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

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARhiret, from Kaphar, "to forgive sin," and hence theEnglish name of "mercy-seat," as being the placewhere the intercession fo sin was made. Aaron'srod was made sacred and carried in the ark fromthe manner in which the tribe of Levites were chosento be invested with the priesthood. The pot ofmanna was placed in the ark of the covenant tocommemorate the heavenly bread, by which theIsraelites were sustained in the wilderness; and isconsidered as a symbol of life, not the transitory,but the enduring one of a future world.Having again taken up their march and arrivingat the wilderness of Paran,* Moses sent twelve chosenmen, one of each tribe,Canaan, who, after forty days,to examine the land ofreturn to Kadeshbarnea,*,acity at the southeast border of Palestine,and bring an evil report of the land. Caleb andthose that searched theJoshua, who were amongland, said to the children of Israel, "Let us go upat once and possessit ;for we are well able to overcomeit." "If the Lord delight in us, then he willbring us into this land, and giveit us, a land whichfloweth with milk and honey;" but the people murmurand rebel, and God swears in his wrath thatnone of the murmurers shall enter the land, but beconsumed in the desert,* where they are doomed towander forty years. The people, however, resolveto enter Canaan against the will of God, butare this time repulsed by the Amalekites (Num.xiii., xiv.). Moses then in his progress from Sinaito Canaan, a desert march from station to stationthrough a period of forty years, arrives with hispeople near the border of Palestine in the desert ofZin,* and from there seeks passage through the31