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Contents . PAGE . Mysteries and Mysteries—By Reitam 421 Lodge Minutes , & c—By Bro . W . P . Buchan 422 Freemasonry—Past and Present 423 Masonic Celestial Mysteries— -By Bro . Henry Melville 425 How I Spent my Five Weeks'Leare 427 Masonic Jottings—No . 1 429

Masonic Notes and Queries 429 Correspondence 430 Masonic Mems 432 Grand Lodge 432 CKAET LODGE MEETIHGS : — Metropolitan 433 Provincial 434 Ireland 436

Royal Arch 437 Mark Masonry 437 Literature , Science , and Fine Arts 437 Theatrical and Musical Notes 438 " Eastward , ho ! " 438 Cheshire Educational Masonic Institution 439 List of Lodge , & c , Meetings for ensuing week 440 To Correspondents 440

Mysteries And Mysteries.

MYSTERIES AND MYSTERIES .

LONDON , SATURDAY , NOVEMBER . 27 , 1869 .

By REITAM . In the MAGAZINES of the last few weeks , considerable space has been devoted to the so called " Masonic Celestial Mysteries" of Bro . H . Melville , which are certainly most Pagan and Egyptian

in character , and will , I fancy , be all found to be based on Sabeism , or the worship of the Sun . We find the Sun worship to be the primal basis of all the worships and mysteries of antiquity , as being to every living thing on earth the most

attractive and interesting of the heavenly bodies . Mankind in an early stage of the world , could see nothing more frightful than the continued absence of this bright luminary , whose presence they considered was the happy influence which revives everything , and hence we find Sun

worship at first direct , and then indirect , under symbolical forms , such as the Brahma of the Hindoos , Adonai of the Phoenicians , and Adonis of the Greeks . These are all symbolic representations of that principle of generation and

perfection , which perpetuates and regenerates the world . All the legends of the ancients upon which is founded the systems of worship , or mysteries , ai'e based upon the apparent progress of the Sun , which having reached the highest

point of altitude in the South , begins figuratively to descend , and is finally overcome by darkness , represented in mythology by the evil principle , and then , when again returning to our hemisphere , he appears as the revived conqueror . Thus , we find the opposition of Typhon to

Osiris , of the Titans to Jupiter , and of Ahrimanes to Ohromaze , in the Persian mysteries . In the Hindoo mythology , Brahma , the creator , represents the Sun in Spring , Shiva , the destroyer , the Winter Sun , while Yishnu , the preserver , is

the ripening Sun of Autumn . In the Persian worship , the mysteries of Mithras were celebrated in subterranean temples , and were of so terrible a nature that few aspirants survived the ordeal . In this initiation were seven

distinct degrees . Mithras , as the Sun-God is represented under the form of a young man with a sword , which he is in the act of plunging into the throat of a bull . This is the Buli of the

Zodiac , which sometimes , by the precession of the Equinoxes , has occupied the place of the Earn . In India the Bull is represented opening an egg with his horn , that is the vernal equinox opened in the sign of the Celestial Ram . In Egypt the

Bull was called Apis , and the genius of evil , Typhon , was represented as a serpent , and worshipped by the Phceuicians at Tyre , whence the origin ofthe serpent worship , I think it will be easy to recognise a similar

meaning in the mysteries of the third degree , making H . A . B . to allegorically represent the Sun , as we have a legend exactly the same as the

foundation of all primitive worships and mysteries , and carried down to the time of the Romans who celebrated the mysteries of' Cybele , in which the slain and revived personage is Atys . Be this as it may , Bro . Melville is pursuing a

most extraordinary course , aud one which is as difficult to fathom , as it is to explain his articles , their sense or their object , Cui uono ? It may be most pertinently enquired . Does Bro . Melville wish to state or to prove the volume ofthe Sacred

Law is a mere allegorical fable and solely points out the old Sabeism or Sun worship , or does he believe that Bull , Apis , ofthe Egyptians , is tins prototype of the English nation ?

Bro . Melville makes so many rambling and unconnected statements , that there is no possibility of fin dins' out the mast to which his colours are nailed , and of arguing any one point with him . I am very much inclined to think with Bro . W .

P . Buchan , that it is " simply a very foolish attempt to turn the highly poetical and beautifully allegorical , yet simple language of the bible into a confused mass of mystical and pseudo astronomic nonsense /'' However to show Bro . Melville he is not- the