temple had been suspended; and so, losing at each successive
stage of their decline, more and more of the true knowledge of God and of
the pure religion which had originally been imparted by Noah, they finally
arrived at gross materialism and idolatry, losing all sight of the divine
existence. Thus it was that the truth--the Word--was said to have been
lost; or, to apply the language of Hutchinson, modified in its reference
to the time, "in this situation, it might well be said that the guide to
heaven was lost, and the master of the works of righteousness was smitten.
The nations had given themselves up to the grossest idolatry, and the
service of the true God was effaced from the memory of those who had
yielded themselves to the dominion of sin."

And now it was among the philosophers and priests in the ancient
Mysteries, or the spurious Freemasonry, that an anxiety to discover the
truth led to the search for the Lost Word. These were the craftsmen who
saw the fatal-blow which had been given, who knew that the Word was now
lost, but were willing to go forth, manfully and patiently, to seek its
restoration. And there were the craftsmen who, failing to rescue it from
the grave of oblivion into which it had fallen, by any efforts of their
own incomplete knowledge, fell back upon the dim traditions which had
been handed down from primeval times, and through their aid found a
substitute for truth in their own philosophical religions.

And hence Schmidtz, speaking of these Mysteries of the pagan world, calls
them the remains of the ancient Pelasgian religion, and says that "the
associations of persons for the purpose of celebrating them must therefore
have been formed at the time when the overwhelming influence of the
Hellenic religion began to gain the upper hand in Greece, and when persons
who still entertained a reverence for the worship of former times united
together, with the intention of preserving and upholding among themselves
as much as possible of the religion of their forefathers."

Applying, then, our interpretation in a general sense, the _Word_ itself
being the symbol of _Divine Truth_, the narrative of its loss and the
search for its recovery becomes a mythical symbol of the decay and loss of
the true religion among the ancient nations, at and after the dispersion
on the plains of Shinar, and of the attempts of the wise men, the
philosophers, and priests, to find and retain it in their secret Mysteries
and