Through the Key Hole - RoseCroix.org.au

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THE STARS WE THINK WE SEE
By Keith Stockley
Freemasonry contains many references to the heavens and heavenly
bodies, the sun, moon and stars.
Any of us looking into the night sky will, on a clear night, see millions
of twinkling lights. These are the stars we never really see!
What we see when we stare into the night sky are the rays of light
sent out by those stars many thousands of years ago, perhaps
even millions of years ago.
Some of these light rays which we see tonight, first left on their
journey centuries ago, travelling at the speed of light, night after
night, and day after day, through millions of generations, through
the rise and falloff nations, since before the birth of Christ, or even
the first stone that was laid for King Solomon’s Temple.
Such has been the journey of those rays of light that guide our
footsteps home tonight.
Rays of light are still reaching us from stars that ceased to exist
many hundreds and thousands of years ago.
The life of a human is but a very brief moment in the span of time
it takes a twinkle of a star to reach us. We are living by rays of
light produced by stars that have ceased to exist.
Freemasons live by the rays of a great light produced twenty centuries
ago, or more, and those who follow us will be guided by
what we have done and we who are here just for a small fraction
of a moment should hasten to start rays of Masonic light on their
way to brethren who shall live a century or a hundred centuries
after we have ceased to exist.
I wonder what light each of us will shed for the benefit of future
star gazers?
during the Mastership of Lord Doneraille, under whom his sister
was initiated, the meetings were often held at his Lordship’s residence.
It was during one of these meetings at Doneraille House
that this female initiation took place, the story of which Spencer,
in his memoire, relates in the following words.
“ It happened on this particular occasion that the Lodge was held
in a room separated from another, as is often the case, by stud
and brickwork. The young lady, being giddy and thoughtless,
and determined to gratify her curiosity, made her arrangements
accordingly and, with a pair of scissors, ( as she herself related
to the mother of our informant), removed a portion of a brick
from the wall and placed herself so as to command a full view of
everything which occurred in the next room; so placed she witnessed
the first two degrees in Masonry, which was the extent
of the proceedings of the lodge on that night.
Becoming aware, from what she heard, that the brethren were
about to separate, for the first time she felt tremblingly alive to
the awkwardness and danger of her situation, and began to consider
how she could retire without observation.
She became nervous and agitated and nearly fainted, but so far
recovered herself as to be fully aware of the necessity of withdrawing
as quickly as possible; in the act of doing so, being in
the dark, she stumbled against and overthrew something, said to
be a chair or some ornamental piece of furniture.
The crash was loud and the tiler, who was on the lobby or landing
on which the doors both of the Lodge Room and that where
the honourable Miss St. Leger was, opened, gave the alarm,
burst open the door and, with a light in one hand and a drawn
sword in the other, appeared to the now terrified and fainting
lady.
He was soon joined by the members of the Lodge present and
luckily, for it asserted that but for the prompt appearance of her
brother, Lord Doneraille, and other steady members, her life would
have fallen a sacrifice to what was then esteemed her crime.