THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

Divine
Lamb, and, as to ourselves, professing that we were to be distinguished
by
our _Acacy_, or as true _Acacians_ in our religious faiths and tenets.
"The acquisition of the doctrine of redemption is expressed in the
typical
character of _Huramen_ (I have found it.--_Greek_), and by the
applications of that name with Masons, it is implied that we have
discovered the knowledge of God and his salvation, and have been
redeemed
from the death of sin and the sepulchre of pollution and
unrighteousness.
"Thus the _Master Mason_ represents a man, under the Christian
doctrine,
saved from the grave of iniquity and raised to the faith of salvation."
It is in this way that Masonry has, by a sort of inevitable process
(when
we look to the religious sentiment of the interpreters), been
Christianized by some of the most illustrious and learned writers on
masonic science--by such able men as Hutchinson and Oliver in England,
and
by Harris, by Scott, by Salem Towne, and by several others in this
country.
I do not object to the system when the interpretation is not strained,
but
is plausible, consistent, and productive of the same results as in the
instance of Mount Calvary: all that I contend for is, that such
interpretations are modern, and that they do not belong to, although
they
may often be deduced from, the ancient system.
But the true ancient interpretation of the legend,--the universal
masonic
one,--for all countries and all ages, undoubtedly was, that the fate of
the temple builder is but figurative of the pilgrimage of man on earth,
through trials and temptations, through sin and sorrow, until his
eventual
fall beneath the blow of death and his final and glorious resurrection
to
another and an eternal life.
XXVIII.
The Sprig of Acacia.
Intimately connected with the legend of the third degree is the
mythical
history of the Sprig of Acacia, which we are now to consider.