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1083.

Select the thinkers to be Legislators; and avoid the gabblers.

1084.

Wisdom is rarely loquacious.

1085.

Weight and depth of thougbt are unfavorable to volubility.

1086.

The shallow and superficial are generally voluble and often pass for eloquent.

1087.

More words, less thought, --is the general rule.

1088.

The man who endeavors to say something worth remembering in every sentence,

becomes fastidious, and condenses like Tacitus.

1089.

The vulgar love a more diffuse stream.

1090.

The ornamentation that does not cover strength is the gewgaws of babble.

1091.

Neither is dialectic subtlety valuable to public men.

1092.

The Christian faith has it, had it formerly more than now;

a subtlety that might have entangled Plato,

and which has rivalled in a fruitless fashion the mystic lore of Jewish Rabbis and Indian Sages.

1093.

It is not this which converts the heathen.

1094.

It is a vain task to balance the great thoughts of the earth,

like hollow straws, on the fingertips of disputation.

1095.

It is not this kind of warfare whicll makes the Cross triumphant in the hearts of the unbelievers; yet the actual power that lives in the Faith.

1096.

So there is a political scholasticism that is merely useless.

1097.

The dexterities of subtle logic rarely stir the hearts of the people, or convince them.

1098.

The true apostle of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality

makes it a matter of life and death.

1099.

His combats are like those of Bossuet,

-- combats to the death.

1100.

The true apostolic fire is like the lightning:

it flashes conviction into the soul.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Divisions 1101-1135

MORALS & DOGMA 2

1101.

The true word is verily a two-edged sword.

1102.

Matters of government and political science can be fairly dealt with only by

sound reason, and the logic of common sense:

not the common sense of the ignorant, yet of the wise.

1103.

The acutest thinkers rarely succeed in becoming leaders of men.

1104.

A watchword or a catchword is more potent with the people than logic,

especially if this be the least metaphysical.

1105.

When a political prophet arises, to stir the dreaming, stagnant nation,

and hold back its feet from the irretrievable descent,

to heave the land as with an earthquake, and shake the silly-shallow idols from their seats,

his words vvill come straight from God's own Mouth, and be thundered into the conscience.

1106.

He will reason, teach, warn, and rule.

1107.

The real " Sword of the Spirit" is keener than

the brightest blade of Damascus.

1108.

Such men rule a land, in the strength of justice,

with wisdom and with power.

1109.

Still, the men of dialectic subtlety often rule well,

because in practice they forget their finely-spun theories,

and use the trenchant logic of common sense.

1110.

Yet when the great heart and large intellect are left to the rust in private life,

and small attorneys, brawlers in politics,

and them in the cities would be only the clerks of notaries, or practitioners in disreputable courts,

are made national Legislators, the country is in her dotage [senile old age],

even if the beard has not yet grown upon her chin.

1111.

In a free country, human speech must needs be free;

and the State must listen to the maunderings of folly,

and the screechings of its geese, and the brayings of its asses,

as well as to the golden oracles of its wise and great men.

1112.

Even the despotic old kings allowed their wise fools to say what they liked.

1113.

The true alchemist will extract the lessons of wisdom from the babblings of folly.

1114.

He will hear what a man has to say on any given subject,

even if the speaker end only in proving himself prince of fools.

1115.

Even a fool will sometimes hit the mark.

1116.

There is some truth in all men who are not compelled to suppress their souls

and speak other men's thoughts.

1117.

The finger even of the idiot may point to the great highway.

1118.

A people, as well as the sages, must learn to forget.

1119.

If it neither learns the new nor forgets the old,

it is fated, even if it has been royal for thirty generations.

1120.

To unlearn is to learn; and also it is sometimes needful to learn again the forgotten.

1121.

The antics of fools make the current follies more palpable,

as fashions are shown to be absurd by caricatures, which so lead to their extirpation.

1122.

The buffoon and the zany are useful in their places.

1123.

The ingenious artificer and craftsman, like Solomon, searches the earth for his materials,

and transforms the misshapen matter into glorious workmanship.

1124.

The world is conquered by the head even more than by the hands.

1125.

Nor will any assembly talk forever.

1126.

After a time, when it has listened long enough,

it quietly puts the silly, the shallow, and the superficial to one side,

--it thinks, and sets to work.

1127.

The human thought, especially in popular assemblies,

runs in the most singularly crooked channels,

harder to trace and follow than the blind currents of the ocean.

1128.

No notion is so absurd that it may not find a place there.

1129.

The master-workman must train these notions and vagaries with his two-handed hammer.

1130.

They twist out of the way of the sword-thrusts;

and are invulnerable all over, even in the heel, against logic.

1131.

The mace, the battle-axe, the great double-edged two-handed sword must deal with follies;

the rapier is no better against them than a wand, unless it be the rapier of ridicule.

1132.

The SWORD is also the symbol of war and of the soldier.

1133.

Wars, like thunder-storms, are often necessary to purify the stagnant atmosphere.

1134.

War is not a demon, without remorse or reward.

1135.

It restores the brotherhood in letters of fire.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Divisions 1136-1170

MORALS & DOGMA 2

1136.

When men are seated in their pleasant places, sunken in ease and indolence,

with Pretence and Incapacity and Littleness usurping all the high places of State,

war is the baptism of blood and fire, by which alone they can be renovated.

1137.

It is the hurricane that brings the elemental equilibrium,

the concord of Power and Wisdom.

1138.

So long as these continue obstinately divorced,

it will continue to chasten.

1139.

In the mutual appeal of nations to God,

there is the acknowledgment of His might.

1140.

It lights the beacons of Faith and Freedom,

and heats the furnace through which the earnest and loyal pass to immortal glory.

1141.

There is in war the doom of defeat,

the quenchless sense of Duty,

the stirring sense of Honor,

the measureless solemn sacrifice of devotedness,

and the incense of success.

1142.

Even in the flame and smoke of battle,

the Mason discovers his brother,

and fulfills the sacred obligations of Fraternity.

1143.

Two, or the Duad, is the symbol of Antagonism;

of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

1144.

It is Cain and Abel,

Eve and Lilith,

Jachin and Boaz, Israelite

Ormuzd and Ahriman, Zoroastrian

Osiris and Typhon. Egyptian

1145.

THREE, or the Triad,

is most significantly expressed by the equilateral and the right-angled triangles.

1146.

There are three principal colors or rays in the rainbow,

which by intermixture make seven.

1147.

The three are the blue, the yellow, and the red.

1148.

The Trinity of the Deity, in one mode or other, has been an article in all creeds.

1149.

He creates, preserves, and destroys.

1150.

He is the generative power, the productive capacity, and the result.

1151.

The immaterial man, according to the Kabalah,

is composed of vitality, or life, the breath of life;

of soul or mind, and spirit.

1152.

Salt, sulphur, and mercury are the great symbols of the alchemists.

1153.

To them man was body, soul, and spirit.

1154.

FOUR is expressed by the square, or four-sided right-angled figure.

1155.

Out of the symbolic Garden of Eden flowed a river, dividing into four streams--

PISON, which flows around the land of gold, or light;

GIHON, which flows around the land of Ethiopia or Darkness;

HIDDEKEL, running eastward to Assyria;

and the EUPHRATES.

1156.

The prophet Zechariah saw four chariots coming out from between two mountains of bronze,

in the first of which were red horses;

in the second, black;

in the third, white;

and in the fourth, grizzled:

1157.

" and these were the four winds of the heavens,

that go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. "

1158.

The prophet Ezekiel saw the four living creatures, each with four faces and four wings,

the faces of a man and a lion, an ox and an eagle;

and the four wheels going upon their four sides;

1159.

and Saint John Zebedee beheld the four beasts, full of eyes before and behind,

the LION, the young Ox, the MAN, and the flying EAGLE.

1160.

Four was the signature of the Earth.

1161.

Therefore, in the 148th Psalm, of those who must praise the Lord on the land,

there are four times four, and four in particular of living creatures.

1162.

Visible nature is described as the four quarters of the world,

and the four corners of the earth.

1163.

" There are four, " says the old Jewish saying, " which take the first place in this world:

man, among the creatures;

the eagle among birds;

the ox among cattle;

and the lion among wild beasts. "

1164.

Daniel saw four great beasts come up from the sea.

1165.

FIVE is the Duad added to the Triad.

1166.

It is expressed by the five-pointed or blazing star,

the mysterious Pentalpha of Pythagoras.

1167.

It is indissolubly connected with the number seven.

1168.

Christ fed His disciples and the multitude with five loaves and two fishes,

and of the fragments there remained twelve, that is, five and seven, baskets full.

1169.

Again He fed them with seven loaves and a few little fishes,

and there remained seven baskets full.

1170.

The five apparently small planets,

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn,

with the two greater ones, the Sun and Moon, constituted the seven celestial spheres.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Divisions 1171-1195

MORALS & DOGMA 2

1171.

SEVEN was the peculiarly sacred number.

1172.

There were seven planets and spheres presided over by seven archangels.

1173.

There were seven colors in the rainbow;

and the Phoenician Deity was called the HEPTAKIS or god of seven rays;

seven days of the week;

and seven and five made the number of months, tribes, and apostles.

1174.

The prophet Zechariah saw a golden candlestick,

with seven lamps and seven pipes to the lamps,

and an olivetree on each side.

1175.

Since he says,

" the seven eyes of the Lord shall rejoice,

and shall see the plumb and line in the hand of Zerubbabel. " the prophets Amos and Ezekiel

1176.

John the Apostle, in the Apocalypse, writes seven epistles to the seven churches.

1177.

In the seven epistles there are twelve promises.

1178.

What is said of the churches in praise or blame, is completed in the number three.

1179.

The refrain, " who has ears to hear, " etc., has ten words,

divided by three and seven,

and the seven by three and four;

and the seven epistles are also so divided.

1180.

In the seals, trumpets, and vials, also, of this symbolic vision,

the seven are divided by four and three.

1181.

He who sends his message to Ephesus,

" holds the seven stars in his right hand, and walks amid the seven golden lamps. "

1182.

In six days, or periods, God created the Universe,

and paused on the seventh day.

1183.

Of clean beasts, Noah was directed to take by sevens into the ark;

and of fowls by sevens;

because in seven days the rain was to commence.

1184.

On the seventeenth day of the month the rain began;

on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark rested on Ararat.

1185.

When the dove returned, Noah waited seven days before he sent her forth again;

and again seven, after she returned with the olive-leaf.

1186.

Enoch was the seventh patriarch, Adam included,

and Lamech lived 777 years.

1187.

There were seven lamps in the great candlestick of the Tabernacle and Temple,

representing the seven planets.

1188.

Seven times Moses sprinkled the anointing oil upon the altar.

1189.

The days of consecration of Aaron and his sons were seven in number.

1190.

A woman was unclean seven days after child-birth;

any one infected with leprosy was shut up seven days;

1191.

seven times the leper was sprinkled with the blood of a slain bird;

and seven days afterwards he must remain abroad out of his tent.

1192.

Seven times, in purifying the leper, the priest was to sprinkle the consecrated oil;

and seven times to sprinkle with the blood of the sacrificed bird was the house for to be purified.

1193.

Seven times the blood of the slain bullock was sprinkled on the mercy-seat;

and seven times on the altar.

1194.

The seventh year was a Sabbath of rest;

and at the end of seven times seven years came the great year of jubilee.

1195.

Seven days the people ate unleavened bread, in the month of Abib.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Divisions 1196-1225

MORALS & DOGMA 2

1196.

Seven weeks were counted from the time of first putting the sickle to the wheat.

1197.

The Feast of the Tabernacles lasted seven days.

1198.

Israel was in the hand of Midian seven years before Gideon delivered them.

1199.

The bullock sacrificed by him was seven years old.

1200.

Samson told Delilah to bind him with seven green withes;

and she wove the seven locks of his head, and afterwards shaved them off.

1201.

Balaam told Barak to build for him seven altars.

1202.

Jacob served seven years for Leah and seven for Rachel.

1203.

Job had seven sons and three daughters, making the perfect number ten.

1204.

He had also seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels.

1205.

His friends sat down with him seven days and seven nights.

1206.

His friends were ordered to sacrifice seven bullocks and seven rams;

and again, at the end, he had seven sons and three daughters, and twice seven thousand sheep, and lived an hundred and forty, or twice seven times ten years.

1207.

Pharaoh saw in his dream seven fat and seven lean kine,

seven good ears and seven blasted ears of wheat;

and there were seven years of plenty, and seven of famine.

1208.

Jericho fell, when seven priests, with seven trumpets,

made the circuit of the city on seven successive days;

once each day for six days, and seven times on the seventh.

1209.

" The seven eyes of the Lord, " says the prophet Zechariah,

" run to and fro through the whole earth. "

1210.

Solomon was seven years in building the Temple.

1211.

Seven angels, in the Apocalypse, pour out seven plagues, from seven vials of wrath.

1212.

The scarlet-colored beast, on which the woman sits in the wilderness,

has seven heads and ten horns.

1213.

So also has the beast that rises Up out of the sea.

1214.

Seven thunders uttered their voices.

1215.

Seven angels sounded seven trumpets.

1216.

Seven lamps of fire, the seven spirits of God, burned before the throne;

and the Lamb that was slain had seven horns and seven eyes.

1216.

EIGHT is the first cube, that of two.

1217.

NINE is the square of three, and represented by the triple triangle.

1218.

TEN includes all the other numbers.

1219.

It is especially seven and three;

and is called the number of perfection.

1220.

Pythagoras represented it by the TETRACTYS, which had many mystic meanings.

1221.

This symbol is sometimes composed of dots or points, sometimes of commas or yods,

and in the Kabalah, of the letters of the name of Deity.

1222.

It is thus arranged:

, ,

, , ,

, , , ,

1223.

The Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, inclusive, are ten in number,

and the same number is that of the Commandments.

1224.

TWELVE is the number of the lines of equal length that form a cube.

1225.

It is the number of the months, the tribes, and the apostles;

of the oxen under the Bronze Sea, of the stones on the breast-plate of the high priest.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Divisions 1226-1265

3º - Master

MORALS & DOGMA 3

1226.

To understand literally the symbols and allegories of Oriental books as to ante-historical matters,

is willfully to close our eyes against the Light.

1227.

To translate the symbols into the trivial and commonplace, is the blundering of mediocrity.

1228.

All religious expression is symbolism;

since we can describe only what we see, and the true objects of religion are THE SEEN.

1229.

The earliest instruments of education were symbols;

and they and all other religious forms differed and still differ

according to external circumstances and imagery,

and according to differences of knowledge and mental cultivation.

1230.

All language is symbolic,

so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action.

1231.

All words have, primarily, a material sense,

however they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense.

1232.

" To retract, " for example, is to draw back,

and when applied to a statement, is symbolic,

as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would be.

1233.

The very word " spirit" means " breath, " from the Latin verb spiro, breathe.

1234.

To present a visible symbol to the eye of another

is not necessarily to inform him of the meaning which that symbol has to you.

1235.

Hence the philosopher soon superadded to the symbols explanations addressed to the ear, susceptible of more precision, yet less effective and impressive than

the painted or sculptured forms which he endeavored to explain.

1236.

Out of these explanations grew by degrees a variety of narrations,

whose true object and meaning were gradually forgotten,

or lost in contradictions and incongruities.

1237.

And when these were abandoned, and Philosophy resorted to definitions and formulas,

its language was but a more complicated symbolism,

attempting in the dark to grapple with and picture ideas impossible to be expressed.

1238.

For as with the visible symbol, so with the word:

to utter it to you does not inform you of the exact meaning which it has to me;

and thus religion and philosophy became to a great extent disputes as to the meaning of words.

1239.

The most abstract expression for DEITY, which language can supply,

is merely a sign or symbol for an object beyond our comprehension,

and not more truthful and adequate than the images of OSIRIS and VISHNU, or their names,

except as being less sensuous and explicit.

1240.

We avoid sensuousness only by resorting to simple negation.

1241.

We come at last to define spirit by saying that it is not matter.

1242.

Spirit is--spirit.

1243.

A single example of the symbolism of words will indicate to you one branch of Masonic study.

1244.

We find in the English Rite this phrase:

" I will always hail, ever conceal, and never reveal; "

1245.

and in the Catechism, these:

Q. '. " I hail. "

A. '. " I conceal, "

1246.

and ignorance, misunderstanding the word " hail, " has interpolated the phrase,

" From whence do you hail. "

1247.

Yet the word is really " hele, " from the Anglo-Saxon verb elan, helan,

to cover, hide, or conceal.

1248.

And this word is rendered by the Latin verb tegere, to cover or roof over.

1249.

" That ye fro me no thynge woll hele, " says Gower.

1250.

" They hele fro me no priuyte, " says the Romaunt of the Rose.

1251.

" To heal a house, " is a common phrase in Sussex;

and in the west of England, he that covers a house with slates is called a Healer.

1252.

Wherefore, to " heal" means the same thing as to " tile, "

--symbolic, as meaning, primarily, to cover a house with tiles--

and means to cover, hide, or conceal.

1253.

Thus language too is symbolism,

and words are as much misunderstood and misused as more material symbols are.

1254.

Symbolism tended continually to become more complicated;

and all the powers of Heaven were reproduced on earth,

until a web of fiction and allegory was woven,

partly by art and partly by the ignorance of error,

which the wit of man, with his limited means of explanation, will never unravel.

1255.

Even the Hebrew Theism became involved in symbolism and image-worship,

borrowed probably from an older creed and remote regions of Asia,

1256.

--the worship of the Great Semitic Nature-God AL or ELS

and its symbolical representations of JEHOVA

were not even confined to poetical or illustrative language.

1257.

The priests were monotheists:

the people idolaters.

1258.

There are dangers inseparable from symbolism,

which afford an impressive lesson in regard to the similar risks attendant on the use of language.

1259.

The imagination, called in to assist the reason,

usurps its place or leaves its ally helplessly entangled in itsweb.

1260.

Names which stand for things are confounded with them;

the means are mistaken for the end;

the instrument of interpretation for the object;

and thus symbols come to usurp an independent character as truths and persons.

1261.

Though perhaps a necessary path, they were a dangerous one by which to approach the Deity;

1262.

in which many, says PLUTARCH,

" mistaking the sign for the thing signified, fell into a ridiculous superstition;

1263.

while others, in avoiding one extreme,

plunged into the no less hideous gulf of irreligion and impiety. "

1264.

It is through the Mysteries, CICERO says, that we have learned the first principles of life; wherefore the term " initiation" is used with good reason;

1265.

and they not only teach us to live more happily and agrceably,

yet they soften the pains of death by the hope of a better life hereafter.

Morals & Dogma CHAPTER FORTY

Divisions 1266-1290

MORALS & DOGMA 3

1266.

The Mysteries were a Sacred Drama, exhibiting some legend significant of nature's changes,

of the visible Universe in which the Divinity is revealed,

and whose import was in many respects as open to the pagan as to the Christian.

1267.

Nature is the great Teacher of man;

for it is the Revelation of God.

1268.

It neither dogmatizes nor attempts to tyrannize

by compelling subscription to a particular creed or special interpretation.

1269.

It presents its symbols to us, and adds nothing by way of explanation.

1270.

It is the text without the commentary;

and, as we well know, it is chiefly the commentary and gloss

that lead to error and heresesy and persecution.

1271.

The earliest instructors of mankind not only adopted the lessons of Nature,

yet as far as possible adhered to her method of imparting them.

1272.

In the Mysteries, beyond the current traditions or sacred and enigimatic recitals of the Temples,

few explanations were given to the spectators,

who were left, as in the school of nature, to make inferences for themselves.

1273.

No other method could have suited every degree of cultivation and capacity.

1274.

To employ nature's universal symbolism instead of the technicalities of language,

rewards the humblest inquirer,

1275.

and discloses its (nature's) secrets to every one in proportion to his preparatory training

and his power to conprehend them.

1276.

If their philosophical meaning was above the comprehension of some,

their moral and political meanlngs are within the reach of all

1277.

These mystic shows and performances were not the reading of a lecture,

yet the opening of a problem.

1278.

Requiring research, they were calculated to arouse the dormant intellect.

1279.

They implied no hostility to Philosophy,

because Philosophy is the great expounder of symbolism;

although its ancient interpretations were often illfounded and incorrect.

1280.

The alteration from symbol to dogma is fatal to beauty of expression,

and leads to intolerance and assumed infallibility.

* * * * * *

1281.

If, in teaching the great doctrine of the divine nature of the Soul,

and in striving to explain its longings after immortality,

and in proving its superiority over the souls of the animals,

which have no aspirations Heavenward,

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