THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

a mere useful art, intended for the protection and convenience of man
and
the gratification of his physical wants, the other a profound science,
entering into abstruse investigations of the soul and a future
existence,
and originating in the craving need of humanity to know something that
is
above and beyond the mere outward life that surrounds us with its gross
atmosphere here below.[44] Indeed, the only bond or link that unites
speculative and operative Masonry is the symbolism that belongs
altogether to the former, but which, throughout its whole extent, is
derived from the latter.
Our first inquiry, then, will be into the nature of the symbolism which
operative gives to speculative Masonry; and thoroughly to understand
this--to know its origin, and its necessity, and its mode of
application--we must begin with a reference to the condition of a long
past period of time.
Thousands of years ago, this science of symbolism was adopted by the
sagacious priesthood of Egypt to convey the lessons of worldly wisdom
and
religious knowledge, which they thus communicated to their
disciples.[45]
Their science, their history, and their philosophy were thus concealed
beneath an impenetrable veil from all the profane, and only the few who
had passed through the severe ordeal of initiation were put in
possession
of the key which enabled them to decipher and read with ease those
mystic
lessons which we still see engraved upon the obelisks, the tombs, and
the
sarcophagi, which lie scattered, at this day, in endless profusion
along
the banks of the Nile.
From the Egyptians the same method of symbolic instruction was diffused
among all the pagan nations of antiquity, and was used in all the
ancient
Mysteries[46] as the medium of communicating to the initiated the
esoteric
and secret doctrines for whose preservation and promulgation these
singular associations were formed.
Moses, who, as Holy Writ informs us, was skilled in all the learning of
Egypt, brought with him, from that cradle of the sciences, a perfect
knowledge of the science of symbolism, as it was taught by the priests
of
Isis and Osiris, and applied it to the ceremonies with which he
invested
the purer religion of the people for whom he had been appointed to
legislate.[47]
Hence we learn, from the great Jewish historian, that, in the
construction
of the tabernacle, which gave the first model for the temple at
Jerusalem,