Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

221.And why is this true? Because the Vishnu of the Brahminical Trinity, the Isis of the Egyptian and the Holy Ghost of the Christians and symbolized in ^[123] the Roman Catholic Church, by the Madonna, is the Mother Principle of every living thing in the universe, and, when a man or woman has their spiritual mind awakened they have a love for everything that lives and breathes, and they look on every object in Nature as the outward manifestation of the Divine Living Principle within. God is in all, and no matter at what Shrine we worship, God is there.

222." The whole design of Freemasonry as a Speculative science is the investigation of Divine Truths. To this great object everything else is subsidiary. The Mason is, from the time of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of Masonic light, an investigator — a laborer in the quarry and the temple — whose reward is to be truth, and all the ceremonies and traditions of the order tend to this ultimate design. In Speculative Freemasonry there is an advancement from a lower to a higher state — from darkness to light — from death to life — from error to truth.

223."The Mason living and working in the world as his lodge, must seek to raise himself out of it to that eminence which surmounts it, where alone he can find the truth."*

224."Every Speculative Mason is familiar with the fact that the East, as the source of material light, is a symbol of his own order, which professes to contain within its bosom the pure light of truth. As, in ^[124] the physical world, the morning of each day is ushered into existence by the redlening dawn of the Eastern sky, whence the rising sun dispenses his illuminating and prolific rays to every portion of the visible horizon, warming the whole earth with his embrace of light, and giving new-born life and energy to flowers and tree, and beast and man, who, at the magic touch, awake from the sleep of darkness, so in the moral world, when intellectual night was, in the earliest days, brooding over the world, it was from the Ancient Priesthood living in the East that those lessons of God, of Nature, and of Humanity first emanated, which, traveling Westward, revealed to man his future destiny, and his dependence on a Superior Power. Thus every new and true doctrine, coming from these 'Wise Men of the East' was, as it were, a new day rising, and dissipating the clouds of intellectual darkness and error. It was a universal opinion among the Ancients that the first learning came from the East (and a very true one); and the often-quoted line of Bishop Berkeley, that —

'Westward the course of empire takes its way' — is but the modern utterance of an Ancient thought, for it was always believed that the empire of Truth and Knowledge was advancing from the East to the West."*

226.Mystic Masonry, which naturally includes Craft Masonry, holds within itself the only true religion now in the world, that Divine Truth which ^[125] guides man in his pilgrimage through life, and confers on its initiates such knowledge and science that nothing more is required by the Soul in its onward Path. It is not only the repository of Religion, but it holds the Key to all Religion.

227."Freemasonry itself anciently received, among other appellations, that of Lux, or Light, to signify that it is to be regarded as that Sublime doctrine of Divine Truth by which the path of him who has attained it is to be illuminated in his pilgrimage through life.

228."Light was, in accordance with the old religious sentiment, the great object of attainment in all the Ancient religious Mysteries. It was there, as it is now, in Masonry, made the symbol of truth and knowledge. This was always its ancient symbolism, and we must never lose sight of this emblematic meaning, when we are considering the nature and significance of Masonic light.