An Ethiopian Journal

Source: http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/delany/maspt3.htm

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But to deny to black men the privileges of Masonry, is to deny to a child the lineage of its own parentage. From whence sprung Masonry but from Ethiopia, Egypt, and Assyria, all settled and peopled by the children of Ham?

Does any one doubt the wisdom of Ethiopia? I have but to reply that in the days of King Solomon’s renown and splendor she was capable of sending her daughters to prove him with hard questions. If this be true, what must been her sons!

A striking and important historical fact will be brought to bear, touching the truthfulness of this matter; and discarding all profane and general, I shall take sacred history as our guide.

Moses was quite a young man, and, consequently, could not have been endowed with wisdom, when, seeing the maltreatment of an Israelite by the Egyptian, he slew him, burying the body in the sane; when, immediately after, the circumstances having become know to Pharaoh, he fled into Midian, a kingdom of Ethiopia.

He here sought the family of Jethro, the Ethiopian prince and Priest of Midian, in whose sight, after a short residence, he found favor, and married his daughter Zipporah, Zipporah, being a princess, was a shepherdess and priestess, as all priests were shepherds, and Moses, consequently became a shepherd, keeping the flocks of Jethro, his father in law, watching them by day and by night, on hill and in valley. Here Moses continued to dwell until called by the message of the Lord to sue before Pharaoh for the deliverance of Israel.

(It is frequently referred to by modern writers, as an evidence of the reverses of circumstances in the life of man, who, with some degree of surprise, tell us that king David was once a shepherd, and attended flocks. This is no strange matter, when it is remembered that all princes in those days were priests, and all priests as a necessary part of their education, had to be shepherds.

As we may reasonably infer, there were two objects in view in the establishment of this singular mythological ordinance. The first was that the shepherd, by continually looking out for a change of weather, and thereby gazing up to the heavens, might keep his mind more fixed upon the high calling that awaited him, administering at the altar, and thus assimilate the person of his deity; and the second, that by attending the sheep, he might be impressed with their innocence, and thereby learn the true character that should distinguish him before the gaze of the inquisitive eye.

Of the seven daughters of Midian, the children of Jethro, all, as will be seen, were shepherdesses and consequently all priestesses).

Moses became a shepherd, consequently, keeping the flocks of Jethro his father in law watching them by day and by night, on hill and in valley. Here Moses continued to dwell, until called by the message of the Lord to sue before Pharaoh for the deliverance of Israel.

From whence could Moses, he leaving Egypt when young, have derived his wisdom, if not from the Ethiopians? Is it not a reasonable, nay, the only just conclusion to infer that his deep seated knowledge was received from them and that his learned wife, Zipporah, who accompanied him by day, and by night through the hills and vales, contributed not a little to his acquirements?

Certainly this must have been so; for the Egyptians were a colony from Ethiopia, and derived their first training from them, the former, as the country filled up, moving and spreading farther down the Nile, until at length, becoming very numerous, they separated the kingdom, establishing an independent nations, occupying the delta at the mouth of the river.

Where could there a place so appropriate be found for the study of those mysteries as upon the highest hills and in the deepest valleys? Is it not thus that the mysteries originated, the habits of the shepherds with their flocks, leading them to the hills and valleys?

It was also in Ethiopia where God appeared to Moses in a burning bush; and here where he told him, ‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place wheron thou standeth is holy ground.’ And this ‘holy ground’ was in Ethiopia or Midian, the true ancient Africa. Truly, if the African race has no legitimate claims to Masonry, then it is illegitimate to all the rest of mankind.

Upon this topic I shall not farther descant, as I believe it is a settled and acknowledged fact, conceded by all intelligent writers and speakers, that to Africa is the world indebted for its knowledge of the mysteries of Ancient Freemasonry. Had Moses or the Israelists never lived in Africa, the mysteries of the wise men of the East never would have been handed down to us.

Was it not Africa that gave birth to Euclid, the master geomatrician of the world? And was it not in consequence of a twenty five years’ residence in Africa that the great Pythagoras was enabled to discover that key problem in geometry, the forty seventh problem of Euclid, without which Masonry would be incomplete? Must I hesitate to tell the world that, as applied to Masonry, the word, Eureka, was first exclaimed in Africa? But, there I have revealed the Masonic secret and must stop!

Masons, brethren, Companions, and Sir Knights, hoping that for this disclosure, by a slip of the tongue, you will forgive me, as I may have made the world much wiser, I now commit you and our cause to the care and keeping of the Grand Master of the Universe.”