Calcott, also, on this subject says: "If we turn our eyes back to antiquity, we shall find that the old Egyptians had so great a regard for silence and secrecy in the mysteries of their religion, that they set up the god Harpocrates, to whom they paid particular honor and veneration, who was represented with his right hand placed near the heart, and the left down by his side, covered with a skin, before full of eyes and ears, to signify that, of many things to be seen and heard, few are to be published."
THE UNWRITTEN LANDMARKS.
The instructions which constitute the hidden or esoteric knowledge in Freemasonry are forbidden to be written, and can only be communicated by oral intercourse of one Mason with another. This is another instance of the great antiquity of the usages of Freemasonry, which is presenting such collateral evidences of its venerable age.
In all the ancient mysteries, the same reluctance to commit the esoteric instructions of the hierophants to writing is apparent and hence the secret knowledge taught in their initiations was preserved in symbols, the true meaning of which was closely concealed from the profane.
The Druids had a similar regulation; and Cæsar informs us that it was not considered lawful to intrust their sacred verses to writing; but these were always committed to memory by their disciples.
The same custom prevailed among the Jews with respect to the Oral Law, which was never intrusted to books; but, being preserved in the memories of the priests and wise men, was handed down, from one to the other, through a long succession of ages.
Maimonides has described, according to the Rabbinical traditions, the mode adopted by Moses to impress the principles of this Oral Law.
The secret doctrine of the Cabala, or the mystical philosophy of the Hebrews, was, also, communicated in an oral form, and, says Maurice, "transmitted, verbally, down to all the great characters celebrated in Jewish antiquity—among whom both David and Solomon were deeply conversant in its most hidden mysteries. Nobody, however, had ventured to commit anything of this kind to paper."
The Christian Church, in the age immediately succeeding the Apostolic, observed the same custom of oral instruction. The early Fathers were eminently cautious not to commit certain of the mysterious dogmas of their religion to writing, lest the surrounding pagans should be made acquainted with what they could neither understand nor appreciate. St. Basil, treating of this subject, in the fourth century, says: "We receive the dogmas transmitted to us by writing and those which have descended to us from the Apostles, beneath the mystery of oral tradition; for several things have been handed to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas, should lose a due respect for them."
A custom so ancient as this, of keeping the landmarks unwritten, and one so invariably observed by the Masonic fraternity, we may very naturally presume, must have been originally established with the wisest intentions; and as the usage was adopted by many other institutions, whose organization was similar to that of Freemasonry, we may also suppose that it was connected with the character of an esoteric instruction.
Tho following passage of Scripture is here used:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be Light: and there was Light.
THE SHOCK OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
The material light which sprung forth at the fiat of the Grand Architect, when darkness and chaos were dispersed, has ever been, in Masonry, a favorite symbol of that intellectual illumination which it is the object of the Order to create in the minds of its disciples, whence we have justly assumed the title of "Sons of Light." This mental illumination—this spiritual light, which, after his new birth, is the first demand of the candidate, is but another name for Divine Truth—the truth of God and the soul—the nature and essence of both—which constitute the chief design of all Masonic teaching. And as the chaos and confusion in which, "in the beginning," the earth, "without form, and void," was enwrapt were dispersed, and order and beauty established by the Supreme command which created material light; so, at the proper declaration, and in the due and recognized form, the intellectual chaos and confusion in which the mind of the neophyte is involved are dispersed, and the true knowledge of the science and philosophy, the faith and doctrine of Masonry, are developed.
But what mind can conceive, or what pen portray, that terrible convulsion of nature, that awful disentanglement of its elements, which must have accompanied the Divine command, "Let there be light!" The attempt to describe it would be a presumptuous task. We feel, when we meditate on the subject, that stillness and silence must have fled before the Almighty Voice, and the earth itself have trembled in its new existence, when the gloomy pall of darkness was rolled as a curtain from the face of nature.
And in Masonry, by the Shock of Enlightenment, we seek, humbly, indeed, and at an inconceivable distance, to preserve the recollection and to embody the idea of the birth of material light by the representation of the circumstances that accompanied it, and their reference to the birth of intellectual or Masonic light. The one is the type of the other; and hence the illumination of the candidate is attended with a ceremony that may be supposed to imitate the primal illumination of the universe—most feebly, it is true, and yet not altogether without impressiveness.
The Shock of Enlightenment is, then, a symbol of the change which is now taking place in the intellectual condition of the candidate. It is the symbol of the birth of intellectual light and the dispersion of intellectual darkness.
The Holy Bible is given to us as the rule and guide of out faith; the Square, to square our actions; and the Compasses, to circumscribe our desires and passions in due bounds with all mankind, but more especially with brother Masons; and hence the Bible is the light which enlightens the path of our duty to God; the Square, that which enlightens the path of duty to our fellow-men; and the Compasses, that which enlightens the path of our duty to ourselves.
The lesser lights are intended to remind us of that symbolism which makes the Lodge a type of the world; and hence the Master, presiding and dispensing light, may well be compared to those heavenly luminaries which were made, "the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night;" and we are thus reminded, that as the sun rules the day and the moon governs the night, so should the W. M. rule and govern his Lodge with equal regularity and precision.
Note.—Errors are so often made in placing the lights around the altar, that the preceding diagram is inserted for the direction of the Senior Deacon, whose duty it is to see that they are properly distributed. The stars represent the positions of the lights in the E., W., and S., and the black dot, the place of darkness in the N., where there is no light. The dotted line passing through these points in the diagram represents the limits of the Lodge, and above that the lights are in the proper cardinal points.
When being clothed as an Entered Apprentice, the candidate receives the following charge:
I present you with this lambskin or white leather apron, which is an emblem of innocence and the badge of a Mason, more ancient than