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

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARThis explanation will enable the reader to understandwhat is meant by exploring Jerusalem. It issimply to go to the bottom $f that enormous moundof dust and ashes, and let in the light upon streetsand foundations upon which it shone two thousandyears ago. In this respect there is a most exactanalogy between the exploration of Jerusalem andof Pompeii. Over the latter city the superincumbentmass is scoriae, lava and volcanic ashes; inthe former the accumulations are of pulverized limestone,added, of course, to the garbage of the city,shreds of pottery, bones, etc., etc., the accumulationsof that extended period. It is no romance tosay that the present Jerusalem overlies many Jerusalemsthat have gone to dust, in the centuries sincethe Jebusites established their citadel upon MountZion, before the time of Abraham, and that the explorer'sspade must pass these graves of cities oneby one to find the remnants which he seeks. Theseremarks are likewise applicable to the old sites ofTyre, Sidon, Gebal, etc.The Foundation of the Temple.It is difficult for the superficial reader to comprehendthat although the temple of Solomon isabsolutely gone effaced from the earth, so that nota crumb or fragment can be recognized yet itsfoundation remains. By this term is not meantthe walls upon which the temple was built (comparingit with an ordinary edifice), but the platform,the hill, the mound artificially erected to serve as abasis for the sublime structure.The hill, styledin the Old Testament Moriah,45