The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

SUPPLEMENTAL ENCYCLOPEDIAby persecution. The firstmonastery was founded by Pachomiuson the island of Tabenna in the Nile, about the year340; the first nunnery by his sister some eight years later.Various developments o^ the monastic system are to befound in the Middle Ages, as the military orders, friars(often distinguished from monks proper),etc. Since theReformation, and especially since the French Revolution,monachism has declined in Western countries, or has beenovershadowed by the society of Jesuits (a religious ojderof the Roman Catholic Church),flourish in Eastern churches.Mosesbut still continues toThe son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribeof Levi, and the younger brother of Miriam and Aaron,was born about 1571 B. C. His history is divided intothree periods, each of forty years. The first extends fromhis infancy, when he was exposed in the Nile, and foundand adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, to his flight toMidian. During this time he lived at the Egyptian court,and "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, andwas mighty in words and in deeds" (Acts vii. 22). Thisis no unmeaning praise the "wisdom" of the; Egyptians,was then the profoundest inand especially of their priests,the world. The second period was from his flight till hisreturn to Egypt, during the whole of which interval heappears to have lived in Midian it may be much after themanner of the Bedaween sheikhs of the present day. Herehe married Zipporah, daughter of the wise and pious Jethro,and became familiar with life in the desert. What a contrastbetween the former period, spent amid the splendorsand learning of a court and this lonely nomadic life. Stillit was in this way that he prepared himself to be the instrumentof deliverance to his people during the third periodof his life, which extends from the exodus out of Egypt tohis death on Mount Nebo. The life and institutions ofMoses breathe a spirit of freedom, purity, intelligence,justice and humanity elsewhere unknown; and, above all,189