Table Of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

PAGF . REVIEWSFurness , Past and Present 3 5 Hogg ' s Secret Code for Letters or Telegrams 325 THE BOOK EGYPT 3 5 THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF W ALES AT

READING 326 & 3 7 S UMMER BANQUET OF L ODGE SINCERITY , NO . 189 , PLYMOUTH 3 7 THE

CRAFTMetropolitan 3 « Middlesex 3 ^ Provincial ... ••• ¦¦• — 3 £ ROYAL ARCH - 3 > MARK MASONRY 3 9

LINES ... J 9 I NSTALLATION OF THE EARL FERRERS 329 PICNIC OF THE OLD G LOBE LODGE , SCARBRO' 329 BIRTHS , MARRIAGES , AND DEATHS 330 ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS 330 THE LESSON OF A LIFE 33 °

MULTUM IN PARVO 33 1 « 33 ORIGINAL C ORRESPONDENCEHere me again ... ... ... ... 332 Something Wrong 33 2 An Erratum 33 Board of Benevolence 33

J OTTINGS FROM MASONIC J OURNALS 333 ANNUAL C OMMUNICATION OF G RAND LODGE OF NEW YORK 333 . 334 & 335 POETRYSummertidc is coming 335 Cleveland 335 MASONIC MEETINGS FOR NEXT WEEK 335 THE GRAND C O . MMANDERY OF MICHAGAN ... 336

Reviews.

Reviews .

Furness , Past and Present ; its History and Antiquities . Part I . By G . MARKHAM TWEDDELL , F . S . A . Published by J . Richardson , Barrow-in-Furness .

Bro . Tweddell , the eminent antiquarian , is again delving in the vich mines of the past , and illustrating the prosaic facts of the present by the results of his untiring researches .

The important district of Lancashire , now known as Furness , comprises an area fertile in relics of a former age , as well as in actual evidences of material wealth , and in compiling its history , Bro . Tweddell is

not insensible to its varied claims upon our interest as a land full of historical reminiscences , as well as a centre of commercial activity . The work , in such experienced hands , is sure to be well and faithfully done ,

and judging from the illustrations already given , which include a splendid portrait of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire , to whom the history is dedicated , as well as

views of well-known spots in the locality , wc may safely say that the artist ' s skill will be found worthy of the rich intellectual treat which the author is preparing for all lovers of antiquarian studies .

The issue will be complete in twenty monthly parts , and each part will contain three full-page engravings , cither portraits

of distinguished residents or views of the principal objects of interests in Furness , and the surrounding neighbourhood , which is celebrated for its magnificent scenery .

Hogg ' s Secret Code for Letters or Telegrams . Hogg , 122 , Flcc ' L-strcet . The system designed by this enterprising publisher is , though simple , certainly the most effective yet introduced to public

notice , and must prove invaluable to all who have occasion to communicate secretly with others , as it obviates the possibility of the cipher being read unless the receiver of the message has a previous arrangement

with tne sender . By the adoption of a key word the interpretation is perfectly easy , without it , quite impossible . Wc cordially commend the code to the attention of our readers at home and abroad .

The Book Egypt.

THE BOOK EGYPT .

There is enough of symbolism in Freemasonry to excite in the minds of thoughtful Masons , who " make the liberal arts and sciences their study , " to induce them to extend their enquiries into the systems of

theosophy and morality , in which symbolism was more largely and reconditely employed . The field of investigation is a very large one . All the ancient teachers of wisdom made use of symbols in the

initiation of aspirants , and in all their subsequent education ; and none of the ancient philosophers or theosophics can be understood by one who is ignorant of symbolic science . Egypt was the cradle of this

science , and it is to that extraordinary country that we trace back the preservation and promulgation of what is called occult science , or Hermetic Magianism . Eliphas Levi has much and curious learning on this

interesting subject in his work , " Histoire de la Magie , " and it occurs to me that a translation of a small portion of what he has written may be interesting to some of the readers of Tl-IE FREEMASON .

It is in Egypt , as he observes , that magianism is complete as a universal science , with its dogmas systematically and perfectly formulated . Nothing surpasses ,

nothing even equals , as a resume of all the doctrines ofthe old world , the few sentences engraved on a precious stone by Hermes , and known as T / ie Ei ' ucrald Table . The unity of beingand the unity of harmonies , whether

ascending or descending the progressive and proportional ladder of the Word ; the immutable law of equilibrium , and the proportional progress of universal analogies ; the agreement of the idea with the Word .

giving the measure of agreement between the Creator and the created ; the necessary mathematics of infinity proved by the measure of a single corner ofthe finite ; all this is expressed in a single proposition by the Egyptian hierophant : —

" That which is superior like that which is inferior , and that which is below like that which is above , go to form the wonders of the whole . "

Then comes the revelation and learned description of thecrcative agent—of thepantoinorphian fire , of the principal means of the occult power , in a word , of the astral light . " The sun is its father , the moon is its mother , the wind bore it in its womb . "

Ihus , this light emanates from the sun , receives its regular motion and influences from the moon , and has the atmosphere for its receptacle and prison . "The earth is its nurse . " That is to say , it is balanced

and put it motion by the central heat of the earth . "It is the universal principal , the TELESMA of the world . "

Hermes next teaches how this light , which is also a force , may be used as a lever and a universal dissolvent ; also as a formative and coagulativc agent .

How this light must , from bodies wherein it is latent , be drawn , in the condition of fire , of motion , of splendour , of luminous gas , of ardent water , and , finally , of ignited earth , to imitate , by the aid of these divers substances , all the creations of nature .

The Emerald Table is the whole of magianism in a single page . The other works attributed to Hermes , such as Gyutandrc , Asclcpius , & c , arc generally believed by critics to . be

productions of the Alexandrian school . They nevertheless contain the Hermetic traditions preserved in the sancturies of theurgy . The doctrines of Hermes cannot be lost to those who have the keys of symbolism .

The Book Egypt.

The ruins of Egypt are like scattered pages , which we may yet collect , and with them reconstruct the entire Book ; a prodigious book whose capital letters were temples , whose phrases were cities , punctuated with obelisks and sphinxes .

The division of Egypt was a magian synthesis ; the names of its provinces corresponded to the figures of the sacred numbers : upper Egypt , a figure of the celestial world and country of the extatics : lower

Egypt , a symbol ofthe earth ; and middle or central , Egypt , the country of science and of high intitations . Each of these three parts was divided into ten provinces , called Nomes , and placed under the

special protection of gods . These gods , thirty in number , grouped in threes , express , symbolically , all the conceptions of the ternary in the decade , that is to say , the triple signification—natural ,

philosophical and religious—ofthe absolute ideas primitively attached to numbers . Thus , the triple unity , or the original ternary ; the triple binary , or the reflection of the triangle , which forms the star of Solomon ; the triple

ternary , or the whole idea under each of its three terms ; the triple quaternary , that is to say the cyclical number of the astral revolutions , & c . The geography of Egypt ,

under Sesostns , is a pantacle , that is to say , a symbolical resume of all the magian dogma of Zoroaster , recovered and formulated by Hermes .

The land of Egypt was a great book , and the teachings of this book were repeated , translated in painting , in sculpture , in architecture , in all the towns and in all the temples . Even the desert had its eternal

teachings , and its word of stone is seated at the base of the pyramids , those limits of human intelligence before which a colossal sphynx has for so many ages seemed to meditate , while slowly burying itself in the

sand . Its head , mutilated by the ages that have passed over it , still continues above its tomb , as if waiting for a human voice to come and explain the problem of the pyramids to the new world .

Lgypt is to us the cradle of science and wisdom ; she clothes the dogmas ofthe first Zoroaster with images , if not richer , at least truer and chaster , than those of India . The sacrcdotal art , and the royal art there

formed adepts by initiation , and initiation was not confined within the egotistic limits of castes . There , the Hebrew slave was seen to initiate himself , and arrive at the rank of prime minister ; perhaps of high priest , for

he espoused the daughter of an Egyptian priest , and the priesthood never misallicd themselves . Joseph realised in Egypt the idea of communism ; he rendered the priesthood and the state the sole proprietors

of land , and consequently the arbiters of labour and of riches . * He thus abolished misery , and made the whole of Egypt one patriarchial family . Joseph , it is known , owed his elevation to his skill in the

interpretation of dreams , a science in which the Christians of our day refuse to believe , although the ) ' admit that the Bible , in which the wonderfuldivinations of Joseph arc recorded , is the word of the Holy Spirit .

1 he absolute hieroglyphic science had for its basis an alphabet in which all the gods were letters , all the letters ideas , all the ideas numbers , and all the numbers perfect signs .

This hieroglyphic alphabet , with which Moses formed the great secret of his Cabala , and which he took from the Egyptians ( for

according to the Sepher Jezirah it came from Abraham)—this alphabet is the famous Book of Thot , believed by Count de Gebclin to exist in our own dav' under .