The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 7 - Rituals 503
whose solitude JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER passed two months while preparing
herself for death." 1453 Also, blue, represented by the violet, with "its retired,
shrinking nature" is emblematical of Jephthah's daughter. 1454 Having heard this
lecture, the candidate receives the sign 1455 and the pass of this degree.
The next station is Ruth's. In order to arrive there, a march through the
"labyrinth" has to be performed again:
The Conductress will lead the candidate around Adah's chair, leaving
the chair to the right, then across the Star, leaving the Altar to the left,
around Martha's chair, passing to Ruth for instruction. After each
lecture the labyrinth is followed in a similar manner, always leaving the
chairs to the right and the Altar to the left. (p. 47)
The Manual explains why the male Freemason who wrote the ritual thought
Ruth an exemplifying character worthy to be employed in the ritual of Adoptive
Masonry:
Freemasonry, in its obligations, emblems and principles, is peculiar, and
we, as Master Masons, are taught to respect devotion to religious
principles. Upon our first entrance into the Masonic Lodge we testify
our faith and trust in God. Atheism will effectually debar any person
from becoming a Freemason.
Therefore, when we find in history a person who forsakes home, and
lands, and parents, and country, through piety to God, we seize upon
that character, and hail it as Masonic; and we claim whatever credit or
honor may be associated with it.
Such a character [...] we discover in the Book of Ruth, under the title
of RUTH. And we have so surrounded the PIETY of that noble and
heroic woman with emblems, legends, and tokens of recognition, as to
make of it a section in ADOPTIVE MASONRY. 1456
The officer Ruth rises and tells the candidate her story: About eleven hundred
years before the Christian era, Elimeleck and his wife Naomi were driven by
famine from Bethlehem to the land of Moab, where their two sons married
women of Moab, one of them named Ruth. When Naomi became an aged and
dependent widow, Ruth believed it her duty to remain with her, in contrast to the
other sister-in-law, and returned with her to Bethlehem, where dwelt the people
of God, and where she became a gleaner in the fields of Boaz. One day, when the
latter approached her, Ruth defended herself by demonstrating how small her
1453 Ibid, p. 31.
1454 Ibid, p. 23.
1455 The sign is neither given in the Ritual, nor in the Manual, and since it is not the purpose of this
work to write another "exposé" of Freemasonry, it must be left to the reader's imagination.
However, it is not too difficult to guess that the sign must refer to the acts of the character, thus
dealing with the movement of casting off the veil and holding its ends firmly in the hands.
1456 Macoy, Manual of the Order of the Eastern Star, p. 35/36.