john-r-bennett-the-origin-of-freemasonry-and-knights-templar

FREEMASONRY.The true history of isFreemasonry much in itscharacter like the history of a nation; It has itshistoric and its prehistoric era. In its historic era,the institution can be regularly traced throughvarious antecedent associations, similar in designand organization, to a comparatively remote period.Its connection with these associations can be rationallyestablished by authentic documents and byother evidence which no historian would reject.For the prehistoric era that which connects itwith the mysteries of the pagan world, and with theold priests of Eleusis, of Samothrace, or of Syrialet us honestly say that we no longer treat of Freemasonryunder its present organization, which wethose days, but of a scienceknow did not exist inpeculiar, and peculiar only, to the Mysteries and tocall MasonicFreemasonry, a science which we maysymbolism, and which constituted the very heartbloodof the ancient and the modern institutions,and gave to them, while presenting a dissimilarityof form, an identity of spirit. In connecting andtracing the germ of Freemasonry in those prehistoricdays, although guided by no documents, andno authentic spoken or written narratives on whichto rely, we find fossil thoughts embalmed in thoseancient intellects precisely like the living ones whichcrop out in modern Masonry, and which, like thefossil shells and fishes of the old physical forma-