THE LOST SECRETS OF HISTORY.

This was tho attractive title of a lecture delivered in tho Mechanics' Institute, last evening, by Mr David Blair, who displayed much erudition in dealing with a subject which, to say the least, is an abstruse one; and he was most successful in interesting an unusually numerous and attentive audience.
The lecturer began by directing attention to what, he said, must strike every student in investigating the history of mankind—the immense difference between the people of antiquity, and those of the present day in all things relating to spiritual ideas; a difference as great as that which exists between us and the Chinese or Hindoos. The ancient times were times of mystery and belief in the marvellous and supernatural. If the same motives ruled man in all former ages as at present it must be allowed that the sources of the knowledge of the ancients are unknown to us, and that something infinitely more potent than imagination originated the traditions and the monuments that have lasted to our times. Something must be lost—much was lost. As the wells of Abraham (according to the Arabs) were filled up with the dust of the desert, so the fountains of ancient lore have been alloyed to dry up. It was the fashion at the present day to think that all beginning of history was barbarous. He denied it. Looking back to the remotest antiquity we saw, not primeval barbarism and savagery, but the visible evidences of a splendid civilisation and of vast progress achieved in science and art ;—a civilization, he might say, more magnificent (though not Christianised) than that in which we lived. See the superb Babylonian and Assyrian empires; the wondrous lore of the old Chaldean magi—"the world's grey fathers"—who went up into their observatories to watch the progress of the stars as accurately as the astronomer royal does now; the teeming populousness, the stupendous mythological system, and the boundless wealth of Egypt. Look, again, just at our own threshhold !— three thousand years ago the people of India and China were as they are now : no difference in them—the difference is with us! They extended their gorgeous empires far beyond our mental horizon. If we looked back we were not in darkness, but light; we looked not on barbarism, but civilisation. Tho whole Eastern world glowed as with a supernatural and resplendant dawn. The polished Greeks, the hardy Romans, all looked back to the East, where existed an earlier civilisation, and as high as their own. In support of this was historic truth impregnable to criticism, unshakable by scepticism: the early records of the human race in the inspired writings of the Old Testament.
 He then proceeded to deal with his subject in detail, and first he addressed himself to the origin of secret societies, which, though not standing first in order of age, stood first in order of logic. In the early ages it was the invariable rule that the priests were kings—the illustration, that of Melchisedeck. In tracing the origin and progress of science it was found that the earliest vestiges of knowledge were the cherished possessions of priests and kings; who, to preserve that knowledge—a good motive—kept it to themselves ; but they did so also from a bad motive—as by keeping their knowledge from the general community their own power and despotism was strengthened. Knowledge in the possession of an exclusive class incited that class to further research; and in the course of time the priestly and kingly class mastered an amount of knowledge perfectly incomprehensible at this distant day. It was the means of their being regarded as demi-gods—it brought them to be worshipped as gods. What existed at the present day in India?—the Brahmins were the priests, who by the institution of "caste" (who instituted "caste?") stood in relation to the rest of the people precisely as they did in the age of the patriarchs. The motives for secrecy were plain—its origin comprehensive.
 The lecturer then quoted at length from the writings of a learned French philosopher of our own times, M. Salverte, who has written a treatise on the "Occult Sciences" to show that the vast bulk of what ancient writers hand down to us as prodigy or miracle, instead of being mere fable, is capable of explanation on grounds intelligible to the present age; and thus that history, as far as those things are concerned, may be received as true in its narrative of facts, though it be often in error in the view it takes of the nature of the facts narrated.
 The quotations went further to show that a great mass of scientific knowledge was treasured up by the ancients in their temples, and that the most important mechanical inventions of modern times were nothing but re-discoveries of what formed part of the occult sciences of the periods of Egypt and Chaldea three thousand years ago. Electricity and magnetism, the steam engine, gunpowder, the air-balloon, the diorama, the magic-lantern, the camera obscura, the telescope, and the air-gun, chemistry, pharmacy, and hydrostatics, were but a few of the secrets with which the ancient thaumaturgists were acquainted. It was hardly more the objects of the priests to gain this knowledge themselves than to keep it from the people. Their writings and all else that referred to it were deposited in the temple, and were written in a secret character. Hence arose the idea and the fact of secret societies —which have had an infinitely more powerful influence on the fortunes of the world than is generally believed. Englishmen were slow to believe in the power of secret societies ; but it was a power almost preter-natural, which had enabled paganism to maintain its influence over six-sevenths of the human race for above three thousand years. The practice of "initiation" to the secrets was next described at length. The Freemasons, by their best writers, testified that initiation existed before the flood. In every country and every creed it was found. In Egypt, Syria, Nineveh, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. In ancient Britain, the Druids kept it up; in ancient Ireland, the Bards; in Scotland, the priests of Odin. It is inscribed, according to Mr Swyer, in serpent symbols on the immemorial ruins of the cities of Central America. It exists to-day just as it existed three thousand years ago in India and China. It exists among the Freemasons of Geelong just as it did amongst the builders of the Tower of Babel. Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians"—the true meaning of which is, he was "initiated." A quotation from M. Selverte and references to Moore's beautiful tale "the Epicurean," and to "Alciphron," were made to acquaint the audience with the details of the ancient "initiation;" while De Quincey was drawn upon for his humorous account of the origin of Freemasonry. The system of Judaism itself, divine as it was, proceeded upon the principles of secrecy and reserve. Students of the Bible were puzzled to account for the fact that no reference whatever was made, in the books of Moses, to the spiritual and immortal life. It was a system applied exclusively to this world. The spiritual side of it was not written, but orally communicated. This explained the absence of all reference to the rewards and punishments in a future life. That was one of the lost secrets. With regard to the origin of Pagan idolatry, what was it that first constituted or originated that stupendous system. The common answer was—it is a delusion; all imposture. Never believe it. How did that system arise ? He would answer. A single text in the Old Testament, which by a misfortune had been slightly mistranslated, would set that at rest, the translators were plainly in doubt as to the true meaning of the word, and in the margin of the Testament the true meaning was inserted— as it was usual to do when there were other meanings of a word—and the reader was at liberty to take which word he chose. In the 4th chapter of Genesis, 26th verse—" And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." Look to the margin and it would be found—" to call themselves by the name of the Lord;" and this was how he read the text. Here then he found how men began to deify themselves; here was the origin of pagan idolatry—during Adam's time. Who commenced that practice? Cain. Read carefully the 4th, 5th, and 6th chapters of Genesis two genealogies would be to Cain, an account of the murder of his father. Abel, was cast out from the race of Adam ; but he had a posterity and they increased and multiplied and built cities. But the true religion was in Adam's race, and was transmitted through Seth. Abel would have been the transmitter from generation to generation if he had not been murdered. Thus the two genealogies went on equally but distinct. But in time, as set forth in the 6th chapter of Genesis, the Cainites seduced the Sethites, and unhappily the true worship of God became lost.
"The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose" (Gen- 6: 1-4) The distinction between the two people was strongly marked—" the sons of God," "the daughters of men." That was the apostasy; and, by the conjunction of the two races, says the Bible, "There were giants in the earth in those days." But this was wrongly translated ; it should be "apostate leaders," who raised themselves into power over the heads of their people. But God determined upon the punishment of the universal apostacy. But first came the hundred and twenty years of probation, and then the mighty and desolating Deluge. Thus had we from the Old Testament the whole history of the origin of idolatry; and that was one of the lost secrets of history.
 He would take another—the Tower of Babel. The first of the "giants" before mentioned was Nimrod —a man of gigantic energy. After the Flood, Pagan idolatry revived ; and the apostacy converged in Nimrod. The building of the Tower of Babel was the reinstitution of the antediluvian idolatry, The idolators had settled in the plain of Shin aar (the first syllable short); the word was commonly mispronounced Shi-nar. The pronunciation was something, because in the first syllable was found the name of the Chinese,who to the present day called themselves Chin or Shin ; and they originally came from the plains of the Euphrates. When the apostate race reached the plains of Shin-aar, under the leadership of Nimrod, they said, according to Genesis Chap.11.1-9. Let us build a city and a tower that "may reach unto" heaven. The words quoted were in italics in the Bible as indicating that they were not in the original. They were wrong ; the reading should be "Let us build a city and a tower with its top to the Heavens." The childish misapprehension was that the tower was for the purpose of saving the human race from a second deluge. The true idea of the tower was a gorgeous temple built to the worship of Baal, the Sun god, the Life-giver, the active principle in nature; and it was to be surmounted by a splendid astronomical observatory for the Chaldean priests to watch the sun and stars day and night. But the Lord again scattered the people by the "confusion of tongues," and the system of idolatry spread over the other nations. The universality of the Babel idolatry and of the tower symbols was discovered in India, China, Central America, Greece, Rome, England, and Ireland. The round towers and pyramids were symbols of systems of paganism whose principles were identical though they differed in their attributes. They were astronomical as well as mythological symbols dedicated to Phra, of the Egyptians; and to Baal of the Babylonians. The lecturer discoursed at length upon the Pyramids of Egypt and Magic.
 With regard to the constellations, which were such a puzzle to the learned that they were abandoned as of no use in the celestial map, he said that he had discovered (through a friend) a solution to the enigma. The grotesque figures, between which [they] and the stars we could trace no rational connection, were the Kabbalism of the heavens. They were inscribed by the Chaldean astronomers on the broad firmament of the starry heavens in order to perpetuate their great mythological system after they had completed it: perpetuate it while sun and moon and stars endure! His friend had reduced the whole of those figures to a system, which he had verified in ten thousand instances.
 In conclusion the lecturer touched upon the " Lost Secret of Christianity," which however, he would not disclose. He laid great stress upon the consideration that there has been a conflict between Christianity and Paganism, as two systems, from the antediluvian apostacy to the present time, which conflict, if the original omnipotent force of Christianity had not been lost, should have terminated long ago by all the world clinging to the true faith. How was that force lost ?—where was it now ? How was it to be restored ? At the coming of the Redeemer eighteen hundred years ago, there existed in the land of Judea a sect of anchorites who had remained true to the faith of their fathers. They were called the Essenes. Their existence was a historical fact; yet, while the Scribes and Pharisees, the Herodians, were named in the New Testament, the Essenes were never mentioned. John the Baptist was an Essenist. He knew why they were left out. He knew the secret. The problem for those who heard him was to find out why that sect was not mentioned in the word of God. When they could tell him that he would tell them the Lost Secret of Christianity ; which must be found, or Christianity will fail in its mission. The lecturer concluded amid applause, which had frequently accompanied him during his discourse.

Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929), Wednesday 2 April 1862, page 2