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The origin of the science of symbols is lost in the distance of time, and seems to be connected with the cradle of humanity - the oldest religions were governed by it; the arts of design, architecture, statuary, and painting were born under its influence, and primitive writing was one of its applications. Did symbols exist in spoken, before being translated into written, language? Were primitive words the source of symbols? These are the questions on which these researches are based. The first men, in order to express abstract ideas, borrowed images from surrounding nature; by a surprising intuition, they attached to each race and species of animals, to plants, and the elements, ideas of beauty or ugliness, of good or evil, of affection or hatred, of purity or uncleanness, of truth or error. Those fathers of the human race did not compare, but they named their ideas from corresponding objects in the material world; thus, if they wished to say, the king of an obedient people, they did not compare him to a bee governing a submissive hive, but they called him bee; if they desired to say filial piety, they did not compare it to the stork feeding its family, but they called it stork; to express power, they called it bull; the power of man, the arm; strength of soul, lion; the soul aspiring to heaven, the hawk that sails in the clouds and looks steadfastly at the sun. Primitive writing, the image of primitive speech, was entirely composed of symbolic characters, as demonstrated by the examples of China and Mexico, and the symbols we have just cited in Egyptian writing. If the principle, we have thus assumed, is true, the speech of the first people must have left profound traces of its ambiguities in the most ancient known languages; doubtless, in the lapse of time, figurative expressions passed from tropes to abstractions. The descendants of the patriarchs, in pronouncing the word bee, and attaching the idea of a king to it, no longer thought of the insect living in a monarchical state, hence arose a change in pronunciation, at first scarcely perceptible, but which, degenerating from tongue to tongue, finally destroyed every trace of symbolism; a dead poetry disinherited the living poetry of preceding ages; comparisons were instituted, and rhetoric took the place of symbols.

When we look at the sky by day we see the sun; by night we see the moon and stars. These, and all other objects which we see in the heavens, are called heavenly bodies. Astronomy is the science which treats of these bodies. The heavenly bodies are all of immense size, most of them larger than the earth. They look small because they are so far away. If we could fly from the earth as far as we please, it would look smaller and smaller as we went farther, until at a distance of many millions of miles it would appear as a little star. If we kept on yet farther, it would at last disappear from our sight altogether. If we lived on one of the heavenly bodies, it would be to us as the earth, and the earth would be seen as a heavenly body. In trying to think of the relation of the earth to the heavens, we may liken ourselves to microscopic insects living on an apple. To them the apple is a world, than which nothing bigger can be conceived. As this continent is to their apple, so is the universe of stars to our world. We may fancy how their ideas would have to be enlarged to make them comprehend the relations of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; and then we may try to enlarge ours in the same way to understand the relations of the heavenly bodies.

The true history of Freemasonry is much like the history of a nation. It has its historic and its prehistoric era. In its historic era, it can be traced through various antecedent associations, similar in design and organization, to a comparatively remote period. Its connection with these associations can be established by authentic documents and by other evidence, which no historian would reject. For the prehistoric era we no longer treat of Freemasonry under its present organization, which we know did not exist in those days, but of a science peculiar, and peculiar only, to the Mysteries and to Freemasonry, a science which we may call Masonic symbolism, and which constituted the very heartblood of the ancient and the modern institutions, and gave to them, while presenting a dissimilarity of form, an identity of spirit. Every human institution is subject to great and numerous variations; the different aspects under which they appear, and the principles by which they are governed, depend on the advance of civilization, the nature of the protecting government, and the habits and opinions of the members themselves. The triumph of mind over matter was the great feat of the first architects, who were also the first natural philosophers. There is no speculation in the statement that these formed themselves into an association for improvement at an early date; and tradition informs us that this union of scientific men differed from the Freemasons of today in little more than in name. In Freemasonry, we see the important lesson of eternal life, taught by a legend, which, whether true or false, is used in Masonry as a symbol and allegory. But, whence came this legend? Did all lineal sources have this legend? The evidence is that they did. The connection of the Knights Templar with the Freemasons may much more plausibly be traced than that of the Knights of Malta. Yet the sources from which information is to be derived are for the most part traditionary; authentic dates and documents are wanting.

"To those of the Core World: Fail not to keep this land abounding in beauty and honour. Should any Darkness prevail, only a warrior of the Withering World can achieve victory on our behalf. This warrior will feel as a faceless, voiceless entity to its race but its destiny to conquer awaits within its soul. The warrior needs only to hear our cry upon the wind to venture forth unbeknownst to the quest ahead. Let fly upon the wind with our cry the cherry blossoms of the cherry tree of Old. Lest impending Darkness entrench our World." -the ancient law

En pleine nuit, quelque part dans le Massif Central, deux jeunes gens sont soudain et malgré eux confrontés au déchaînement d'un formidable blizzard. Conjonction trop improbable pour être le fait d'une coïncidence, et qui déroulera le fil d'un lumineux et tragique destin assumé côte à côte à travers les commotions d'une civilisation à l'agonie. C'est le début d'une prodigieuse aventure où la conflagration de toutes les haines, de toutes les horreurs, mais aussi de l'abnégation et du courage les plus admirables, livrera le combat d'une irrésistible foi en un avenir radieux contre un ennemi impitoyable acharné à la détruire.Ce livre est tout à la fois une épopée, un poème d'amour et un avertissement. Les temps que nous vivons procèdent d'une fatalité à laquelle l'homme s'est condamné lui-même, en se dévouant corps et âme à l'adoration d'une société obstinément matérialiste. Elle périra de ses propres excès, comme ont péri avant elle d'autres civilisations corrompues par le même mal. Une ère encore jamais vue, l'ère du Verseau, lui succédera, éternel et glorieux printemps qui dissipera pour jamais les ténèbres les plus rigoureuses qu'ait eu à affronter l'humanité.