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VIII.
ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
[NOTE: This essay appeared in New York, 1818, with an
anonymous preface of which I quote the opening paragraph: "This
tract is a chapter belonging to the Third Part of the "Age of
Reason," as will be seen by the references made in it to preceding
articles, as forming part of the same work. It was culled from the
writings of Mr. Paine after his death, and published in a mutilated
state by Mrs. Bonneville, his executrix. Passages having a
reference to the Christian religion she erased, with a view no
doubt of accommodating the work to the prejudices of bigotry.
These, however, have been restored from the original manuscript,
except a few lines which were rendered illegible." Madame
Bonneville published this fragment in New York, 1810 (with the
omissions I point out) as a pamphlet. -- Dr. Robinet (Danton-
Emigre, p. 7) says erroneously that Paine was a Freemason; but an
eminent member of that Fraternity in London, Mr. George Briggs,
after reading this essay, which I submitted to him, tells me that
"his general outline, remarks, and comments, are fairly true."
Paine's intimacy in Paris with Nicolas de Bonneville and Charles
Frangois Dupuis, whose writings are replete with masonic
speculations, sufficiently explain his interest in the subject. --
Editor.]
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. 1st. The Entered Apprentice. 2d. The Fellow Craft. 3d. 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 concealed.
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 hereunto annexed is a
true and genuine copy in every particular." In his work he has
given the catechism or examination, 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.
In his introduction he says, 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
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
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 understanding 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 before the same era. It was therefore
impossible that Euclid could communicate 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 Provincial Grand
Master of Masonry for the county of Kent, published a treatise
entitled, The Use and Abuse of Free-Masonry.
In his chapter of 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 the
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 openly to descant on this head; it is sacred, and
ever will remain so; those who are 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 attainable as things of
course, nor by every capacity."
The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Dodd, Grand Chaplain of
Masonry, in his oration at the dedication of Free-Mason's 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 consequently 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 among the first and most celebrated
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
civilizers of the East. We deduce it regularly from the first
astronomers 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, 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."
[NOTE: Zarvan-Akarana. This personification of Boundless Time,
though a part of Parsee Theology, seems to be a later monotheistic
dogma, based on perversions of the Zendavesta. See Haug's "Religion
of the Parsees." -- Editor.]
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. [NOTE:
Referring to an unpublished portion of the work of which this
chapter forms a part. -- American Editor, 1819 [This paragraph is
omitted from the pamphlet copyrighted by Madame Bonneville in 1810,
as also is the last sentence of the next paragraph. -- Editor.]
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 processions. 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 time.
It is generally ascribed to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians
and Chaldeans, and reduced afterwards to a system regulated by the
apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of Zodiac by
Zoroaster the law giver of Persia, from whence Pythagoras brought
it into Greece. It is to these matters Dr. Dodd refers in the
passage already quoted from his oration.
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
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 circumstances 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 conversation,
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; the reasons for the Masons keeping this
a secret I shall explain in the course of this work.
As the study and contemplation of the Creator [is] in the
works of the creation, the Sun, as the great visible agent of that
Being, was the visible object of the adoration of Druids; all their
religious rites and ceremonies 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,
London, 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 finished architecture in Europe. In the center of
this roof, a most resplendent Sun is represented in burnished gold,
surrounded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, with their
respective characters;
Aries Libra
Taurus Scorpio
Gemini Sagittarius
Cancer Capricorns
Leo Aquarius
Virgo Pisces
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
After giving this description, he says, "The emblematical
meaning of the Sun is well known to the enlightened and inquisitive
Free-Mason; and as the real Sun is situated in the center of the
universe, so the emblematical Sun is the center 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 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 center 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. [NOTE: This sentence is omitted in Madame
Bonneville's publication. -- Editor.]
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 East and West. [NOTE: The Freemason's
Hall in London, which Paine has correctly described, is situated
North and South, the exigencies of the space having been too strong
for Masonic orthodoxy. Though nominally eastward the Master stands
at the South. -- Editor.] The master's place is always in the East.
In the examination 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 a direct answer
to which 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
his left breast, being a sign, and the square about
his neck,) to open the Lodge, and set his men at work.
Q. Where stand 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
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
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;
[NOTE: In many parts of Northern Europe the North was supposed to
be the region of demons. Executed criminals were buried on the
north side of churches. -- Editor.] 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 that holding
their festival on this day has no reference to the person called
St. John, and that it is only to disguise the true 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 practiced in
Ireland, where the Druids flourished at the time they flourished in
Britain. On the eve of Saint John's day, that is, on the eve of
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
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 have been derived from the building of that temple,
for the worship of the Sun was in practice many centuries before
the Temple existed, or before the Israelites came out of Egypt. And
we learn from the history of the Jewish Kings, 2 Kings xxii. xxiii.
that the worship of the Sun was performed 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 elsewhere,
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
(Zidon) to procure workmen; "for thou knowest, (says Solomon to
Hiram, i Kings v. 6.) that there is not among us any that can skill
to hew timber like unto the Zidonians." 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 Zidonians and
not to the Jews. -- But to return to the worship of the Sun in this
Temple.
It is said, 2 Kings xxiii. 5, "And [king Josiah] put down all
the idolatrous priests ... that burned incense unto ... the sun,
the moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven." And it is said
at the 11th verse: "And he took away the horses that the kings of
Judah had given to the Sun, at the entering in of the house of the
Lord, ... and burned the chariots of the Sun with fire"; verse 13,
"And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the
right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of
Israel had builded for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians"
(the very 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 apparent 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. [NOTE by PAINE: Smith, in speaking
of a Lodge, says, when the Lodge is revealed to an entering Mason,
it discovers to him a 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 thereby
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
also moved to exercise those moral and social virtues which become
mankind as the servants of the great Architect of the world. --
Author.] Every thing, however, drawn from this Temple [NOTE by
PAINE: It may 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 earth beneath. And we read in I Kings vi., vii., that
Solomon made cherubs and cherubims, that he carved all the walls of
the house round about with cherubims, and palm-trees, 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. --
Author.] and applied to Masonry, still refers to the worship of the
Sun, however corrupted or misunderstood by the Jews, and
consequently to the religion of the Druids.
Another circumstance, which shows that Masonry is derived 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
numerically, 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: "Le trentieme jour du sixieme mois
de l'an de la V.L. cinq mille sept cent soixante treize;" that is,
the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the year of the Venerable
Lodge, five thousand seven hundred and seventy-three. By what I
observe in English books of Masonry, the English Masons use the
initials A.L. and not V.L. By A.L. they mean in the year of Light,
as the Christians by A.D. mean in the year of our Lord. But A.L.
like V.L. refers to the same chronological era, that is, to the
supposed time of the creation. [NOTE: V.L. are the initials of
Vraie Lumiere, true light; and A.L. of Anne Lucis, in the year of
light. This and the three preceding sentences (of the text) are
suppressed in Madame Bonneville's pamphlet, 1810. -- Editor.] In
the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion, I have shown
that the Cosmogony, that is, the account of the creation with which
the book of Genesis opens, has been taken and mutilated from the
Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, and was fixed as a preface to the Bible
after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, and that the
Robbins of the Jews do not hold their account in Genesis to be a
fact, but mere allegory. The six thousand years in the Zend-Avesta,
is changed or interpolated into six days in the account of Genesis.
The Masons appear to have chosen the same period, and perhaps to
avoid the suspicion and persecution of the Church, have adopted the
era of the world, as the era of Masonry. The V.L. of the French,
and A.L. of the English Mason, answer to the A.M. Anno Mundi, or
year of the world.
Though the Masons have taken many of their ceremonies and
hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians, it is certain they have
not taken their chronology from thence. If they had, the church
would soon have sent them to the stake; as the chronology of the
Egyptians, like that of the Chinese, goes many thousand years
beyond the Bible chronology.
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
The religion of the Druids, as before said, was the same as
the religion of the ancient Egyptians. The priests of Egypt were
the professors and teachers of science, and were styled priests of
Heliopolis, that is, of the City of the Sun. The Druids in Europe,
who were the same order of men, have their name from the Teutonic
or ancient German language; the German being anciently called
Teutones. The word Druid signifies a wise man. [NOTE: German drud,
wizard. Cf. Milton's line: "The star-led wizards haste with odours
sweet." The word Druid has also been derived from Greek ####;, an
oak; Celtic 'deru,' an oak and 'ndd,' lord; British 'deruidhon,'
very wise men; Heb. 'derussim,' contemplators; etc. -- Editor.] In
Persia they were called Magi, which signifies the same thing.
Egypt," says Smith, "from whence we derive many of our
mysteries, has always borne a distinguished rank in history, and
was once celebrated above all others for its antiquities, learning,
opulence, and fertility. In their system, their principal hero-
gods, Osiris and Isis, theologically represented the Supreme Being
and universal Nature; and physically the two great celestial
luminaries, the Sun and the Moon, by whose influence all nature was
actuated." "The experienced brethren of the society, [says Smith in
a note to this passage] are well informed what affinity these
symbols bear to Masonry, and why they are used in all Masonic
Lodges." In speaking of the apparel of the Masons in their Lodges,
part of which, as we see in their public processions, is a white
leather apron, he says, "the Druids were apparelled in white at the
time of their sacrifices and solemn offices. The Egyptian priests
of Osiris wore snow-white cotton. The Grecian and most other
priests wore white garments. As Masons, we regard the principles of
those 'who were the first worshipers of the true God,' imitate
their apparel, and assume the badge of innocence."
"The Egyptians," continues Smith, "in the earliest ages
constituted a great number of Lodges, but with assiduous care kept
their secrets of Masonry from all strangers. These secrets have
been imperfectly handed down to us by oral tradition only, and
ought to be kept undiscovered to the laborers, craftsmen, and
apprentices, till by good behavior and long study they become
better acquainted in geometry and the liberal arts, and thereby
qualified for Masters and Wardens, which is seldom or never the
case with English Masons."
Under the head of Free-Masonry, written by the astronomer
Lalande, in the French Encyclopedia, I expected from his great
knowledge in astronomy, to have found much information on the
origin of Masonry; for what connection can there be between any
institution and the Sun and twelve signs of the Zodiac, if there be
not something in that institution, or in its origin, that has
reference to astronomy? Every thing used as an hieroglyphic has
reference to the subject and purpose for which it is used; and we
are not to suppose the Free-Masons, among whom are many very
learned and scientific men, to be such idiots as to make use of
astronomical signs without some astronomical purpose. But I was
much disappointed in my expectation from Lalande. In speaking of
the origin of Masonry, he says, "L'orgine de la maconnerie se Perd,
comme tant d'autres, dans l'obscurite des termps;" That is, the
origin of Masonry, like many others, loses itself in the obscurity
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ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
of time. When I came to this expression, I supposed Lalande a
Mason, and on enquiry found he was. This passing over saved him
from the embarrassment which Masons are under respecting the
disclosure of their origin, and which they are sworn to conceal.
There is a society of Masons in Dublin who take the name of Druids;
these Masons must be supposed to have a reason for taking that
name.
I come now to speak of the cause of secrecy used by the
Masons.
The natural source of secrecy is fear. When any new religion
over-runs a former religion, the professors of the new become the
persecutors of the old. We see this in all instances that history
brings before us. When Hilkiah the priest and Shaphan the scribe,
in the reign of King Josiah, found, or pretended to find, the law,
called the law of Moses, a thousand years after the time of Moses,
(and it does not appear from 2 Kings, xxii., xxiii., that such a
law was ever practiced or known before the time of Josiah), he
established that law as a national religion, and put all the
priests of the Sun to death. When the christian religion over-ran
the Jewish religion, the Jews were the continual subject of
persecution in all christian countries. When the Protestant
religion in England over-ran the Roman Catholic religion, it was
made death for a Catholic priest to be found in England. As this
has been the case in all the instances we have any knowledge of, we
are obliged to admit it with respect to the case in question, and
that when the christian religion over-ran the religion of the
Druids in Italy, ancient Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, the Druids
became the subject of persecution. This would naturally and
necessarily oblige such of them as remained attached to their
original religion to meet in secret, and under the strongest
injunctions of secrecy. Their safety depended upon it. A false
brother might expose the lives of many of them to destruction; and
from the remains of the religion of the Druids, thus preserved,
arose the institution which, to avoid the name of Druid, took that
of Mason, and practiced under this new name the rites and
ceremonies of Druids.
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