doctrine shrouded under a corresponding symbol. These allegorical fables becoming popular, the simple rites of primitive worship soon assumed a new and more imposing form; and religion was at length enveloped in a veil so thick and impervious, as to render the interpretation of their symbolical imagery extremely difficult and uncertain. The slender thread of truth being intimately blended and confused with an incongruous mass of error, the elucidation was a task so complicated and forbidding, that few had the courage to undertake it; and men were rather inclined to bow implicitly to popular tradition, than be at the pains to reconcile truth with itself, and separate, with a nice and delicate hand, the particles of genuine knowledge from the cumbrous web of allegory and superstition, in which they were interwoven.

The Darkness of Masonry is invested with a more pure and dignified reference, because it is attached to a system of truth. It places before the mind a series of the most awful and impressive images. It points to the darkness of death and the obscurity of the grave,* as the forerunners of a more brilliant and never-fading Light which fol-* lows at the resurrection of the just. Figure to yourselves the beauty and strict propriety of this reference, ye who have been raised to the Third Degree of Masonry. Was your mind enveloped in the shades of that darkness? So shall you again # Job x. 21, 22.

be involved in the darkness of the grave, when death has drawn his sable curtain round you. Did you rise to a splendid scene of intellectual brightness? So, if you are obedient to the precepts of Masonry and the dictates of Religion, shall you rejoice, on the resurrection morn, when the clouds of error and imperfection are separated from your mind, and you behold with unveiled eye the glories which issue from the expanse of heaven, the everlasting splendours of the throne of God!

It is an extraordinary fact, that there is scarcely a single ceremony in Free Masonry, but we find its corresponding rite in one or other of the idolatrous mysteries; and the coincidence can only be accounted for by supposing that these mysteries were derived from masonry. Yet however they might assimilate in ceremonial observances, an essential difference existed in the fundamental principles of the respective institutions. The primitive veneration for Light accompanied the career of Masonry from the creation to the present day, and will attend its course until time expires in eternity; but in the mysteries of idolatry, this veneration soon yielded its empire over men's minds, and fell before the claims of Darkness; for a false worship would naturally be productive of impure feelings and vicious propensities. It is true indeed that the first Egyptians worshipped ON as the chief deity, who was supposed to be the eternal Light; and hence he was referred to the Sun as its great source

and emanation. Thus it was said that God dwelt in the Light, his Virtue in the Sun, and his Wisdom in the Moon. But this worship was soon debased by superstitious practices. The idolaters degenerated into an adoration of serpents and scorpions, and other representatives of the evil spirit; and, amidst the same professions of a profound reverence for Light, became most unaccountably enamoured of Darkness; and a temple near Memphis was dedicated to Hecate Scotia, which was styled the Lord of the Creation, and in some respects deemed oracular. Hence we deduce the strict propriety of the ninth plague inflicted by Almighty vengeance on that infatuated people; in which it is most remarkable to observe that the same terrific sights were exhibited before their affrighted senses; the same unearthly noises sounded in their ears, as usually attended the rites of initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries.†

With the same reference in view, the Almighty, many centuries afterwards, denounces his vengeance on Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

"I will cover the heavens when I quench thee, And I will clothe the stars thereof with black:

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

And the moon shall not give her light.

All the shining lights of the heavens will I clothe with
black over thee,

And will set DARKNESS upon thy land,

Saith the Lord Jehovah."

Diod. Sic. 1. i. c. 7.

+ Vid. Book of Wisdom c. xvii.

+ Ezekiel xxxii. 7, 8. Bp. Lowth's Transl.

This superstition, which assigned divine honours to Darkness, was not peculiar to Egypt, but spread, by a kind of fatality, throughout the idolatrous world; and was justified on the principle that Darkness or Night, which had an existence in Chaos long before the creation of Light, was hence of superior antiquity.* Thus in their calculations they gave precedence to the Night; and to signify one full revolution of the earth on its axis, they used the phrase, a night and a day, which the Greeks expressed by the word Nuchthemeron. Even the Jews began their calculations from the evening, because God is said by Moses to have created Light out of Darkness.† And they beheld the Darkness itself with the most awful sensations, and considered it as the incomprehensible veil of the deity. They thought the greatest mystery of religion was expressed by adumbration, viz. the Cherubim shadowing the Mercy Seat. Life was considered but the shadow of death; and souls departed but the shadow of the living; the sun itself but the dark simulachrum; and Light but the. shadow of God.§

The honours thus conferred on Darkness, are plainly set forth in the Orphic Fragments, where Night is celebrated as the parent of gods and men, and the origin of all things. And hence in

+ Vid. 1 Kings viii. 12.-2 Chron. vi. 1.-Psalm xviii. 9, &c.

Brown's Gard. of Cyrus. c. iv.

Euseb. pe præp. evan. 1. iii. c. 9.

the initiations, Darkness was always hailed with three distinct acclamations or cheers, (rpis και τετο επιφημίζοντες.)* For these united causes, Jesus Christ says, that in his time, at the extreme point of degeneracy which mankind were suffered to attain, "men loved Darkness rather than Light, because their deeds were evil." And speaking of the implacable and revengeful spirit inculcated by idolatry, St. John, the beloved disciple of Christ says, "he that hateth his brother, is in Darkness, and walketh in Darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that Darkness hath blinded his eyes." The same reference is abundant in all St. Paul's Epistles which are addressed to the heathen

converts.

From these observations, the customs that follow may be satisfactorily accounted for.

In all the ancient mysteries, before an aspirant could claim to participate in the higher secrets of the institution, he was placed within the Pastos, or Bed, or Coffin; or in other words, was subjected to a solitary confinement for a prescribed period of time, that he might reflect seriously, in seclusion and darkness, on what he was about to undertake; and be reduced to a proper state of mind for the reception of great and important truths, by a course of fasting and mortification. This was the symbolical death of the mysteries,

* Damascius, in Bryant's Plagues of Egypt. p. 170.