Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

132 PRINCE OF THE TABERNACLE, INITIATION. 133
btriven to discharge all the duties required of him, and
to live worthily, act justly, and fear God?
Senior Deacon—He has.
Junior Deacon—Has he, while such, done wrong to
any one, wit5hout afterwards making reparation as far
as has been in his power?
Senior Deacon—He has not.
Junior Deacon—.Eleazar, art thou actuated in seeking
to know the mysteries by a sincere desire to be
thereby better able to serve God, your country and your
brethren, and more efficiently to labor for the great
good of man?
Candidate—I am.
Juntor Deacon—Art thou not induced to come hither
through idle curiosity, or the pride of knowledge and a
desire to become superior to thy brethren and fellows?
Candidate—I am not.
Jun tor Deacon—Brother Senior Deacon, by what
further right does he expect to gain admission here?
Senior Deacon—By the sacred word,
Junior Deacon—Has he the sacred word?
Senior Deacon—He has.
Junior Deacon.—Let him give it.
Senior Deacon—He cannot, except with our assistance.
Junior Deacon—Let him begin then.
Can didate—Yod.
Senior Deacon—Re.
Junior Deacon—V’au,
Candidate—He.
Junior Deacon—The word is right, let him wait until
the Thrice Puissant is informed of his request.
(Junior Deacon closes the door, goes to the center of
the circle and gives the battery. The Thrice Puissant
answers it and the same (jilestions are asked and the
like answers returned, as at the door.)
Thrice Puissant—Brother Junior Deacon,
candidate the sacred word?
Junior Deacon—He has, Thrice Puissant.
has the
Thrice Puissant—You will retire and let him enter
and be re~eived in due form.
and opens the door,)
(Junior Deacon goes to
Junior Deacon—It is the order of the Thrice Puissant,
that he enter and be received in due form.
(Senior Deacon enters with him and conducts him
within the circle, then the Junior Deacon stops him,
bares his right arm, holds a lighted candle near enough
to it to cause him to feel the heat, and says:)
ma
Junior Deacon~—1 test thee by
and let this
fire
present pain ever remind you that he who rashly assumes
to perform office for which he is unfit, deserves
the fate of Nadab and Abihu, who were consumed by
fire from heaven when they offered strange fire before
the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, (Senior Deacon
then conducts him
room.)
slowly three times around the
Thrice Puissant—And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying: Bring the tribe of Levi near and present them
before Aaron the Priest, that they may minister unto
him, and they shall keep his charge and the charge of
the whole congregation before the Tabernacle of the
congregation, to do the service of the Tabernacle. And
licte 363.—”The purifying power of fire is naturally dednced from this
symbol of the holiness of the element And In the high degrees of Masonry.
as In the ancient Institutions, there is a purification by fire, coming
down to us insensibly and unconsciously from the old Magian cultus. In
the Medbovai ages there was a sect of ‘fire phiiosophers—ishilcaophi per
ignens—who were a branch or offshoot of Rosicrucianlam. with whIch Free.
masonry has so much in common. These fire philosophers kepi up the
veneration for fire, and cultivated the ‘fire-secret,’ aol as an idolatrous
belief. but modified by their hermetic notions They were also called
‘theosophists.’ and through them, or in reference to them, we find the
theosophic degrees of Masonry, which sprang up in the eighteenth century.
As fire and light are identical, so the fire. which was to the
Zoroastrians the symbol of the Divine Being, is to the Mason. under the
equivalent idea of light, the symbol of Divine Truth, or of the Grand
Architect. ‘—Macks7s Eacyclopadia of Freemasonry, Article Fise-wogahi~