A Star in the East

THE ANALOGY WHICH EXISTS

BETWEEN THE LECTURES OF FREEMASONRY,

THE MECHANISM OF INITIATION INTO ITS MYSTERIES

and
THE Christian Religion.

WHEN a publication on a novel subject has issued from the press, the motives of the Author, and the question of expediency, are usually investigated with some degree of eagerness. I know not how far it may be considered necessary to state the numerous and complicated motives which have unitedly contributed to originate the following essay; but I may perhaps be permitted to enumerate three reasons, each amply sufficient to decide the question of expediency, and to illustrate my design in laying this work before the Public.

And first we are informed, that the unsanctified bigotry of a superstitious creed has again proscribed Freemasonry, in some of the continental nations, as an institution decidedly hostile to the interests of Christianity; and under the sanction of an " ever-valid" bull of Pope Clement [01], has unbarred prison gates of the Inquisition, and loosened all its active engines to apprehend, and punish by torture and death, the harmless professors of a science, which inculcates the chief doctrines and morality of Christianity; and assumes, as an universal axiom, the broad tenet of unrestrained union and brotherly love.