Babel to Be Outdone by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 27, 1874

Babel to Be Outdone.

By Uriah Smith

THE year 1876 will be the one-hundredth anniversary of American independence. A commission duly appointed by the government has been at work devising a plan for an appropriate centennial celebration. A grand Industrial Exposition, outrivalling anything in that line that has yet been undertaken, is to be held in the city of Philadelphia; and near the building of the Exposition, it is proposed to erect a colossal tower one thousand feet in height.

In the Scientific American of Jan. 24, 1874, appears an article on this subject, and an elaborate engraving of the proposed tower, behind which, to show more strikingly its altitude by way of contrast, are grouped ten of the most notable and loftiest monuments of human skill. The proposed structure is twice as high as any monument yet reared by the hands of man. “The graceful spire of Cologne’s far-famed cathedral” is 501 feet high; the great pyramid of Cheops, 480; the pinnacle of Strasburg’s minster, 468; the gilded cross on the dome of St. Peter’s at Rome, 457; the pyramid of Cephron, brother and successor of Cheops, 454; St. Paul’s in London, 365; the dome of our own capitol at Washington, 287; trinity church, New York city, 286; and Bunker Hill monument, 221. By the side of any of these, the proposed structure is like the giant trees of California, compared with the ordinary trees of the forest.

But what particularly arrested our attention in the article above referred to was a reference to the tower of Babel. “As did the descendants of Noah,” says the writer, “so propose we to do.” The builders of Babel undertook a very impious work in the face of High Heaven. They thought that nothing would be restrained from them which they might wish to perform. And, disbelieving God’s promises, they proposed also to defy his authority. God suddenly brought the race to a sense of their impotence by touching them where they had never dreamed of difficulty, and sending confusion into their speech. That enterprise met with an ignominious failure.

But now the race is ready to complete the work. Babel is referred to as the “prototype” of this modern tower. That was a pile of sun-dried clay, and had reached, it is said, when the language was confounded, only one hundred and fifty-six feet. And to that, it is thought that the proposed thousand-foot shaft, which is to be built of iron, would be a fitting contrast, “typical of the knowledge and skill which intervening ages have taught mankind.” That is to say, Now we will show how much better we can do than the builders of the tower of Babel.

We would not be understood as saying that men now engage in these enterprises with the same spirit of defiance that characterized the builders of old. Yet there is in the human race at the present day, in view of the great achievements of late years, an ill-concealed disposition of self-laudation, an assertion, almost, of omnipotence, and independence of any higher power. The virtual language of the human heart to-day is, “Nothing shall be restrained from us which we imagine to do.” And whenever an enterprise is proposed, no degree of magnitude, or apparent impossibility which the work involves, prevents it from being long and seriously considered.

Activity is commendable; and progress is praiseworthy. But when it leads to the exaltation of the creature at the expense of due reverence for, and dependence on, the Creator, it is destined sooner or later to receive as well-defined and effectual a rebuke, as was administered to the builders of ancient Babel. U. S.