Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/72

Rh [immediately after the Deluge], it became necessary for those who held to the worship of the true God to form themselves into a distinct order—not only those who were of the children of Israel, but also others, who retained the traditions of Israel's God, though of Gentile blood. The time arrived when openly to worship the true God was attended with danger; and then it was that our brethren had special recourse to hieroglyphics and symbols to preserve secrecy, lest they should be exposed to the arm of persecution. But as, indeed, the arcana or recondite points of religion were always in possession of the priests alone, among the different idolatrous peoples; and as peculiar forms of initiation were practiced by them, attended with the greatest secrecy (not to say with positive danger to the candidates), the same practice was resorted to by the votaries of the true God, at least so far as secrecy was concerned—secrecy from that time forth ranking as a virtue among Masons, and justly so. Again, to preserve the privileges of the Order, strict secrecy was observed, lest those privileges should become abused. Among the ancients, secrecy stood high as a mark of wisdom.

, also, on this subject says: "If we turn our eyes back to antiquity, we shall find that the old Egyptians had so great a regard for silence and secrecy in the mysteries of their religion, that they set up the god Harpocrates, to whom they paid particular honor and veneration, who was represented with his right hand placed near the heart, and the left down by his side, covered with a skin, before full of eyes and ears, to signify that, of many things to be seen and heard, few are to be published."

The instructions which constitute the hidden or esoteric knowledge in Freemasonry are forbidden to be written, and can only be communicated by oral intercourse of one Mason with another. This is another instance of the great antiquity of the usages of Freemasonry, which is presenting such collateral evidences of its venerable age.

In all the ancient mysteries, the same reluctance to commit the esoteric instructions of the hierophants to writing is apparent