recommends the practice of that virtue to all created beings, from the highest seraph in heaven to the lowest reptile in the dust. It teaches us that as we came into the world rational and intelligent beings, so we should ever be industrious ones; never sitting down contented while our fellow creatures around us are in want, when it is in our power to relieve them without inconvenience to ourselves.

This was a famous symbol in the Orphic mysteries, into which it had been introduced with a mysterious reference well worthy of our consideration. "We learn from one of the ancient Oracles collected by Opsopeus, that Honey was used in the sacrifices to Bacchus and the Nymphs; and Sophocles informs us, that libations of honey and water were made in honour of the Errinues, which tremendous deities were in reality, arkite deities. According to Porphyry, honey was introduced into the mysteries as a symbol of death, on which account it was offered to the infernal gods. This notion will shew us the reason why the Chaldeans, who were deeply versed in the Cabiric orgies, were accustomed to embalm their dead with honey. The death, however, celebrated in the mysteries, of which honey was the symbol, was not, I apprehend, a literal, but merely an allegorical death; the death, in short, of Bacchus, Adonis, and Osiris; or, in other words, the confinement of Noah within his Ark or Coffin; such a death as this, therefore, was

very naturally described as being sweet, for it was, in fact, a preservation from danger. In allusion to the symbolical honey, Samothrace, the grand seat of the Cabiric superstition, was once denominated Melita; and for precisely the same reason, Jupiter was sometimes feigned to have been fed, during his infancy, by a swarm of bees. These bees, as we learn from Porphyry, were nothing more than the mystic priestesses of the infernal Ceres, who were called Melisso, or Melitto, a name, which according to a custom familiar to the pagans, they seem to have assumed from the deity whom they served. Ceres, Venus, or Astarte, was styled by the Babylonians Mylitta, or the goddess of generation; and as the Cabiric priests assumed the title of Cabiri, Curetes, or Corybantes, so the priestesses of Mylitta, called themselves Melisso or Melittœ. The name was afterwards extended to Bees, which animals, from their great vigour, activity, and liveliness, were thought to be proper emblems of what the Epoptæ termed, new born souls. Porphyry concludes his remarks upon the Bees of the mysteries by observing, that the Epoptæ did not consider them emblematical of all souls in general, but only of the just. The reason why this distinction was made is evident: the bees symbolized only the just man and his pious family, not the incorrigible race which perished beneath the waves of the deluge. The Sprig of Acacia points to that state of moral

Fab. Mys. Cab. c. x. with authorities.

obscurity to which the world was reduced previously to the appearance of Christ upon the earth; when the reverence and adoration due to the divinity was buried in the filth and rubbish of the world, when religion sat mourning in Israel in sackcloth and ashes, and morality was scattered to the four winds of heaven. In order that mankind might be preserved from this deplorable state of darkness and destruction, and as the old law was dead and become rottenness, a new doctrine and new precepts were wanting to give the key to salvation, in the language of which we might touch the ear of an offended deity, and bring forth hope for eternity. True religion was fled; those who sought her through the wisdom of the ancients were not able to raise her; she eluded the grasp, and their polluted hands were stretched forth in vain for her restoration. Those who sought her by the old law were frustrated, for death had stepped between, and corruption had defiled the embrace; sin had beset her steps, and the vices of the world had overwhelmed her. The Great Father of all, commiserating the miseries of the world, sent his only Son, who was innocence (acacia) itself, to teach the doctrines of salvation; by whom man was raised from the death of sin unto a life of righteousness; from the tomb of corruption unto the chambers of hope; from the darkness of despair to the celestial beams of faith; and not only working for us this redemption, but making with us the covenant of

regeneration, whence we become the children of God, and inheritors of the realms of heaven.*

I cannot conclude this Lecture without adding a few words by way of application on the Darkness of Death, which will as certainly precede your resurrection, as it did figuratively when your Masonry was completed. Are you rich, and blessed with an abundant superfluity of earthly possessions? Το you the approach of death will be bitter indeed, if it find you unprepared, because it will deprive you of all your temporal comforts, without the promise of an equivalent in eternity. Are you poor? Still the apprehension of this event conveys a portion of dismay, which it is difficult entirely to remove. We anticipate with a strong feeling of horror, those bitter agonies, those dreadful pangs which precede and accompany dissolution. We behold with terror the angel of death approach our dwelling; and when he lays hold on us to hasten our struggling nature away, we shrink from his grasp, and cling to the world with a delirious embrace, as if all our hopes and wishes were centred in its riches and gratifications. We do not reflect with sensations of pleasure on that event which excludes us from the light of heaven, and consigns us to the damps and Darkness of the grave, in which our body must eventually be deposited to be food for worms, and to encounter corruption and decay. We shudder at the thought of being placed

Star in the East. p. 141.-Hutch. Sp. of Mas. p. 159. Ed. 1775.

in the earth and covered over with mould; and when the green sod is laid upon our grave, to have taken a last, an eternal farewell of the world and its inhabitants. But we have a still greater dread of this event when we reflect on the eternal destruction of the soul. We know it must be separated from the body; we know that its doom, once pronounced, is irrevocable; and we recoil from the prospect of the second death, with consternation and horror. A few brief instructions how to subdue these feelings, may be neither improper nor unacceptable at the conclusion of this Lecture, Fear God and keep his commandments, says a certain Degree of Masonry, after king Solomon, for this is the whole duty of man.* I would recommend to you the practice of Temperance, not so much to preserve your constitution untainted, as to prepare for its final dissolution. I would recommend the practice of the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do to you, not so much to preserve the peace and order of civil society, (which notwithstanding it cannot fail to do,) as to inspire ín your own bosoms a love of virtue and good will to man. I would recommend Benevolence and Charity, not merely to provide for the necessities of indigence, but to introduce into your soul the fine feelings of humanity, and an extended philanthropy which may embrace in the bonds of love the whole human race. In a word, I would press upon you

Eccles, xii. 13.