{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22314/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22314","id":"gutenberg_22314","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22314","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Secret societies"],"text":"Produced by Barbara Tozier, Keith Edkins and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they\nare listed at the end of the text.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nMYSTICISM\n\nAND ITS RESULTS;\n\nBEING AN INQUIRY INTO\n\nTHE USES AND ABUSES OF SECRECY,\n\nAS DEVELOPED IN THE INSTRUCTION AND ACTS OF SECRET SOCIETIES,\nASSOCIATIONS, OR CONFRATERNITIES, WHETHER SOCIAL,\nRELIGIOUS, OR POLITICAL, FROM THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY\nTO THE PRESENT DAY, AND THEIR EFFECTS ON\nTHE MASSES OF MANKIND, THEN AND NOW.\n\nBY JOHN DELAFIELD, ESQ.,\n\nOF MISSOURI,\nAUTHOR OF \"AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA.\"\n\nSAINT LOUIS:\nPUBLISHED BY EDWARDS & BUSHNELL, NO. 97 FOURTH STREET, TEN BUILDINGS.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n1857.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEntered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857,\nBY JOHN DELAFIELD,\nin the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and\nfor the\nDistrict of Missouri.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSAVAGE & McCREA, STEREOTYPERS,\n13 Chambers Street, N.Y.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO MY ALMA MATER,\nCOLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK,\nThis Essay is respectfully Inscribed,\nBY THE WRITER.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{5}\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\"THE WORD WAS GOD.\" That \"WORD IS TRUTH.\" Truth can never change, or it\nwould contradict itself. Past, present, and future, must be governed by\nimmutable laws. Experience is acquired by the careful study of history, and\nthe present condition of all things. All is governed now by that same law\nof truth, which was from the beginning of the world, and ever shall be.\nWhat serious lessons, then, may be learned by a careful examination of past\nages; and how useful may they not be to us and our children for future\nages? We can only judge of that which is to come hereafter, by studying the\npast, and carefully noting the present.\n\nThis little book has collated some facts, perhaps, somewhat out of the\nusual range of reading; but which it is sincerely trusted may be of\npractical {6} utility. If it only induces thought, study, or research, by\nintellectual and honest minds, its object will have been attained. The\nwriter can only claim the indulgence of the reader to consider the essay\nsuggestive--not didactic. Many a far abler pen may enlarge upon and carry\nout the ideas presented. May it be\n\nJ. D.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{7}\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSecrecy; its Uses and Abuses.--Mystery; its Definition.--Mysticism, and its\nDefinition. ... PAGE 9\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe Distinction between the Early Elohistic and Jehovahstic Ages of\nPrimeval Patriarchal Times.--The Secrecy of Original Worship on Mountain\nTops.--The Collation and Reconciliation of the Patriarchal Traditions\nbrought together by Moses.--The Commencement of the Jehovahstic Age.--The\nOrigin of Mythology.--The Magi; their Organization and Modes of\nWorship.--The Deification of Nimrod, and the Source of Political Power at\nits Beginning.--The Secret Writings they adopted.--The Dead Invokers.--The\nMysteries of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. ... 16\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nThe Origin of the Cabbalistae; the Chaldeans, and their Antagonism to\nPatriarchal Tradition.--The Hand-Writing on Belshazzar's Wall.--The Secret\nWritings of the Cabbalistae.--How Daniel read the Same.--Ezra.--The Origin\nof the Masoretic Text.--Zoroaster.--His Reformation and Reconstruction of\nthe Religion of the Magi.--Pythagoras, and his \"League.\"--The Thugs.--The\nDruids. ... 41\n\n{8} CHAPTER IV.\n\nThe Discipline of the Secret in the Origin of the Christian Church.--The\nInquisition.--The Mystics.--The Rise of Monachism.--The Mendicant\nOrders.--The Orders of Knighthood.--The Jesuits, their Organization and\nHistory.--The Rosicrucians, &c. ... 71\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nThe Struggle between an alleged _Jus Divinum Regum_, and Popular\nSovereignty.--And the Efforts now attempted to destroy our Grand Experiment\nof Self-Government.--Practical Results. ... 104\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{9} MYSTICISM, AND ITS RESULTS.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n    Secrecy; its Uses and Abuses.--Mystery; its Definition.--Mysticism, and\n    its Definition.\n\nIt is not true, as has been sometimes said, that wherever there is secrecy\nthere is error.\n\nSecrecy, like most all else, hath its uses and abuses: its uses, as\ndeveloped in modesty and domestic virtue, in religious meditation,\nself-examination, and prayer, and in prudence in the affairs of life: its\nabuses, in prudery, asceticism, superstitious awe, undue veneration of\npower, and when used as a cloud to conceal crime so hideous that nothing\nbut the truth of God, vindicated by human laws founded thereon, directed by\nwisdom, can dispel it.\n\nVirtue and modesty shrink from public gaze. Each looks alone to its innate\nsense, the gift of God, and to the sole approval of the great \"I AM.\"\n\nThe hidden sincere aspirations of the heart are known only to Him who\n\"breathed into man the {10} breath of life, and he became a living soul.\"\nThese are a secret between the created being and its Almighty Father. At\nthe lonely hour, when the burdened soul, knowing no earthly refuge from\noverwhelming troubles, but a mightier Hand than that of man, seeks on\nbended knee and with penitential tear, a blessing from on high, no word is\nspoken, no sound uttered save the sob from a contrite heart. The aspiration\nhas gone forth inaudibly to Him who said to all mankind, then and for\nfuture ages, \"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will\ngive you rest.\"[1]\n\n \"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,\n  Uttered or unexpressed,\n  The motion of a hidden fire\n  That trembles in the breast.\n  It is the burden of a sigh,\n  The falling of a tear,\n  The upward glancing of an eye\n  When none but God is near.\"[2]\n\nWhat knoweth the outer world of this? Yet wrong can not exist in such\nsecret communion between a penitent heart and its Maker. Pure religious\nmeditation, leading us from earth to heaven, is only promoted by secret\nstudy and reflection in solitude. Neither philosophy nor religion can be\ncultivated in the midst of the vortices of commerce or other business\nrequiring constant intercourse with hundreds of {11} men during the day,\nnor in the whirl of fashion in the evening.\n\nThus, then, do we trace one of the uses of secrecy. Both its use and its\nabuse we shall hereinafter find exemplified in marked effects not only on\nindividual minds, but also on the masses of mankind in past history: its\nuse, in the development of true piety: its abuse, in asceticism,\nsuperstition, and overweening spiritual power resulting in crimes, which\nwere \"a sin unto death.\" Another abuse of secrecy has been manifested in\nmeans heretofore employed in the constant effort to obtain and maintain\nworldly power. This was by affecting the imagination and blinding the\nreason of the masses. Some time ago, an ephemeral work was published, even\nthe name of which is not recollected by this writer, wherein was a picture\nshowing the section of a handsome tent with curtains closely drawn. Within,\nis a man eating and feasting like other mortals. Without, is a stand on\nwhich are exposed to view the usual emblems and insignia of royalty, before\nwhich there is a kneeling crowd. An admirable illustration! True it is,\nthat \"no man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre.\" Fashionable wealth and\npower depend upon exclusiveness to accomplish their usual attendant\ninfluences. Royalty hides every hour in secrecy from public gaze, except\nwhen it occasionally becomes necessary to treat the subjects to a mere\npageant or show of military costume and outside appearances. When Lola\nMontes displayed to {12} the world the mere humanity of the old king of\nBavaria, where had he any _prestige_ left? Schamyl has attained his\nextraordinary influence and power by his seclusion, asceticism, and\npretended revelations; and bravery having crowned his efforts, he is a\nfavorite of fortune, and the idol of a superstitious veneration. What did\nnot Mohammed accomplish in the same manner? But, in illustration of the\nopposite effect, so well known to the sad experience of all, hath not a\nmightier One testified that, \"a prophet hath no honor in his own\ncountry?\"[3]\n\nBut doth not also common prudence in worldly affairs demand the use of\nsecrecy?\n\nWhat good general will detail, even to his own forces, and still less make\npublic for the use of his adversary, his plans and intentions for an\nensuing campaign?--what business man communicate to the public or to his\nrivals his hard thought and well-planned speculation?--what inventor\npublish his new machine or discovery until he has secured his patent-right?\n\nIn what follows, then, let us discriminate between the use and abuse of\nsecrecy; so that, by the lessons of the past and the present, we may be\nsafely guided in our course through the future.\n\nBefore going into matters of historic detail, it were well to understand\nthe definition of the word \"mystery.\" {13}\n\nMany suppose it to mean \"something which is incomprehensible.\" This is all\na mistake.\n\n\"[Greek: Musterion]\" means simply \"a revealed secret.\" In other words,\n\"mystery,\" which we derive from the Greek word quoted, means neither more\nnor less than a secret revealed and explained to us. A man of mature years\nand finished education knows that which no school-boy can comprehend. To\nthe elder a secret has been revealed. He is in possession of the mystery.\nTo the younger it is yet a secret, not incomprehensible, but which can only\nbe attained in the progress of learning. To the scientific many of the\nmysteries of nature are unfolded, but they are a secret to the world at\nlarge. To those Christians in the earlier days of the church, who had\nattained its highest instruction, and after the \"Ite, missa est\" had\ndismissed the rest of the congregation, remained to participate in the\n\"pure offering\" (or \"clean oblation\") prophesied by Malachi[4] to be\nthereafter offered in every place to Him whose name thenceforth should be\ngreat among the Gentiles--to them \"it was given to know the mysteries of\nGod:\"[5] not to understand things incomprehensible. That would be a\ncontradiction in terms: a thing impossible. How can a person comprehend\nthat which passeth all understanding? But it may be said, there are things\nwhich are incomprehensible. Not so. They may be a secret to us while, in\nthis school-house, the earth, the {14} pedagogue Necessity is teaching us\nonly the rudiments of the laws of God as developed in nature or in mind;\nbut, when the _scintilla divinitatis_, hidden in these \"earthen\nvessels,\"[6] shall have been set free, and (while \"the dust returns to the\nearth as it was\") rises unto Him that breathed into us that \"spiritus\" or\n\"breath of life\"--when we shall hereafter have been \"newly born\" into a\nspiritual state of higher existence--then may we hope that what is secret\nto us now, may become a mystery or revealed secret to us hereafter. It is\nnot all of life to terminate our existence on this earth. This is but the\nschool-house in the commencement of eternity. These mysteries, now secrets\nto us, are created and maintained by the fixed laws of Him \"who is without\nvariableness or shadow of turning.\" The revelations thereof belong to a\nhigher kingdom, which \"flesh and blood can not inherit,\" yet in which every\nsoul \"shall be made alive.\"[7] Then shall these secrets be unfolded in\nproportion to the cultivation of the mind and talents here: for the\nunchangeable laws of God have placed all matter in constant and regular\nmutation; and whether of matter or of mind, all is governed by a certain\nlaw of progress, compelling us to attain excellence and strength only by\nconstant endeavors to surmount difficulties: and it is thus alone we can,\nby severe study and deep meditation, in investigating these laws of\nmutation and progress in things physical and {15} moral, bring the mind,\neven in this life, to a nearer approximation to, and capability of,\nappreciating the wonderful truths we must hereafter learn. As in all other\nlaws of God, the cultivation of our talents must then carry its\nproportionate reward hereafter.[8]\n\nLet us then examine into the uses and abuses of secrecy in past history,\nand at the present day--but more particularly will these be manifested by\n\"MYSTICISM;\" by which is meant, _the revelation of learning, social,\nreligious, and political, the teaching of which has been, and is, preserved\nsecret from the world, by societies, associations, and confraternities_.[9]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{16}\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n    The Distinction between the Early Elohistic and Jehovahstic Ages of\n    Primeval Patriarchal Times.--The Secrecy of Original Worship on\n    Mountain Tops.--The Collation and Reconciliation of the patriarchal\n    Traditions brought together by Moses.--The Commencement of the\n    Jehovahstic Age.--The Origin of Mythology.--The Magi; their\n    Organization and Modes of Worship.--The Deification of Nimrod, and the\n    Source of Political Power at its Beginning.--The Secret Writings they\n    adopted.--The Dead Invokers.--The Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.\n\nIn a critical study of the books of Moses two eras seem to be discernible.\nThe earlier, the Elohistic, when God was only known by the name, \"Elohim.\"\nThe latter, the \"Jehovahstic,\" beginning at a later period.[10]\n\nThough not altogether germain to our subject, may we here be permitted to\ninquire--_par parenthese_--whether this simple rule does not furnish to us\nthe means of reconciliation of apparent contradictions?\n\nAll instruction originally was traditional alone. The patriarch was priest\nand teacher, as well as ruler of his tribe. Each handed down to his\nsuccessor the {17} traditions he had received from his ancestors orally. As\ntribes became nomadic, or else sought permanently new settlements and\nhomes, traditions in course of time necessarily became variant. Moses seems\nhonestly to have collated these traditions, and has, no doubt, given them\nin their respective versions as he received them from Jethro, his\nfather-in-law, and from the patriarchal instruction among the elders of his\npeople in Egypt. Thus we can recognize those in which the name Elohim is\nused as being of much earlier date than the same tradition differently\ntold, where the word Jehovah indicates the name of Deity. For instance, we\nfind in one place[11] the command of God to Noah to take the beasts and\nfowls, &c., into the ark by sevens. But again, in the same chapter,[12] we\nfind them taken only by pairs. Are these not variant traditions of one\nevent? So, of the story of Abraham passing off his wife for his sister\nbefore Pharaoh, king of Egypt,[13] and also before Abimelech, king of\nGerar,[14] and the farther tradition of Isaac and Rebecca having done the\nsame thing before Abimelech, king of Gerar.[15] Are not these variant\ntraditions of one fact? The legal experience of the writer for many years,\nconvinces him that no two persons without collusion view a transaction\ngenerally exactly alike. Frequently--and each equally sincere and\nhonest--they widely vary in their testimony. {18} Collusion may produce a\nstory without contradiction. Slight discrepancies show there is no fraud,\nonly that the witnesses occupied different stand points, or gave more or\nless attention to what was the subject matter.\n\nBut, asking pardon for this digression, let us return to our theme.\n\nWe know little or nothing about the teaching of the patriarchs in the\nElohistic age. Neither writing nor sculpture thereof existed in the time of\nMoses, except, perhaps, the lost book of Enoch, or, unless--which we are\ninclined to doubt--the book of Job had just before his era been reduced to\nwriting by the Idumean, Assyrian, or Chaldean priesthood. We find at that\nperiod that sacrifices were offered on mountain tops. Why? Abraham went to\nsuch a place to offer up his son. Was it not for secrecy in the religious\nrite? If the earliest instruction was from God, whose truth is unchangeable\nand eternal, were not the earliest sacrifices offered in secret by reason\nof the same command which subsequently obliged the high priest of his\nchosen people to offer the great sacrifice in secret within the veils,\nfirst of the Tabernacle, afterward of the Temple? The Elohistic age ended\nwith the first official act of Moses, after he, also, had met with Aaron on\n\"the mount of God.\"[16]\n\nA new era then commenced. As men dispersed {19} themselves over the earth,\nthe original belief in the one true God (Monotheism) was lost, and people\nfell into the worship of many deities (Polytheism), adoring the visible\nworks of creation, more particularly the sun and the stars of heaven, or\nelse reverencing the operative powers of nature as divine beings. Faith in\nthe one Great JEHOVAH was preserved by the children of Israel alone. Idols\nwere erected within gorgeous temples. With the Chaldean, Phoenician, and\nAssyrian, Moloch began the dreadful cruelty of human sacrifices, chiefly of\nchildren. If, at first, the image of the idol was only a visible symbol of\na spiritual conception, or of an invisible power, this higher meaning was\nlost in progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at\nlength to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were\nacquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the\npeople; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric (secret) doctrines, as\nthe peculiar appanage of their own class. They invented endless fables\nwhich gave rise to Mythology. They ruled the people by the might of\nsuperstition, and acquired wealth, honor, and power, for themselves.[17] We\narrive then at nearly the culminating point of Egyptian priestcraft, the\ndays of \"wise men,\" \"sorcerers,\" and \"magicians.\"[18] Such men ever {20}\nhave, and we presume ever will employ secrecy as the chief element of their\nclever jugglery. Mankind love to be deceived. Let an Adrian, Blitz, or\nAlexander--while they tell you, and you well know it, that their tricks are\na deception--put forth notices of an exhibition, and they will attract\ncrowds, where an Arago, or a Faraday, would not be listened to. Maelzel's\nautomata, or Vaucanson's duck, will attract the world, when Bacon's, or\nNewton's, or Laplace's works may remain in dust on the book-shelves. Human\nnature is always the same, and thus it was in the days of Moses and\nPharaoh. The wise men, sorcerers, and magicians, held undisputed sway, not\nonly over the superstitions of the people, but over their educated monarchs\nand princes. Egypt possessed, at an inconceivably early period, numberless\ntowns and villages, and a high amount of civilization. Arts, sciences, and\ncivil professions, were cherished there, so that the Nile-land has\ngenerally been regarded as the mysterious cradle of human culture; but the\nsystem of castes checked free development and continuous improvement.\nEverything subserved a gloomy religion and a powerful priesthood, who held\nthe people in terror and superstition. Their doctrine, that, after the\ndeath of man, the soul could not enter into her everlasting repose unless\nthe body were preserved, occasioned the singular custom of embalming the\ncorpses of the departed to preserve them from decay, and of treasuring them\nup in the shape of {21} mummies in shaft-like passages and mortuary\nchambers. Through this belief, the priests, who, as judges of the dead,\npossessed the power of giving up the bodies of the sinful to corruption,\nand by this means occasioning the transmigration of their souls into the\nbodies of animals, obtained immense authority. Notwithstanding the\nmagnificence of their architectural productions, and the vast technical\nskill and dexterity in sculpture and mechanical appliances which they\ndisplay, the Egyptians have produced but little in literature or the\nsciences; and even this little was locked up from the people in the\nmysterious hieroglyphical writing, which was understood by the priests\nalone.[19] The following translation is a quotation from a Latin work:\n\"Among the ancient Egyptians, from whom we learn the rudiments of speech,\nbesides the three common kinds of letters, other descriptions of characters\nare used which have been generally consecrated to their peculiar mysteries.\nIn a dissertation on this subject, that celebrated antiquarian (_conditor\nstromatum_), Clement, of Alexandria, teaches in his writings, thus: 'Those\nwho are taught Egyptian, first, indeed, learn the grammar and chirography\ncalled letter-writing, that is, which is apt for ordinary correspondence;\nsecondly, however, that used by the priests, called sacred writing, to\ncommemorate sacred things; the last also, hieroglyphic, meaning sacred\nsculpture, one of the first elements of which is {22} cyriologism, meaning,\nproperly speaking, enunciating truth by one or another symbol, or in other\nwords, portraying the meaning by significant emblems.' With Clement agrees\nthe Arabian, Abenephi, who uses this language: (This Arabic writing is\npreserved in the Vatican library, but not as yet printed: it is often\nquoted by Athanasius Kircher, in his Treatise on the Pamphilian Obelisk,\nwhence these and other matters stated by us have been taken.) 'But there\nwere four kinds of writing among the Egyptians: First, that in use among\nthe populace and the ignorant; secondly, that in vogue among the\nphilosophers and the educated; thirdly, one compounded of letters and\nsymbols, without drawn figures or representations of things; the fourth was\nconfined solely to the priesthood, the figures or letters of which were\nthose of birds, by which they represented the sacred things of Deity.' From\nwhich last testimony we learn that erudite Egyptians used a peculiar and\ndifferent system of writing from that of the populace, and it was for the\npurpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines. For example, they show that\nthis writing consisted of symbols, partly of opinions and ideas, partly of\nhistoric fables accommodated to a more secret method of teaching. But\nClement, of Alexandria, went further. In book v. of Antiquities\n(_stromata_, 'foundation of things'), he says: 'All who controlled\ntheological matters, Barbarian as well as Greek, have concealed their\nprinciples, hiding the truth in enigmas, signs, symbols, as {23} well as\nallegories, and also in tropes, and have handed them down in various\nsymbols and methods.'\"[20] This passage led subsequently to the brilliant\ndiscoveries of Champollion.\n\nWho, then, were the \"erudite Egyptians\" who used a peculiar system of\nwriting\" for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines?\" Who were\n{24} these \"magi,\" \"wise men,\" \"sorcerers,\" and \"magicians\"? Nowhere do we\nfind Pharaoh in the midst of his troubles calling for a priest. It is\nalways for the wise men, magicians, and sorcerers. Were they not the\npriests?--were they not those who controlled the mysteries--who practised\ndivination? When Moses and Aaron cast down their rods, the magicians of\nEgypt \"also did in like manner with their enchantments,\" and the result was\nthe same.[21] When Moses smote the waters that they became blood, the\nacuteness of the priests, or magi, in their mysteries taught them a lesson\nwhereby they were able to do the same.[22] When the frogs came up on\nPharaoh and on all his people, and on all his servants, and covered the\nland of Egypt, we learn \"the magicians did so with their enchantments, and\nbrought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.\"[23] If the ancient Egyptians were\nlike their descendants, it is singular the magi could not accomplish the\nnext plague, that is, of lice. But here their power ended. The magi\noriginated in Media. According to oriental custom, to them was intrusted\nthe preservation of scientific knowledge, and the performance of the holy\nexercises of Religion. Afterward, in a special sense, the magi were a caste\nof priests of the Medes and Persians, deriving the name of Pehlvi; Mag, or\nMog, generally signifies in that language, _a priest_. They are expressly\nmentioned by Herodotus as a Median tribe. Zoroaster was not their founder,\n{25} but was their reformer, and the purifier of their doctrines. The Magi\nof his time were opposed to his innovations; and they, therefore, were\ncondemned by him. When afterward, however, they adopted his reforms, he\neffected their thorough organization, dividing them into APPRENTICES,\nMASTERS, and PERFECT MASTERS. Their study and science consisted in\nobservation of their holy rites, in the knowledge of their sacred forms of\nprayer, and liturgies by which Ormuzd was worshipped, and in the ceremonies\nattendant on their prayers and sacrifices. They only were permitted to act\nas mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of God\ndeclared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone predicted\nthe future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days the name\nMagi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist, &c.[24]\n\n{26}\n\nThe magi of Egypt were the priests, the founders and preservers of the\nmysteries of the secret grades of instruction, and of the hieratic and\nhieroglyphic writings and sculptures. In secret they were the priesthood.\nIn public, in religious matters, the same. But in public secular affairs\nthey seem to be recognised as Magi.\n\nWhen mythology was invented, most of the gods, if not all of them, were\nreceived as symbolical, physical beings, the poets made of them moral\nagents; and as such they appear in the religions of the people of earlier\ndays. The symbolical meaning would have been lost, if no means had been\nprovided to insure its preservation. The MYSTERIES, it seems, afforded such\nmeans. Their great end, therefore, was to preserve the knowledge of the\npeculiar attributes of those divinities which had been incorparated into\nthe popular religion under new forms; what powers and objects of nature\nthey represented; how these, and how the universe came into being; in a\nword, cosmogonies, like those contained in the Orphic instructions. But\nthis knowledge, though it was preserved by oral instruction, was\nperpetuated no less by {27} symbolic representations and usages; which, at\nleast in part, consisted of sacred traditions and fables. \"In the sanctuary\nof Sais,\" says Herodotus (l.c.), \"representations are given by night of the\nadventures of the goddess; and these are called by the Egyptians\n_mysteries_; of which, however, I will relate no more. It was thence that\nthese mysteries were introduced into Greece.\"[25] The temples of India and\nof Egypt seem to be identical in architecture and in sculpture.[26] Both\nnations seem to have sprung from the old Assyrian stock.[27] The magi of\nboth countries appear to have had a common origin; and their teachings must\nhave been, therefore, traditionally the same. We may, then, presume that\nthere were three grades in the instructions of these mysteries, by whatever\nname they may have been called--whether Apprentices, Masters, and Perfect\nMasters, or otherwise; that they were sacred in their character; and that\ntheir symbolic meanings were revealed in these MYSTERIES, and in no other\nmanner, while they were kept a secret from the world at large. But this was\nnot all. They spread, with emigration and commerce, into all then known\ncountries. Their common origin, or at least that of most of them, is still\nperceptible. CERES had long wandered over the earth, before she was\nreceived at Eleusis, and erected there her {28} sanctuary. (Isocrat. Paneg.\nop., p. 46, ed. Steph., and many other places in Meursii Eleusin., cap. 1.)\nHer secret service in the Thesmophoria, according to the account of\nHerodotus (iv. 172), was first introduced by Danaus; who brought it from\nEgypt to the Peloponnesus.[28] One writer says that mysteries were, among\nthe Greeks, and afterward also among the Romans, secret religious\nassemblies, which no uninitiated person was permitted to approach. They\noriginated at a very early period. They were designed to interpret those\nmythological fables and religious rites, the true meaning of which it was\nthought expedient to conceal from the people. They were perhaps necessary\nin those times, in which the superstitions, the errors, and the prejudices\nof the people, could not be openly exposed without danger to the public\npeace. Upon this ground they were tolerated and protected by the state.\nTheir first and fundamental law was a profound secrecy. In all mysteries\nthere were dramatic exhibitions, relating to the exploits of the deities in\nwhose honor they were celebrated.[29] We may thus trace all ancient pagan\nreligion to a common origin, with similarity of human means to accomplish a\ngeneral result, variant in name, or in practice, as to the deity, or form\nof its worship, but resting on a unity as to its commencement and its\nobject.\n\n{29}\n\nWe can hardly penetrate the veil which hides from us the pagan worship of\nthat early human stock the race of Ham, which--without the divine light\ngranted only to the Israelites--was the origin of false worship. We can\nonly arrive at conclusions, but these are the result of strong presumptions\narising from undisputed historical facts. What are they?\n\nOne of the principal chiefs of the earliest race, whence came the magi,\n&c., was Nimrod, afterward deified by the name of Bel to the Chaldeans,\nBaal to the Hebrews, [Greek: Belos] to the Greeks, and Belus to the Romans;\nand when, in later days, statues received adoration (which at first was\nonly accorded to the being of whom the statue was a type), he became\nworshipped under a multiplication of statues, they were in the Hebrew\nlanguage called \"Baalim,\" or the plural of Baal. Nimrod was the son of\nCush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. \"And Cush begat Nimrod:\nhe began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the\nLord: wherefore it is said, 'Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the\nLord.' And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,\nand Calneh, in the land of Shinar. And out of that land he went forth to\nAssyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen\nbetween Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.\"[30] While, then, {30}\nthe children of Shem and Japheth pursued the patriarchal course, and\npreserved the ancient traditions subsequently handed down, the descendants\nof Ham, suffering under the patriarchal malediction of Noah, built cities\ncomposed of families, and a great kingdom composed of cities and nations.\nThis kingdom was the origin of pagan worship. They lost the patriarchal\ntraditions, and were the first to establish on this earth the concentration\nof power in a political system. That power once attained, the daring energy\nof the king became in the hand of the priesthood a subject of deification\nfor two reasons. 1. The king was mortal, and must die. 2. The power must be\npreserved. When afterward, under Peleg, this race, at their {31} building\nof Ba-Bel--their temple of Bel--became dispersed, and left to us only their\nruin of that temple, now called _Birs Nimroud_, the magi, or priests,\npreserved the power he attained to themselves, by means of secrecy in their\nmysteries, and which were dispersed subsequently through the earth in\ndifferent languages and forms, varying with the poetry and climate of the\ncountry or countries thereafter occupied, and adapted from time to time to\nthe existing exigencies of the times. Thence sprang the origin of\nmythologies, or, in other words, fabulous histories of the fructifying\nenergies of Nature, whether developed in the germination of the vegetable\nkingdom, or in an occasional poetical version of some heroic act of one in\npower.\n\nThis nation, the old Assyrian, became dispersed at the destruction of their\ngreat temple. But their political power everywhere was mysteriously\npreserved. When the magi became organized in Media, they spread in every\ndirection. From earliest days we find their worship amid the nations\nconquered by Joshua. We see them in the traces of the [Greek: Oi Poimenes],\nor shepherd-kings of Egypt, and in the sorcerers of the days of Moses. We,\nfind them reformed by Zoroaster in Persia. They are conspicuous among the\nGreeks, who derived their mysteries from Egypt; and in the worship of Isis\nat Rome, never indigenous there. And even in later days (those of Darius,\nBelshazzar, and Cyrus), they seem to be thoroughly {32} re-established in\ntheir original birthplace. And, strange as it may appear, we find their\npower over kings, generals, nations, and people, in the hands of the\npriesthood, by means of their mysteries, from all early history, until\naffected by the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.\n\nRegarding, then, the off-shoot from patriarchal tradition to be the origin\nof pagan worship; referring also to the first formation of cities, and of\none immense kingdom, by the descendants of Ham (accursed by his prophetic\nancestor), by whom an empire was first established; to Nimrod's\ndeification; to the preservation in the priesthood of future political\npower; to the fact that after his death they would and might thereby\nperpetuate the same; that wherever thereafter dispersed, they did so by\ntheir revelations by mysteries, in which they controlled not only the\nmasses of the people, but those who governed them, in whatsoever nation\nthen known--we arrive at the conclusion that the mysteries were the\nelements of religious and consequently of political power.\n\nThe important Greek mysteries, of the details whereof we know most,\nwere--1. The _Eleusinian_. 2. The _Samothracian_, which originated in Crete\nand Phrygia, and were celebrated in the former country in honor of Jupiter.\nFrom these countries they were introduced among the Thracians or Pelasgians\nin the island of Samothrace, and extended thence into Greece. They were\nsometimes celebrated in honor {33} of Jupiter, sometimes of Bacchus, and\nsometimes of Ceres. 3. The _Dionysia_, which were brought from Thrace to\nThebes, and were very similar to the former. They were celebrated every\nsecond year. The transition of men from barbarism to civilization was\nlikewise represented in them. The women were clothed in skins of beasts.\nWith a spear (_thyrsus_), bound with ivy, in their hands, they ascended\nMount Cithaeron; when, after the religious ceremonies, wild dances were\nperformed, which ended with the dispersion of the priestesses and the\ninitiated in the neighboring woods. They had also symbols, chiefly relating\nto Bacchus, who was the hero of these mysteries. These celebrations were\nforbidden in Thebes, even in the time of Epaminondas, and afterward in all\nGreece, as prejudicial to the public peace and morals. 4. The _Orphic_,\nchiefly deserving mention as the probable foundation of the Eleusinian. 5.\nThe mysteries of Isis, not in vogue in Greece, but very popular in\nRome.[31] The offspring of Egyptian priestcraft, they were instituted with\na view to aggrandize that order of men, to extend their influence, and\nenlarge their revenues. To accomplish these selfish projects, they applied\nevery engine toward besotting the multitude with superstition and\nenthusiasm. They taught them to believe that they were the distinguished\nfavorites of Heaven; that celestial doctrines had been revealed to them,\ntoo holy to be communicated to the profane {34} rabble, and too sublime to\nbe comprehended by vulgar capacities. Princes and legislators, who found\ntheir advantage in overawing and humbling the multitude, readily adopted a\nplan so artfully fabricated to answer these purposes. The views of those in\npower were congenial with those of the priests, and both united in the same\nspirit to thus control the respect, admiration, and dependence, of the\nmillion.\n\nThey made their disciples believe that in the next world the souls of the\nuninitiated should roll in mire and dirt, and with difficulty reach their\ndestined mansion. Hence, Plato introduces Socrates as observing that \"the\nsages who introduced the Teletae had positively affirmed that whatever soul\nshould arrive in the infernal mansions _unhouselled_ and _unannealed_\nshould lie there immersed in mire and filth.\"--\"And as to a future state,\"\nsays Aristides, \"the initiated shall not roll in mire and grope in\ndarkness, a fate which awaits the unholy and uninitiated.\" When the\nAthenians advised Diogenes to be initiated, \"It will be pretty enough,\"\nreplied he, \"to see Agesilaus and Epaminondas wallowing in the mire, while\nthe most contemptible rascals who have been initiated are strolling in the\nislands of bliss!\" When Antisthenes was to be initiated, and the priests\nwere boasting of the wonderful benefit to ensue, \"Why, forsooth, 'tis\nwonder your reverence don't hang yourself, in order to come at it sooner,\"\nwas his remark. When, however, such benefits were expected to be derived\nfrom the {35} mysteries, it is no wonder the world crowded to the\nEleusinian standard. Initiation was, in reality, a consecration to Ceres\nand Proserpine. Its result was, honor and reverence from the masses. They\nbelieved all virtue to be inspired by these goddesses. Pericles says: \"I am\nconvinced that the deities of Eleusis inspired me with this sentiment, and\nthat this stratagem was suggested by the principle of the mystic rites.\" So\nalso Aristophanes makes the chorus of the initiated, in his Ranae, to\nsing:--\n\n \"Let us to flowery mead repair,\n  With deathless roses blooming,\n  Whose balmy sweets impregn the air,\n  Both hills and dales perfuming.\n  Since fate benign one choir has joined,\n  We'll trip in mystic measure;\n  In sweetest harmony combined,\n  We'll quaff full draughts of pleasure.\n  For us alone the power of day\n  A milder light dispenses,\n  And sheds benign a mellow ray\n  To cheer our ravished senses.\n  For we beheld the mystic show,\n  And braved Eleusis' dangers;\n  We do and know the deeds we owe\n  To neighbors, friends, and strangers.\"\n\nIt is believed that the higher orders of magi went further, and pretended\nto hold intercourse with, and cause to appear, the very [Greek: eidolon] of\nthe dead. In the days of Moses it was practised. \"There shall not be found\namong you ... a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard,\nor a necromancer.\"[32] {36} Diodorus Siculus mentions an oracle near Lake\nAvernus, where the dead were raised, as having been in existence before the\nage of Hercules.[33] Plutarch, in his life of Cimon, relates that\nPausanias, in his distress, applied to the Psychagogi, or dead-evokers, at\nHeraclea, to call up the spirit of Cleonice (whose injured apparition\nhaunted him incessantly), in order that he might entreat her forgiveness.\nShe appeared accordingly, and informed him that, on his return to Sparta,\nhe would be delivered from all his sorrows--meaning, by death. This was\nfive hundred years before Christ. The story resembles that of the\napparition of Samuel before Saul: \"To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be\nwith me.\"[34] The appearance of Samuel was regarded as a real transaction\nby the writer of Ecclesiasticus, for he says: \"By his faithfulness he was\nfound a true prophet, and by his word he was known to be faithful in\nvision; for after his death he showed the king his end, and lift up his\nvoice from the earth in prophecy.\"[35] The rabbins say that the woman was\nthe mother of Abner; she is said to have had the spirit of _Ob_, which Dean\nMilman has remarked is singularly similar in sound to the name of the\n_Obeah_ women in Africa and the West Indies. Herodotus also mentions\n_Thesprotia_, in Epirus, as the place where Periander evoked the spirit of\nhis wife Melissa, whom he had murdered.[36]\n\n{37}\n\nIt was a very general opinion, in later days, that demons had power over\nthe souls of the dead, until Christ descended into Hades and delivered them\nfrom the thrall of the \"Prince of Darkness.\" The dead were sometimes raised\nby those who did not possess a familiar spirit. These consulters repaired\nto the grave at night, and there lying down, repeated certain words in a\nlow, muttering tone, and the spirit thus summoned appeared. \"And thou shalt\nbe brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be\nlow out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar\nspirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the\ndust.\"[37]\n\nEuripides also refers to necromancy.[38]\n\n              ADMETUS.\n  [Greek: hora ge me ti phasma nerteron tod e]?\n              HERCULES.\n  [Greek: ou psuchagogon tond' epoieso xenon].\n\n  ADM. See! is not this some spectre from the dead?\n\n  HER. No dead-invoker for thy guest hast thou.\n\nSeneca describes the spirits of the dead as being evoked by the Psychagogus\nin a cave rendered gloomy and as dark as night by the cypress, laurel, and\nother like trees.[39] Claudian refers to the same superstition.[40] And\nLucan,[41] where Erictho recalls a spirit to animate {38} the body it had\nleft, by horrid ceremonies. So Tibullus:[42]--\n\n \"Haec cantu finditque solum, manesque sepulchris,\n  Elicit, et tepido devocat ossa toro.\"\n\nThe celebrated Heeren, in his \"Politics of Ancient Greece\" (ch. iii., p.\n67, Am. ed.), remarks, in reference to the mysteries of Eleusis, that they\nexhibited the superiority of civilized over savage life, and gave\ninstructions respecting a future life and its nature. For what was this\nmore than an interpretation of the sacred traditions which were told of the\ngoddess as the instructress in agriculture, of the forced descent of her\ndaughter to the lower world, etc.? And we need not be more astonished if,\nin some of their sacred rites, we perceive an excitement carried to a\ndegree of enthusiastic madness which belonged peculiarly to the East, but\nwhich the Hellenes were very willing to receive. For we must not neglect to\nbear in mind that they shared the spirit of the East; and did they not live\non the very boundary-line between the East and the West? As those\ninstitutions were propagated farther to the west, they lost their original\ncharacter. We know what the Bacchanalian rites became at Rome; and had they\nbeen introduced north of the Alps, what form would they have there assumed?\nBut to those countries it was possible to {39} transplant the vine, not the\nservice of the god to whom the vine was sacred. The orgies of Bacchus\nsuited the cold soil and inclement forests of the North as little as the\ncharacter of its inhabitants.\n\nWithout going further into detail (the minutiae of which are thus opened to\nevery scholar), we must presume that the mythology of the children of Ham,\nthe origin of pagan worship, fostered by variant mysteries to obtain and\nmaintain temporal power, spread itself through the then known world. So far\nas we know, the secret doctrines which were taught in the mysteries may\nhave finally degenerated into mere forms and an unmeaning ritual. And yet\nthe mysteries exercised a great influence on the spirit of the nation, not\nof the initiated only, but also on the great mass of the people; and\nperhaps they influenced the latter still more than the former. They\npreserved the reverence for sacred things, and this gave them their\npolitical importance. They produced that effect better than any modern\nsecret societies have been able to do. The mysteries had their secrets, but\nnot everything connected with them was secret. They had, like those of\nEleusis, their public festivals, processions, and pilgrimages, in which\nnone but the initiated took a part, but of which no one was prohibited from\nbeing a spectator. While the multitude was permitted to gaze at them, it\nlearned to believe that there was something sublimer than anything with\nwhich it was acquainted, revealed only to the initiated; and {40} while the\nworth of that sublimer knowledge did not consist in secrecy alone, it did\nnot lose any of its value by being concealed. Thus the popular religion and\nthe secret doctrines, although always distinguished from each other, united\nin serving to curb the people. The condition and the influence of religion\non a nation were always closely connected with the situation of those\npersons who were particularly appointed for the service of the gods, the\npriests. The scholar will readily call to mind a Calchas, a Chryses, and\nothers. The leaders and commanders themselves, in those days, offered their\nsacrifices (see the description which Nestor makes to Pallas, Od. iii.,\n430, &c.), performed the prayers, and observed the signs which indicated\nthe result of an undertaking. In a word, kings and leaders were at the same\ntime PRIESTS.[43]\n\nHow far may this have been a reason why Pharaoh did not call on a priest\nfor help, but rely on the supposed superior knowledge of the Magi? a higher\ngrade of secret instruction, perhaps, than he had received.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{41}\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n    The Origin of the Cabbalistae; the Chaldeans, and their Antagonism to\n    Patriarchal Tradition.--The Hand-writing on Belshazzar's Wall.--The\n    Secret Writings of the Cabbalistae.--How Daniel read the\n    Same.--Ezra.--The Origin of the Masoretic Text.--Zoroaster.--His\n    Reformation and Reconstruction of the Religion of the\n    Magi.--Pythagoras, and his \"League.\"--The Thugs.--The Druids.\n\nSo far as the children of Shem and Japheth are concerned, it is believed\ntrue religion was preserved, except where tradition became adulterated with\nextraneous matter. And for the preservation of that religion, Almighty God,\nin his mercy, established of that lineage a certain race, with rules,\npartly signifying his truth, partly merely political, which should\nthereafter shine as a moral light to the world, no matter how dim the light\nmight be, through the imperfection of human nature under peculiar\ncircumstances of temptation or otherwise.\n\nHere, at once, was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the\nchildren of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse.\n\nWhen Moses, the servant with the watchword, \"I AM THAT I AM,\" presented\nhimself to the Shemitic and {42} Japhetic races, he was everywhere received\nand acknowledged by them as their leader, in opposition to both the\ntemporal and theological power of the Magi and of Pharaoh.\n\nHere came the clashing between pagan and traditional theology preserved by\nthe patriarchs. And Almighty God, to show the truth of his laws, sanctioned\ntheir promulgation by signs and miracles, which the Magi could not equal\nnor counteract.\n\nPass by the Israelitish history until the loss and destruction of the first\ntemple, when we find this religious race, although imbued with the\nprinciples of truth, fallen from their high estate, and led captive into a\nstrange land, subject to the very people that insisted on the opposite of\ntheir own religion. They were then under the control of a monarch who was\ngoverned by the laws of the Medes and Persians, that is, of the Magi; and\nwho, in turn, relied upon their emperor, who trusted only to his magicians,\nsorcerers, and Chaldeans. They were in BABYLON itself.\n\nTo confirm what has been said, and to elucidate what is to follow, we will\npause a moment to learn what is meant by \"the Chaldeans.\"\n\nThe accounts that have been transmitted to us by the Chaldeans themselves\nof the antiquity of their learning, are blended with fable, and involved in\nconsiderable uncertainty. At the time when Callisthenes was requested by\nAristotle to gain information concerning the origin of science in Chaldea,\nhe was {43} informed that the ancestors of the Chaldeans had continued\ntheir astronomical observations through a period of 470,000 years; but upon\nexamining the ground of this report, he found that the Chaldean observation\nreached no further backward than 1,903 years, or that, of course (adding\nthis number to 331, B.C., the year in which Babylon was taken by\nAlexander), they had commenced in the year 2,234, B.C. Besides, Ptolemy\nmentions no Chaldean observations prior to the era of Nabonassar, which\ncommenced 747 years B.C. Aristotle, however, on the credit of the most\nancient records, speaks of the Chaldean Magi as prior to the Egyptian\npriests, who, it is well known, cultivated learning before the time of\nMoses. It appears probable that the philosophers of Chaldea were the\npriests of the Babylonian nation, who instructed the people in the\nprinciples of religion, interpreted its laws, and conducted its ceremonies.\nTheir character was similar to that of the Persian Magi, and they are often\nconfounded by the Greek historians. Like the priests in most other nations,\nthey employed religion in subserviency to the ruling powers, and made use\nof imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. Accordingly Diodorus\nSiculus relates (lib. ii., p. 31, compared with Daniel ii. 1, &c., Eccles.\nxliv. 3) that they pretended to predict future events by divination, to\nexplain prodigies, interpret dreams, and avert evils or confer benefits by\nmeans of augury and incantations. For many ages they {44} retained a\nprincipal place among diviners. In the reign of Marcus Antoninus, when the\nemperor and his army, who were perishing with thirst, were suddenly\nrelieved by a shower, the prodigy was ascribed to the power and skill of\nthe Chaldean soothsayers. Thus accredited for their miraculous powers, they\nmaintained their consequence in the courts of princes. (See Cic. de Divin.\nl. i., Strabo l. xv.--Sext. Emp. adv. Matt. l. v. Sec. 2, Aul. Gell. l. xiv.\ns. 1, Strabo l.c.) The mysteries of Chaldean philosophy were revealed only\nto a select few, and studiously concealed from the multitude; and thus a\nveil of sanctity was cast over their doctrine, so that it might more easily\nbe employed in the support of civil and religious tyranny. The sum of the\nChaldean cosmogony, as it is given in Syncellus (Chronic. p. 28), divested\nof allegory is, that in the beginning all things consisted of darkness and\nwater; that BELUS, or a divine power, dividing this humid mass formed the\nworld, and that the human mind is an emanation from the divine nature.\n(Perizon. in Orig. Bab. Voss. de Scient. Math. c. xxx. Sec. 5. Hottinger Hist.\nOr. p. 365. Herbelot Bib. Or. Voc. Zor. Anc. Un. Hist. vol. iii. Prid.\nConn. b. iv. Shuckford, b. viii. Burnet Archaeol. Phil. l. i. c. 4.\nBrucker's Hist. Phil., by Enfield, vol. i. b. i, c. 3.)[44]\n\nNow, we read that, \"in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,\nNebuchadnezzar dreamed {45} dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and\nhis sleep brake from him. Then the king commanded to call the magicians,\nand the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to show the\nking his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.\"[45] But when by\nthe king required not only to interpret but to reveal the very phantasm\nitself, they declared it beyond the power of their own or human art.\nDaniel, however, of the captive race, revealed it by supernal influence.\nThen did the monarch admit as to Deity, that God (JAH, Ps. lxviii. v. 4)\nwas God of gods (_Baalim_, the representations of Baal).[46] His second\ndream was again only understood by the inspired representative of the\nHebrews. But when, finally, appeared the stupendous handwriting on the\nwall, and when Belshazzar and his court were overwhelmed with amazement, so\nthat \"the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so\nthat the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against\nanother, the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans,\nand the soothsayers.\"[47] They came; but all in vain. Daniel interpreted\nthe hand-writing at sight, and his reading proved true. Some theories\nprevail about this, which, whether correct or not, are entitled to be\nunderstood and considered. They have, at least, direct reference to our\nsubject of secret instruction and writing.\n\n{46}\n\nThe wonderful miracles of God at the exodus did not prevent that nation\nfrom repeated lapse into paganism, and acts of open disobedience to the\nTheocratic law. Still less were they debarred thereby the mere oriental\ncustoms of imparting moral instruction in secret associations, or the\npursuit of science in hidden confraternities. But the train of thought and\ninstruction in the Hebrew societies was singularly pure, and directly at\nvariance with the mysteries of paganism. While the whole result of the\nteaching of the heathen mysteries was to represent, symbolically, the\nfructifying energies of nature (which they supposed to be the sum of both\nscience and theology), that of the Israelites was the inculcation alone of\nvirtue, the acquisition of science, and the preservation of the name of\nDeity under peculiar forms and ceremonies, the recognition of which by\nmembers of the initiated, opened from one to the other every heart in\nperfect confidence, constantly reminding them of their duty to him as well\nas to each other. The whole system of oriental instruction, save that\nproclaimed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, was secret. Even the name of Deity\ncould not be pronounced except at low breath, or in a whisper, under\nprescribed forms. Has the reader ever asked himself the meaning of the\npassage in the Lord's Prayer, \"_Hallowed be thy name_?\" The Hebrews had a\nvisible manifestation of God. That was not the only object of reverence. It\nwas limited {47} not to any manifestation, but to the _name_ of Deity. And\nthat teaching has received the express recognition of our Saviour, by his\nmaking it a part of the selections from the Jewish euchologies which form\nhis prayers. We profess to worship Deity in spirit and in truth. Do we\nhallow his _name_? Mere abstinence from profanation is a negative duty. How\nmust it be hallowed? That is a positive duty. Christianity, rejecting the\nHebrew form, regards this as a mere Hebraism, substituting the name for the\nbeing himself. The Israelites do not: and one secret society still\nexisting, whose origin we shall trace in this essay, still preserves the\nHebraistic sanctification of the original holy name as their form of\nrecognition of each other, under solemnities which hallow it.\n\nWe know that Moses[48] \"was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and\nwas mighty in words and deeds.\" At his day pagan hieratic and hieroglyphic\nsymbols only were written on papyrus, or carved and engraved on stone.\n\nTake, then, the fact, that the Hebrew patriarchs and their tribes of his\ntime were suffering under the persecution of hard task-masters in Egypt.\nHow could their patriarchs teach to their classes the lessons of virtue and\nmorality? We can readily suppose at the conclusion of a toilsome day, when\nall is dark, and tired nature would otherwise be at rest, he that had\npatriarchal authority, at dead of night, when {48} their pagan rulers could\nnot hear, and while due guard was kept, whether on high hills, or in low\nvales, would summon together those who were worthy TO RECEIVE instruction\nin moral science, virtue, and their patriarchal traditions, and\nthere--taking as emblems their instruments of daily toil--preserve the\nlessons which thus alone could be imparted. This we believe to be the\norigin of the CABBALISTS, or _Kabbalistae_, a secret society among the\nHebrews, whose origin is lost in antiquity, yet whose knowledge may, under\nGod's blessing, have been an instrument in accomplishing his great results.\nTheir very name is derived from the Hebrew word [Hebrew: QBL] (Cabbala, \"to\nreceive\"). This society of Cabbalistae, had various methods of secret\nwriting. Their first was the scriptura coelestis; the second, that of\nangels, or kingly or dominant power; the third, that of the passage of the\nflood (_Scriptura transitus fluvii_). Breithaupt[49] says: \"It is to be\nrecollected, that the more ancient of the Kabbalistae, studied out even a\nsecret method of writing, consisting of four lines intersecting each other\nat right angles, forming a square in the middle, {49} after the following\nmethod. The figure of the four lines is thus:--\n\n                   |                 |\n  shin lamed gimel | resh kaph beth  | qoph yod aleph\n                   |                 |\n  --------------------------------------------------\n                   |                 |\n  mem* samekh vav  | kaph* nun he    | tav mem daleth\n                   |                 |\n  --------------------------------------------------\n                   |                 |\n  tsade* tsade tet | pe* pe chet     | nun* ayin zayin\n                   |\n\nIn each section three letters they place from right to left. When,\ntherefore, they intend the first of the three, they write the figure of\nthat section in which it is found, with one point ([Symbol: L with one\ndot]). If another (or the next), the same figure with two points ([Symbol:\nL with two dots]); if the third, the same again with three points ([Symbol:\nL with three dots]), and so on. But the Cabbalistae had also a simpler\nwriting: \"The sublime philosophy of those who are called the Kabbala,\nembraces within itself different kinds to which the following appertain. In\ntheir most famous magic pamphlet _Rasiel_, which the Kabbalistae hold in\ngreat respect, in the first place three secret alphabets are read, which,\nin many things, are wanting in the common form and syntax of usual Hebrew.\nThe first is called _Scriptura coelestis_ (the writing of heaven); the\nnext, [Hebrew: ML'KYM] or [Hebrew: MLKYM], that is, of angels or kings\n(_angelorum sive regum_); and the third the writing of the crossing of the\nflood.\"[50] There {50} are extant also, drawings of these letters preserved\nby Hern. Corn. Agrippa, in his work \"_De Occult. Phil._ lib. iii. c. 30,\"\nthe copying of which would be merely matter of curiosity to no end.\n\nBut Breithaupt goes much further, and refers to a book, \"In Oenigmatibus\nJudaeorum Religiosissimis. Helmst. 1708, editio, p. 49,\" wherein he\nsays,[51] that Herm. Vonder Hardt, the most celebrated philologist of our\nage, remembers two singular alphabets used by the Jews in preparing their\namulets. The first is {51} when the next succeeding is substituted for the\npreceding letter in every instance, as to wit: [Hebrew: B] for [Hebrew: '],\n[Hebrew: G] for [Hebrew: B], and so forth. They are said to have concealed\nin this manner their recognition of the one true God, which they recite\ndaily, early and toward evening, and as to which they persuade themselves\nthat it is the most efficacious safeguard against idolatry, fortified\nwherewith they can not lapse from true to false religion. The other secret\nalphabet consisted in this, that in inversed order they change the last\nletter [Hebrew: T] with the first [Hebrew: '], and this and another in\nturn, and so on through the rest, which inversion it is the custom to call\n[Hebrew: 'TBSH]. From this they produce, by such letters, in their more\nelaborate amulets, the noted symbol [Hebrew: MTSPTS], which is nothing else\nthan the name of God, [Hebrew: YHWH]. St. Jerome,[52] a celebrated father\nof the early church, contends that the prophet Jeremiah used this kind of\nwriting, and not to irritate the king of Babylon against the Hebrews, for\nking, [Hebrew: BBL], said [Hebrew: SHSHK]. But some, also, among the Jews,\ndeclare that these words in Daniel,\n\n  [Hebrew: MN' MN' TQL WPRSYN,]\n\nwhich, at the supper of the King Belzhazzar miraculously appeared upon the\nwall, to the astonishment of all, were written in this mode; and hence\nthink this artificial transposition of letters originated with God. But\nthese things are to be passed by as {52} uncertain. If this last be true,\nthe handwriting on the wall would have appeared thus:\n\n  [Hebrew: YT`T YT`T 'RB PWGCHMT`][53]\n\nBut according to the first system referred to, the following would have\nbeen the appearance.[54]\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n(See Conf. Jan. Hercvles de Svnde in Steganologia, lib. v., num. 4., p.\n148. seqq.)\n\nIf the society of Kabbalistae originated among the Israelites as early as\nthe time of Moses, their secret writings must having been only known to him\nand few besides, with their successors. Solomon, to whom Almighty God\ndeclared \"wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee,\"[55] must have learned\nthem; or, if it originated with him, Daniel and Ezra, who lived in a\nsucceeding age; after the great temple had been destroyed, during the\ncaptivity, and at the rebuilding of the second temple, both inspired\nservants of God, equally knew them; and when the inscriptions on the wall,\nor on the ark, or in the sacred rolls, were lost and unknown to the people,\nthey were easily deciphered by means of the knowledge of the Kabbalistic\ncharacter, no matter what its form. Thus when Daniel saw the handwriting on\n{53} the wall he read it at once, possessed as he may have been of the\nknowledge how to read that cipher, while it can readily be seen why the\nMagi of Chaldea, and of Media and Persia, were at fault. It was a secret\nwriting of the Hebrews, known only to the select few. Ezra, in the reign of\nArtaxerxes, king of Persia, \"was chief-priest. This Ezra went up from\nBabylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God\nof Israel had given.\"[56] This was, then, no new matter to him. The book of\nthe law had been lost during the captivity. Yet, at the rebuilding of the\ntemple, Ezra was a ready scribe in that lost writing. As such he went up\nfrom Babylon to Jerusalem.\n\nThe wisdom of God granted to Solomon, must have provided against the\nforeseen loss of the sacred rolls, and determined a way for their\ndiscovery, and the manner of reading them. The lost rolls were brought\nforth by Ezra, and were read, notwithstanding the ignorance of their\nancient language. In what way, so consistent with reason, as by his\nunderstanding the secret writing known only to the learned of that\nrace--the hidden scripture and instruction of a mysterious society, whose\nonly teaching was pure, in accordance with the divine commands of the\ntheocracy, and with the oriental manner of instruction in matters of\nscience and morality? Did this not furnish him a key to the original text?\nThe words of {54} the one must have been recognised by their original use\nin application to the reading of the other; and though the language may\nhave changed, the old cipher must have interpreted all. We learn that,\n\"after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all,\nwhich had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round\nabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod\nthat budded, and the tables of the covenant,\" were entered.[57]\n\nThe book (or rolls) of the law was commanded to be put within the ark.[58]\nThe end of laying it there was, that it, as the original, might be reserved\nthere as the authentic copy, by which all others were to be corrected and\nset right.[59] Prideaux contends that, the ark deposited in the second\ntemple was only a representative of a former ark on the great day of\nexpiation, and to be a repository of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the\noriginal copy of that collection which was made of them after the\ncaptivity, by Ezra and the men of the great synagogue; for when this copy\nwas perfected, it was then laid up in it. And in imitation hereof, the\nJews, in all their synagogues, have a like ark or coffer,[60] of the same\nsize or form, in which they keep the Scriptures belonging to the {55}\nSynagogue; and whence they take it out with great solemnity, whenever they\nuse it, and return it with the like when they have done with it. What\nbecame of the old ark, on the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar,\nis a dispute among the Rabbins. The Jews--and herein they are supported by\nthe traditions of the most ancient secret society on earth--contend that it\nwas hid and preserved, by Jeremiah, say some, out of the second book of\nMaccabees.[61] But most of them will have it, that King Josiah, being\nforetold by Huldah, the prophetess, that the temple would speedily, after\nhis death, be destroyed, caused the ark to be put in a vault under ground,\nwhich Solomon, foreseeing this destruction, had caused of purpose to be\nbuilt for the preserving of it. And, for the proof hereof, they produce the\ntext where Josiah commands the Levites[62] to put the holy ark in the\nhouse, \"which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, did build.\"[63]\nWhether within or without the ark, or within a secret vault or not, EZRA,\nthe scribe, brought forth the lost book or rolls of the law, and\nestablished the rules for its future perpetuity, whether by writing, or in\noral explanation. And here, again, we note the use of secrecy in matters of\npower. From him is derived the present method of reading Hebrew, by what is\nusually known as the {56} vowel points in the Masoretic text. The Masorites\nwere a set of men whose profession it was to write out copies of the Hebrew\nScriptures. And the present vowel points were used by them, as derived from\nthe secret writings of the Cabbalists. The Jews believe that, when God gave\nto Moses the law in Mount Sinai, he taught him first the true readings of\nit; and, secondly, the true interpretation of it; and that both these were\nhanded down, from generation to generation, by oral tradition only, till at\nlength the readings were written by the accents and vowels, in like manner\nas the interpretations were, by the Mishna and Gemara. The former they call\nMasorah, which signifieth \"tradition.\" The other is called Cabbala, which\nsignifieth \"reception;\" but both of them denote the same thing, that is, a\nknowledge down from generation to generation, in the doing of which, there\nbeing tradition on the one hand, and reception on the other, that which\nrelates to the readings of the Hebrew Scriptures hath its name from the\nformer, and that which relates to the interpretations of them from the\nlatter. As those who studied and taught the Cabbala were called the\nCabbalists, so those who studied and taught the Masorah were called the\nMasorites. As the whole business of the Cabbalists and Masorites was the\nstudy of the true reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, to preserve and teach\nthe proper text, they certainly are justly held the most likely to have\ninvented, or at least {57} received and preserved these vowel points,\nbecause the whole use of these points is to serve to this purpose.[64]\n\nAbout this time, in the reign of Darius, otherwise Artaxerxes, who sent\nEzra and Nehemiah to Jerusalem to restore the state of the Jews, first\nappeared in Persia the famous prophet of the Magi, whom the Persians call\nZerdusht, or Zaratush, and the Greeks Zoroastres: born of mean and obscure\nparentage, with all the craft and enterprising boldness of Mohammed, but\nmuch more knowledge. He was excellently skilled in all the learning of the\nEast that was in his time; whereas the other could neither read nor write.\nHe was thoroughly versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred\nwritings of the Old Testament that were then extant, which makes it most\nlikely that he was, in his origin, a Jew. It is generally said of him, that\nhe had been a servant to one of the prophets of Israel, and that it was by\nthis means that he came to be so well skilled in the Holy Scriptures, and\nall other Jewish knowledge. From the collation of authorities made by Dr.\nPrideaux,[65] it would seem that it was Daniel under whom he served;\nbesides whom there was not any other master in those times, under whom he\ncould acquire all that knowledge, both in things sacred and profane, which\nhe was so well furnished with. He founded no new {58} religion, but only\nreformed the old one. He found that the eminent of the Magi usurped the\nsovereignty after the death of Cambyses. But they were destroyed, and by\nthe slaughter which was then made of all the chief men among them, it sunk\nso low, that it became almost extinct, and Sabianism everywhere prevailed\nagainst it, Darius and most of his followers on that occasion going over to\nit. But the affection which the people had for the religion of their\nforefathers, and which they had all been brought up in, not being easily to\nbe rooted out, Zoroastres saw that the revival of this was the best game of\nimposture that he could then play; and having so good an old stock to\nengraft upon, he with greater ease made his new scions grow. He first made\nhis appearance in Media, now called Aderbijan, in the city of Xix, say\nsome; in that of Ecbatana, now Tauris, say others. The chief reformation\nwhich he made in the Magian religion was in the first principles of it: for\nwhereas before they had held the being of TWO FIRST CAUSES, the first\nlight, or the good God, who was the author of all good; and the other\ndarkness, or the evil god, who was the author of all evil; and that of the\nmixture of these two, as they were in a continual struggle with each other,\nall things were made; he introduced a principle superior to them both, ONE\nSUPREME GOD, who created both light and darkness, and out of these two,\naccording to the alone pleasure of his own will, made all things else that\nare, according to what is {59} said:[66] \"I am the Lord, and there is none\nelse, there is no God besides me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known\nme: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that\nthere is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the\nlight, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do\nall these things.\" These words, directed to Cyrus, king of Persia, must be\nunderstood as spoken in reference to the Persian sect of the Magians, who\nthen held light and darkness, or good and evil, to be the supreme beings,\nwithout acknowledging the great God who is superior to both. To avoid\nmaking God the author of evil, Zoroaster's doctrine was, that God\noriginally and directly created only light or good, and that darkness, or\nevil, followed it by consequence, as the shadow doth the person; that light\nor good had only a real production from God, and the other afterward\nresulted from it as the defect thereof. In sum, his doctrine as to this\nparticular was, that there was one Supreme Being, independent and\nself-existent from all eternity. That under him were two angels, one the\nangel of light, who is the author and director of all good; and the other\nthe angel of darkness, who is the author and director of all evil; and that\nthese two, out of the mixture of light and darkness, made all things that\nare; that they are in a perpetual struggle with each other; and that when\nthe angel of light prevails, then the most {60} is good, and when the angel\nof darkness prevails, then the most is evil; that this struggle shall\ncontinue to the end of the world; that then there shall be a general\nresurrection, and a day of judgment, wherein just retribution shall be\nrendered to all according to their works, &c. And all this the remainder of\nthat sect, which is _now_ in Persia and India do, without any variation,\nafter so many ages still hold, even to this day. Another reformation which\nhe made in the Magian religion was, that he caused fire temples to be built\nwherever he came: this being to prevent their sacred fires, on the tops of\nhills, from being put out by storms, and that the public offices of their\nreligion might be the better performed before the people. Zoroaster\npretended he was taken up into heaven, there to be instructed in those\ndoctrines which he was to deliver unto men. Mohammed pretended to have seen\nGod. Zoroaster was too well informed for such imposture. He only claimed to\nhave heard him speaking to him out of the midst of a great and most bright\nflame of fire; and he, therefore, taught his followers that fire was the\ntruest _shechinah_ of the divine presence. His followers thereafter\nworshipped the sun as the most perfect fire of God. But this was an\noriginal usage of the Magi (referred to in Ezekiel viii. 16), where it is\nrelated, that the prophet being carried in a vision to Jerusalem, had there\nshown him \"about five-and-twenty men standing between the porch and the\naltar, with {61} their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces\ntoward the east; and they worshipped the sun.\" The meaning of which is,\nthat they had turned their backs upon the true worship of God, and had gone\nover to that of the Magians.[67] The _Kebla_, or point of the heavens\ntoward which they directed their worship being toward the rising sun, that\nof the Jews in Jerusalem to the Holy of Holies on the west end of the\ntemple; of those elsewhere toward Jerusalem; of the Mohammedans toward\nMecca, and the Sabians toward the meridian.\n\nCome whence it may, what is the meaning of the use of fire in any divine\nworship?\n\n1. Burnt-offerings of old required it.\n\n2. It descended on the altars of Elijah, and of Solomon, from God himself.\n\n3. The Magi, from the time of Zoroaster, have deemed it the symbol of\npurity.\n\n4. The pagan mysteries in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, all preserved the\n\"sacred fire.\" Most religions seem to have adopted its use. Why?\n\n5. The Catholic church has ever preserved its use in burning tapers, lamps,\nand smoking incense.\n\nIn his reformation of the customs and rites of the Magi, Zoroaster, as has\nbeen hereinbefore said, preserved their three grades of APPRENTICES,\nMASTERS, and PERFECT MASTERS.[68] The first were the inferior clergy, who\nserved in all the common offices of their {62} divine worship; next above\nthem were the superintendents, who in their several districts governed the\ninferior clergy, as bishops do with us; and above all was the\nperfect-master, the archimagus, who was the head of the whole religion.\nAccordingly their places of worship were of three sorts. The lowest sort\nwere parochial oratories served by the inferior clergy, where they read the\ndaily offices out of their liturgy, and on solemn occasions read part of\ntheir sacred writings to the people. In these churches there were no fire\naltars; but the small scintilla of sacred fire preserved in them, was kept\nonly in a lamp. Next above these were their fire temples, in which fire was\ncontinually burning on a sacred altar. The highest church of all was \"_the\nfire-temple_,\" the residence of the archimagus, first established by\nZoroaster at Balch, but removed in the seventh century to Kerman, a\nprovince in Persia on the southern ocean. To gain the better reputation to\nhis pretensions, Zoroaster first retired to a cave, and there lived a long\ntime as a recluse, pretending to be abstracted from all earthly\nconsiderations, and to be given wholly to prayer and divine meditations;\nand the more to amuse the people who there resorted to him, he dressed up\nhis cave with several mystical figures, representing Mithra, and other\nmysteries of their religion. In this cave he wrote his book, called\nZendavesta, or Zend, meaning \"fire-kindler,\" or \"tinder-box.\" This book\ncontains much borrowed {63} from the Old Testament. He even called it the\nbook of Abraham, and his religion the religion of Abraham; for he pretended\nthat the reformation which he introduced was no more than to bring back the\nreligion of the Persians to that original purity in which Abraham practised\nit, by purging it of all those defects, abuses, and innovations, which the\ncorruptions of after-times had introduced into it.[69]\n\nIs it not singular that all the nations of the earth still trace their\nteaching in pure religion to Abraham, whether under the name of Brahma, or\notherwise?\n\nThese ancient Magi were great mathematicians, philosophers, and divines of\nthe ages in which they lived, and had no other knowledge but what by their\nown study, and the instructions of the ancients of their sect they had\nimproved themselves in. All of the Magi were not thus learned, only those\nof the higher order. The priesthood, like the Jewish, was communicated only\nfrom father to son, except to the royal family,[70] whom they were bound to\ninstruct, the better to fit them for government. Whether it were that these\nMagians thought it would bring the greater credit to them, or the kings,\nthat it would add a greater sacredness to their persons, or from both these\ncauses, the royal family of Persia, so long as the Magi prevailed among\nthem, was always reckoned {64} of the sacerdotal tribe.[71] The kings of\nPersia were looked on to be of that sacerdotal order, and were always\ninitiated into the sacred rites of the Magians, before they took on them\nthe crown, or were inaugurated into the kingdom.[72]\n\nPYTHAGORAS next assumed, in the west, the most prominent place for\nlearning. He was the scholar of Zoroaster at Babylon, and learned of him\nmost of that knowledge which afterward rendered him so famous. So saith\nApulcius (Floridorum secundo), and so say Jamblichus (in vita Pythag. c.\n4), Porphyry (Ibid. p. 185. edit. Cant.), and Clemens Alexandrinus\n(Stromata i. p. 223) for the Zabratus or Zaratus of Porphyry, and the\nNa-Zaratus of Clemens, were none other than this Zoroaster; and they relate\nthe matter thus: that when Cambyses conquered Egypt he found Pythagoras\nthere on his travels, for the improvement of himself in the learning of\nthat country; that, having taken him prisoner, he sent him, with other\ncaptives, to Babylon, where Zoroaster (or Zabratus, as Porphyry calls him)\nthen lived; and that he there became his disciple, and learned many things\nof him in the eastern learning. There may be error as to date, but that\nPythagoras was at Babylon, and learned there a great part of that knowledge\nwhich he was afterward so famous for, is agreed by {65} all. His stay\nthere, Jamblichus tells us, was twelve years; and that, in his converse\nwith the Magians, he learned from them arithmetic, music, the knowledge of\ndivine things, and the sacred mysteries pertaining thereto. But the most\nimportant doctrine which he brought home thence, was that of the\nimmortality of the soul; for it was generally agreed among the ancients\n(Porphysius in vita Pythagorae p. 188, edit., Cant. Jamblichus in vita Pyth.\nc. 30), that he was the first of all the Greeks that taught it. Prideaux\nsays he takes this for certain, that Pythagoras had this from Zoroaster,\nfor it was his doctrine, and he is the earliest heathen on record who\ntaught it.[73] But Pythagoras seems to have combined the notions he then\nreceived with those of the Egyptian Magi; for he taught immortality to\nconsist in constant transmigration from one body to another. The Egyptian\nMagi claimed to be judges of the dead,[74] and taught this doctrine.\nZoroaster taught a resurrection from the dead, and an immortal state as we\nunderstand it. And it is probable Pythagoras adopted this notion after he\nfled from Samos to Egypt to escape from the government of Polycrates.\n\nBe this as it may, he was a master-spirit in a secret society with its\nlodges spread through Magna Graecia, originating in one he established at\nCrotona in Lower Italy. Like that of the Cabbalists, this society had no\nconnection whatever with the dominant religion. {66} The Kabbalistae taught\nvirtue and science, and thus were, perhaps, an auxiliary, but certainly no\nopponent to the sacred teachings of the holy law. The Pythagorean league\ntaught philosophy alone; full instruction was given in the liberal arts and\nsciences in accordance with the learning of that age. But, after it was\nthought destroyed (and it was suppressed by Cylon and his faction, about\nthe year 500 B.C.), it still exercised a great influence over all Greece,\nin such manner as that Heeren speaks of it as a phenomenon which is in many\nrespects without a parallel. The grand object of the moral reform of\nPythagoras was SELF-GOVERNMENT. By his dignity, moral purity, dress, and\neloquence, he excited not only attention but enthusiasm. In that day an\naristocracy prevailed in Magna Graecia, based chiefly on the corrupting\ntendencies of wealth and luxury. Against this class a popular movement\ncommenced, by the influence whereof Sybaris was destroyed, and thereupon\nfive hundred nobles fled for safety to Crotona, and prayed for protection\nfrom that city, which they obtained principally by the advice of\nPythagoras. (Diod. Sic. xii. p. 77. Wechel.) Aristocratic evils he\nabrogated. A friend of the people, he recognised their equal rights: and it\nwould seem that, while he adopted grades in knowledge and moral worth, he\nconsidered mankind on \"a level\" so far as all political power was\nconcerned. To accomplish this end, he prescribed in his own society, and\ntheir affiliated {67} lodges, or meetings, a certain manner of life,\ndistinguished by a most cleanly but not luxurious clothing, a regular diet,\na methodical division of time, part of which was to be appropriated to\none's self, and part to the state. Heeren remarks, that when a secret\nsociety pursues political ends, it naturally follows that an opposing party\nincreases in the same degree in which the preponderating influence of such\na society becomes more felt. In this case, the opposition existed already\nin the popular party. It therefore only needed a daring leader, like Cylon,\nto scatter the society by violence; the assembly was surprised, and most of\nthem cut down, while a few only, with their master, escaped. They are said,\nso far as their political views were concerned, to have regarded anarchy as\nthe greatest evil, because man can not exist without social order. They\nheld that everything depended on the relation between the governing and the\ngoverned; that the former should be not only prudent but mild; and that the\nlatter should not only obey, but love their magistrates; that it was\nnecessary to grow accustomed, even in boyhood, to regard order and harmony\nas beautiful and useful, disorder and confusion as hateful and injurious.\nThey were not blindly attached to a single form of government, but insisted\nthat there should be no unlawful tyranny. Where a regal government existed,\nkings should be subject to the laws, and act only as the chief magistrates.\nThey regarded a {68} mixed constitution as the best, and where the\nadministration rested principally in the hands of the upper class, they\nreserved a share of it for the people. The writings of the Pythagoreans\ncommanded high prices, but gained political importance only so far as they\ncontributed to the education of distinguished men, of whom Epaminondas was\none.[75]\n\nAnother scion of these methods of secret instruction, wherein, however,\nreligion was the engine of political power, came from the ancient Assyrian\nstock with Phoenician emigration to Great Britain. The DRUIDS controlled\nthe learning of that country in religion as in science; and by their\nmysteries exerted an overwhelming influence upon the rulers and the masses.\n\nDr. Parsons[76] says, what were the filids, and bards, and the Druids, but\nprofessors of the sciences among the Gomerians, and Magogians or Scythians,\nand it is plain that, from Phenius downward, there were always, in every\nestablished kingdom among the Scythians, philosophers and wise men, who, at\ncertain times, visited the Greek sages, after they had found their schools?\nIt is no easy matter to point out the first rise and ages of the Druids.\nThey taught the same opinions of the renovated state of the earth, and of\nsouls, with the Magi. According to Caesar, in his time these Druids\ninstructed their youth in the {69} nature and motion of the stars, in the\ntheory of the earth, its magnitude, and of the world, and in the power of\nthe immortal gods. On the continent of Europe, he says, the Druids grew\ninto such power and ascendency over the minds of the people, that even the\nkings themselves paid an implicit slavish obedience to their dictates;\ninsomuch, that their armies were brave in battle, or abject enough to\ndecline even the most advantageous prospects of success, according to the\narbitrary prognostics of this set of religious tyrants; and their decisions\nbecame at last peremptory in civil, as well as in the affairs of religion.\nOne of the kings of Ireland, the learned _Carmac o' Quin_, great in law and\nphilosophy, who was not afraid to inveigh openly against the corruptions\nand superstition of the Druids, and maintained, in his disputations against\nthem, that the original theology consisted in the worship of one\nomnipotent, eternal Being, that created all things; that this was the true\nreligion of their ancestors; and that the numerous gods of the Druids were\nonly absurdity and superstition--proved fatal to him. For, as this society\nsaw an impending danger of their dissolution, they formed a deep conspiracy\nagainst him, and he was murdered. The Druids on the continent never\ncommitted their mysteries to writing, but taught their pupils _memoriter_.\nThe Irish and Scotch Druids wrote theirs, but in secret character. These\nwere well understood by the learned men who were in great numbers, and had\n{70} not only genius but an ardent inclination to make researches into\nscience. St. Patrick, then, with the general consent and applause of the\nlearned of that day, committed to the flames almost two hundred tracts of\ntheir pagan mysteries.[77] And with his day ended the last of druidical\nsuperstition. The Druids preserved the mistletoe evergreen as an emblem of\nnature's fructifying energy, and of immortality.\n\nThe Thugs, Assassins, Phanzigars, or by what other name they may be known,\nwere no society for the development of philosophy or religion; and,\nalthough they began about this time, are unworthy of farther mention. Their\nmysteries, if any, were only those of the highway robber, murderer, or\nother violater of God's law. Their only secrecy was the concealment of\ntheir crime.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{71}\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n    The Discipline of the Secret in the Origin of the Christian\n    Church.--The Inquisition.--The Mystics.--The rise of Monachism.--The\n    Mendicant Orders.--The Order of Knighthood.--The Jesuits, their\n    Organization, and History.--The Rosicrucians, &c.\n\nBut next appeared upon the stage of human life, our Lord and Saviour, JESUS\nCHRIST; \"The sun of Righteousness, rising with healing on his wings:\" that\nLIGHT of this world, which was to draw all men unto him, at the mention of\nwhose name \"every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in\nearth, and things under the earth.\"[78]\n\nHis lessons to man were all oral. The church he established received none\nbut traditional instruction. The gospels of his life were written more than\nhalf a century after the crucifixion. The apostles, commissioned to go\nforth and preach the Gospel, held their meetings in upper chambers, and in\nsecrecy, and part of their manner of teaching, if not all, was founded upon\nthe still-prevailing systems of the Kabbalistae and philosophers. There were\ngrades observed in the orders of ministry. The diaconate, the {72}\npresbyter, priest or elder, and the [Greek: episkopos] or bishop. So there\nwere three grades of the laity--catechumens, (not yet baptized,) baptized\npersons, and \"the faithful.\" The policy of the apostles (who, when they\nwere taught to be harmless, were to be wise) adapted itself to the then\nexisting state of affairs. It was not only for fear of the Jews, as at\nfirst, that they adopted the method of instruction in secret, and which is\nto this day recognised by the catholic church as the then _disciplina\narcani_, or \"discipline of the secret;\" but they kept it up even during the\ntimes of persecution, down to the time of St. Augustin. When our Saviour\nwas insulted by the scribes and Pharisees, saying, \"why do thy disciples\ntransgress the tradition of the elders?\" &c. He said to them, \"why do ye\nalso transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?\"[79] Still more\ndid he rebuke them, when they asked him, \"why walk not thy disciples\naccording to the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen\nhands?\" In his answer, he replied, \"laying aside the commandment of God, ye\nhold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, &c., &c. And he\nsaid unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may\nkeep your own tradition.\"[80] St. Paul afterward, well knowing the then\nsystems of philosophy, and their then traditional instruction, wrote to\nthem at Philippi,[81] \"Beware lest any man spoil you through {73}\nphilosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments\n(or elements) of this world, and not after Christ.\" Then St. Paul, guarding\nthe early Christians so carefully, writes to the faithful in Thessaly, \"Now\nwe command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye\nwithdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not\nafter the tradition which ye have received _of us_,\"[82] &c. When St. Paul\npreached on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to\nbreak bread, it was in an upper chamber where they were gathered\ntogether.[83] At an earlier date, the first day of the week after the\ncrucifixion, in the evening, \"when the doors were shut where the disciples\nwere assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst,\"\n&c.[84] When Pliny was proconsul in Judea, such charges were made against\nthe Christians on account of their secrecy, as caused severe persecution,\nnot for matters of religion, but for supposed cannibalism. He writes to\nTrajan, that he took all pains to inform himself as to the character of the\nChristian sect. To do this he questioned such as had for many years been\nseparated from the Christian community, but though apostates rarely speak\nwell of the society to which they formerly belonged, he could find out\nnothing. He then applied torture to two female-slaves, deaconesses, to\nextort from them the truth. After all, he could learn only that the {74}\nChristians were in the habit of meeting together on a certain day; that\nthey then united in a hymn of praise to their God, Christ; and that they\nbound one another--not to commit crimes, but to refrain from theft, from\nadultery, to be faithful in performing their promises, to withhold from\nnone the property intrusted to their keeping; and then separated and\nafterward assembled at a simple and innocent meal.[85]\n\nEvidently, the Christian mysteries were preserved secret from the Romans as\nfrom the Jews, or such crime could never have been imputed to them.\nAlluding to the secret traditional instruction prevalent in Judea and\nadopted by the early church, St. Augustin writes, \"You have heard the great\nmystery. Ask a man, 'Are you a Christian?' He answers you, 'I am not.'\n'Perhaps you are a pagan, or a Jew?' But if he has answered 'I am not;'\nthen put this question to him, 'Are you a catechumen, or one of the faith?'\nIf he shall answer you, 'I am a catechumen;' he is anointed but not yet\nbaptized. But, whence anointed? ask him. And he replies. Ask of him in whom\nhe believes. From the fact that he is a catechumen, he says, in Christ.\"\n\nThis is the third lecture of St. Augustin on the ninth chapter of St.\nJohn's gospel, where our Saviour is portrayed as healing the blind man, by\nmixing earth with spittle and anointing his eyes therewith. And St.\nAugustin adds, \"Why have I spoken of {75} spittle and of mud? Because the\nword is made flesh; this the catechumens hear; but it is not sufficient for\nthem as to what they were anointed; let them hasten to the font, if they\ndesire light.\"[86]\n\nBut still further to mark the distinction between these grades of Christian\nsecret instruction, St. Augustin, in the eleventh tract on the Gospel of\nSt. John, treating of the conversation between Nicodemus and our Saviour,\nas to regeneration, says, \"If, therefore, Nicodemus was of the multitude\nwho believed in his name, now in that Nicodemus we comprehend why Jesus did\nnot trust them. Jesus answered and said to him, 'Verily, verily I say unto\nyou, unless any one shall have been born again, he can not see the kingdom\nof God.' Jesus placed faith, therefore, in those who were born again. Lo!\nthey believed in him, and Jesus did not trust in them. Such are all\ncatechumens: they now believe in the name of Christ, but Jesus does not\nconfide in them. Let your love comprehend and understand this. If we say to\na catechumen, 'Do you believe in Christ?' He answers, {76} 'I do,' and\nsigns himself with Christ's cross: he bears it on his forehead, and blushes\nnot at his Lord's cross. Lo! he believes in his name. Let us ask him, 'Do\nyou eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood?' He knows not\nwhat we say, because Jesus has not trusted him.\"[87]\n\nNow we are told in Holy Writ in reference to this matter. St. Paul,\nalluding to this secret traditional instruction in the several degrees of\nChristian learning, says to those advanced to a higher or more perfect\ndegree: \"and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but\nas unto carnal, even as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and\nnot with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now\nare ye able.\"[88] Even their first lessons in the great mystery were\nimperfect. Other and further instruction was to complete it. So also St.\nPeter saith in his general letter, \"Wherefore laying aside all malice and\nall guile and hypocrisies and envies {77} and all evil speakings, as\nnew-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may _grow_\nthereby.\"[89] And again, St. Paul saith,[90] \"For when for the time ye\nought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the\nfirst principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of\nmilk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in\nthe word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to\nthem that are of full age, even those who by reason of use\" (_habit, or\nperfection_) \"have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.\nTherefore leaving the principles\" (the word of the beginning of Christ) \"of\nthe doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection,\"[91] &c. We need not\nhere refer to the wonderful spread of Christianity. We learn a plain and\nsimple lesson taught by Jesus, as to the administration of his church.\n\"These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the\nway of the Gentiles,\" &c. \"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the\ndead, cast out devils: freely have ye received, freely give. Provide\nneither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses: nor scrip for your\njourney, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet a staff; for the workman\nis worthy of his meat.\"[92] When questioned before Pilate, he declared, \"My\nkingdom is not of this world.\"[93] Whether the successors of the {78}\napostles have or not, since that day, established a kingdom of this world,\nis not for us here to discuss. Whether those that claim such succession\nobey the precept quoted, or not, we do not interfere with.\n\nTo insure unity in the church throughout the world, prudence would suggest\nthat there should be some place, free from the control of worldly politics,\nwhence its teachings should issue, and its counsels be heard. In its\ninfancy the Christian church suffered bitterly from persecution. The\nfaithful everywhere received a crown of martyrdom. When earthly terrors\ninterposed, the blood of the martyrs proved the seed of the church.\n\nIt is for us, however, to trace in history the secret teachings of those\nwho have claimed its highest authority in any denomination, and if we do\nnot reach their private counsels, their acts proclaim them.\n\nHas, or not, each Christian church been tempted by worldly power, wealth,\nand honor, like all other systems of religion?\n\nHave there existed within their jurisdiction, confraternities, with secular\npower, directly or indirectly under their control, seeking by secret\nmeasures to manage the government of the nations of this earth?\n\nThat great Creator, whose word is truth which can not change, declared as\nlaw to govern all his creatures, \"THOU SHALT NOT KILL.\" What saith history\nof those who claim to have acted in his name? Why, and in what manner did\nthey act? {79}\n\nThe south of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries became a scene\nof blood, the immediate cause of which was the erections of the \"tribunals\nof faith,\" better known to us as a secret society called \"THE INQUISITION.\"\nInnocent III., who ascended the papal chair in 1198, conceived the project\nthereof, to extirpate the rebellious members of the church--the\nAlbigenses--and to extend the papal power at the expense of the bishops:\nand his successors carried out his plan. This tribunal, \"_the holy office_\"\nor \"inquisition\" (sanctum officium), was under the immediate direction of\nthe papal chair: it was to seek out heretics and adherents of false\ndoctrines, and to pronounce its dreadful sentence against their fortune,\ntheir honor, and _their lives_, without appeal. The process of this\ntribunal differed entirely from that of the civil courts. The informer was\nnot only concealed, but rewarded by the inquisition. The accused was\nobliged to be his own accuser. Suspected persons were secretly seized and\nthrown into prison. No better instruments could be found for inquisitors\nthan the mendicant orders of monks, particularly the Franciscans and\nDominicans, whom the pope employed to destroy the heretics, and inquire\ninto the conduct of bishops. Pope Gregory IX., in 1233, completed the\ndesign of his predecessors, and, as they had succeeded in giving these\ninquisitorial monks, who were wholly dependent on the pope, an unlimited\npower, and in rendering the interference {80} of the temporal magistrates\nonly nominal, the inquisition was successively introduced into several\nparts of Italy, and into some provinces of France; its power in the latter\ncountry being more limited than in the former. The tribunals of faith were\nadmitted into Spain in the middle of the thirteenth century, but a firm\nopposition was made to them, particularly in Castile and Leon, and the\nbishops there maintained their exclusive jurisdiction in spiritual matters.\nFor a time this power waned, when, afterward in the fifteenth century, it\nassumed an aspect truly alarming. Three religions then prevailed in Spain:\nChristians, Jews, and Mahommedans. The power of the nobles was a bar, at\nthe same time, to the absolute power of Ferdinand and Isabella. But this\nengine of religious tyranny accomplished their ends, and became the most\npowerful instrument of their policy. Owing to the fanatical preaching of\nFernando Nunez, who taught the persecution of the Jews to be a good work,\npopular tumults prevailed, in which this people was plundered, robbed, and\nmurdered. Cardinal Mendoza, at Seville, in 1477, condemned and punished\nmany who persevered in opposition to the doctrines of his faith.\n\nMendoza recommended the establishment of the inquisition to Ferdinand and\nIsabella. Dependent entirely upon the court, what better engine could they\nuse to render their power absolute, by confiscation of estates to fill\ntheir treasury, and to limit the {81} power of the nobles and superior\nclergy? In the assembly of the estates, therefore, held at Toledo, 1480, in\nspite of all opposition, it was determined to establish a tribunal, under\nthe name of the general inquisition (_general inquisicion suprema_). This\nwas opened in Seville, 1481. Thomas de Torquenada, prior of the Dominican\nconvent at Segovia, father-confessor to Mendoza, had been appointed first\ngrand inquisitor by the king and queen, in 1478. The peaceful teachings of\nthe meek and lowly Jesus do not seem to have had much influence on this\npolitical Boanerges. He had two hundred familiars, and a guard of fifty\nhorsemen, but he lived in continual fear of poison. The Dominican monastery\nat Seville soon became insufficient to contain the numerous prisoners, and\nthe king removed the court to the castle in the suburb of Triana. At the\nfirst _auto da fe_ (act of faith), seven apostate Christians were burnt,\nand the number of penitents was much greater. Spanish writers relate that\nabove seventeen thousand were given up to the inquisition. More than two\nthousand were condemned to the flames the first year, and great numbers\nfled to neighboring countries. The then pope, Sixtus IV., opposed the\nestablishment of this court, as being the conversion of an ecclesiastical\ninto a secular tribunal: but he was compelled to submit to circumstances,\nand actually promulgated a bull subjecting Aragon, Valencia, and Sicily,\nthe hereditary dominions of Ferdinand, to the {82} inquisitor-general of\nCastile. The introduction of the new tribunal was attended with risings and\noppositions in many places, excited by the cruelty of the inquisitors, and\nencouraged, perhaps, by the jealousy of the bishops. Saragossa and other\nplaces refused admission to the inquisitors, many of whom lost their lives;\nbut the people were obliged to yield in the contest; and _the kings not\nonly became the absolute judges in matters of faith, but the honor,\nproperty, and life of every subject were in their hands_. The political\nimportance of this institution may be estimated by the following statement.\nIn every community, the grand inquisitor must fix a period, from thirty to\nforty days, within which time heretics, and those who have lapsed from the\nfaith, shall deliver themselves up to the inquisition. Penitent heretics\nand apostates, although pardoned, could hold no public office, nor become\nlessees, lawyers, physicians, apothecaries, or grocers; nor wear gold,\nsilver, or precious stones; nor ride; nor carry arms; during their whole\nlife, under a penalty of being declared guilty of a relapse into heresy:\nand they were obliged to give up a part of their property for the support\nof the war against the Moors. Those who did not surrender themselves within\nthe time fixed were deprived of their property irrevocably. The absent,\nalso, and those who had been long dead, could be condemned, provided there\nwas sufficient evidence against them. The bones of those who were condemned\nafter death were dug up, {83} and the property which they had left\nescheated to the king.\n\nAt first the jurisdiction of the inquisition was not accurately defined;\nbut it was regularly organized by the ordinance of 1484, establishing\nbranches in the different provinces of Spain, under the direction of the\ninquisitor-general. The inquisitor-general presided, with aid of six or\nseven counsellers nominated by the king; and his officers were a fiscal (or\nquasi prosecuting attorney), two secretaries, a receiver, two relators, a\nsecuestrador (or escheator), and officials. In an ordinance of 1732, it was\nmade the duty of all believers, to inform the inquisition, if they knew any\none, living or dead, present or absent, who had wandered from the faith,\nwho did observe, or had observed the laws of Moses, or even spoken\nfavorably of them: if they knew any one who followed, or had followed the\ndoctrines of Luther; any one who had concluded an alliance with the devil,\neither expressly or virtually; any one who possessed any heretical book, or\nthe Koran, or the Bible in the Spanish tongue; or, in fine, if they knew\nany one who had harbored, received, or favored heretics. If the accused did\nnot appear at the third summons he was excommunicated. From the moment that\nthe prisoner was in the power of the court he was cut off from the world.\nThen followed tortures, solitary confinement, and death in flames, with\nevery attendant of abject humiliation, while his name, with that {84} of\nhis children and grand-children, was officially declared infamous. Napoleon\ncrushed this monstrous iniquity December 4, 1808. According to the estimate\nof Llorente, the number of victims of the Spanish inquisition, from 1481 to\n1808, amounted to 341,021 persons.\n\nIn Portugal the inquisition was established in 1557. Whence they also\ncarried a branch of it to Goa, in the East Indies; in like manner as the\nSpaniards established one in America.[94]\n\nFrom the earlier days, however, of the Christian religion we find a select\nfew known as the MYSTICS, steadily pursuing a peaceful course in the\ninvestigation of truth. Of them it is said, that they exercised a powerful\ninfluence both upon life and literature: and, although the inculcation of\nmeekness and self-humiliation paralyzed active exertion, and a life devoted\nto emotions and sentiments occasionally produced fanaticism, yet this\ninfluence, especially in the middle ages was highly beneficial. John\nTauler, of Strasbourg, Henry Suss, of Constance, and Thomas a Kempis, were\nactive mystics, and eminent among their fraternity which was called \"the\nbrethren of the common life.\" Theirs was a religion of feeling, poetry, and\nimagination, in contrast with philosophical rules and forms of reasoning,\nas taught by the school-men. They excused their fanaticism, by appealing to\nthe words of St. Paul: {85} \"The spirit prays in us by sighs and groans\nthat are unutterable.\" Now, if the spirit, say they, prays in us, we must\nresign ourselves to its motions, and be swayed and guided by its impulse,\nby remaining in mere inaction. Hence, passive contemplation they considered\nthe highest state of perfection. The number of the mystics increased in the\nfourth century under the influence of the Grecian fanatic, who gave himself\nout as Dionysius, the Areopagite, a disciple of St. Paul, and probably\nlived about this period; and by pretending to higher degrees of perfection\nthan other Christians, and practising greater austerities, their cause\ngained ground, especially in the eastern provinces in the fifth century. A\ncopy of the pretended works of Dionysius, was sent by Balbus to Louis the\nMeek, in the year 824, which kindled the flame of mysticism in the western\nprovinces, and filled the Latins with the most enthusiastic admiration of\nthis new religion. In the twelfth century these mystics took the lead in\ntheir method of expounding Scripture; and by searching for mysteries and\nhidden meanings in the plainest expressions, forced the word of God into a\nconformity with their visionary doctrines, their enthusiastic feelings, and\nthe system of discipline which they had drawn from the excursion of their\nirregular fancies. In the thirteenth century they were the most formidable\nantagonists of the schoolmen, and toward the close of the fourteenth many\nof them resided and propagated their tenets in {86} almost every part of\nEurope. In the fifteenth century they had many persons of distinguished\nmerit in their number; and in the sixteenth, previously to the Reformation,\nit is said that the only true sparks of real piety were to be found among\nthem.[95]\n\nLet us, then, examine the rise of confraternities attached to, and of, the\nChristian church, yet not necessarily more than its other laity entitled to\nauthority which they afterward usurped.\n\nMonachism took its rise in the East, where a solitary and contemplative\nlife, devoted to the consideration of divine subjects, had always been\nconsidered more meritorious than active exertion. This calling was\ngradually adopted by so many, that at the end of the third century, the\nEgyptian Antonius, who had cast away his vast possessions, and chosen the\ndesert for his residence, collected together the hitherto dispersed\nanchorites (monachi) into fenced places (monasteria, caenobia, claustra,\ncloisters), that they might live together in fellowship; and his disciple,\nPachomius, soon gave the brotherhood a rule. Monachism soon extended to the\nwest. In the sixth century, Benedict, of Nursia, established the first\nmonastery on Mount Casius, in Lower Italy, and became, by this means, the\nfounder of the widely-spread order of Benedictines, which rapidly extended\nitself among all nations, and built many convents. These monasteries,\nerected, for the most part, in {87} beautiful and remote situations, and\nthe inhabitants of which were obliged to take the three vows of chastity\n(celibacy), personal poverty, and obedience, proved in those days of\nlawlessness and barbarism, a blessing to mankind. They converted heaths and\nforests into flourishing farms. They afforded a place of refuge (asylum) to\nthe persecuted and oppressed. They ennobled the rude minds of men by the\npreaching of the Gospel. They planted the seeds of morality and\ncivilization in the bosoms of the young by their schools for education. And\nthey preserved the remains of ancient literature and philosophy from utter\ndestruction. Many of the Benedictine monasteries were the nurseries of\neducation, the arts, and the sciences, as St. Gallen, Fulda, Reichenau, and\nCorvey (in Westphalia), and many others. When the Benedictine order became\nrelaxed, the monastery in Clugny, in Burgundy, separated itself from them\nin the tenth century, and introduced a more rigid discipline. In the\ntwelfth century the monks of Clugny numbered upward of two thousand\ncloisters. But this order, also, soon proved insufficient to satisfy the\nstrong demands of the middle age, against the allurements of sin, and the\nseductions of the flesh; so that, at the end of the eleventh century, the\nCistercians, and, a few decades later, the Premonstrants sprang up: the\nformer in Burgundy (Citeaux), the latter in a woody country near Laon\n(Premontre). The order of Carthusians, founded about the year {88} 1084,\nwhich commenced with a cloister of anchorites (Carthusia, Chartreuse) in a\nrugged valley near Grenoble, was the most austere in its practice. A life\nof solitude and silence in a cell, a spare and meagre diet, a penitential\ngarment of hair, flagellations, and the rigid practices of devotional\nexercises, were duties imposed upon every member of this fraternity.\n\nThey deserve, at our hands, the full benefit of an honest and severe\nChristian effort to find out and nurture truth; so long as government and\npolitical power did not control them. History next tells us of the\nso-called \"MENDICANT ORDERS.\" They originated in the thirteenth century,\nand this establishment was productive of remarkable results. Francis of\nAssisi (A.D. 1226), the son of a rich merchant, renounced all his\npossessions, clothed himself in rags, and wandered through the world,\nbegging, and preaching repentance. His fiery zeal procured him disciples,\nwho, like himself, renounced their worldly possessions, fasted, prayed,\ntore their backs with scourges, and supplied their slender wants from\nvoluntary alms and donations. The order of Franciscans then spread rapidly\nthrough all countries. About the same time arose the order of Dominicans,\nor preaching monks, founded by an illustrious and learned Spaniard,\nDominicus. Their chief objects were the maintenance of the predominant\nfaith in its considered purity, and the extinction of heretical opinions.\nIn {89} carrying these out, they became endowed with the greatest worldly\nand temporal privileges, received the powerful patronage of the pope,\ngradually obtained the chairs in the universities, and took the lead in the\nmurder of their fellow creatures through the inquisition. What a temptation\nto brawling mendicants, too lazy to earn a living, authorized to beg, and\nthe supple tools of political leaders; and all this by a mysterious\nsociety, under the guise and pretence of the Christian religion! Laic tools\nfor such clerical workmen!\n\nWhile, from the mystics of that date, valuable works have been preserved,\nwhat has been left us from these mendicant orders? Anything save the cry of\nblood from the earth? Aught else than servile obedience in accomplishing\nthe mandates of those in power?\n\nIn the eleventh century, the crusades had given rise to a singular class of\nmen, half-military, half-monk. They had their secret means of recognition,\na peculiar garb, and a professed object. Religion was the motive cause,\nwhile science and philosophy seem to have been secondary with them. They\nwere knights, of three orders, viz.: the Knights of St. John, or\nHospitallers; the Templars; and the Teutonic Knights. The Knights of St.\nJohn are known equally by the name of the Knights of Malta, because, in\n1530, Charles V. granted them the islands of Malta, Gozzo, and Comino, on\ncondition of perpetual war {90} against the infidels and pirates, and the\nrestoration of these islands to Naples, if the order should succeed in\nrecovering Rhodes. The chief of this order had immense possessions in most\nparts of Europe. Their chief was called _Grand Master of the Holy Hospital\nof St. John of Jerusalem_, and _Guardian of the Army of Jesus Christ_. He\nwas chosen by vote, and lived at La Villette in Malta. Foreign powers\naddressed him as _Altezza eminentissima_. His income equalled a million of\nguilders annually. This order still exists. Originally the affairs of the\norder were exercised by \"THE CHAPTER,\" which consisted of eight balliages\n(_ballivi conventuali_), of the different languages of which the knights of\nthe order consisted, that is, Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon,\nGermany, Castile, and England. The lands of these ballivi conventuali of\nlanguages were divided into three classes, priories, balliages, and\ncommanderies. Of the priories the German had the preference, and was called\nthe Grand Priory.\n\nThis confraternity were free-masons. And their organization was framed\naccordingly. Such was their kindness and benevolence to a wandering and\nunprotected pilgrim, that when afterward accosted on his journey with the\ncustomary inquiry, \"Whence came you?\" one and multitudes would answer,\n\"From a lodge of the Holy St. John of Jerusalem,\" having experienced their\nhospitality and kindness in their pilgrimage. Their duty was to nurse,\naccommodate, {91} and protect pilgrims to the Holy Land: and everywhere on\ntheir travels, in whatever country, these lodges (or _hutten_) were found\nfor their comfort.\n\nIn the beginning of the twelfth century a secret order was formed, \"for the\ndefence of the Holy Sepulchre, and the protection of Christian Pilgrims.\"\nThey were first called \"The poor of the Holy City,\" and afterward assumed\nthe appellation of \"Templars,\" because their house was near the Temple. The\norder was founded by Baldwin II., then king of Jerusalem, with the\nconcurrence of the pope.\n\nMany of the noblest knights connected themselves therewith, and they became\nknown, then, as the KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.\n\nBut the order degenerated, became faithless to their vows, and used the\nwealth and power they had attained in such manner as to occasion their\npublic condemnation.\n\nIn the beginning of the fourteenth century a sect of soi-disant\nphilosophers appeared, known as the ROSICRUCIANS. They bound themselves\ntogether by a solemn secret, which they all swore inviolably to preserve;\nand obliged themselves, at their admission into the order, to a strict\nobservance of certain established rules. They pretended chiefly to devote\nthemselves to medicine, but above all that, to be masters of important\nsecrets, and among others, that of the philosopher's stone; all which they\naffirmed to have received by tradition from the ancient Egyptians, {92}\nChaldeans, the Magi, and the Gymnosophists. By their pretences that they\ncould restore youth, they received the name of _Immortelles_. Their\npretension to all knowledge, acquired for them the title of _Illuminati_.\nFor years they were lost sight of. Consequently, when in later years they\nonce more appeared under their original organization, they have been\nrecognised as \"_The invisible brothers_.\" Their name is not, as generally\nsupposed, derived from _rosa_ and _crux_: but it is from _ros_ (dew), the\nthen supposed solvent of gold, and _crux_ (the cross). To see, perhaps, a\nbadge of this order, mark the arms of Luther! a cross placed upon a rose.\nTrue, a mistake as to the definition, yet does it not indicate the reason\nof its use politically and otherwise?\n\nPassing by, then, the middle ages, we commence a new era with the rise and\nprogress of a religious secret order, without a parallel in the history of\nthe world; one which has risen in influence and power far above all the\nother orders of the church, prohibiting its members to accept office in the\nchurch, yet which, in the art of ruling, has excelled the governments of\nthe world hitherto, no less than any of its ecclesiastical rivals of any\nage or country.\n\nThe Society of Jesus--known as THE JESUITS--early raised itself to a degree\nof historical importance unparalleled in its kind. This order was founded\n(1539) by Ignatius Loyola, who called it the Society of Jesus, in\nconsequence of a vision, and bound the {93} members, in addition to the\nusual vows of poverty, chastity, and implicit obedience to their superiors,\nto a fourth, viz: to go, unhesitatingly, and without recompense,\nwhithersoever they should be sent, as missionaries for the conversion of\ninfidels and heretics, or for the service of the church in any other way,\nand to devote all their powers and means to the accomplishment of the work.\nThe intention of Ignatius Loyola was originally directed rather to mystic\nand ascetic contemplations; but the order, from the nature of its fourth\nvow, soon took a shape adapted to the wants of the church.\n\nThe origin of this society seems to have been a vision to the over-wrought\nmind of Loyola: may we call it a temporary inflammation of the brain? He\nwas a Spaniard of very warm imagination, and a man of great sensibility. He\ndeclared he saw Mary, the mother of Jesus, in a vision: that she gave him\nthe power of chastity: that Jesus and Satan appeared to him in the form of\nmilitary officers enlisting men for service; whereupon he followed Christ.\nThe society designated their object by Loyola's motto--_Omnia ad majorem\nDei gloriam_. The intimate union of this society has been insured by severe\ntrials, constant inspection, and unconditional obedience. Thoroughly\norganized by past experience, it now quietly pursues a policy deep,\npowerful, and difficult to be met on account of its mysticism. After\nLoyola's death the society was farther developed by Lainez, {94} and after\nhim, by Aquaviva, men of deep knowledge of mankind, and steadfast purpose,\nwho became the real authors of the present society. The seat of the society\nwas, in so far, in Rome, as the general of the order resided there, with\nthe committee of the society, and the monitor, who, totally independent of\nhim, controlled the general as if he were his conscience. The order was\ndivided into provinces, each of which was superintended by a provincial.\nUnder the care of these officers were the professed-houses, with each a\npraepositus at its head, and the colleges, with each a rector. In the latter\nthere were also novices. The mutual dependence of all parts of the system\nresemble the structure of a well-built fabric. The relations of\nsubordination are so well ordered that the society is _simplex duntaxat\nunum_, without interrupting the free will of the individual, as is said,\nwho only had to obey in permitted things.\n\nThe popes Paul III. and Julius III., seeing what a support they would have\nin the Jesuits against what is usually called \"the Reformation,\" which was\nrapidly gaining ground, granted to them privileges such as no body of men,\nin church, or state, had ever before obtained. They were permitted not only\nto enjoy all the rights of the mendicant and secular orders, and to be\n_exempt from all episcopal and civil jurisdiction_ and taxes, so that they\nacknowledged no authority but that of the pope and the superiors of their\norder, and were permitted to exercise every {95} priestly function,\nparochial rights notwithstanding, among all classes of men, even during an\ninterdict; but, also (what is not even permitted to archbishops\nunconditionally), they could absolve from all sins and ecclesiastical\npenalties, change the objects of the vows of the laity, acquire churches\nand estates without further papal sanction, erect houses for the order, and\nmight, according to circumstances, dispense themselves from the canonical\nobservance of hours of fasts and prohibition of meats, and even from the\nuse of the breviary. Besides this, their general was invested with\nunlimited power over the members; could send them on missions of every\nkind, even among excommunicated heretics; could appoint them professors of\ntheology at his discretion, wherever he chose, and confer academical\ndignities, which were to be reckoned equal to those given by universities.\nThese privileges, which secured to the Jesuits a spiritual power almost\nequal to that of the pope himself, together with a greater impunity, in\npoint of religious observance, than the laity possessed, were granted them\nto aid their missionary labors, so that they might accommodate themselves\nto any profession or mode of life, among heretics, and infidels, and be\nable, wherever they found admission, to organize Catholic churches without\na further authority. A general dispersion, then, of the members throughout\nsociety with the most entire union and subordination, formed the basis of\ntheir constitution. {96}\n\nIn the education of youth, there has been a very unjust charge against\nthem, that is, that they mutilated the classics. Would to God that every\npure Christian would follow such an example; and that we might thereby\npresent such an expurgated edition, as would create all the good they may\ncontain, devoid of evil. Any who have read Virgil, Ovid, Terence, or other\nclassic works, must acknowledge this necessity. Even Shakespeare's plays\ncan not be read, as printed, in a modest company. There is not, either, any\nprudery in this. And, accordingly, a family expurgated edition has been\npublished by Dr. Bowdler, demanding a far greater circulation than it may\nhave as yet received. Praise, then, be awarded to all instructors of youth\nwho will promote such expurgation from the classics as will blot out their\nimmorality!\n\nThe latitude in which this society has understood its rights and immunities\nhas given occasion to fear an unlimited extension and exercise of them,\ndangerous to all existing authority, civil and ecclesiastical, as the\nconstitution of the order, and its erection into an independent monarchy in\nthe bosom of other governments, have assumed a more fixed character.\n\nThis society seems to have been divided into different ranks or classes.\nThe _novices_, chosen from the most talented and well-educated youths, and\nmen without regard to birth or external circumstances; and who were tried\nfor two years, in separate {97} novitiate houses, in all imaginable\nexercises of self-denial and obedience, to determine whether they would be\nuseful to the purposes of the order, were not ranked among the actual\nmembers, the lowest of whom are the _secular coadjutors_, who take no\nmonastic vows, and may, therefore, be dismissed. They serve the order\npartly as subalterns, partly as confederates, and may be regarded as the\npeople of the Jesuit state. Distinguished laymen, public officers, and\nother influential personages (e.g., Louis XIV., in his old age), were\nhonored with admission into this class, to promote the interests of the\norder. Higher in rank, stand the _scholars_ and _spiritual coadjutors_, who\nare instructed in the higher branches of learning, take upon themselves\nsolemn monastic vows, and are bound to devote themselves particularly to\nthe education of youth. These, as it were, the artists of the Jesuit\ncommunity, are employed as professors in academies, as preachers in cities,\nand at courts; as rectors, and professors in colleges, as tutors and\nspiritual guides in families which they wish to gain or to watch, and as\nassistants in the missions. Finally, the nobility, or highest class, is\nmade up of _the professed_, among whom are admitted only the\nmost-experienced members, whose address, energy, and fidelity to the order,\nhave been eminently tried and proved. According to one statement, they make\nprofession, that is, take the vows of their order, by binding themselves in\naddition to the common {98} monastic vows by the fourth vow, to the\nundertaking of missions, among whom they consider heathen and heretics, as\ngovernors in colonies in remote parts of the world, as father-confessors of\nprinces, and as residents of the order in places where it has no college.\nThey are entirely exempt, on the other hand, from the care of the education\nof youth. None but the professed have a voice in the election of a general,\nwho must himself be of their number, and who has the right of choosing from\nthem the assistants, provincials, superiors, and rectors. The general holds\nhis office for life, and has his residence in Rome, where he is attended by\na monitor, and five assistants or counsellors, who also represent the five\nchief nations: the Italians, Germans, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He\nis the centre of the government of the whole order, and receives monthly\nreports from the provincials, and one every quarter from the superiors of\nthe professed-houses, from the rectors of the colleges, and from the\nmasters of the novices. These reports detail all remarkable occurrences,\npolitical events, and the characters, capacities, and services of\nindividual members, and thereupon the general directs what is to be done,\nand how to make use of tried and approved members. All are bound to obey\nhim implicitly, and even contrary to their own convictions. There is no\nappeal from his orders.\n\nLoyola died July 31, 1556, leaving to the order a sketch of this\nconstitution, and a mystical treatise {99} called \"Exercitia Spiritualia,\"\nwhich work occupies the first four weeks of every novice. The rapid\nincrease of the order, and the previous purity of Loyola's life, obtained\ncanonization for him in 1662. Their first great missionary was St. Francis\nXavier, whose labors (1541) in the Portuguese East Indies, where he died\nten years afterward, have obtained for him the name of \"the apostle of\nIndia\", and the honor of canonization. We are told that, at Goa,\nTravancore, Cochin, Malacca, Ceylon, and Japan, some hundred thousand were\nby him converted to the Christian religion. If so, at present the light of\nit has become very dim. _Stat nominis umbra._ The inquisition at Goa,\nperhaps, may have shown the people the difference between theory and\npractice. Claudius Aquaviva, of the family of the dukes of Atri, general of\nthe Jesuits from 1581 to 1615, is the author of their system of education.\nThe want of deep, critical learning, with the mutilation of the classics\n(for which last they deserve praise, not blame), exposed their teachers,\nfor a time, to the censure of philologists. Viewed with suspicion by the\nFrench, they only were admitted into that nation in 1562, under the name of\n\"the Fathers of the College of Clermont,\" with a humiliating renunciation\nof their most important privileges, but they soon united in the factions of\nthat country, and, notwithstanding a strong suspicion of their having had a\nshare in the murder of Henry III., under the {100} protection of the\nGuises, they contrived to establish themselves, regain their privileges,\nand deprive the French Protestants of their rights. One of their pupils,\nJohn Chatel, attempted Henry's life (1594), and this caused their\nbanishment until 1603, when, at the intercession of the pope, they were\nagain restored by Henry IV. That they participated in the crime of\nRavaillac could never be proved. They became the confidential advisers in\nGermany, of Ferdinand II. and III. They discovered remarkable political\ntalent in the thirty years' war; the league of the Catholics could do\nnothing without them. Father Lamormain, a Jesuit, and confessor to the\nemperor, effected the downfall of Wallenstein, and by means of his agents,\nkept the jealous Bavarians in their alliance with Austria. Then burst upon\nthem in France and the Netherlands, the hurricane of the Jansenist\ncontroversy, when Pascal's Provincial Letters scathed them, and his\nsentiments were even quoted (1679) by Innocent IX., against sixty-five of\ntheir offensive propositions. Complaints were made against some of them by\nthe Iroquois, who had been converted by them, as would appear by the treaty\nof peace (1682). In 1759, by an edict, they were declared guilty of\nhigh-treason, and expelled from Portugal. Owing to difficulties at\nMartinique under their deputy, Father La Vallette, and the declaration of\ntheir general, Lorenzo Ricci, refusing to make any change in their\nconstitution (_sint aut non sint_), \"let them be as they {101} are, or not\nbe,\" the king of France (1764) issued a decree for abolishing the order in\nall the French states, as being a mere political society, dangerous to\nreligion, whose object was self-aggrandizement. In 1767 they were driven\nout of Spain, and soon after from Naples, Parma, and Malta. And the voice\nof public opinion at length compelled Pope Clement XIV. to publish his\nfamous bull, _Dominus ac Redemptor noster_, of July 21, 1773, by which the\nsociety of Jesus was totally abolished in all the states of Christendom.\nThe society, however, did not become extinct. In 1780 they were thought to\nhave possessed themselves of the secrets of the Rosicrucians, and to have\ntaken a part in the schemes of the Illuminati. In 1787, an unsuccessful\nattempt was made to revive the order under the name of the _Vicentines_.\nPius VII. restored the order, in 1814, upon the issuance of the bull,\nAugust 7, _Solicitudo omnium_. In 1815 they were restored in Spain. Russia,\nby an imperial ukase, March 25, 1820, banished them thence. Since then they\nhave been driven from Mexico, again restored by Santa Anna, and now, though\nresident, they are politically powerless under the administration of\nPresident Comonfort. They now seem to rely on the United States of America\nas their chief asylum, and upon the valley of the Mississippi river and its\ntributaries, as their basis of operations. Full and perfect freedom of\nthought and speech, of religious toleration, and of mode of life, monastic\nor {102} otherwise, insures to them a safe home in this country. They\npossess a flourishing college at Georgetown, which may almost be considered\nas part of the city of Washington, the capital of the United States. Also\none at Cincinnati, and one at St. Louis, well endowed, and possessed of\ngreat wealth. They exercise a powerful yet unseen influence over the minds\nof the members of the Catholic faith where they reside, each naturalized\ncitizen of which has an equal voice in selecting all officers of state and\ngeneral government. An eminent writer has remarked, that everything in\nhistory has its time, and the order of Jesuits can never rise to any great\neminence in an age in which knowledge is so rapidly spreading. We think\ndifferently. A society so capable of adaptation to any circumstances,\nwhether political, religious, or social, plastic in nature to meet every\ndesired impression, talented, highly learned, wealthy, and among others,\nembracing in its order some men of such pure and admirable life as to be\ncited as examples of virtue and Christian character, with the protection\nthe American flag throws around all under its folds, is to be carefully\nobserved. Human nature is always the same. The past history, then, of this\nsociety merits the study of every philanthropist and patriot. Once, in\nParaguay, it became a blessing to mankind. Within due limits, it may be so\nanywhere. But its interference in any political affairs, under pretence of\nserving him, whose \"kingdom is not of this {103} world,\" is not to be\ntolerated, as it may prove a most dangerous engine in the struggle of the\ncause of popular self-government. An unconditional surrender of one's own\nconvictions to the will of another man is at variance with _every_\nprinciple of republicanism.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n{104}\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n    The Struggle between an alleged _Jus Divinum Regum_, and Popular\n    Sovereignty.--And the Efforts now attempted to destroy our Grand\n    Experiment of Self-Government.--Practical Results.\n\nWith the differences of religious bodies as to dogmas of faith, this essay\nhas nothing to do; but so far as churches connected with any religion,\ninterfere with temporal governments, by mystic confraternities, that is a\ntopic directly within our scope. Any union of church and state must, from\nthese authorities, appear in opposition to the unprejudiced action of the\ncitizen in the government of his country.\n\nThe great struggle for political power, the contest as to the source\nthereof--whether a fancied divine right (_jus divinum_) in any family, or\nin an individual by anointment of a priest; or the free voice of a free\npeople governing themselves by framing a constitution, limiting power in\nthe hands of rulers, who are only their agents--is now undergoing a severe\ntest. Of this, however, more hereafter.\n\nThe history of England, from the days of James II.--yes, even from Henry\nVIII., whose crimes form a strange contrast to his assumption of a title to\nbeing {105} head of a church--presents a singular contest for political\npower, by means of religious domination.\n\nFrom the days of William of Orange, the parties in Ireland (which seems to\nhave formed the battleground of these contestants) have been not only\nwell-defined, but they have been organized in the most perfect mysticism,\ninto Orange men and Ribbon men. Let the days of Curran, Grattan, and of the\npersecuting government tell that story. The blood of an Emmett has crowned\na noble effort with martyrdom. His last speech will be read as long as\nschool-books can perpetuate one of the finest efforts of oratory.\n\nMeantime, a secret society still existed which softened down asperity, and\nextended the blessings of fraternity even among those arrayed against each\nother--not only there, but over the world. By its teachings and its\nobligations, universal charity was inculcated. Is there an intelligent\nFREE-MASON who has perused our previous pages, but what has recognised the\nhistory of his own society from the origin of the Kabbalistae? Spread\neverywhere, under whatever name, emanating from a common origin, recognised\nby common principles and instruction, enforcing the study of the liberal\narts and sciences, teaching philosophy throughout the world, and the hope\nof a future immortality, it has, as a mystic order, taken deep root in\nevery nation, but more so in republics, not having fear of an interdict, or\nother religious {106} fulmination. It has not and does not interfere in\npolitics, nor seek political power in any shape. Like its brothers of old\nunder Pythagoras in Magna Graecia, it teaches philosophy, and is well\ncalculated to promote such education as must form true statesmen. So\ncatholic is its every teaching, and such are its fraternal tendencies, that\none church has placed it under ban. Throughout the world, whether among the\ndescendants of the ancient Magi, the Hebrew Cabbalist, the Rosicrucian, or\nTemplar, in the deserts of Africa, the forests of America, or on the\nwide-spread ocean, the symbols of recognition are known and received. Such\nhave been its tendencies that spurious imitations for mere political\npurposes have been frequent. The Illuminati, the Carbonari, and other\nsecret political societies have been supposed to be Masonic lodges. But it\nis a great mistake. The Kabbalists never interfered with, or acted in\nopposition to the Hebrew Theocracy. Their brothers of a later date have\nnever interfered with politics, even to the present day; nor have they, in\nany wise, inculcated a single maxim at variance with their duty to God,\ntheir neighbor, or themselves. They have simply preserved and obeyed the\noriginal traditional instruction handed down to them.\n\nAnother benevolent secret society has sprung up, chiefly in the United\nStates, calling themselves the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This is a\ncharitable confraternity, intended, mainly, to promote {107} benevolence,\naid the sick and distressed, and cultivate the warmer sympathies of our\nnature. It is of modern origin, and in most things seems to be an imitation\nof Free-Masonry. It has been productive of great good in the accomplishment\nof its benevolent purposes. Having no leaning whatever toward politics, it\nquietly pursues its mission of love.\n\nThus, then, we have arrived at a point where we must pause.\n\nThe summary of the past seems to be as follows:--\n\nI. From the earliest history of the world there seems to have been an\neffort on the part of those who pretended to control the consciences and\nreligious views of others to preserve in their own hands, the predominant\n_political_ power.\n\n1. The first government recorded is that of Nimrod. He discarded\npatriarchal instruction; united tribes in cities; and formed their\ncombination into an empire. The Magi controlled him, and, at his death,\nunder the pretence of his deification, preserved his power in the\npriesthood.\n\n2. In the extension of the Magi, every great leader, or king, was one of\nthem; and obedient to the rules and instructions of their general, the\nHierophant.\n\n3. When, in the assertion of popular right, Pythagoras was driven away by\nCylon, the then imperfect effort of self-government fell through. But\nlittle understood, its then dim light faded.\n\n4. The society of the _Kabbalistae_, part of whom {108} were afterward known\nas the _Pythagorean league_, as the _Collegio fabrorum_ of Numa Pompilius,\nas the _Liberi Architectonici_ of the middle ages, and as the _Free-Masons_\nof the present day; this society, I repeat, never interfered in politics.\n\n5. The Christian church was tempted to forget, that Christ's kingdom was\nnot of this world. And its two great branches, that of Rome and England,\nwere seduced into the error of seeking to obtain power through public\npolicy.\n\nRome exerted her influences through her praetorian cohorts, the\nconfraternities of mendicants and of Jesus--the Jesuits. Unknown, and in\nsilence, they were domiciliated in courts and in families, throughout all\nnations; and some roamed as itinerants. The will of their general, on their\nunconditional subserviency to his behest, seemed to create an almost\nomnipresent power to be controlled by Rome alone. Has not the exercise of\nit been exemplified in the inquisition? Was it not felt in the massacre of\nSt. Bartholomew? I will not stop to ask the power and control of a Madame\nMaintenon, or Du Barry: nor whose influences controlled them. Does not all\nhistory portray their one effort?\n\nBut has not the Church of England endeavored to obtain temporal power,\nalso, by interference in the affairs of this world, politically?\n\nShame! shame!! If the priesthood are honest in giving an undivided\nallegiance to HIM, whom they {109} have taken an oath _only_ to serve; and\nyet, whose \"kingdom is not of this world;\" how dare they violate that\nobligation? \"_Ne sutor ultra crepidam,_\" &c.\n\nBut we in the United States are not better than our neighbors. Man is the\nsame everywhere, but for education.\n\nAnd this brings us to the great, practical lesson, to which end all that\nhas thus far been detailed has been directed.\n\nAmericans! no matter of what nation you came, consider this lesson.\n\nWe have ignored and thrown aside the priestly fable of an anointment by a\nman conferring an hereditary right to rule his brother man, by any family.\nThis _jus divinum regum_ is an absurdity, practically discarded by those\nwho assert it. What divine right has been granted either to Napoleon the\nGreat, or to Napoleon the little? Whence came it? By whose hands? How is it\npreserved? Is not the same religious power ready to crown a Bourbon one\nday, and, in spite of the hereditary _jus divinum_ already granted, crown a\nCorsican (who has waded through blood to his throne) the next day; over the\nvery rights of the Bourbon, who relies on that _jus divinum_ as his title?\n\nA divine right (if any) is here granted to both--to the Bourbon, and to the\nCorsican. Can truth contradict itself? If there be a contradiction must\nthere not be error somewhere? {110}\n\nThis _jus divinum_ that began with the deification of Nimrod, is still\nperpetuated though in other hands.\n\nBut we must look into this a little further.\n\nII. Although the Theocracy in the days of Moses was of temporary duration,\nand human power afterward asserted a kingly right, was that divine right\never preserved? If divine, it is immutable. Does history show this? When\nTitus conquered Jerusalem, does not Jewish history tell us the voice was\nheard saying, \"LET US GO HENCE?\"\n\nIII. History shows, among men, two classes who have governed others:--\n\n1. Kings, emperors, and rulers.\n\n2. Priests and clergy, controlling the superstitious feelings of mankind;\nyes, even these kings, emperors, and rulers, by mysticism.\n\nIV. There have been throughout history two classes of secret societies.\n\nOne always endeavoring to govern and control the masses politically, by\nreligious mysteries, &c. The other endeavoring to persuade to the study of\nscience and philosophy, and trying to wean men from the mere struggle of\nthis world's power, to a preparation for another world, into which we must\nbe born spiritually, by human death, and as to which this earth is only the\nschool-house. And this class has not interfered in any manner with politics\nin any country. {111}\n\nThis bring us to the present condition of our own beloved country at this\ntime.\n\nA secret society, also political, was formed here, known as THE\nKNOW-NOTHINGS. And its secrecy was about to destroy it, when that secrecy,\nunder the power of the press, vanished into mist.\n\nBut what was the origin thereof? And when, after gentlemen and statesmen\ncontrolled it, and expelled its rubbish, it assumed a powerful influence,\nand a new form, as an \"American Party,\" what were the deep moving causes\nwhich led to its prominent position?\n\nFrom the days of Nimrod to the present day, all history shows an effort on\nthe part of a few to control temporal power, at the expense of the many.\nThey have always acted on the superstitions of man to accomplish this end.\n\nBut the American theory (_esto perpetua_) is, that all men are free and\nequal in their political rights, when their intellect is that of control,\nnot of servitude; and that the people are the source and fountain of\npolitical power. It cometh not from a priest. It is the voice of freemen\nspeaking and acting through their agents, whom they select.\n\nThis antagonism is now to be severely tested in coming history.\n\nWhat is the source of temporal power?\n\nRome, England, France, and other countries, say it is from \"the church,\"\nmeaning their own particular {112} designation of a religion. That it is a\ndivine right communicated by priestly anointment, attended by public\nceremonies, imposing in appearance, and \"_ad captandum,_\" for the public\neye.\n\nThe American theory, going far beyond the bare and imperfect teaching of\nPythagoras, boldly asserts what is believed to be the true and only origin\nof temporal power, the free will of a people exercised through agents of\nits own selection.\n\nFor about eighty years past this first great experiment has been\nsuccessful. But that success has induced the most insidious attacks of\nthose who advocate the opposite policy. We must be watchful, or our\nliberties will be gone. The game they now play is new in history; but, it\nis one easily comprehended. It has been well said that the price of liberty\nis eternal vigilance.\n\nBut two centuries since this land was the home of the savage. The Caucasian\nintellect, however, has assumed its supremacy here; and the Indian,\nincapable of mental culture, is gradually, but surely passing, like other\nforms of animal existence, from the world.\n\nOne of the highest efforts of the human mind, is the Constitution of the\nUnited States of America. The great principles of freemen governing\nthemselves, as there enunciated, must and will necessarily be attacked by\nthe asserters of divine right in temporal government. If our experiment\nsucceeds the powers of Europe must fall, or undergo an entire change. {113}\nEngland's nobility must acknowledge, sooner or later, the equality of the\ncommonalty and gentry with themselves. Distinctions in France have already\ngone, except as to the assertion of the power of an emperor by virtue of a\npriestly coronation.\n\nThe popular masses of Europe have only displayed their first, but, as yet,\nimperfect efforts to assert their political rights. It is the reflex action\nof the great principle we have successfully, thus far, practised. And will\nnot the powers who have conquered the masses then thus far, use every\neffort to destroy this experiment of ours and perpetuate thereby their own\nexistence? If we continue to succeed, our lesson to the world is the\ndeath-knell of monarchy and imperial power. Foreign powers and priestly\npowers are making this effort. And if we are doomed to fail, it will be by\nthe DISUNION their emissaries here endeavor to produce. With us, again, is\nreligious influence exerted. Servitude is recognised and practised in the\nsouth. But the clergy of the north have commenced a fanatical crusade\nagainst it. We should guard well against these influences, foreign and\ndomestic, now operating against us.\n\nAs a part of the history of the times, it may be proper to give the rise\nand progress of the so-called order of \"Know-Nothings.\" The plan of the\norganization was conceived by a gentleman of the city of New York, who, in\n1849, prepared and embodied into a system, a plan for uniting the American\n{114} sentiment of the American people throughout the United States. It was\nmeant as a combined resistance, on the part of the native American\npopulation, to foreign and papal influence in this country. The progress of\nthe plan was so slow in its development, that at the end of two years, the\nnumber of members uniting in the organization did not exceed thirty. In\n1852 the plan was examined by a few gentlemen connected with the Order of\nUnited Americans, another secret and American organization, but not\ndirectly political or partisan in its aims and objects. A society was\nformed, and forty-three members signed their names to it, and from that\nsmall beginning was formed a body of native Americans which, in a year or\ntwo after, exceeded, in the state of New York alone, two hundred thousand\nmembers. This state organization soon extended its ramifications all over\nthe country, and is now known as the American party. It has held three\nnational conventions, one in Philadelphia, one at New York, and one in\nLouisville, and is now no more of a secret party than either of the two\ngreat parties opposed to it: the national conventions having abolished all\nsecret meetings, and the state conventions or councils having generally\nconcurred in this abolition of all oaths and all forms of obligation but\nthose of personal honor and mutual good faith.\n\nThe ban of secrecy had made it, doubtless, an object of suspicion. Its\nadversaries hurl at it these {115} unfortunate antecedents. But now all\nsecrecy has been abolished, and the party claims to assert only, the great\nprinciple of an INTELLIGENT SELF-GOVERNMENT. They recognise the secret and\ninsidious influences of the Jesuit, and deprecate it. They call attention\nto it, and to its increasing importance in this valley; but still, in the\nspirit of liberty, leave the Jesuit free to act as he pleases. They\nperceive that it is irreconcilable with freedom of thought and conscience\nto surrender, unconditionally, one's own views and thoughts to the will of\nany one man, whether he be at Rome or elsewhere. Still he is not interfered\nwith. Let him act with all freedom. You can vote for him for office or not,\nas you please; and, here, we have reason to fear the secret influence\ncontrolled alone at Rome. But, with all this freedom, it is called\n\"persecution\" to say \"I will not vote for such a man.\"\n\nLet Europe send over all her emissaries, and our country tells them you\nshall have the protection of our flag. You shall think, and speak what you\nwill, if it be not to the injury of your neighbor. But is there not a\nspirit of self-preservation which demands that eternal vigilance which is\nthe price of freedom? Is it \"proscription\" in saying to another man, \"I\nwill not vote for you?\" If you can not exercise your own will, where is\nyour freedom? If a whig refuses to vote for a democrat is that\n\"proscription?\"\n\nThen, if I believe another man has surrendered his {116} own will to the\nunconditional control of another, in a foreign country, can I trust\nhim--regarding the antecedents hereinbefore referred to?\n\nIt has been said, perhaps unjustly (at least I hope so), that the teaching\nof this important society, the Jesuit, so deeply-rooted here, is, that \"the\nend justifies the means.\" If this be so, and if they can exercise over the\nimmigrant population from Europe the power imputed to them--all this also\ncontrolled at Rome by the general of the order and his monitor--where can\nfreedom be preserved to us, if they can control a majority of votes here?\nIn such case our liberties are gone. In such case, they have simply adopted\nand ingeniously carried out the ancient powers of the priestly Magi.\n\nHas not an Englishman, a member of parliament, come to this country, and\nlectured in New England on the abolition of slavery, expressly to aid in\ncreating disunion of our states?\n\nHas not the leaven of Puritanism been excited to new action to accomplish\nthe same result?\n\nHave not three thousand clergymen been induced to interfere in our temporal\nand political affairs; just as in past history we find the Magi and the\npriests did?\n\nHas not the word of God been set at naught? Where the command is, \"Thou\nshalt not kill,\" are not Sharpe's rifles purchased by their command?\n\nA clever book of fiction, written by a fanatical old {117} woman, although\nuntrue even as a picture of southern society, has obtained for her the\ncordial entree of British aristocracy.\n\nThen, again, regard the immense immigration from Europe. No sooner is it\npossible, but we find politicians busy to influence them, and obtain their\nvotes. And they chiefly are opposed to slavery.\n\nAs patriots, Americans should say, you may vote. We throw around you no\nrestraint. Your home is our home. You are in every sense a brother, and you\nshall be deprived of no privilege. But while in no manner the privileges of\na freeman should be denied to any, we must not shut our eyes to the\ninfluences that surround us.\n\nThe Magi controlled the then known world.\n\nThe Roman church has done the same. In England a church has assumed secular\npower.\n\nIn each instance it was the fabulous _jus divinum_ by which it was\naccomplished.\n\nShall they be allowed by such influences to control and so break down our\ngreat experiment of self-government?\n\nRather let those peaceful and benevolent influences prevail, which were\ninculcated by societies who taught equality of rights, and peace and\ncharity among men.\n\nThis bring us then to the great motive power which alone can save our\ncountry.\n\nIt is _the education of the people, and the freedom of the press, directed\nthrough a unity of language_. {118} Through these, if properly conducted,\nunless they be controlled by the hostile influences hereinbefore spoken of,\nwe shall be a happy and united nation.\n\nThere is no need, hereafter, of any secret teaching. Secret societies may\npromote social good, but they are no longer necessary to teach either\ntraditional philosophy, or promote public welfare, except by benevolence.\n\nOur duty is to encourage thought, foster public schools, create a unity of\nfeeling and ideas, by means of a unity of language, and a freedom of the\npress.\n\nBut, in doing so, from the history of the past, can we be too careful in\nguarding against the insidious influences of societies, whose antecedents\nin history have proved so dangerous?\n\nSocieties having for their object a religious influence, and, thereby\nintending to control political power, are dangerous. The past has shown it.\n\nSocieties of benevolence, like the Free-Masons and Odd-Fellows, have done\nmuch good; but each member therein votes, in political matters, as he\npleases, and without control. These societies do good to all, without view\nto any particular faith.\n\nEach person that binds himself, by an obligation, to serve only HIM, whose\n\"kingdom is not of this world,\" should be debarred thereby from interfering\nin the politics of this world, which he has thus forsworn.\n\nBut what are the facts? Do not even the clergy {119} of New England try to\ncontrol our government? Are they not even endeavoring to create DISUNION?\nIs this not with the desire and _empressement_ of foreign power?\n\nHow far may not the praetorian bands of Rome aid therein to carry out the\nresult?\n\nCan we be too guarded as to our great experiment?\n\nThe first practical result, then, indicated by past history, is, that\npolitical power, in monarchies, empires, &c., has been under the control of\nmere priestly mysteries.\n\nThe next is, that human nature is always the same, and will endeavor to\naccomplish the same result.\n\nTake the history of the past, what are we to anticipate for the future? Can\nwe judge but from the past? Have they not endeavored to govern Europe?\n\nWe can only allow the will of freemen to govern us. The will that has, on\noath, submitted itself to the control of a foreign power, is not that of a\n_free man_, and our duty is to watch it.\n\nLet, then, every secret become a mystery; or, a revealed secret. If it be\ngood to one, let it be good to all. Secure equality of rights. Collision of\nmind strikes out the sparks of truth. Secure universal education by free\nschools, ensuring unity of language, but leaving thought free; and the\nresult will be, that secrecy will have become a mystery, or revealed\nknowledge to all.\n\nEducation, and the freedom of the press, are the {120} true safeguards of a\nrepublic. Interfere with the exercise of no religion; but let no one system\nof faith control your government. Frown down every effort of priests or\nclergy to meddle with politics. Then shall we avoid the errors of the past,\npreserve our present union, and hope for the spread of the true principles\nof liberty. With education will be united true piety, each assisting the\nother, no matter what the peculiar system of faith. Do away with secrecy\naltogether, and let every blessing that knowledge can confer, be devoted to\npublic information, and the good of all. So, shall the abuses of secrecy be\ndone away with for ever--and it shine forth only in the holy sphere to\nwhich it should be confined, to modesty and domestic virtue, religious\nmeditation and prayer, and prudence in the transactions of life.\n\nTHE END.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nNotes\n\n[1] St. Matt. xi. 28.\n\n[2] Montgomery. Hymn 134. Book of Common Prayer.\n\n[3] St. John, Gospel, iv. 44.\n\n[4] Mal. i. 2.\n\n[5] 1 Corinthians ii. 7-10, 12, 13, 16. Ibid. iv. 1, 5.\n\n[6] 2 Corinthians iv. 7.\n\n[7] 1 Corinthians xv. 22.\n\n[8] St. Matthew xxv. 14 to 29, inclusive.\n\n[9] St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 25, 26) defines \"mystery\" as above given: \"Now to\nhim that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the\npreaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, which\nwas kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the\nscriptures of the prophets,\" &c.\n\n[10] Exodus vi. 2, 3. \"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am\nthe Lord [or JEHOVAH], and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto\nJacob, by _the name of_ God Almighty; but by my name JEHOVAH was I not\nknown to them.\"\n\n[11] Genesis vii. 2, 3.\n\n[12] Ibid vii. 9.\n\n[13] Ibid xii.\n\n[14] Ibid xx.\n\n[15] Ibid xxvi.\n\n[16] Exodus iv. 27, 28. \"And the Lord said unto Aaron, Go into the\nwilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and\nkissed him.\"\n\n[17] Weber. Outlines of Universal History. Am. Ed., p. 4.\n\n[18] Exodus vii. 11. \"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men, and the\nsorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with\ntheir enchantments.\"\n\n[19] Weber. Outlines Univ. Hist. Sec. 12, p. 12.\n\n[20] Christ. Breithaupt. Prof. &c. _De arte decifratoria._ Helmstadtii,\napud Ch. Fried. Weygand. MDccxxxvii. p. 13. \"Apud veteres AEgyptios, vt ab\nhis dicendi initium faciamus, praeter vulgares litteras, tria adhuc alia\ncharacterum genera celebrantur, quibus _ad mysteria sua_ condenda fuerunt\nusi. Diserte hoc celebris ille stromatum conditor, Clem. Alexandrinus (lib.\nv. Stromatum, pag. 563, edit. Paris, de an. 1612), docet, ita scribens. s:\n'Qui docentur ab AEgyptiis primum quidem discunt AEgyptiarum litterarum viam\nac rationem, quae vocatur [Greek: epizolographike], i.e., apta ad scribendas\nepistolas: secundam autem, sacerdotalem, qua vtuntur [Greek:\nhierogrammateis], i.e., qui de rebus sacris scribunt: vltimam autem [Greek:\nhierogluphiken], i.e., sacram, quae insculpitur, scripturam, cuius vna\nquidem est per prima elementa [Greek: kuriologike], i.e., propria loquens,\naltera vero symbolica, i.e., per signa significans.' Cum Clementi\nconferendus est Arabs Abenephi, cuius verba ita se habent: (Scriptum hoc\nArabicum asseruatur in bibliotheca Vaticana, et typis nondum expressum est;\nab Ath. Kirchero autem in Obelisco Pamphilio saepius citatur: vnde etiam ea,\nquae hic ex illo adduximus, depromta sunt.) 'Erant autem AEgyptus quatuor\nlitterarum genera: primum erat in vsu apud populum et idiotas; secundum\napud philosophos et sapientes: tertium erat mixtum ex litteris et symbolis\nsive imaginibus: quartum vsupabatur a sacerdotalibus, erant que litterae\navium, quibus sacramenta indicabant divinitatis.' Ex quo posteriori\ntestamento hoc discimus, quod erudite inter AEgyptios peculiari et a\ncommunibus litteris diuerso scripturae genere vsi sint ad doctrinas suas\npropagandas. Vti exempla ostendunt, constitit hoec scriptura partim ex\ncertis sententiis et argutis symbolis, partim ex historicis fictionibus,\nsecretiori docendi methodo accommodatis.\" ... \"Omnes, qui de rebus diuinis\ntractarunt, tam Barbari quam Graeci rerum quidem principia occultaverint:\nveritatem autem aenigmatibus, signisque & symbolis, & allegoriis rursus, &\nmetaphoris, & quibusdam tropis modisque tradiderunt.\"\n\n[21] Exodus vii. 11, 12.\n\n[22] Ibid vii. 22.\n\n[23] Ibid viii. 7.\n\n[24] Rheinisches Conversations-Lexicon. Koeln und Bonn. 1827. Vol. 7, page\n432. \"Magier, Magie, ein urspruenglich medischer Volksstamm, dem, der Sitte\ndes Orients zufolge, die Erhaltung der wissenschaftlichen Kenntnisse und\ndie Ausuebung der heiligen Gebraeuche der Religion ueberlassen war; nachher im\nspeziellen Sinne die Priesterkaste der Perser und Meder. Der Name kommt aus\ndem Pehlei; Mag oder Mog heisst in dieser Sprache ueberhaupt ein Priester.\nAls eigner Stamm der Meder werden sie ausdruecklich von Herodot erwaehnt.\nZoroaster war nicht der Stifter, sondern nur der Reformator der Magier oder\nvielmehr ihrer Lehrsaetze. Daher widersetzten sich die zu seiner Zeit\nvorhandenen Magier anfangs seinen Neuerungen und werden von ihm verstucht.\nNachdem sie seine Verbesserungen angenommen hatten, organisirte er auch\nihre inneren Einrichtungen und theilte sie in Lehrlinge, Meister und\nvollendete Meister. Ihr Studium und ihre Wissenschaft bestand in der\nBeobachtung der heiligen Gebraeuche, in der Kenntniss der heiligen\nGebetformeln oder Liturgien, mit denen Ormuzd verehrt wurde; und der bei\nGebeten und Opfern gebraeuchlichen Zeremonien. Nur durch sie konnte man\nGebete und Opfer der Gottheit darbringen; nur sie waren die Mittelpersonen\nzwischen der Gottheit und den Menschen; nur ihnen offenbarte jene ihren\nWillen; nur sie blickten in die Zukunft, und enthuellten sie dem, der bei\nihnen darnach forsichte. Spaeter hat man Magier ueberhaupt, Zauberer,\nWundershaeter, Goldmacher und dergl. genannt.\"\n\n[25] Heeren's Politics of Ancient Greece, ch. iii., p. 65. Bancroft, Amed.,\n1824.\n\n[26] Delafield's Antiquities of America, pp. 69-71, et notae.\n\n[27] Sir William Jones, vol. i., p. 92.\n\n[28] Heeren's Politics of Ancient Greece: Am. ed., 1824, p. 64. Also\nBryant's Ancient Mythology, ii., 390.\n\n[29] Encyclopaedia Americana, vol. ix. (1835), p. 118.\n\n[30] Gen. x. 8-12. This is adopting the marginal for the text reading of\nthe passage, and the reason for it is this: The above is a clear historical\naccount of those who journeyed to the plains of Shinar, which were only the\ndescendants of Cush the father of Nimrod; though Asshur is said to have\ngone and builded the city of Nineveh, with the others mentioned in the\ntext--which Asshur was one of the sons of Shem, who perhaps was blended by\nmarriage, or other connections, with his relations the sons of Ham, unless\nit can be shown that there was one of that name in Ham's descendants as\nwell as Shem's son. It was something particular (if correct) that Moses\nshould bring in Asshur into his account of Ham's issue, because he was very\nstrict in giving such relations of Japheth and Shem in their own places.\nWould Noah, who was so much disgusted at his son Ham as to curse him,\npermit the children of his other sons, whom he blessed, to have any\ncommunication with his children? Bishop Cumberland, in the last century,\ntook some pains to unravel this, and concluded that the marginal\ntranslation in our bibles is the right one--that in the text being, \"Out of\nthat land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh\", &c.; that in the margin,\n\"And he [Nimrod] went out of that land into Assyria\"--for Asshur generally\nin scripture signifies _the Assyrian_, excepting only in the genealogies:\nand in support of this he brings forward many authentic testimonies. (See\nParsons's Remains of Japheth, p. 15: London, 1767.)\n\n[31] Encyclopaedia Americana, title \"Mysteries,\" vol. ix., p. 118.\n\n[32] Deut. xviii. 10.\n\n[33] Livy, iv., c. 22.\n\n[34] 1 Sam. xxviii. 19.\n\n[35] Eccles. xlvi.\n\n[36] Lib. v., c. 92.\n\n[37] Isaiah xxix. 4; also viii. 19.\n\n[38] Alcestis, 1127.\n\n[39] Oedipus, Act iii., 530.\n\n[40] See Rufinius, i., 155.\n\n[41] Phars., vi., 670. This writer proposes hereafter to publish an essay\non the intercourse between the living and the dead, as connected with\nnatural magic, even to the present day.\n\n[42] Lib. i., El. ii., 45.\n\n[43] Heeren. Politics Anc. Greece; Am. Ed., p. 68. See also page following.\n\n[44] Rees' Cyclop. vol. vii. voc. \"Chaldean Philosophy.\"\n\n[45] Daniel ii.\n\n[46] The true God, JAH, was God over the false deities, Baalim.\n\n[47] Daniel v. 6, 7.\n\n[48] Acts vii. 23.\n\n[49] Disq. Hist. de variis modis occvlte scribendi, Helmstadt. MDccxxxvii.\npp. 23-26. \"Illud memorandum, quod Kabbalistarum antiquiores etiam ex\nfigura quatuor linearum, quae inuicem sese intersecant, & in medio quadratum\nefficiunt, occultum scripturae genus excogitarint sequentem in modum. In\nsingulis sectionibus tres collocant litteras a dextra ad sinistram. Quando\nigitur primam extribus intelligunt, figuram sectionis istuis, in qua\nreperitur, cum vno puncto scribunt; si alteram, eandam figuram cum duobus\npunctis; si tertiam, rursus eandem cum tribus punctis.\"\n\n[50] \"Illorum philosophia sublimis, quam _Kabbalam_ vocant, diuersas sub se\ncomplectitur species, quarum quaedam huc pertinent. In famossissimo illo\nlibello magico Rasiel, quem Kabbalistae in magna veneratione habent, tria\nimprimis secreta alphabeta leguntur, quae a communi Ebraicarum litterarum\nforma & ductu in multis abeunt. Primum vocatur scriptura coelestis; alterum\nscriptura angelorum sive regum; & tertium scriptura transitus\nfluvii.--_Disq. Hist._ &c., _ibidem._\n\n[51] Herm. Von der Hardt, celeberrimus aetatis nostrae philologus, duorum\netiam singularium alphabetorum meminit, quibus Judaei in amuletis suis\nconficiendis utuntur. Primum est, si proxima semper pro proecedente\nsubstituitur littera, nimirum [Hebrew: B] pro [Hebrew: '], [Hebrew: G] pro\n[Hebrew: B] & sic porro. Hoctegere dicuntur confessionem suam de vno vero\nDeo, quam quotidie mane & circa vesperam recitant, & de qua sibi\npersuadent, quod effica cissimum contra idololatriam proesidium sit, quo\nquasi proemuniantur, ne a veritate ad falsam religionem desciscant. Alterum\nalphabetum occultum in eo consistit, quod ordine elementorum in uerso\nvltimam litteram [Hebrew: T] cum prima [Hebrew: '], & hanc cum illa\nvicissim permutent, & sic etiam reliquas: quam inversionem [Hebrew: 'TBSH]\ndicere moris est. Ex hoc maiusculis litteris in nobilioribus amuletis\nconspicuum symbolum [Hebrew: MTSPTS] conficiunt, quod nihil iterum aliud,\nquam nomen Dei [Hebrew: YHWH]. HIERONYMUS, non incelebris primae ecclesiae\npater contendit (hereinafter quoted) prophetam _Jeremiam_ hoc scribendi\ngenere vsum fuisse, &, ne regem Babyloniae adversus Ebraeos irritaret, pro\nrege [Hebrew: BBL] dixisse [Hebrew: SHSHK]. Quin etiam sunt inter Judaeos,\nqui verba illa apud Danielem [Hebrew: MN' MN' TQL WPRSYN], quae super caenam\nregis Belsazaris e pariete per miraculum ad stuporem omnium prodibant,\neodem modo scripta fuisse, atque iccirco hanc artificiosam litterarum\ntranspositionem a Deo ipso primam originem suam trahere existimant. Sed\nincerta hoec & transeunda.\n\n[52] Tom. iv. Oper. comment. in Jerem. cxxv., 26, p. 286, edit. Coloniens.\nde an. 1616.\n\n[53] See Conf. Lud. Henr. Hillerus, in praefat. mysterii artis stenographicae\nnouissimi Vlmae an. 1682 editi.\n\n[54] Breithaupt, Disq. Hist., p. 25, notis.\n\n[55] 2 Chron. i. 12.\n\n[56] Ezra vii. 1-6.\n\n[57] Heb. ix. 4: and hereto agree Abarbanel on 1 Kings viii. 9, and R. Levi\nBen Gersom.--Prideaux Conn. i. 297.\n\n[58] Deut. xxxi. 26: Or, as others interpret it, \"by the side of the ark.\"\n_Mittzad_. 1 Sam. vi. 8. 2 Kings xxii. 8. Prideaux i. 297.\n\n[59] Prideaux i. 297.\n\n[60] Vide Buxtorfii Synagogam. c. 14.\n\n[61] 2 Maccabees ii.\n\n[62] 2 Chron. xxxv. 3.\n\n[63] Prideaux i. 303-'4. It were well to call to the reader's attention\nhere, the remarkable subterranean discoveries made this year (1856), and\nstill going on in Jerusalem, under the Austrian authorities there.\n\n[64] Prideaux i. 285.\n\n[65] Vol. i., Connex. pp. 383, 384.\n\n[66] Isaiah xlv. 5-7.\n\n[67] Prideaux, Con. i. 389.\n\n[68] Page 25.\n\n[69] Prideaux i. 338-'9.\n\n[70] Plato in Alcibiade i. Stobases, p. 496. Clem. Alex. in Paedagogo i. p.\n81.\n\n[71] Prideaux Con. i. 395.\n\n[72] Cicero de Divinatione, l. i. Philo Judaeus de spec. leg. Plutarch in\nArtaxerxe.\n\n[73] Prideaux i. 404-'5.\n\n[74] See page 21, antea.\n\n[75] Heeren, Politics Anc. Greece, p. 292.\n\n[76] Remains of Japheth, 136.\n\n[77] A bad way to extirpate error. Education, reason, and piety will meet\nerror openly.\n\n[78] 2 Phil. ii. 9, 10.\n\n[79] Matthew xv. 2, 3.\n\n[80] Mark vii. 5-9.\n\n[81] Coloss. ii. 8.\n\n[82] 2 Thess. iii. 6, 7.\n\n[83] Acts xx. 7, 8.\n\n[84] John xx. 19.\n\n[85] Neander, Gen. Hist. of Christ. Rel. &c., p. 98.\n\n[86] Brev. Rom., p. 251. Lectio iij. infra Hebd. quartam Quadragesimae.\n\"Audistis grande mysterium. Interroga hominem: Christianus es? Respondet\ntibi: non sum. Si paganus es, aut Judaeus? Si autem dixerit, non sum: adhuc\nquaeris ab eo, Catechumenus, an fidelis? Si responderet tibi, Catechumenus:\ninunctus est, nondum lotus. Sed unde inunctus? Quaere, et respondet. Quaere\nab illo, in quem credat? Eo ipso quo Catechumenus est, dicit, In Christum.\nEcce modo loquor et fidelibus et catechumenis. Quid dixi de sputo et luto?\nQuia verbum caro factum est; hoc catechumeni audiunt: sed non eis sufficit\nad quod inuncti sunt: festinent ad lavacrum, si lumen inquirunt.\"\n\n[87] Brev. Rom. p. 652. Festa Maji. Lectio viii. \"Si ergo Nicodemus de\nillis multis erat qui crediderunt in nomine ejus, jam in isto Nicodemo\nattendamus, quare Jesus non se credebat eis. Respondit Jesus, et dixit ei:\nAmen, Amen dico tibi, nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo, non potest videre\nregnum Dei. Ipsis ergo se credit Jesus, qui nati fuerint denuo. Ecce illi\ncrediderant in eum, et Jesus non se credebat eis. Tales sunt, omnes\nCatechumeni: ipsi jam credunt in nomine Christi, sed Jesus non se credit\neis. Intendat et intelligat charitas vestra. Si dixerimus catechumeno:\ncredis in Christum? Respondet, credo, et signat se cruce Christi: portat in\nfronte, et non erubescit de cruce Domini sui. Ecce credit in nomine ejus.\nInterrogemus cum: Manducas carnem filii hominis, et bibis sanguinem filii\nhominis? Nescit quid dicimus, quia Jesus non se credidit ei.\"\n\n[88] 1 Corinth. iii. 1, 2.\n\n[89] 1 Peter ii. 2.\n\n[90] Hebrews v. 12-14.\n\n[91] Hebrews vi. 1.\n\n[92] Matt. x. 5, &c.\n\n[93] John xviii. 36.\n\n[94] Llorente, Hist. Span. Inq. London. 1827.\n\n[95] Enc. Brit. xv. 674.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nCorrections made to printed original.\n\np. 17. \"Pharaoh, king of Egypt\": 'Pharoah' in original. Also in Note 18.\n\np. 44. \"more easily be employed\": 'he' (for 'be') in original.\n\nibid. \"the human mind is an emanation\": 'humid' (for 'human') in original.\n\np. 49, diagram. Actual Hebrew letters in original. mem and tet are\ntransposed, kaph and vav look just like resh. * = final forms.\n\np. 52, note \"54\". Footnote marker missing, inserted in what seems to me the\nmost likely place.\n\np. 67. \"kings should be subject to the laws\": 'king' (ungrammatically) in\noriginal.\n\np. 72. \"[Greek: episkopos] or bishop. [Greek: episkokos] in original.\n\np. 98. \"All are bound to obey him implicitly\": 'implicity' in original.\n\nNote 20. \"Christ. Breithaupt\": 'Breithaurpt' in original. \"MDccxxxvii\": MD\nin apostrophus form in text. So also in note 49, where an apostrophus is\nput wrongly for the cc.\n\nNotes 68, 74. The page numbers omitted in the original.","title":"Mysticism and its results : $b Being an inquiry into the uses and abuses of secrecy","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":27953}