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

Conclusion. 261
to be, and when desolation brooded in silence over
a whole continent, a "Rock beside the Water," or a
symbol trans-planted to another land might serve to
convey the lost secret to another people and time.
Knowing the course of Empire and the inevitable
destiny of Races of man, these Sublime Princes of
the Royal Secret, by wise forethought, determined
that nothing should be lost. Such is the heritage
of Masonry, and Bro. Pike proves this beyond all
controversy by excerpts from the sacred books of all
Religions, and by the most learned and painstaking
investigation. The value of such investigations
does not consist in proving the great antiquity of the
Symbols of Freemasonry, for this is an easy task,
and no one with the shghtest knowledge of the subject
dare dispute it, for the symbols are found on
the oldest monuments, and described in the oldest
records known to man. A far more difficult undertaking,
the results of which are beyond all else valuable,
is the effort to determine exactly what these
symbols mean. If they were the precipitated results
of profound knowledge, the very fruitage of
all past civilizations, some of which transcended all
we have yet achieved in the West, then to correctly
interpret them, means the recovery of all past
knowledge, in substance, if not in detail. This is