#1 Difficult to realize the conception of a great pyramid

It is difficult for a European, or an American, who has not visited Egypt, to realize the conception of a Great Pyramid. The pyramidal form has gone entirely out of use as an architectural type of monumental perfection; nay, even as an architectural embellishment. It maintained an honourable position in architecture from its first discovery to the time of the Maccabee kings (1 Mac. xiii. 28); but, never having been adopted by either the Greeks or the Romans, it passed into desuetude in the Old World with the conquest of the East by the West. In the New World it was found existent by the early discoverers, and then held a high place in the regards of the native race which had reached the furthest towards civilization; but Spanish bigotry looked with horror on everything that stood connected with an idolatrous religion, and the pyramids of Mexico were first wantonly injured, and then allowed to fall into such a state of decay, that their original form is by some questioned. A visit to the plains of Teotihuacan will not convey to the mind which is a blank on the subject the true conception of a great pyramid. It requires a pilgrimage to Ghizeh or Saccarah, or a lively and well-instructed imagination, to enable a man to call up before his mind's eye the true form and appearance and impressiveness of such a structure.