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

HISki%ORICALANALYSISSBV~NTH 1)EGIt~E 01 )‘EOVOST A2~D S ULXiE.oing Into toe Loose as a STog moo a Snases Montn—a Silly, weakAnscheonasm—iateilectuai and Moni Ashes—Moore’s Description ofVaise Religions.Masons who have brolceil 4a eacapeil the snare of thelodge tell us: “You have no idea how different thosedegrees seem to us, aa you now correctly recite them,from what they did while we were passing throughthem blindfold; stripped beyond the verge of decency;surrounded by we knew not whom; oaths dealt out tous piecemeal in the night; and we conscious of ourphysical inability to resist.” Others, apparently menof average ability and sense, have said: “I never feelmore perfect satisfaction and delight than when passingor taking others through those interesting, solemn andthrilling degrees.” Outsiders are perplexed by theseconflicting testimonies, and either believe opponentsuf the lodge monomaniaca or misinformed. Rev. J.B. Baird, while an industrious, hard working mechanic,had paid four hundred and fifty dollars for seventeendegrees. Addressing our first national meeting inPittsburg (1868), after describing the agonized struggleshe went through to eheape the suare, Mid you willsay to me: “If the thing is so horrible why did youtake degree after deRree when you kneir what theywere ?“ “I’ll tell you,” said he~ “We go into the lodgeone degree after another, as a charmed frog goes into asnake’s mouth.”This is the analysis and e~pIanation of this SeventhDegree. In itself, the degree is so loose, low and uninA SILLY, wnai ANACHRONISM. 131tellectual, that a man of ordinary sense finds it a taskto read it. The degree preceding this should have followedit in the schedule, as Joaberl’s escape from thedeath of a spy, and his promotion as “Intimate Secretary,”followed the completion of the building of thetemple. Yet here we are taken back to the time whilethe building was going on and when seven ProvostJudges were chosen to rule the three hundred men atwork on the temple.And who is the first Provost and Judge? Why,e~Brolher Joaberl,” who did not receive the Sixth Degreetill after the temple was complete. He is here receivingthe Seventh or Provost Degree, to govern andjudge the men who are at work on the temple before itis done l Glance at the ritual where the Thrice Puissant,Tilo, says:“Brethren, bear witness to the obligation this I ntimateSecretary is about to take.”But Joabert was not yet an “Intimate Secretary” tillafter the temple was done. Yet he here receives the degreeas Inlimale Secrelary, to which he was not admittedtill after the temple was completed; which degree,we are told in the opening, “King Solomon institutedto preserve peace among the workmen engaged inthe erection of the temple.” But beside this silly, weakanachronism, the degree is an attcmpt to surround withawe and dignity; by sworn secrecy, the election of asimple f6reman or officer of the peace, when there isnothing to conceal but the mere fact and mode of theappointment. If this be so, (and it is), then how arewe to account for the fact that this weak and worthlessdegree, with others like it, has come to us from theJesuit College of Clermont in 1754, twenty-two yearsbefore American Independence, and is now the Seventh