The Arcana of Freemasonry (1915) - The Masonic Trowel

THE ARCANA OF FREEMASONRY 117
these writings and their Eschatology were copies
of the Egyptian originals.
Freemasonry, taken as a whole,
i.e. in all its
degrees from first to thirty-third, is the Ritual of
Ancient Egypt, or their Eschatology, i.e. the
doctrine of final things, performed dramatically
and symbolically, the more to impress it upon
the initiates.
There are written records left in this old
language, which I have read, and brought forward
in my books, proving that this doctrine was extant
and perfect, at least as long as three hundred
thousand years ago. It teaches you the life you
should lead here on earth to gain everlasting hap-
piness. It portrays all the dangers and difficulties
the Corpus has to pass through in this life, and
the Manes in the next, to gain that glorious here-
after we are all striving to obtain.
Our present Ritual, Lodges, Passwords, etc., are
not all identically the same as of old ; we have
reconstructed at various times the secrets and parts
of the Ritual as we have found them, and therefore
there are necessarily innovations from the first to
the thirty-third. Our M.M. Lodge
is not correct
in detail, but our R.A. Chapter is perfectly
correct, and is a true copy of the Ancient Lodges,
or Temples, of which we find the remnants, dating
three hundred thousand years back, i.e. as nearly
as possible considering time and evolution. The