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.