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

same authority, we learn that Truth is a third and not less important
one;
and Truth, too, not in its old Anglo-Saxon meaning of fidelity to
engagements,[232] but in that more strictly philosophical one in which
it
is opposed to intellectual and religious error or falsehood.
But I have shown that the Primitive Freemasonry of the ancients was
instituted for the purpose of preserving that truth which had been
originally communicated to the patriarchs, in all its integrity, and
that
the Spurious Masonry, or the Mysteries, originated in the earnest need
of
the sages, and philosophers, and priests, to find again the same truth
which had been lost by the surrounding multitudes. I have shown, also,
that this same truth continued to be the object of the Temple Masonry,
which was formed by a union of the Primitive, or Pure, and the Spurious
systems. Lastly, I have endeavored to demonstrate that this truth
related
to the nature of God and the human soul.
The search, then, after this truth, I suppose to constitute the end and
design of Speculative Masonry. From the very commencement of his
career,
the aspirant is by significant symbols and expressive instructions
directed to the acquisition of this divine truth; and the whole lesson,
if
not completed in its full extent, is at least well developed in the
myths
and legends of the Master's degree. _God and the soul_--the unity of
the
one and the immortality of the other--are the great truths, the search
for
which is to constitute the constant occupation of every Mason, and
which,
when found, are to become the chief corner-stone, or the stone of
foundation, of the spiritual temple--"the house not made with
hands"--which he is engaged in erecting.
Now, this idea of a search after truth forms so prominent a part of the
whole science of Freemasonry, that I conceive no better or more
comprehensive answer could be given to the question, _What is
Freemasonry?_ than to say that it is a science which is engaged in the
search after divine truth.
But Freemasonry is eminently a system of symbolism, and all its
instructions are conveyed in symbols. It is, therefore, to be supposed
that so prominent and so prevailing an idea as this,--one that
constitutes, as I have said, the whole design of the institution, and
which may appropriately be adopted as the very definition of its
science,--could not with any consistency be left without its particular
symbol.
The WORD, therefore, I conceive to be the symbol of _Divine Truth;_ and
all its modifications--the loss, the substitution, and the recovery-are
but component parts of the mythical symbol which represents a search