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Article ON FREEMASONRY. THE NUMBER THREE. ← Page 5 of 10 →
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On Freemasonry. The Number Three.
ing from evil—courage in battle . The rule for the preservation of health was a triad consisting of Cheerfulness—Temperance—Exercise . The Druids ascribed the origin of all things to three fountains , salt water—rain—springs . During the initiations three hymns were chanted before the fire to the deitycalled
, Trigaranos , the triple crane . The primary bards were called Plennydd—Alawn—Gwron , or in other -words , Lig ht—¦ Harmony—Energy . The hierophant of the mysteries was Math—Mengw—Rhuddlwmgawr , or Eiddic—Gor—Coll ; and so on through a number of triads , to the amount of
some hundreds . It was engraven on their coins in the form of a bird—a boat—a man . The arrangement of classes , both in civil and religious polity , partook of the ternary form . Nothing could be transacted without a reference to this number . On solemn occasions the processions were formed three times round the sacred enclosure of Caer Sidi ;
their invocations were thrice repeated ; and even their poetry was composed in triads . The ternary deiseal , or procession from east to west by the south , accompanied all their rites , whether civil or ecclesiastical ; and nothing was accounted sanctified without the performance of this preliminary ceremony . In a wordthe triad formed the spirit of the
Druid-, ical religion ; it was introduced into their poetry ; it pervaded their philosophy , politics , and morals ; and , like the property for which the number Three was venerated by all antiquity , it formed the beginning—middle—end of all thenpolicy , whether civil , military , or religious .
Now how could it have been possible for all this uniformity to have arisen , except from some ancient tradition , which was universally received before the separation of the great family of mankind ? The coincidence so widely disseminated could not be the effect of accident ; and reason would never have discovered a doctrine so abstruse and
difficult of comprehension that the wisest philosophers were divided in opinion whether to consider the triad as three separate deities , three hypostases , or merely three simple qualities ofthe same divine being . The correct knowledge which the ancient philosophers and sages possessed , was however admitted to be derived , ancl not discovered . And
this is a most important distinction , which ought never to be lost sight of . Plato himself—the divine Plato , as his admirers styled him—speaks so very confusedly on this
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Freemasonry. The Number Three.
ing from evil—courage in battle . The rule for the preservation of health was a triad consisting of Cheerfulness—Temperance—Exercise . The Druids ascribed the origin of all things to three fountains , salt water—rain—springs . During the initiations three hymns were chanted before the fire to the deitycalled
, Trigaranos , the triple crane . The primary bards were called Plennydd—Alawn—Gwron , or in other -words , Lig ht—¦ Harmony—Energy . The hierophant of the mysteries was Math—Mengw—Rhuddlwmgawr , or Eiddic—Gor—Coll ; and so on through a number of triads , to the amount of
some hundreds . It was engraven on their coins in the form of a bird—a boat—a man . The arrangement of classes , both in civil and religious polity , partook of the ternary form . Nothing could be transacted without a reference to this number . On solemn occasions the processions were formed three times round the sacred enclosure of Caer Sidi ;
their invocations were thrice repeated ; and even their poetry was composed in triads . The ternary deiseal , or procession from east to west by the south , accompanied all their rites , whether civil or ecclesiastical ; and nothing was accounted sanctified without the performance of this preliminary ceremony . In a wordthe triad formed the spirit of the
Druid-, ical religion ; it was introduced into their poetry ; it pervaded their philosophy , politics , and morals ; and , like the property for which the number Three was venerated by all antiquity , it formed the beginning—middle—end of all thenpolicy , whether civil , military , or religious .
Now how could it have been possible for all this uniformity to have arisen , except from some ancient tradition , which was universally received before the separation of the great family of mankind ? The coincidence so widely disseminated could not be the effect of accident ; and reason would never have discovered a doctrine so abstruse and
difficult of comprehension that the wisest philosophers were divided in opinion whether to consider the triad as three separate deities , three hypostases , or merely three simple qualities ofthe same divine being . The correct knowledge which the ancient philosophers and sages possessed , was however admitted to be derived , ancl not discovered . And
this is a most important distinction , which ought never to be lost sight of . Plato himself—the divine Plato , as his admirers styled him—speaks so very confusedly on this