Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
In our own country , according to the testimony of our best antiquaries , the high places , or excelsa , anathematized in Scripture , dedicated to Bel and to Astarte , the queen of heaven , were greatly in vogue among the ancient druidical priests . On their loftiest eminences it was the custom to pile up rude irregular heaps of stonessome of them of
im-, mense magnitude , containing , as Stukely says , a hundred cart loads of stones of all sizes . On these mounds , which were extended in a line over the whole country where the Druids resided , and which were conspicuously raised in sight of each other , it was their custom , says Maurice , on May eve , to light up prodigious fires , which illuminated the whole
region round about . These fires were in honour of Bel , or Bealan , the Irish and Celtic word for the sun ; and hence it arose that Bealteine is still used for May-day by the
Highlanders of Scotland . Round these fires the sexes , decorated with garlands of flowers , danced and sported together , leaped through the flame , and presented their children to the priests to be waved over the fire , who were afterwards restored to the parents as purified and regenerated by the deity ; for they considered newborn children as unclean , and obnoxious
to the anger of avenging gods , who would surely subject them to various kinds of frightful deaths , if they omitted this essential ceremony . Maimonides conjectures that if one child out of a family were thus regenerated , the vest would share in the blessing , aud be redeemed from the curse of disobedience . So important and efficacious were the rites
of lustration esteemed by idolatrous nations when performed on " the highest of hills . " This horrid practice was prohibited , under pain of death , by the Mosaic law . * There can be no doubt but that the above practices were used on the numerous artificial hills or mounds which abound
in every part of this island ; and it may be worth while to observe , that the " high places" so frequently mentioned in the Jewish historical books , were more commonly artificial than natural hills ; although our Grand Master , King Solomon , in his dotage , preferred the latter for the celebration of his spurious Freemasonry , addressed to the unnatural
triad , Ashtoreth , Milcom , Chemosh ; and I think it highly probable that he threw up artificial mounds on the summit of each of the three peaks of mount Olivet for that purpose .- ) -
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. Evidences, Doctrines, And Traditions.
In our own country , according to the testimony of our best antiquaries , the high places , or excelsa , anathematized in Scripture , dedicated to Bel and to Astarte , the queen of heaven , were greatly in vogue among the ancient druidical priests . On their loftiest eminences it was the custom to pile up rude irregular heaps of stonessome of them of
im-, mense magnitude , containing , as Stukely says , a hundred cart loads of stones of all sizes . On these mounds , which were extended in a line over the whole country where the Druids resided , and which were conspicuously raised in sight of each other , it was their custom , says Maurice , on May eve , to light up prodigious fires , which illuminated the whole
region round about . These fires were in honour of Bel , or Bealan , the Irish and Celtic word for the sun ; and hence it arose that Bealteine is still used for May-day by the
Highlanders of Scotland . Round these fires the sexes , decorated with garlands of flowers , danced and sported together , leaped through the flame , and presented their children to the priests to be waved over the fire , who were afterwards restored to the parents as purified and regenerated by the deity ; for they considered newborn children as unclean , and obnoxious
to the anger of avenging gods , who would surely subject them to various kinds of frightful deaths , if they omitted this essential ceremony . Maimonides conjectures that if one child out of a family were thus regenerated , the vest would share in the blessing , aud be redeemed from the curse of disobedience . So important and efficacious were the rites
of lustration esteemed by idolatrous nations when performed on " the highest of hills . " This horrid practice was prohibited , under pain of death , by the Mosaic law . * There can be no doubt but that the above practices were used on the numerous artificial hills or mounds which abound
in every part of this island ; and it may be worth while to observe , that the " high places" so frequently mentioned in the Jewish historical books , were more commonly artificial than natural hills ; although our Grand Master , King Solomon , in his dotage , preferred the latter for the celebration of his spurious Freemasonry , addressed to the unnatural
triad , Ashtoreth , Milcom , Chemosh ; and I think it highly probable that he threw up artificial mounds on the summit of each of the three peaks of mount Olivet for that purpose .- ) -