THE TABEEBAN SECT OR CASTE. 83 



that anything consistent or universal upon that 

 subject is entertained; and in that case I should 

 not mind being told, that I had erred in my con- 

 clusions from a want of proper knowledge upon 

 the subject. 



It must be observed, however, that in matters of 

 Church ceremony the Shoans affect the formula of 

 the Alexandrian Church. But even on this sub- 

 ject we find that a great schism exists, by the 

 contemptuous disregard of tabots, robes, and all 

 outward show whatever, with which the Tabeeban 

 sect celebrate the rites of their worship. To term 

 these people a sect, is not so correct, perhaps, as to 

 call them a caste, for all artisans in Shoa, and I 

 believe in other parts of Abyssinia, are so desig- 

 nated. Blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, in fact, 

 all manufacturing artisans, are called " Tabeeb," 

 and, from this circumstance, when first I heard of 

 their mysterious religious rites, I considered that 

 they would be found to be a community of Free- 

 masons. Even now I give them the credit of 

 practising the primitive customs of the early 

 Church of Christ, as it approaches very much to 

 that simple worship of God which, from the in- 

 ternal evidence contained in some of the Church 

 letters of St. Paul, we may suppose to have distin- 

 guished the meetings of Christians in the apostolic 

 age. It is from this circumstance, I connect them 

 in origin, singularly enough, with our institution 

 of Freemasonry; although the primitive purity of 

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