culars, in the following
words:--

"At that time there was in the temple the ineffable name of God, inscribed
upon the Stone of Foundation. For when King David was digging the
foundation for the temple, he found in the depths of the excavation a
certain stone, on which the name of God was inscribed. This stone he
removed, and deposited it in the Holy of Holies." [222]

The same puerile story of the barking dogs is repeated, still more at
length. It is not pertinent to the present inquiry, but it may be stated
as a mere matter of curious information, that this scandalous book, which
is throughout a blasphemous defamation of our Saviour, proceeds to say,
that he cunningly obtained a knowledge of the tetragrammaton from the
Stone of Foundation, and by its mystical influence was enabled to perform
his miracles.

The masonic legends of the Stone of Foundation, based on these and other
rabbinical reveries, are of the most extraordinary character, if they are
to be viewed as histories, but readily reconcilable with sound sense, if
looked at only in the light of allegories. They present an uninterrupted
succession of events, in which the Stone of Foundation takes a prominent
part, from Adam to Solomon, and from Solomon to Zerubbabel.

Thus the first of these legends, in order of time, relates that the Stone
of Foundation was possessed by Adam while in the garden of Eden; that he
used it as an altar, and so reverenced it, that, on his expulsion from
Paradise, he carried it with him into the world in which he and his
descendants were afterwards to earn their bread by the sweat of their
brow.

Another legend informs us that from Adam the Stone of Foundation descended
to Seth. From Seth it passed by regular succession to Noah, who took it
with him into the ark, and after the subsidence of the deluge, made on it
his first thank-offering. Noah left it on Mount Ararat, where it was
subsequently found by Abraham, who removed it, and consequently used it as
an altar of sacrifice. His grandson Jacob took it with him when he fled to
his uncle Laban in Mesopotamia, and used it as a pillow when, in the
vicinity of Luz, he had his celebrated vision.

Here there is a sudden interruption in the legendary history of the
stane, and we have no means of conjecturing how it passed from the
possession of Jacob into that of Solomon. Moses, it is true, is said to
have taken it with him out of Egypt at the time of the exodus, and thus it
may hav