The Temple

“ He waves his magic wand, and the halls of the temple extend themselves through the immeasurable; a perspective of pillars spreads from century to century up to the dark gray era of the past, where first the fountain of life gushes up, and where suns and stars, coming forth from the womb of nothing, begin their course. ”

“ The Temple itself, that fair incarnation of the soul of an unconquerable Faith, and the first fruit of the Plan now set in motion, stands in its silent beauty, ready to reinforce the strenuous endeavors of its prosecutors. Towering in grandeur and resplendent in its majesty it calls aloud incessantly for a greater, a far greater number of pioneers who, both at home and in foreign fields, will scatter to sow the Divine seeds and gather the harvest into its gates. ”

“ As they gain the summits of the distant hills, and catch a view of the Temple, they burst into shouts of joy, they prostrate themselves upon the ground, they break out into hymns of praise. The air seems burdened by the noises that unceasingly ascend ”

“ Shall the temple of our thought be a public arena where the most trivial affairs of the market and the gossip of the tea-table is discussed,—a dusty, noisy, trivial place? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, a place consecrated to the service of the gods, a hypæthral temple? I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my mind with the most insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. ”

“ It is fine to see the sunrise on the front of the great temple; but something still finer takes place on certain mornings of the year, in the very heart of the mountain. As the sun comes up above the eastern hill-tops, one long, level, beam strikes through the doorway, pierces the inner darkness like an arrow, penetrates to the sanctuary and falls like fire from heaven upon the altar at the feet of the gods. ”

“ AFTER THREE DAYS.
[Written after visiting Holman Hunt's picture of 'Christ in the Temple.']
I stood within the gate
Of a great temple, 'midst the living stream
Of worshippers that thronged its regal state
Fair pictured in my dream.
Jewels and gold were there;
And floors of marble lent a crystal sheen
To body forth, as in a lower air,
The wonders of the scene.
Such wild and lavish grace
Had whispers in it of a coming doom;
As richest flowers lie strown about the face
Of her that waits the tomb. ”

“ Ay, they do say so, the hirelings that foul with their feet the water whence the flock should drink: ‘we are the people, and wisdom shall die with us!’ ‘The Temple of the Lord are we!’ But the Temple of the Lord is larger, and wider, and higher, than their poor narrow souls. ”

“ Once arrived at this place, the clouds of driving spray are a little thinner, and, though it is still very difficult either to see or breathe, the magnificence of the temple, which is here formed by the natural bend of the cataract and the backward shelve of the precipice, makes a lasting impression on the mind. The temple seems a fit and awful shrine for Him who "rides on the wings of mighty winds," and, completely shut out from man's puny works, the mind rises naturally in adoring contemplation to Him whose voice is heard in the "thunder of waters." ”

“ If they are entering the city for the first time and crave exceeding virtue, they approach the great temple on the hill by lying face down at every step and beating their foreheads upon the ground. Wooden shrines of dazzling whiteness stand in quiet streets or cluster by themselves behind the temples. ”

“ The temple before us was a large open court and deep vaulted chamber, massive and elaborately carved, and chiselled from the heart of the mountain itself, and rising up nearly a hundred feet. There were many other temples in the hillside, with doorways, arches, pillars, windows, galleries, and verandahs, supported by solid stone pillars filled with figures of gods and goddesses, heroes, giants, birds, beasts, and reptiles of every shape—quite enough to baffle the most careful student in anything like a thorough examination of their vast and intricate workmanship. ”

“ There is a temple on a City wall in a country of sand and low scrub, gray with dust. The Temple is beautiful with its outlook on the sea of sand, and the little earth holes of water where the women dig in the sand. It is a Temple to a woman. ”

“ The temple wherein is offered the perpetual sacrifice of the victim of expiation is a visible profession of faith. The most grand and characteristic expression of the architecture is displayed in the imitation which man fabricates of that temple of the universe which was built by the hands of God. And as its solidity typifies the duration which every one attributes to true religion, so it outlives the hands which raised it up. ”

“ Then you have only to stroll and stroll and gaze and gaze; to watch the glorious altar-canopy lift its bronze architecture, its colossal embroidered contortions, like a temple within a temple, and feel yourself, at the bottom of the abysmal shaft of the dome, dwindle to a crawling dot. ”

“ This temple is too small; it is a kind of sublime plaything of art. It is not a monument for the gods; nor even for men for ages. I felt but one instant of ecstacy, and that was when, seated at the western angle of the temple, on its last steps, [Pg 105] my eye embraced, at one glance, the magnificent harmony of its forms, the majestic elegance of its columns, the empty and more sombre space of its portico; and on its internal frieze, the combats of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ ”

“ No sooner are you inside the great red gateway of the temples than you are in the world of fairy-tales. For temple 39after temple opens up before you, low fantastic structures, on which Oriental imagination has run riot in colour and form. You are bewildered by the innumerable courtyards of stone lanterns, the paraphernalia of drum-tower and bell-tower, fountain and dancing-stage, which surround them. You are sobered by the dark groves between the temples, which contain the tombs. ”

“ This temple is an image of the infinite, and there is no limit to the sentiments to which it gives birth—to the ideas which it revives—to the immense quantity of years which it recalls to our reflection, either of past or future ages; and on quitting its walls we seem to pass from celestial thoughts to worldly interests, from the eternity of religion to the atmosphere of time. ”

“ After groping about for an hour and a half by torchlight through those mysterious chambers sacred to the generative power of nature, of which beauty has always been one of the principal symbols, from the sting which its appearance infixes in the human soul, he issued forth filled with enthusiasm, under the influence of which he attempted to climb up to the apex of the temple. ”

“ Where white Fusiyama lifts proudly its cone,
(The snow-mantled mountain we see on the fan
That cools our hot cheeks with a breeze from Japan.)
But ours the wide temple where worship is free
As the wind of the prairie, the wave of the sea;
You may build your own altar wherever you will,
For the roof of that temple is over you still.
One dome overarches the star-bannered shore;
You may enter the Pope's or the Puritan's door,
Or pass with the Buddhist his gateway of bronze,
For a priest is but Man, be he bishop or bonze. ”

“ Gradually an open space is gained, and we come suddenly on the grand entrance of a magnificent temple, whose huge massy columns seem to give support to the whole mountain which is above. The entrance into the temple, which is entirely hewn out of a stone resembling porphyry, is by two massy pillars forming three openings, under a steep rock overhung by reeds and wild shrubs. ”

“ The great temple is of noble proportions, with an overhanging roof of enormous size but constructed on such graceful lines as to be exquisitely beautiful. But within dust reigns, while without as usual the grass and weeds grow unchecked. ”

“ One of the temples was built by two brothers and the guide tells of a tradition that these brothers, tiring of their money, decided to bury it, but on digging in the earth they found more, and considering it a gift from the gods, built this temple. The buildings are not large, and seen from the outside are disappointing, but once within one marvels at the richness of the carving. The pillars and vaulted ceilings are of the purest white marble, brought from no one knows where, and every inch of the surface is covered with figures of gods, human beings, animals, fowls and flowers. ”

“ Wondering she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond comparison, [Pg 105] and full—full of worshippers robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen. She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord! An electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above. ”

“ The temple in antis must also in some degree be deficient in richness, and I know no temple of this sort which has been much admired; but the prostyle, and still more the amphiprostyle, if well proportioned, will always be admitted into the rank of beautiful buildings. From almost every point of view you see at least one column gracefully detaching itself from the mass of the building, and the nakedness of the side walls contrasts with the bright lights and shadows of the ends, and claims our admiration even when compared with the higher finish of the peripteral temple. ”

“ Seeing the beauty of the temple and the mighty work that comes of aiding nature, working in unity and harmony, they also built their houses to be like the temple. Stone they used for brick, beautiful they built them within and without, and they labored to make their dwellings fit temples for the gods. ”

“ Only a moaning sound
Came from the distant sea,
It was as if, like life,
It had no tranquillity.
A warrior and a child
Pass'd through the sacred wood,
Which, like a mystery,
Around the temple stood. ”

“ How long will it take this people to build the Temple on this Block, supposing that every man and woman, and every child that has arrived at the years of accountability, will unitedly strive for its completion? ”

“ Three hundred men consecrated to the service of religion, and who can give proofs of ancient and illustrious descent, serve this temple, and present to the idol the offerings which are brought from all the provinces of the empire. They inhabit a vast and magnificent edifice, belonging to the temple, and surrounded with gardens where art has combined with nature to produce enchantment. ”

“ Raise up, then, from this Temple, the temples of the Oneness of God, that they may tell out, in the kingdom of creation, the tidings of their Lord, the Most Exalted, the All-Glorious, and be of them that are illumined by His light.
13 We, verily, have ordained this Temple to be the source of all existence in the new creation, that all may know of a certainty My power to accomplish that which I have purposed through My word “Be”, and it is! Beneath the shadow of every letter of this Temple We shall raise up a people whose number none can reckon save God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. ”

“ To complete the Temple, to clothe its naked dome, and terminate its exterior elaborate ornamentation, is the best and most effective way in which the American believers, the recipients of her untold favours, can demonstrate their fidelity to her memory and their gratitude for the inestimable blessings she showered upon them. ”

“ My continual prayer and desire are, that we may live to see a Temple built to the name of the Most High God. I feel myself honored of God and my brethren, in having the opportunity of standing here to-day, in speaking, and realizing what I have, since I came on the Temple ground. ”

“ One feels that they have done with earth; one can fancy them a band of white-robed kings and priests forever ministering in that great temple of which the Alps and the Apennines are the walls and the Cathedral the heart and centre. Never were Art and Nature so majestically married by Religion in so worthy a temple. ”

“ The Temple, like a fatherland, never loses its influence over its children. He who has lived in the Temple will return to the Temple. All things are surrendered for the Temple. All distances are traversed to reach the Temple. ”

“ Every Lodge is a Temple, and as a whole, and in its details symbolic. The Universe itself supplied man with the model for the first temples reared to the Divinity. The arrangement of the Temple of Solomon, the symbolic ornaments which formed its chief decorations, and the dress of the High-Priest, all had reference to the order of the Universe, as then understood. The Temple contained many emblems of the seasons-the sun, the moon, the planets, the constellations Ursa Major and Minor, the zodiac, the elements, and the other parts of the world. ”

“ See to it, my brother, that you lend a hand and help to rear the true temple, which is rising slowly through the ages, at which successive generations toil, and from whose unfinished glories they dying depart, but which shall be completed, because the true Builder 'ever liveth,' and is 'a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.' Above all, brethren! take heed that you are yourselves builded in that temple. Travellers sometimes find in lonely quarries long abandoned or once worked by a vanished race, great blocks squared and dressed, that seem to have been meant for palace or shrine. ”