Britain ... - Blue-Lite

" drunk !
"
DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY. 447
But this only subverts what Mr. Oliver would
confirm. Plato never saw all Athens "drunk" at the secret
Mysteries, simply because not half the Athenians were ever
admitted to their celebration.
"
In the dark ages of the heathen world," says our worthy
brother "
again, we discover few appearances of Masonry,
except in Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, and Rome." (Antiqu. of
Free-Mas.} O, then we do discover it still among the heathen!
Well, if such be the case, and it can be discovered by this
author in all these places, we will try, ere long, if it cannot be
discovered also in the Druidical islands of the West. We
must first, however, introduce another quotation from the
same source.
" It is a remarkable evidence of the connexion
of Masonry with religion, that in proportion as the knowledge
of the true God has declined in all the countries of the earth,
Masonry has also receded from the view. And it may be safely
added, that no certain traces of genuine Masonry have been
found to exist in any country, or amongst any people who
have altogether renounced the true worship of God, and set up
an idol in his stead." To all this we most readily subscribe j
for, in the first place, we never yet heard of one nation, pretend-
ing to any degree of civilization, that did not acknowledge,
above all their subordinate deities, demons, and angels, One
Supreme and Universal Lord of All. Even the Sclavonian
tribes, amid their gross idolatry, entertained, as the German
historians affirm, this sublime belief. That such was the
doctrine of the ancient Mysteries in India, Persia, Egypt, Phoe-
nicia, and Greece, Brother Oliver has himself unequivocally
proclaimed 3 and that the Druids entertained the same faith,
we are fully prepared to prove.
We have already avowed it to be our firm opinion, that
Free-Masonry descended to us from the Druids, nor is there
which it could
any other channel, that we can discover, by
have been conveyed down to the present day. Let us, then,
inquire what these Druids were, and what their religious tenets.
"The Druids were not of the Epicurean school, but were
firm believers in a Supreme Being, and, in general, held the
doctrines of Pythagoras." Celt. Druids.