Masonic library Author:George Oliver Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The particular stone in the foundation from which these terrible flames issued, is said, by old Masons, to be the same which Jacob used for a reating-place whcu ... more »journeying towards Padauaram in Mesopotamia. CHAPTER IV. CONTAINING NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX YEARS. View of Masonry from Enoch to the Universal Deluge. The great and prominent truth to be illustrated in these views of ancient Masonry is, that religion, or the genuine worship of God, was the chief object of Masonic practice in the primitive ages of the world. And this way be deduced from the existence of pure Masonry at the present day j for, had it been erected on any other foundation but the glory of God,—liad it been instituted solely to exalt human wisdom, or to promote human greatness,—it would have been but as a flitting sunbeam, which passcth away and leaves no trace behind. Religion was the only foundation on which our Order could be securely placed; for no institution can be firm or permanent which is not supported by the favor and protection of the Deity. Everything merely human must inevitably decay and crumble to ruins before the ail-devouring hand of time. "The rloml-capt towers, the pnrgeous palaces, The sulcmn temples, the great globe itself, !-..-, o n. Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, And, like the Imseless jabric at. a vision, Leave not a wreck beb.ind."t But the word of God, and everything founded on that basis, shall never fail. Kven " the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that arc therein, shall be burnt up ;"| but Masonry, pure and uncontaminated with earthly abominations, shall triumph over the general and universal dissolution, and shall cement the Host of Heaven in a holy un...« less