Table Of Contents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS .

PAGE F REEMASONRY AND ISRAELITISM 719 & 720 THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEMASONRY ... 720 & 721 MASONIC CURIOSITIES 721 & 722 EARLY ENGLISH MASONRY 722 & 723

LODGE OF BENEVOLENCE 723 C ONSECRATION OF THE EARL OF ZETLAND LODGE , No . 1364 723 BIRTHS , MARRIAGES , AND DEATHS 724 THE THIRD DEGREE 724

THE ROSICRUCIAN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND ... 724 MULTAM IN PARVO 725 ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCEMasonic Privilege 725 & 726 Tlie Purple in West Lancashire 726

The Completion of St , Paul's Cathedral 726 & 727 A DAY AT THE EARLSWOOD ASYLUM , RED HILL , SURREY 727 & 728 THE CRAFTMetropolitan ... ... ... ... ... 729

Provincial ... ... ... ... 729 ROYAL ARCHMetropolitan 730

ORDERS OF CHIVALRYKnights Templar ... ... 730 MASONIC MEETINGS FOR NEXT WEEK 730 ADVERTISEMENTS ... 717 , 71 S , 730 , 731 , & 732

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

FREEMASONRY & ISRAELITISM .

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

xxi n . One of the most remarkable traits in the character of the Israelites was their propensity to start aside from the ordinances and worship prescribed by the Mosaic Law ,

and adopt , or mix with them , thc vicious and debasing rites of idolatry . The repeated chastisements to which they were subjected , declaredly on account of these forbidden practices , and the repeated

miracles by which the authority oi the Mosaic system was attested , ceased , after short intervals , to impress their minds ; and , again and again , they lapsed into this sin of idolatry . In the very midst of the

solemn covenant into which they were entering with the one true and only God , at Mount Sinai , where they had been overwhelmed by the awful manifestations ofthe Divine presence , they insisted upon Aaron ' s

making a god which might go before them in the wilderness . This golden calf , or ox , of Aaron , in imitation of thc Egyptian god Apis , was followed by numerous aberrations from the true worship , as was

exemplified in the adoption , for a time , of thc abominations of . Baal Peer , and others similar to them . But it is to tlie apostacy of Solomon that we must chiefly refer thc almost universal prevalence of idolatrous

rites united with the worship of the true God . As the Misses Rothschild write , "The decline of Solomon ' s reign was a melancholy foreshadowing of thc subsequent decline of thc Hebrew nation . . . . He

took many wives , a thousand , we are told , idolatrous maidens of Moab , Amnion , and Edom , of Canaan and Phoenicia , and they infested Jerusalem with their own superstitions . The pure faith of thc Hebrew king

and his people was sullied . Instead of the one service in the Temple , offered to the one true God , Solomon bowed down before the most hideous idols . He tolerated the licentious worship of Astarte ; he burnt

incense to Chemosh , the god of the Moabites ; and he sanctioned thc detestable rites of Milcom and Moloch , the deities of the Ammonites , in whose honour children Were burnt" ( Hist , and Lit . ofthe Israelites ) . Israel exceeded Judah , after the

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

division of the kingdom , in their propensity to thus mingle the true and the false—to sully and debase the pure worship of their covenant God by the foul , cruel , and

polluting rites of idolatry . But almost throughout the two kingdoms the abominations prevailed , and Ezekiel was commanded thus to address himself to Israel , after they had been delivered into the hands of the

Assyrians : " Thus they have done unto me : they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day , and have profaned my sabbaths , for when they had slain their children to their idols , then they came , the same day , into

my sanctuary , to profane it ; and , lo ! this have they done in the midst of mine house " ( chap , xxiii . 38 , 39 ) . Nor were they , as Judah were , cured of their propensity to this profane mixing of holy and unholy

things . They continued in their idolatrous course , notwithstanding the terrible judgments to which it had already subjected them , for as the same prophet testifies , more than 130 years after their deportation into

Assyria : " Thus saith the Lord ... I will sanctify my great name , which was profaned among the heathen , which ye have profaned in the midst of them ; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord .

saith the Lord God , when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes " ( ch , xxxvi . 22 , 23 ) . " Ephraim ( Israel ) had joined himself to idols . " The people lost the knowledge of

the true God , who had brought them out of the land of Egypt , and made them a peculiar people . And , as in all such cases , they departed further and further from the " old ways" of truth and righteousness , and

became more deeply immersed in superstition and vice . The idolatry of thc Saxons was of a very gross form , but there was in it much which , we can hardly doubt , was founded upon imperfect traditions of their

old faith and worship ; of which , indeed , they preserved some striking points . The Saxons are described as having been acquainted with thc doctrine of one Supreme Deity , the author of evervthing that exists ;

the Eternal , the Living , the Awful Being ; the Searcher into all hidden things ; the Being that never changes ; who lives and governs during the ages , directing everything that is high or that is low . Once they

esteemed it impious to make any visible representation of this great Being , or to imagine that he could be confined within the walls of a temple . Their change in this respect is said to have arisen in consequence

of having received a mighty conqueror from the East , as their god in human nature , correspondent to the expectation of Israel , with regard to their Messiah . The name of this supposed deliverer was Odin or

Woden , He was esteemed the great dispenser of happiness to his followers , and of destruction to his enemies ; and when he was removed from amongst them , they placed his image in their most holy place ,

on a raised dais—a kind of ark , as in imitation of that at Jerusalem , where , between the cherubim , the Divine Presence manifested itself . They placed , near Woden , the image of his wife , Erigga ; and between

the two , the image of lhor ; outward of these three , by thc side of Woden , was the image of Tuesco , ancl by thc side of I ' rigga , Scaler , or Saturn ; and outward of Tuesco , a representation of the moon ; and outward

of Saturn , an image of tlie sun . These god . - ' , it may be remarked , are those with which Israel had been threatened , the sun

and moon , and gods which their fathers had not known . Before the ark , in the holy place , in which their idols were ^ p laced , stood an altar on which the holy-fire con-

Freemasonry & Israelitism.

tinually burned , and near it a vase for receiving thc blood of the victims , and a brush for sprinkling it upon the . people ; thus reminding us of the Mosaic system of sacrifice and atonement . They had

generally a temple for the whole nation , in which twelve priests served , having under their charge the religious concerns of the whole people , and being presided over by a high

priest . In addition , they had their rural worship , which was generally in groves , as was the practice of Israel in its early history .

This commingling of truth and error , this union of the old Hebrew ceremonies with the worship of idols , in the ceremonies of which were bloody rites and horrible cruelties , was one of the remarkable traits in the

Saxon race , as we have seen it to have been in ancient Israel . But like as it was during their location in Assyria , Babylonia , and Media , the light at length burst forth . At the very time when Christianity had become

overlaid with formalism and superstition , and Mahomedanism had been making rapid strides in the world , the Anglo-Saxons were converted from their idolatry , embraced Christianity , and ultimately became ,

and have continued to be , its most constant and efficient teachers , and foremost champions . "The Christians of the seventh century , " says Gibbon , " had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism ;

their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East ; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs , and saints , and angels , the

objects of popular veneration ; and the Colliridian heretics , who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia , invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a goddess . Each of the Oriental sects was eager

to confess that all , except themselves , deserved thc reproach of idolatry and polytheism . " The forms and objects of idolatry

were diversified ; but they spread themselves abroad , and had again cast their blighting influence over thc greater part of the earth .

At this juncture , a man came forth from the peninsula of Arabia ,, and , with the sword in one hand and the Koran in thc other , erected his throne on thc ruins of Christianity . Incroasing myriads

acknowledged Mahomet as their king and prophet , so that , as Gibbon observes , " a hundred years after his flight from Mecca , the arms and thc reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic ocean , over the

various and distant provinces which may be comprised under the nipics of Persia , Syria , Egypt , Africa , and Spain . " Commencing with thc promulgation of a creed which asserted thc glorious truth of the unity of

God , enforced thc worship and adoration of this infinite and eternal Being , without form or similitude , present to our most secret thoughts , existing by thc necessity of His own nature , and deriving from Himself

all moral and intellectual perfection , he inculcated a morality much purer than anything he found about him . But Mahomedanism at lemrth became a mass of

degrading superstition , composed of the most heterogenous materials , debasing alike to the souls and bodies of men . Mahomedanism and the Papacy dominated the world .

Near the end of the sixth century , Pope Gregory , having set his heart upon the conversTon ' of the Anglo-Saxons , sent Augustine , a Roman monk , on a religious mission to England , and he , by adroitly adapting the doctrines and discipline of the Church