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DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY.
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most distant claim to the rites of divine worship. The UNITY
OP THE GODHEAD was then inculcated, together with the doc-
trine of a future state of rewards and punishments""
"Virtue, however," as quaintly, though truly, says the learned
author of the Round Towers of Ireland, "is its own reward 5"
and as the authority of Cicero, having himself been a priest,
ought to have some weight in this discussion, it is no small
impetus to the cause of truth to hear this pre-eminent man
assign to the efficacy of the precepts inculcated in these Mysteries
" the knowledge of the God of nature, the First, the
Supreme, the Intellectual, by which men had been reclaimed
from rudeness and barbarism to elegance and refinement, and
been taught not only to live with comfort, but to die with
better hopes." From what pulpit in Christendom will you
hear better or more orthodox truths ? Where will you find
the Gospel more energetically enunciated ?
{t \ have already redeemed the character of those ceremo-
nies," says the same author in another place, " from the
sinister imputations which attached to their secrecy. An ap-
prehension that their publication would subvert the popular
belief, or a supposed indelicacy in their tenour, were the mildest
constructions which the uninitiated would afford them. Though
secure in the sufficiency of my former proofs, I cannot resist
taking support from an article in a very talented publication
of our day, in which the writer confirms the fact of their worth
and their purity : 'From the whole concurrent testimony of
ancient history,' says he, e we must believe that the Eleusinian
Mysteries were used for good purposes, for there is not an
instance on record that the honour of an initiation was ever
obtained by a very bad man. The Hierophants, the higher
priests of the Order, were always exemplary in their morals,
"
and became sanctified in the eyes of the people.'
Now we ask, would the virtuous, pious Marcus Antoninus
have regarded these Mysteries, when he desired to clear him-
self to the world of the murder of Avidius Cassius, had they
merited the odium cast upon them ? No : this one instance,
dissolves all the calumnies of their enemies into empty air.
Our Reverend Brother Oliver is compelled to acknowledge,