The great pyramid passages and chambers

upper Girdles were built in entire, and the bore of the passage cut through them in situ. The two roof-stones immediately above and below each of the three upper Girdles, are in themselves partial girdles, thus further calling attention to the importance of these three prominent Girdles.

469 And yet, to the casual visitor to the Pyramid, and even to the observer who keeps his eyes about him, none of this wonderful symmetry in the masonry of the First Ascending Passage is clearly visible. The joints between the stones are in most instances so close, that it is difficult to locate their exact positions, more especially as they appear to run in all directions. The first impression one gets from an endeavour to understand the system of masonry in this passage, is that it is without order. Here is the impression which Professor C. Piazzi Smyth had formed of it: ‘‘ The walls show sometimes vertical, and sometimes perpendicular-to-passage joints, and these are now and then confusedly interfered with by parts of horizontal courses of masonry. Altogether, there is smaller and less perfect masonry employed in the First Ascending Passage than in the Entrance Passage; giving the practical impression of the former being a mere necessary means of communicating between the Entrance Passage and the Grand Gallery, and having little or no symbolic importance in itself." We have reason to believe, however, that Professor Smyth latterly came to see the important symbolical significance of this Passage, namely, that it represents the Law Dispensation, the Age during which God had special dealings with the Jewish nation by virtue of their Law Covenant, even as the Grand Gallery symbolizes that Dispensation which follows the Jewish Age, namely, the Gospel Age, in which we are now living—Plate VI.

470 A quotation from the Rev. John Forbes’ Scripture Parallelism, which Professor Smyth inserts on the fly-leaf of his 2nd Vol. of Life and Work, is specially applicable to the masonry of the First Ascending Passage, though not quoted by Professor Smyth with this intention, but rather as applicable to the whole Pyramid: “In God's work of creation, amidst the rich profusion and diversity which seem at first to defy all attempts at arrangement and classification, an unexpected beauty of order and regularity are discoverable on closer examination, and all things, from the lowest to the highest, are found to be in order and number and weight.”

With much love from us all, Your loving brother, MORTON EDGAR.

233