Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

SECOND SECTION. The Atlanta Georgian and News SECOND SECTION. Visit to Holy City Where the Great Temple Oflce Stood. Monster Pillars Cut From Solid Stone Tell Story of Temple; was built 263 years ago. Marble and alabaster such as one could hardly dream of, red, black, green and all shades of marble Inlaid In white mar ble, the work of ages, exquisite beyond description—alabaster screens eight The sarco- By F. L. SEELY Publisher of the Georgian. I BELIE7VE every Mason asks him self or someone else the question, “Was there ever a Solomon’s tenpla and what did It amount tor* 1 spent over a week at and near the ilts and remains of Solomon's real tem ple at Jerusalem, and In the quarry wbere he got the stone for'the temple, saJ now I want to convey In picture sod story the proofs that gave me a most vivid Idea of the wonderful work Solomon did so many years ago. It Is not my Intention to Indulge In Biblical history nor dry statistics. Most of us know that the Bible, the works of Josephus, "The Explorations of the Pilgrims of Bordeaux." and other feet high like living lace, phagl or sepulchres of the ruler who built It and his wife. In whose - honor It was built, simply studded and crowded with diamonds, emeralds, ru bles, sapphires and every sort of pre cious stone and even the Koh-I-noor diamond, and this from the ruler of only one feudal state In India, al most overshadows the story of the temple. • The great DIabutsu of Japan, tha great Idol—49 feet high—one solid piece of bronze six Inches thick and hollow—. are tho 'plllars of Booz and Jachln too great to be true? No. We have seen with our own eyes the TdJ Mahat and the DIabutsu and believe. We have not seen the great temple, but we do be hove. The buildings around the temple were very elaborate and all of the white limestone found In the quarry, like the keystone I have presented to the Ua- sonlo Temple committee. Thero were hundreds of columns lining the fronts and sides of these buildings—there Is not the least doubt that the columns used by 8t. Helena In building the Church of the Nativity—and those In side tha golden gate . through which Christ entered Jerusalem—are from Solomon’s buildings. Relics of the Temple,. The Holy City abounds In relics of the great temple, and the fact that most of them ore of atone makes them as unchangeable as the rocky hills them selves, where hardly enough soil la found to. give gross to the sheep that roam. them. . The .temple;Is gone—not a stone la left, upon stone. Where the Holy of Holies stood, now stands a heathen mosque^—the mosque of Omar. The rock Is there—the pools of Solomon are on the hills. Nine' miles away great square caverns cut from the solid rocky hUl' sides—and strangely they and the great "sealed .fountain” that has been pouring Its living water Into the-pools there .thousands . of years since Solomon opened It—though It has only been'found In the last half cen tury—Is once more supplylng'the City of Jerusalem through a pipe line that follows ' the courso • of - the' old aque duct that preceded It 3,000 years. . And so we go back to the Holy City again. Many facts ami dates rolling over-and over In our minds, cherished pictures' on the delicate films of our cameras,, all In an endeavor to corrcb- Bolomon's quarry. I had to take my Interpreter with me and get permis sion from the Turkish government, which holds Palestine. They sent a Turkish soldier with me to the quarry and he stayed at the entrance until I came out. King 8olomon's Quarry. It Is like a mine with only one en trance. It la under the city of Jerusa lem and nlns -back probably 2,000 feet, ypttl the back end Is Just about under the temple Area. it having been possible to cut the stone In the quarry and bring It up to the temple Immediately over it. The quarry Is very large. Stone enough bad been taken. It seems, to build a thousand of the biggest churches one would ever see. Pillars are left to sup port the roof, which -Is the City of Jerusalem, Just as one sees In the "rooms” of a coal mine. The ancient tool marks are there In the stone, and the floor Is several feet deep In chips of atone cut away by the builders near ly 3,009 years ago, and as I went on and on In the deepest darkness I havo ever seen, guided only by candles I took with me, suddenly coming to a precipice dropping down 20 or 30 fcot rt|ht under near where the temple •toed, a faint Idea flashed ucrpss the mind as to what must have been the dlmenelons of some of the stones cut to make these depths. The broken half cut column un earthed recently, of which I took a •mp-shot, will give an Idea—It ts about ®*e feet In diameter. Solomon’s 8tables. The foundation arches shown In the picture called Solomon's stables are KING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, ITS COURTS AND BUILDINGS, 1000 B. C. The Temple Is the tall square building In the oenter of tho picture. This picture Is not entirely fanciful, as will be found by reading the story. This is a picture of the mo the real Temple, placed In another photograph of the country in which it was located, and is probably the nearest to a correct conception that has ever bean had of Solomon's Temple. Solomon's Temple. It was on a scale ot 1 to 200. He spent years building It and each building was movable. It was all-In a little stone house built to re ceive 1L -A Wonderful Model. . So authentlo and correct was It be lieved to be, that the British govern ment paid him $3,000 for a reproduc tion of It for the British Museum. I called on him and mode an engage ment for the, next day, and paid him B. C.; then on to '30 B. C„ os Herod rebuilt the tempio upon his promise that It should be even finer than Solo mon's, though ho failed to succeed In that Changes continued to take placo until wo reached tho present, and I awoke from my dream when ho eald: "This Is the temple area es It stands today," and I realized that It was Iden tical with the scene we had looked,on In reality every day since our arrival. In Old Jerusalem. Solomon's temple occupied a rectan gular elevation In one comer of the City of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, you know, Is a walled city, something less than a mile squire. A valley separates It from the Mount of Olives, about a mile away, and on the Mount of Olives, or the eastern side. In qne comer, Is tho area whero once stood Solomon's temple and the build ings connected with It. The wall around Jerusalem Is thick and high. In eome places thirty feet, a* can be seen from the picture of the Damascus Gate, and quite a lot of the city wall, especially around tho tempio part, ts that which woe laid In Solomon's time. Immense stonea eight to ten feet long and weigh ing tons upon tons. In order to get the level area on which the tempio and buildings stood, the city wall had to run up about thirty feet at the comer and be filled In, and where It was deepest, great stone-arched platforms under which were passage ways, now called Solomon's stables, supported the bulld- Thcse lofty arched - pas - tiers high. The roof was from 100 to 120 cubits high;.,It was of cpstly, stones (marble), ^ringf a .-rfhlte appoaranie. Tho floor, of the tempio was of flr planks covered with gold. The walls end celling were of cedar, • beautifully carved and overlaid with gold. Nei ther wood.nor stonocould bo seen .any where, only gold could bo seen—plain on-the-floors—and beautifully chased Into the carving on tho walls. Flowers, too,.werp. made on tho walls with pre cious stones, which David provided. The porch was lined with gold and the two great pillars "Boaz'' and "Jachln." 'which' wvro cast by Hiram,.the great .worker ■ In 'lino metals, were In one pljco. The finishings of the temple were correspondingly rich In gold and pro-- clous'stones, and are too long a story to repeat now. But I must catch the doubt.that.arises as to the possibility of tho fairylike etory of gold, gold, gold—end precious stones nnd the great pillars of solid brass. Tho Orest Taj Mshsl. At Agra India thero stands today tho Taj Mahal. Twenty-two thousand men worked ten years to build It. It wear down to n [mint that a email hole was exposed and by accident a dog fell mtc It. ' ! - r ' • H Discovery of Quarry. Investigation showed that tho quarry had been brought to light. This was merely corroboration. ; , So now wo have seen the quarry-and tho foundations. another specimen of the size, tho mass iveness of the work. There la no doubt, no chance 'for question as to the temple. Its stzo and Its beauty. Now os we nro not . going to depend extradition for our knowledge of Solo- about.the mon's Temple, let's sources from which my Information camo before we follow up the temple. We stayed at the little hotel where lives Dr. Sclah Merrill, a most learned New Englander, who was sent to Pal estine twenty-five years ago by an Dr. Merrill acts Now, as to the tem-s pie. Tho temple Itself was really tho sin gle building around which were the courts and buildings. In front of.lt we» the altar of burnt offerings. South of It was tho brazen sea, on twelve hol low oxon through whoso mouths water ran to a basin on the ground. From the court twclvo steps led up to tho two brass pillars "Boas" and "Jachln," In front of tho porch. Thero were many rooms In tho tempio and In an Inner wall was a large door leading to' the holy place, .40. cubits long, 20 wide and $0 high (a cubit Is about 20 Inches). To tha west was a cedar wall, 20 cubits high, and doors of olive wood leading to the "Holy of Holies,” 20 cubits square. Over this and the Holy Placo exploration society, as American consul, too. He happens to be a Mason, and we found him brim ful of Information and facts, and hts quarter of a century ^on the ground mode Palestine os familiar to him as one’s own home. I asked him questions—he could an swer nearly anything ono would 'ask— but the best thing.he did was to tell mo of one Scblrck, who had lived In Jerusalem over fifty years, having or some pillar, or some foundation, ltl ■ corresponded with the Biblical or other historical dimensions, showing that at no point did he have to draw on bis Imagination for his' reproduction. When we started In, the complete temple stood there In miniature—as ha talked on, 600 years passed In our Imagination, and he hod changed the [little.buildings and replaced them with 1 others, os Zorobabel rebuilt them tn 600 Continued on Next Pago. Inga above' sags’ ways, some with square and some with round supports or columns, five and six feet squart, or In diameter, are of such ^effect and mathematical'pre cision that nearly 3,000 years of duty, though they were laid without cement, has shown not the slightest change of position. These arc the unchangeable, indisputable records written In stone, that nothing but ages upon ages can And remember that destroy by dscay. we have seen with our own eyes the key to the ancient helroglyphlcs discov ered by Champolllon, where’ the same story la cut In three languages—the ancient to the Greek—opening Egyp tian history to us five thousand years back. No one doubts the sphinx being pyramids 6,000 7,400 years old, years, and we read their story In stone. How much nearer then Is. Solomon to us! 1 The quairy Itself was a sealed book, unknown except historically until A630. The* road leading outside the city wall and. along the north end of the city to the valley and the Mount of Oltyes passes the only entrance to the quarry. Centuries.upon centuries had.covered j tip this'opening or mouth of the cave 1 and not until 1610 ■ did the roadway ONE OF KING SOLOMON'8 POOLS. . - There are three of these on tho mountain side. They are dug from the rock, and were built by Solomon 3,000 years ago. , - THE DAMASCUS GATE IN JERUSALEM. One of the ancisnt gates through the city wall'of old Jerusalem, opsi hrongsd with travelers. mm "xoh. V. NO 264. ATLANTA, GA., WEDNESDAY, MAY 8,1907. ~pT>T/"ITP. In Atlanta: TWO TENTS. ITXVAAlXU. On Trains: FIVE CENT8. Ancient 7 emple of King Solomon Birth i t place of 1 ^reemasonry