Mystic masonry, or, The symbols of freemasonry and the greater ...

98 Mystic Masonry.
beneficent as the "Father in Heaven." If the
Masonic meaning of Master: Perfect and Sublime
Master: Prince Adept: etc., is less than I have indicated,
then it is a roaring farce, or a stupendous
humbug. The conception of Masonry is true, but
it has adopted or imitated the ritual and glyphs of
a science, the key to which not one Mason in ten
thousand possesses, and hence the tradition of the
Lost Word has a literal, no less than a symbolical
meaning. The "Substitute" is given to the neophite
"till future generations shall find the True
Word." The question nov\r propounded to every
"obligated," or so-called Master Mason, is—is the
present the generation in which that which was lost
shall be found? and each must answer for himself
singly; just as he entered his lodge, first saw the
light, and took his obligation; just as every real
Master, or "White Adept," has done since the beginning
of time. There exists in Masonic literature
many learned essays on the history, orthography and
philology of the Lost Word; but I am acquainted
with no treatise that apprehends the nature of the
real secret like that of Brother Albert Pike in his
great work, and yet, if he knew the whole secret,
he concealed it at last.
The more immediate source from which the le-