built up in its proportions, and fashioned in every part, by infinite
skill, an emanation from His spirit, its nature, necessity, and design
are virtue. It is so formed, so moulded, so fashioned, so exactly
balanced, so exquisitely proportioned in every part, that sin introduced
into it is misery; that vicious thoughts fall upon it like drops of
poison; and guilty desires, breathing on its delicate fibres, make
plague-spots there, deadly as those of pestilence upon the body. It is
made for virtue, and not for vice; for purity, as its end, rest, and
happiness. Not more vainly would we attempt to make the mountain sink to
the level of the valley, the waves of the angry sea turn back from its
shores and cease to thunder upon the beach, the stars to halt in their
swift courses, than to change any one law of our own nature. And one of
those laws, uttered by God's voice, and speaking through every nerve
and fibre, every force and element, of the moral constitution He has
given us, is that we must be upright and virtuous; that if tempted we
must resist; that we must govern our unruly passions, and hold in hand
our sensual appetites. And this is not the dictate of an arbitrary will,
nor of some stern and impracticable law; but it is part of the great
firm law of harmony that binds the Universe together: not the mere
enactment of arbitrary will; but the dictate of Infinite Wisdom.
We know that God is good, and that what He does is right. This known,
the works of creation, the changes of life, the destinies of eternity,
are all spread before us, as the dispensations and counsels of infinite
love. This known, we then know that the love of God is working to
issues, like itself, beyond all thought and imagination good and
glorious; and that the only reason why we do not understand it, is that
it is _too_ glorious for us to understand. God's love takes care for
all, and nothing is neglected. It watches over all, provides for all,
makes wise adaptations for all; for age, for infancy, for maturity, for
childhood; in every scene of this or another world; for want, weakness,
joy, sorrow, and even for sin. All is good and well and right; and shall
be so forever. Through the eternal ages the light of God's beneficence
shall shine hereafter, disclosing all, consummating all, rewarding all
that deserve reward. Then we shall see, what now we can only believe.
The cloud will be lifted up, the gate of mystery be passed, and the full
light shine forever; the light of which that of the Lodge is a symbol.
Then that which caused us trial shall yield us triumph; and that which
made our heart ache shall fill us with gladness; and we shall then feel
that there, as here, the only true happiness is to learn, to advance,
and to improve; which could not happen unless we had commenced with
error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness,
to reach the light.
[Illustration]
XVI.
PRINCE OF JERUSALEM.
We no longer expect to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. To us it has
become but a symbol. To us the whole world is God's Temple, as is every
upright heart. To establish all over the world the New Law and Reign of
Love, Peace, Charity, and Toleration, is to build that Temple, most
acceptable to God, in erecting which Masonry is now engaged. No longer
needing to repair to Jerusalem to worship, nor to offer up sacrifices
and shed blood to propitiate the Deity, man may make the woods and
mountains his Churches and Temples, and worship God with a devout
gratitude, and with works of charity and beneficence to his fellow-men.
Wherever the humble and contrite heart silently offers up its adoration,
under the overarching trees, in the open, level meadows, on the
hill-side, in the glen, or in the city's swarming streets; there is
God's House and the New Jerusalem.
The Princes of Jerusalem no longer sit as magistrates to judge between
the people; nor is their number limited to five. But their duties still
remain substantially the same, and their insignia and symbols retain
their old significance. Justice and Equity are still their
characteristics. To reconcile disputes and heal dissensions, to restore
amity and peace, to soothe dislikes and soften prejudices, are their
peculiar duties; and they know that the peacemakers are blessed.
Their emblems have been already explained. They are part of the language
of Masonry; the same now as it was when Moses learned it from the
Egyptian Hierophants.
Still we observe the spirit of the Divine law, as thus enunciated to our
ancient brethren, when the Temple was rebuilt, and the book of the law
again opened:
"Execute true judgment; and show mercy and compassion every man to his
brother. Oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger nor the
poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in his heart.
Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of
Truth and Peace in your gates; and love no false oath; for all these I
hate, saith the Lord.
"Let those who have power rule in righteousness, and Princes in
judgment. And let him that is a judge be as an hiding-place from the
wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place;
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Then the vile person
shall no more be called liberal; nor the churl bountiful; and the work
of justice shall be peace; and the effect of justice, quiet and
security; and wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of the times.
Walk ye righteously and speak uprightly; despise the gains of
oppression, shake from your hands the contamination of bribes; stop not
your ears against the cries of the oppressed, nor shut your eyes that
you may not see the crimes of the great; and you shall dwell on high,
and your place of defence be like munitions of rocks."
Forget not these precepts of the old Law; and especially do not forget,
as you advance, that every Mason, however humble, is your brother, and
the laboring man your peer! Remember always that all Masonry is work,
and that the trowel is an emblem of the Degrees in this Council. Labor,
when rightly understood, is both noble and ennobling, and intended to
develop man's moral and spiritual nature, and not to be deemed a
disgrace or a misfortune.
Everything around us is, in its bearings and influences, moral. The
serene and bright morning, when we recover our conscious existence from
the embraces of sleep; when, from that image of Death God calls us to a
new life, and again gives us existence, and His mercies visit us in
every bright ray and glad thought, and call for gratitude and content;
the silence of that early dawn, the hushed silence, as it were, of
expectation; the holy eventide, its cooling breeze, its lengthening
shadows, its falling shades, its still and sober hour; the sultry
noontide and the stern and solemn midnight; and Spring-time, and
chastening Autumn; and Summer, that unbars our gates, and carries us
forth amidst the ever-renewed wonders of the world; and Winter, that
gathers us around the evening hearth:--all these, as they pass, touch by
turns the springs of the spiritual life in us, and are conducting that
life to good or evil. The idle watch-hand often points to something
within us; and the shadow of the gnomon on the dial often falls upon the
conscience.
A life of labor is not a state of inferiority or degradation. The
Almighty has not cast man's lot beneath the quiet shades, and amid glad
groves and lovely hills, with no task to perform; with nothing to do but
to rise up and eat, and to lie down and rest. He has ordained that
_Work_ shall be done, in all the dwellings of life, in every productive
field, in every busy city, and on every wave of every ocean. And this He
has done, because it has pleased Him to give man a nature destined to
higher ends than indolent repose and irresponsible profitless
indulgence; and because, for developing the energies of such a nature,
work was the necessary and proper element. We might as well ask why He
could not make two and two be six, as why He could not develop these
energies without the instrumentality of work. They are equally
impossibilities.
This, Masonry teaches, as a great Truth; a great moral landmark, that
ought to guide the course of all mankind. It teaches its toiling
children that the scene of their daily life is all spiritual, that the
very implements of their toil, the fabrics they weave, the merchandise
they barter, are designed for spiritual ends; that so believing, their
daily lot may be to them a sphere for the noblest improvement. That
which we do in our intervals of relaxation, our church-going, and our
book-reading, are especially designed to prepare our minds for the
_action_ of Life. We are to hear and read and meditate, that we may
_act_ well; and the _action_ of Life is itself the great field for
spiritual improvement. There is no task of industry or business, in
field or forest, on the wharf or the ship's deck, in the office or the
exchange, but has spiritual ends. There is no care or cross of our daily
labor, but was especially ordained to nurture in us patience, calmness,
resolution, perseverance, gentleness, disinterestedness, magnanimity.
Nor is there any tool or implement of toil, but is a part of the great
spiritual instrumentality.
All the relations of life, those of parent, child, brother, sister,
friend, associate, lover and beloved, husband, wife, are moral,
throughout every living tie and thrilling nerve that bind them together.
They cannot subsist a day nor an hour without putting the mind to a
trial of its truth, fidelity, forbearance, and disinterestedness.
A great city is one extended scene of moral action. There is no blow
struck in it but has a purpose, ultimately good or bad, and therefore
moral. There is no action performed, but has a motive; and motives are
the special jurisdiction of morality. Equipages, houses, and furniture
are symbols of what is moral, and they in a thousand ways minister to
right or wrong feeling. Everything that belongs to us, ministering to
our comfort or luxury, awakens in us emotions of pride or gratitude, of
selfishness or vanity; thoughts of self-indulgence, or merciful
remembrances of the needy and the destitute.
Everything acts upon and influences us. God's great law of sympathy and
harmony is potent and inflexible as His law of gravitation. A sentence
embodying a noble thought stirs our blood; a noise made by a child frets
and exasperates us, and influences our actions.
A world of spiritual objects, influences, and relations lies around us
all. We all vaguely deem it to be so; but he only lives a charmed life,
like that of genius and poetic inspiration, who communes with the
spiritual scene around him, hears the voice of the spirit in every
sound, sees its signs in every passing form of things, and feels its
impulse in all action, passion, and being. Very near to us lies the
mines of wisdom; unsuspected they lie all around us. There is a secret
in the simplest things, a wonder in the plainest, a charm in the
dullest.
We are all naturally seekers of wonders. We travel far to see the
majesty of old ruins, the venerable forms of the hoary mountains, great
water-falls, and galleries of art. And yet the world-wonder is all
around us; the wonder of setting suns, and evening stars, of the magic
spring-time, the blossoming of the trees, the strange transformations of
the moth; the wonder of the Infinite Divinity and of His boundless
revelation. There is no splendor beyond that which sets its morning
throne in the golden East; no dome sublime as that of Heaven; no beauty
so fair as that of the verdant, blossoming earth; no place, however
invested with the sanctities of old time, like that home which is hushed
and folded within the embrace of the humblest wall and roof.
And all these are but the symbols of things, far greater and higher. All
is but the clothing of the spirit. In this vesture of time is wrapped
the immortal nature: in this show of circumstance and form stands
revealed the stupendous reality. Let man but be, as he is, a living
soul, communing with himself and with God, and his vision becomes
eternity; his abode, infinity; his home, the bosom of all-embracing
love.
The great problem of Humanity is wrought out in the humblest abodes; no
more than this is done in the highest. A human heart throbs beneath the
beggar's gabardine; and that and no more stirs with its beating the
Prince's mantle. The beauty of Love, the charm of Friendship, the
sacredness of Sorrow, the heroism of Patience, the noble Self-sacrifice,
these and their like, alone, make life to be life indeed, and are its
grandeur and its power. They are the priceless treasures and glory of
humanity; and they are not things of condition. All places and all
scenes are alike clothed with the grandeur and charm of virtues such as
these.
The million occasions will come to us all, in the ordinary paths of our
life, in our homes, and by our firesides, wherein we may act as nobly,
as if, all our life long, we led armies, sat in senates, or visited beds
of sickness and pain. Varying every hour, the million occasions will
come in which we may restrain our passions, subdue our hearts to
gentleness and patience, resign our own interest for another's
advantage, speak words of kindness and wisdom, raise the fallen, cheer
the fainting and sick in spirit, and soften and assuage the weariness
and bitterness of their mortal lot. To every Mason there will be
opportunity enough for these. They cannot be written on his tomb; but
they will be written deep in the hearts of men, of friends, of children,
of kindred all around him, in the book of the great account, and, in
their eternal influences, on the great pages of the Universe.
To such a destiny, at least, my Brethren, let us all aspire! These laws
of Masonry let us all strive to obey! And so may our hearts become true
temples of the Living God! And may He encourage our zeal, sustain our
hopes, and assure us of success!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XVII.
KNIGHT OF THE EAST AND WEST.
This is the first of the Philosophical Degrees of the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite; and the beginning of a course of instruction
which will fully unveil to you the heart and inner mysteries of Masonry.
Do not despair because you have often seemed on the point of attaining
the inmost light, and have as often been disappointed. In all time,
truth has been hidden under symbols, and often under a succession of
allegories: where veil after veil had to be penetrated before the true
Light was reached, and the essential truth stood revealed. The Human
Light is but an imperfect reflection of a ray of the Infinite and
Divine.
We are about to approach those ancient Religions which once ruled the
minds of men, and whose ruins encumber the plains of the great Past, as
the broken columns of Palmyra and Tadmor lie bleaching on the sands of
the desert. They rise before us, those old, strange, mysterious creeds
and faiths, shrouded in the mists of antiquity, and stalk dimly and
undefined along the line which divides Time from Eternity; and forms of
strange, wild, startling beauty mingled in the vast throngs of figures
with shapes monstrous, grotesque, and hideous.
The religion taught by Moses, which, like the laws of Egypt, enunciated
the principle of exclusion, borrowed, at every period of its existence,
from all the creeds with which it came in contact. While, by the studies
of the learned and wise, it enriched itself with the most admirable
principles of the religions of Egypt and Asia, it was changed, in the
wanderings of the People, by everything that was most impure or
seductive in the pagan manners and superstitions. It was one thing in
the times of Moses and Aaron, another in those of David and Solomon, and
still another in those of Daniel and Philo.
At the time when John the Baptist made his appearance in the desert,
near the shores of the Dead Sea, all the old philosophical and religious
systems were approximating toward each other. A general lassitude
inclined the minds of all toward the quietude of that amalgamation of
doctrines for which the expeditions of Alexander and the more peaceful
occurrences that followed, with the establishment in Asia and Africa of
many Grecian dynasties and a great number of Grecian colonies, had
prepared the way. After the intermingling of different nations, which
resulted from the wars of Alexander in three-quarters of the globe, the
doctrines of Greece, of Egypt, of Persia, and of India, met and
intermingled everywhere. All the barriers that had formerly kept the
nations apart, were thrown down; and while the People of the West
readily connected their faith with those of the East, those of the
Orient hastened to learn the traditions of Rome and the legends of
Athens. While the Philosophers of Greece, all (except the disciples of
Epicurus) more or less Platonists, seized eagerly upon the beliefs and
doctrines of the East,--the Jews and Egyptians, before then the most
exclusive of all peoples, yielded to that eclecticism which prevailed
among their masters, the Greeks and Romans.
Under the same influences of toleration, even those who embraced
Christianity, mingled together the old and the new, Christianity and
Philosophy, the Apostolic teachings and the traditions of Mythology. The
man of intellect, devotee of one system, rarely displaces it with
another in all its purity. The people take such a creed as is offered
them. Accordingly, the distinction between the esoteric and the exoteric
doctrine, immemorial in other creeds, easily gained a foothold among
many of the Christians; and it was held by a vast number, even during
the preaching of Paul, that the writings of the Apostles were
incomplete; that they contained only the germs of another doctrine,
which must receive from the hands of philosophy, not only the systematic
arrangement which was wanting, but all the development which lay
concealed therein. The writings of the Apostles, they said, in
addressing themselves to mankind in general, enunciated only the
articles of the vulgar faith; but transmitted the mysteries of knowledge
to superior minds, to the Elect,--mysteries handed down from generation
to generation in esoteric traditions; and to this science of the
mysteries they gave the name of [[Greek: Γνώσις] Gnōsis].
The Gnostics derived their leading doctrines and ideas from Plato and
Philo, the Zend-avesta and the Kabalah, and the Sacred books of India
and Egypt; and thus introduced into the bosom of Christianity the
cosmological and theosophical speculations, which had formed the larger
portion of the ancient religions of the Orient, joined to those of the
Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish doctrines, which the Neo-Platonists had
equally adopted in the Occident.
Emanation from the Deity of all spiritual beings, progressive
degeneration of these beings from emanation to emanation, redemption and
return of all to the purity of the Creator; and, after the
re-establishment of the primitive harmony of all, a fortunate and truly
divine condition of all, in the bosom of God; such were the fundamental
teachings of Gnosticism. The genius of the Orient, with its
contemplations, irradiations, and intuitions, dictated its doctrines.
Its language corresponded to its origin. Full of imagery, it had all the
magnificence, the inconsistencies, and the mobility of the figurative
style.
Behold, it said, the light, which emanates from an immense centre of
Light, that spreads everywhere its benevolent rays; so do the spirits of
Light emanate from the Divine Light. Behold, all the springs which
nourish, embellish, fertilize, and purify the Earth; they emanate from
one and the same ocean; so from the bosom of the Divinity emanate so
many streams, which form and fill the universe of intelligences. Behold
numbers, which all emanate from one primitive number, all resemble it,
all are composed of its essence, and still vary infinitely; and
utterances, decomposable into so many syllables and elements, all
contained in the primitive Word, and still infinitely various; so the
world of Intelligences emanated from a Primary Intelligence, and they
all resemble it, and yet display an infinite variety of existences.
It revived and combined the old doctrines of the Orient and the
Occident; and it found in many passages of the Gospels and the Pastoral
letters, a warrant for doing so. Christ himself spoke in parables and
allegories, John borrowed the enigmatical language of the Platonists,
and Paul often indulged in incomprehensible rhapsodies, the meaning of
which could have been clear to the Initiates alone.
It is admitted that the cradle of Gnosticism is probably to be looked
for in Syria, and even in Palestine. Most of its expounders wrote in
that corrupted form of the Greek used by the Hellenistic Jews, and in
the Septuagint and the New Testament; and there was a striking analogy
between their doctrines and those of the Judæo-Egyptian Philo, of
Alexandria; itself the seat of three schools, at once philosophic and
religious--the Greek, the Egyptian, and the Jewish.
Pythagoras and Plato, the most mystical of the Grecian Philosophers (the
latter heir to the doctrines of the former), and who had travelled, the
latter in Egypt, and the former in Phœnicia, India, and Persia, also
taught the esoteric doctrine and the distinction between the initiated
and the profane. The dominant doctrines of Platonism were found in
Gnosticism. Emanation of Intelligences from the bosom of the Deity; the
going astray in error and the sufferings of spirits, so long as they are
remote from God, and imprisoned in matter; vain and long-continued
efforts to arrive at the knowledge of the Truth, and re-enter into their
primitive union with the Supreme Being; alliance of a pure and divine
soul with an irrational soul, the seat of evil desires; angels or demons
who dwell in and govern the planets, having but an imperfect knowledge
of the ideas that presided at the creation; regeneration of all beings
by their return to the [[Greek: κόσμος νοητός], kosmos noētos], the
world of Intelligences, and its Chief, the Supreme Being; sole possible
mode of re-establishing that primitive harmony of the creation, of
which the music of the spheres of Pythagoras was the image; these were
the analogies of the two systems; and we discover in them some of the
ideas that form a part of Masonry; in which, in the present mutilated
condition of the symbolic Degrees, they are disguised and overlaid with
fiction and absurdity, or present themselves as casual hints that are
passed by wholly unnoticed.
The distinction between the esoteric and exoteric doctrines (a
distinction purely Masonic), was always and from the very earliest times
preserved among the Greeks. It remounted to the fabulous times of
Orpheus; and the mysteries of Theosophy were found in all their
traditions and myths. And after the time of Alexander, they resorted for
instruction, dogmas, and mysteries, to all the schools, to those of
Egypt and Asia, as well as those of Ancient Thrace, Sicily, Etruria, and
Attica.
The Jewish-Greek School of Alexandria is known only by two of its
Chiefs, Aristobulus and Philo, both Jews of Alexandria in Egypt.
Belonging to Asia by its origin, to Egypt by its residence, to Greece by
its language and studies, it strove to show that all truths embedded in
the philosophies of other countries were transplanted thither from
Palestine. Aristobulus declared that all the facts and details of the
Jewish Scriptures were so many allegories, concealing the most profound
meanings, and that Plato had borrowed from them all his finest ideas.
Philo, who lived a century after him, following the same theory,
endeavored to show that the Hebrew writings, by their system of
allegories, were the true source of all religious and philosophical
doctrines. According to him, the literal meaning is for the vulgar
alone. Whoever has meditated on philosophy, purified himself by virtue,
and raised himself by contemplation, to God and the intellectual world,
and received their inspiration, pierces the gross envelope of the
letter, discovers a wholly different order of things, and is initiated
into mysteries, of which the elementary or literal instruction offers
but an imperfect image. A historical fact, a figure, a word, a letter, a
number, a rite, a custom, the parable or vision of a prophet, veils the
most profound truths; and he who has the key of science will interpret
all according to the light he possesses.