Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AXD 1I1S SECRET SOCIETY. 319
with horns flat or exalted; curved like the crescent moon, or
rounded like leaves. Bulls with bland expressions and regular
features, formed by the adroit arrangement of a fleur-de-lis for
eyes, nose and mouth. Bulls with a Greek cross growing out at
the tops of their heads, or a Mercury's rod entwined with a serpent
descending from their chins, and terminated by various
symbols, as the triangle, the figure 4,
the rose or five-petaled
flower, the fleur-de-lis, or the so-called Templar's or Maltese
cross.
Ubiquitous as this mark is in the old paper of the continent
before the days of printing, and although fine specimens
may be seen of it in letters from foreign ecclesiastics and statesmen,
in Cotton's collection of Baconian MSS., we have not yet
found one specimen in an English printed book. Special attention
is, however, drawn to it because we are sure that this bull's
head, more and more disguised, was, in England especially,
changed into the mock shields which pervade Baconian literature,
and which, as we will presently show, are used in the
present day by the same society which introduced them three
hundred years ago. l
This paper-mark is peculiarly interesting, and to the present
purpose as a forcible witness to the fact that the origin and
meaning of these marks is distinctly religious, and the symbolism
of the mediaeval and modern churches in direct and legitimate
descent from that of the most ancient forms of worship, when
men, groping after truth, sought for means by which they
might make visible, to those who were more dull and dark than
themselves, thoughts and aspirations which they had hardly
words to express, or their hearers intelligence to comprehend.
The bull was one of the most ancient Indian and Egyptian
emblems of God; a symbol of patience, strength, and persistency
in effort.
It is said to be in consequence of these attributes of
the bull that Taurus became the appointed zodiacal sign
at the vernal equinox; and under that sign God was adored as
The Sun, or the Bull.
1 The bull is considered by Janscn to distinguish books by Fust. The single
head belongs to Germanv.