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DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY.
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forgery, as some have imagined, for they embodied the doctrines
and belief propagated in the Mysteries of the whole
Gentile world.
What true Mason, then, would be ashamed to acknowledge
himself the successor of these venerable and learned Druids ?
So far from being any degradation, as some have supposed, to
Free-Masonry to be derived from the ancient Mysteries, we
believe it to be one of its greatest honours, proclaiming incon-
testibly its exceeding high antiquity, to which it would otherwise
have a very doubtful claim. But Masonry being decidedly
Christian in its principles, and allowing what we have
clearly proved, namely that the Mysteries of the Druids had
a reference to an expected Saviour, the whole chain of con-
nexion shines out in its full brightness from that link to which
we are joined, down, through all time, to that which is
united to the very gates of Paradise. It is in this way, and in
no other, that we can clearly perceive, to use again the words
of Brother Oliver, " that Christianity, or the system of salva-
tion through a crucified Mediator, was the main pillar of Free-
Masonry ever since the fall."
Nor are we singular in our opinion of the source from
whence our Order is derived. Capt. Smith, who in 1783 was
P. G. M. for the county of Kent, but without much knowledge
of the real import of the ancient Mysteries, says, in his Use
and Abuse
"
of Free- Masonry, The Druids, when they committed
any thing to writing, used the Greek alphabet and I
5
am bold to assert, that the most perfect remains of the Druids'
rites and ceremonies are preserved in the customs and cere-
monies of the Masons, that are to be found existing among
mankind."
For ourselves, we feel proud to be an humble member of a
brotherhood, which we firmly believe to be a faithful representative
of that once-powerful Order the Cabiric Druids, who
were so illustrious for their learning, their arts and sciences,
their morality and their virtue, and whose secret worship, as
the Rev. Canon Bowles declares, was of one infinite God of all.
(See Hermes Britannicus.)
If Free-Masonry be not derived from the Druids, how came