Geometrical And Other Symbols.

between them . In like manner Proserpine , who is called " the life and death of all men , " is said to have lived a " half existence " alternately in the regions below , and in the regions above . It was in allusion to just such an alternation that the Druidical Taliesin said , " I went the circuit : I slept in a hundred isles : through a hundred caers I toiled : a second time was

I formed : I have died : I have revived ;—and " thrice have I been born ;"—that was , " first in the egg " of the natural life of the " ovate , " or pupil of initiation ; next " out of the egg " into the second birth , or birdlife of the winge God , Hu , or the entranced and bardlife of the divine oracular Spirit ; and thirdly , back

into human life , like the birth of a new egg from the 3 iew bird-life ; so having " gone the circuit , "—like the Ereemasonic circuit or procession with the sun , —a diurnal circuit , of which hundreds of thousands of similar alternations were but a repetition of one and the same seriesof alternations and reversalswhich

, , constituted , theoretically and figuratively , but not , it is to be feared , practically speaking , the twofold or mysterious life of the fully-developed or perfected divine , and " deathlesss brotherhood . "

In the Symbolical Interpretation of the Hindu Dream ofBavan , it is said : — - 'Man is a duality : he comprises two modes of existence , —one natural , one reversed ;" and , according to Scripture , "the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit , and the Spirit against the Flesh , and these two are contrary one to the other . " Neander , in his work on Christian Dogmasspeaksfrom ancient

, , doctrine ( See vol . i . p . 92 . Bohn ) , of " the alternations of the ecstatic and common state , " and of " the corirast between the Divine and the human , "—and the French Freemason , Chevalier Ramsay , alludes to the "double" state of the perfected , as being enjoyable " hy turns" whichin truththey must be if they

, , , accord with the alternations and reversals of sleep and waking , —and if , as we are told , the perfected or " righteous have the promise of the life that now is and of that which is TO COME "—taking root downwards , and bearing fruit upwards . "

All such Scri ptural ideas , and many more than these , amply that man ' s perfectly developed state , like his imperfect , is still a twofold and conjugal state , involving a diurnal alternation and reversal ,- —an active , waking , human life , in short , together with a life of divine and glorious rest , in " one tabernacle . " This idea is clearly embodied in such passages as this : — " We that

are in this tabernacle do groan , being burdened—not for that we would be unclothed but clotlied upon—{ " with our house which is from heaven , "— "putting on the Lord Jesus , " the true " Light of the World " ] , that mortality might be swallowed up of life . " Thus , too , the tabernacle in the wilderness , which was the

model of the Temple of Solomon , the architecture of which is the Freemasonic architecture of the inward man , comprised two places , apartments , or houses , "the heavenly house , " or " most holy place , " and " the earthly house , " or " holy place , " divided by the vail , but bound together , for all that , by strong bonds or bars , that the whole mi g ht constitute " one tabernacle . "

I fear I must now again pause without even yet having completed my self-imposed task—but I hope the curious interest of the subject will serve as a sufficient excuse for the length of this much more extended series of remarks on geometrical and other symbols , than I thought I had materials for at the outset .

Geometrical And Other Symbols.

I have yet to show the reason why precisely such forms as those of which I have been treating were probably chosen to symbolise the principles indicated . J . E . DOTE . ( To he continued ) .

Masonic Notes And Queries.

MASONIC NOTES AND QUERIES .

KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS , ETC . [ Our contemporary , " Notes and Queries " has another article on the above subject , which we transfer to these columns on account of the interest in the subject expressed by several of our subscribers . ] Having , in connection with a long course of reading on the origin , progress , and constitution of the various

religious Orders of Chivalry , made the history of the sovereign institute of St . John of Jerusalem a peculiar subject of study and research , I am led to place before that portion of the public which may be interested in the present controversy respecting the legitimacy of the revived English Langue of that Order , the facts and observations comprised in the present article . In a

review of the arguments advanced on both sides of the question , I shall endeavour to exercise a feeling of courteous forbearance and of perfect candour , in opposition to the hostile spirit which so often vents itself in calumnious misrepresentation , on the part of those who have most unscrupulosly and recklessly dared to attack the honourable association adverted to—an association which

, since the date of its revival in 1831 , has continued to enrol amidst its ranks many of the proudest names of British chivalry . Sir George Bowyer ' s historical researches on the subject of the Order of Malta , enable him to state the extraordinary fact that the institution referred to is a Roman Catholic monastic bodinto which Protestants

y , are not admissible . He must of course allow that a married man , and a member ( nay , the very head ) of the Greek Church , could legally hold the office of its Gr * nd Master ; since I have seen , in a small treatise of his own on the subject of the Order , a list of the late chiefs of the

fraternity ; in which the name of the Emperor , Paul 1 ., of Russia , is included . Nor can it be believed that he can deny that Protestants have been received into the ranks of this Order , in opposition to its statutes , as those of a Roman Catholic body ; since history loudly proclaims the fact , that the Knights of the Bailiwick of Brandenburg , who at the Reformation had adopted the new form

of worship , and become thereby " heretics " and " schismatics , " in the eyes of the Order , were , in 1763 , through the instrumentality of Frederick the Great , restored to " amicable relations with Malta , " and again " treated as brethren . " And did not , at a later date , the custom prevail at Malta of receiving English and German Protestantsas well as members of the Greek Churchinto

, , the ranks of the Order ? As to the statutes , it has been well observed that , in their quality and flexibility , they have resembled the shirts of mail worn by the Knights in their earlier battles . Were they not set aside in favour of " schismatics , " so far back as 1382 ; when , by a formal treaty , the Brandenburg bailliwick , which had , in 1309 , declared its

independence , and chosen a superior of its own , to whom it gave the title of Master , was allowed to retain the nomination of its chief ? One or the most able of the historians of the Order , De Boisgelin , himself a most distinguished chevalier in its ranks during the occupation of Malta , writes , under the date of 1805 the following conclusive passage in

, reference to the points of admitting candidates of various religious creeds into the fraternity : — " All Catholic historians , having either neglected giving any account of this dismemberment ot the Order [ the Brandenburg schism ] , or having spoken of it in terms which nothing but the