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DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY. 439
state of celibacy, and adopted the children of other men, to edu-
cate them in their own principles and customs. (Vide Brucker.)
These Essenes seem to have been refugees, who fled into
Egypt from the oppression of Gedaliah, the governor of Judea
under the king of Assyria; where they, in length of time,
incorporated the doctrines and institutions of Moses, with the
dogmas and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
Now granting these monks, for such they were, to have
been the sole preservers of Masonry, of which there is as little
appearance among them as among the monks of La Trappe,
whom they far more closely resembled than Masons, did they
send missionaries to Britain and Ireland to establish and
preserve the Order in these islands ? That they did so few,
we imagine, will be inclined to maintain and if ;
maintained,
where are the authorities and ? proofs If they did not, then
is it incontestibly certain that Free-Masonry must have de-
scended to us from another source.
We unhesitatingly declare it to be our firm belief, that
Masonry descended to us, through the Druids, from the sublime
Mysteries of the antientsj* we mean the Eastern sages
of the remotest antiquity. There is, in fact, no other way
rationally and consistently to account for its nature and origin.
With regard to these ancient Mysteries, we do not believe one
word respecting the degrading and disgusting impurities said
to have been allowed and practised in those awfully solemn
and secret assemblies. Those deeds of darkness only existed
in the minds of the uninitiated and vulgar, who scandalized
every thing which they could not comprehend, and to the
knowledge of which they were not permitted
to attain -
} while,
unfortunately, the old Christian Fathers, not content with condemning
the absurdities and impiety of the vulgar belief, too
often rashly denounced what was good with that which was evil,
* The Druids retained among them many usages similar to those of
Masons. "In conformity to the ancient practices of the fraternity, we learn
that they held their assemblies in woods and groves, and observed the most
impenetrable secrecy in their principles and opinions. We shall therefore
leave the experienced Mason to make his own reflections on the affinity of
their practices to the rites established among the fraternity."
Preston.