Moriah. His knowledge and experience as an artificer, and his eminent
skill in every kind of "curious and cunning workmanship," readily placed
him at the head of both the Jewish and Tyrian craftsmen, as the chief
builder and principal conductor of the works; and it is to him, by means
of the large authority which this position gave him, that we attribute the
union of two people, so antagonistical in race, so dissimilar in manners,
and so opposed in religion, as the Jews and Tyrians, in one common
brotherhood, which resulted in the organization of the institution of
Freemasonry. This Hiram, as a Tyrian and an artificer, must have been
connected with the Dionysiac fraternity; nor could he have been a very
humble or inconspicuous member, if we may judge of his rank in the
society, from the amount of talent which he is said to have possessed, and
from the elevated position that he held in the affections, and at the
court, of the king of Tyre. He must, therefore, have been well acquainted
with all the ceremonial usages of the Dionysiac artificers, and must have
enjoyed a long experience of the advantages of the government and
discipline which they practised in the erection of the many sacred
edifices in which they were engaged. A portion of these ceremonial usages
and of this discipline he would naturally be inclined to introduce among
the workmen at Jerusalem. He therefore united them in a society, similar
in many respects to that of the Dionysiac artificers. He inculcated
lessons of charity and brotherly love; he established a ceremony of
initiation, to test experimentally the fortitude and worth of the
candidate; adopted modes of recognition; and impressed the obligations of
duty and principles of morality by means of symbols and allegories.

To the laborers and men of burden, the Ish Sabal, and to the craftsmen,
corresponding with the first and second degrees of more modern Masonry,
but little secret knowledge was confided. Like the aspirants in the lesser
Mysteries of paganism, their instructions were simply to purify and