The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 413

and the tabernacle was so constructed that it could be removed from
place to place; yet it was a structure of great magnificence. Its walls
consisted of upright boards heavily plated with gold and set in sockets
of silver, while the roof was formed of a series of curtains, or coverings,
the outer of skins, the innermost of fine linen beautifully wrought with
figures of cherubim. Besides the outer court, which contained the altar
of burnt offering, the tabernacle itself consisted of two apartments called
the holy and the most holy place, separated by a rich and beautiful
curtain, or veil; a similar veil closed the entrance to the first apartment.
In the holy place was the candlestick, on the south, with its seven
lamps giving light to the sanctuary both by day and by night; on the
north stood the table of shewbread; and before the veil separating the
holy from the most holy was the golden altar of incense, from which the
cloud of fragrance, with the prayers of Israel, was daily ascending before
God.
In the most holy place stood the ark, a chest of precious wood
overlaid with gold, the depository of the two tables of stone upon which
God had inscribed the law of Ten Commandments. Above the ark, and
forming the cover to the sacred chest, was the mercy seat, a magnificent
piece of workmanship, surmounted by two cherubim, one at each end,
and all wrought of solid gold. In this apartment the divine presence was
manifested in the cloud of glory between the cherubim.
After the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan, the tabernacle was
replaced by the temple of Solomon, which, though a permanent structure
and upon a larger scale, observed the same proportions, and was
similarly furnished. In this form the sanctuary existed—except while
it lay in ruins in Daniel’s time—until its destruction by the Romans, in
A.D. 70.
This is the only sanctuary that ever existed on the earth, of which the
Bible gives any information. This was declared

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