Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
extent of human credulity , we should be tempted to reject the extraordinary accounts which have been transmitted to us from ancient times , of the gross impositions which the wisest philosophers condescended to practice for the purpose of establishing their personal reputation . Thus when , on a particular occasionthe Etesian winds were very boisterous
, and destructive at Agrigentum , the assistance of Empedocles , a Pythagorean philosopher , was implored to avert an infliction which threatened to destroy the fruits of the earth and produce a famine . For this purpose he ordered some asses to be skinned alive , and making bags of their hides , he placed one on the top of each of the hihest peaks of the
g hill or mountain on which the city was built , and this process produced the desired effect . Again , when Philip II . made war against the Spartans , he performed the rites of his religion on the two mountains
Olympus and Eva . Cyrus sacrificed to the gods on a mountain just before his death . So in the Iliad , Hector is represented as doing the same . The Persians commonl y worshipped on mountains . And there is an extraordinary eminence at Mourgaub , the ancient Pasargadre , which con- ^ - tains oil its summit , as we are informed by Sir R . Ker
Porter , the remains of a very singular structure , which is called " the Lodge or Court of the Dives ; " which were the infernal deities of the Persians . This forms a singular instance of these deities being worshipped on a hill ; and credible writers assert , that in the caverns contained in some of these sacred hillsthe sounds of the initiatory h and
, ymns , other ceremonies of their spurious Freemasonry were often heard by casual passengers , and excited a high degree of superstitious dread and veneration , added to the apprehension of a summary and dreadful punishment if they should be detected within hearing of the sacred rites . It is clear that sounds were made to reverberate in
thesecaverns Dy means of mechanical contrivances . Thus Swinburne describes an extraordinary cave at Syracuse , in the quarter of Neapolis : he says , " The excavation that appears most worthy of notice , and gives name to the whole place , is that on the north-west corner , called the Ear of Dionysius . It is eighteen feet wide and fifty-eight high , and runs into
the heart of the hill in the form of a capital S ; the sides are chiseled and the roof coved , gradually narrowing almost to a Gothic arch . Along this point runs a groove or channel ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
extent of human credulity , we should be tempted to reject the extraordinary accounts which have been transmitted to us from ancient times , of the gross impositions which the wisest philosophers condescended to practice for the purpose of establishing their personal reputation . Thus when , on a particular occasionthe Etesian winds were very boisterous
, and destructive at Agrigentum , the assistance of Empedocles , a Pythagorean philosopher , was implored to avert an infliction which threatened to destroy the fruits of the earth and produce a famine . For this purpose he ordered some asses to be skinned alive , and making bags of their hides , he placed one on the top of each of the hihest peaks of the
g hill or mountain on which the city was built , and this process produced the desired effect . Again , when Philip II . made war against the Spartans , he performed the rites of his religion on the two mountains
Olympus and Eva . Cyrus sacrificed to the gods on a mountain just before his death . So in the Iliad , Hector is represented as doing the same . The Persians commonl y worshipped on mountains . And there is an extraordinary eminence at Mourgaub , the ancient Pasargadre , which con- ^ - tains oil its summit , as we are informed by Sir R . Ker
Porter , the remains of a very singular structure , which is called " the Lodge or Court of the Dives ; " which were the infernal deities of the Persians . This forms a singular instance of these deities being worshipped on a hill ; and credible writers assert , that in the caverns contained in some of these sacred hillsthe sounds of the initiatory h and
, ymns , other ceremonies of their spurious Freemasonry were often heard by casual passengers , and excited a high degree of superstitious dread and veneration , added to the apprehension of a summary and dreadful punishment if they should be detected within hearing of the sacred rites . It is clear that sounds were made to reverberate in
thesecaverns Dy means of mechanical contrivances . Thus Swinburne describes an extraordinary cave at Syracuse , in the quarter of Neapolis : he says , " The excavation that appears most worthy of notice , and gives name to the whole place , is that on the north-west corner , called the Ear of Dionysius . It is eighteen feet wide and fifty-eight high , and runs into
the heart of the hill in the form of a capital S ; the sides are chiseled and the roof coved , gradually narrowing almost to a Gothic arch . Along this point runs a groove or channel ,