whose threshold no mortal dared to cross,
and which was peculiarly consecrated to GOD, was emblematic of heaven, his
dwelling-place. The veils, too, according to Josephus, were intended for
symbolic instruction in their color and their materials. Collectively,
they represented the four elements of the universe; and, in passing, it
may be observed that this notion of symbolizing the universe characterized
all the ancient systems, both the true and the false, and that the remains
of the principle are to be found everywhere, even at this day, pervading
Masonry, which is but a development of these systems. In the four veils of
the tabernacle, the white or fine linen signified the earth, from which
flax was produced; the scarlet signified fire, appropriately represented
by its flaming color; the purple typified the sea, in allusion to the
shell-fish murex, from which the tint was obtained; and the blue, the
color of the firmament, was emblematic of air.[48]

It is not necessary to enter into a detail of the whole system of
religious symbolism, as developed in the Mosaic ritual. It was but an
application of the same principles of instruction, that pervaded all the
surrounding Gentile nations, to the inculcation of truth. The very idea of
the ark itself[49] was borrowed, as the discoveries of the modern
Egyptologists have shown us, from the banks of the Nile; and the
breastplate of the high priest, with its Urim and Thummim,[50] was
indebted for its origin to a similar ornament worn by the Egyptian judge.
The system was the same; in its application, only, did it differ.

With the tabernacle of Moses the temple of King Solomon is closely
connected: the one was the archetype of the other. Now, it is at the
building of that temple that we must place the origin of Freemasonry in
its present organization: not that the system did not exist before, but
that the union of its operative and speculative character, and the mutual
dependence of one upon the other, were there first established.

At the construction of this stupendous edifice--stupendous, not in
magnitude, for many a parish church has since excelled it in size,[51] but
stupendous in the wealth and magnificence of its ornaments--the wise king
of Israel, with all that sagacity for which he was so eminently
distinguished, and aided and counselled by the Gentile experience of the
king of Tyre, and that immortal architect who superintended his workmen,
saw at once the excellence