We must grasp that their celestial and terrestrial surveys were almost a reverse process to our own, before we can venture to enquire into its details. It then becomes a much easier tangle to unravel. That a particular pyramid among so many, should have been chosen as a favoured interpreter of Divine truths, seems an unfair conclusion to the other pyramids;--that the other pyramids were rough and imperfect imitations, appears to my poor capacity "a base and impotent conclusion;"--(as far as I can learn, _Mycerinus_, in its perfection, was a marvel of the mason's art;) but that one particular pyramid should have anything to do with the past or the future of the lost ten tribes of Israel (whoever that fraction of our present earthly community may be), seems to me the wildest conclusion of all, except perhaps the theory that this one pyramid points to the future of the British race. Yet in one way do I admit that the pyramids point to our future. Thirty-six centuries ago, they, already venerable with antiquity, looked proudly down on living labouring Israel, in helpless slavery, in the midst of an advanced civilization, of which the history, language, and religion are now forgotten, or only at best, slightly understood. Thirty-six centuries hence, they may look down on a civilization equally strange, in which our history, language, and religion, Hebrew race, and British race, may have no place, no part. If the thoughts of noble poets live, as they seem to do, old Cheops, that mountain of massive masonry, may (like the brook of our Laureate), in that dim future, still be singing, as he seems to sing now, this idea, though not perhaps these words: "For men may come, and men may go, But I go on for ever." "Ars longa, vita brevis." Man's work remains, when the workman is forgotten; fair work and square, can never perish entirely from men's minds, so long as the world stands. These pyramids were grand and noble works, and they will not perish till their reputation has been re-established in the world, when they will live in men's memories to all generations as symbols of the mighty past. To the minds of many now, as to Josephus in his day, they are "_vast and vain monuments,_" records of folly. To me they are as monuments of peace, civilization and order--relics of a people living under wise and beneficent rulers--evidences of cultivation, science, and art. § 16. THE PENTANGLE OR FIVE POINTED STAR THE GEOMETRIC SYMBOL OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. From time immemorial this symbol has been a blazing pointer to grand and noble truths, and a solemn emblem of important duties. Its geometric significance, however, has long been lost sight of. It is said to have constituted the seal or signet of King Solomon (1000 B.C.), and in early times it was in use among the Jews, as a symbol of safety. It was the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, and the Pythagorean emblem of health (530 B.C.).