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.0:14 BOOK OF THE A. AND A. UITE.
liither to inaugurate this Temph, which the Supreme Council
desires to dedicate to the God of Beneficence.
Or.'. Com:, (rising). Is it your pleasure, Sublime Princes and
Commanders, that this Temple shall be inaugurated V
All. It is.
Qr.\ Com.: Sublime Princes, the world is filled with the ruins
of temples, erected by the ancients to their imaginary deities. In
Egypt, India, Ethiopia, and Chaldea, the lover of antiquity and
the eager student gaze enraptured on the huge remains of mighty
edifices sorely stricken by the relentless hand of time, in which,
when they stood in all their splendor and glory in that East,
teeming with the hosts of its mighty population, Atiiomox and
Ammon, Brahma and Buddah, Totii and Bael were worshipped
The great cavern temples of Elephanta, Salsette,
Carnac, Luxor, and Thebes, still remain to astound us with
their vastness. The sculptured columns of an hundred fanes
builded to the gods of Olympus, and enriched with all that was
rare and wondrous in architecture, painting, and statuary, still
remain, some standing and some fallen and broken on the classic
soil of Greece. The artist is familiar with the great temples
reared to the gods in Rome ; and the ruins of Etruscan sanctu-
aries still tempt the antiquarian.
While Hiram worshipped in the Temple of Belus, builded by his
ancestors in his royal city of Tyre, Solomon, whom masonry
claims for its Grand Master, erected the first Temple at Jerusalem,
believing that the infinite and omnipotent God would come
down and dwell therein, and utter his oracles from between the
extended wings of the cherubim on the mercy-seat ; whither the
priests repaired to consult the Shekina, or oracle of God.
The Mahometan rears his mosques, the children of Israel their
synagogues, and the Christian his churches, devoted to the wor-
ship and disputes of an hundred sects. To adorn the cathedrals of
the great Catholic world, the arts contributed their most glorious
works ; and there the great productions, of the genius of Angelo
and Raphael, and many other immortal painters and sculptors,
yet remain unapproachable in beauty and sublimity, to be imi-
tated and copied, but never to be equalled.
If the shattered columns and mouldering walls of pagan tem-
ples, if the arches and vaults of mosque and church and cathe-
dral could speak, what lessons could they not teach to tht