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PERIOD III.

CHAP. V.

ON THE IDOLATROUS MYSTERIES, AS CONTRASTED WITH FREE-MASONRY.

THE mysteries practised by idolatrous nations were nothing else but the secret solemnities of divine worship, and were invented to cast a solemn veil over their rites, which might sanction and recommend the worship of false gods to those who, without some splendid and imposing stimulus, might be disinclined to renounce the true God, and embrace the worship of idols. These mysteries, avowedly established on the same basis as Masonry, were secretly intended to produce an effect quite the reverse; for they were instituted with the express design of making our science subservient to the very worst and most degrading practices of idolatry. Hence the two institutions have been frequently confounded together; and Masonry becomes stigmatized with infidelity, if not atheism, and charged with renouncing every scriptural doctrine contained in the genuine fountain of revealed truth. A comparison between the mysteries of idolatry, and genuine Masonry

will show how far the latter was practised în these institutions, and will distinctly mark the line of separation which distinguishes the one from the other.

The Eleusinian, the Orphic, the Bacchic, the Samothracian, and all those innumerable mysteries practised by the heathen in every age, were instituted to perpetuate a remembrance of the events which occurred at the universal Deluge, and to preserve the knowledge of a future state of rewards and punishments. But, while inculcating that true doctrine, they added many false and pernicious tenets, which perverted both its nature and end. "They taught," says Warburton, "that the initiated should be happier than all other mortals in a future state; that while the souls of the profane, at their leaving the body, stuck fast in mire and filth, and remained in darkness, the souls of the initiated winged their flight directly to the happy islands, and the habitations of the Gods."*

Now Masonry does not inculcate any such doctrine a doctrine not less impious than the Roman indulgences, and which, if true, would have effected the dissolution of our Order many ages ago. The design of Masonry, concisely and truly defined in Arnold's Dictionary, proves the direct contrary to be true. "Masonry," says that

* Div. Leg. l. ii, s. 4.

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lexicographer, " is a moral Order, instituted with the praiseworthy design of recalling to our remembrance the most sublime truths in the midst of the most innocent and social pleasures, founded on liberality, brotherly love, and charity."

The idolatrous mysteries date their origin from the Cabiri,* and Thoth, who were certainly Masons; but, forsaking the pure channel of God's worship, they sunk into the grossest defilements of idolatry, and founded, on the pattern of our craft, an institution calculated to make the worship of imaginary deities fascinating and permanent. In the time when the pastor kings reigned over Egypt, many noble Egyptians, with their families and attendants, migrated into other countries, and disseminated throughout the world the improvements in the mysteries of that superstitious nation. Masonry originated with God; like that eternal Being, existed before time was; and shall exist when time shall be no more.

The former and the latter degrees of the ancient idolatrous mysteries were inconsistent, and even positively contradicted each other: those of Masonry are a regular and progressive series; each superior degree strengthening and confirming the preceding, until we arrive at the perfect knowledge of the truth: aptly compared to the steps

* Diod. Sic. 1. i.

of a ladder, by each of which we advance nearer to "a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

To the nocturnal celebration of these mysteries women were admitted; a practice which led to the most shocking abuses, and the indiscriminate practice of licentiousness and vice. And this was soon carried to such a dreadful pitch of shameless profligacy, that the xтs and paλλos were actually exposedt and carried about in public procession!

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"At the celebration of these solemn festivals, the women were carried to Eleusis in covered waggons, which were dragged along very slowly, by way of imitating the carrying of corn in harvest. The middle days of the Thesmophoria were observed with peculiar solemnity: they sat all day upon the ground, near the statue of Ceres, keeping fast and lamenting."—Note 12, Beloe's Herodot. Erato.

+ “From the idea of the patriarch Noah being the father, and the ark the mother of mankind, united, perhaps, with some traditional remembrance of the crime of Ham, I doubt not but that the whole of the detestable Phallic orgies derived their existence. They were early introduced into the Cabiric, or Diluvian mysteries; and the abominations which accompanied them called forth the loudest and most pointed invectives from Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus. The Ionim, or Yonijas of Deucalion, brought them to the temple of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, and erected a number of Phalli in the area before the vestibule, for the special purpose of commemorating the events of the Deluge. Twice each year, in allusion to that dreadful catastrophe, a person climbed to the top of one of the Phalli, where he remained seven days, the precise period which elapsed between each time of Noah's sending forth the dove. Lastly, the same indecencies were practised in the rites of the Cabiric Ceres, as in those of Bacchus, Osiris, and Maha Deva: her deluded yotaries vied with each other in a studied obscenity of language, and her nocturnal orgies were contaminated with the grossest lasciviousness."— Faber, Mys. Cab. c. 8.

In Masonic Lodges such abuses are effectually guarded against by the exclusion of females.

In the early ages of Christianity, the mysteries were inimical to the propagation of the Gospel, and the Mystagogues branded every Christian with the appellation of an atheist. Masonry revived with the appearance of Christ in the world, and flourished abundantly in the first ages of the Gospel, under the sacred patronage of apostles, evangelists, and martyrs.

The legend preserved in the Eleusinian mysteries is briefly as follows:

Osiris, King of Egypt, willing to confer an indeprivable benefit on all the nations around him, by communicating to them the arts of civilization, left the government of his kingdom to the care of his wife Isis, who was the same with Demeter or Ceres, and made an expedition of three years to effect his benevolent purpose. On his return, he fell a sacrifice to the intrigues of his brother Typhon, who had formed a conspiracy, in his absence, to destroy him and usurp his throne. At a grand entertainment, to which Osiris was invited to meet the conspirators, Typhon produced a valuable chest, richly adorned with work of gold, and promised to give it to any person present

* Herod. Euterpe.

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