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

TO STEAL THE POPULARITY OF RODENT BRUCE. 488PHILOSOPHICALANALYSISEIGHTEENTH D10~, OR SOvEREIGN PRINCE OF ilos:CRoIx DE HEBODEM, AND KNIGHT OP THEEAGLE AND PEUCAI~T.Pretended Seoteta Origin Cf Degree Futge.—To Steat the Poputarity ofRobert Brnce.—Roae Croix HeLL, a Murnontc Cartcatn*w.—itnpndebt andDetatible Mimicry.The review of this degree appropriately closes Vol.1, of this work. To understand it, read carefully thefoot-notes, taken from the masters of Masonry, andseers of religious antagonism to the Bible and God.From these Masonic teachers we learn that this degreeof the Rose (or blood-red) Cross “was founded by theJesuits for the purpose of counteracting the insidiousattacks of Free Thinkers upon the Romish Faith,”(Note 186.) This testimony of Clavel is obviously true.“It is conferred in a body called a Chaptcr,”(Note 188)which is the Romish name for a Dean and his Clergy.“The word is now exclusively appropriate for lodgesconferring degrees higher than the Symbolic,” or OldYork degrces, (Mackey’s Cyclopaedia, Art. Chapter.)These “higher” degr~es, we need scarcely say, areFrench; inventedin the JesLits’ College of Clermont,Paris; and that. at the time when Scotch mind led theProtestant world. Scotland had overthrown and expelledPopery without shedding a drop of Popish blood;though her own martyrs shed plenty I France then ledthe false worships of the Anti-Christian world, by infidelityand superstition in the form of atheism andRoinanism. And this Rose Cross degree was falsely derivedfrom Scotland by Oliver, who said it was institutedby Robert Bruce, in a mountain called “Herodem,”(Note 187.) This stupendous falsehood was inventedfor the double purpose of giving Masonry the popularityof Robert Bruce~ the hero of Bsnnockburn; and deriving.this degree from Scotland, then the leading nation ofpure Bible Christianity I But, as here stated by Clavel,(Note 186.) the degree was invented by Jesuits, topopularize and protect priestcraft and the ~Romishsuperstition,from atheism which is born of priestcraftwhich makes the lovely and simple religion of Christ soshockingly abhorrent that men revolt at it, and mistakingpriestism for Christianity, flee to atheism to get ridof it. To comprehend this, read carefully thin expose,which, depicting the hall or halls where this, so called“emincntly Christian” degree is enacted, thus describesits lodge room:“The First Apartment represents Mount Calvary, andis hung with black,” and lighted with wax candles.“The Second Apartment contains a transparency representingthe ascension of Christ ;“ and“The Third Apartment represents Hell” as a lake ofboiling brimstone, out of which “human beings encircledwith flames,” are attempting to crawl, while “devilswith pitchforks” are pitching them back. Such is theroom, and such the drapery of the rooms where thin degreeof the Rose Cross is enacted, of which the MasonicLexicographer, Mackey, says, “everything, in short,about the degree is Christian.” See (Note 198.)This is about as just, fair, and true a picture of BibleReligion as would be a painting of the Slavery-Rebellion,representing it as a Hell of War, Poverty,Liquor, Poison, Arson, and Negro-whipping with RobertToombs, Jefferson Davis, John B. Floyd, Judah P.Benjamin and others, creeping up the banks to get out;with Johan Most and his Anarchists thrusting themback with hot pitchforks, over the dead line of Libby and