Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 331
amongst them of transmitting secret information,
and, as we
think, cardinal points of religious doctrine.
For, examine, trace, catalogue as we may, we never get away
from these chief and dominant ideas and meditations of Bacon
upon the unity and diversity and universality of God, in religion
as in nature — of the beauty, love, and order in creation — that
love and truth are inseparable — that the Bible and nature are
God's two great lights, the greater light to rule the day of
spiritual life, the lesser light to rule the night of intellectual
darkness — and that man himself is the little world in which
the whole great world, the universe, is reflected and mirrored.
Never for an instant are we allowed to forget that every good
gift, every power or faculty of soul or intellect, the reason and
speech which raise man above the level of the brute, are " God's
gifts, " to be used to His glory, and for the benefit of His creatures,
and that all mankind is bound together by chains and
links of sympathy and brotherhood, as every part of knowledge
is linked in a never-ending circle.
One more mark should be especially noted, for, although it is
amongst the oldest, it was used all through the life of Bacon,
not only in England, but in books and letters from abroad.
" The open hand " is variously interpreted of faith and trust,
or of generosity and open-handed liberality ; usually these qualities
in their best examples all go together. To the open hand
is sometimes added the trefoil, or the key, symbol of secresy,
or the figure 3, perhaps again an allusion to the Trinity. Every
variety of size, proportion or disproportion, is to be seen in
these hands, which diverge into other forms, puzzling to the
copyist. Sometimes the five fingers spread out into rays, or a
crown, at other times contract, so as to suggest a vase. The
most notable alteration (the addition of a star) seems to have
taken place in the time of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and it was retained
long afterwards.
Mr. Sotheby says that an open hand with a star at the top
was in use as early as 1530, and probably gave the name to the
" hand " paper,