The Moral And Religious Origin Of Freemasonry:

bosom of that very society which it had formed , and to fashion out of it the perfection of social order . Then , instead of taking the man of nature to make a social being of him , society took up social man in order to perfect him . To arrive at this end the most surely , there were started initiatory colleges , depositories of knowledge and of truths the most useful , and studies the most

profound—mathematics , geometry , astronomy , navigation , art of healing '—all was taught in those private schools . The dogma of the existence of God , the investigation of the laws of nature , were the object of initiative primitive study . The discoveries which resulted from this study became the science and the secret of the initiated . Agriculture was at once the daughter and the nurse of society . She ( agriculture ) was , with astronomy , which was to be her amide , one of the principal objects of

" works ; " hence comes it that the mysteries were named after Ceres and the Sun , which , for the initiated , meant but culture of the earth and observation of the stars . These studies led the Adepts to a knowledge of the general laws of the universe , and to the discovery of the good or evil which men experience ; Those studies went further still , and transported the students beyond the limits of existence . Men living in a state of nature could only recognise the

rewards or punishments of this life . Already civilised and instructed men could cast their regards and base their hope on another future ; for there they saw recompense of the good which they might have clone and the punishment of the evil which they might have committed . The Elysian Fields were the prize of the just , and Tartarus the lot of the criminal . But this same Tartarus , recognised and accepted by our primitive initiated , was not of a nature , as it is in our days , to dishonour the Divinity .

Hope , which is the star that shines upon man from his first wail to his last sigh , is not extinguished even in his grave . Seek this consoling power , and you will find it everywhere . Run throughout all Nature ; ask her , and she will tell you she sees nothing but hope ; seek there amongst men , and you will find it seated in the core of their heart ; ascend to the heavens , and you will meet it ; descend to hell , and you shall learn that even there hope is not without foundation . [ It would be much to be desired that some theologians

should be tempted to confute publicly the opinion . 1 have here enunciated in reference to Hope . ] Ah ! the dogma of the knowledge of God , professed in the initiative schools , is very much more vast and expansive than is that which the theology of later ages has been pleased to burden with false soothsayers . We know that God is Justice itself , but we are not , at the same time , ignorant that he is likewise of infinite mercy .

God , in creating humanity , knew the frailty , inborn and inherent , in that portion of His creation , and that , notwithstanding the intellectuality with which He had enriched it , it might havestrayed from the path of ri ght-doing and virtue ; but who is it that can penetrate the decrees of the Eternal ? As for us mortals , we are content to reverence His exalted wisdom , and we console ourselves , in our human peripatetics , by again remembering without ceasing that the Great Architect of the Universe has said" Nothing in the

, heavens , and nothing beneath the heavens , shall be eternall y lost ! " Why , then , should it be Man who is the masterpiece of Creation ? It was in the schools where they professed similar dogmas that Orpheus , Pythagoras , Moses , Thales ( of Miletum ) , Epicurus , Lycurgus ( the Spartan law-giver ) , Plato , Solomon , and the other wise men of old have borrowed those torrents of light with which they have dazzled posterity . Thither

repaired from all lands men desirous of knowing the truth . Those were the schools of wisdom which refused to open to Constantino , stained with the blood of his kindred—to Alexander ( six centuries before ) , guilty of the murder of his friends , and some others less famous in name and in wickedness , and likewise little worthy of entrance .