The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN BRITAIN. 137
their probation, which was very severe. Sometimes the
candidate was doomed to a seclusion of twenty years, 13
which was spent amidst the secret recesses of an inaccessible
forest, 14 in a close and devoted application to
study and reflection, and the practice of gymnastic exercises.
But this lengthened probation extended only to
such as were regularly educated and initiated into the
mysteries, for the express purpose of occupying the most
elevated situations in the civil or ecclesiastical
departments
of the state. These were instructed in all the
sciences of which the Druids made profession. They
were excited to emulate the heroic deeds of their progenitors,
whose bravery was inculcated in verse, that it
never be banished from the recollection. 15
might
The aspirant for mere initiation, was clad in a robe
striped alternately with white, skyline, and green ,
16 which
were the sacred colours of Druidism, and emblematical
of light, truth, and hope; and confined in a cromlech
without food three days prior to his admission into each
17
of the two first degrees that ;
is, he was placed in the
pastos with the usual ceremonies on the evening
of the
first day, 18 remained an entire day enclosed, or dead in the
language of the mysteries, and was liberated for initia-
tion, or in other words, restored to life on the third. 19
dinary purity. In some parts of Britain they were denominated
Main Ambres and the ; ingenious Dr. Stukeley conjectures that the
primitive name of Stonehenge was "the Ambres," whence was derived
the name of Ambresbury, a village in the immediate vicinity
of that celebrated monument of antiquity.
13 14
Cesar. 1. vi.
Gollut. Ax. 1.
15
Borl. Ant. Corn., p. 82.
16 Owen's W, Diet., v. Glain.
17
Signs and Symbols, Lect. vi.
18
"It was customary with the Hebrews," says the Ajbbe Fleury,
(Manners of the Ancient Israelites, p. 4, c. 3,) "to express a whole
day by the terms, the evening and the morning ; or by these, the
night and the day; which the Greeks express by their nuchthemeron ;
and which as well
signifies any particular part of the day or night,
as the whole of it. And this is the reason why a thing that has lasted
two nights and one whole day, and a part only of the preceding and
following days, is said by the Hebrews to have lasted three days and
three nights."
19 This was symbolical of the patriarch Adam, who died on one
day, the world before the Flood being so esteemed remained in the
;
tomb another i. day, e., during the continuance of the post-diluvian
world; and will rise again to judgment on the third or eternal day;
and being purified from his corruptions, will remain for ever happy