"In the beginning was the Word."
"Dean Galloway knelt at the Great Crossing of the National Cathedral and prayed for America.
He prayed that his beloved country would soon come to grasp the true power of the Word~
the recorded collection of the written wisdom of all the ancient masters~
the spiritual truths taught by the great sages.
History had blessed mankind with the wisest of teachers,
profoundly enlightened souls whose understanding of the spiritual and mental mysteries exceeded all understanding.
The precious words of thees Adepts~
Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster,
and countless others~
had been transmitted through history in he oldest and most of vessels.
Books.
Every culture on earth had its own sacred book~
its own Word~
each one different and yet each one the same.
For Christians,
the Word was the Bible,
for Muslims the Koran,
for the Jews the Torah,
for the Hindus the Vedes,
and on and on it went.
The Word shall light the way.
For America's Masonic forefathers,
the Word had been the Bible.
And yet few people in history have understood its true message.
Tonight,
as Galloway knelt alone within the great cathedral,
he placed his hands upon the Word~
a well-worn copy of his own Masonic Bible...
This treasured book...
contained...
a tresure trove of Masonic philosphical writings.
"Although Galloway's eyes could no longer read the text,
he knew the preface by heart.
Its glorious message had been read by millions of his brethen in countless languages around the world.
The text read:
TIME IS A RIVER...
AND BOOKS ARE THE BOATS MANY VOLUMES START DOWN THAT STREAM,
ONLYTO BE WRECKED AND LOST BEYOND RECALL IN ITS SANDS.
ONLY A FEW,
A VERY FEW,
ENDURE THE TESTINGS OF TIME AND LIVE TO BLESS THE AGES FOLLOWING.
There is a reason these volumes survived,
while others vanished.
As a scholar of faith, Dean Galloway had always found it astonishing that the ancient spiritual texts~
the most studied books on earth~
were,
in fact,
the least understood.
Concealed within those pages,
there hides a wonderous secret.
One day soon the light would dawn,
and mankind would finally begin to grasp the simple,
transformative truth of the ancient teachings...
and take a quantum leap forward in the understanding his own magnificent nature"
(TLS 487-8).
to be continued...