Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

The Secret Doctrine.
I45
Syndicates glowering at each other Hke cages of
wild beasts? Ah, my Brother, we are but Httle removed
£rom Barbarism after all, and it does make
all the difference in the world what idea we entertain
of God, and what is our basis of Ethics. The
one idea of the modern Scheme of Salvation is selfpreservation.
We must be saved, if all the rest are
damned, and competition, and egotism, and selfishness
in every form are the legitimate result.
Masonry does not preach a new religion, it but
reiterates the New Commandment announced by
Jesus, which was also announced by every great reformer
of religion since history began. Drop the
theological barnacles from the Religion of Jesus, as
taught by Him, and by the Essenes and Gnostics of
the first centuries, and it becomes Masonry. Masonry
in its purity, derived as it is from the old
Hebrew Kabalah as part of the Great Universal
Wisdom-Religion of remotest Antiquity, stands
squarely for the Unqualified and Universal Brotherhood
of Man, in all time and in every age. To
Christianize Masonry, or to narrow it to the sectarian
bounds of any Creed, is not only to dwarf and
belittle it, but must inevitably result, as among warring
sects, has always resulted with religions, in
setting brother against brother, and Lodge against