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

that
not less than three could constitute a college,--"_tres faciunt
collegium_,"--has been retained in the regulations of the third degree
of
masonry, to a lodge of which these colleges bore other analogies.
COLOGNE, CHARTER OF. See _Charter of Cologne_.
COMMON GAVEL. See _Gavel_.
CONSECRATION. The appropriating or dedicating, with certain ceremonies,
anything to sacred purposes or offices, by separating it from common
use.
Masonic lodges, like ancient temples and modern churches, have always
been
consecrated. Hobbes, in his _Leviathan_ (p. iv. c. 44), gives the best
definition of this ceremony. "To consecrate is in Scripture to offer,
give, or dedicate, in pious and decent language and gesture, a man, or
any
other thing, to God, by separating it from common use.".
CONSECRATION, ELEMENTS OF. Those things, the use of which in the
ceremony
as constituent and elementary parts of it, are necessary to the
perfecting
and legalizing of the act of consecration. In Freemasonry, these
elements
of consecration are _corn_, _wine_, and _oil_,--which see.
CORN. One of the three elements of masonic consecration, and as a
symbol
of plenty it is intended, under the name of the "corn of nourishment,"
to
remind us of those temporal blessings of life, support, and nourishment
which we receive from the Giver of all good.
CORNER STONE. The most important stone in the edifice, and in its
symbolism referring to an impressive ceremony in the first degree of
Masonry.
The ancients laid it with peculiar ceremonies, and among the Oriental
nations it was the symbol of a prince, or chief.
It is one of the most impressive symbols of Masonry.
It is a symbol of the candidate on his initiation.
As a symbol it is exclusively masonic, and confined to a temple origin.
COVERING OF THE LODGE. Under the technical name of the "clouded canopy
or
starry-decked heavens," it is a symbol of the future world,--of the
celestial lodge above, where the G.A.O.T.U. forever presides, and which
constitutes the "foreign country" which every mason hopes to reach.
CREUZER. George Frederick Creuzer, who was born in Germany in 1771, and
was a professor at the University of Heidelberg, devoted himself to the