CHAPTER VIII.

THE SUPREME ARCHITECT OF THE UNIVERSE.
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a man becomes a Mason and takes upon himself the solemn that binds lis all in bonds of fraternal love, it does not in any wa}' interfere with his belief in God, or his religion, no matter what his belief may be. He need not cease to be a Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, or an}' other denomination. If he earnestly studies the esoteric teachings of ancient Masonry, as taught in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, he will gain a far deeper insight into his own faith, and a far clearer conception, of his own creed, which will enable him to understand its sublime teachings and spiritual Truths. He will recognize that all religions must have emanated from a common source, originated from the same grand fountain, the "Ana'en/ Wisdom Religion " whose eternal verities are to be found in all other teachings, in all other Religions, and may be summarized as follows: — ist. A belief in " One eternal, infinite, incognizable, real Existence, and. From that the manifesting God, unfolding from unity to dualty, from dualty to trinity. 3rd. From the manifested Trinity man}- spiritual Intelligences guiding the Kosmic order. 4th. Man a reflection of the manifested God and therefore a trinity fundamental!}', his inner and real self being eternal, one with the Self of the universe. 5th. His evolution by repeated incar- nations; into which he is drawn b}- desire, and from which he is set free by knowledge and sacrifice, becoming divine in potency as he had ever been in latency."
I have read man 3- works on religion, science and philosophy, and among them all, outside of the " Secret Doctrine," I have found none which gave me so much genuine pleasure, and from which I derived so much profit, as I did in perusing that most valuable and extraordinary work " Morals and Dogmas," from the pen of that most scholarly gentle- man and Brother Mason, General Albert Pike. I most earnestly urge
174 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
every Mason to possess a copy of this magnificent work, because it will help him to come to an understanding of the profound Symbology of the Masonic Fraternity, and thoroughly comprehend the sublime philosophi- cal Truths of the esoteric teachings of our own beloved Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Therefore, in order that you, my dear Brothers and readers, may have some idea of the writings of this most worthy exponent, I quote you from the preface, page 4 : —
" The teachings of these Readings are not sacramental so far as they go beyond the realm of Morality into those of other domains of Thought and Truth. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite uses the word ' Dogma ' in its true sense, of doctrine or teaching ; and is not dogmatic in the odious sense of that term. Every one is entirely free to reject and dissent from whatsoever herein may seem to him to be untrue or unsound. It is only required of him that he shall weigh what is taught and give it fair hearing and unpredjudiced judgment. Of course, the ancient theosophic and philosophic speculations are not embodied as a part of the doctrines of the Rites ; but because it is of interest and profit to know what the Ancient Intellect thought upon these subjects, and because nothing so conclusively proves the radical difference be- tween our human and the animal nature, as the capacity of the human mind to entertain such speculations in regard to itself and the Deity."
I shall once more quote you from " Morals and Dogmas," page 5^4, et seq.: " To every Mason there is a God One Supreme, Infinite in Good- ness, Wisdom, Foresight, Justice and Benevolence ; Creator, Disposer, and Preserver of all things. How or by what intermediate He creates, and acts, and in what way He unfolds, and manifests Himself, Masonry leaves to creeds, and Religious to inquire.
"To every Mason the soul of man is immortal. Whether it emanates from and will return to God and what its continued mode of existence hereafter, each judges for himself. Masonr}^ was not made to settle that.
" To every Mason, Wisdom, or Intelligence, Force, or Strength and Harmony, or Fitness, and Beauty are the Trinity of the attrib- utes of God. With the subtleties of Philosophy concerning them. Masonry does not meddle, nor decide as to the reality of the supposed Existences which are their personifications : nor whether the Christian
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 175
Trinity be such a personification or a Reality of the gravest import and significance.
" To every Mason the Infinite Justice and Benevolence of God give ample assurance that Evil will ultimately be dethroned, and the Good, the True and the Beautiful reign triumphant and eternal. It teaches as it feels and knows, that Evil, and Pain, and Sorrow exists as a part of a wise and beneficient plan, all the parts of which work together under God's eye to a result which shall be perfection. Whether the existence of evil is rightly explained in this creed or that b}^ Tj-phon, the Great Serpent, by Ahriman and his armies of Wicked Spirits, b}' the Giants and Titans that war against Heaven, by the two co-existing Principles of Good and Evil, by Satan's temptation and the fall of Man, by Lok and the serpent Fenris, it is beyond the domain of Masonry to decide, nor does it need to inquire. Nor is it within the province to determine how the ultimate triumph of Light and Truth and Good, over Darkness and Error and Evil is to be achieved ; nor whether the Redeemer looked and longed for by all nations, hath appeared in Judea or is yet to come.
" It reverences all the great reformers. It sees in Moses, the Law- giver of the Jews, in Confucius, and Zoroaster, in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the Arabian Iconoclast, Great Teachers of Morality and Eminent Reformers, if no more ; and allows every brother of the Fraternity to assign to each, such higher and even Divine character, as his creed and truth require.
" Thus Masonry disbelieves no truth and teaches unbelief in no creed, except so far as such creed may lower its lofty estimate of the Deit}^ and degrade Him to the level of the passions of humanity, deny the high destiny of man, impugn the goodness and benevolence of the Supreme God, strike at the great columns of Masonry, Faith, Hope and Charity, or inculcate immorality and disregard of the active duties of the Fraternity.
" Masonry is a workshop ; but one in which all civilized men can unite ; for it does not undertake to explain, or dogmatically to settle those great mysteries, that are above the feeble comprehension of our human intellect. It trusts in God, and HoPES ; it BELIEVES, like a child, and is humble. It draws no sword to compel others to adopt its belief, or to be happy with its hopes. And it Waits with
170 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
patience to uuderstand the mysteries of uature and nature's God here- after.
" The greatest mysteries in the universe are those which are ever goiug on around ns ; so trite and common to us that we never note them or reflect upon them. Wise men tell ns of the laius that regulate the motions of the spheres, which flashing in hxige circles and spinning on their axis, are also ever darting with inconceivable rapidity through the infinities of space ; while we atoms sit here and dream that all was made for us. The}' tell us learnedl}' of centripetal and centrifugal y^-'^rr^, grav- ity and attraction, and all the other sounding terms invented to hide a waiif of meaning". There are other forces in the universe than those that are mechanical.
"The mysteries of the Great Universe of God! How can we with our limited mental vision expect to grasp and comprehend them ! Infinite Space stretching out from us every wa}', without limit ; infinite TiMK, without beginning or end ; and zee Here and Now, in the centre of each ! An infinity of siins, the nearest of which onl}^ diminish in size, viewed with the most powerful telescope ; each with its retinue of worlds, infinite nmnbers of such suns, so remote from us tliat their light would not reach us journeying during an infinitA' of time, while the light that lias reached us from some that we seem to see, has been upon its journey for fifty centuries ; our world spinning upon its axis, and rushing ever in its circuit around the sun, and all our systems revolving round some great central point ; and that, and suns, and stars, and worlds evermore flashing onward with incredible rapidity through illimitable space ; and then in every drop of water that we drink, in everj^ morsel of much of our food, in the air in the earth, in the sea, incredible nmltitudes of living creatures, invisible to the naked eye, of a minuteness beyond belief, yet organized, living, feeding, perhaps with consciousness of iden- tity, and memory and instinct.
" God, therefore, is a m)''ster3% only as everj'thing that surrounds us, and as we ourselves, are a mystery. We know that there is and must be a First Cause. His attributes, severed from Himself, are unrealities. As color and extension, weight and hardness do not exist apart from matter as separate existences and substantives, spiritual or immaterial ; so the Goodness, Wisdom, Justice, Mercy and Benevolence of God are
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 177
not independent existences, personifj' them as men may, but attributes of the Deity, the adjectives of One Great Snbstantive. But we know that He must be Good, True, Wise, Just, Benevolent, Merciful ; and in all these, and all His other attributes, Perfect and Infinite, because we are conscious that these are laws imposed on us b}^ the very nature of things, necessary and without which the universe would be confusion, and the existence of a God incredible. They are His essence, and necessary, as His existence.
" He is the Living, Thinking-, Intelligent Soul of the Universe, the Peri^ianent, the Stationary, of Simon Magus, the One that ahvays is of Plato, as contradistinguished from the perpetual flux and reflux, or Genesis of t/iii/ the soul, become audible and visible in Words, so did The Thought OF God, springing up within himself, immortal as Himself, when once conceived, — immortal he/ore, because i>i Himself utter itself in THE Word, its manifestations and mode of communication, and thus create the material, mental, spiritual universe, which, like Him, never began to exist.''
This is the real idea of the ancient nations: God, the Almighty, Father and Source of all ; His Thought conceiving the whole universe, and ivilling its creation : His Word uttering that Thought and thus becoming the Creator or Demionrgos in whom was Life and Light, and that Light the life of tlie universe. Nor did that Word cease at the single act of Creation ; and having set going the great machine and enacted the laws of its motion and progression, of Inrth and life, and change and death, cease to exist, or remain thereafter in inert idleness.
For the Thought of God lives and is Immortal. Embodied in tlie JFord, is not only created, but it preset ves. It conducts and controls the Universe, all spheres, all worlds, all actions of mankind and ever_v animate and inanimate creature. It speaks in the soul of evei"y man that lives. The stars, the earth, the trees, the winds, the universal voice of nature, tempest and avalanche ; the sea's roar aud the grave voice of the waterfall, the hoarse thunder and the low whisper of the brook, the song of birds, the voice of love, the speech of men, all are the alphaliet in which it communicates itself to men, and informs them of the will and law of God, the Soul of the Universe. 12
1T8 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
Any man gazing up into the cosmic space, of a glorious sum- mer's night, will see m3'riads of starry worlds rotating upon their axis, shining with a glor}'' incomprehensibl}^ grand, each and every one moving in rythmic harmony along its allotted path, according to the law governing these glorious stellar worlds. He will not only be impressed by the grandeur of their movements, but he will recog- nize that this planet of ours, sinks into comparative insignificance, when compared to those glorious orbs refulgent in the starry va,ult above, and he will begin to realize that they are not moving by chance, that their motions are not at random, but that each and all are a part of the Divine whole, and that they all perform their various motions in space according to Divine Ideation, or that Divine Principle that demonstrates to man that there is a something — an incomprehensible Cause, which directs and controls the motions of these planets through the spatial depths around him. Then will he dimly sense the Divine in their motions, and, like me, bow with awe and reverence before this Divine and incomprehensible Principle, a knowledge of which passeth all understanding.
Every human being, no matter how low in the ethnological scale of humanity we find him, no matter how degraded and brutal he is, no matter how deluded by superstition and ignorance he may be, in the silence of the night, surrounded by the grandeur and harmony of nature, and impressed by the sublimity of the under- lying ideation that permeates it, is most assuredl}^ capable' of form- ing for himself, some abstract conception of a Deity, whereby to account for the sublime grandeur and glory of nature in all her differentiations and wonderful manifestations, which an anthropomor- phic God could not logically explain.
He will see around him a world that is vibrating with life and harmony. He will see in every fronded fern and flower an expres- sion of the Divinity. He will see a world cycling along in har- niou}^, performing its various motions in space with an exactitude seemingly incomprehensible. He will hear in the mountain stream, as it flows along o'er its rocky bed, the voice of his Maker, and he would hear it in the rustling corn, the swaying pines, the song of birds or the hum of bees, and in the whisperings of insect life,
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 179
as they revel in a glory of life and sunshine, in the rippling waves as they beat upon the shore, or the gliding river that goes mur- muring by to its home in the sea. And from out the mire of doubt and hesitation he never loses completely the consciousness of Divine possibilities, and he will dimly sense the hallowed touch of his heavenly Father in these sublime and glorious manifestations.
This potential sensing of the Divine is most assuredl}' the true difiference between man and the superior animals. It is this distinc- tive power in man which lifts him far above the level of his retarded brethren in evolution, the animal, and justifies his claim to having latent within him the potentiality oj beconmtg the highest being in natnre''s evolutionary processes.
The faculty of reasoning and using an articulate language, places man at the head of the animal kingdom which he dominates, through the potential forces he has developed during the many lives that he has lived, and b}^ the various experiences he has gained, makes all below him subservient to his indomitable will and energ}^ If we consider the animal kingdom as a whole, and mankind separated from it, and forming a class of its own, we shall find that articulated lan- guage is the result of the Manasic element within us, and of long ages of accumulated training, and that it is an essential attribute of man, while the phonetic expression of the animal, compared to the articu- late of the human, is only of secondary consideration. We find that some animals seem to reason far better than some men, and the true difference between the two is not so very great, after all. The animal is just a little way below us on the path of evolution, dowered with instinctual cognition, while man has a self-conscious knowledge of tbe potential forces within him. Man has been illuminated with mind, and by its divine touch he has been transformed -into the True Man, The Thinker. But we must thoroughly understand that this transformation conies from above. Man's spiritual soul conies Jroni the Divinity itself^ and not from below, evolving through the brute. It is a ray of the Divine Spirit that makes him and his Father one. This God in man is the guide and director that helps him to gain experience and knowledge during the many lives that lie before him, on the path his feet must tread. It is that glorious Light which illuminates
18(1 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
his path and leads him on to far higher planes of spiritual unfoldnient, until he will eveutuall}^ stand upon the threshold of complete perfection, when he will full}^ realize that he and his Father are one.
We have much to learn from the insect world, and more especially the Ant. Of all the insects that we know, none seem to me to possess so much intelligence as does the ant. Again look at the Bees, with their extraordinary mechanical skill and ingenuity, their wonderful industry and forethought, with the methods they adopt in building their comb, the shape and arrangement of their cells, their knowledge of what will give the most strength and greatest storage capacit}' for the amount of space and material used. These things command our most profound attention for they are all deeply interesting and well worthy of earnest study and thought. Look at the Elephant, the Horse and the Dog, and their remarkable power of finding methods by which to accomplish their desires. These animals are quite equal to the average man, in the prac- tical application of selfish reasoning, and for the purpose of supplying themselves with the needs of ever}' da}' life. Yet, notwithstanding all these remarkable instinctual developments, no animal has ever shown the slightest ca.pacity for abstract reasoning or conceptions independent of its temporary wants or desires, and not the slightest tendency to worship the Divine principle that is manifested in the wondrous beauties of Nature surrounding him.
J. D. Buck, 32°, in his "Mystic Masonry," page 125, et seq., says: " How much one's idea of God colors all his thoughts and deeds is seldom realized. The ordinary crude and ignorant conception of a personal God more often results in slavish fear on the one hand and Atheism on the other. It is what Carlyle calls ' an absentee God, doing nothing since the six days of creation, but sitting on the outside and seeing it go ! ' This idea of God carries with it, of course, the idea of creation, as something already completed in time; when the fact is, crea- tion is a process, without beginning or end. The world — all worlds — are being ' created ' to-day as much as at any period in the past. Even the apparent destruction of worlds is a creative, or evolutionary process. Emanating from the bosom of the all, and running their cyclic course ; day alternating with night, on the outer physical plane, they are again iudraivu to the invisible plane, only to re-emerge after a longer night and
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. IBI
start again on a higher cycle of evolution. Theologians have tried in vain to attach the idea of inunanence to that of personality, and ended in a jargon of words, and utter confusion of ideas. A personal Absolute is not, except in potency. God does not think, but is the cause of Thought. God does not love, he is Love, in the perfect or absolute sense ; and so with all the Divine attributes. God is thus the concealed Logos the ' Causeless Cause,' the ' Rootless Root,' God never manifests- Himself, to be seen of men. Creation is His manifestation, and as crea- tion is not complete, and never will be, and as it never had a beginning, there is a concealed or unrevealed potency back of and beyond all creation, which is still God. Now, Space is the most perfect symbol of this idea of Divinit}'; for it enters into all our concepts, and is the basis of all our experiences. We cannot fathom it, or define it, or exclude it from a single thought or experience. Space is boundless, infinite, unfathomable, unknowable ; in all, over all, through all. We know that It Is, and that is all that we know about it.
" But are not these just the attributes that are assigned to the Absolute and Infinite Deity ? And they are all negations. God, sa3's the Kabalah, is No Thing. But the theologian will hasten to say that this is pure Pantheism. It is no more Pantheism than it is Atheism, for, as already shown, the Ain Soph is before and beyond Creation, or Cosmos. It is not God deduced or derived from Nature, but precisely the reverse ; nature derived from God, and yet God remains ' the same, yesterday, to-day and forever ' — the CHANGELESS. The stabilit}' of nature is derived from the unchangeableness of God. God never tires, is not exhausted at His work, needing rest. That were so human as to be childish, and the idea perhaps, originated from the cyclic law found in the Kabalah of the ' Days and Nights of Brahm,' the ' Manvantaras and Pralayas,' or periods of ' outbreathing,' and of ' inbreathing ' in the cj^cles of evolution."
God, according to Pythagoras, was One, a single substance, whose continuous parts extend through all the Universe without separation, difference or inequalit}^, like the soul in the human body. He denied the doctrine of the Spiritualists, who had severed the Divinity from the Universe, making Him exist apart from the Universe, which thus became no more than a material work, on which acted the Abstract Cause, a God
182 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
isolated from it. The Ancient Theology did not so separate God from the Universe. This Eusebius attests, in saying that but a small number of wise men, like Moses, had sought for God or the cause of all, outside of that ALL ; while the philosophers of Egypt and Phoenicia, real authors of all the old Cosmogonies had placed the supreme Cause m the Universe itself, and in its parts, so that, in their view, the world and all its parts are iii God.
Ever}' man conceives of a Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience and expresses it in accordance with that conception. For instance, the Red man that roams, in a semi-civilized condition, the mountains and plains of this continent, defies the forces of Nature he does not understand, and yet in the depth of his heart, makes his devo- tions to the Great Spirit that is just as incomprehensible.
Go to the Chinaman, and he will teach you the Law of Love that was taught by Lao-tze long centuries before Christ was born, and yet the same Truths are to be found in 3'our own creed. Go to the denizen of Central Africa and 3'ou will find him enwrapped in a knowledge of this Divine Principle to which I have referred above.
The following beautiful and expressive poem gives such a full and comprehensive idea of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe that I am constrained to publish it in its entirety for the benefit of those who may not have had the opportunit}^ of seeing it before:
GOD.
O, Thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright
All space doth occup}', all motion guide ; Unchanged through Time's all devastating flight ;
Thou, only God ! There is no God beside ! Being above all beings ! Mighty One !
Whom none can comprehend and none explore, Who fil'st existence with Thyself alone —
Embracing all — supporting — ruling o'er — *
Being whom we call God — now and evermore.
In its sublime research, philosophy
May measure out the ocean deep — ma)' count
The sands or the sun's rays — but God ! for thee
There is no weight nor measure— none can mount
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A MINARET.
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. im
Up to Tliy mysteries : Reason's l)riRhtest spark,
Though kindlefl by Thy light, in vain may try
To trace thy counsels, infinite and dark ;
And tliought is lost e'er thought can soar so high, Kven like past moments in eternity.
Thou from primeval nothingness didst call.
First, chaos — then existence — I^ord, on thee ■ Eternity had its foundation — all
Sprang forth from Tliee — liglit, joy, liarmony, Sole origin — all life, all l)eauty. Thine.
Thy word created all, and doth create ; Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine.
Tliou art and wert and shall he ! Glorious ! Great !
lyife-giving, life-sustaining Potentate !
Thy chains the umneasured universe surround —
Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath! Tiioii llic beginning with the end has liound,
And l)eantifnlly mingled life and death ! As sparks mount upwards from tlie fiery blaze,
vSo suns are born, so worlds sprang fortli from Thee ; And as the spangles in the sunny rays
vSliiiie round the silver snow, the pageantry Of Heaven's bright army glitters in Thy jiraise.
»
A million torches lighted by Thy hand
Wander unwearied through the l)lue abyss; They own Tiiy power, accomplish Thy command;
All gay with life, all eloqnenl with Ijliss. What shall we call them? J'iks of crystal light?
A glorious company of golden streams? Lamps of celestial ether l)urning bright ?
Sun's lighting systems with Iheir joyous beams? But Thou Ir) these are as the moon to night !
Yet as a drop of water in the sea,
All this magnificence in Thee is lost ; What are ten llioiisand worlds compared to Thee,
And what am I, then? Heaven's unnumbered host.
184 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed In all the glory of sublimest thought
Is but an atom in the balance weighed
Against Thy greatness, is a cypher brought Against infinity. What am I, then? Nought!
Nought ! But the effluence of Thy light divine.
Pervading worlds hath reached my bosom, too; Yes, in my spirit dost Thy .spirit shine,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew. Nought! But I live, and on Hope's pinion's fly
Eager towards Thy presence ; for in Thee I live and breathe and dwell ; aspiring high,
Even to the throne of Thy divinity.
I am, O God ! and surely Thou must be !
Thou art ! Directing, guiding all, thou art,
Direct my understanding, then, to thee ; Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart ;
Though but an atom 'midst immensity, Still I am something, fashioned by Thy hand !
I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth, On the last verge of mortal being stand
Close to the realms where angels have their birth. Just on the boundary of the spirit land.
The chain of being is complete in me ;
In me is matter's last gradation lost, And the next step is spirit — Deity !
I can command Thy lightning, and am dust ! A monarch and a slave - a worm — a God !
Whence came I here? And how so marvelously Constructed and conceived? Unknown ! This clod
Eives surely through some higher energy, For from itself alone it could not be.
Creator ! Yes, Thy wisdom and l*hy word
Created me ! Thou source of life and good !
Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord !
Thy Hght, Thy love, in their bright plentitude
EGYPT. THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 185
Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring
Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear
The garments of eternal day, and wing
Its heavenly flight beyond this Httle sphere.
Even to its source — to Thee — its author there.
O thouglit ineffable ! O vision blest !
Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, Yet, shall Thj' shadowed image fill our breast,
And with it homage to the Deity, God ! Thus above nij' lowly thoughts can soar ;
Thus seek Thy presence. Being wise and good Midst Thy vast works, admire, obey, adore ;
And when the tongue is eloquent no more.
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.
— Derzhaven.
Civilized men of all nations formulate special gods to suit their own particular spiritual needs and endow them with the peculiar attributes, which are simply personifications of the general characteristics of the wor- shippers themselves. They make gods in their own image, and worship them with an extraordinary devotion. But as soon as the Mind rises above these social traits and personal characteristics ; as soon as he or they become capable of seeing something more grand, more sublime, more ennobling, more spiritualizing beneath the frivolities of these per- sonal gods, then will they be enabled to form some pure abstract conception, devoid of concrete symbolism, that senses the necessary existence of an underlying Divine Principle, manifesting Itself in, through, and by Nature. In its widest sense, feeling the mighty Presence of the Infinite. Then will the mind of Man bow down in reverence, making no rash attempt to comprehend the Absolute, 3'et fully conscious of the. fact that being but an infinitisimal part of the Supreme All it is simply impossible for the finite to understand the Infinite. The voice of the Divine is one and the same, whether coming from Indian, Chinese, African or civilized white man. The New teachings are like the Old, if we only understand them, for the underlying Truths of all Religions, all philosophies, and all sciences are identically the same. No common sense reasoning Man, who is capable of thinking for himself, will ever deny this fact.
186 EGYPT. THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
The so-called Atheists and Agnostics are in open revolt only against the attributes, more or less fanciful and erroneous, with which sects and creeds describe their respective and exclusive gods. Not so much against the conception of a Divine Principle, /^r se^ but only as to the absurd way in which the various gods are represented.
Voltaire derided and scoffed at the churches, creeds, dogmas and priest-craft, and those who believed in them, as well as what he called their mummeries and sophistry, ridiculing the Bishops and the Clergy. Yet, notwithstanding, he wrote — " If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent one." ,
Robert Ingersoll, the foremost and most aggressive agnostic in the closing years of the nineteenth century, brought forth the power of his wit and eloquence against abuses and errors born of ignorance and fanaticism. He assailed all religious forms of faith and practice with the keen, unphilosophical weapons of satire, obloquy and witticism, yet any thoughtful reader of his best efforts can feel vibrating between the lines a deep, true reverence for the unknowable, unconceivable, self-evident Divine Principle.
No matter where we force our investigations, even if we carry them into the very strongholds of the most terrible exponents of religious faith and practice, enemies of all creeds and dogmas ; I refer to the materialistic scientists, or rather naturalists, or Darwinians, at whose head stood the author of the " History of Natural Creation,'' Professor Heackell, late of the University of Jena, whose history is diametrically opposed to the cosmogony of the Pentateuch, or the orthodox, super- natural or miraculous creation; yet, we shall find expressed in clear technical scientific terms, in that work, a positive recognition of the Di- vine Principle as the Eternal source of all that is, or ever will be. He refutes entirely the dualistic theory of Agassiz, because it supposes two distinct factors : — an extra cosmic God and Nature as a separate thing, and he closes his remarks by this unmistakable declara^tion : " But they overlook the fact that this personal creation is only an idealized or- ganism endowed with human attributes. The more developed men of the present day are capable of conceiving that infinitely nobler and sub- limer idea of God which alone is compatible with the monistic conception of the universe, and which recognizes God's Spirit and power
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 187
in all phenomena, without exception. It is of this noble idea of God that Goethe says ' certainly there does not exist a more beautiful worship of God than that which needs no image, but which arises in our hearts from converse with Nature.' By it alone we arrive at the sublime 'Pan- theistic ' idea of the unity of God and Nature. Be it understood that Pantheistic here does not mean, as usually translated, many gods, but All God ; from pan (all) and tkeos (God) . It is synonomous with Monism and Deism." Can Heackell be charged with Atheism ?
If we carefully examine the writings of the most eminent men of every age in the world's history, especially those who are and were sin- cere and truthful ; no matter whether they be philosophers, scientists, materialists, spiritualists, freethinkers, poets or religious writers, we shall find that each one of them recognizes a Deity according to his own conception, differing in form and attributes from the individual concep- tions b}^ others. For instance, in examining " The Zend-Avesta^'''' the sacred book of the Parsees or Sun worshippers of Persia and India ; the followers of Zoroaster, the ancient teacher of the Religion of Magi, we shall find they believed in two spirits, — Good and Evil — typified by Light and Darkness^ and that these two spirits, now and always have been engaged in antagonistic strife, making war one upon the other, until Light prevails, that is, until Man has conquered himself. We shall also find they believed that God has neither face nor form, color nor shape, nor fixed place and that there is no other like Him. He is Himself singly, such a glory that we cannot praise nor describe Him, nor can our mind comprehend Him.
Rollin says : " As the Magi held images in utter abhorrence, they worshipped God only under the form o^ Fire, on account of its purity, brightness, activity, subtlety, fecundity and incorruptibility as the most perfect symbol of the Deity."
" The Dabistan," compiled from the works of the ancient ^^Guebers^'' or " Fire Worshippers,' states that the Persians long before the mission of Zoroaster, venerated a prophet called Mahabad, whom they considered the Father of Mankind. He taught " eternity," or boundless time, has neither beginning nor end, and is the only thing that can neither be created nor destroyed, but is that which creates and destroys everything else. Therefore time is considered the great first Cause or Creator.
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The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Sun, as God, whom they considered to be the cause from which, and by which, all things were created. They believed that when the sun sank beneath the under- world and darkness covered the face of the earth he was engaged in fighting Appepi^ the great serpent, who was at the head of a very large army of personifications of darkness, mist and cloud, trying to over- throw him, but, as he appeared again in the morning, day after day, in all his resplendent glory, they hailed him with jo}^ and gladness as the victor, and worshipped him throughout the whole of Egypt. At Memphis he was worshipped as the creator god Ptah, the greatest of all gods. He was the ancient god of this • city whom the Greeks called Hephczstus. The black bull was the symbol of this god ; at Thebes Ammon-Ra or Amun-Ra " the veiled or unseen," the mystery of exist- ence. Osiris, the " Good," the beneficient principle pervading the universe, was one of those worshipped generally. Ra, or On, was origi- nally the sun-god, apparently a common object of worship to all prehistoric races. Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, being afterwards the Greek name of On, the town. Horus, the Light-bringer, weighed the heart of each man after his death ; and as the welfare of the departed spirit or " double " was connected with that of the deserted body, the latter ought to be carefull}^ preserved. Hence the great motive for embalming their dead and building massive tombs for the wealthy.
The sun was worshipped all through Egypt, under various names, as the creator and preserver of all things, because its motions demonstrated to them life, death and re-incarnation. When it appeared in the East it was emblematic of life coming forth into light and definition ; in reaching its meridian height and glory, God the Creator giving forth to the world its fructifying, vivifying principles and demonstrating the fountain from which all things come. When it sank beneath the western horizon, leaving the earth enshrouded in darkness, it was emble- matic of death ; but when it again re-appeared in the early morning, lighting up the eastern sky with a perfect halo of light and glory, tinting the magnificent tombs and temples in rainbow hues, when the feathered songsters burst into voluminous praise and harmony, men prostrated themselves in adoration before the emblem of that incomprehensible
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principle which holds Kosmos and solar s\-stems within the hollow of his hand. This continual diurnal rising of the sun-god Ra was symbolical of the re-incarnation of the spirit of life ; therefore to them life was emblematic of death, and death symbolical of life. Death is but an aspect of life, for the destruction of one material form is simplj^ the prelude to the building up of others, a fact evidenced in all nature. " Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or unsheath- ing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings, aud, as the snake from its skin, the butterfl}^ from its chrysalis, emerged from one after another, passing into a higher state of consciousness.
" The cardinal doctrines of the Kabalah embrace the nature of the Deity, the divine emanations or Sephiroth, the cosmogou}'-, the creation of angels and man, their destiny, and the import of the revealed law. According to this esoteric doctrine, God who is boundless and above everything, even being and thinking, is called Ain-Soph. He is the space of the universe. In this boundlessness He could not be compre- hended b}' the intellect or described in words, and as such the Ain-Soph was in a certain sense — non-existent. To make this existence known and comprehended, the Ain-Soph had to become active and creative. As creation involves intention, desire, thought and work, and as these are properties which impl}- limit and belong to a finite being, and moreover as the imperfect and circumscribed nature of this creation precludes the idea of its being the direct work of the infinite and perfect, the Ain-Soph had to become creative through the medium of ten Sephiroth^ or intelli- gences which emanated from him like rays proceeding from a luminary. Now the wish to become manifest and known, and hence the idea of creation is co-eternal, with the inscrutable Deity. The first manifes- tation of this primordial will is called Sep/u'ra or emanation. This first Sephira, this spiritual substance which existed in the Ain-Soph from all eternitjr contained nine other intelligences or Sephiroth. These again emanated one from another, the second from the first, the third from the second, and so on up to ten. The ten Sephiroth, forming among them- selves, and with the Ain-Soph, a strict unity, and simply representing different aspects of one and the same being — ' The Creator and Preserver of all things.' "
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Albert Pike, in "Morals and Dogmas," says on page 221, et scq : " Man's views in regard to God will contain only as much positive truth as the human mind is capable of receiving, whether that truth is attained by the exercise of reason, or communicated by revelation. It must necessarily be both limited and alloyed, to bring it within the com- petence of finite human intelligence. Being finite we can form no correct or adequate idea of the Infinite ; being material we can form no clear conception of the Spiritual. We do believe in and know the infinity of space and time and the spirituality of the soul ; but the idea of that infinity and spiritualit}^ eludes us. Even Omnipotence cannot infuse infinite conceptions into finite minds ; nor can God, without first entirely changing the conditions of our being, pour a complete and full knowledge of His own nature and attributes into the narrow capacity of the human soul. . . .
" The consciousness of the individual reveals itself alone. His knowledge cannot pass beyond the limits of his own being. His con- ceptions of other things and other beings are only /lis conceptions. They are not those things or beings themselves. The living principle of a living universe must be Infinite ; while all our ideas and con- ceptions are finite and applicable only to finite beings. The Deity is thus not an object of knowledge., but oi faith ; not to be approached by the understanding ., but by the moral sense ; not to be conceived, but to be felt. All attempts to embrace the infinite in the conception of the finite are, and must be, only accommodations to the frailty of man. Shrouded from comprehension in an obscurity from which a chastened imagination is awed back, and thought retreats in con- scious weakness, the Divine Nature is a theme on which man is little entitled to dogmatize. Here the philosophic intellect becomes most pain- fully aware of its own insufficiency.
"Every man's conception of God must vary with his mental culti- vation and mental powers. If any one contents himself with any lower image than his intellect is capable of grasping, then he contents himself with that which is false to him^ as well as false in Jact. If lower than lie can reach, he must needs feel it to be false
" God and Truth are inseparable ; a knowledge of God is possession of the saving oracles of Truth. In proportion as the thought and pur-
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pose of the individual are trained to conformity with the rule of right prescribed by Supreme Intelligence, so far is his happiness promoted, and the purpose of his existence fulfilled. In this way a new life arises in him ; he is no longer isolated, but part of the eternal harmonies around him. His erring will is directed by the influence of a higher will, informing and moulding it in the path of true happiness.
" The grand objects of nature perpetually constrain men to think of their author. The Alps are the great altar of Europe ; the nocturnal sky has been to mankind the dome of a temple starred all over with admonitions to reverence, trust and love. The Scriptures for the human race are writ in earth and heaven. No organ or miserere touches the heart like the sonorous swell of the ocean wave's immeasureable laugh. Every year the old world puts on new bridal beauty, and celebrates its Whit Sunday, when in the sweet spring each bush and tree dons rever- ently its new glories. Autumn is a long All Saints' day ; and the harvest is Hallowmass to mankind. Before the human race marched down from the slopes of the Himalayas to take possession of Asia, Chaldea and Egypt, men marked each annual crisis, the solstices, and the equinoxes, and celebrated religious festivals therein ; and even then and ever since, the material was and has been the element of communion between man and God.
" Nature is full of religious lessons to a thoughtful man. He dis- solves the matter of the universe, leaving only its forces ; he dissolves away the phenomena of human history, leaving only immortal spirit ; he studies the law, the mode of action of these forces, and this spirit ; which makes up the material and the human world, and cannot fail to be filled with reverence, with trust, with boundless love of the Infinite God, who devised these laws of matter and mind, and thereby bears up this marvellous universe of things and men. Science has its' New Testa- ment ; and the beatitudes of philosophj' are profoundly touching. An undevout astronomer is mad. Familiarity with the grass, and the trees teaches us deeper lessons of love and trust than we can glean from the writings of Fenelon and Augustine. The great Bible of God is ever open before mankind. The eternal flowers of heaven seem to shed sweet influence on the perishable blossoms of the earth. The great sermon of Jesus was preached on a mountain, which preached to him as he did
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to the people, and his figures of speech were first natural figures of fact.
" Beautifully, above the great wide chaos of human errors, shines the calm, clear light of natural human religion, revealing to us God as the Infinite Parent of all, perfectly powerful, wise, just, loving, and perfectly holy too. Beautifully around, stretches off every way the Universe, the Great Bible of God. Material nature is its Old Testament, millions of years old, thick with eternal truths under our feet, glittering with ever- lasting glories over our heads, and human Nature is the New Testament from the Infinite God, ever}^ day revealing a new page as Time turns over the leaves. Immortality stands waiting to give a recompense for every virtue not rewarded, for every tear not wiped away, for every sorrow undeserved, for every prayer, for every pure intention, and emotion of the heart. And over the whole, over Nature, Material and Human, over this Mortal Life, and over the Bternal Past and Future, the infinite Loving- kindness of God the Father comes enfolding all, and blessing everything that ever was, that is, that ever shall be.
" In the Divine Pymander, and 5th book, we find Hermes Trismeg- istus saying of God ' It is His essence to be pregnant, or great, in all things, and to make them. As without a maker it is impossible that any- thing should be made, so it is that he should not alwaj^s be, and always be making all things in heaven, in the air, in the earth, in the deep, in the whole world, and in every part of the whole that is or that is not. For there is nothing in the whole w'orld, that is not Himself, both the things that are, and the things that are not. This is God that is better than any name ; this is He that is secret ; this is He that is most mani- fest ; this is He that is to be seen by the mind ; this is He that is visible to the e3-e ; this is He that hath no body ; and this is He that hath many bodies ; rather there is nothing of any body which is not He. For He alone is all things. And for this cause He hath all names, because He is the One Father and therefore He hath no name because He is the Father of All.' "
The ancient Greeks deified every force in Nature, weaving around each and all a poetical character which gives to them special character- istics and a personal history that is plainly traceable to two distinct causes. Every God in their mythology evidently sprang from their con-
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 193
ception of Kronos — Time and Uranus — space, both, emanating from chaos, and like the Persians and Chinese they believed tliat out from the darkness came forth. Light with all its objective harmonious differentia- tions and wonderful manifestations. Plato reviewed the various systems of philosophies that preceded him, rejecting what he deemed to be false and adopting what he thought to be true. He claimed that as the world was sensible it must have been produced from an effectual cause. Pytha- goras believed and taught that Number was tbe root basis of all forms, tbe world being regulated by numerical harmony. " Number lies at the root of the manifested Universe ; numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations of homogeneous substance, into heterogene- ous elements, and number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature."
We find in the '''' Sepher Jetsirah'''' (which is considered the ground- work for students in the Kabala and Jewish writings) that "The number Ten (lo) is a repetition of the One (i) being its multiple only; remove the one and there is no ten symbolizing God, the One, from whom all proceed. Thus the Ten brings all the digits back to Unity and ends the Pythagorean table. Such is the secret meaning of the ' strong grip of the Lion's paw, of the tribe Judah,' between two hands — the Master-Mason's grip — the joint number of whose fingers is Ten. This number also gives rise to the grand origin of the Cross, as also to the Covenant, which stands as an iiudivided one (Exod. xxiv, 27, 28). The sum of the nine digits added together equals 45, and 4 + 5 = 9; the sum of the ten numbers is 55, and 5 + 5 = 10. Ten is also the root of Four, for if you add the first four numbers you have ten ; it is also the essential root of Seven, since the seven numbers added equal twenty- eight, and twenty-eight resolves itself into 10, thus 2 + 8 = 10."
Anaxagorus recognized a supreme Intelligence as the principle of Life and arranged the primitive chaotic atoms into perfect molecular forms.
Xenophanes maintained Unity — The Universe to be God. The Scandinavians have also their mythological ideas, adequate to their social characteristics, Avherein the basic conception of an Eternal Divine Prin- ciple in its triple aspect of Creator, Preserver, and Regenerator, can be perceived amidst complicated myths and hidden allegories, which appear 13
194 EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY.
as absurd superstitions only when we Bave not the Key of the mysteries they conceal.
Paracelsus says that, " The unmanifested Absolute cannot be con- ceived otherwise than as a mathematical point without any magnitude, and such a point in becoming manifest in all directions would necessarily become a sphere. If we imagine such a mathematical point as being self-conscious, thinking and capable to act, and desirous to manifest itself, the only thinkable mode in which it could possibly accomplish this would be to eradicate its own substance and consciousness from the centre towards the periphery. The centre is the Father^ the eternal source of all (John 1:4); the radius is the Son (the Logos)^ who was contained in the Father from eternity (John i : i), the substance of father and son from the incomprehensible centre to the unlimited periphery is the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth manifested externally and revealed invisible Nature (John 15 : 26). We cannot conceive of a body without length, breadth and thickness ; a circle or a sphere always consists of a centre, radius and periphery. They are three, yet they are one, and neither of them can exist without the other two.* God sends out His thought by the power of His will. He holds fast to the thought and expresses it in the Word, which is contained in the creative and con- servative power, and his thought becomes corporified, bringing into existence worlds and beings, which form, so to say, the visible body of the invisible God. Thus were the worlds formed in the beginning by the thought of God acting in the Macrocosm (the Universal Mind), and in the same manner are forms created in the individual sphere of the mind of man. If we hold on to a thought we create a form in our inner world. A good thought produces a good, and an evil thought an evil form, each growing as they are nourished by thought or ' imagination.' "
There was appended a note to the above, where the asterisk is placed : " The doctrine of the Trinity is found in all the principal religious systems. In the Christian Religion as Father, Son and Spirit ; among the Hindus as Brahma, Vishnu and Siva ; the Buddhists call it Muleprakriti, Prakriti and Purush ; the Persians teach that Ormuzd produced Light out of himself by the power of his word. The Egyp- tians called the first cause Ammon, out of which all things were created by the power of its own will. In China Kwan-shai-gin is the Universally
EGYPT, THE CRADLE OF ANCIENT MASONRY. 195
manifested Word, coming from the unmanifested Absolute by tbe power of its own Will and being identical with the former. The Greeks called it Zeus (Power), Minerva (Wisdom), and Apollo (Beauty). The Germans, Wodan (the Supreme Cause), Thor (Power), and Feia (Beauty). Jehovah and Allah are trinities of Will, Knowledge and Power ; and even the Materialist believes in Causation, IMatter and Energy."
Albert Pike, in " Morals and Dogmas," page 576 et sag, speaking of the various religions and their belief in God, says : " While all these faiths assert their claims to the exclusive possession of the Truth, Masonry inculcates its old doctrine and no more. That God is One. That His Thought, uttered in His Word, created the Universe and preserved it by those Eternal Laws which are the expression of that Thought. That the Soul of Man, breathed into him by God is as Immor- tal as His Thoughts are. That he is free to do evil, or to choose good, responsible for his acts and punishable for his sins. That all evil and wrong, and suffering are but temporary, the discords of one great Harmony ; to the great, harmonic final chord and cadence of Truth, Love, Peace, and Happiness, that will ring forever and ever under the Arches of Heaven, among all the Stars and Worlds, and in all souls of Man and Angels."
In the Secret Doctrine, Stanza II, Section 6, page 6, it states that : " The Divine Thought does not imply the idea of a Divine Thinker. The Universe, not onl}^ past, present and future — a human, and finite idea expressed by finite thought — but in its totalit}', the Sat (an untrans- latable term), Absolute Being, with the Past and Future crystalized in an Eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or mani- fested cause Brahman (neuter), as the Mysterious INIagnum of Paracelsus, is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the male-female, the aspect and anthropomorphic reflection of Brahman^ is conceivable to the perceptions of blind faith, though neglected by human intellect, when it attains its majority. Hence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of creation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe, or the Son, lies still concealed ' in the Divine Thought ' which had not yet penetrated into the ' Divine Bosom.' This idea, note well, is at the root and forms the origin of all the allegories about the ' Sons of God ' born of immaculate Virgins."
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This " Divine Thought," this Absolute, Eternal, Omnipresent Principal is the " Causeless Cause " of all the manifestations in the Kosmos, and it is beyond human speculation, exploration or similitude, being beyond the range and reach of human thought.
Therefore, " This Infinite and Eternal Cause is the rootless root of all that was, is, or ever shall be. This cause is, of course, devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested being, as it is Be-ness — the essence of Being — rather than Being. All manifested is the vehicle of this Be-ness rather than what might be strictly called its manifestations. This Be-ness is symbolized in the ' Secret Doctrine ' under two aspects : First — Absolute, abstract space, the only thing the human mind can exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. Second — Absolute, abstract motion (under law and therefore intelligent), representing unconditional Consciousness. Consciousness being incon- ceivable without change, abstract motion thus symbolizes change which is its essential characteristic. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the ' Secret Doctrine ' is this metaphysical One Absolute Be-ness. This it might be said is the Theosophical definition of God and will not differ greatly from that given by the Churches, if the idea of personality be eliminated. The God postulated in the Secret Doctrine requires infinite space, eternity of time universal, and therefore Infinite con- sciousness, and matter for a manifestation, which of course includes man, with all forms of Life on and off the earth, in addition to all the planets, ■whether in this Solar system or any other throughout the infinity of Space."
The Theosophical and Masonic Student is often told that this is Pantheism. If so it is a Spiritual Pantheism, and all who recognize the Infinity, Omnipresence, Eternity and Immutability of God are Pantheists.
The Christian tells us that God is primarily, fundamentally and essentially — Thought. St. John informs us in the first chapter and first verse that : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word >vas with God, and the Word was God." Now what is the meaning of such an assertion ? Does it explain to us what God is ? In order to come to a better understanding of this statement of St. John let us first see what relation Thought bears to the " Word." The brain is (in a very limited sense) the organ of the mind, and thought functions through it ; conse-
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quently when the brain receives a thought, in order to give it expression it needs a word. Now we can understand what the Christian conception of God is from the following : " In the beginning was the Word " — word is the expression of a thonght. " The Word was with God " — then the expressed thought was with God. "And the Word was God " — therefore the Word or God was — Thought or Mind — Divine Ideation, from which the Thought and Word emanated This is exactly the abstract Masonic conception of the Supreme Architect of the Universe — God.
The doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in all the principal religious systems as well as belief in the Absolute, the Unknowable, the Supreme Architect. Christianity offers in their Trinity : The Son^ the manifested Logos. " The Word " — the falling of spirit into matter, or the manifestation on the objective plane. The Holy Ghost^ the unmani- fested " Word," that which is with the Absolute, Divine Ideation, seen only by its effects. The Father — "The Word,'' the highest conception of the Divinity, The Absolute, The Unknowable.
Therefore the God of the Free Mason is that which every man who is capable of thinking for himself is forced to admit, let him call // what he may. It makes no difference whether he calls it Almighty Matter, or Eternal Spirit, Brahm, Parabrahm, Abraham, Osiris, Ormuzd, Ain-Soph, Zeus, Allah, Jehovah, Adouai, Thor, God, or the Supreme Architect of the Universe. " What is there in a name ? " We search for Truth in all religions, all sciences, and all philosophies, claiming that " There is no religion higher than truth," and I do most certainly believe that the Divine Principle is essential Truth manifested in the harmony of the spheres, manifested in all the variant phases of life.
199
Slhtlc far as sight can reach, beneath as clear Hnd blue a heaven as ever blessed this sphere. Gardens, and minarets, and glittering domes, Hnd high-built temples, fit to be the homes Of mighty gods, and p)?ramid whose hour Outlasts all time, above the waters tower.
— Moore.
200
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