Masonic Symbolism.

number of men for their defence . "Besides , " continues Rollin , " the city was stored with all sorts of provisions for twenty years . " Yet while Belshazzar , the last King of the Chaldean dynasty in Babylou , was reading upon the wall the prophetic words , " Mene , Mene , TeM , Upharsin , " Cyrus , the King of the Medes and Persians , was at the gates of his capital , ancl speedily became its master . With the conquest of Cyrus the Bablonian empire ended after a

y duration of two hundred and ten years . Twenty years later , after the Jews had endured captivit y for seventy years , they were suffered , by the edict of Cyrus , to depart from Babylon , under the concluct of Zernbbauel , and to return to their own country . From that time forward until the coming of Christ , Lodges , we are told , were universally dedicated to the hero of the homeward journeying of the Jews—Zerubbabel . St . John the Baptist was next selected

as the patron of Freemasonry , and to him lodges were thereafter dedicated until the final destruction of the Temple , not many years later , by the Romans under Titus Vespasian . Freemasonry then fell info decay for a short time ; few lodges continued to exist , until finally a number of Masons deputed by such lodges as continued in precarious life , solicited St . John the Evangelist , then Bishop of Ephesusand alread y upwards of ninety years of age . to take upon himself the

, duties and . honors of Grand Master of the Fraternity , into the mysteries of whose Order he had been initiated in earl y life . The venerable man , having thegood of the Order much at heart , complied , and from that time to this , a period of nearly 1800 years , all lodges have been dedicated to both the Saints John—the Baptist and the Evangelist . Understood with reference to the

history of the connection of these two eminent patrons of Masonry with our Order , how significant is the symbol of the two perpendicular parallel lines , embordering the point within a circle which supports the Holy Scriptures , ancl is ex 2 Dlained to the Entered Apprentice in the third section of his degree These parallel lines , as every Mason knows , refer to and represent the two Saints ; the circle is an emblem of eternity , ancl may refer to the everlasting

character of the principles taught by the Saints John aud still inculcated in the Ritual of Freemasonry ; the point within the circle really represents the Sun , or the prolific pirinciple in nature , and may be said to Masonically represent the life-giving and life-sustaining power which perpetually revivifies the truths which our early parents preached , and keeps them ever alive to the generations of Masons as they come and go upon the earth ; while the Holy cri "

Sptures—that Great Li ght in Masonry , supported by this circle—is emblematical of the historic Masonic fact , claimed b y Masons , that to Freemasonry the civilized world owes the preservation of its Bible . If Freemasonry had accomplished in and for the world no other good thing than the preservation of the Scriptures , it should , for that alone , be revered by every civilized being under the sun . In spite of this there are some—even educated in the Church—who

continually revile Masons and Masonry , either ignorant of or choosing to ignore the incalculable value of the service it has performed for them and for all of us . Yet every Mason knows that every teaching of Freemasonry is good , and pure ' and true—and no man can truthfully gainsay the assertion that every perfectly good Mason , if such a man exists , must , in the very nature of things , be a perfectly good Christian in the broadest and most perfect sense of the term .

Another beautiful and instructive symbol in Freemasonry is the placing of the Master ' s chair in the East . Every Master ' s station is symbolic of the Oriental Chair of King Solomon , as every Mason knows ; but perhaps not all have reflected that it is placed where it is for any other reason than that the Temple at Jerusalem fronted East , ancl that its great builder ' s seat was in that end of the magnificent structure which he erected . But an equally cogent

reason is this—and it is a reason which applied to the chair of Solomon as much as to any Master ' s seat now . The sun is the source of li g ht . Its course is from East to West . And it is a fact in histozy that all knowledge , all religion , all civilisation , have emanated from Eastern nations , and have travelled