Britain ... - Blue-Lite

DESCENT OF FREE-MASONRY. 455
the Druids in this island must have been good and honest
Masons.
But we should like to be informed if Pythagoras also pil-
grimaged so far north-west as Ireland, to instruct her sages
in the knowledge of Masonry. Verily, if he did, he must have
before he was born !
gone there ages
Now Balaam, who assumed, as was the custom of many
others of the ancient priesthood, particularly among the Bri-
tons, the name of his god Baal, the sun, the visible emblem of
the Deity, was, as Brother Oliver assures us, " the Master of
a Lodge that adhered strictly to the precepts of Lux and the
patriarchal worship." That this Balaam was also a Druid
diviner and priest, is beyond the power of scepticism to denyj
for the Canaanites, in their dresses, war-chariots, hill-cities
or fortifications, altars, temples, and sacrifices, were precisely
similar to the ancient Britons. He commanded seven altars
or high-places to be built, corresponding to the seven trilithons
or lofty altars, which, according to the learned King, once
stood at Stonehenge. (Vide Muni. Antiq?) (( And Balaam offered
on every altar a bullock and a ram." After several removals,
Balak brought Balaam to the top of PEOR. "And Balaam said
unto Balak, build me here seven altars," &c. To whom were
these altars at Baal-Peor erected ? The Baal-Peor of the
Scriptures was the Baal-Phearagh of Ireland, and the copulative
Deity of the amative universe. The worship of this
Baal, then, was the worship of Budh, indiscriminately implying
the Lingham and the Sun, and in its primitive
senting
state repre-
the worship of Him who is the author of nature, and
the restorer of all
things. And, according to the relation in
the Bible, the true Deity, under all these figures and symbols,
was known and adored by Balaam, even as, by that Druid
prophet's brotherhood, he was worshipped in the far distant
islands of Britain. Now mark the language of this heathen
seer : " He hath said, which heard the words of God and knew
the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the
Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open,
I shall see him, but not now : I shall behold him, but not
nigh : there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall