2. These truths principally consisted in the abstract propositions of the
unity of God and the immortality of the soul. Of the truth of these two
propositions there cannot be a reasonable doubt. The belief in these
truths is a necessary consequence of that religious sentiment which has
always formed an essential feature of human nature. Man is, emphatically,
and in distinction from all other creatures, a religious animal. Gross
commences his interesting work on "The Heathen Religion in its Popular and
Symbolical Development" by the statement that "one of the most remarkable
phenomena of the human race is the universal existence of religious
ideas--a belief in something supernatural and divine, and a worship
corresponding to it." As nature had implanted the religious sentiment, the
same nature must have directed it in a proper channel. The belief and the
worship must at first have been as pure as the fountain whence they
flowed, although, in subsequent times, and before the advent of Christian
light, they may both have been corrupted by the influence of the priests
and the poets over an ignorant and superstitious people. The first and
second propositions of my theory refer only to that primeval period which
was antecedent to these corruptions, of which I shall hereafter speak.

3. These truths of God and immortality were most probably handed down
through the line of patriarchs of the race of Seth, but were, at all
events, known to Noah, and were by him communicated to his immediate
descendants.

4. In consequence of this communication, the true worship of God
continued, for some time after the subsidence of the deluge, to be
cultivated by the Noachidae, the Noachites, or the descendants of Noah.

5. At a subsequent period (no matter when, but the biblical record places
it at the attempted building of the tower of Babel), there was a secession
of a large number of the human race from the Noachites.

6. These seceders rapidly lost sight of the divine truths which had been
communicated to them from their common ancestor, and fell into the most
grievous theological errors, corrupting the purity of the worship and the
orthodoxy of the religious faith which they had primarily received.

7. These truths were preserved in their integrity by but a very few in the
patriarchal line, while still fewer were enabled to retain only dim and
glimmering portions of the true light.

8. The first class was confined to the direct descendants of Noah, and the
second was to be found among the priests and philosophers, and, perhaps,
still later, among the poets of the heathen nations, and among those whom
they initiated into the secrets of these truths. Of the prevalence of
these religious truths among the patriarchal descendants of Noah, we have
ample evidence in the sacred records. As to their existence among a body
of learned heathens, we have the testimony of many intelligent writers who
have devoted their energies to this subject. Thus the learned Grote, in
his "History of Greece," says, "The allegorical interpretation of the
myths has been, by several learned investigators, especially by Creuzer,
connected with the hypothesis of _an ancient and highly instructed body of
priests_, having their origin either in Egypt or in the East, and
communicating to the rude and barbarous Greeks religious, physical, and
historical knowledge, _under the veil of symbols_." What is here said only
of the Greeks is equally applicable to every other intellectual nation of
antiquity.

9. The system or doctrine of the former class has been called by Masonic
writers the "Pure or Primitive Freemasonry" of antiquity, and that of the
latter class the "Spurious Freemasonry" of the same period. These terms
were first used, if I mistake not, by Dr. Oliver, and are intended to
refer--the word _pure_ to the doctrines taught by the descendants of Noah
in the Jewish line and the word _spurious_ to his descendants in the
heathen or Gentile line.

10. The masses of the people, among the Gentiles especially, were totally
unacquainted with this divine truth, which was the foundation stone of
both species of Freemasonry, the pure and the spurious, and were deeply
immersed in the errors and falsities of heathen belief and worship.

11. These errors of the heathen religions were not the voluntary
inventions of the peoples who cultivated them, but were gradual and almost
unavoidable corruptions of the truths which had been at first taught by
Noah; and, indeed, so palpable are these corruptions, that they can be
readily detected and traced to the original form from which, however much
they might vary among different peoples, they had, at one time or another,
deviated. Thus, in the life and achievements of Bacchus or Dionysus, we
find the travestied counterpart of the career of Moses, and in the name of
Vulcan, the blacksmith god, we evidently see an etymological corruption of
the appellation of Tubal Cain, the first artificer in metals. For
_Vul-can_ is but a modified form of _Baal-Cain_, the god Cain.

12. But those among the masses--and there were some--who were made
acquainted with the truth, received their knowledge by means of an
initiation into certain sacred Mysteries, in the bosom of which it was
concealed from the public gaze.

13. These Mysteries existed in every country of heathendom, in each under
a different name, and to some extent under a different form, but always
and everywhere with the same design of inculcating, by allegorical and
symbolic teachings, the great Masonic doctrines of the unity of God and
the immortality of the soul. This is an important proposition, and the
fact which it enunciates must never be lost sight of in any inquiry into
the origin of Freemasonry; for the pagan Mysteries were to the spurious
Freemasonry of antiquity precisely what the Masters' lodges are to the
Freemasonry of the present day. It is needless to offer any proof of their
existence, since this is admitted and continually referred to by all
historians, ancient and modern; and to discuss minutely their character