BIBLICAL ARCHITECTURE.

5

of, you will remember, as having been instructed by Tubal Cain.

There is a great difference of opinion as to the date I have mentioned. Kennedy, in "Scripture Chronology," says there are three hundred various statements concerning it to be found. Some chronologers have calculated that it was so much as 6,984 years before our time; but Usher's reckoning, which is founded on the assumption that the Hebrew text remains correct (not corrupted, as others have supposed), will serve our purpose. I do not intend to interrupt the course of the narrative by reference to chapter and verse of authorities: that heaven-born confidingness, which, according to the poets, belongs to your sex, and is one of its holiest charms, will enable you to receive my statements without proof. Let me here say, too, that if I tell you much that you know, it will not be because I believe you ignorant of it, but for the sake of connection in the story.

The pursuits of the people, I said, regulated the nature of their habitations. Those who sought sustenance from the cultivation of the land, remaining stationary, would seek to appropriate natural hollows and caverns, and ultimately to form them; or would pile up such materials as the situation might afford to make a substantial place of refuge; whereas those tribes who pastured flocks (nomadic you would term them), and were consequently compelled to change their quarters as food began to fail, would make use

of temporary or more portable constructions. Thus, where we find it recorded that Jabal "was the father of such as dwell in tents," it is added, "and of such as have cattle." This point we shall see further developed in tracing the progress of various nations.

The ark built by Noah is described as a structure of considerable size and importance. It was divided into three stories, and was no less than 300 cubits long (say 450 feet), 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high,-dimensions which show an attention to proportions somewhat singular, one-sixth of the length being taken for the width, and one-tenth of it for the height. This we will call 2,348 years before Christ.

When the ground was dry, Noah left the ark, and, as his first act, built an altar. Although not mentioned previously, altars had evidently been in use before this time, and may be regarded as the germ of all religious temples. This is worth noticing. A pavement about the altar for the sake of cleanliness, and then a slight inclosure of upright stones around that, as a protection, would be easy additions, and yet would require very few further steps, so far as arrangement is considered, to result in the temples of the Druids, the Egyptians, or the Greeks. This will be more evident to you hereafter.

In our notice of what may be called Biblical Architecture, we must not overlook stones of memorial. Josephus relates that Adam, having prophesied the universal deluge, the children of Seth erected

STONES OF MEMORIAL.

two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone, whereon they engraved memorials of their discoveries and inventions, for the benefit of after-ages. Not to dwell on this statement, however, Jacob, after his dream of the ladder reaching to heaven, set up "for a pillar" the stone on which he had rested his head, poured oil on the top of it-thus consecrating it, and said: "This stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house." He therefore called the place Beth-el; and it is interesting to find that cromlechs in Ireland, and many single stones in Cornwall, attributed to the Phoenicians, retain the name Bothal. It was in use, too, amongst the Greeks.

Again, when Jacob and Laban were covenanting one with another, "Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar;" and further, said to his brethren, "Gather stones; and they took stones and made a heap." When God communed with Jacob and called him Israel, Jacob again raised a pillar; and then when Rachel died, he set up a pillar on her grave. Here, you see then, we have a pillar raised, as an offering to God, in witness of a compact between men, and as a sepulchral monument.

About 200 years later, 1491 B.C., Moses, after receiving the divine message, built an altar under the hill, with "twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel." And in Joshua it is recorded, that the children of Israel took twelve stones out of Jordan (the number of the tribes), and pitched them in

Gilgal, and that Joshua set up twelve other stones in the midst of Jordan, to commemorate passing the waters (1451 B.C.). The place was called Gilgal, to keep in memory that God had that day rolled away from the children of Israel the reproach of Egypt. The term Gal, or Gil (signifying a wheel), is doubled, the linguists say, to convey a more perfect notion of the action.

It may be called a curious circumstance that near Urswick, in Furness (Lancashire), there are the remains of what is apparently a Druidical circle, the interior of which is divided into several compartments by curved walls, with a small circular inclosure in the centre like the nave and spokes of a wheel. Fig. 1 is an outline of its form, looking down upon it. The diameter of this curious relic, which is known in the neighbourhood, I understand, simply as "Stone Walls," varies from 350 to 315 feet.

Fig. 1.

Several hundred years later than the time of Joshua, Absalom, it is recorded, having no son to keep his name in remembrance, "reared up for himself a pillar, and called it after himself." The heap of stones, like that formed by Jacob and his brethren, just now referred to, and the simple mound of earth, have been used as monumental memorials from those early times till now, and are found in all parts of the world.

Greece, Italy, America, England, present numerous examples of barrows (as these mounds are called), of all sizes. The sepulchre of Alyattes, father of Croesus, which is in the plain of Troy, had a basement of immense stones, on which was raised an enormous mound of earth, having five termini on the summit, with inscriptions. Herodotus, who says this monument was second to none but those of the Egyptians and Babylonians, states that the circumference of the mound (of which remains are still to be seen), was equal to more than half a mile.

It will occur to you, I have no doubt, to notice how generally buildings in honour of the dead have outlasted those erected for the use of the living. Shakspeare's clown in "Hamlet" inquires who builds stronger than the mason, the carpenter, and the shipwright; and answers, the gravedigger-for his dwellings last till doomsday. In the particular instance of which we are speaking, reared by the wealthiest monarch of the East, in the renowned