Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
sequently polluted with the blood of human victims , may convey some idea of the accompanying horrors which these consecrated places inspired . He describes it as a place gloomy , damp , and scarcely penetrable ; a grove in which no sylvan deity ever resided , no bird ever sang , no beast ever slumberedno gentle zephyr ever layednor even the
liht-, p , g ning could rend a passage . It was a place of blood and horror , abounding with altars reeking with the gore of human victims , by which all the trunks of the lofty and eternal oaks which composed it , were dyed of a crimson colour ; a black and turbid water rolled through it in many a winding stream ; no soul ever entered the forlorn abode
, except the priest , who , at noon and at midnight , with paleness on his brow , and tremor in his step , went thither to celebrate the horrible mysteries in honour of that terrific deity , whose aspect he yet dreaded , more than death , to behold .
Other localities , spread over the extensive plains , delight in variety . Agriculture , commerce , manufactures , public and private sports , and the various shades assumed by the forms and re quisitions of civil and domestic life ; the solemn ceremonies attending state assemblies , festivals , war , tribunals , and games ; with the more minute , but not less
agreeable , details of private life , the courtships , marriages , funerals , and social amusements , were by turns practised in every community ; but the hill—the solitary hill , ornamented and protected by a grove of trees—was alone and exclusively holy ; dedicated to the gods , ancl the scene of their sacred observances . It was a place of alternate joy and
terrordelight and apprehension . Here the novice received his credentials , and the profane his sentence of exclusion ; here the prosperous , with ostentatious profusion , made his expensive and prodigal sacrifices—the unfortunate offei * ed up his lonely supplications ; here dissipated libertines of both sexes gratified their unhallowed lusts and passionsfor which the
, umbrageous grove lent its most secret shades ; and here the demon lurked in ambush to catch souls . So slight was the hold that morality had on those who adhered to the rites of a false religion , that even " the highest of hills , " which were esteemed peculiarly holy , were thus made the scene of pollutions of the grossest character , under an impression that
they were acceptable to the gods . ( To be continued . ) VOL IX . T
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
sequently polluted with the blood of human victims , may convey some idea of the accompanying horrors which these consecrated places inspired . He describes it as a place gloomy , damp , and scarcely penetrable ; a grove in which no sylvan deity ever resided , no bird ever sang , no beast ever slumberedno gentle zephyr ever layednor even the
liht-, p , g ning could rend a passage . It was a place of blood and horror , abounding with altars reeking with the gore of human victims , by which all the trunks of the lofty and eternal oaks which composed it , were dyed of a crimson colour ; a black and turbid water rolled through it in many a winding stream ; no soul ever entered the forlorn abode
, except the priest , who , at noon and at midnight , with paleness on his brow , and tremor in his step , went thither to celebrate the horrible mysteries in honour of that terrific deity , whose aspect he yet dreaded , more than death , to behold .
Other localities , spread over the extensive plains , delight in variety . Agriculture , commerce , manufactures , public and private sports , and the various shades assumed by the forms and re quisitions of civil and domestic life ; the solemn ceremonies attending state assemblies , festivals , war , tribunals , and games ; with the more minute , but not less
agreeable , details of private life , the courtships , marriages , funerals , and social amusements , were by turns practised in every community ; but the hill—the solitary hill , ornamented and protected by a grove of trees—was alone and exclusively holy ; dedicated to the gods , ancl the scene of their sacred observances . It was a place of alternate joy and
terrordelight and apprehension . Here the novice received his credentials , and the profane his sentence of exclusion ; here the prosperous , with ostentatious profusion , made his expensive and prodigal sacrifices—the unfortunate offei * ed up his lonely supplications ; here dissipated libertines of both sexes gratified their unhallowed lusts and passionsfor which the
, umbrageous grove lent its most secret shades ; and here the demon lurked in ambush to catch souls . So slight was the hold that morality had on those who adhered to the rites of a false religion , that even " the highest of hills , " which were esteemed peculiarly holy , were thus made the scene of pollutions of the grossest character , under an impression that
they were acceptable to the gods . ( To be continued . ) VOL IX . T