THE ANTIQUITIES OF FREEMASONRY.
8
with St Odran) was a friend and follower of St Columba, and was buried in Icolnikill
in order to propitiate
(lona).
According to the legend, he consented to be buried alive
of St Columba to build a chapel.
certain demons of the soil who obstructed the attempts
tical
After three days had elapsed, Columba had the curiosity to take a farewell look at his old
To the surprise of all beholders, Oran started
friend, and caused the earth to be removed.
of his prison-house, and particTilarly declared that all
and
to reveal the secrets
began
up,
This dangerous impiety so shocked Columba,
"
Earth
to be flung in again, crying,
that, with great policy, he instantly ordered the earth
earth
on the mouth of Oran, that he may llab no more." These words have passed into a
that had been said of hell was a mere joke.
!
!
proverb against blabbers.
"
The
It is not essential to inquire minutely into the secrets of the Druidical doctrine.
laws which they administered are forgotten their boasted knowledge of ethics only provokes
;
We
a smile.
are told that they concerned themselves with astronomy, the nature of the world
^
proportion to the rest of the universe, and the attributes and powers of the gods."
doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, was engrafted somewhat late
and
its
The
"
on the Druidical system. " One would have laughed," said a Eoman, at these long-trousered
^
philosophers, if we had not found their doctrine under the cloak of Pythagoras."
"
The servants of Belenns might
have gradually gone out of fashion.
call themselves Druids to their Gaulish congregation, but in the view of the State they were
"
"
After the conversion of Ireland," says j\Ir Elton, the Druids
ordinary priests of Apollo."
Druidism seems
to
disappear from history."
Mr Clinch, with a great parade of learning, has endeavoured to identify Freemasonry with
the system of Pythagoras, and for the purpose of comparison, cites no less than fifteen
particular features or points of resemblance which are to be fo^md, he says, in the ancient and
"
Let the freemasons," he continues, " if they please, call Hiram,
King of Tj^re, an architect, and tell each other, in bad rhymes, that they are the descendants
To me, however, the opinion which seems
of those who constructed the temple of Solomon.
in the
modern
decisive
is,
institutions.
that the sect has penetrated into Europe by
"
Ernst uud Falk
The learned author of
was of opinion that the
Lessing,
"
and
"
INIasonic institution
Templars, long existent in London, and which
That the society is in some
Christopher Wren.
Templars has been widely credited.
means
of the gypsies."
was shaped into
way
its
present form by Sir
or other a continuation of that of the
The Abbe Barruel supported
'
*
Xathan der "Weise," Gottfried Ephraim
had its origin in a secret association of
this
theory,*
which has
=
Elton, p. 274.
Hid., p. 275, citing Valerius Maxinnis (ii., c. 6).
Essay on the Origin of Freemasonry, Antliologia Hibernica, toI. iii., pp. 34, 178, 279, and 421.
"But what
proves beyond all doubt that the gypsies have been the original propagators of this doctrine in the west is this, that
"
Freemasonry has been reformed in Germany, in France, and in Prussia, by a man confessedly a gypsy {Ibid., p. 281).
2
Mr
Clinch here refers to Joseph Balsamo, better
of the eighteenth century.
they had
Mr W.
known perhaps
as
Count
Cagliostro, the remarkable
masonic charlatan
" Not
only have
Sirason, in his History of the Gypsies, 1865, pp. 456, 457, says
a language peculiar to themselves, but signs as exclusively theirs as are those of the Freemasons.
:
The distinction
a cast of mind, and signs, peculiar to itself."
*
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, by the Abb^ Barruel, translated by the Hon. Eobert CliUbrd,
2d edit., 1798. Edmund Burke wrote to Barruel, May 1, 1797, on the publication of his first volume,
expressing an
consists in this people
having
hlood, Janrjunge,
admiration of the work which posterity has failed to ratify. He says: "The whole of the wonderful narrative
supported by documents UTid proofs ^?) with the most juridical regularity and exactness."
is