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Hannah Stuart
The Round Towers of Ireland
The Round Towers of Ireland
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In Fraser’s Magazine for the month just expired, there has appeared an article headed the “Arcana of Freemasonry,” which will save me the trouble of an introductory dissertation. The style is quaint, but that will be overlooked; its author is evidently a true mason and a good man; and, initiated as he is in all the fundamentals of his fraternity, he will be the more ready to recognise the truth of my disclosures, as well as to admit the originality of the proofs which I adduce. To him, therefore, whoever he is, do I with confidence refer.
“In the spirit of the mighty dead,” says he, “the great ones of the earth, that seem ever and anon to look down through the clouds of this murky atmosphere and to beckon us heavenward, nothing strikes more keenly, in our conviction, than that passion for divine truth which burned unquenchably within them. With what hallowed devotion they worshipped it, with what intense aspirations they loved it, we must remember but too painfully, when we converse with men as they are, and read the writings they applaud.
“Yes—it must be so! The first and noblest object to which the ambition of man can aspire is the discovery and propagation of truth, on which the felicity of all created thinkers absolutely depends; and, fortunately, the glory of its discovery is nothing superior to the joy of its communication. And therefore have the finest and freest souls, that have caught the brightest glimpses of truth’s eternal radiation, ever most earnestly sought to lead their brethren and kindred to the same difficult and solitary height from which they themselves first witnessed the dawnings of the prophetic dayspring.
[Pg lxiv]“How many illustrious names, however venerable, have from time’s eldest records sought out with indefatigable assiduity the relics of divinest Wisdom! How often beneath her charmed inspirations they wandered forth, exulting over the boundless fields of metaphysical and physical science—endeavouring by the things that are manifest to retrace the hidden Divinity—to look through nature up to nature’s God! And if happily they discover some strange and stirring indications of the Almighty’s elaborating hand, or some bright testimony of His vivifying though impalpable Spirit, have they not hastened with glowing hearts, and souls overcharged with adoration, to whisper the mystery in secret, or to proclaim the marvel to the world?
“In the spirit of the mighty dead,” says he, “the great ones of the earth, that seem ever and anon to look down through the clouds of this murky atmosphere and to beckon us heavenward, nothing strikes more keenly, in our conviction, than that passion for divine truth which burned unquenchably within them. With what hallowed devotion they worshipped it, with what intense aspirations they loved it, we must remember but too painfully, when we converse with men as they are, and read the writings they applaud.
“Yes—it must be so! The first and noblest object to which the ambition of man can aspire is the discovery and propagation of truth, on which the felicity of all created thinkers absolutely depends; and, fortunately, the glory of its discovery is nothing superior to the joy of its communication. And therefore have the finest and freest souls, that have caught the brightest glimpses of truth’s eternal radiation, ever most earnestly sought to lead their brethren and kindred to the same difficult and solitary height from which they themselves first witnessed the dawnings of the prophetic dayspring.
[Pg lxiv]“How many illustrious names, however venerable, have from time’s eldest records sought out with indefatigable assiduity the relics of divinest Wisdom! How often beneath her charmed inspirations they wandered forth, exulting over the boundless fields of metaphysical and physical science—endeavouring by the things that are manifest to retrace the hidden Divinity—to look through nature up to nature’s God! And if happily they discover some strange and stirring indications of the Almighty’s elaborating hand, or some bright testimony of His vivifying though impalpable Spirit, have they not hastened with glowing hearts, and souls overcharged with adoration, to whisper the mystery in secret, or to proclaim the marvel to the world?
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