Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

162 ALL RELIGION BUT HOLINESS AND JUSTICE.
erossed swords, hoodwinks oaths, blasphemies and sworn
secrecy, and concealed ceremonies which His Word and
example forbid ! And then, l~aving established and
set abroad a system of known antagonism and contempt
towards Christ and the Christian religion, they then
follow the holy solemnities and sublimities of the Bible,
as wolves follow lambs to destroy them and eat them:
to save their “cunningly devised fables” and “doctrines
of de~ils” from the world’s loathing and contempt.
Let tlic authoritalive teaching of Dr. Mackey be continually
borne in mind, that: “Ike mission and object of
Masonry is the worship of the areat Architect of the
Univcrsc.” It follows Iliat the lodges must have something
for their dupes to do, called worship. And what
could wicked inca and de~ ils invent craftier or bcltcr
suited to deceive the simple, than this very scheme of
“the Ancient Scottish Rite,” which now rules the rites
of the world. It seizes and appropriates all of rcligion
but its holiness and justice; and all of Christ but his
truth and his atonemcnt. It mixes things sacred with
things profane, till the ~~holecompound is profanity;
and quoting the Bible as if~’it believed it true, which
notoriou hy i~ does not, it has furnished a dark s~stcm,
which angels flee from and which devils inhabit. It
keeps its initiates under the power and mesmerism of
Satan, and by nightly worships and military drills, it is
preparing them for the war and bloodshed which are yet
to precede the binding of Satan for the prophetic thousand
years. But let it be remembered: “Our help
is in the name of the Lord which made heaven and
earth” (Ps. 124, 8) and that He is mightier than
Satan, stronger than “the strong man armed.” (Luke
11, 21, 2g.)
CHAPTER XLVII
TWENTY-SIXTH DEGREE; OR PRINCE or MERCY.’
WEST OR SPRING.
DECORATIONS :—Lodges of this degree are called Chapters.
The hangings are green, supported by nine columns,
alternately white and red, upon each of which is
a chandelier holding nine lights. The canopy over the
throne is green, white and red. Before the throne is a
table covered with cloth of the same color. Instead of
a gavel, the presiding officer uses an arrow, the plume
of which is red on one side and green on the other.
The spear is white; the point gilded. Before the altar
is a statue representing Truth, clad in the same colors.
It is the palladium of the order. The altar in the center
is of a triangular shape, the top being a gilded plate in
Rote 3N.—”Princ. of Mercy. (Prince flu Mercl.)—Tlae twenty-sixth
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, called also Seottiah
~eof or F,cosaaia Trinitairs. It is one of the eight degrees Which
were added on the organization of the Scottish Rite to the original
twenty.Sve of the Rite of Perfection.
It is a christian degree in its construction, and treats of the triple
covenant of mercy which God made with man; first with Abraham by
by circumcision; next with the Israelites in the wilderness, by the intermediatian
of Moses; ant iastiy. with sit mankind, by the death and
sufferings of Jesus Christ. It ia in allusion io these three acia of
mercy that the degree derives its two namee of Scottish Trinitarian and
PrInce of Mercy, and not, as Ragon supposes, from any reference to the
Faihers of Mercy, a religious society formeriy engaged in the ransoming
of Christian captives at Aigiers. Chemin Dupontes (Kern. Sur I’ Room.
~. 373). says that the Scottish rituals of the degree are too fuil of the
ermetic philosophy. an error from which the French Cahiers are
exempt; and he condemns much of its doctrines as hyperboiique pisis.
anterie.’ But the modern ritnais as now practiced are obnoxious to no
such objection. The symhoiic development of the number three of
coarse constitutes a larus part of its lecture, hut the real dogma of th.’
degree is the impoxtanos of Truth, and io this sil its ceremonies
ala dl~eted. —Naobs~s 330701o,e4la of Frsamaonq. Axtiols Princ, of
Wm~.