the most remarkable of all instances of the literal precision of the Holy Scripture. When Mr. Henry Mitchell, chief hydrographer of the United States Coast Survey, was sent in 1868 to report to his government on the Suez Canal, he was struck by the regularity of the curve of the coast-line of the Delta. On trying the curve by his compasses on the chart, he found it to be, as nearly as could be determined, the quadrant of a circle; and, to his surprise, that the centre of the circle was on the hill at the pyramids. Hence, in strict mathematical precision, the Great Pyramid is at once at the centre and at the border of the deltashaped land of ancient Egypt.

The Scripture has repeated references to the Pyramid. In the book of Job, for example, it is used as the metaphor for the world; as, in fact, it is the microcosmos, or representation in little of the Kosmos. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations" (sockets) "thereof fastened? Who laid the corner-stone thereof?" The corner-stone is the chiefstone, the single cope-stone which is the crown and summit of a pyramid, and of no other structure. In the rock on which the Pyramid stands sockets were cut, one at each angle, in which were nicely fitted the four angle skuebacks of the fine limestone facing which covered the whole of the vast structure, and concealed the coarser, softer stone of which the mass is composed.

The familiarity of the writer of the book with the whole design of the structure is again indicated by his reference to the constellations, by which the directions of the adits and great gallery were determined, and by which the precise date of the building is astronomically demonstrated. Sir John Herschel first showed that the entrance-adit points to the ancient position of a of Draco, when that star was the pole-star; and he deduced the approximate date of 2160 B.C. But subsequent closer investigation showed that the adit points to the lower culmination of that star when it was near the pole. This led to the discovery that there was a combination of at least three elements which determine the date, the threefold coincidence of a Draconis below the pole, Pleiades on the meridian above, and the equinoctial point also on the meridian. The date thus deduced is 2170 B.C. We shall presently see that this very date was afterwards found to be actually recorded in the structure itself; that, indeed, to record this date was the chief purpose for which the Pyramid was built.

The cope-stone, the chief corner-stone, is the pre-eminent type of Messias. Our" brother" Paul, the "wise master-builder," saith-" Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Corner-stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth to an Holy Temple in the Lord." And Peter also, citing the word of the Lord by the prophet Isaiah,-" Behold, I lay in Zion a Chief Corner-stone, elect, precious," goes on very minutely to say, "Unto you who believe, precious; but unto them who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected" (because of its pointed form-impossible to work into any course") "the same is made the Head of the Corner" (the word by the prophet David.)

Doubtless, it must seem passing strange at this time of day for any to have the courage to declare that, more than 4,000 years ago, this structure was set up under the Divine direction; and that its mystery was ordained to be "closed up and sealed until the time of the End," when now it is being manifested as the "Sign, and the Witness to the Lord of Hosts," spoken of by the prophets. Passing strange, for them who, on the one hand, are saturated by the imbecile "oppositions of science falsely so-called" (as Paul saith), and for them, on the other hand, who, pretending to read the Scripture with faithful reverence, nevertheless read it with vacuous and unccuched vision.

On other occasions, I have tried to expose, with a proper and becoming severity, the pretensions of what is now palmed upon the multitude as "science." I ask you to distinguish between the solid and irrefragable facts, which are the splendid and welcome harvest of careful and arduous investigation, and the ill-considered, half-digested, entirely illogical, and, strictly speaking, altogether unscientific hypotheses which are sought to be founded on the facts, but by which the facts are contorted, displaced, or hidden out of sight in a "blue mist" of subjective excogitation. I ask you to hold hard by the facts, and to resist the enticement of the rhetorical pyrotechny, the tricks of sophistry, the intellectual gymnastic, by which the real significance of the facts is conjured away and obscured. The most cursory conversance with the history of scientific investigation must show you, at once, the marked contrast between the tone and spirit of the professors of our day, and the tone and spirit of the philosophic men of past generations; men of the calibre and genius of the two Bacons, the priest and the Chancellor, Kepler, Newton, Descartes, Laplace, Buffon, Davy, Brewster, Faraday. There were giants in those days, in comparison with whom the Philistines of to-day are puny and weak-backed. For the men of to-day, as Paul saith, "there is no fear of God before their eyes." The men of the past were not so. By the very humility of their submission to the Supreme it was, that they were permitted to achieve such conquests as have made true science possible for us to-day.

If you will turn again to the Scripture, you will be surprised to find the extraordinary and unexpected contrast, the persistent antithesis, which is set up between mere knowledge of the head, mere human wisdom, and the wisdom of the heart, a wisdom specially defined as the gift of God. "Who hath put Wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given Understanding to the Heart?" Again Shem, in the book of Job, saith, "Whence cometh Wisdom? Where is the place of Understanding? God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof. And unto man He saith, Behold, the fear of the Lord, THAT is Wisdom." And Paul saith, "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Hence, He "hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; "That no flesh should glory in His presence." Then Isaiah saith, "He maketh the diviners mad, turneth the wise aback, and maketh their knowledge foolish." And "forasmuch as this people (that is, Israel) "have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men" (even that the Lord will not suffer), "therefore,

behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work and a wonder among this people; for the wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men be brought to nought." Whereupon Paul again cries, "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God."

As, from the beginning, the Most High knoweth the thoughts of men, He foresaw that in these "last days" their wilful, wayward self-sufficiency would grow in impious audacity, until false science in its opposition would lift its hand against the testimony of the Divine Scripture, and set up itself in the place of God. For this it was that, forty centuries ago, a monumental Sign and Witness was established to produce, in the fulness of time, the mathematical proof of the Scripture; and to confound the wisdom of this world by demonstrating that, in the earliest dawn of history, there were already set forth by anticipation the precise and accurate values and functions of the equations of the Kosmos,-those values which modern science, with all its marvellous appliances, is confessedly unable to measure with accuracy and precision, confessedly unable to do more than solve approximately. The testimony of the Witness to the Lord of Hosts is to demonstrate, and it demonstrates, the imperfection, the inadequacy, the feebleness, of science, in the face of its wild and incontinent boasting and presumption.

If it seem strange to you that a structure should be reared under the teaching and inspiration of the Lord of Hosts, that can only be because, as I said, it is with vacuous and uncouched vision that you read His word. At the building of the Tabernacle, "the Lord called by name Betsal-el, and filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, in the metals, in culting and setting of stones, and in wood carving. And He put in his heart that he might teach, both he and Ahalyab. Them He filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work. Then wrought they, and every wise-hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding." At the building of the Temple, "God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding, exceeding much, and largeness of heart." Also, Hiram was filled with wisdom and understanding and cunning, to work all works in gold, silver, brass, iron, stone, timber, in linen, also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which might be put to him."

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Let us see what the Pyramid is. One of the things it is, is that it is a fine subject for the ridicule of the "ignorant learned," a good butt for the poor jests of newspaper witlings, and toothsome for what Lord Beaconsfield calls the "hairbrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity."

On the left bank of the Nile, the side opposite Cairo, is an elevated plateau whose edge marks out the western radius of the quadrant of the Delta. At the centre of the quadrant, and on the very edge of the hill, stands the Pyramid. So dangerously near the edge is it, that a counterfort to resist the thrust of the enormous dead-weight was formed, by heaping against the northern scarp of the hill the vast accumulation of stone-dressers' chips, which Strabo wondered how the builders could have disposed of. Manifestly, if Khufu or any other man desired to

build the Pyramid merely for the sake of setting up a huge memento of himself, he would have been content to set its foundations far back on the solid rock of the plateau. There must have been a paramount reason for this singularly fine definition of site. We find that, as matter of fact, the reason lies at the root of the whole matter. The fulfilment of the complex conditions of the entire design depended upon it. On no other spot of the earth's surface was it possible to fulfil those conditions.

For example:-the structure being set up as a Witness to the Lord of Hosts, by the nature of the case its evidence must at the outset declare itself as addressed to all kindreds and tongues. Now, a very careful and unbiassed computation of the areas of the land-surface of the globe demonstrates that

1. The quantity of dry land east of the Meridian of the Pyramid is equal to that west of that Meridian.

2. The dry land north of the Latitude of the Pyramid equals that south of that Latitude.

3. The greatest meridian extension of dry land is on the Meridian of the Pyramid.

4. The greatest length of dry land in latitude is on the Latitude of the Pyramid.

Hence, not only is the Pyramid topographically at the centre and at the border of ancient Egypt, but also it is, in every sense, the geographical centre of the dry land of the whole globe; and, beyond controversy, marks out a zero of Common Longitude for all nations.

We reckon longitude from Greenwich, the Frenchman from Paris, the Russ from Petersburg, and so forth. So that not only in vernacular, but in the commonwealth of science, Babel dominates. Maps are at issue. Two captains of differing nationality desiring to check their reckoning find themselves at sea in a double sense. So it is that one of the things in practical science after which men hanker, in connection with a common system of weights and measures, is a meridian for Common Longitude. The other day, M. de Beaumont, president of the Geographical Society of Geneva, asked, "Does there exist, and can we find, a meridian which, by its position on the earth, is sufficiently determined to be taken as the initial meridian, solely on account of its natural and individual character?" He thinks he answers his own question by proposing the meridian of Behring's Straits, because it "traverses, on the one hand, the whole length of the Pacific without touching any land, and, on the other, all Europe through its centre." So that America, Asia, and Africa, with their hundreds of millions whom the Lord of Hosts hath made of "one blood," are of no account in the estimation of this wise man. This is one of the "oppositions of science falsely so-called." (I beg you to note that Paul says nothing of oppositions of science, because there is no such thing. Oppositions of science falsely so-called are what he denounces.) But here is the evidence of the Witness, the Pyramid, that forty centuries ago there was expressly indicated a first meridian which, by its position on the earth is sufficiently determined, solely on account of its natural and individual character; impinges on no national susceptibility; and is on the highway between the whole West and the whole East.

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Again, in order that the evidence of the Witness shall declare itself to be addressed to all kindreds and tongues, it must be in a language understood of all men, and which-so long as men are sane- -Babel itself could not touch. But also the evidence must be such as none-so long as men are sane-can gainsay nor resist. There is but one such language. There is but one such kind of evidence. That is the language and the evidence of concrete numerical values and abstract geometric relations, which we briefly call "mathematical proof."

The Pyramid is a vast, inexhaustible repertory of the accurate mathematical expressions of the geodesic values, in Number, Weight, and Measure, which concern the daily life and common needs of men; and of the kosmic values and ratios which teach men how the "Heavens declare the glory of God." These expressions are compassed by the simple external, and the complex internal relations of the dimensions of the structure, and its contained voids and solids. The fundamental elements of the design are

1. The length of base-side. This is 365 242 hieratic cubits of 25 pure geodesic inches (which will be explained presently). We may note, in passing, that the original base covered, therefore, an area of about 13 acres; a little larger than the immense area of Lincoln's Inn Fields to the line of the houses. But 365-242 is the accurate expression of the length of the solar year. Also the perimeter of the whole base is consequently 36524-2 geodesic inches, being at the rate of 100 inches to a day; which is an expression (as I have elsewhere demonstrated) of the Second Law of Kepler,-a planet describes equal areas of its orbit in equal times. (36524.242 is the area of circle whose radius is 107.8240, which is the mean radius, specifically defined in the Pyramid, of the Earth's orbit-that is, the Sun's distance-in terms of the Sun's diameter.)

2. The next element is, that the height of the structure is to the perimeter of its base, as the radius of a circle is to its circumference or perimeter. The relation of the radius, or of the diameter, of a circle to its circumference is incapable of precise numerical expression, because the two things are, numerically, infinitely incommensurable. Hence, the circle cannot be squared, and the popular phrase "squaring the circle" is mathematically inadmissible; and the whole matter of the Pyramid is brought into contempt with men of science-to whom its evidence is chiefly addressed-by writers whose zeal is out of all proportion to their instruction and capacity, and who talk about the Pyramid solving the "puzzle of squaring the circle." There is no such puzzle, and therefore the Pyramid cannot solve it. The ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is, for the sake of brevity and convenience of computation, represented by the Greek letter (which, curiously, is the initial of the word Pyramid). What the Pyramid does is, that it gives, by dimension and relations of dimension, 4000 years old, every imaginable variant form of expression of or its functions, with an accuracy as precise as the modern determination (the process of which is very difficult and laborious) of its value (3.14159, &c.).

3. The original height being computed from the base by 7, we advance to the next element, which is the basis on which were determined the positions of the chambers and the directions of the great gallery and the