(b) _The Holy of Holies_, separated, as we have just said, from the Holy Place by a costly veil supported on a screen of 4 pillars, formed _a perfect cube_ of 10 cubits in length, breadth, and height. While the Holy Place, though never penetrated by the daylight, was illumined by the splendid Golden Lamp, the Holy of Holies was left _in utter darkness_, symbolical of Him whom _no man hath seen, nor can see_ (1 Tim. vi. 16). Within this most sacred enclosure neither priests nor people as a body, but the High-Priest only, and that but once a year, ever entered. Here stood nothing but the ARK _of the Covenant_ (Ex. xxv. 10–16). This was an oblong chest of acacia-wood overlaid with the purest gold within and without, 2½ cubits in length, 1½ in breadth, 1½ in height. It stood on 4 small feet, which were provided with 4 golden rings, through which staves of acacia-wood overlaid with gold were passed, and which when once inserted were never to be removed. Within it were placed[80] the two stone tables, on both sides of which the Decalogue had been inscribed. Round the top ran a crown or wreath of pure gold, and upon it was the _Mercy-Seat_, of the same dimensions as the Ark, made not of wood overlaid with gold, but entirely of pure gold. At either end of the Mercy-Seat rose two golden Cherubim, with outspread wings and faces turned towards each other, and eyes bent downwards, as though desirous _to look into_ its mysteries (1 Pet. i. 12). Neither their size nor their form are distinctly described. By some they are thought to have been handed down by patriarchal tradition from those which were placed in Paradise (Gen. iii. 24); by others to have resembled Egyptian models; while Josephus (_Ant._ III. vi. 5) declares that they resembled no figures known to men, and that in his day their form was utterly lost. In Ezekiel (i. 5–13) we find them likened to compound figures with the head of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle, with four wings, two serving for flight, two to cover the body, and straight feet inflexible at the knee. It is not improbable that they represented the manifold powers of nature――created life in its highest form――their overshadowing wings meeting as in perfect harmony, their eyes cast downwards towards the Divine Law, over which seemingly so rigid and unbending was the compassion of ONE _forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin_[81]. NOTE. HISTORY OF THE TABERNACLE. SUCH was the Pavilion-Temple which Moses constructed _according to the pattern shown him in the Mount_. The chief facts connected with its history are as follows.