am the same identical person that I was twenty years ago. I am conscious
that my body is not I,--that if my arms were lopped away, this _person_
that I call ME, would still remain, complete, entire, identical as
before. But I cannot ascertain, by the most intense and long-continued
reflection, what I am, nor where within my body I reside, nor whether I
am a point, or an expanded substance. I have no power to examine and
inspect. I exist, will, think, perceive. _That_ I know, and nothing
more. I think a noble and sublime Thought. What is that Thought? It is
not Matter, nor Spirit. It is not a Thing; but a _Power_ and _Force_. I
make upon a paper certain conventional marks, that _represent_ that
Thought. There is no Power or Virtue in the _marks_ I write, but only in
the Thought which they tell to others. I die, but the Thought still
lives. It is a Power. It acts on men, excites them to enthusiasm,
inspires patriotism, governs their conduct, controls their destinies,
disposes of life and death. The words I speak are but a certain
succession of particular sounds, that by conventional arrangement
communicate to others the Immaterial, Intangible, Eternal Thought. The
fact that Thought continues to exist an instant, after it makes its
appearance in the soul, proves it immortal: for there is nothing
conceivable that can destroy it. The spoken words, being mere sounds,
may vanish into thin air, and the written ones, mere marks, be burned,
erased, destroyed: but the THOUGHT itself lives still, and must live on
forever.
A Human Thought, then, is an actual EXISTENCE, and a FORCE and POWER,
capable of acting upon and controlling matter as well as mind. Is not
the existence of a God, who is the immaterial soul of the Universe, and
whose THOUGHT, embodied or not embodied in His WORD, is an Infinite
Power, of Creation and production, destruction and preservation, quite
as comprehensible as the existence of a Soul, of a Thought separated
from the Soul, of the Power of that Thought to mould the fate and
influence the Destinies of Humanity?
And yet we know not when that Thought comes, nor what it is. It is not
WE. We do not mould it, shape it, fashion it. It is neither our
mechanism nor our invention. It appears spontaneously, flashing, as it
were, into the soul, making that soul the involuntary instrument of its
utterance to the world. It comes to us, and seems a stranger to us,
seeking a home.
As little can we explain the mighty power of the human WILL. Volition,
like Thought, seems spontaneous, an effect without a cause.
Circumstances _provoke_ it, and serve as its _occasion_, but do not
_produce_ it. It springs up in the soul, like Thought, as the waters
gush, upward in a spring. Is it the manifestation of the soul, merely
making apparent what passes _within_ the soul, or an emanation from it,
going abroad and acting outwardly, itself a real Existence, as it is an
admitted Power? We can but own our ignorance. It is certain that it acts
on other souls, controls, directs them, shapes their action, legislates
for men and nations: and yet it is not material nor visible; and the
laws it writes merely inform one soul of what has passed within another.
God, therefore, is a mystery, only as everything that surrounds us, and
as we ourselves, are mysteries. We know that there is and must be a
FIRST CAUSE. His attributes, severed from Himself, are unrealities. As
color and extension, weight and hardness, do not exist apart from matter
as separate existences and substantives, spiritual or immaterial; so the
Goodness, Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, and Benevolence of God are not
independent existences, personify them as men may, but _attributes_ of
the Deity, the _adjectives_ of One Great Substantive. But we know that
He must be Good, True, Wise, Just, Benevolent, Merciful: and in all
these, and all His other attributes, Perfect and Infinite; because we
are conscious that these are laws imposed on us by the very nature of
things, necessary, and without which the Universe would be confusion and
the existence of a God incredible. They are of His _essence_, and
necessary, as His existence is.
He is the Living, Thinking, Intelligent SOUL of the Universe, the
PERMANENT, the STATIONARY [Εστως.. Estos], of Simon Magus, the ONE that
always is [To Ον, To ON] of Plato, as contradistinguished from the
perpetual flux and reflux, or _Genesis_, of _things_.
And, as the Thought of the Soul, emanating _from_ the Soul, becomes
audible and visible in Words, so did THE THOUGHT OF GOD, springing up
within Himself, immortal _as_ Himself, when once conceived,--immortal
_before_, because _in_ Himself, utter Itself in THE WORD, its
manifestation and mode of communication, and thus create the Material,
Mental, Spiritual Universe, which, like Him, never _began_ to exist.
This is the _real_ idea of the Ancient Nations: GOD, the Almighty
Father, and Source of All; His THOUGHT, _conceiving_ the whole Universe,
and _willing_ its creation: His WORD, _uttering_ that THOUGHT, and thus
becoming the Creator or Demiourgos, in whom was Life and Light, and that
Light the Life of the Universe.
Nor did that Word _cease_ at the single act of Creation; and having set
going the great machine, and enacted the laws of its motion and
progression, of birth and life, and change and death, cease to exist, or
remain thereafter in inert idleness.
FOR THE THOUGHT OF GOD LIVES AND IS IMMORTAL. Embodied in the WORD, is
not only _created_, but it _preserves_. It conducts and controls the
Universe, all spheres, all worlds, all actions of mankind, and of every
animate and inanimate creature. It speaks in the soul of every man who
lives. The Stars, the Earth, the Trees, the Winds, the universal voice
of Nature, tempest, and avalanche, the Sea's roar and the grave voice of
the waterfall, the hoarse thunder and the low whisper of the brook, the
song of birds, the voice of love, the speech of men, all are the
alphabet in which it communicates itself to men, and informs them of the
will and law of God, the Soul of the Universe. And thus most truly _did_
"THE WORD BECOME FLESH AND DWELL AMONG MEN."
God, the unknown FATHER [Πατήρ Άγνωστος.. Pater Agnōstos], known to us
only by His Attributes; the ABSOLUTE I AM:... The THOUGHT of God
[Ένννοια. Ennoia], and the WORD [Λόγος.... Logos], Manifestation and
expression of the Thought; .... Behold THE TRUE MASONIC TRINITY; the
UNIVERSAL SOUL, the THOUGHT _in_ the Soul, the WORD, or Thought
expressed; the THREE IN ONE, of a Trinitarian Ecossais.
Here Masonry pauses, and leaves its Initiates to carry out and develop
these great Truths in such manner as to each may seem most accordant
with reason, philosophy, truth, and his religious faith. It declines to
act as Arbiter between them. It looks calmly on, while each multiplies
the intermediates between the Deity and Matter, and the personifications
of God's manifestations and attributes, to whatever extent his reason,
his conviction, or his fancy dictates.
While the Indian tells us that PARABRAHMA, BRAHM, and PARATMA were the
first Triune God, revealing Himself as BRAHMA, VISHNU, and SIVA,
_Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer_;....
The Egyptian, of AMUN-RE, NEITH, and PHTHA, _Creator, Matter, Thought_
or _Light_; the Persian of _his_ Trinity of Three Powers in ORMUZD,
Sources of _Light, Fire_, and _Water_; the Buddhists of the God SAKYA, a
Trinity composed of BUDDHA, DHARMA, and SANGA,--_Intelligence, Law_, and
_Union_ or _Harmony_; the Chinese Sabeans of _their_ Trinity of
_Chang-ti_, the Supreme Sovereign; _Tien_, the Heavens; and _Tao_, the
Universal Supreme Reason and Principle of all things; who produced the
Unit; that, two; two, three; and three, all that is;....
While the Sclavono-Vend typifies _his_ Trinity by the three heads of the
God _Triglav_; the Ancient Prussian points to _his_ Triune God,
_Perkoun, Pikollos_, and _Potrimpos_, Deities of Light and Thunder, of
Hell and of the Earth; the Ancient Scandinavian to _Odin, Frea_, and
_Thor_; and the old Etruscans to TINA, TALNA, and MINERVA, _Strength,
Abundance_, and _Wisdom_;....
While Plato tells us of the _Supreme Good_, the _Reason_ or _Intellect_,
and the _Soul_ or _Spirit_; and Philo of the _Archetype of Light_,
_Wisdom_ [Σοψια], and the _Word_ [Λογος]; the Kabalists, of the Triads
of the Sephiroth;....
While the disciples of Simon Magus, and the many sects of the Gnostics,
confuse us with their _Eons, Emanations, Powers, Wisdom Superior_ and
_Inferior, Ialdabaoth, Adam-Kadmon_, even to the three hundred and
sixty-five thousand emanations of the Maldaïtes; ....
And while the pious Christian believes that the WORD dwelt in the Mortal
Body of Jesus of Nazareth, and suffered upon the Cross; and that the
HOLY GHOST was poured out upon the Apostles, and now inspires every
truly Christian Soul:....
While all these faiths assert their claims to the exclusive possession
of the Truth. Masonry inculcates its old doctrine, and no more:.... That
God is ONE; that His THOUGHT uttered in His WORD, created the Universe,
and preserves it by those Eternal Laws which are the expression of that
Thought: that the Soul of Man, breathed into him by God, is immortal as
His Thoughts are; that he is free to do evil or to choose good,
responsible for his acts and punishable for his sins: that all evil and
wrong and suffering are but temporary, the discords of one great
Harmony, and that in His good time they will lead by infinite
modulations to the great, harmonic final chord and cadence of Truth,
Love, Peace, and Happiness, that will ring forever and ever under the
Arches of Heaven, among all the Stars and Worlds, and in all souls of
men and Angels.
[Illustration]
XXVII.
KNIGHT COMMANDER OF THE TEMPLE
This is the first of the really Chivalric Degrees of the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite. It occupies this place in the Calendar of the
Degrees between the 26th and the last of the Philosophical Degrees, in
order, by breaking the continuity of these, to relieve what might
otherwise become wearisome; and also to remind you that, while engaged
with the speculations and abstractions of philosophy and creeds, the
Mason is also to continue engaged in the active duties of this great
warfare of life. He is not only a Moralist and Philosopher, but a
Soldier, the Successor of those Knights of the Middle Age, who, while
they wore the Cross, also wielded the Sword, and were the Soldiers of
Honor, Loyalty, and Duty.
Times change, and circumstances; but Virtue and Duty remain the same.
The Evils to be warred against but take another shape, and are developed
in a different form.
There is the same need now of truth and loyalty as in the days of
Frederic Barbarossa.
The characters, religious and military, attention to the sick and
wounded in the Hospital, and war against the Infidel in the field, are
no longer blended; but the same duties, to be performed in another
shape, continue to exist and to environ us all.
The innocent virgin is no longer at the mercy of the brutal Baron or
licentious man-at-arms; but purity and innocence still need protectors.
War is no longer the apparently natural State of Society; and for most
men it is an empty obligation to assume, that they will not recede
before the enemy; but the same high duty and obligation still rest upon
all men.
Truth, in act, profession, and opinion, is rarer now than in the days of
chivalry. Falsehood has become a current coin, and circulates with a
certain degree of respectability; because it has an actual value. It is
indeed the great Vice of the Age--it, and its twin-sister, Dishonesty.
Men, for political preferment, profess whatever principles are
expedient and profitable. At the bar, in the pulpit, and in the halls of
legislation, men argue against their own convictions, and, with what
they term _logic_, prove to the satisfaction of others that which they
do not themselves believe. Insincerity and duplicity are valuable to
their possessors, like estates in stocks, that yield a certain revenue:
and it is no longer the _truth_ of an opinion or a principle, but the
net _profit_ that may be realized from it, which is the measure of its
value.
The Press is the great sower of falsehood. To slander a political
antagonist, to misrepresent all that he says, and, if that be
impossible, to invent for him what he does _not_ say; to put in
circulation whatever baseless calumnies against him are necessary to
defeat him,--these are habits so common as to have ceased to excite
notice or comment, much less surprise or disgust.
There was a time when a Knight would die rather than utter a lie, or
break his Knightly word. The Knight Commander of the Temple revives the
old Knightly spirit; and devotes himself to the old Knightly worship of
Truth. No profession of an opinion not his own, for expediency's sake or
profit, or through fear of the world's disfavor; no slander of even an
enemy; no coloring or perversion of the sayings or acts of other men; no
insincere speech and argument for any purpose, or under any pretext,
must soil his fair escutcheon. Out of the Chapter, as well as in it, he
must speak the Truth, and _all_ the Truth, no more and no less; or else
speak not at all.
To purity and innocence everywhere, the Knight Commander owes
protection, as of old; against bold violence, or those, more guilty than
murderers, who by art and treachery seek to slay the soul; and against
that want and destitution that drive too many to sell their honor and
innocence for food.
In no age of the world has man had better opportunity than now to
display those lofty virtues and that noble heroism that so distinguished
the three great military and religious Orders, in their youth, before
they became corrupt and vitiated by prosperity and power.
When a fearful epidemic ravages a city, and death is inhaled with the
air men breathe; when the living scarcely suffice to bury the
dead,--most men flee in abject terror, to return and live, respectable
and influential, when the danger has passed away. But the old Knightly
spirit of devotion and disinterestedness and contempt of death still
lives, and is not extinct in the human heart. Everywhere a few are found
to stand firmly and unflinchingly at their posts, to front and defy the
danger, not for money, or to be honored for it, or to protect their own
household; but from mere humanity, and to obey the unerring dictates of
duty. They nurse the sick, breathing the pestilential atmosphere of the
hospital. They explore the abodes of want and misery. With the
gentleness of woman, they soften the pains of the dying, and feed the
lamp of life in the convalescent. They perform the last sad offices to
the dead; and they seek no other reward than the approval of their own
consciences.
These are the true Knights of the present age: these, and the captain
who remains at his post on board his shattered ship until the last boat,
loaded to the water's edge with passengers and crew, has parted from her
side; and then goes calmly down with her into the mysterious depths of
the ocean:--the pilot who stands at the wheel while the swift flames
eddy round him and scorch away his life:--the fireman who ascends the
blazing walls, and plunges amid the flames to save the property or lives
of those who have upon him no claim by tie of blood, or friendship, or
even of ordinary acquaintance:--these, and others like these:--all men,
who, set at the post of duty, stand there manfully; to die, if need be,
but not to desert their post: for these, too, are sworn not to recede
before the enemy.
To the performance of duties and of acts of heroism like these, you have
devoted yourself, my Brother, by becoming a Knight Commander of the
Temple. Soldier of the Truth and of Loyalty! Protector of Purity and
Innocence! Defier of Plague and Pestilence! Nurser of the Sick and
Burier of the Dead! Knight, preferring Death to abandonment of the Post
of Duty! Welcome to the bosom of this Order!
[Illustration]
XXVIII.
KNIGHT OF THE SUN, OR PRINCE ADEPT.
God, is the author of everything that existeth; the Eternal, the
Supreme, the Living, and Awful Being; from Whom nothing in the Universe
is hidden. Make of Him no idols and visible images; but rather worship
Him in the deep solitudes of sequestered forests; for He is invisible,
and fills the Universe as its soul, and liveth not in any Temple!
Light and Darkness are the World's Eternal ways. God is the principle of
everything that exists, and the Father of all Beings. He is eternal,
immovable and Self-Existent. There are no bounds to His power. At one
glance He sees the Past, the Present, and the Future; and the procession
of the builders of the Pyramids, with us and our remotest Descendants,
is now passing before Him. He reads our thoughts before they are known
to ourselves. He rules the movements of the Universe and all events and
revolutions are the creatures of His will. For He is the infinite Mind
and Supreme Intelligence.
In the beginning Man had the WORD, and that WORD was from God: and out
of the living power which, in and by that WORD, was communicated to man,
came the LIGHT of his existence. Let no man speak the WORD, for by it
THE FATHER made light and darkness, the world and living creatures.
The Chaldean upon his plains worshipped me, and the sea-loving
Phœnician. They builded me temples and towers, and burned sacrifices to
me upon a thousand altars. Light was divine to them, and they thought me
a God. But I am nothing--_nothing_; and LIGHT is the creature of the
unseen GOD that taught the true religion to the Ancient Patriarchs:
AWFUL, MYSTERIOUS, THE ABSOLUTE.
Man was created pure; and God gave him TRUTH, as He gave him LIGHT. He
has lost the _truth_ and found _error_. He has wandered far into
darkness; and round him Sin and Shame hover evermore. The Soul that is
impure, and sinful, and defiled with earthly stains, cannot again unite
with God, until, by long trials and many purifications, it is finally
delivered from the old calamity; and Light overcomes Darkness and
dethrones it, in the Soul.
God is the First; indestructible, eternal, UNCREATED, INDIVISIBLE.
_Wisdom, Justice, Truth_, and _Mercy_, with _Harmony_ and _Love_, are of
His essence, and _Eternity_ and _Infinitude of Extension_. He is silent,
and consents with MIND, and is known to Souls through MIND alone. In Him
were all things originally contained, and from Him all things were
evolved. For out of His Divine SILENCE and REST, after an infinitude of
time, was unfolded the WORD, or the Divine POWER; and then in turn the
Mighty, ever-acting, measureless INTELLECT; and from the WORD were
evolved the myriads of suns and systems that make the Universe; and
_fire_, and _light_, and the electric HARMONY, which is the harmony of
spheres and numbers: and from the INTELLECT all Souls and intellects of
men.
In the Beginning, the Universe was but ONE SOUL. HE was THE ALL, alone
with TIME and SPACE, and Infinite as they.
--HE HAD THIS THOUGHT: "I Create Worlds:" and lo! _the Universe_, and
the laws of _harmony_ and _motion_ that rule it, the expression of a
thought of God; and bird and beast, and every living thing but Man: and
light and air, and the mysterious currents, and the dominion of
mysterious numbers!
--HE HAD THIS THOUGHT: "_I Create Man, whose Soul shall be my image,
and he shall rule_." And lo! _Man_, with senses, instinct, and a
reasoning mind!
--And yet not MAN! but an _animal_ that breathed, and saw, and
thought: until an immaterial spark from God's own Infinite Being
penetrated the brain, and became the Soul: and lo, MAN THE IMMORTAL!
Thus, threefold, fruit of God's thought, is Man; that sees and hears and
feels; that thinks and reasons; that loves and is in harmony with the
Universe.
Before the world grew old, the primitive Truth faded out from men's
Souls. Then man asked himself, "_What am I? and how and whence am I? and
whither do I go?_" And the Soul, looking inward upon itself, strove to
learn whether that "I" were mere matter; its thought and reason and its
passions and affections mere results of material combination; or a
material Being enveloping an immaterial Spirit: ... and further it
strove, by self-examination, to learn whether that Spirit were an
individual essence, with a separate immortal existence, or an
infinitesimal portion of a Great First Principle, inter-penetrating the
Universe and the infinitude of space, and undulating like light and
heat: ... and so they wandered further amid the mazes of error; and
imagined vain philosophies; wallowing in the sloughs of materialism and
sensualism, of beating their wings vainly in the vacuum of abstractions
and idealities.
While yet the first oaks still put forth their leaves, man lost the
perfect knowledge of the One True God, the Ancient Absolute Existence,
the Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence; and floated helplessly out
upon the shoreless ocean of conjecture. Then the soul vexed itself with
seeking to learn whether the material Universe was a mere chance
combination of atoms, or the work of Infinite, Uncreated Wisdom:...
whether the Deity was a concentrated, and the Universe an extended
immateriality; or whether He was a personal existence, an Omnipotent,
Eternal, Supreme Essence, regulating matter at will; or subjecting it to
unchangeable laws throughout eternity; and to Whom, Himself Infinite and
Eternal, Space and Time are unknown. With their finite limited vision
they sought to learn the source and explain the existence of Evil, and
Pain, and Sorrow; and so they wandered ever deeper into the darkness,
and were lost; and there was for them no longer any God; but only a
great, dumb, soulless Universe, full of mere emblems and symbols.
You have heretofore, in some of the Degrees through which you have
passed, heard much of the ancient worship of the Sun, the Moon, and the
other bright luminaries of Heaven, and of the Elements and Powers of
Universal Nature. You have been made, to some extent, familiar with
their personifications as Heroes suffering or triumphant, or as personal
Gods or Goddesses, with human characteristics and passions, and with the
multitude of legends and fables that do but allegorically represent
their risings and settings, their courses, their conjunctions and
oppositions, their domiciles and places of exaltation.
Perhaps you have supposed that we, like many who have written on these
subjects, have intended to represent this worship to you as the most
ancient and original worship of the first men that lived. To undeceive
you, if such was your conclusion, we have caused the Personifications of
the Great Luminary of Heaven, under the names by which he was known to
the most ancient nations, to proclaim the old primitive truths that were
known to the Fathers of our race, before men came to worship the visible
manifestations of the Supreme Power and Magnificence and the Supposed
Attributes of the Universal Deity in the Elements and in the glittering
armies that Night regularly marshals and arrays upon the blue field of
the firmament.
We ask now your attention to a still further development of these
truths, after we shall have added something to what we have already said
in regard to the Chief Luminary of Heaven, in explanation of the names
and characteristics of the several imaginary Deities that represented
him among the ancient races of men.
ATHOM or ATHOM-RE, was the Chief and Oldest Supreme God of Upper Egypt,
worshipped at Thebes; the same as the OM or AUM of the Hindūs, whose
name was unpronounceable, and who, like the BREHM of the latter People,
was "The Being that was, and is, and is to come; the Great God, the
Great Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent One, the Greatest in the
Universe, the Lord;" whose emblem was a perfect sphere, showing that He
was first, last, midst, and without end; superior to all Nature-Gods,
and all personifications of Powers, Elements, and Luminaries; symbolized
by Light, the Principle of Life.