Blanchard J (anti-masonic) - Scotch Rite Masonry Illustrated Part I

KILLING THE REMAiNING ASSASSINS GY 1113AM. 209HISTORICAL ANALYSISELEVENTH DEGREE OR SUBLIME KNIGHTS ELECTED.“The Dreariest of all Dreary 14o,.ense’—MaUiSe5I Countenaaoe of Es~Sworshipers—Admits the Strong Man Armed.If it has been felt necessary by the Masonic authorsof preceding degrees to apologize for some of them astame, “giving little or no symbolic information,” onewould think this Eleventh Degree needed such apologymuch more. The distinguished Dr. Leonard Bacon, alittle while before he died, read over some of these degrees,and in a letter to the writer, said: “‘Masonryseems to me the dreariest of all dreary nonsense.” Andthat is pre-eminently true of this Eleventh Degree.The lodge is still a “Chapter,” to please the Jesuits,and the clothing of the members the same as in thepreceding grade; the three assassins have been killedthe second time, and it is too soon to invent a newlynching scene. No murder of a sleeping man in acave; no bloody head held by the hair; not even ablood-smeared poniard is here to give relish to the game.Even poor Solomon is grown familiar as a half worncoat or hat; so that his title as lodge master has to bechanged from “Most Illustrious” in the tenth degree to“Thrice Puissant” in this. In short, the degree is mererepetitious dwelling like the dronings of a weary juggler.‘What then caused this~ degree to be selected fromthousands then in France? And what has kept it alivefor 133 years?The answer is given in Note 97, ‘which tells us thatthe fortune of war and the adoption of our presentconstitution, twelve years before, had convinced theworld that there was to be a United States.This Tenth Degree of the Charleston Rite, was theseventh in the Ledge of Perfection, formed in the JesuitCollege (see Note 83) with intent, as its name indicates.to lead and govern all the rest. The lodge was calleda “Chapter,” which means, a Dean and his clergy. Theskeleton of Jubelum, one of the fabled murderers of Hiram,hangs on one side of the hall. The drapery, redand white, the apron lined with black, and the jewel aponiard. The business, or burden, of the degree is thekilling of the remaining two murderers of Hiram, byripping them open from the chin downward and allowing“flies to suck their blood.” The emblematic color,black, flecked with tears. (Note 85.) This degreepassed from the Jesuit College into the Rite of TheEmperors of the East and West, and so was included intheir patent to the Jew, Morin. And, though the threeassassins of Hiram had been killed, by the torture whicheach invoked on himself, in th~e third or Masters degree,which was adopted into this rite as a part of it, theyare here killed over again, with new, diversified tortures;doubtless because the Rite of Perfection invented inFrance and called “Scotch” by Ramsa~j, was intendedto be an independent system, separate from EnglishMuonry, to please the young French nobles who despisedthe English mechanics. But it became necessaryto unite the two, to overtop and bring English lodges tosupport the Stuarts, and that the inventors might availthemselves of English Masonry, which had alreadyspread itself over Europe, as a market for new degrees.The names of these imaginary assassins, invented at