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rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry with architecture, civil, military, and naval, music and astronomy. The people were busied in the arts of agriculture, mineralogy, and navigation; and Dr. Hyde asserts that the Chaldee Jews mention the loadstone in their private writings; and that the Arabians understood its uses. The vine and the olive were cultivated for the solace and gratification of the highest grades of society; music in theory and practice was taught; ear-rings and jewels of gold were manufactured and enriched with precious stones; the onyx, the chaste sapphire, the transparent crystal, the topaz, ruby, coral, and pearl are all mentioned as being in requisition for female adornment; and even polished mirrors were constructed for the convenience of decorating their persons with the accessories of dress. The art of glass-blowing was not unknown; and they were acquainted with the smelting and refining of metals. These public and domestic conveniences belonged only to a state far advanced towards moral and intellectual enlightenment.

At the deliverance from Egypt, the Israelites, with Aaron at their head, exhibited a wonderful facility in the art of working metals; for, during the short period that Moses was in the mount, they constructed a mould in which they cast a golden calf, and finished their work with the graver, by decorating it with a variety of ornaments, both polished and annealed. There is no positive evidence to prove this assertion, except the expressive words of Moses, "he fashioned it with a graving tool ;"12 but the presumption is strongly in favour of the fact, because the cherubim and other enrichments of the tabernacle were finished in both these styles; and it is further rendered probable by the very high degree of chemical knowledge which the legislator displayed in destroying the idol; for he reduced it to powder by the agency of fire. These arts were undoubtedly learned in Egypt.

In an enumeration of the ancient learning of the Egyptian hierophants-for it will be remembered that

12 Ex. xxxii. 4. Jerome translates the passage, formavit opere fusorio, et fecit ex eis vitulum conflatilem-he fashioned it by the art of the founder, and made of them a cast calf. Scapula says voagıdı, and voagis -is an engraver's tool.

all knowledge was imbedded in the Spurious Freemasonry, and the people were miserably ignorant and brutish -Philo names arithmetic, geometry, music, and hieroglyphical philosophy; but others, more correctly, divide it into four parts: mathematical, natural, divine, and moral. The great value which they placed on geography, appears from the description which Clemens Alexandrinus gives of the sacred scribe; who was required to be well skilled in hieroglyphics, cosmography, geography, the motions of the planets, the chorography of Egypt, and a description of the Nile. Whitehurst goes so far as to assert that the first race of men after the flood, much anterior to the Phenician and Egyptian nations, were familiarly acquainted with the laws of gravitation, fluidity, and centrifugal force. The science exhibited by the Sidonians is celebrated both in sacred and profane history. Homer terms them rovdaidaho, skilled in many arts.

Is it, then, asked, why we find the nations of the east, and Egypt in particular, at the present time, in such a degraded state of mental ignorance and imbecility? I answer, the natural fertility of that country, by the periodical inundations of its sacred river, yielding abundance without labour, produced indolence; and the people, being at length enervated by sloth and luxury, the taste for cultivating the arts gradually declined, till at length it ended in their total extinction: and we look in vain for a work of genius in times comparatively modern, which will display the science so abundantly lavished on the temples, statues, and catacombs of antiquity. And hence appears the necessity of constant labour and incessant industry in the perfection of human reason and science.

To these causes of a decay of refinement amongst a civilized people, may be added their easy conquest by Barbarians, and the consequent destruction of works of art, and valuable monuments containing the accumulated wisdom of ages. Such were the desolation of Egypt under Cambyses; the destruction of the Alexandrian library by the Saracens; the conquest of Italy and the sack of Rome, first by the Goths, and afterwards by the Huns and Vandals; each tending to extinguish knowledge, and introduce a period of ignorance and mental imbecility. Even the native Americans, savage though

they have been for a succession of ages, were, in times too remote for either record or tradition, a wise, civilized, and scientific people. An evidence of this exists in the fact that more than half a century ago two ancient wells were discovered in North America, walled round with brick. It is clear, therefore, from this incident, that, as bricks were unknown to the first inhabitants of that country, of whom we possess any authentic knowledge, they must have been used by a people antecedent to them, amongst whom arts and civilization had been cultivated with considerable success. And this primitive people, whoever they might be, were acquainted with the principles of geometry; for the wells were walled in a perfect circle.

There would, however, be a wide difference amongst various nations in the grades of scientific improvement; and I agree with the author of the Origines Biblicæ, that in maritime countries, where the further progress and dispersion of mankind have been stopped by the ocean -in islands-in cities where men have been congregated together for the purposes of commerce-civilization has generally continued to advance with considerable rapidity; whilst in countries where nomadic habits have been induced, the people have descended in the scale of civilization in an equal ratio to the quality of the country, and its means of affording subsistence, operating conjointly with its extent, and the consequent absence of the necessity for its inhabitants to adopt any means of support beyond those which have spontaneously presented themselves, and which have thence become congenial to them. Generally speaking, however, the barometer of civilization would fluctuate as it was operated upon by prosperity or adversity; for while exertion would be stimulated by necessity, plenty would lessen the motives for exertion; and science would accordingly be debased, and in many instances lost, as it is at present in most of the Eastern nations, on whose superiority I have, in this Lecture, had the pleasure to enlarge.

Thus it appears, that the world has had its bright as well as its dark ages; that the human intellect, in times of national peace and prosperity, has displayed its capability of improvement to an almost unlimited extent; and it is a matter of gratifying reflection, that our own times are marked by striking advances in the sciences

and arts, although they are yet far from perfection. Novelties are announced almost daily. What the future may produce we are unable to conjecture; but while we have before our eyes the beneficial purposes to which gas and steam have been applied, we must learn to be cautious how we condemn any proposition-strange and startling though it may appear ;-for the ingenious efforts of scientific men may perfect designs which may exceed our most sanguine anticipations. This rapid diffusion of knowledge is morally as well as scientifically advantageous to society. He who is ardently attached to the stirring pursuits of science can never be an idle, and scarcely a vicious man. His mental energies are absorbed in the contemplation of a rich series of causes and effects, which cannot fail to produce a feeling of genuine and unremitted benevolence. Carnal indulgences will find it difficult to counterbalance, in such a mind, the attractions of science with its marvellous secrets, its host of new ideas, and the complication of vast designs which it is capable of bringing to perfection.

LECTURE IV.

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND DESIGN OF THE SPURIOUS FREEMASONRY.

IN

Underneath the soil, a hundred sacred paths,
Scoop'd through the living rock in winding maze,
Lead to as many caverns dark and deep,
Mid which the hoary sages act their rites
Mysterious rites of such strange potency,
As done in open day would dim the sun
Though throned in noontide brightness.

Mason.

In every modification of true religion, mysterious doctrines have been proposed by the Divine Author for the exercise of faith, and as a condition of existence. At the Fall, it was propounded as a motive for consolation, under the pressure of that misery and humiliation with which disobedience to the Divine command had plunged the first created pair, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This covenant was included in the Freemasonry of Adam, and illustrated by its symbol, a serpent, and a series of expressive signs and tokens which are still preserved amongst us. The type of this consoling promise, viz., animal sacrifices, was the primary mystery or sacrament which demanded implicit belief; and it was the moving principle which prompted the antediluvian patriarchs to worship God in purity, under the lively hope of profiting by the merits of the promised seed, who should thus atone for Adam's sin, and open to them the gates of heaven.

After the Flood and the renewed apostacy of the idolatrous race of Ham, another mystery or sacrament was enjoined on the patriarchs which was equally incomprehensible, and demanded the tacit acquiescence of the pious worshipper: this was circumcision. In the Mosaic

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