We know, for instance, from the recent researches of the archaeologists, that in all the documents of the ancient Egyptians, written in the demotic or common character of the country, the names of the gods were invariably denoted by symbols; and I have already alluded to the different modes by which the Jews expressed the tetragrammaton.  A similar practice prevailed among the other nations of antiquity.  Freemasonry has adopted the same expedient, and the Grand Architect of the Universe, whom it is the usage, even in ordinary writing, to designate by the initials G.A.O.T.U., is accordingly presented to us in a variety of symbols, three of which particularly require attention.  These are the letter G, the equilateral triangle, and the All-Seeing Eye.

Of the letter G I have already spoken.  A letter of the English alphabet can scarcely be considered an appropriate symbol of an institution which dates its organization and refers its primitive history to a period long anterior to the origin of that language.  Such a symbol is deficient in the two elements of antiquity and universality which should characterize every masonic symbol.  There can, therefore, be no doubt that, in its present form, it is a corruption of the old Hebrew symbol, the letter yod, by which the sacred name was often expressed.  This letter is the initial of the word Jehovah, or Ihoh, as I have already stated, and is constantly to be met with in Hebrew writings as the symbol or abbreviature of Jehovah, which word, it will be remembered, is never written at length.  But because G is, in like manner, the initial of God, the equivalent of Jehovah, this letter has been incorrectly, and, I cannot refrain from again saying, most injudiciously, selected to supply, in modern lodges, the place of the Hebrew symbol.

Having, then, the same meaning and force as the Hebrew yod, the letter G must be considered, like its prototype, as the symbol of the life-giving and life-sustaining power of God, as manifested in the meaning of the word Jehovah, or Ihoh, the generative and prolific energy of the Creator.

The All-Seeing Eye is another, and a still more important, symbol of the same great Being.  Both the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to have derived its use from that natural inclination of figurative minds to select an organ as the symbol of the function which it is intended peculiarly to discharge.  Thus the foot was often adopted as the symbol of swiftness, the arm of strength, and the hand of fidelity.  On the same principle, the open eye was selected as the symbol of watchfulness, and the eye of God as the symbol of divine watchfulness and care of the universe.  The use of the symbol in this sense is repeatedly to be found in the Hebrew writers.  Thus the Psalmist says (Ps. xxxiv. 15), “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry,” which explains a subsequent passage (Ps. cxxi. 4), in which it is said, “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” [136]