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The opening · free to read
That portion of the public which honors me by perusing what I have been fortunate enough to learn concerning the future of the inhabitants of this planet, half a century from this Christmas of 1892, will naturally, as my name is unknown to either fame or science, wonder on what grounds I presume on so bold an undertaking; perhaps what manner of man I might be.
But when I positively disclaim any merit or virtue as a prophet, and state that I am merely by chance the medium by which a portion of the veil is torn from the future, it is enough that I describe myself, as referred to in sundry recitals, as Francis Ainsworth, of the City and County of New York. Perhaps I might add that I am by choice an electrician, by birth a Pennsylvanian, in age twenty-one, and by no fault of my own still unmarried. For some years I have been endeavoring to save enough to enable me to marry my lifelong friend Estelle Morton, of Philadelphia; but as I have a family of small sisters to support out of my salary and what I can earn by extra work, the period of our engagement has been prolonged beyond the time of even our least sanguine calculations. Nearly all my evenings are spent at home, within the sound of the Jefferson Market clock; for I have chosen the Ninth Ward because it is even yet an American stronghold, because it is convenient to my place of business, and because it is better than it looks, which is preferable to looking better than facts warrant.
Once a month, however, I am sure to be at the meeting of my Masonic lodge in the Temple, at Twenty-third Street; for I feel that there I am in contact with both the living present and the dead past; and the Mystic Tie seems well worth critical study.
One evening as I was about to enter the side portal on the Avenue, a ragged newsboy offered, at more than the regular price, some “extras” containing an account of some great financial upheaval in Europe. The man by my side objected to paying an exorbitant price for the hastily-issued and noisily-cried sheet, saying to his companion: “Now, if he would bring me to-morrow’s news, Trask, I wouldn’t mind paying a good round sum for it.” The auburn-haired Past Master, who is seamed with the scars of battle in “The Street,” replied, more in earnest than in jest: “I would readily pay a thousand dollars for a knowledge for what will happen to-morrow, and a million if it were exclusive.” “On that basis,” said a man ahead, who was just stepping into the elevator, “what would it be worth to know what is to happen fifty years hence?” “Oh,” said Trask, “I suppose it would be reasonably safe to offer any price at all for the performance of an impossibility; and for that matter, any one impossibility is just as unreasonable to ask as any other. It’s hard enough to be sure of what happened fifty years ago, let alone diving into the news of fifty years hence.”
“It is not so impossible as you think,” quietly remarked a gentleman at my side, who seemed a stranger to all of the rest. “It can be done, if one has patience, judgment, time and means.”
As we meet all sorts of people in the world at large, it is not unreasonable to expect a fair variety among Free Masons, who, while held to a uniform belief in certain things, and to unvarying actions in others, have the freest living, compatible with a charitable and upright walk, in all others; consequently, even so radical a remark as that, and even one so gravely uttered, exacted no comment, and scarcely a glance from any, other than one of courteous recognition that the speaker had addressed his companions.
He was a distinguished looking man, even in a Masonic temple, where men of commanding presence, men of dignified bearing, men of venerable appearance and men of philosophical habit, are by no means uncommon. Although but of medium height, his carriage was such as to give him the appearance of a tall man. His eyes were dark, full, luminous, and wide apart; the nose strong, straight and with large nostrils; the mouth small, firm and flexible. A still luxuriant head of wavy white hair, long white mustaches, and beard falling full and untrimmed upon his breast, imparted a distinguished and venerable appearance. His erect form was slender although evidently well-muscled, even at his age, which seemed seventy or thereabouts. His dress was neat and inconspicuous; the materials evidently of excellent quality, although of a fashion long gone out of date.
We entered the lodge-room almost together, and like myself, he took a seat near the door.
To the work for this evening there was lent unusual interest by the presence of a Masonic celebrity, revered in two hemispheres, who had been invited to give us the benefit of the stores of learning for the possession of which he was noted, and of the wise counsel which he ever gave to those younger and less well-informed in Masonic matters.
The eloquent speaker having held us spell-bound by his masterful presentation of the teachings of symbolic Masonry, in a flight of oratory carried us back to the days and works of Solomon the King, of Hiram Abiff, and of that other Hiram, King of Tyre; and in the first great Temple which those early Master Masons builded twenty-nine centuries previously, traced for us, in form, size and position of timber and metal--in tool, and time, and work, noble lessons of manhood and virtue; of brotherhood and helpfulness; of contemplation and self-restraint, until each one addressed felt that he, too, was proud of being a Free and Accepted Master Mason, and emulous of being a credit to his ancient craft.
In the building of that majestic, beauteous, mystic Temple,
“No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence!”
His descriptive powers, his witching imageries, held us spell-bound. But at one point the speaker paused, saying that here there seemed to be something well worth knowing, but which the centuries had hidden. It was evidently replete with symbolism of highest order; but the key to its mysteries was unfortunately lost. Some day, perhaps, the light of investigation might penetrate the gloom in which the mystery was enwrapped--if, indeed, those better versed in the craft had not already solved the interesting problem.
The point referred to was one of those in which occult ratio and mystic beauty of proportion unfold on every hand new virtuous teachings. It was so rich in reminder and suggestion, no matter from what side viewed, that its consideration roused the enthusiasm of all hearers.
When the speaker ceased, the quiet little gentleman next me seemed as one filled with inspiration.
“... With grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat.”
In a well-modulated voice which had evidently been one of great power and beauty, he asked permission to endeavor to cast some light, however feeble, upon so interesting a subject. Something in the quiet dignity of his bearing, in the classic precision of his diction, and the graceful modulation of his voice, attracted all with more than usual force to the new speaker.
“... his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or Summer’s noontide air.”
He said that in order to find the fullest measure of symbolism in this, as in other Temple mysteries, we must go further than the Temple walls and question the inner chambers of the pyramids--we must ask of the Shepherd Kings what Solomon and the two Hirams told them not. The point was beautifully elucidated both in itself and in its relation to others, so that its increased richness of allusion and teaching became at once surprisingly manifest.
Evidently all present felt that a master of the mysteries of the buried centuries was among us--and in gesture and expression all asked “the old man eloquent” to continue, and to give his views upon the work of those Shepherd Kings to whom he had so appositely alluded.
So far as I can remember the facts which he laid before us, and fill up gaps in my memory, by reference to standard authorities, he spoke as follows:--
“The Hykshos or Shepherd Kings came suddenly into this land of mystery; came with a purpose, which purpose accomplished, they departed speedily. That purpose, for which they travelled so far, was to build the great pyramid, a unique, symbolic, and prophetic structure, ‘star-y-pointing,’ raised on a site chosen from the whole surface of the earth by reason of its unique, its solitary fitness. That building, type of the ever-during gates of heaven, wonderfully symbolized the mystic wisdom of its time; imperishably recorded the principal facts in metrology, meteorology and astronomy, and prophetically embodied the discoveries of ages then to come. Temple and town have gone to the ground, but it has endured. It was the precursor of the great symbolic Temple of Solomon, built by the descendants of those shepherd builders, students of the heaven’s wide pathless way, and which although destroyed, could be reconstructed by the measures and dimensions familiar to our mystic craft, and recorded in that great book of symbols, the Bible.
“Now, the dimensions and rhythmic proportions on which Solomon, on which Hiram, King of Tyre, and on which Hiram Abiff builded the wondrous Temple, were enshrined in the Great Pyramid just five hundred years before.
“The Temple diagram, conceived under the starry cope of heaven, is made by drawing on a diameter of 1,000 inches, a circle, about which and in which is described a square, again a circle and a square circumscribed. The areas of the various squares and circles here drawn, equal those of the porch of Solomon’s Temple (125,000 square inches), of the holy place (500,000 square inches) and the Holy of Holies; the latter of which is encircled in a nest of circles and squares and the original radius of which, five hundred inches, was the whole length of the Holy of Holies itself.
“Now let us retrace our steps through five centuries and enter the great monument of Chem, to obey the prophetic mandate of the angel to the holy St. John, and ‘arise and measure the temple and its altar.’
“In the king’s chamber the volume of a certain portion of the room equals fifty times that of the coffer--the relation of the ark to the brazen sea in the Temple. Drawing the diagram of the pyramid to a scale having as the height, the mean height of the king’s chamber (232.52 inches), the magistral line is 412.13 inches, or the length of the chambers. The base of the triangle is the number of days in a year, 365.24 inches, and the radius of that circle having an area of 365.24 inches squared, is 206.06 inches, or the width of the chamber. Constructing a pyramid triangle of height equal to the width of the chamber, the magistral line of the completed pyramid is the year number 365.24 inches--the perimeter of the base, double the two other important chamber dimensions--the length, 412.13 inches, and the second height, 235.24 inches. The entire pyramid design comports with that of the chamber, and those of the coffer and of the ante-chamber, which is in fact the ante-chamber to modern civilization.
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