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Article M. MICHELET ON FREEMASONRY. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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M. Michelet On Freemasonry.
mysteries of man ' s life , death , ancl redemption , xi'c come to tlie folloAving passage : — " Touch these stones with cautious tread , step lightly over these flagsall are bleeding and suffering still . A great mystery is being enacted here . All around I see death , and am tempted to weep . Yet may not this immortal death , xvhose image art inscribes in a , flowery vegetation , this flower of the soul , this direct part of tlie world , which nature denotes with her leaves ancl her i * oses , may it not be , under a funereal form , life and love ?"
The Masonic student Avill quickly recognize in the above passage , some of the most solemn of those symbolical acts and objects AX'hich it is his jnixilege alone to understand . Equally significant are the folloxving words : ¦—• " The solemn a ' nd holy corneiy revolves with its dix'ine drama according to the natural drama , played by the sxxrx and stai's . It proceeds from life to death
, from tho incarnation to the passion , ancl thence to the resurrection , whilst nature turns from winter to spring . AVhen the sower has buried the grain in the earth , to bear there the snow and the frost , God buries himself in human life , in a mortal body , and plunges the body into the grave . Eear not , the grain xvill spring up from the earth , life from the tomb , God from nature . With the breath of spring the spirit will breathe . When the last cloud shall have fled in the transfigured sky , you descry the ascension . "
Passing over some observations , teeming Axith eloquence ancl with a AX'armth of imagination almost beyond praise , M . Michelet proceeds to speak of the wondrous manner in xvhich " the impassioned vegetation of the spirit , xvhich must , one would think , have throxvn out at random its capriciousl y luxurious phantasies , should hax'e been developed under a regular law . " The folloxving observations on the " number and rythm of divine geometry , " deserve our best attention : —
" This geometry of beauty burst brilliantly forth in the type of Gothic architecture in the cathedral of Cologne ; it is a regular body which has grown in the proportion proper to it , with the regularity of crystals . The cross of this normal church is strictly deduced from the figuz * e by which Euclid constructs the equilateral triangle : this triangle , the principle of the normal ogive , may be inscribed within the arcs of the arches , or vaults ; and it thus keeps the ogive equally removed from the unseemly meagreof the xvindoxvs of
ness sharp-pointed the north , and from the heavy flatness of the Byzantine arcades . The numbers ten and twelve , Avith their subdivisors and multiples , are the guiding measures of the whole edifice . Ten is the human number , that of the fingers ; twelve the divine , the astronomical number—add seven to these , in honour of the seven planets . In the towers , and throughout the building , the inferior parts are modelled on the and are subdivided into the octagon the superiormodelled
square , , on the triangle , exfoliate into the hexagon and the dodecagon . The column presents the proportions of the Doric order in the relation of its diameter to its height ; and its height , in conformity xvith the principle laid down by "Vitruvius and Pliny is equal to the width of the arcade . Thus , the traditions of antiquity are preserved in this type of Gothic architecture .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
M. Michelet On Freemasonry.
mysteries of man ' s life , death , ancl redemption , xi'c come to tlie folloAving passage : — " Touch these stones with cautious tread , step lightly over these flagsall are bleeding and suffering still . A great mystery is being enacted here . All around I see death , and am tempted to weep . Yet may not this immortal death , xvhose image art inscribes in a , flowery vegetation , this flower of the soul , this direct part of tlie world , which nature denotes with her leaves ancl her i * oses , may it not be , under a funereal form , life and love ?"
The Masonic student Avill quickly recognize in the above passage , some of the most solemn of those symbolical acts and objects AX'hich it is his jnixilege alone to understand . Equally significant are the folloxving words : ¦—• " The solemn a ' nd holy corneiy revolves with its dix'ine drama according to the natural drama , played by the sxxrx and stai's . It proceeds from life to death
, from tho incarnation to the passion , ancl thence to the resurrection , whilst nature turns from winter to spring . AVhen the sower has buried the grain in the earth , to bear there the snow and the frost , God buries himself in human life , in a mortal body , and plunges the body into the grave . Eear not , the grain xvill spring up from the earth , life from the tomb , God from nature . With the breath of spring the spirit will breathe . When the last cloud shall have fled in the transfigured sky , you descry the ascension . "
Passing over some observations , teeming Axith eloquence ancl with a AX'armth of imagination almost beyond praise , M . Michelet proceeds to speak of the wondrous manner in xvhich " the impassioned vegetation of the spirit , xvhich must , one would think , have throxvn out at random its capriciousl y luxurious phantasies , should hax'e been developed under a regular law . " The folloxving observations on the " number and rythm of divine geometry , " deserve our best attention : —
" This geometry of beauty burst brilliantly forth in the type of Gothic architecture in the cathedral of Cologne ; it is a regular body which has grown in the proportion proper to it , with the regularity of crystals . The cross of this normal church is strictly deduced from the figuz * e by which Euclid constructs the equilateral triangle : this triangle , the principle of the normal ogive , may be inscribed within the arcs of the arches , or vaults ; and it thus keeps the ogive equally removed from the unseemly meagreof the xvindoxvs of
ness sharp-pointed the north , and from the heavy flatness of the Byzantine arcades . The numbers ten and twelve , Avith their subdivisors and multiples , are the guiding measures of the whole edifice . Ten is the human number , that of the fingers ; twelve the divine , the astronomical number—add seven to these , in honour of the seven planets . In the towers , and throughout the building , the inferior parts are modelled on the and are subdivided into the octagon the superiormodelled
square , , on the triangle , exfoliate into the hexagon and the dodecagon . The column presents the proportions of the Doric order in the relation of its diameter to its height ; and its height , in conformity xvith the principle laid down by "Vitruvius and Pliny is equal to the width of the arcade . Thus , the traditions of antiquity are preserved in this type of Gothic architecture .