Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

168 ROYAL ARCH MASONRY.
on its sublimity. Hear one; " In the royal arch Mason's
degree I beheld myself exalted to the top of Pisgah" &c.
We quote here, what the Sublime Master of Perfection so
emphatically applies to the tradition of the subbme degree
of master Mason:
"Nil fait unquam
" Tarn dispar sibi."
Never was any thing so contradictory.
Second temple founded A. M. 3466
Solomon's temple finished A. M. 3000
466 years the royal
arch stood firm without a foundation! This would be unaccountable
in any art except the " art of wonder working,
and the facultie of Abrac;" which
"Makes former times shake hands with latter,
" And that which was before, come after."
Finally, the royal arch is, and is not, a degree of ancient
Free Masonry. It began 466 years before its beginning;
being founded on a well known circumstance which occurred
in building the second temple at Jerusalem; and conferred
by king Solomon, as a reward, upon his grand master
architects, at the completion of the first temple; all
which is a mystery impenetrable to a master Mason, and
worthy of the reader's profound admiration.