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

I8~i A DRILL or ASSASSINATION AND REVENGE. TURNS LYNCH LAW INTO A RULIION. 185was necessary that they should revolve around Solomon’sTemple to give unity to the system by addingdegrees at the top of the York Rite.But thiR Ninth Degree surpasses and excels the threepreceding it, whIch are apologized for as “containinglittle symbolic instruction, being “mere recapitulation,”etc.This Ninth is the degree of “Revenge,” and the Ritualis a drill of assassination. Joabert is sent to arrestAbiram, who, without proof produced, is said to be oneof the murderers of Hiram Abiff and finding him asleepiii a cave, he cuts oI~ his head and brings it to Solomonby the hair. He is reproved for his haste, but rewardedby being raised to the Ninth Degree, and given anapron, white with blots of blood on it, lined and borderedwith black, while on the flap is a bloody armholding a dagger; and on the apron itself, a bloody armholding a bloody head by the hair; and the cry ofVengeance! Vengeance !“ is repeated over and againby Master and members in the cave and in the court.Now, considering that these degrees overran France;considering the ignorance of religion among all classes,owing to the ignorance of the clergy and the fearfulcorruption of the church, no ingenuity of“Earth and bell confederate”could have formed and let loose among the people a devkcebetter adapted to form fiends to work the guillotinein the horrors of the revolution which followed,than this Ninth Degree of the Ancient and AcceptedScottish Rite. Lynch law is fearful, but this NinthDegree turns lynch law into religion. It elevates andadorns lynchers. If Booth, who murdered Lincoln, hadbeen seized, lynched, his head cut of and brought intothe Supreme Court at Washington by the hair, and thebringer had been made Provost Marshal of Washing.ton; told to wear this blood-begrimed Masonic apronwith a poniard for a jewel, or a pair of scales with ascroll and a dagger on one plate and a decapitated headon the other, and the word “Revenge” in large lettersoverthe heads of the judges ;—blameless and beloved as Lincolnwas,and horrified as men were at his murder; ifthedrama of this degree had been enacted in public uponlynching his murderer, it would have tended to throw theworld’s sympathy on the assassin, and sunk the UnitedStates in the esteem of mankin’~ to a level with thethugs of India, or the cannibals of African lodges; whopledge fealty to their order by eating human flesh.Yet Maco~j and Macice7j (Notes 76 and 77) dwell, withtheir accustomed relish, on the ornaments and teachingsof this degree; and the latter (Note 79) says: Barn~eland Robi.oii “have sought to find in the word (vengeance)a proof of the vindictive character of the Institution.”And he adds: “No calumny was ever ta,bricitedwith so little pretension to trUth for its foundation.”If history, and especially American history, presentsmy character capable of forming and uttering a correctand dispassionate estimate of Masonry and its degrees,