Table Of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

PAGE F REEMASONRY AND ISRAELITISM 451 & 452 RED C ROSS OF CONSTANTINE 452 GRAND M ASONIC CEREMONIES AT ALBANY 452 & 453 LAYING THE FIRST STONE OF A MASONIC TEMPLE AT HASSKEUI ... 453 i 454 , & 4 SS GRAND LODGE OF IRELAND 455

ROSICRUCIAN .-E SOCIETATIS IN ANGLIA 455 BIRTHS , MARRIAGES , AND DEATHS 456 ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS 456 Q UALITY , NOT QUANTITY 456 THE AMERICAN KNIGHTS TEMPLAR . ... 456 & 457 MULTUM IN PARVO 457 ORIGINAL

CORRESPONDENCEFreemasonry , ils Nature ... 458 MASONIC FESTIVITIESSummer Banquet of the Lion and Lamb Lodge , No . 192 458 Picnic of the Temple Lodge , No . 1094 458 & 459

THE AMERICAN K . 1 . TOURISTSBanquet by the Provincial Grand Conclave of Middlesex 459 & 460 The Visit to Alton Towers ... ... ... 4 60 MASONIC MEETINGS FOR NEXT WEEK 461 ADVERTISEMENTS ... 449 , 450 , 461 , 462 , 463 , & 464

Pressure of advertisements at a late hour compels us to leave over a number of reports of lodge meetings .

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

FREEMASONRY & ISRAELITISM .

BY BRO . WILLIAM CARPENTER , P . M . & P . Z . 177 .

IX . In my two papers preceding this I glanced at such external and internal evidences of the identity of the Anglo-Saxons and the Israelites as are afforded

by the brief notices of the ancient Getaj and of their immediate descendants , the Goths , Saxons , Scythians , or Germans , which occur in the pages of history ; and such as are furnished in the identity or similarity

of the institutions and customs existent amongst them and those of ancient Israel . I do not know whether I have rendered a dry historical itiquirysufficiently interesting to induce any of my brothers to follow me ,

but if any have done so , I cannot but hope they will have seen something in what has been advanced which—as far as it goesgives considerable support to the theory I wish to establish . I attach much weight ,

especially , to the way-marks of Israel ' s migrations westward , to be found on the northern shores of the Euxine or Black Sea , and west of that sea , about the Danube , and to those institutions , usages ,

and customs introduced by the Saxon descendants of the Gctte , wherever they have made a settlement . Such memorials as these are of great value , seeing that we get less certain knowledge of the early

races of mankind from direct history than from those relations and resemblances of custom which often remained infixed forages , and when all other connections are

lostthe usages pertaining to life and death , the political institutions , the punishment of offences , the manner of habitation , & c , to some of which v / e have referred , and to some of which we still have to refer .

At this stage of our inquiry , however , two questions suggest themselves , and demand some notice : — I . If the Getre were the ten tribes , how came they to lose their own name , and to

he called , at the time we find them on the Danube , by the name of Geta 3 ? That is a question which , perhaps , admits of no positive answer . I have sought in vain amongst those who have written on ancient

geography and on ethnology for any conjecture which will help us to answer it . Did the people name themselves Getai ? That seems to me to be most likely . But for what reason , or on what account , should they so name themselves ? Let us see if we can discover this . They had been cast

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

out of their own land , and were trodden down , as the prophets describe it , by their enemies , as also by the Lord Himself . Is it not reasonable to suppose that , in this captive and down-trodden condition , they

called to mind God ' s dealings towards them , both in mercy and in judgment ? Surely , yes ; and they could hardly do so , and not remember one of the most familiar symbols by which the prophetic word had described

them— ' My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill ; and he fenced it , and gathered out the stones thereof , and planted it with the choicest vine , and built a tower in the midst of it , and also made a

wine-press therein . . . . What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it ? Wherefore , when I looked that it should bring forth grapes , brought it forth wild grapes ? And now ,

go to ; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard : I will take away the hedge thereof , and it shall be eaten up , and break down the wall thereof , and it shall be for a treading . . . . For the vineyard of the

Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel " ( Isaiah v . 1-7 ) . "Israel is an empty vine . . . . It shall be carried unto Assyria " ( Hos . x . I , 6 ) . This symbol of the vine , as every reader of the prophetic writings

knows , is one used in a variety of ways to denote the tribes , and God's care and culture of them , the object being to make them fruitful in all good works . But were they not also spoken of—as other people

who had incurred the Divine judgment were—as the fruit of the vine , trodden in the wine-press ? We have certainly one well-known passage in the Book of Isaiah ( lxiii . 2-4 ) in which it is so : " Wherefore

are thou red in thine apparel , and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-press ? I have trodden the wine-press alone , and of the people there was none with me . I will tread them in mine anger , and trample

them in my fury , and their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments , and I will stain all my raiment , for the day of vengeance is in mine heart . " A parallel passage occurs in the Apocalypse ( ch . xix . 15 ) . In like

manner , Jeremiah , lamenting the fall and punishment of Judah , says : " The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me ; He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young

men : the Lord hath trodden the virgin , the daughter of Judah , as in the wine-press " ( Lam . i . 15 ) . The most striking passage is certainly that in Isaiah , and that Israel considered it as primarily referring to their

own punishment is obvious from the circumstance that the rest of the chapter in which it occurs , with the whole of the following chapter , is a penitential confession and supplication of the Israelites in their

then state of captivity . They acknowledge the favours and blessings which God had bestowed upon them , confess their ingratitude , bow to the judgment they had brought upon themselves , and pray for

forgiveness , and for a restoration to their land . They had been trodden down by God as well as by man , and , in the Divine judgment , they had been represented as the fruit of the vine , trodden in the wine-press

of the wrath of God . May they not , in their penitence , impressed with a sense of the Divine displeasuse , and of the sins which had brought it upon them , have called themselves by a name expressive of

that state , and corresponding with the metaphor under which they had been spoken of ? In > Hebrew , the wine-press is called Get . Some of the psalms have , in their inscription , "To the chief musician upon Gittith" In the Hebrew it

is Getith , not Gittith—that is , it is the plural of Get ; and the psalms are supposed to have been those sung after the vintage . The name of Get , or Gath , was given to many places in Israel , as Gath-Hepher ,

Gath-Rimmon , & c , as also to one of the five Principalities of the Philistines , on the Mediterranean . Now , if the Israelites , in their down-trodden condition , designated themselves , as I have supposed , Get , the

word would easily , and almost surely , become Geta , and in its plural form , Gelce I do not mean to say that they intended to call themselves " wine-pressers , " but , by a figure of speech ( a metonomy ) common to

almost all languages , by which the thing contained is put for that which contains it , and vice versa , the word for a wine-press would stand for the fruit of the wine trodden in it ; so that Getcs would signify the

trodden vine , or the sorely-crushed people . I had written so far , when I found that Diodorous speaks of a branch of the Scythian tribes , which occupied the mountainous regions about Caucasus , and also

the plains towards the ocean , and the Palus Maastis , with the other regions near the Tamais , whence they crossed the Araxes , and passed into Europe . The most advanced of them being known to the

Romans under the name of Germans ( evidently the people of whom I have been speaking ); and he calls them Massagetai . Here we have the Getcs again , but compounded with another word , Massa . What

is Massa ? In Arabic , the word Mas signifies to be dilated , as a wound , and in the Hebrew , to crack and peel off , as the diseased skin ; hence , it signifies to reject with contempt or disgust—to despise—the

opposite of to choose . In this compound word , therefore , we have the same meaning as in Geta ; , but intensified—the cast-off" ,

despised , bruised vine . Thus Hosea ( x . 1 ) says , " Israel is an empty vine ; " and Isaiah says that , under their punishment , Israel shall lament for the once-fruitful

vine ( xxxii . 12 ) . In the absence of other means of ascertaining the origin of the name Getcs , from whom have descended the Anglo-Saxons , I submit this as a conjecture entitled to some consideration .

II . It may be asked whether there is any reason to believe that the Israelites , who , though they were to be cast forth and punished , as we have seen , but who were also to be recalled and restored to God ' s

favour , and to their own land , which had been given to the twelve tribes , in perpetuity , would , during their exclusion from it , cease to observe the laws and disregard the ceremonies which it had proscribed ?

Though they were to be dispersed amongst the nations , they were not to be lost . Israel was to be brought back from Assyria , and the outcasts who had left the great body of their brethren were to be gathered

together from all the countries into which they had been dispersed— "I will surely assemble , O Jacob , all of thee ; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel ; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah , as

the flock in the midst of their fold ( Micah ii . 12 ) . Yes , all this will assuredly come to pass , for " the word of the Lord is sure , " and in this His word has been confirmed by an oath . But in the meantime , Israel was

to pass through many changes , and amongst them that of apostacy , accompanied by blindness—that is , mental and spiritual blindness . a state in which they should know neither God nor themselves . This is assured

tous by the words of prophecy ; and whatever may be thought or said in disparagement of the prophecies by those who , in spite of the many and striking prophecies in rela-