyramids. 291
seem now like a half-forgotten dream. Starry worlds have faded;
islands have risen from the ocean; continents have disappeared; thronged
cities have perished; conquering kings have been born, ruled, died,
and been forgotten; but this Titanic monument of the desert still
stands in stately solitude. And yet nothing earthly is immortal; this
pillared pile of composite, of granite, and of porphyry is slowly, surely
crumbling. Only the undying soul, the templed pyramid of divinity
within, is eternal.
See, then, O stranger and pilgrim! that every thought,
deed, act, — each a 'living stone' placed in the spiritual temple you are
constructing, — is polished, and fitted to its place with the master's
'
mark.
"But you wish to know the purpose of this, the oldest of the pyramidal
structures. The aim was multiform. Carefully considering the
constellations, the position of the North Star, and the shadow cast by
the sun at the time of the equinoxes, it was built upon mathematical
principles, to the honor of the Sun- God thaut illumines and fructifies the
earth; built for the preservation of public documents and treasures
during
wars of invasion, and built as a storehouse for grains duiing famines
and devastating floods, with that mystic coffer in the center, as an exact
measurer for the world. A universal system of weights and measures,
a universal currency, and a universal government, were Utopian theories
of the ancients before my period of time. This pyramid was not built
by forced toil, and at a great sacrifice of life, but by gratuitous contributions,
the servants of the wealthy doing the manual labor. There are
seven granary apartments in the structure, with shafts leading from each
to tlie common granary of the coffer, now called the King's Chamber.
These shafts have not yet, to my knowledge, been discovered.
" During long rains and terrible floods, ancient Memphis was twice
swept away, — once even to its walls, with all its inhabitants, in a single
night. Convulsions of nature, and terrible floods, were then common.
Immediately after one of these, this pyramid was commenced, requiring
more than a generation in the construction. It was completed before
the great flood, and the wars of the shepherd kings.
'
' Once in my time the water rose, and rolled over the very apex of
these stones. It Y&inedi forty-five consecutive days; and, while torrents swept
down the Nile Valley from the south, stout, heavy winds from the Mediteri-anean
drove the water up the comitry, piling wave upon wave, till
this structure was completely submerged.
But, though thus buried in the
flooding waters, the treasures and well-filled granaries remained to feed,
when the waters subsided, the famishing people who had fled southward
to the hiUy country. There seems to be less water upon the face of the
earth now than then. Liquids are becoming solids, and change in every
department of being is doing its destined work. Only pyramids of
truth, constructed of immutable principles, are eternal.