part consists in our doing good to each other. But since

religion has been made into a trade, the practical part has been made to consist of ceremonies performed by men called priests ; and the people have been amused with ceremonial shows, processions, and bells.* By
*The precise date of the invention of bells cannot be traced. The ancients, it appears from Martial, Juvenal, Suetonius and others, had an article named lintinu- abula, (usually translated bell,) by which the Romans were summoned to their baths and public places. Ii seems most probable, that the description of bells now used in churches, were invented about the year of 400, and generally adopted before the com- mencement of the seventh century. Previous to their invention, however, sounding brass, and sometimes basins, were used ; and to the present day the Greek church
312 AGE OF REASON.
devices of this kind true religion has been banished ; and such means have been found out to extract money even from the pockets of the poor, instead of contributing to their relief.
No man ought to make a living by religion : it is dis- honest so to do. Religion is not an act that can be performed by proxy : one person cannot act religion for another. Every person must perform it for himself: and all that a priest can do is to take from him, — he wants nothing but his money, — and then to riot on his spoil and laugh at his credulity.
The only people, as a professional sect of Christians, who provide for the poor of their society, are people
have boards or iron jilates, full of holes, which they strike with a hammer, or mallet, to summon the priests and others to divine service. We may also remark, that in our own country, it was the custom in monasteries to visit every person's cell early in the morning, and knock on the door with a similar instrument, called the wakening mallet — doubtless no very pleasing intrusion on the slumbers of the Monks.
But, the use of bells having been established, it was found that devils were terrified at the sound, and slunk in haste away; in consequence of which it was thought necessary to baptize them in a solemn manner, which appears to have been first done by Pope John XII. A. D. 968. A record of this practice still exists in the Tom of Lin- coln, and the great Tom at Oxford. &c.
Having thus laid the foundation of superstitious veneration, in the hearts of the common people, it cannot be a matter of surprise, that they were soon used at rejoic- ings, and high festivals in the church (for the purpose of driving away any evil spirit which might be in the neighborhood) as well as on the arrival of any great personage, on which occasion the usual fee was one penny.
One other custom remains to be explained, viz., tolling bell on the occasion of any person's death, a custom which, in the manner now practised, is totally different from its original institution. It appears to have been used as early as the yih century, when bells were first generally used, and to have been denominated the soul-bell, (as it signified the departing of the soul,) as also the passing bell. Thus Wheatly tells us, "Our church, in imitation of the Saints of former ages, calls in the Minister and others who are at hand, to assist their brother in his last extremity ; in order to do this, she directs a bell should be tolled when any one is passing- out of this life." Durand also says— " When any one is dying-, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers for him ; let this be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man. If for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders ; and, at the conclu- sion, a peal on all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers."— From these passages, it appears evident that the bell was to be tolled before a person's decease rather than after, as at the present day ; and that the object was to obtain the prayers of all who heard it, for the repose of the soul of their departing neighbor. At first, when the tolling took place after the person's decease, it was deemed superstitious, and was partially disused, which was found materially to affect the revenue of the church. The priesthood having removed the objection, bells were again tolled, upon payment of the customary ie^s.— English Paper.
AGK OF REASON. 313
known by the name of Quakers. These men have no priests ; they assemble quietly in their places of meeting, and do not disturb their neighbors with shows and noise of bells. Religion does not unite itself to show and noise. True religion is without either ; where there is both there is no true religion.
The first object for inquiry in all cases, more especially in matters of religious concern, is truth. We ought to inquire into the truth of whatever we are taught to believe, and it is certain that the books called the Scrip- tures stand, in this respect, in more than a doubtful predicament. They have been held in existence, and in a sort of credit among the common class of people, by art, terror, and persecution. They have little or no credit among the enlightened part, but they have been made the means of encumbering the world with a numerous priesthood, who have fattened on the labor of the people, and consumed the sustenance that ought to be applied to the widows and the poor.
It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells whilst so many infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in the streets, from the want of necessa- ries. The abundance that France produces is sufficient for every want, if rightly applied ; but priests and bells, like articles of luxury, ought to be the least articles of consideration.
We talk of religion. Let us talk of truth ; for that which is not truth is not worthy the name of religion.
We see different parts of the world overspread with different books, each of which, though contradictory to the other, is said by the partisans to be of divine origin, and is made a rule of faith and practice. In countries under despotic governments, where inquiry is always forbidden', the people are condemned to believe as they have been taught by their priests. This was for many centuries the case in France : but this link in the chain
314 AGE OF REASON.
of slavery is happily broken by the revolution ; and, that it never be rivetted again, let us employ a part of the liberty we enjoy in scrutinizing into the truth. Let us leave behind us some monument, that we have made the cause and honor of our Creator an object of our care. If we have been imposed upon by the terrors of government and the artifice of priests in matters of religion, let us do justice to our Creator by examining into the case. His name is too sacred to be affixed to any thing which is fabulous; and it is our duty to inquire whether we believe, or encourage the people to believe, in fables or in facts.
It would be a project worthy the situation we are in, to invite an inquiry of this kind. We have committees for various objects ; and, among others, a committee for bells. We have institutions, academies, and societies for various purposes ; but we have none for inquiring into historical truth in matters of religious concern.
They show us certain books which they call the Holy Scriptures, the word of God, and other names of that kind ; but we ought to know what evidence there is for our believing them to be so, and at what time they originated and in what manner. We know that men could make books, and we know that artifice and super- stition could give them a name — could call them sacred. But we ought to be careful that the name of our Creator be not abused. Let then all the evidence with respect to those books be made a subject of inquiry. If there be evidence to warrant our belief of them, let us encourage the propagation of it ; but if not, let us be careful not to promote the cause of delusion and falsehood.
I have already spoken of the Quakers — that they have no priests, no bells — and that they are remarkable for their care of the poor of their society. They are equally as remarkable for the education of their children. I am a descendant of a family of that profession ; my father
AGK OF REASON. 315
was a Quaker: and I presume I may be admitted an evidence of what I assert. The seeds of good principles, and the literary means of advancement in the world, are laid in early life. Instead, therefore, of consuming the substance of the nation upon priests, whose life at best is a life of idleness, let us think of providing for the education of those who have not the means of doing it themselves. One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
If we look back at what was the condition of France under the ancient regime, we cannot acquit the priests of corrupting the morals of the nation. Their pretended celibacy led them to carry debauchery and domestic infidelity into every family where they could gain ad- mission ; and their blasphemous pretensions to forgive sins encouraged the commission of them. Why has the Revolution of France been stained with crimes which the Revolution of the United States of America was not? Men are physically the same in all countries ; it is educa- tion that makes them different. Accustom a people to believe that priests or any other class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance.
I come now to speak more particularly to the object of your report.
You claim a privilege incompatible with the constitu- tion and with rights. The constitution protects equally, as it ought to do, every profession of religion ; it gives no exclusive privilege to any. The churches are the common property of all the people : they are national goods, and cannot be given exclusively to any one pro- fession, because the right does not exist of giving to any one that which appertains to all. It would be consistent with right that the churches be sold, and the money arising therefrom be invested as a fund for the education of children of poor parents of every profession, and, if more than sufficient for this purpose, that the surplus be
3l6 AGE OF REASON.
appropriated to the support of the aged poor. After this, every profession can erect its own place of worship, if it choose — support its own priests, if it choose to have any — or perform its worship without priests, as the Quakers do.
As to bells, they are a public nuisance. If one pro- fession is to have bells, another has the right to use instruments of the same kind, or any other noisy instru- ment. Some may choose to meet at the sound of cannon, another at the beat of drum, another at the sound of trumpets, and so on, until the whole becomes a scene of general confusion. But if we permit ouiselves to think of the state of the sick, and the many sleepless nights and days they undergo, we shall feel the impropriety of increasing their distress by the noise of bells, or any other noisy instruments.
Quiet and private domestic devotion neither offends nor incommodes any body ; and the constitution has wisely guarded against the use of externals. Bells come under this description, and public processions still more so — streets and highways are for the accommodation of persons following their several occupations, and no sectary has a right to incommode them. If any one has, every other has the same ; and the meeting of various and contradictory processions would be tumultuous. Those who formed the constitution had wisely reflected upon these cases ; and, whilst they were careful to pre- serve the equal right of every one, they restrained every one from giving offence or incommoding another.
Men who, through a long and tumultuous scene, have lived in retirement, as you have done, may think, when they arrive at power, that nothing is more easy than to put the world to rights in an instant ; they form to them- selves gay ideas at the success of their projects ; but they forget to contemplate the difficulties that attend them, and the dangers with which they are pregnant. Alas !
AGE OF REASON. 317
nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self. Did all men think as you think, or as you say, your plan would need no advocate, because it would have no opposer ; but there are millions who think differently to you, and who are determined to be neither the dupes nor the slaves of error or design.
It is your good fortune to arrive at power, when the sunshine of prosperity is breathing forth after a long and stormy night. The firmness of your colleagues, and of those you have suceeded — the unabated energy of the Directory, and the unequalled bravery of the armies of the Republic, have made the way smooth and easy to you. If you look back at the difficulties that existed when the constitution commenced, you cannot but be confounded with admiration at the difference between that time and now. At that mom.ent, the Directory were placed like the forlorn hope of an army, but you were in safe retire- ment. They occupied the post of honorable danger, and they have merited well of their country.
You talk of justice and benevolence, but you begin at the wrong end. The defenders of your country, and the deplorable state of the poor, are objects of prior considera- tion to priests and bells and gaudy processions.
You talk of peace, but your manner of talking of it embarrasses the Directory in making it, and serves to prevent it. Had you been an actor in all the scenes of government from its commencement, you would have been too w^ell informed to have brought forward projects that operate to encourage the enemy. When you arrived at a share in the government, you found every thing tending to a prosperous issue. A series of victories unequalled in the world, and in the obtaining of which you had no share, preceded )^our arrival. Every enemy but one was subdued ; and that one, (the Hanoverian government of England,) deprived of every hope, and a bankrupt in all its resources, was sueing for peace. In
3l8 AGE OF REASON.
siicli a State of things, no new question that might tend to agitate and anarchize the interior ought to have had place ; and the project you propose tends directly to that end.
Whilst France was a monarchy, and under the govern- ment of those things called kings and priests, England could always defeat her ; but since France has risen TO BE A REPUBLIC, the Government of England crouches beneath her, so great is the difference between a govern- ment of kings and priests, and that which is founded on the system of representation. But, could the govern- ment of England find a way, under the sanction of your report, to inundate France with a flood of emigrant priests, she would find also the way to domineer as before ; she would retrieve her shattered finances at your expense, and the ringing of bells would be the tocsin of your downfall.
Did peace consist in nothing but the cessation of war, it would not be difhcult ; but the terms are yet to be arranged : and those terms will be better or w^orse, in proportion as France and her councils be united or divided. That the government of England counts much upon your report, and upon others of a similar tendency, is what the writer of this letter, who knows that govern- ment well, has no doubt. You are but new on the theatre of government, and you ought to suspect your- self of misjudging ; the experience of those who have gone before you should be of some service to you.
But if, in consequence of such measures as you propose, you put it out of the power of the Directory to make a good peace, and to accept of terms you would afterwards reprobate, it is yourselves that must bear the censure.
You conclude your report by the following address to your colleagues : —
''Let us hasten, representatives of the people ! to affix to these tutelary laws the seal of our unanimous appro-
AGE OF REASON. 319
bation. All our fellow-citizens will learn to cherish political liberty from the enjoyment of religious liberty : you will have broken the most powerful arm of your enemies : you will have surrounded this assembly with the most impregnable rampart — confidence, and the people's love. O ! my colleagues ! how desirable is that popularity which is the offspring of good laws ! What a consolation it will be to us hereafter, when returned to our own fire-sides, to hear from the mouths of our fellow- citizens these simple expressions — Blessings reward yoti, men of peace! you have restored to us our temples — our mmisiers — the liberty of adoring the God of our fathers : you have recalled harmojiy to our families — juorality to our hearts; you have made us adore the legislature^ and respect all its laws I ' '
Is it possible, citizen representative, that you can be serious in this address? Were the lives of the priests under the ancient j^egime such as to justify any thing you say of them? Were not all France convinced of their immorality? Were they not considered as the patrons of debauchery and domestic infidelity, and not as the patrons of morals? What was their pretended celibacy but perpetual adultery? What was their blasphemous pretensions to forgive sins, but an encouragement to the commission of them, and a love for their own? Do you want to lead again into France all the vices of which they have been the patrons, and to overspread the repub- lic with English pensioners ? It is cheaper to corrupt than to conquer ; and the English government, unable to conquer, will stoop to corrupt. Arrogance and meanness, though in appearance opposite, are vices of the same heart.
Instead of concluding in the manner you have done, you ought rather to have said :
" O ! my colleagues ! we are arrived at a glorious period — a period that promises more than we could have
320 AGE OK REASON.
expected, and all that we could have wished. Let us hasten to take into consideration the honors and rewards due to our brave defenders. Let us hasten to give encouragement to agriculture and manufactures, that commerce may reinstate itself, and our people have employment. Let us review the condition of the suffer- ing poor, and wipe from our country the reproach of forgetting them. Let us devise means to establish schools of instruction, that we may banish the ignorance that the ancient regime of kings and priests had spread among the people. Let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition — let us cultivate justice and benevolence, that the God of our fathers may bless us. The helpless infant and the aged poor cry to us to remember them — let not wretchedness be seen in our streets — let France exhibit to the world the glorious example of expelling ignorance and misery together.
"Let these, my virtuous colleagues ! be the subject of our care, that, when we return among our fellow-citizens, they may say. Worthy representatives ! you have done well. You have done justice and ho7tor to our brave defenders. You have encouraged agriculture — cherished our decayed manufactures — given new life to commerce^ and employmejit to our people. You have removed from, our country the reproach of forgetting the poor — you have caused the cry of the orphan to cease — you have wiped the tear from the eye of the suffering mother — you have given comfort to the aged and imfirm — you have pene- trated into the gloomy recesses of wretchedness^ and have banished it. Welcome among us., ye brave and virtuous representatives ! and may your exam>ple be followed by your successors ! ' '
THOMAS PAINE. Paris., lygy.
ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
IT is always understood that Free-Masons have a secret which they carefully conceal ; but, from every thing that can be collected from their own accounts of Masonry, their real secret is no other than their origin, which but few of them understand ; and those who do, envelope it in mystery.
The Society of Masons are distinguished into three classes or degrees, ist. The Entered Apprentice. 2nd. The Fellow-Craft. 3rd. The Master Mason.
The entered apprentice knows but little more of Masonry than the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words, by which Masons can recognize each other, without being discovered by a person who is not a Mason. The fellow-craft is not much better instructed in Masonry than the entered apprentice. It is only in the master mason's lodge that whatever knowledge remains of the origin of Masonry' is preserved and con- cealed.
In 1730, Samuel Pritchard, member of a constituted lodge in England, published a treatise entitled Masonry Dissected; and made oath before the lord mayor of London, that it was a true copy.
"Samuel Pritchard maketh oath that the copy here- unto annexed is a true and genuine copy in every par- ticular."
•In his work he has given the catechism, or examina- tion, in question and answer, of the apprentices, the fellow-craft, and the master mason. There was no difficulty in doing this, as it is mere form.
322 AGE OF REASON.
In his introduction he sayvS, "The original institution of Masonry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences, but more especially in geometry, for at the building of the Tower of Babel, the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced, and from thence handed down by Euclid, a worthy and excellent mathematician of the Egyptians ; and he communicated it to Hiram, the Master Mason concerned in building Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem."
Besides the absurdity of deriving Masonry from the building of Babel, where, according to the story, the confusion of languages prevented the builders under- standing each other, and consequently of communicating any knowledge they had, there is a glaring contradiction in point of chronology in the account he gives.
Solomon's Temple was built and dedicated 1004 years before the Christian era ; and Euclid, as may be seen in the tables of chronology, lived 277 years before the same era. It was therefore impossible that Euclid could com- municate any thing to Hiram, since Euclid did not live till 700 years after the time of Hiram.
In 1783, Captain George Smith, inspector of the Royal Artillery Academy at Woolwich, in England, and Pro- vincial Grand Master of Masonry for the county of Kent, published a treatise entitled. The Use and Abuse of Free- Masonry.
In his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry, he makes it to be coeval with creation, ''when," says he, "the sovereign Architect raised on Masonic principles the beauteous globe, and commanded that master science, geometry, to lay the planetary world, and to regulate by its laws the whole stupendous system in just unerring proportion, rolling round the central sun."
"But," continues he, "I am not at liberty publicly to undraw the curtain, and thereby to descant on this head : it is sacred, and will ever remain so ; those who are
AGE OF REASON. 323
honored with the trust will not reveal it, and those who are ignorant of it cannot betray it." By this last part of the phrase, Smith means the two inferior classes, the fellow-craft and the entered apprentice ; for he says, in the next page of his work, "It is not every one that is barely initiated into Free-Masonry that is entrusted with all the mysteries thereto belonging ; they are not attain- able as things of course, nor by every capacity."
The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Dodd, Grand Chaplain of Masonr}', in his oration at the dedication of Free-Masons' -Hall, London, traces Masonry through a variety of stages. Masons, says he, are well-informed from their own private and interior records, that the building of Solomon's Temple is an important era, from whence they derive many mysteries of their art. ' ' Now, (says he), be it remembered that this great event took place above 1000 years before the Christian era, and con- sequently more than a century before Homer, the first of the Grecian poets, wrote ; and above five centuries before Pythagoras brought from the east his sublime system of truly Masonic instruction to illuminate our western world.
"But remote as this period is, we date not from thence the commencement of our art. For though it might owe to the wise and glorious king of Israel, some of its many mystic forms and hieroglyphic ceremonies, yet certainly the art itself is coeval with man, the great subject of it.
"We trace," continues he, "its footsteps in the most distant, the most remote ages and nations of the world. We find it amongst the first and most celebrated civilizers of the east. We deduce it regularly from the first astron- omers on the plains of Chaldea, to the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of Greece, and the philosophers of Rome. "
From these reports and declarations of Masons of the highest order in the institution, we see that Masonry,
324 AGE OF REASON.
without publicly declaring so, lays claim to some divine communication from the Creator, in a manner different from and unconnected with the book which the Christians call the Bible ; and the natural result from this is, that Masonry is derived from some very ancient religion, wholly independent of and unconnected with that book.
To come then at once to the point, Masonry (as I shall show from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of Masonry) is derived, and is the remains of the religion of the ancient Druids ; who, like the magi of Persia, and the priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the sun. They paid worship to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause, whom they styled. Time without limits.
The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same common origin, both are derived from the worship of the sun ; the difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the sun, as I have shown in the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion.*
In Masonry many of the ceremonies of the Druids are preserved in their original state, at least without any parody. With them the sun is still the sun ; and his image in the form of the sun, is the great emblematical ornament of Masonic lodges and Masonic dresses. It is the central figure on their aprons, and they wear it also pendant on the breast in their lodges, and in their pro- cessions. It has the figure of a man, as at the head of the sun, as Christ is always represented.
At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded times. It is generally ascribed to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians and Chaldeans, and reduced
* Not published.
AGK OF REASON. 335
afterwards to a system regulated by the apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac by Zoroaster the lawgiver of Persia, from whence Pythag- oras brought it into Greece. It is to these matters Dr. Dodd refers in the passage already quoted from his oration.
The worship of the sun, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause, time without limits, spread itself over a considerable part of Asia and Africa, from thence to Greece and Rome, through all ancient Gaul, and into Britain and Ireland.
Smith, in his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry in Britain, says, that "notwithstanding the obscurity which envelopes Masonic history in that country, various cir- cumstances contribute to prove that Free-Masonry was introduced into Britain about 1030 years before Christ."
It cannot be Masonry in its present state that Smith here alludes to. The Druids flourished in Britain at the period he speaks of, and it is from them that Masonry is descended. Smith has put the child in the place of the parent.
It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conver- sation, that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he intends to conceal, and this is the case with Smith, for in the same chapter he says: "The Druids, when they committed any thing to writing, used the Greek alphabet, and I am bold to assert that the most perfect remains of the Druids' rites and ceremonies are preserved in the customs and ceremonies of the Masons that are to be found existing among mankind. My brethren," says he, "may be able to trace them with greater exactness than I am at liberty to explain to the public."
This is a confession from a Master Mason, without intending it to be so understood by the public, that Masonry is the remains of the religion of the Druids.
326 AGE OK REASON.
The reason for the Masons keeping this a secret I shall explain in the course of this work.
As the study and contemplation of the Creator in the works of the creation, of which the sun, as the great visible agent of that Being, was the visible object of the adoration of Druids, all their religious rites and cere- monies had reference to the apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and his influence upon the earth. The Masons adopt the same practices. The roof of their temples or lodges is ornamented with a sun, and the floor is a representation of the variegated face of the earth, either by carpeting or Mosaic work.
Free-Masons' Hall, in Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, lyondon, is a magnificent building, and cost upwards of 12,000 pounds sterling. Smith, in speaking of this building, says, (page 152,) "The roof of this magnificent hall is, in all probability, the highest piece of furnished architecture in Europe. In the centre of this roof, a most resplendent sun is represented in bur- nished gold, surrounded with the twelve signs of the zodiac, with their respective characters :
## Aries, ^ Libra,
V^ Taurus, ^ Scorpio,
ff Gemini, #• Sagittarius,
JB^ Cancer, vuS Capricornus,
W^ Leo, ^ Aquarius,
# Virgo, ^ Pisces."
After giving this description, he says, "The emblem- atical meaning of the sun is well known to the enlight- ened and inquisitive Free-Mason ; and as the real sun is situated in the centre of the universe, so the emblematical sun is the centre of real Masonry. We all know," continues he, "that the sun is the fountain of light, the source of the seasons, the cause of the vicissitudes of day
AGE OF REASON. 337
and night, the parent of vegetation, the friend of man ; hence the scientific Free-Mason only knows the reason why the sun is placed in the centre of this beautiful hall."
The Masons, in order to protect themselves from the persecution of the Christian church, have always spoken in a mystical manner of the figure of the sun in their lodges, or, like the astronomer Lalande, who is a Mason, been silent upon the subject. It is their secret, especially in Catholic countries, because the figure of the sun is the expressive criterion that denotes they are descended from the Druids, and that wise, elegant, philosophical religion, was the faith opposite to the faith of the gloomy Christian church.
The lodges of the Masons, if built for the purpose, are constructed in a manner to correspond with the apparent motion of the sun. They are situated Bast and West. The master's place is always in the East. In the examina- tion of an entered apprentice, the master, among many other questions, asks him : —
Q. How is the lodge situated ?
A. East and West.
Q. Why so?
A. Because all churches and chapels are or ought to be so.
This answer, which is mere catechismal form, is not an answer to the question. It does no more than remove the question a point further, which is. Why ought all churches and chapels to be so? But as the entered apprentice is not initiated into the Druidical mysteries of Masonry, he is not asked any questions to which a direct answer would lead thereto.
Q. Where stands your master?
A. In the East.
Q. Why so?
A. As the sun rises in the East, and opens the day, so the master stands in the East, (with his right hand upon
328 AGE OF RKASON.
his left breast, being a sign, and the square about his neck,) to open the lodge, and set his men at work.
Q, Where stands your wardens?
A. In the West.
Q. What is their business ?
A. As the sun sets in the West to close the day, so the wardens stand in the West (with their right hands upon their left breasts, being a sign, and the level and plumb rule about their necks,) to close the lodge, and dismiss the men from labor, paying them their wages.
Here the name of the sun is mentioned, but it is proper to observe, that in this place it has reference only to labor or to the time of labor, and not to any religious Druidical rite or ceremony, as it would have with respect to the situation of lodges East and West. I have already observed in the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion, that the situation of churches East and West is taken from the worship of the sun, which rises in the east, and has not the least reference to the person called Jesus Christ. The Christians never bury their dead on the north side of a church ; and a Mason's lodge always has, or is supposed to have, three windows, which are called fixed lights, to distinguish them from the moveable lights of the sun and the moon. The master asks the entered apprentice,
Q. How are they (the fixed lights) situated?
A. East, West, and South.
Q. What are their uses?
A, To light the men to and from their work.
Q. Why are there no lights in the North?
A. Because the sun darts no rays from thence.
This, among numerous other instances, shows that the Christian religion, and Masonry, have one and the same common origin, — the ancient worship of the sun.
The high festival of the Masons is on the day they call St. John's day ; but every enlightened Mason must know
AGE OF REASON. 329
that holding their festival on this day has no reference to the person called St. John ; and that it is only to disgnise the trne cause of holding it on this day that they call the day by that name. As there were Masons, or at least Druids, many centuries before the time of St. John, if such person ever existed, the holding their festival on this day must refer to some cause totally unconnected with John.
The case is, that the day called St. John's day is the 24th of June, and is what is called Midsummer-day. The sun is then arrived at the summer solstice ; and with respect to his meridional altitude, or height at high noon, appears for some days to be of the same height. The astronomical longest day, like the shortest day, is not, every year, on account of leap-year, on the same numerical day, and therefore the 24th of June is always taken for Midsummer-day ; and it is in honor of the sun, which has then arrived at his greatest height in our hemisphere, and not any thing with respect to St. John, that this annual festival of the Masons, taken from the Druids, is celebrated on Midsummer-day.
Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin, and this is the case with respect to a custom still practised in Ireland, where the Druids flourished at the time they flourished in Britain. On the eve of St. John^s day, that is, on the eve of Midsummer-day, the Irish light fires on the tops of the hills. This can have no reference to St. John, but it has emblematical reference to the sun, which on that day is at his highest summer elevation, and might in common language be said to have arrived at the top of the hill.
As to what Masons, and books of Masonry, tell us of Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem, it is no wise improbable that some Masonic ceremonies may ha\e been derived from the building of that temple, for the worship of the sun was in practice many centuries before the temple
330 AGE OF REASON.
existed, or before the Israelites came out of Egypt. And we learn from the history of the Jewish kings, 2 Kings, chap, xxii, xxiii, that the w^orship of the sun was per- formed by the Jews in that temple. It is, however, much to be doubted, if it was done with the same scientific purity and religious morality with which it was performed by the Druids, who, by all accounts that historically remain of them, were a wise, learned, and moral class of men. The Jews, on the contrary, were ignorant of astronomy, and of science in general ; and if a religion founded upon astronomy fell into their hands, it is almost certain it would be corrupted. We do not read in the history of the Jews, whether in the Bible or else- where, that they were the inventors or the improvers of any one art or science. Even in the building of this temple, the Jews did not know how to square and frame the timber for beginning and carrying on the work, and Solomon was obliged to send to Hiram, king of Tyre, (Sidon,) to procure workmen ; "for thou knowest, (says Solomon to Hiram, i Kings, chap, v, ver. 6,) that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." This temple was more properly Hiram's temple than Solomon's ; and if the Masons derive any thing from the building of it, they owe it to the Sidonians and not to the Jews. — But to return to the worship of the sun in this temple.
It is said, 2 Kings, chap, xxiii, ver. 5, "And King Josiah put down all the idolatrous priests that burned incense unto the sun, the moon, the planets, and to all the host of heaven." — And it is said at the nth verse, "And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah h'ld given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire." Ver. 13, "And the high places that were before Jerusa- lem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, wdiich Solomon the king of Israel had builded
AGE OF REASON. 33I
for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians, (the vety people that built the temple,) did the king defile."
Besides these things, the description that Josephus gives of the decorations of this temple, resembles on a large scale those of a Mason's Lodge. He says that the distribution of the several parts of the temple of the Jews represented all nature, particularly the parts most ap- parent of it, as the sun, the moon, the planets, the zodiac, the earth, the elements ; and that the system of the world was retraced there by numerous ingenious emblems. These, in all probability, are what Josiah, in his ignorance, calls the abominations of the Zidonians. * Kver>' thing, however, drawn from this temple, f and applied to Masonry, still refers to the worship of the sun, however corrupted or misunderstood by the Jews, and, conse- quently, to the religion of the Druids.
Another circumstance which shows that Masonr}' is de- rived from some ancient system, prior to, and unconnected with the Christian religion, is the chronology, or method of counting time, used by the Masons in the records of their lodges. They make no use of what is called the Christian era ; and they reckon their months numerical- ly, as the ancient Egyptians did, and as the Quakers do now. I have by me a record of a French lodge, at the time the late Duke of Orleans, then Duke de Chartres, was Grand Master of Masonry in France. It begins as follows : "Z^ trentieme jour dii sixieme mots de V an de la V. L. cinq mil sept cent soixante-ireize ;''"' that is, the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the year of the Venerable Lodge, five thousand seven hundred and
* Smith, in speaking of a lodge, says, "When the lodge is revealed to an entering Mason, it discovers to him representation of the world ; in which, from the wonders of nature, we are led to contemplate her great Original, and worship him from his mighty works; and we are iherehy also moved to exercise those moral and social virtues which become mankind as the servants of the great Architect of the world."
t It mav not be improper here to observe, that the law called the law of Moses could not have been in existence at the time of building this temple. Here is the likeness of things in heaven above, and in the earth beneath. And we read in ist Kings, chap, vi, vii , that Solomon made cherubs and cherubims, that he carved all the walls of the house round about with cherubims and palm-tiees, and open flowers; and that he made a molten sea, placed on twelve oxen, and the ledges of it were ornamented with lions, oxen, and cherubims ; all this is contrary to the law, called the law of Moses.
332 AGE OE REASON.
seventy-three. By what I observe in English books of Masonry, the English Masons use initials A. ly., and not