Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. The Spurious Freemasonry Of Ancient Times.
mcnt was esteemed to contain some portion of divinity , and was hence regarded with the most extravagant adoration ; and not only the Nile and the Ganges , but in other countries , Britain for example , all running streams which took a direction from west to east , were accounted sacred . The Banians held expressly that repeated washings were enjoined ,
in order that the Epopts might ever bear in mind the awful destruction of the earth and all that it contained , by water , as a punishment for the sins of the inhabitants .
THE BULL was universally esteemed , in the spurious Freemasonry , as an emblem of Noah or the Sun . " Bulls , " says Mr . Bryant , " were sacred to Osiris , ( who was Noah ) the great husbandman . They were looked upon as living oracles , and real deities , and to be in a manner animated by the soul of the
personage whom they represented . " But the Bull was also an emblem of the Ark ; and was depicted with horns like a crescent or young moon , and on his back the Dove . It is remarkable that in Britain , the perfectly initiated candidate , who had advanced to the highest and most ineffable degrees , and had obtained possession of the anguinum , was
denominated " the Bull , " as a title of honour and distinction ; because he was now esteemed , like that animal , to be consecrated to the sun . And thus the Druids , who had acquired an accurate knowledge of the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies , hallowed every thirtieth year , when Saturn entered the sign of Taurus . In Egypt , during a certain
month called Athyr , when the sun was in Scorpio , the priests , amidst the celebrations , decorated a golden image of a Bull , arid covered it with a robe of sable linen , in commemoration of the aphanism of the mysteries , and the mourning of Isis for the loss of Osiris ; and it must be borne in mind that as the symbol of Osiris was a bull , so that of Isis was a cow or heifer . In a word , every ancient nation esteemed the bull , ox , or cow sacred , and some believed them to be oracular .
THE DOG . Virgil says in his fine description of the imitations , Visaque canes ululare per umbras ; and Pletho affirms that Dogs were introduced baying at the terrified candidate , amongst spectres and apparitions of a still more fearful kind ; and that clogs were symbolical of the priests and officers presiding over this spurious kind of Freemasonry . To the same purpose , the
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. The Spurious Freemasonry Of Ancient Times.
mcnt was esteemed to contain some portion of divinity , and was hence regarded with the most extravagant adoration ; and not only the Nile and the Ganges , but in other countries , Britain for example , all running streams which took a direction from west to east , were accounted sacred . The Banians held expressly that repeated washings were enjoined ,
in order that the Epopts might ever bear in mind the awful destruction of the earth and all that it contained , by water , as a punishment for the sins of the inhabitants .
THE BULL was universally esteemed , in the spurious Freemasonry , as an emblem of Noah or the Sun . " Bulls , " says Mr . Bryant , " were sacred to Osiris , ( who was Noah ) the great husbandman . They were looked upon as living oracles , and real deities , and to be in a manner animated by the soul of the
personage whom they represented . " But the Bull was also an emblem of the Ark ; and was depicted with horns like a crescent or young moon , and on his back the Dove . It is remarkable that in Britain , the perfectly initiated candidate , who had advanced to the highest and most ineffable degrees , and had obtained possession of the anguinum , was
denominated " the Bull , " as a title of honour and distinction ; because he was now esteemed , like that animal , to be consecrated to the sun . And thus the Druids , who had acquired an accurate knowledge of the laws and motions of the heavenly bodies , hallowed every thirtieth year , when Saturn entered the sign of Taurus . In Egypt , during a certain
month called Athyr , when the sun was in Scorpio , the priests , amidst the celebrations , decorated a golden image of a Bull , arid covered it with a robe of sable linen , in commemoration of the aphanism of the mysteries , and the mourning of Isis for the loss of Osiris ; and it must be borne in mind that as the symbol of Osiris was a bull , so that of Isis was a cow or heifer . In a word , every ancient nation esteemed the bull , ox , or cow sacred , and some believed them to be oracular .
THE DOG . Virgil says in his fine description of the imitations , Visaque canes ululare per umbras ; and Pletho affirms that Dogs were introduced baying at the terrified candidate , amongst spectres and apparitions of a still more fearful kind ; and that clogs were symbolical of the priests and officers presiding over this spurious kind of Freemasonry . To the same purpose , the