Origin And Beauty Of Masonic Symbolism.

the sun as the fountain of all Jife , the author of nature , and the god of the universe ; that those lacking the searching intelligence Avhich penetrates beyond the outer veil which divides sensible from intellectual things , to explore hidden causes and more universal and primary

life , worshipped the day star as the Lord of Pleaven and Earth , and Avith incense and oblations sought to propitiate the favour or appease the wrath of the visible godhead Avhose . smile or frown sped the javelins of light or the bolt of the stormcloud .

The less the knowledge of astronomical and terrestrial laAvs , the more absolute the empire of the senses , and the more astounding and awful the phenomena of the serial and siderial heavens . Hence , those AVIIO lived in the intellectual infancy of their race , peopled earth and heaven Avith

imaginary deities , clothed with such attributes as natural forces Avould represent ; and from the external war of the elements and the beneficent fruits of their interior harmony , came forth gods of good and evil . " Hosts of Heaven , " and air and sea

—celestial and infernal—gods , giants , deeves , genii , gnomes and fays , furies and fates , nymphs and graces—iu a thousand Aveird or awful forms they stalked or flew to the disturbed visions of bards and hierophants . All lands are filled with relics of such worship of material forces , under strange names , and often Avith curious and

revoltmg ceremonies . In all forms of such worship , the sun ( the Light God ) stood supreme ; if not the real , yet as the representative object , Avhether hailed as Brahm , Om , Odin , Osiris , Mithra , Adonis , Jupiter , or Montezuma ; and in imitation of the mysterious secrecy

of nature and the order of the planetary and terrestrial courses , both science and Avorship were veiled and hidden in the forms of peculiar and aAvful ceremonies , or mysteries conferred in secret degrees , or grades , on the selected few .

To the hierophant of the less enlightened of these mysteries , the natural forces and phenomena Avere realities—actual beings invested Avith supernal powers ; and superstition and cruelty marked the forms of their institutions . But there never were Avanting in the more enlightened portions of the Avorld

those Avhose sagacious and reflective minds penetrated the recesses of nature and reached toward sublime and primary principles , and Avho somewhat understood and appreciated the real secret and mystery of the universe , and these , in their retreats

of initiation , taught a hig h and ennobling philosophy under the like natural symbols , and this Avas doubtless the principal secret in the initiations of the more enlightened nations , the instructing of the initiate in the real secrets , moral , intellectual and

physical , contained in the received mythology and popular fables of the age . In all organized mysteries Avere to be found the same number of degrees , or steps , corresponding to the number of degrees in which all things of the universe exist , which are three .

In all of them the order of the heavens , the courses of the planets , the change and succession of the seasons , and the' vicissitudes of the day , Avere represented ' in the forms and appointments of their temples , groves or caverns , as Avell as in the

ceremonies they observed . In all , as by an instinctive impulse , higher and surer than mere reasoning could attain , the founders acted wiser than they knew ; or , by an inspiration few are Avilling to acknoAvledge , they caught some

insig ht of the harmony of all things in their order , and traced in the sublime truths of the visible universe the correspondences of the more sublime truths of the human mind ; and the most sublime Avhich relate to moral things , and the nature and manifestations of the divine in

its infinite character and attributes . Whether these principles were embodied in any of the mysteries at thair beginning , or were developed in the course of ages , Ave can never knoAV , for the history of the world gives us no beginnings , being itseh a thing of yesterday . There are no existing records old enough to explain the monuments and relics of the most ancient

past . This much , however , we may deem assured : that the complete order of the universe , in all its degrees , in the least as well as in the greatest things , Avhich is the secret , and also the key to the whole system of Freemasonry , Avas to a greater or less extent a part of the relig ion and philosophy of the principal mysteries and priesthoods of the ancient Avorld .