Fifty Years Hence:

OR

WHAT MAY BE IN 1943:

A Prophecy supposed to be based on Scientific Deductions by an Improved Graphical Method.

BY ROBERT GRIMSHAW.

NEW YORK PRACTICAL PUBLISHING CO. 21 Park Row 1892

Copyright, 1892, BY ROBERT GRIMSHAW.

To MY CHILDREN, Who may perchance, fifty years hence, compare these prophecies with what has then come about.

FIFTY YEARS HENCE.

FIFTY YEARS HENCE.

That portion of the public which honors me by perusing what I have been fortunate enough to learn concerning the future of the inhabitants of this planet, half a century from this Christmas of 1892, will naturally, as my name is unknown to either fame or science, wonder on what grounds I presume on so bold an undertaking; perhaps what manner of man I might be.

But when I positively disclaim any merit or virtue as a prophet, and state that I am merely by chance the medium by which a portion of the veil is torn from the future, it is enough that I describe myself, as referred to in sundry recitals, as Francis Ainsworth, of the City and County of New York. Perhaps I might add that I am by choice an electrician, by birth a Pennsylvanian, in age twenty-one, and by no fault of[8] my own still unmarried. For some years I have been endeavoring to save enough to enable me to marry my lifelong friend Estelle Morton, of Philadelphia; but as I have a family of small sisters to support out of my salary and what I can earn by extra work, the period of our engagement has been prolonged beyond the time of even our least sanguine calculations. Nearly all my evenings are spent at home, within the sound of the Jefferson Market clock; for I have chosen the Ninth Ward because it is even yet an American stronghold, because it is convenient to my place of business, and because it is better than it looks, which is preferable to looking better than facts warrant.

Once a month, however, I am sure to be at the meeting of my Masonic lodge in the Temple, at Twenty-third Street; for I feel that there I am in contact with both the living present and the dead past; and the Mystic Tie seems well worth critical study.

One evening as I was about to enter the side portal on the Avenue, a ragged newsboy offered, at more than the regular price, some “extras” containing an account of some great financial upheaval in Europe. The man by my side objected[9] to paying an exorbitant price for the hastily-issued and noisily-cried sheet, saying to his companion: “Now, if he would bring me to-morrow’s news, Trask, I wouldn’t mind paying a good round sum for it.” The auburn-haired Past Master, who is seamed with the scars of battle in “The Street,” replied, more in earnest than in jest: “I would readily pay a thousand dollars for a knowledge for what will happen to-morrow, and a million if it were exclusive.” “On that basis,” said a man ahead, who was just stepping into the elevator, “what would it be worth to know what is to happen fifty years hence?” “Oh,” said Trask, “I suppose it would be reasonably safe to offer any price at all for the performance of an impossibility; and for that matter, any one impossibility is just as unreasonable

to ask as any other. It’s hard enough to be sure of what happened fifty years ago, let alone diving into the news of fifty years hence.”

“It is not so impossible as you think,” quietly remarked a gentleman at my side, who seemed a stranger to all of the rest. “It can be done, if one has patience, judgment, time and means.”

As we meet all sorts of people in the world[10] at large, it is not unreasonable to expect a fair variety among Free Masons, who, while held to a uniform belief in certain things, and to unvarying actions in others, have the freest living, compatible with a charitable and upright walk, in all others; consequently, even so radical a remark as that, and even one so gravely uttered, exacted no comment, and scarcely a glance from any, other than one of courteous recognition that the speaker had addressed his companions.

He was a distinguished looking man, even in a Masonic temple, where men of commanding presence, men of dignified bearing, men of venerable appearance and men of philosophical habit, are by no means uncommon. Although but of medium height, his carriage was such as to give him the appearance of a tall man. His eyes were dark, full, luminous, and wide apart; the nose strong, straight and with large nostrils; the mouth small, firm and flexible. A still luxuriant head of wavy white hair, long white mustaches, and beard falling full and untrimmed upon his breast, imparted a distinguished and venerable appearance. His erect form was slender although evidently well-muscled,[11] even at his age, which seemed seventy or thereabouts. His dress was neat and inconspicuous; the materials evidently of excellent quality, although of a fashion long gone out of date.

We entered the lodge-room almost together, and like myself, he took a seat near the door.

To the work for this evening there was lent unusual interest by the presence of a Masonic celebrity, revered in two hemispheres, who had been invited to give us the benefit of the stores of learning for the possession of which he was noted, and of the wise counsel which he ever gave to those younger and less well-informed in Masonic matters.

The eloquent speaker having held us spell-bound by his masterful presentation of the teachings of symbolic Masonry, in a flight of oratory carried us back to the days and works of Solomon the King, of Hiram Abiff, and of that other Hiram, King of Tyre; and in the first great Temple which those early Master Masons builded twenty-nine centuries previously, traced for us, in form, size and position of timber and metal—in tool, and time, and work, noble lessons[12] of manhood and virtue; of brotherhood and helpfulness; of contemplation and self-restraint, until each one addressed felt that he, too, was proud of being a Free and Accepted Master Mason, and emulous of being a credit to his ancient craft.

In the building of that majestic, beauteous, mystic Temple,

His descriptive powers, his witching imageries, held us spell-bound. But at one point the speaker paused, saying that here there seemed to be something well worth knowing, but which the centuries had hidden. It was evidently replete with symbolism of highest order; but the key to its mysteries was unfortunately lost. Some day, perhaps, the light of investigation might penetrate the gloom in which the mystery was enwrapped—if, indeed, those better versed in the craft had not already solved the interesting problem.

The point referred to was one of those in which occult ratio and mystic beauty of proportion unfold on every hand new virtuous teachings.[13] It was so rich in reminder and suggestion, no matter from what side viewed, that its consideration roused the enthusiasm of all hearers.

When the speaker ceased, the quiet little gentleman next me seemed as one filled with inspiration.

In a well-modulated voice which had evidently been one of great power and beauty, he asked permission to endeavor to cast some light, however feeble, upon so interesting a subject. Something in the quiet dignity of his bearing, in the classic precision of his diction, and the graceful modulation of his voice, attracted all with more than usual force to the new speaker.

He said that in order to find the fullest measure of symbolism in this, as in other Temple mysteries, we must go further than the Temple walls and question the inner chambers of the pyramids—we must ask of the Shepherd Kings[14] what Solomon and the two Hirams told them not. The point was beautifully elucidated both in itself and in its relation to others, so that its increased richness of allusion and teaching became at once surprisingly manifest.

Evidently all present felt that a master of the mysteries of the buried centuries was among us—and in gesture and expression all asked “the old man eloquent” to continue, and to give his views upon the work of those Shepherd Kings to whom he had so appositely alluded.

So far as I can remember the facts which he laid before us, and fill up gaps in my memory, by reference to standard authorities, he spoke as follows:—

“The Hykshos or Shepherd Kings came suddenly into this land of mystery; came with a purpose, which purpose accomplished, they departed speedily. That purpose, for which they travelled so far, was to build the great pyramid, a unique, symbolic, and prophetic structure, ‘star-y-pointing,’ raised on a site chosen from the whole surface of the earth by reason of its unique, its solitary fitness. That building, type of the ever-during gates of heaven, wonderfully symbolized the mystic wisdom of its time; imperishably[15] recorded the principal facts in metrology, meteorology and astronomy, and prophetically embodied the discoveries of ages then to come. Temple and town have gone to the ground, but it has endured. It was the precursor of the great symbolic Temple of Solomon, built by the descendants of those shepherd builders, students of the heaven’s wide pathless way, and which although destroyed, could be reconstructed by the measures and dimensions familiar to our mystic craft, and recorded in that great book of symbols, the Bible.

“Now, the dimensions and rhythmic proportions on which Solomon, on which Hiram, King of Tyre, and on which Hiram Abiff builded the wondrous Temple, were enshrined in the Great Pyramid just five hundred years before.

“The Temple diagram, conceived under the starry cope of heaven, is made by drawing on a diameter of 1,000 inches, a circle, about which and in which is described a square, again a circle and a square circumscribed. The areas of the various squares and circles here drawn, equal those of the porch of Solomon’s Temple (125,000 square inches), of the holy place (500,000 square inches) and the Holy of Holies; the[16] latter of which is encircled in a nest of circles and squares and the original radius of which, five hundred inches, was the whole length of the Holy of Holies itself.

“Now let us retrace our steps through five centuries and enter the great monument of Chem, to obey the prophetic mandate of the angel to the holy St. John, and ‘arise and measure the temple and its altar.’

“In the king’s chamber the volume of a certain portion of the room equals fifty times that of the coffer—the relation of the ark to the brazen sea in the Temple. Drawing the diagram of the pyramid to a scale having as the height, the mean height of the king’s chamber (232.52 inches), the magistral line is 412.13 inches, or the length of the chambers. The base of the triangle is the number of days in a year, 365.24 inches, and the radius of that circle having an area of 365.24 inches squared, is 206.06 inches, or the width of the chamber. Constructing a pyramid triangle of height equal to the width of the chamber, the magistral line of the completed pyramid is the year number 365.24 inches—the perimeter of the base, double the two other important chamber dimensions—the[17] length, 412.13 inches, and the second height, 235.24 inches. The entire pyramid design comports with that of the chamber, and those of the coffer and of the ante-chamber, which is in fact the ante-chamber to modern civilization.

“Leave the great step at the southern end of the Grand Gallery—a yard high and a yard plus a cubit wide—and we find stretching across the ante-chamber a granite leaf, of two blocks slid in vertical grooves. On the upper of these blocks is the only ornament in the pyramid—a boss, nearly semi-circular in face—exactly an inch high and an inch in westerly displacement from the centre of the leaf. The cubic contents of this inch-high boss are one pint. Its volume of water weighs just one pound. The inch, the pint, the pound, so often changed, so often lost; restored by one method and verified after such restoration, by the boss on the leaf which bars the way in the ante-chamber! The base of the boss is a chord of five inches or a span; its centre one sacred cubit or five spans from the hidden end of the leaf. The top block, apparently irregular in upper outline, is 41.2 inches long, 15.7 wide, and 48.57 in mean height, giving a contents in cubic inches of[18] 31,415.9-၊-, which contains the relation between the diameter and the circumference of a circle.

The lower block has a contents of exactly one-fourth of the coffer, or an Anglo-Saxon ‘quarter’. On this leaf, by reference to the boss, we find also recorded or prophesied the twenty-four inch gauge and the three-foot rule, as well as that sacred cubit of twenty-five inches, which is commensurable with the polar diameter of the earth.

“The base of the boss is five, the central one of the nine digits, a number so hated by the Egyptians, even of the present day, as to be marked by them with a 0 on their watches—but the sacred number of the Shepherd Kings, who embodied it in the five-sided, five-angled, five-proportioned monument which they came so far to build, and which was the key to the proportions and dimensions of that Temple in which the five books of Moses were sacred to a people who left the land of their oppressors, five abreast, ‘with high hands,’ with outspread fingers, flaunting their number in the faces of the Egyptians, to whom it brought so much bad luck.

“From the Pentalpha or five-pointed star may[19] be reproduced the pyramid and the Temple proportions and those of the perfect human body—for this being inscribed in a circle, the centre of the star and circle being at the pubis, the arms and legs spread out easily just reach the points of the star—the centre of the breast being midway from the pubis to the crown of the head, and the base of the knee-cap midway from the pubis to the sole of the foot. The pyramid diagram gives the correct proportions of the human body with equal exactness and detail.”

I felt attracted to this man who drew so freely from an apparently inexhaustible mental storehouse, and who so logically connected facts as to weave from mere numbers so wondrous a fabric; but I dared not intrude my callow personality upon one so well-rounded. As we went down the smooth stone steps, his foot slipped, and he would have fallen headlong had I not been fortunate enough to catch and support him. Even as it was, he wrenched his foot, so that he gladly accepted my proffered assistance to his car.

It turned out that he, too, went down town, although further than I; and we entered the same surface car. He honored me by a request for[20] an exchange of cards; and on the one which he handed me I read the name “Roger Brathwaite”; no address being given, although I learned from him that he resided in one of those old wards, once fashionable, where still a few old-fashioned people of means live in commodious old dwellings, and refuse to be crowded out by factory and warehouse, be they never so lofty and noisy by day, never so lonely and gloomy by night.

Some three weeks later, I met Brathwaite in the street, and in walking with him, for a few blocks, learned that he had been a friend of my grandfather—whose name I bore in full. He told me that he had been inquiring concerning me, of my employers, and of others; and that he had had such good reports that he wished me to call upon him the next afternoon, at the address which he now gave, and where, he remarked, he wished to make a business proposition which might be to my advantage.

It is needless to say that before the hour appointed, I bent my steps towards the place of meeting.

The house was one of those ugly comfortable-looking four-story and basement brick structures,[21] with generous doors and wide and abundant windows, which the wealthy New Yorker of three generations ago, be he merchant prince or landed proprietor, built for himself and intended for his descendants, but which have been crowded out of notice by towering factories, storehouses and tenement buildings. Its wide granite steps and curiously-wrought iron railings, its great doorway, upheld by pairs of fluted pillars enclosing narrow lights at each side of the silver-handled single door, and capped by a semi-circular transom, whispered of the quiet dignified early days of the century; while the puffing of the exhaust steam across the way, and the snarling and buzzing of the machinery in the piano factory next door, spoke of its noisy and commonplace close.

Musk-rose and woodbine formerly luxuriated in its garden; star-proof elms once threw blue-tinted moonlight shadows on its now-mellowing walls; and high-bred dames once trod with dainty feet its smooth and polished floors. The glory of the neighborhood, like that of Ichabod, had departed—but the scrupulous neatness of the old mansion stood out among the dirt and squalor of its surroundings.

[22]In response to my ring, the door was opened by a grave and quiet maid-servant of the olden school; capped, aproned and slippered, with gray hairs thickly sprinkling the brown. On learning my name she directed me to ascend to the study in the fourth story, where I would have no difficulty in finding the master of the house.

As I passed up the wide staircase trod by so many feet now motionless, I could see through the open doors, as well as in all the halls, shelves upon shelves of closely-packed books, and long tables and racks in great numbers, laden with what seemed maps and charts of nothing in particular, or things in general. It was evident, however, that whatever archives these were, they were numerous, well arranged, and of great diversity of age and subject.

The fourth story reached, I found myself in a great loft-like apartment, covering nearly the entire floor, and filled, like those below it, with book-laden cases, and tables thickly strewn with charts and great portfolios.

My host received me with the grave sweet courtesy which sat so well upon him, and begged me to permit him for a few moments to[23] put the finishing touches upon a piece of work, before entering upon the matter concerning which he had, as he put it, done himself the honor to ask me to confer with him.

“While I complete my work,” said he, “look about you. Note well my friends of all ages, in whose company I have passed many busy years. They are ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.’ Around them, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, my pastime and my happiness have grown. Milton said: ‘A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life,’ and I have found it so. Browning wrote—and mark well that a hidden import lies in his words:

I availed myself of the opportunity to look about me, and as the charts seemed but a meaningless tangle of long and short lines of black and the three primary colors, parallel and interlacing, I betook myself to an inspection of the book-shelves, each plainly lettered with the class of its contents. I could see that the works[24] here were mainly historical, and arranged in divisions corresponding to periods and epochs in the world’s history.