Freemasonry Considered.

purpose . The jjopularly received ideas of the philosopher ' s stone , and the elixir vitce , the dreams of rabid alchemists aud the themes of ¦ novelists , are the perversions of great truths , truths which pertain to realities beyond the grave .

Let us consider for a moment the effect of the Philosopher ' s Stone and the Water of life . The Philosopher ' s Stone turned all metals to gold . There at once the balance of power is changed , and that nief . al which from its rarity is the most

precious , would , by its abundance , become the most worthless , ancl the other metals would rise in value above it . The Water of Life prolonged , if it did not give eternal earthly life . Here asrain the balance would be upset , the world would

become overpopulated , ancl man would die from ¦ the mere fact that they lived , paradoxical as that may seem . All error . Humbly these first Bosicruciaus , with feet slipping on the fungi which overran college and church , groped in the dark

with the dew , that is , during the watches of the ni ght , by the stars , amid the darkness , when the ¦ dew lies on the ground , all symbolic of a persistent and zealous search for the light , with the light for the Water of Life . It was their esoteric teaching's veiled in symbols , their living retired lives , ancl

the fact of their being expert chemists that caused them to be supposed to possess these secrets , or to be in search of them . Their mystic language added its effect , and pretenders , using the jargon , preyed upon the purses of the heedless . The

time Philosopher ' s Stone is reason , combined with high intellect ; the real Elixir Vitte , the . appliance of true knowledge , the product of reason , intellect , and study , to the life of man , which opens ¦ the great future to the Aspirant . Ancl even now

we have wandered far away from the pure paths lit up by the Spirit of God , and while we sneer at the worships of former times , we forget that in many instances we know not what these really

were , and that our own is anything but glory to ¦ God on High , and on earth peace to man . With regard to the Rosicrucians it must also be remembered , that in the Middle Ages the medical science was in a very low condition , till

rescued iu some measure from its degraded state by Paracelsus . The Rosicrucians working cures by their powerful medicines might well appear in the eyes of the unlearned to possess boundless power over disease and death , and so have paved the way for that monstrous jargon of alchemy , astrology , and spiritualism , which is not extinct

even at the present day . Weishaupt pretended to be in possession of the Rosicrucian secrets , but his life and death are sufficient proofs that if so the secrets did not give earthly power and wealth , or earthly immortality . From the pseudo secret

societies of the seventeenth century , the Hauts Grades were imitated , with what success , every intelligent Mason is acquainted . When we come to consider the many so-called Masonic rites , we are at loss which more to

admire , the ingenuity and inventive powers of their fabricators , or the gullability of their dupes . From the four degrees of the French adoptive Masonry to the ninety degrees of Misraiin , we have many rites of more or less degrees . There are the

French or modern rite , Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite , Philosophic Scotch Rite , Primitive Scotch Rite , Ancient Reformed Rite , Fessler ' s Rite ( which Mackey calls " the most abstrusely learned ancl philosophical of all the . rites . " ) . Rite

of the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes at Berlin , Rite of Perfection , Rite or Order of the Temple , Swedish Rite , Reformed Rite , Schroeder ' s Rite , Swedenborg ' s Rite , Zinnenclrof ' s Rite , and Everybody and Nobody's Rite ; the last known only to

certain facetious Edinburgh brethren . None of these rites were in existence in the year 1700 , or for many years after . There cannot be a shadow of doubt that to Ramsay we owe the huge mass of fungi that has arisen on the ancient foundation .

The 33 rd degree made its appearance , so far as I can learn , some thirty years ago in England , and in Scotland , in the latter under the auspices of Dr . Walker Arnoit , and , if my memory is true , no goodwill existed between the bodies at the time , *

although they subsequently saw fit , for their mutual benefit , to drop hostilities . Curious to say , they then believed in , and called themselves " of the Rite of Misraim . " Dr . Arnott also was the restorer of the Royal Order in Scotland , having

sent to London for it . f Dr . Arnott , who must be said to be the foremost High Mason in Scotland of the day , was a pupil of Mr . Deuchar , the seal engraver , under whose auspices the Order of the Temple was started , and who was its first Grand

Master . The claim of Scotland to have been the preserver of the Temple is absurd , and Professor Aytoun's account of its continuation from the days of de Clifton to his time , is pretty well known to have been a well executed hoax b y that witty