Part 7 (2/2)

Also, the final Yod means ”my”; so that [Hebrew: ???] by itself means ”My father.” [Hebrew: ???? ???], David my father, 2 _Chron._ ii. 3.

[Hebrew: ?], (Vav) final is the possessive p.r.o.noun ”his”; and [Hebrew: ????], _Abiu_ (which we read ”Abif”) means ”of my father's.” Its full meaning, as connected with the name of Khurum, no doubt is, ”formerly one of my father's servants,” or ”slaves.”

The name of the Phoenician artificer is, in Samuel and Kings, [Hebrew: ????] and [Hebrew: ?????]--[_2 Sam._ v. 11; 1 _Kings_ v. 15; 1 _Kings_ vii. 40]. In Chronicles it is [Hebrew: ????], with the addition of [Hebrew: ???] [_2 Chron._ ii. 12]; and of [Hebrew: ????]. [_2 Chron._ iv. 16].

It is merely absurd to add the word ”_Abif_” or ”_Abiff_,” as part of the name of the artificer. And it is almost as absurd to add the word ”_Abi_,” which was a _t.i.tle_ and not part of the name. Joseph says [_Gen._ xlv. 8], ”G.o.d has const.i.tuted me _'Ab l'Paraah_, as Father to Paraah, _i.e._, Vizier or Prime Minister.” So Haman was called the Second Father of Artaxerxes; and when King Khurum used the phrase ”Khurum Abi,” he meant that the artificer he sent Schlomoh was the princ.i.p.al or chief workman in his line at Tsur.

A medal copied by Montfaucon exhibits a female nursing a child, with ears of wheat in her hand, and the legend (Iao). She is seated on clouds, a star at her head, and three ears of wheat rising from an altar before her.

HORUS was the _mediator_, who was buried three days, was regenerated, and triumphed over the evil principle.

The word HERI, in Sanscrit, means _Shepherd_, as well as _Saviour_.

CRISHNA is called _Heri_, as JESUS called Himself the _Good Shepherd_.

[Hebrew: ???], _Khur_, means an aperture of a window, a cave, or the eye. Also it means white. In Syriac, [Symbols].

[Hebrew: ??] also means an opening, and n.o.ble, free-born, high-born.

[Hebrew: ???], KHURM means consecrated, devoted; in aethiopic [Symbols]

It is the name of a city, [_Josh_. xix. 38]; and of a man, [_Ezr_. ii.

32, x. 31; _Neh_. iii. 11].

[Hebrew: ????], _Khirah_, means n.o.bility, a n.o.ble race.

Buddha is declared to comprehend in his own person the essence of the Hindu Trimurti; and hence the tri-literal monosyllable _Om_ or _Aum_ is applied to him as being essentially the same as Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. He is the same as Hermes, Thoth, Taut, and Teutates. One of his names is Heri-maya or Her-maya, which are evidently the same name as Hermes and Khirm or Khurm. Heri, in Sanscrit, means _Lord_.

A learned Brother places over the two symbolic pillars, from right to left, the two words [Symbols] and [Symbols] [Hebrew: ???] and [Hebrew: ???], IHU and BAL: followed by the hieroglyphic equivalent, [Hieroglyphic: ] of the Sun-G.o.d, Amun-ra. Is it an accidental coincidence, that in the name of each murderer are the two names of the Good and Evil Deities of the Hebrews; for _Yu-bel_ is but _Yehu-Bal_ or _Yeho-Bal?_ and that the three final syllables of the names, _a, o, um_, make A.U.M. the sacred word of the Hindoos, meaning the Triune-G.o.d, Life-giving, Life-preserving, Life-destroying: represented by the mystic character [Mystic Character: Y].

The genuine _Acacia_, also, is the th.o.r.n.y tamarisk, the same tree which grew up around the body of Osiris. It was a sacred tree among the Arabs, who made of it the idol Al-Uzza, which Mohammed destroyed. It is abundant as a bush in the Desert of Thur: and of it the ”crown of thorns” was composed, which was set on the forehead of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a fit type of immortality on account of its tenacity of life; for it has been known, when planted as a door-post, to take root again and shoot out budding boughs over the threshold.

Every commonwealth must have its periods of trial and transition, especially if it engages in war. It is certain at some time to be wholly governed by agitators appealing to all the baser elements of the popular nature; by moneyed corporations; by those enriched by the depreciation of government securities or paper; by small attorneys, schemers, money-jobbers, speculators and adventurers--an ign.o.ble oligarchy, enriched by the distresses of the State, and fattened on the miseries of the people. Then all the deceitful visions of equality and the rights of man end; and the wronged and plundered State can regain a real liberty only by pa.s.sing through ”great varieties of untried being,” purified in its transmigration by fire and blood.

In a Republic, it soon comes to pa.s.s that parties gather round the negative and positive poles of some opinion or notion, and that the intolerant spirit of a triumphant majority will allow no deviation from the standard of orthodoxy which it has set up for itself. Freedom of opinion will be professed and pretended to, but every one will exercise it at the peril of being banished from political communion with those who hold the reins and prescribe the policy to be pursued. Slavishness to party and obsequiousness to the popular whims go hand in hand.

Political independence only occurs in a fossil state; and men's opinions grow out of the acts they have been constrained to do or sanction.

Flattery, either of individual or people, corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. A Caesar, securely seated in power, cares less for it than a free democracy; nor will his appet.i.te for it grow to exorbitance, as that of a people will, until it becomes insatiate. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please; to a people, it is to a great extent the same. If accessible to flattery, as this is always interested, and resorted to on low and base motives, and for evil purposes, either individual or people is sure, in doing what it pleases, to do what in honor and conscience should have been left undone. One ought not even to risk congratulations, which may soon be turned into complaints; and as both individuals and peoples are p.r.o.ne to make a bad use of power, to flatter them, which is a sure way to mislead them, well deserves to be called a crime.

The first principle in a Republic ought to be, ”that no man or set of men is ent.i.tled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislature, nor judge, to be hereditary.” It is a volume of Truth and Wisdom, a lesson for the study of nations, embodied in a single sentence, and expressed in language which every man can understand. If a deluge of despotism were to overthrow the world, and destroy all inst.i.tutions under which freedom is protected, so that they should no longer be remembered among men, this sentence, preserved, would be sufficient to rekindle the fires of liberty and revive the race of free men.

But, to _preserve_ liberty, another must be added: ”that a free State does not confer office as a reward, especially for questionable services, unless she seeks her own ruin; but all officers are _employed_ by her, in consideration solely of their will and ability to render service in the future; and therefore that the best and most competent are always to be preferred.”

For, if there is to be any other rule, that of hereditary succession is perhaps as good as any. By no other rule is it possible to preserve the liberties of the State. By no other to intrust the power of making the laws to those only who have that keen instinctive sense of injustice and wrong which enables them to detect baseness and corruption in their most secret hiding-places, and that moral courage and generous manliness and gallant independence that make them fearless in dragging out the perpetrators to the light of day, and calling down upon them the scorn and indignation of the world. The flatterers of the people are never such men. On the contrary, a time always comes to a Republic, when it is not content, like Tiberius, with a single Seja.n.u.s, but must have a host; and when those most prominent in the lead of affairs are men without reputation, statesmans.h.i.+p, ability, or information, the mere hacks of party, owing their places to trickery and _want_ of qualification, with none of the qualities of head or heart that make great and wise men, and, at the same time, filled with all the narrow conceptions and bitter intolerance of political bigotry. These die; and the world is none the wiser for what they have said and done. Their names sink in the bottomless pit of oblivion; but their acts of folly or knavery curse the body politic and at last prove its ruin.

Politicians, in a free State, are generally hollow, heartless, and selfish. Their own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt is the end of their patriotism; and they always look with secret satisfaction on the disappointment or fall of one whose loftier genius and superior talents overshadow their own self-importance, or whose integrity and incorruptible honor are in the way of their selfish ends. The influence of the small aspirants is always against the great man. _His_ accession to power may be almost for a lifetime. One of themselves will be more easily displaced, and each hopes to succeed him; and so it at length comes to pa.s.s that men impudently aspire to and actually win the highest stations, who are unfit for the lowest clerks.h.i.+ps; and incapacity and mediocrity become the surest pa.s.sports to office.

The consequence is, that those who feel themselves competent and qualified to serve the people, refuse with disgust to enter into the struggle for office, where the wicked and jesuitical doctrine that all is fair in politics is an excuse for every species of low villainy; and those who seek even the highest places of the State do not rely upon the power of a magnanimous spirit, on the sympathizing impulses of a great soul, to stir and move the people to generous, n.o.ble, and heroic resolves, and to wise and manly action; but, like spaniels erect on their hind legs, with fore-paws obsequiously suppliant, fawn, flatter, and actually beg for votes. Rather than descend to this, they stand contemptuously aloof, disdainfully refusing to court the people, and acting on the maxim, that ”mankind has no t.i.tle to demand that we shall serve them in spite of themselves.”

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