“I DO not think that the Tabernacle was a grand building, after all,” observed Lucius, “though there is so much written about it in the Bible. Why, it was only about forty-five feet by fifteen—not so large as the chapel at the end of the town, and not for one moment to be compared to the grand cathedral which we all went to see last summer.”
“There is one thing which you perhaps overlook,” said his mother; “when the Tabernacle was raised, the Israelites were a nation of wanderers, and had no fixed habitation. Their Tabernacle was a large, magnificent tent, made to be carried about from place to place by the Levites. Every portion of it was so contrived as to be readily taken to pieces, and then put together again. This could not have been done with a building of very great size.”
“Nobody could carry about the great cathedral, or even the little chapel!” cried Elsie; “but they were never meant to be moved, they are fixed quite firm in the ground.”
“The size of the Tabernacle was indeed not great,” continued Mrs. Temple; “but, besides its being filled with a glory which is never beheld now in any building raised by man, the treasures lavished on it must have given to it a very splendid appearance. It has been calculated that the gold and silver used in making the Tabernacle must alone have amounted in value to the enormous sum of 185,000 pounds!”
Exclamations of surprise were uttered, and Dora remarked—“Why, that would be enough to pay for the building of forty large churches as handsome as the new one which we all admire so much.”
“And the new church holds ten times as many people as the Tabernacle could,” observed Agnes. “I cannot think how a large nation like the Israelites could find space to meet in such a small place, only about twice the size of this room!”
“The Tabernacle was never intended to be to the Israelites what a church is to us,” remarked Mrs. Temple. “In the warm climate of Arabia the people worshipped in the open air, under the blue canopy of the sky; no building to shelter them was required, such as is needful in England. The men of Israel brought their sacrifices to the court of the Tabernacle, where, as you already know, the Altar of burnt-offering and the Laver were placed.”
THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK.
Children’s Tabernacle.