Free Masonry - The Masonic Trowel

MAtiE A FRKtf MASON. 285
never are initiated into the grand mysteries, or we should,
perhaps, be more correct, if we said they had rejected
them. They have found means of purifying Masonry.
We shall soon see how little grand mysteries could agree
with the character of a nation which has given so many
proofs of its wisdom."*
CHAPTER XLVI.
Abbe BarrueVs Memoirs of Jacobinism, vol. ii. p. 158.—
Of the Grand Mysteries, or Secrets of the Occult
Lodges.
" WE comprehend, under the designation of occult lodges,
or the higher degrees of Masonry, all Free Masons in
general, who, after having passed the first three degrees of
apprentice, fellow craft, and master, show sufficient zeal to
be admitted into the higher degrees, where the veil is rent
asunder, where emblematical and allegorical figures are
thrown aside, and where the two-fold principle of liberty
and equality is unequivocally explained by war against
* The Abbe* wrote in London, and felt grateful for English hospitality
to himself and to hie fellow exiles.