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310 BOOK OF THE A. AND A. RITE.
their object, shocked the candidate, and then became
ridiculous, and were wholly disregarded. Acolytes
were exposed to tests, and compelled to perform acts,
which, if real, would have been abominable, but
being mere chimeras, were preposterous, and excited
contempt. Eight hundred degrees of one kind and
another were invented. Infidelity, Hermeticism,
Jesuitry, were taught under the mask of Masonry.
The rituals of the regular Orders, copied and imita-
ted by ignorant men, became nonsensical and trivial
Candidates were made to degrade themselves, and to
submit to insults not tolerable to a man of spirit
and honor. It has even been seriously questioned
whether, notwithstanding the beautiful order and sys-
tematic arrangement of the degrees in the Ancient
and Accepted rite—free as they are from all incon-
gruities, and perfect as the lessons are in the teach-
ings of the various virtues—the number might not
advantageously have been reduced, and thus Masonry
nave been simplified.
In the heterogeneous mass of over eight hundred
degrees called Masonry, was found Judaism and chiv-
alry, superstition and philosophy, philanthropy and
insane hatred, a pure morality and unjust and illegal
revenge, strongly mated, and standing hand in hand
within the temples of peace and concord ; and the
whole system was one grotesque commingling of in-
congruous things and fine conceptions, overlaid and
disfigured by absurdities engendered by ignorance;
fanaticism, and senseless mysticism.