Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

476 SOVEREIGN GRAND INSPECTOR GENERAL.
Most Puissant Soc. Grand Com.—Illustrious Grand
Master General of Ceremonies, conduct to the seat of
honor the Sovereign Grand Inspector General. (Candidate
is seated on the right of the Most Puissant Sovereign
Grand Commander.)
Most Puis.sant Soy. Grand Com.—Peers and Illustrious
brethren, let us award the honors of this exalted
dignity to our latest created Grand Inspector General.
(All salute candidate by 00000 000 0 00.)
Moat Puissant Soy. Grand Com.—Be seated and
listen to the lecture of the last degree.
LECTURE.
ILlustrious Grand Minister of State—Illustrious
brethren, by this time you will have learned that our object
is not to rebuild the material temple of Solomon, but
a moral temple, wherein truth and love shall dwell, and
wherein must live as one brotherhood all those, who,
having but one common parent, will abide by the laws
of eternal equity and justice. We have not to avenge
the murder of Hiram Abiff, for he represents that eternal
wisdom, which ignorance and lust of power and falsehood
had concealed from u~, but we must go on, in search
of those laws by which the moral world is regulated.
We have not persecuted the unfortunate nation of
Judah, for having sentenced to death our beloved
Sovereign, Jesus of Nazareth, the Apostle of the duties
and rights of man, but we must crush forever superstition,
fanaticism and intolerance. They, and not the
children of Israel were guilty. Let us show them no
mercy, and thereby secure the blessings of liberty of
conscience. Each child of God must worship his father,
according to his own conscience and enjoy those
prerogatives of the heart and mind of which God alone
is the Supreme Judge.
INITIATION. 477
We have not to avenge the murder of Jacques de
Molay and the Templars, but we must never allow, if
in our power to prevent it any living man to possess
sufficient power to accomplish another such a crime.
No man has a right to usurp a power which belongs
to God alone. No man is above his brother, except by
intellect, charity, good deeds and education.
To no man has God given authority to replace and
represent him on earth, and all those who pretend to be
his ministers and representatives must not be believed.
Our ignorance and selfishness alone give these usurpers
the pow&, which they wield for the gratification of
their impious schemes.
Our order is instituted to stop such encroachment and
to prevent the renewal of the tragedy which ended in
the murder of those Knight Templars, whose virtues
and moral power caused such terror to the political and
religious usurpers of that age, which is ever presented
to our minds by the battery of this degree: five, three,
one and two; significant to Sovereign Grand Inspectors
of the year of the murder of those victims of intolerance
kingeraft and prlescraft, 5312.
We abhor the doctrine which teaches the murder of
kings and priests, but as long as the weakness of mankind
renders their usurpation unavoIdable, we must prevent
their exercising their power to oppress uiankind
and endeavor by degrees to enlighten our brother melt
and prepare their minds for the enjoyment of those
rights and privileges which our Heavenly Father has
guaranteed to his heloved children.
We have not to reconquer, by nturdcr arid bloodshed.
that land, which the life and death of our Puissant
Sovereign, Jesus of Nazareth made holy, hut we have to
reconquer our rights, and to suhatitute truth for error;