Michaelis tells us that the temple was never struck by lightning--the lightning, therefore, setting fire to the sacrifice must have been produced within the temple. No stone roofs or vaults are mentioned in connection with the temple or palace built by the Jews; architecture was, therefore, in its most primitive stage. The inner temple and the Holy of Holies were entered through folding-doors. The Holy of Holies was entirely empty, symbolic of the incomprehensibility of the nature of the Deity. This was also the case in Egypt with the ‘sekos,’ which was, in fact, a shrine either quite empty, or containing a scroll, on which were written the words: ‘I am that was, that is, and that shall be.’ Two courts surrounded the temple, an inner and an outer court. The outer court was open to every Jew, but the inner court to the priests only. The former was surrounded by a double row of pillars overlaid with cedar-wood. It is said that Solomon had valleys filled up in order to make the concrete subconstruction of the length even. Each side of the outer wall surrounding the whole temple was 4 stadia or 1 stadium (606 feet 9 inches English) in length, giving 2,427 feet all round. The pillars Jachin and Boaz stood on the staircase of the inner court; each was 36 feet in circumference, 54 feet in height without the capital, which was 15 feet high. The shafts were hollow and the brass 4 inches thick. On the south-eastern side stood the round brass basin, called the sea, 30 feet in diameter, in which the priests used to wash their hands. Besides the ‘sea,’ there stood on pedestals on either side of the temple five cups, 12 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The altar of the burning sacrifice, in the middle of this space, was 60 feet broad and as many feet long; all these secondary necessaries of the temple stood in the east. The surrounding courts rose in terraces like those of the palace of Persepolis. The temple, whatever its magnificence might have been in precious stones, gold, silver, carved cherubim, brass and silver vessels, washing-basins and candlesticks, was architecturally an utter failure, whether compared with the monumental temples of Egypt, the grand and splendid palaces of Assyria, Babylon, or Persepolis, or the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The latter, which was built on a marsh, that it might not be endangered by earthquakes, was 425 feet in length and 220 in width, and had 127 columns 60 feet high, each the gift of a king. This is the account given by Pliny, who, however, describes either the seventh or eighth temple. Stable as was everything in religious matters with the Jews, they did not venture in rebuilding their temple to make any alterations; a stone displaced, an ornament improved, might have driven their God from his chosen abode. With such ideas art is impossible. The additions made to the temple under the Romans, in order to render the building more in harmony with their