rightness round about." (Chap. 1,
ver. 27.)

Dante has also beautifully described this circumfused light of Deity:--

"There is in heaven a light whose goodly shine
Makes the Creator visible to all
Created, that in seeing him, alone
Have peace; and in a circle spreads so far,
That the circumference were too loose a zone
To girdle in the sun."

On a recapitulation, then, of the views that have been advanced in
relation to these three symbols of the Deity which are to be found in the
masonic system, we may say that each one expresses a different attribute.

The letter _G_ is the symbol of the self-existent Jehovah.

The _All-Seeing Eye_ is the symbol of the omnipresent God.

The _triangle_[139] is the symbol of the Supreme Architect of the
Universe--the Creator; and when surrounded by rays of glory, it becomes a
symbol of the Architect and Bestower of Light.

And now, after all, is there not in this whole prevalence of the name of
God, in so many different symbols, throughout the masonic system,
something more than a mere evidence of the religious proclivities of the
institution? Is there not behind this a more profound symbolism, which
constitutes, in fact, the very essence of Freemasonry? "The names of God,"
said a learned theologian at the beginning of this century, "were intended
to communicate the knowledge of God himself. By these, men were enabled to
receive some scanty ideas of his essential majesty, goodness, and power,
and to know both whom we are to believe, and what we are to believe of
him."

And this train of thought is eminently applicable to the admission of the
name into the system of Masonry. With us, the name of God, however
expressed, is a symbol of DIVINE TRUTH, which it should be the incessant
labor of a Mason to seek.

XXV.

The Legends of Freemasonry.

The compound character of a speculative science and an operative art,
which the masonic institution assumed at the building of King Solomon's
temple, in consequence of the union, at that era, of the Pure Freemasonry
of the Noachidae[140] with the Spurious Freemasonry of the Tyrian workmen,
has supplied it with two distinct kinds of symbols--the _mythical_, or
_legendary_, and the _material_; but these are so thoroughly united in
object and design, that it is impossible to appreciate the one without an
investigation of the other.

Thus, by way of illustration, it may be observed, that the temple itself