The fifth letter in the English and Graeco-Roman alphabets. In form the Hebrew is quite similar to Cheth, which has a numerical value of eight, while that of He is five. The signification of the character is window, and in the Egyptian hieroglyphs this meaning is represented by a hand extending the thumb and two fingers. It also represents the fifth name of God.

EAGLE

The eagle, as a symbol, is of great antiquity. In Egypt, Greece, and Persia, this bird was sacred to the sun. Among the Pagans it was an emblem of Jupiter, and with the Druids it was a symbol of their supreme god. In the Scriptures, a distinguished reference is in many instances made to the eagle; especially do we find Moses (Exodus xix, 4) representing Jehovah as saying, in allusion to the belief that this bird assists its feeble young in their flight by bearing them upon its own pinions, "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself." Not less elevated was the symbolism of the eagle among the Pagans. Thus, Cicero, speaking of the myth of Ganymede carried up to Jove on an eagle's back, says that it teaches us that the truly wise, irradiated by the shining light of virtue, become more and more like God, until by wisdom they are borne aloft and soar to Him. The heralds explain the eagle as signifying the same thing among birds as the lion does among quadrupeds. It is, they say, the most swift, strong, laborious, generous, and bold of all birds, and for this reason it has been made, both by ancients and moderns, the symbol of majesty. In the jewel of the Rose Croix Degree is found an eagle displayed at the foot of the cross; and it is there very appropriately selected as a symbol of Christ, in His Divine character, bearing the children of His adoption on His wings, teaching them with unequaled love and tenderness to poise their unfledged wings and soar from the dull corruption's of earth to a higher and holier sphere. Thus the eagle in the jewel of that Degree is significantly represented with wings displayed as if in flight.

KNIGHT OF THE EAGLE AND PELICAN

See Knights of the Eagle and Pelican

EAGLE, DOUBLE-HEADED

The Eagle Displayed, that is, with extended wings, as if in the act of dying, has always, from the majestic character of the bird, been deemed an emblem of imperial power. Marius, the consul, first consecrated the eagle, about eight years before the Christian era, to be the sole Roman standard at the head of every legion, and hence it became the standard of the Roman Empire ever afterward.

As the single-headed Eagle was thus adopted as the symbol of imperial power, the double-headed Eagle naturally became the representative of a double empire; and on the division of the Roman dominions into the eastern and western empire, which were afterward consolidated by the Carlovingian race into what was ever after called the Holy Roman Empire, the double-headed Eagle was assumed as the emblem of this double empire; one head looking, as it were, to the West, or Rome, and the other to the East, or Byzantium.

Hence the escutcheons of many persons now living, the descendants of the princes and counts of the Holy Roman Empire, are placed upon the breast of a double-headed Eagle Upon the dissolution of that empire, the emperors of Germany, who claimed their empire to be the representative of ancient Rome, assumed the double-headed Eagle as their symbol, and placed it in their arms, which were blazoned thus: or, an Eagle displayed sable, having two heads, each enclosed within an amulet, or beaked and armed Jules, holding in his right claw a sword and scepter or, and in his left the imperial mound. Russia also bears the double-headed eagle, having added, says Brewer, that of Poland to her own, and thus denoting a double empire. It is, however, probable that the double-headed eagle of Russia is to be traced to some assumed representation of the Holy Roman Empire based upon the claim of Russia to Byzantium; for Constantine, the Byzantine emperor, is said to have been the first who assumed this device to intimate the division of the empire into East and West.

Commenting on this suggestion by Doctor Mackey, Brother David E. W. Williamson writes that: There is no historical question whatever as to the time and occasion of the adoption of the double-headed eagle by Russia. It was taken as his device by Ivan III on his marriage with Zoe Palaeologa (Sophia), daughter of Thomas of Morea claimant to the imperial throne of Byzantium, and the date was 1469. It was probably because he claimed to be the successor of the Eastern Emperors. As to the adoption of the device in the West. I have no original authorities, but it is stated that it is first seen in the Holy Roman arms in 1345 and it is a fact that it first appears on the seals of the Holy Roman Empire in 1414. The legend of how it came to be adopted by the Emperors at Constantinople may or may not be true, but it is certainly not correct to say that the Seljuk Turks adopted it from the ruins of Euyuk, for Tatar coins antedating the occupation of the Asia Minor country by the Seljuks have been found. As to the device at Euyuk, it is not the most ancient representation of the double-headed eagle by any means if the figure of a comb, No. 10, plate XXIX, in Petriess Prehistoric Egypt, be, as I think it is, an attempt to carve it.

The statement of Millington (Heraldry in History, Poetry, and Romance, page 290) is doubtful that the double-headed eagle of the Austrian and Russian empires was first assumed during the Second Crusade and typified the great alliance formed by the Christian sovereigns of Greece and Germany against the enemy of their common faith, and it is retained by Russia and Austria as representations of those empires." The theory is more probable as well as more generally accepted which connects the symbol with the eastern and western empires of Rome. It is, however, agreed by all that while the single-headed eagle denotes imperial dignity the extension and multiplication of that dignity is symbolized by the two heads.

The double-headed eagle was probably first introduced as a symbol into Freemasonry in the year 1758. In that year the Body calling itself the Council of Emperors of the East and West was established in Paris. The double-headed eagle as likely to have been assumed by this Council in reference to the double Jurisdiction which it claimed, and which is represented so distinctly in its title.

The jewel of the Thirty-third Degree, or Sovereign Grand Inspector-General of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is a double-headed eagle (which was originally black. but is now generally of silver), a golden crown resting on both heady wings displayed, beak and claws of gold, his talons grasping a wavy sword, the emblem of cherubic fire, the hilt held by one talon, the blade by the other. The banner of the Order is also a double-headed eagle crowned. A captivating account of the curious progress of the double-headed eagle from a remote antiquity was prepared by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, pages 214, volume xxiv, 1911). This essay in part runs as follows:

The most ornamental, not to say the most ostentatious feature of the insignia of the Supreme Council, 33, of the Ancient and Accepted (Scottish) Rite, is the double-headed eagle, surmounted by an imperial crown. This device seems to have been adopted some time after 1758 by the grade known as the Emperors of the East and West; a sufficiently pretentious title. This seems to have been its first appearance in connection with Freemasonry, but history of the high grades has been subjected to such distortion that it is difficult to accept unreservedly any assertion put forward regarding them. From this imperial grade, the double-headed eagle came to the "Sovereign Prince Masons" of the Rite of Perfection. The Rite of Perfection with its twenty-five Degrees was amplified in 1801, at Charleston, United States of America, into the Ancient and Accepted Rite of 33 , with the double-headed eagle for its most distinctive emblem. When this emblem was first adopted by the high grades it had been in use as a symbol of power for 5000 years, or so. No heraldic bearing, no emblematic device anywhere today can boast such antiquity. It was in use a thousand years before the Exodus from Egypt, and more than 2000 years before the building of King Solomon's Temple.

The story of our Eagle has been told by the eminent Assyriologist, M. Thureau Dangin, in the volume of Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 1904. Among the most important discoveries for which we are indebted to the late M. de Sarzec, were two large terra cotta cylinders covered with many hundred lines of archaic cuneiform characters These cylinders were found in the brick mounds of Tello, which has been identified with certainty as the City of Lagash, the dominant center of Southern Babylonian ere Babylon had imposed its name and rule on the country.

The cylinders are now in the Louvre and have been deciphered by M. Thureau Dangin, who displays to our wondering eyes the emblem of power that was already centuries old when Babylon gave its name to Babylonia. The cylinder in question is a foundation record deposited by one Gudea, Ruler of the City of Lagash, to mark the building of the temple, about the year 3000 B.C., as nearly as the date could be fixed. The foundation record was deposited just as our medals, coins and metallic plates are deposited today, when the corner stone is laid with Masonic honors. It must be born in mind that in this ease, the word cornerstone may be employed only in a conventional sense, for in Babylonia all edifices, temples, palaces, and towers alike, were built of brick. But the custom of laying foundation deposits was general, whatever the building material might be, and we shall presently see what functions are attributed, by another eminent scholar, to the foundation chamber of King Solomon's Temple.

The contents of this inscription are of the utmost value to the oriental scholar, but may be briefly dismissed for our present purpose. Suffice it to say, that the King begins by reciting that a great drought had fallen upon the land. " The waters of the Tigris," he says, " fell low and the store of provender ran short in this my city," saying that he feared it was 3 visitation from the gods, to whom he determined to submit his evil ease and that of his people. The reader familiar with Babylonian methods that pervade the Books of the Captivity, will not be surprised to learn that the King dreamed a dream, in which the will of the gods was revealed by direct personal intervention and interlocution. In the dream there came unto the King " a Divine Man, whose stature reached from earth to heaven, and whose head was crowned with the crown of a god, surmounted by the Storm Bird that extended its wings over Lazash, the land thereof." This Storm Bird, no other than our double-headed eagle, was the totem as ethnologists and anthropologists are fain to call it, of the mighty Sumerian City of Lagash, and stood proudly forth the visible emblem of its power and domination. This double-headed eagle of Lagash is the oldest Royal Crest in the world.

As time rolled on, it passed from the Sumerians to the men of Akhad. From the men of Akhad to the Hittites , from the denizens of Asia Minor to the Seliukian Sultans, from whom it was brought by Crusaders to the Emperors of the East and West, whose successors today are the Hapsburgs and Romanoffs, as well as to the Masonic Emperors of the East and West, whose successors today are the Supreme Council, 33 , that have inherited the insignia of the Site of Perfection.

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE

See Knight of the Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE AMERICAN

See Knight of the American Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE BLACK

See Knight of the Black Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN

See Knight of the Golden Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE PRUSSIAN

See Knight of the Prussian Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE RED

See Knight of the Red Eagle

EAGLE, KNIGHT OF THE WHITE AND BLACK

See Knight of the White and Black Eagle

EAGLES, KNIGHT OF THE TWO CROWNED

See Knight of the Two Crowned Eagles

EARLY GRAND MASTER

See E. G. M. in Abbreviations

EAR OF CORN

This was, among all the ancients , an emblem of plenty. Ceres, who was universally worshiped as the goddess of abundance, and even called by the Greeks Dewneter, a manifest corruption of Gemeter, or Mother Earth, was symbolically represented with a garland on her head composed of ears of corn, a lighted torch in one hand, and a cluster of poppies and ears of corn in the other. In the Hebrew, the most significant of all languages, the two words, which signify an ear of corn, are both derived from roots which give the idea of abundance. For shibboleth, pronounced shib-bo-leth which is applicable both to an ear of corn and a flood of water, has its root in pronounced shib-bole, meaning to increase or to flow abundantly; and the other name of corn, pronounced daw-gawn, is derived from the verb, no, pronounced daogaw, signifying to multiply, or to be increased.

Ear of corn, which is a technical expression in Freemasonry, has been sometimes ignorantly displaced by a sheaf of wheat. This was done under the mistaken supposition that corn refers only to Indian maize, which was unknown to the ancients. But corn is a generic word, and includes wheat and every other kind of grain. This is its legitimate English meaning, and hence an ear of corn, which is an old expression, and the right one, would denote a stalk, but not a sheaf of wheat (see Shibboleth).

EAR, THE LISTENING

The listening ear is one of the three precious jewels of a Fellow Craft Freemason. In the Hebrew language, the verb YDD, pronounced shaw-mah, signifies not only to hear, but also to understand and to obey. Hence, when Jesus said, after a parable, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear," he meant to denote that he who hears the recital of allegories should endeavor to discover their hidden meaning, and be obedient to their teaching.

This is the true meaning of the symbol of the listening ear which admonishes the Fellow Craft not only that he should receive lessons of instruction from his teacher, but that he should treasure them in his breast, so as to ponder over their meaning and carry out their design

EARTHEN PAN

In the lectures of the early part of the eighteenth century used as a symbol of zeal, together with chalk and charcoal, which represented freedom and fervency. In the modern lectures clay has been substituted for it. Pan once signified hard earth, a meaning which it now obsolete, though from it we derive the name of a cooking utensil.

EAST

- The East has always been considered peculiarly sacred. This was, without exception, the case in all the Ancient Mysteries. In the Egyptian rites, especially, and those of Adonis, which were among the earliest, and from which the others derived their existence, the sun was the object of adoration, and his revolutions through the various seasons were fictitiously represented. The spot, there fore, where this luminary made his appearance at the commencement of day, and where his worshipers were wont anxiously to look for the first darting of his prolific rays, was esteemed as the figurative birthplace of their god, and honored with an appropriate degree of reverence.

Even among those nations where sun-worship gave place to more enlightened doctrines, the respect for the place of sun-rising continued to exist. The camp of Judah was placed by Moses in the East as a mark of distinction; the tabernacle in the wilderness was placed due East and West; and the practise was continued in the erection of Christian churches. Hence, too, the primitive Christians always turned toward the East in their public prayers, which custom Saint Augustine (Serm. Dom. in Monte, chapter 5 accounts for "because the East is the most honorable part of the world, being the region of light whence the glorious sun arises." Hence all Masonic Lodges, like their great prototype the Temple of Jerusalem, are built, or supposed to be built, due East and West; and as the North is esteemed a place of darkness, the East, on the contrary, is considered a place of light.

In the primitive Christian church, according to Saint Ambrose, in the ceremonies that accompanied the baptism of a catechumen, a beginner in religious instruction, "he turned towards the West, the image of darkness, to abjure the world, and towards the East, the emblem of light, to denote his alliance with Jesus Christ." And so, too, in the oldest lectures of the second century ago, the Freemason is said to travel from the West to the East, that is, from dark ness to light. In the Prestonian system, the question is asked, "What induces you to leave the West to travel to the East?" And the answer is: "In search of a Master, and from him to gain instruction." The same idea, if not precisely the same language, is preserved in the modern and existing rituals.

The East, being the place where the Master sits, is considered the most honorable part of the Lodge, and is distinguished from the rest of the room by a dais, or raised platform, which is occupied only by those who have passed the Chair. Bazot (Manuel, page 154) says: "The veneration which Masons have for the East confirms the theory that it is from the East that the Masonic cult proceeded, and that this bears a relation to the primitive religion whose first degeneration was sun-worship."

EAST AND WEST, KNIGHT OF THE

see Knight of the East and West

EAST, GRAND

The place where a Grand Lodge holds its Communications, and whence are issued its Edicts, is often called its Grand East. Thus, the Grand East of Boston, according to this usage, would be placed at the head of documents emanating from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Grand Orient has sometimes been used instead of Grand East, but improperly. Orient might be admissible as signifying East, but Grand Orient having been adopted as the name of certain Grand Bodies, such as the Grand Orient of France, which is tantamount to the Grand Lodge of France, the use of the term might lead to confusion. Thus, the Orient of Paris is the seat of the Grand Orient of France. The expression Grand East, however, is almost exclusively confined to America, and even there is not in universal use.

EAST INDIES

See India

EAST, KNIGHT OF THE

See Knight of the East

EASTER

Easter Sunday, being the day celebrated by the Christian church in commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, is appropriately kept as a feast day by Rose Croix Freemasons. The Western churches, or those not identified with the Jewish race, generally keep Easter as the first day of Holy Week following the Friday of the crucifixion, while the Eastern churches as a rule keep Easter as the fourteenth day of April, immediately following the general fast. With the Jews, the Christian thought of Easter bears significant resemblance to the Paschal Lamb. Easter signifies to the entire Western Christian world the resurrection of the Christ, the name being derived from the Latin pascha which, in turn, came from the Chaldee or Aramaean form for the Hebrew word meaning Pass-over (see Exodus, xii, 27).

According to Bede the name is derived from Eostre or Ostara, the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Eostur monath or our month of April was also dedicated to this goddess. The German name for Easter is astern, named after this self-same goddess of Spring, the Teutonic Ostera. The New Testament makes no mention of an observance of Easter. The first Christians did not have special days held more sanctified than the rest. As has been written (Ecclesiastical History, Socrates v, 22), "The apostles had no thought of appointing festival days, but of promoting a life of blamelessness and piety."

For centuries the controversy as to just exactly what day was to be held as Easter went on between the various sects. Easter day is, briefly, the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. This varies in different longitudes and this difficulty presented many problems to the clergy and the astronomers. About the year 325 it was decided by the Council of Nicaea, called by Constantine, that the correct date of Easter was to be reckoned at Alexandria and announced each year to the churches under the jurisdiction of that See by the Bishop himself. This was to be communicated to the Roman See.

A bitter controversy ensued. Many refused to accept this solution of the difficulty, insisting upon the observance of the fourteenth day. Attempts were made to compute by means of cycles of years the correct time. At first an eight years cycle was adopted, then the eighty-four year cycle of the Jews, and after much reckoning a cycle of nineteen years was accepted.

Offing to the lack of anything definite Saint Augustine tells us that in the year 387 Easter was kept on March 21 by the churches of Gaul, on April 18 in Italy and on April 25 in Egypt. The ancient Celtic and British Churches adhered stubbornly to the finding of the Council of Constantine and received their instructions from the Holy See at Rome. Saint Augustine of Canterbury led the opposing group and this difference of opinion had the effect in England of a Church holding Easter on one day of certain years and the other Church holding Easter on an entirely different Sunday. Bede tells us that between the y ears 645 and 651 Queen Eanfleda fasted and kept Palm Sunday while her husband, Oswy, then King of Northumbria, followed the rule of the British Church and celebrated the Easter festival.

In 669 this difference of opinion was ended in England, due probably to the efforts of Archbishop Theodore In 1752 the Gregorian reformation of the calendar was adopted by Great Britain and Ireland. Easter at present is the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st of March, and if the full moon happens on a Sunday, Faster day is the Sunday after. By full moon is meant, the fourteenth day of the moon.

The ceremonies of the Easter Sepulcher are discussed in Scenic Representations, which see.

EASTER MONDAY

On this day, in every third year, Councils of Kadosh in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite hold their elections.

EASTERN STAR, ORDER OF THE

This is the very popular American Rite of Adoption to which Brother Rob Morris gave many years labor and dedicated numerous poems. There are five beautiful degrees to which Freemasons and their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are eligible. The ceremonies are entirely different to the old Rites of Adoption practiced on the Continent of Europe (see also Adoptive Masonry and Androgynous Degrees).

Degrees for women, under the title of the Masonry of Adoption, were as long ago as 1765 in vogue on the continent of Europe. These were administered under the patronage of the ruling Masonic body and especially flourished in the palmy days of the Empire in France, the Empress Josephine being at the head of the Order and many women of the highest standing were active members.

The term Adoption, so it is said, was given to the organization because the Freemasons formally adopted the ladies to whom the mysteries of the several degrees were imparted. Albert Pike, who took great interest in this Masonry of Adoption and made a translation of the ritual into English with some elaboration dictated by his profound knowledge of symbolism and philosophy, points out the reason that in his judgment existed for the conferring of degrees upon the women of a Freemasons family. He says in the preface to his ritual of the Masonry of Adoption:

Our mothers. sisters, wives and daughters cannot. it is true, be admitted to share with us the grand mysteries of Freemasonry, but there is no reason why there should not be also a Masonry for them, which may not merely enable them to make themselves known to Masons, and so to obtain assistance and protection; but by means of which, acting in concert through the tie of association and mutual obligation, they may Co-operate in the great labors of Masonry by assisting in and, in some respects, directing their charities, and toiling in the cause of human progress. The object of ' la Maçonnerie des Dames" is, therefore, very inadequately expressed, when it is said to be the improvement and purification of the sentiments.

The Order of the Eastern Star has become just such an organization, strong enough to take an active and powerful co-operative concern in the beneficent labors of Freemasons for the care of the indigent and the afflicted. While entirely different and distinct from the Masonry of Adoption, being indeed of American and not French development, all the expectations so ably expressed by Brother Pike have in no other fraternal association been so admirably fulfilled as in the Order of the Eastern Star.

Some mystery involves the origin of the Order. In this respect the Order of the Eastern Star is closely akin to the various branches of the Masonic brotherhood. To unravel the truth from the entanglement of myth is, with many of these knotty problems, a troublesome and perhaps a never wholly satisfactory task. Evidence having few and incomplete records, dependent rather upon memory than in documents of authority is the usual subject-matter of discussion when laboring at the historic past of human institutions.

First of all let us take the testimony of Brother Rob Morris, than whom no one person has, it is conceded, given more freely of his service in the early development of the Order. None ought to know of the Eastern Star's inception story more than he, the acknowledged pioneer propagandist during its tender infancy and struggling youth.

During the latter part of 1884 Brother Rob Morris gave an account of the origination of the Eastern Star, which is in part as follows:

In the winter of 1850 I was a resident of Jackson, Mississippi. For some time previous I had contemplated, as hinted above, the preparation of a Ritual of Adoptive Masonry, the Degrees then in vogue appearing to me poorly conceived, weakly wrought out, unimpressive and particularly defective in point of motive. I allude especially to those Degrees styled the Mason's Daughter, and the Heroines of Jericho. But I do expressly except from this criticism, the Good Samaritan, which in my judgment possesses dramatic elements and machinery equal to those that are in the Templar's Orders, the High Priesthood, the Cryptic Rite, and other organizations of Thomas Smith Webb. I have always recommended the Good Samaritan, and a thousand times conferred it in various parts of the world.

About the first of February, 1850, I was laid up for two weeks with a sharp attack of rheumatism, and it was this period which I gave to the work in hand. By the aid of my papers and the memory of Mrs. Morris, I recall even the trivial occurrences connected with the work, how I hesitated for a theme, how I dallied over a name, how I wrought face to face with the clock that I might keep my drama within due limits of time, etc.

The name was first settled upon The Eastern Star.

Next the number of points, five, to correspond with the emblem on the Master's carpet. This is the pentagon, "The signet of King Solomon," and eminently proper to Adoptive Masonry. From the Holy Writings I culled four biographical sketches to correspond with my first four points, namely, Jephthah's Daughter (named Adah for want of a better) Ruth, Esther, and Martha. These were illustrations of four great congeries of womanly virtues, and their selection has proved highly popular. The fifth point introduced me to the early history of the Christian Church, where, amidst a noble army of martyrs, I found many whose lives and death overflowed the cup of martyrdom with a glory not surpassed by any of those named in Holy Writ. This gave me Electa, the "Elect Lady, " friend of St. John, the Christian woman whose venerable years were crowned with the utmost splendor of the crucifixion.

The colors, the emblems, the floral wreaths, the esotery proper to these five heroines, were easy of invention. They seemed to fall ready made into my hands. The only piece of mechanism difficult to fit into the construction was the cabalistic motto, but this occurred to me in ample time for use.

The compositions of the lectures was but a recreation. Familiar from childhood as I had been with the Holy Scriptures, I scarcely needed to look up my proof texts, so tamely did they come to my call. A number of odes were also composed at that time, but the greater part of the threescore odes and poems of the Eastern Star that I have written were the work of subsequent years. The first Ode of the series of 1850 was one commencing "Light from the East, 'tis gilded with hope."
The theory of the whole subject is succinctly stated in my Rosary of take Eastern Star, published in 1865: To take from the ancient writings five prominent female characters, illustrating as many Masonic virtues, and to adopt them into the fold of Masonry. The selections were:

1. Jephthah's Daughter, as illustrating respect to the binding force of a vow.
2. Ruth, as illustrating devotion to religious principles.
3. Esther, as illustrating fidelity to kindred and friends.
4. Martha, as illustrating undeviating faith in the hour of trial.
5. Electa, as illustrating patience and submission under wrong.

These are all Masonic virtues, and they have nowhere in history more brilliant exemplars than in the five characters presented in the lectures of the Eastern Star. It is a fitting comment upon these statements that in all the changes that the Eastern Star has experienced at so many hands for thirty-four, years, no change in the names, histories or essential lessons has been proposed. So my Ritual was complete, and after touching and retouching the manuscript, as professional authors love to do, I invited a neighboring Mason and his wife to join with my own, and to them, in my own parlor, communicated the Degrees. They were the first recipients the first of twice fifty thousand who have seen the signs, heard the words, exchanged the touch, and joined in the music of the Eastern Star. When I take a retrospect of that evening but thirty-four years ago and consider the abounding four hundred Eastern Star Chapters at work today, my heart swells with gratitude to God, who guided my hand during that period of convalescence to prepare a work, of all the work of my life the most successful.

Being at that time, and until a very recent period, an active traveler, visiting all countries where lodges exist —a nervous, wiry, elastic man, unwearying in work caring little for refreshments or sleep, I spread abroad the knowledge of the Eastern Star wherever I went. Equally in border communities, where ladies came in homespun, as in cities, where ladies came in satins, the new Degree was received with ardor, and eulogized in strongest terms, so that every induction led to the call for more. Ladies and gentlemen are yet living who met that immense assemblage at Newark, New Jersey, in 1853 and the still greater one in Spring Street Hall, New York City, a little earlier, where I stood up for two hours or three, before a breathless and gratified audience, and brought to bear all that I could draw from the Holy Scriptures the Talmud, and the writings of Josephus, concerning the five "Heroines of the Eastern Star."

Not that my work met no opposition. Quite the reverse. It was not long until editors, report writers, newspaper critics and my own private correspondents began to see the evil of it. The cry of "Innovation" went up to heaven. Ridicule lent its aid to a grand assault upon my poor little figment. Ingenious changes were rung upon the idea of "petticoat Masonry." More than one writer in Masonic journals (men of an evil class we had them: men who knew the secrets, but have never applied the principles of Masonry), more than one such expressed in language indecent and shocking, his opposition to the Eastern Star and to me. Letters were written me, some signed, some anonymous, warning me that I was periling my own Masonic connections in the advocacy of this scheme. In New York City the opponents of the Eastern Star even started a rival project to break it down. They employed a literary person, a poet of eminence, a gentleman of social merit, to prepare rituals under an ingenious form, and much time and money were spent in the effort to popularize it but it survived only a short year and is already forgotten. But the Eastern Star glittered steadily in the ascendant. In 1855 I arranged the system of Constellations of the Eastern Star, of which the Mosaic Books was the index, and established more than one hundred of these bodies. Looking over that book, one of the most original and brilliant works to which I ever put my hand, I have wondered that the system did not succeed. It must be because the times were not ripe for it. The opposition to " Ladies' Masonry " was too bitter. The advocates of the plan were not sufficiently influential. At any rate it fell through. Four years later I prepared an easier plan, styled Families of the Eastern Star, intended, in its simplicity and the readiness by which it could be worked, to avoid the complexity of the "Constellations." This ran well enough until the war broke out, when all Masonic systems fell together with a crash.

This ended my work in systematizing the Eastern Star, and I should nearer have done more with it, save confer it in an informal manner as at first, but for Brother Robert Macoy of New York, who in 1868, when I had publicly announced my intentions of confining my labors during the remainder of my life to Holy Land investigations, proposed the plan of Eastern Star Chapters now in vogue. He had my full consent and endorsement, and thus became the instigator of a third and more successful System The history of this organization, which is now disseminated in more than four hundred chapters, extending to thirty-three States and Territories, I need not detail. The annual proceedings of Grand Chapters the indefatigable labors of the Rev. Willis D. Engle Grand Secretary of the General Grand Chapter, the liberal manner in which the Masonic journals have opened their columns to the proceeding of the Adoptive Order, the annual festivals, the sociables, concerts, picnics, etc., which keep the name of the Society before the public, make a history of their own better than I can write.

In another statement under date of 1884, Brother Morris further informs us:

Some writers have fallen into the error of placing the introduction of the Eastern Star as far back as 1775, and this they gather from my work, Lights and Shadows of freemasonry published in 1852. What I intended to say in that book was that the French officers introduced Adoptive Masonry into the Colonies in 1778, but nothing like the degree called the Eastern Star, which is strictly my own origination.

The statements of Brother Morris are deserving of the utmost consideration and affectionate confidence. His devotion to Masonic service was long and honorable, freely acknowledged by his Brethren with promotions to places of the highest prominence within their gift. We can thus approach his assertions confident of their accuracy so far as the intent of Brother Morris is concerned. Candor, nevertheless, compels the conclusion that our excellent Brother did not in his various and valuable contributions to the history of the Eastern Star, and the related Bodies, always clearly define his positions, and the studious reader is therefore somewhat in doubt whether on all occasions the meaning is unmistakable. For example, the foregoing references are in themselves very clear that Brother Morris was the originator of the Eastern Star. It is substantially shown in detail how the several items of consequence were actually put into practice by him.

Let us now briefly mention what may be set forth on the other side. The Mosaic Book, by Brother Rob Morris, and published in 1857, says in Chapter II, Section 2:

In selecting some Androgynous Degree, extensively known, ancient in date, and ample in scope, for the basis of this Rite, the choice falls without controversy upon the " Eastern Star.- For this is a degree familiar to thousands of the most enlightened York Masons and their female relations—established in this country at least before 1778—and one which popularly bears the palm in point of doctrine and elegance over all others. Its scope, by the addition of a ceremonial and a few links in the chain of recognition, was broad enough to constitute a graceful and consistent system, worthy, it is believed, of the best intellect of either sex.

Brother Willis D. Engle, the first R. W. Grand Secretary of the General Grand Chapter of the Order, says (on page 12 of his History) that:

The fact is that Brother Morris received the Eastern Star degree at the hands of Giles M. Hillyer, of Vicksburg, Mississippi, about 1849.

Puzzling as is this mixture of statements, there is the one possible explanation that in speaking of the Order, Brother Morris had two quite different things in mind and that he may have inadvertently caused some to understand him to be speaking of the one when he referred to the other, or to both, as the case might be. We know that he had received Adoptive Degrees and we are well aware that he had prepared more than one arrangement of Eastern Star Degrees or of allied ceremonies. What more likely that in speaking of the one his thoughts should dwell upon the other; the one, Adoptive Freemasonry, being as we might say the subject in general; the other, the Eastern Star, being the particular topic. He could very properly think of the Degree as an old idea, the Freemasonry of Adoption, and he could also consider it as being of novelty in the form of the Eastern Star; in the one case thinking of it as given him, and b the second instance thinking of it as it left his hands. In any event, the well-known sincerity and high repute of Brother Morris absolve him from any stigma of wilful misrepresentation. Certainly it is due his memory that the various conflicting assertions be given a sympathetic study and as friendly and harmonious a construction as is made at all possible by their terms.

Another curious angle of the situation develops in The Thesauros (a Greek word meaning a place where knowledge is stored) of the Ancient and Honorable Order of the Eastern Star as collected and arranged by the committee, and adopted by the Supreme Council in convocation, assembled May, 1793. A copy of this eighteen-page pamphlet is in possession of Brother Alonzo J. Burton, Past Grand Lecturer, New York. This book of monitorial instruction has been reprinted and does afford a most interesting claim for the existence of an Eastern Star organization as early as the eighteenth century.

A Supreme Constellation was organized by Brother Rob Morris in 1855 with the following principal officers: Most Enlightened Grand Luminary, Rob Morris; Right Enlightened Deputy Grand Luminary and Grand Lecturer, Joel M. Spiller, Delphi, Indiana; Very Enlightened Grand Treasurer, Jonathan R. Neill, New York, and Very Enlightened Grand Secretary, John W. Leonard, New York. Deputies were appointed for several States and by the end of 1855 seventy-five charters for subordinate Constellations had been granted. These Constellations were made up of five or more persons of each sex, with a limit of no more than twenty-five of the one sex, and several Constellations might be associated with a single lodge.

There subsequently arose a second governing Body of which James B. Taylor of New York became Grand Secretary. This organization was known as the Supreme Council of the Ancient Rite of Adoptive Masonry for North America. How much of a real existence was lived by this body is now difficult of determination because of the secrecy with which its operations were conducted. Early in the seventies it expired after a discouraging struggle for life.

Brother Morris was not a partner in the above enterprise and had in 1860 begun the organizing of Families of the Eastern Star. To use his own expression, "The two systems of Constellations and Families are identical in spirit, the latter having taken the place of the former." A further statement by Brother Morris was to the effect that the ladies who were introduced to the advantages of Adoptive Freemasonry under the former system retained their privileges under the latter. During the next eight years more than a hundred Families were organized. Brother Robert Macoy of New York had in 1866 prepared a manual of the Eastern Star. In this work he mentions himself as National Grand Secretary. He also maintained the semblance of a Supreme Grand Chapter of the Adoptive Rite. Brother Morris decided in 1868 to devote his life to Masonic exploration in Palestine. His Eastern Star powers were transferred to Brother Macoy, as has been claimed. The latter in later years described himself as Supreme Grand Patron. Still another attempt at the formal organization of a governing Body occurred in 1873 at New York, when the following provisional officers of a Supreme Grand Council of the World, Adoptive Rite, were selected: Supreme Grand Patron, Robert Macoy, of New York; Supreme Grand Matron, Frances E. Johnson, of New York; Associate Supreme Grand Patron, Andres Cassard, of New York; Deputy Supreme Grand Patron, John L. Power, of Mississippi; Deputy Supreme Grand Matron, Laura L. Burton, of Mississippi; Supreme Treasurer, W. A. Prall, of Mix sari; Supreme Recorder, Rob Morris, of Kentucky; Supreme Inspector, P. M. Savery, of Mississippi. But nothing further came of this organization except that when later on measures were taken to make a really effective controlling Body, the old organization had claimants in the field urging its prior rights, though to all intents and purposes its never more than feeble breath of life had then utterly failed.

The various Bodies of the Order under this fugitive guidance became ill-assorted of method. Laws were curiously conflicting. A constitution governing a State Grand Chapter had in one section the requirement that "Every member present must vote" on petitions; which another section of the same constitution forbade Master Freemasons "when admitted to membership" from balloting for candidates or on membership. There was equal or even greater inconsistency between the laws of one State and another. Serious defects had been discovered in the ritual. Some resentment had been aroused over the methods employed in the propaganda of the Order. The time was ripe for a radical change.

Rev. Willis D. Engle, in 1874, publicly proposed a Supreme Grand Chapter of Representatives from the several Grand Chapters and "a revision and general boiling down and finishing up of the ritual which is now defective both in style and language." Not content with saying this was a proper thing to do, Brother Engle vigorously started to work to bring about the conditions he believed to be most desirable. Delegates from the Grand Chapters of California, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and New Jersey, met in Indianapolis, November 15-16, 1876, on the invitation of the Grand Chapter of Indiana. Grand Patron James S. Nutt, of Indiana, welcomed the visitors and opened the meeting. Brother John M. Mayhew, of New Jersey, was elected President, and Brother John R Parson, of Missouri, Secretary. A Constitution was adopted, a committee appointed on revision of the ritual, and a General Grand Chapter duly organized.

The second session of the General Grand Chapter was held in Chicago, May 8-10, 1878, and the name of the organization became officially The General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. The Most Worthy Grand Patron was then the executive head, though in later years this was decided to be the proper province of the Most Worthy Grand Matron.

The Grand Chapters with their dates of organization are as follows:

Alabama ........................ March 6 1901
Alberta ........................... July 20, 1912
Arizona .......................... November 15, 1900
Arkansas ........................ October 2, 1876
British Columbia ........... July 21, 1912
California ...................... May 8 1873
Oklahoma ............. February 14, 1902
Colorado ....................... June 6, 1892
Connecticut ................... August 11, 1874
District of Columbia ...... April 30, 1896
Florida .......................... June 7, 1904
Georgia ........................ February 21, 1901
Idaho ........................... April 17, 1902
Illinois ......................... November 6, 1875
Indiana ........................ May 6, 1874 .
Iowa ............................ July 30, 1878
Kansas ........................ October 18, 1878
Kentucky .................... June 10, 1903
Louisiana .................... October 4, 1900
Maine ......................... August 24, 1892
Maryland .................... December 23 1898
Massachusetts ............. December 11, 1876
Michigan .................... October 31, 1867
Minnesota .................. October 18, 1878
Mississippi ................. May 29, 1906
Missouri .................... September 25, 1890
Montana .................... September 25, 1890
Nebraska ................... June 22, 1875
Nevada ...................... September 19, 1905
New Hampshire ......... May 12, 1891
New Jersey ................ July 18, 1870
New Mexico .......... April 11, 1902
New York ............. November 31, 1870
North Carolina ..... May 20, 1905
North Dakota ........ June 14, 1894
Ohio..................... July 28, 1889
Ontario ................. April 27,1915
Oregon .................. October 3, 1889
Pennsylvania ......... November 21, 1894
Porto Rico ............. February 17, 1914
Rhode Island ......... August 22, 1895
Saskatchewan ........ May 16, 1916
Scotland ................ August 20, 1904
South Carolina ..... June 1, 1907
South Dakota ....... July 10, 1889
Tennessee .............. October 18, 1900
Texas .................... May 5, 1884
Utah...................... September 20, 1905
Vermont ............... November 12, 1873
Virginia ........ June 22, 1904
Washington .......... June 12, 1889
West Virginia ................ June 28, 1904
Wyoming .............. September 14,1898
Wisconsin............. February 19, 1891

Of the above Grand Chapters there are three not constituent members of the General Grand Chapter. These independent bodies are New Jersey, New York, and Scotland. Chapters of the Eastern Star are also to be found in Alaska, the Canal Zone at Panama, the Hawaiian Islands,' the Philippine Islands, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Quebec, Cuba, Delaware, India, Mexico, and in the Yukon.

A Concordat or treaty agreement adopted by the General Chapter on September 20, 1904, and by a convention of Scottish Chapters of the Eastern Star held at Glasgow on August 20, 1904, was to the following effect:

"The Grand Chapter of Scotland shall have supreme and exclusive jurisdiction over Great Britain, Ireland, and the whole British dominions (excepting only those upon the Continent of America), and that a Supreme or General Grand Chapter of the British Empire shall be formed as soon as Chapters are instituted therein and it seems expedient to do so."

According to the terms of this agreement the territory in the East Indies wherein Chapters were already instituted, as at Benares and Calcutta, was ceded to the Grand Chapter of Scotland, which retains control. The other Chapters not so released are still under the jurisdiction of the General Grand Chapter.

The first eighteen Most Worthy Grand Matrons of the General Grand Chapter of the Eastern Star have been the following:

Mrs. Elizabeth Butler, Chicago, Ill 1876
Mrs. Elmira Foley, Hannibal. Mo 1878
Mrs. Lorraine J. Pitkin, Chicago. 111 1880
Mrs. Jennie E. Mathews, Rockford, la 1883
Mrs. Marv A. Flint, San Juan. Calif. .1886
Mrs. Nettie Ransford, Indianapolis Ind.1889
Mrs. Marv C. Snedden, Wichita, Kans.1892
Mrs. Marv E. Partridge, Oakland, Calif . . .1896
Mrs. Hattie E. Ewing, Orange. Mass . . .1898
Mrs. Laura B. Hart, San Antonio, Tex 1901
Mrs. M. B. Conkling, Cheeotah, Okla. 1904
Mrs. Ella S. Washburn. Racine. Wis 1907
Mrs. M. Alice Miller, El Reno, Okla .1910
Mrs. Rata A. Mills, Duke Center. Pa .1913
Mrs. E. C. Ocobock. Hartford. Mich . 19l6,
Mrs. E. L. Chapin, Pine Meadow. Conn . 1919
Mrs. C. R. Franz, Jacksonville. Fla 1922
Mrs. Clara Henrick, Newport, Sky. 1920

The first eighteen Most Worthy Grand Patrons of the General Grand Chapter of the Eastern Star have been:

Rev. John D. Vineil, St. Louis, Mo 1876
Thomas M. Lamb, Woreester, Mass 1878
Willis Brown, Seneca, Kans 1880
Rollin C. Gaskill, Oakland, Calif 1883
Jefferson S. Conover, Coldwater, Mieh 1886
Benjamin Lynds, St. Louis, Mo 1889
James R. Donnell, Conway, Ark 1892
H. Harrison Hinds, Stanton, Mich .1895
Nathaniel A. Gearhart, Duluth, Minn 1898
L. Cabel Williarnson, Washington, D. C 1901
Dr. William F. Kuhn, Kansas City, Mo .1904
William H. Norris, Manchester, la .. . .1907
Rev. Willis D. Engle, Indianapolis, Ind ..1910
G. A. Pettigrew, Sioux Falls, so. Dak.1913
George M. Hyland, Portland, Ore . .1916
Dr. A. G. McDaniel, San Antonio, Tex 1919
Dr. Will W. Grov., St. Joseph, Mo . .1922
J. Ernest Teare, Cleveland, Ohio .1925

From 1876 to 1889 Rev. Willis D. Engle of Indianapolis was the Right Worthy Grand Secretary. In 1880 Mrs. Lorraine J. Pitkin, of Chicago, became the Most Worthy Grand Matron, and afterwards the General Grand Secretary, being elected in 1889. She Joined the Order in 1866. Born in 1845, she died in 1922. Mrs. Minnie Evans Keyes, of Lansing, Michigan, was elected Right Worthy Grand Secretary of the Seattle meeting of July, 1919, and the headquarters of the Order established at Washington, District of Columbia.

EAST PORT

An error in the Lansdowne Manuscript, where the expression "the city of East Port" occurs as a corruption of "the cities of the East."

EAVESDROPPER

A listener. The punishment which was directed in the old lectures, at the revival of Freemasonry in 1717, to be inflicted on a detected cowan was: "To be placed under the eaves of the house in rainy weather, till the water runs in at his shoulders and out at his heels." The French inflict a similar punishment: "On le met sous une gouttiere, une pompe, ou une fontaine, jusqu'à ce qu'il soit mouillé depuis la tete jusqu'aux pieds," meaning They put him under the rain-spout, a pump, or a fountain, until he is drenched from head to feet. Hence a listener is called an eavesdropper. The word is not, as has by some been supposed, a peculiar Masonic term, but is common to the language. Skinner gives it in his Etymologicon, and approvingly calls it vox sane elegantissima, aptly sound word; and Blackstone (Com, mentaries iv, 13) thus defines it:

Eavesdroppers, or such as listen under walls, or windows, or the eaves of a houses to hearken after discourse and thereupon to frame slanderous and mischievous tales, are a common nuisance and presentable at the court leet or are indictable at the sessions. and punishable by fine and finding sureties for their good behavior.

EBAL

According to Mackenzie, Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, the following was introduced into the lectures of Freemasonry in the eighteenth century:

Moses commanded Israel that as soon as they had passed the Jordan, they should go to Sheehem, and divide into two bodies, each composed of six tribes one placed on, that is, adjacent to, Mount Ebal: the other on, or adjacent to, Mount Gerizim.

The six tribes on or at Gerizim were to pronounce blessings on those who should faithfully observe the law; and the six on Mount Ebal were to pronounce curses against those who should violate it.

This Joshua executed. Moses enjoined them to erect an altar of unhewn stones on Mount Ebal, and to plaster them over, that the law might be written on the altar. Shechem is the modern Nabious (see also Deuteronomy xxvii, and Joshua viii, 30-35).

EBEN BOHAN

The stone which Bohan set up as a witness-stone, and which afterwards served as a boundary-mark on the frontier between Judah and Benjamin (see Joshua xv, 6, and xvii, 17).

EBEN-EZER

Hebrew, xxx, pronounced, Eh'-ben haw-é-zer, and meaning stone of help. A stone set up by Samuel between Mizpeh and Shen in testimony of the Divine assistance obtained against the Philistines (see First Samuel vii, 12).

EBLIS

The Arabian name of the prince of the apostate angels, exiled to the infernal regions for refusing to worship Adam at the command of the Supreme, Eblis claiming that he had been formed of ethereal fire, while Adam was created from clay. The Mohammedans assert that at the birth of their prophet the throne of Eblis was precipitated to the bottom of hell. Eblis of the Mohammedans is the Azazel in Hebrew, the desert spirit to whom one of the two goats was sent, laden with the sins of the people (see the Revised Version of the Bible, Leviticus xvi, 8, 10, 26). The word in the King James Version is scapegoat but in the original the word Azazel is a proper name.

EBONY BOX

A symbol, in the advanced Degrees, of the human heart, which is intended to teach reserve and taciturnity, which should be inviolably maintained in regard to the incommunicable secrets of the Order. When it is said that the ebony box contained the plans of the Temple of Solomon, the symbolic teaching is, that in the human heart are deposited the secret designs and motives of our conduct by which we propose to erect the spiritual temple of our lives.

ECBATANA

An ancient city of great interest to those who study the history of the rebuilding of the Temple. Its several names were Agbatana, Hagmatana, and Achmeta. Tradition attributes the founding of the city to Solomon, Herodotus to Deioces, 728 B.C., the Book of Judith to Arphaxad. It was the ancient capital of Media. Vast quantities of rubbish now indicate where the palace and citadel stood. The Temple of the Sun crowned a conical hill enclosed by seven concentric walls. According to Celsus, there was thus exhibited a scale composed of seven steps or stages, with an eighth at the upper extremity. The first stage was composed of lead, and indicated Saturn; the second, of tin, denoted Venus; the third, of copper, denoted Jupiter; the fourth, of iron, denoted Mars; the fifth, of divers metals, denoted Mercury; the sixth, of silver, denoted the Moon: the seventh, of gold, denoted the Sun; then the highest, Heaven. As they rose in gradation toward the pinnacle, all the gorgeous battlements represented at once—in Sabean fashion—the seven planetary spheres. The principal buildings were the Citadel, a stronghold of enormous dimensions, where also the archives were kept, in which Darius found the edict of Cyrus the Great concerning the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

ECHANGES D' ENFANTS, BUREAU MAÇONNIQUE GRATUIT POUR LES

See Children's Exchange Bureau

ECLECTIC BUND

See Eclectic Union

ECLECTIC FREEMASONRY

From the Greek, eklektikos, which means selecting. Those philosophers who, in ancient times, selected from the various systems of philosophy such doctrines as appeared most conformable to truth were called Eclectic Philosophers. So the Confederation of Freemasons in Germany, which consisted of Lodges that selected the Degrees which they thought most conformable to ancient Freemasonry, was called the Eclectic Union, and the Freemasonry which it adopted received the name of Eclectic Freemasonry (see Eclectic Union).

ECLECTIC RITE

The Rite practiced by the Eclectic Union, which see.

ECLECTIC UNION

The fundamental idea of a union of the German Lodges for the purpose of purifying the Masonic system of the corruptions which had been introduced by the numerous Degrees founded on alchemy, theosophy, and other occult sciences which at that time flooded the continent of Europe, originated, in 1779, with the Baron Von Ditfurth, who had been a prominent member of the Rite of Strict Observance; although Lenning attributes the earlier thought of a circular letter to Von Knigge. But the first practical step toward this purification was taken in 1783 by the Provincial Grand Lodges of Frankfort-on-the-Main and of Wetzlar. These two Bodies addressed an encyclical letter to the Lodges of Germany, in which they invited them to enter into an alliance for the purpose of "re-establishing the Royal Art of Freemasonry." The principal points on which this union or alliance was to be founded were:

1. That the three symbolic Degrees only were to be acknowledged by the united Lodges.

2. That each Lodge was permitted to practice for itself such high Degrees as it might select for itself, but that the recognition of these was not to be made compulsory on the other Lodges.

3. That all the united Lodges were to be equal, none being dependent on any other.

These propositions were accepted by several Lodges, and thence resulted the Eklectischer Bund, or Eclectic Union of Germany, at the head of which was established the Mother Grand Lodge of the Eclectic Union at Frankfort-on-the-Main. The system of Freemasonry practiced by this union is called the Eclectic System, and the Rite recognized by it is the Eclectic Rite, which consists of only the three Degrees of Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason.

ECOSSAIS

This is a French word, pronounced a-ko-say, which Masonically is generally to be translated as Scottish Master. There are numerous Degrees under the same or a similar name; all of them, however, concurring in one particular, namely, that of detailing the method adopted for the preservation of the true Word. The American Freemason will understand the character of the system of Ecossaism, as it may be called, when he is told that the Select Master of his own Rite is really all Ecossais Degree. It is found, too, in many other Rites. Thus, in the French Rite, it is the Fifth Degree. In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Thirteenth Degree or Knights of the Ninth Arch is properly an Ecossais Degree. The Ancient York Rite is without an Ecossais Degree, but its principles are set forth in the instructions Of the Royal Arch. Some idea of the extent to which these Degrees have been multiplied may be formed from the fact that Oliver has a list of eighty of them; Ragon enumerates eighty-three; and the Baron Tschoudy, first rejecting twenty-seven which he does not consider legitimate, retains a far greater number to whose purity he does not object.

In the Ecossais system there is a legend, a part of which has been adopted in all the Ecossais Degrees, and which has in fact been incorporated into the mythical history of Freemasonry. It is to the effect that the builder of the Temple engraved the word upon a triangle of pure metal, and, fearing that it might be lost, he always bore it about his person, suspended from his neck, with the engraved side next to his breast. In a time of great peril to himself, he cast it into an old dry well, which was in the southeast corner of the Temple, where it was afterward found by three Masters. They were passing near the well at the hour of meridian, and were attracted by its brilliant appearance; whereupon one of them, descending with the assistance of his comrades, obtained it, and carried it to King Solomon. But the more modern form of the legend dispenses with the circumstance of the dry well, and says that the builder deposited it in the place which had been purposely prepared for it, and where centuries afterward it was found. And this amended form of the legend is more in accord with the recognized symbolism of the loss and the recovery of the Word.

The word Ecossais has several related meanings as follows:

1. The Fourth Degree of Ramsay's Rite, and the original whence all the Degrees of Ecossaism have sprung.
2 The Fifth Degree of the French Rite.
3 The Ecossais Degrees constitute the fourth class of the Rite of Mizraim—from the Fourteenth to the Twenty-First Degree. BR> In the accompanying articles only the principal Ecossais Degrees will be mentioned.

ECOSSAIS ANGLAIS SUBLIME

Sublime English Scottish, the thirty-eighth grade, fifth series, Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS ARCHITECT, PERFECT

The French expression is Ecossais Architecte Parfait. A Degree in the collection of M. Pyron.

ECOSSAIS D'ANGERS or ECOSSAIS D'ALCIDONY

Two Degrees mentioned in a work entitled Philosophical Considerations on Freemasonry.

ECOSSAIS DES LOGES MILITAIRES

French for Scottish (Degree) of Military Lodges, a grade in three sections in M. Pyron's collection.

ECOSSAIS, ENGLISH

The French expression is Ecossais Anglais. A Degree in the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite.

ECOSSAIS, FAITHFUL

The French expression is Ecossais Fidéle (see Vielle Bru).

ECOSSAIS, FRENCH

The Thirty-fifth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS, GRAND

The Fourteenth Degree of the Scottish Rite is so called in some of the French books.

ECOSSAIS, GRAND ARCHITECT

The French expression is Grand Architecte Ecossais. The Forty-fifth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS, GRAND MASTER

Formerly the Sixth Degree of the Capitular system, practised in Holland.

ECOSSAIS, KNIGHT

A synonym of the Ninth Degree of Illuminism. It is more commonly called Illuminatus Dirigens in Latin.

ECOSSAIS, MASTER

The Fifth Degree of the Rite of Zinnendorf. It was also formerly among the high Degrees of the German Chapter and those of the Rite of the Clerks of Strict Observance. It is said to have been composed by Baron Hund.

ECOSSAIS NOVICE

A synonym of the Eighth Degree of Illuminism. It is more commonly called IUuminatus Major in Latin.

ECOSSAIS OF CLERMONT

The Thirteenth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF ENGLAND

A Degree in the collection of M. Le Rouge.

ECOSSAIS OF FRANVILLE

The Thirty-first Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF HIRAM

A Degree in the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scotch Rite.

ECOSSAIS OF MESSINA

A Degree in the nomenclature of M. Fustier.

ECOSSAIS OF MONTPELLIER

The Thirtysixth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF NAPLES

The Forty-second Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF PERFECTION

The Thirty-ninth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF PRUSSIA

A degree in the archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite.

ECOSSAIS OF SAINT ANDREW

A not unusual form of Ecossaism, and found in several Rites as follows:

1. The Second Degree of the Clerks of Strict Observance.
2. The Twenty-first Degree of the Rite of Mizraim
3. The Twenty-ninth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is also an Ecossais of Saint Andrew.
4. The Sixty-third Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France is an Ecossais of Saint Andrew of Scotland.
5. The Seventy-fifth Degree of the same collection is called Ecossaxs of Saint Andrew of the Thistle.

ECOSSAIS OF SAINT GEORGE

A Degree in the collection of Le Page.

ECOSSAIS OF THE FORTY

The French expression is Ecossais des Quarante. The Thirty-fourth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF THE LODGE OF PRINCE EDWARD

A Degree in the collection of Pyron. This was probably a Stuart Degree, and referred to Prince Charles Edward, the young Pretender.

ECOSSAIS OF THE SACRED VAULT OF JAMES VI

The title refers to the following:

1. The Thirty-third Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of Franee, said to have been eomposed bs the Baron Tsehoudy.
2. The Twentieth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.
3. In the French work this name has been given to the Fourteenth Degree of the Scottish Rite.

Chemin Dupontes says that the Degree was a homage paid to the kings of Scotland. Nothing, however, of this can be found in its present form; but it is very probable that the Degree, in its first conception, and in some ritual that no longer exists, was an offspring of the house of Stuart, of which James VI was the first English king.

ECOSSAIS OF THE THREE J. J. J.

This refers to each of the following:
1. The Thirty-second Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France
v 2. The Nineteenth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.

The three J. J. J. are the initials of Jourdain, Jaho, Jachin.

ECOSSAIS OF THE TRIPLE TRIANGLE

The Thirty-seventh Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ECOSSAIS OF TOULOUSE

A Degree in the archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite.

ECOSSAIS PARFAIT MAITRE ANGLAIS

French for Scottish Perfect English Master, a grade given by Pyron.

ECOSSAIS, PARISIAN

So Thory has it; but Ragon, and all the other nomenclators, give it as Ecossais Panissiere. The Seventeenth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.

ECOSSAIS, PERFECT

A Degree in the archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite.

ECOSSISM

A name given by French Masonic writers to the thirty-three Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This, in English, would be equivalent to Scottish Freemasonry, which see.

ECUADOR

A republic of South America. In 1857 the Grand Orient of Peru introduced Freemasonry to Ecuador by establishing Lodges at Quito and Guayaquil.

The Dictator of Ecuador wished at first to join the Brotherhood but when admission to the Craft was refused him he proved a very powerful enemy. Not until after he was killed in 1875 were conditions at all favorable for the growth of the Craft in this district.

A Grand Lodge is said to have existed at Guayaquil but its history is obscure and nothing is known until the Grand Lodge of Ecuador was established there in 1918. It was formed on the lines of civil governments having executive, legislative and judicial departments, but it was not considered altogether regular by other Grand Lodges.

Lodges Luz de Guaya9, No. 10; Cinco de Junio, No. 29, and Oriente Ecuatoriano, No. 30, all chartered by the Grand Lodge of Peru, sent delegates to an assembly at Guayaquil on March 5, 1921, to consider the establishment of a Grand Lodge. On June 19, 1921, by authority of the Grand Lodge of Peru, the Grand Lodge of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of the Republic of Ecuador was constituted.

The Grand Orient of Italy has a Lodge at Guayaquil. There is also in this city the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Ecuador.

EDDA

An Icelandic word, literally translated great-grandmother, as referred to in Scandinavian poetry. There are in reality two books of this name which were deemed inspired by the ancient Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes, and there grew out so many myths from these canonical writings, that great difficulty is now experienced as to what were apocryphal. The myths springing from the old German theology are full of beauty; they pervade Freemasonry extensively and so intimately that they are believed by many of the best students to be the origin of a large number of its legends and symbols.

The older of the two, called The Edda of Samund the Learned, was written in a language existing in Denmark, Sweden and Norway as early as the eighth century. Samund Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest born in 1056, collected thirty-nine of these poems during the earlier portion of the twelfth century. The most remarkable of these poems is the Oracle of the Prophetess, containing the cosmogony, under the Scandinavian belief, from the creation to the destruction of the world. A well-preserved copy was found in Iceland in 1643.

The younger Edda is a collection of the myths of the gods, and of explanations of meters of Pagan poetry, and is intended for instruction of young scalds or poets. The first copy was found complete in 1628. The prologue is a curious compendium of Jewish, Greek, Christian, Roman, and Icelandic legend. Its authorship is ascribed to Snorro Sturleson, born in 1178; hence called Edda of Snorro.

EDICT OF CYRUS

Five hundred and thirty six years before the Christian era, Cyrus issued his edict permitting the Jews to return from the captivity at Babylon to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the House of the Lord.

At the same time he restored to them all the sacred vessels and precious ornaments of the first Temple, which had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, and which were still in existence (see Cyrus). This is commemorated in the Royal Arch Degree of the York and American Rites.

It is also referred to in the Fifteenth Degree, or Knight of the East of the Scottish Rite.

EDICTS

The decrees of a Grand Master or of a Grand Lodge are called Edicts, and obedience to them is obligatory on all the Craft.

EDINBURGH

The capital of Scotland. The Lodge of Edinburgh, Mary's Chapel, is No. 1 on the "Roll of Lodges holding under the Grand Lodge of Scotland," and is described therein as instituted "Before 1598." Nothing more precise is known as to the date of its foundation, but it possesses Minutes commencing in July, 1599. It met at one time in a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and from this is derived the second part of its name. Its history has been written by Brother D. M. Lyon, 1873 (see Scotland).

EDINBURGH, CONGRESS OF

It was convoked, in 1736 by William Saint Clair of Roslin, Patron of the Freemasons of Scotland, whose Mother Lodge was Canongate Kilwinning, with the view of abdicating his dignity as hereditary Grand Patron, with all the privileges granted to the family of Saint Clair of Roslin by the Operative Masons of Scotland early in the seventeenth century (see Saint Clair Charters) and afterward to organize freemasonry upon a new basis. The members of thirty-three Lodges uniting for this purpose, constituted the new Grand Lodge of Scotland, and elected Saint Clair as Grand Master on November 30, 1736 (see Saint Clair).

EDINBURGH-KILWINNING MANUSCRIPT

One of the Old Charges, probably written about 1665. It is in the custody of the I Mother Lodge Kilwinning, No. 0." which heads the Roll of Scotch Lodges. It has been reproduced in Brother Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Reprints, and in Brother D. M. Lyon's History of the Lodge of Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH, LODGE OF

Often called the Luke of Mary's Chapel.- This old Lodge met at one time in a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, which accounts for the second part of its name. Possesses Minutes commencing in July, 1599, and is No. 1 on the roll of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. At one time first on the list of Scotch Lodges but Mother Kilwinning Lodge was placed before it in 1807 as No. 0. Color of clothing is light blue. Date of the origin of this Lodge is not known but believed to exist before 1598. Earliest authentic record of a non-operative being a member of a Masonic Lodge is recorded in the Minutes of this Lodge, July, 1599, and their Minutes also record the first written account of an initiation by a Lodge.

EDLING, COUNT

Thory lists Edling as Chamberlain of the King of Saxony and that he, with Prince Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, received the Thirty-second degree at Paris, 1813.

EDOM

See Tabaor

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS

These are of various kinds to fit particular requirements. The items dealing with Colleges, Public Schools, Sunday Schools, and so on, prove that the tendency of the Masonic Brotherhood to promote proper instruction is and has ever been characteristic. A few instances here will be sufficient to. show what has been undertaken.

DELAWARE - inaugurated four scholarships in 1922 covering $125 to be awarded each year to students who would otherwise be unable to complete their education. These scholarships are in memory of the First Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Delaware, Gunning Bedford, Jr., and they may be used at any school of college grade, but the Committee having charge of the awards prefer the University of Delaware. If proper progress is made by the student the scholarship continues four years. While these scholarships are under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, contributions will be made be the subordinate Lodges of the State in proportion to their membership, thus gradually increasing the fund until eventually it will include all children and grandchildren of Freemasons who need educational assistance.

GEORGIA - At its 1921 Annual Communication the Grand Lodge of Georgia established an educational loan fund, and at its 1900 session made an appropriation therefor. The purpose of the loan is to enable worthy children of Freemasons to secure an education that otherwise would be denied them. Within its limits, loans are made under these conditions: Loans are made only for defraying the expenses of students in Georgia institutions. The applicant must not be under eighteen years of age at the time of entering college after the loan is authorized. The applicant must be unable to pay his own expenses in college. The applicant must be in reasonable good health. The applicant must be recommended by a Worshipful Master of a Masonic Lodge and by two other Master liaisons. The applicant must be recommended as a cantabile and deserving student by proper school authorities. The application must receive unanimous endorsement of the Educational Commission.

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR - When the Grand Encampment of the United States met at New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25-27, 1922, action was taken on an educational movement. Bonds to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars were transferred from the Permanent Fund to the Educational Fund, the income from which was to be used in the administration of the Fund as might be determined. To carry this movement to success each Grand Commandery and each Commandery subordinate to the Grand Encampment, were required to pay to the Grand Recorder of the Grand Encampment a sum equal to one dollar for each member of the Order therein, annually until the next Triennial Conclave of the Grand Encampment, the first payment to be made on or before the 1st day of July, 1924, and the second payment on or before the 1st day of July, 1925. One-half of the sums received to be transferred to an Endowment Fund, only the income from which may be used. The other half of the sums received is called the Educational Fund and available as a Revolving Loan Fund, for the benefit of students in each jurisdiction in proportion as jurisdictions have contributed to the Fund. It was made the duty of the Committee to be appointed bathe Grand Master, to organize and to prescribe rules for its procedure, and in formulating its plan of action the Committee should delegate to a Committee to be appointed by each Grand Commandery and each Commandery subordinate to the Grand Encampment, the final disposition of the funds apportioned according to the general plan of the Committees bier the Grand Encampment. A Committee was appointed by the Grand Master, composed of Sir Knights Joseph R. Orr of Atlanta, Georgia, as chairman; Alexander B. Andrews of Raleigh, North Carolina; Fred A. Aldrieh of Flint, Michigan; Thomas J. Jones of Cleveland, Ohio and Samuel P. Browning of Maysville, Kentucky. The committee, soon after its appointment, organized by the selection of Alexander B. Andrews as Secretary thereof. General plans of procedure were formulated for the administration, and the use and application of the Funds, and on January 1, 1923, were promulgated by the Grand Master.

NATIONAL LEAGUE OF MASONIC CLUBS - At the Atlantic City, New Jersey, Convention held in 1929, the National League of Masonic Clubs decided that a worthy enterprise for their promotion would be something of an educational nature, national in scope and patriotic in character. At the Convention of 1925, at Saratoga Springs, New York, the report of a Board of Trustees, appointed to submit a concrete plan, was unanimously adopted. This project was the raising of an endowment fund of not less than $100,000 to provide for an income to maintain in perpetuity a Professorship in the George Washington University at Washington, District of Columbia, and establishing therewith a special course of instruction for students who wish to qualify to serve the United States of America at home or abroad as diplomatic or consular representatives of their country. In the case of representatives abroad of commercial interests in the United States, the plan would provide special training of importance and value. Such a scheme of instruction has existed for Shears at the (Roman) Catholic University, a Jesuit institution at Georgetown, District of Columbia.

NEW MEXICO -has a Student Loan Fund to aid young men and women to obtain college educations; a number of these have been assisted while studying at various institutions of learning.

NORTH CAROLINA - has a Masonic Educational Loan Fund amounting, in its fourth year, 1926, to $45,000, actively at work in various institutions of the State. The Several Grand Bodies annually contribute, the Grand Lodge, $3,000; Grand Chapter, 33,000; Grand Commandery, $1,000, and the bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, $3,000.

SASKATCHEWAN - has a Masonic Scholarship project suggestive of that true charity or brotherly love which Saint Paul mentions with such heartiness in First Corinthians (xiii, 1-8). The basic purpose of the plan is to establish up to fifty scholarships of $300 each, those receiving these sums of money to devote themselves to scholastic work in the various centers of the Province with a view to raising the educational standard and the implanting of sound, patriotic and moral ideals. Selections have been made by representatives of the Grand Lodge in consultation with the Department of Education, the successful candidates being of high academic attainments.

SCOTTISH RITE - At the annual Meeting at Boston, 1921, of the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, United States of America, the sum of $50,000 was set apart "from the income of the permanent fund for the year 1921, to be expended under the direction of the Sovereign Grand Commander, the Grand Treasurer-General, and the Chairman of the Committee on Finance for such purposes of charity or relief as they may approve." On December 22,1991, the Grand Commander Leon M. Abbott announced the plan of this Committee to establish fifteen scholarships—one for each State in their jurisdiction—providing for a deserving son or daughter of a Master Mason a four years college course of education. Brothers Frederick W. Hamilton, Edgar F. Smith and Frederic B. Stevens were appointed on April 25, 1922, a special Advisory Committee to consider the scholarship plan and their report was submitted to the Annual Meeting at Cleveland, September 19, 1922, and adopted. an Educational Fund being established under the direction of the Committee on Education. In brief (as stated on page 96 of the 1929 Proceedings) the plan is that one scholarship be awarded for each State in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, the recipient to choose his own college or technical school, provided it is approved by the Scholarship Committee. The amount of the scholarship for the first year is the regular college charges, together with the amount estimated by the college authorities as sufficient for a decent living. For the second year only two-thirds of the living allowance will be allowed, and for the third and fourth years only one-half the living allowance. Candidates must be sons or daughters of Master Masons, preferably of the Scottish Rite, in good standing. They must be of good moral character and of good scholarship and unable to obtain such an education without assistance. The scholarships are awarded by the Scholarship Committee, the choice of the beneficiaries being committed to their sound judgment. The bills are to be sent to the Chairman of the Scholarship Committee, to be approved by him before taking the usual course for payment.

As a memorial to Washington the Freemason—a farsighted promoter as will later be seen of education for our young people, the Supreme Council Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite United States of America, at the biennial session of 1927 donated one million dollars to the George Washington University in the District of Columbia. This is the largest gift in the history of all the educational institutions at the City of Washington. Resolutions providing for the appropriation were introduced by Inspector General Perry W. Weidner of Southern California at the 1927 meeting and were unanimously adopted. A committee to carry the project into effect was appointed and consisted of Grand Commander John H. Cowles with Inspector Generals Perry NV. Breidner, Southern California; Edward C. Day, Montana, and Thomas J. Harkins, North Carolina. The generous offer outlined by the resolutions and as elaborated by the committee was accepted by the Trustees of George Washington University and the formal acceptance of the gift duly announced by President C. H. Marvin. This donation establishes and maintains a school of government at George Washington University, a department begun with the fall term of 1928.

The will of Brother George Washington contained a stipulation that, read by few, deserves attention from many, and particularly by the Freemasons of the United States. The item in question comes immediately after provision had been made "towards the support of a free school established at and annexed to the said Academy, for the purpose of educating such children. . . as are unable to accomplish it with their own means, and who, in the judgment of the Trustees of the said Seminary, are best entitled to the benefit of this donation," stipulations quite in line, by the ways with what has been undertaken by several Masonic bodies in providing educational benefits of collegiate and university status for those unable otherwise to receive them.

Washington's services for the State of Virginia in particular were rewarded not only by formal resolutions of gratitude but by a gift of substantial money value. The latter, as he says in his will,

was refused, adding to this refusal, however, an intimation that if it should be the pleasure of the Legislature to permit me to appropriate the said shares to public uses, I would receive them on these terms with due sensibility and this it having consented to in flattering terms as will appear by a subsequent law and sundry resolutions in the most ample and honorable manner, I proceed after this recital for the more correct understanding of the case, to declare: That . . . it has been my ardent wish to see a plan devised on a liberal scale which would have a tendency to spread systematic ideas through all parts of this rising Empire, thereby to do away local attachments and state prejudices, as far as the nature of things would or indeed, ought to admit, from our National Councils— looking anxiously forward to the accomplishment of so desirable an object as this is (in my estimation), my mind has not been able to contemplate any plan more likely to effect the measure than the establishment of a university in a central part of the United States to which the youth of fortune and talents from all parts thereof might be sent for the completion of their education in all the branches of polite literature—in arts and sciences, in acquiring knowledge in . . . polities and good Government.... Under these impressions so fully dilated: I give and bequeath in perpetuity the 50 shares which I hold in the Potomac Company (under the aforesaid acts of the Legislature of Virginia) towards the endowment of a University to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the General Government. if that government should incline to extend a fostering hand towards it......

But the failure of the funds due to the collapse of the company put an end for the time to the wise plans of Washington.

We must not overlook the fact that this is by no means the limit of educational work by Scottish Rite Brethren. Not only do they contribute through the medium of the other branches of the Fraternity in which they hold membership but, as is noted else where in this article, as in North Carolina, for example, they donate independently to State educational enterprise, and further, as in the following characteristic instance, it was decided at the fifty-eighth Annual Meeting in 1927, at Utica. of the New York Council of Deliberation of the Scottish Rite to award scholarships to boys and girls of the Masonic Home there, beginning that fall. Income from a $15,000 fund, known as the Scottish Rite Permanent Fund, was used for this purpose. Selection of those at the Home to receive scholarships was begun forthwith.

There is a Masonic club-house at Berkeley, California, an outstanding educational and social factor in the collegiate lives of the students. Similar enterprises are found elsewhere. A Scottish Rite dormitory in Austin, at the University of Texas, provides accommodations for several hundred girls, a benevolent provision that inspires as well as protects. The girls of that dormitory promised $1,500 to the erection of the University of Texas Memorial Stadium and this pledge was paid in full.

These scholarships awarded by leading organizations of Freemasons remind us of another instance or two worthy of record. An English Lodge whose Master had been so deserving of praise during his term of office that when he came to leave the chair the Brethren subscribed for a scholarship in the University of London. This was done with the purpose of allowing this good Brother to select some young man or woman to benefit by this opportunity of studying at one of the greatest educational institutions of the world. Probably the Brother was unusually interested in education and we can understand how delighted and honored he felt at this distinction. His experience was not unique, as in 19 5 we heard from Utica, New York, that, as a memorial to three Past District Deputy Grand Masters of the State, Lewis D. Collins, of Batavia, Rev. Pierre Cushing, of LeRoy, and John XT, Sparrow, of Warsaw, the Past Masters' Association of the Geneses Wyoming District voted to raise $5.000, the interest to be used for the education of a boy from the Masonic Home.

Doubt appears to have arisen as to the advisability of locating the College twenty miles from Hannibal, in Marion County, Missouri, remote from city or town, and in 1846 a circular letter was authorized to the Lodges, inviting propositions. Four towns responded, Palmyra, Hannibal, Liberty, and Lexington, the latter being chosen. Committees were appointed to select a site of not less than five nor more than twenty acres, to raise funds, start building, and dispose by rent or sale of the old property. The corner-stone of the new College was laid on May 18, 1847. Among other proceedings at the Communication of 1847 a Committee was appointed to ascertain what prominent educators were Freemasons so as to have a handy list of them for selection when the College was completed. In 1848 the Committee on Masonic Hall reported adversely and the Committee on the College at Lexington stated that it had cash to date $8,759. 7, and the cost of the College would be $15,000. Salaries of College President and instructors were fixed by Grand Lodge, the highest $1,500 per year. At an adjourned session of the Grand Lodge, 184S, Brother Wilkens Tannehill of Nashville, Tennessee, was elected President, Brother van Doren, Professor of Mathematics, and a resolution introduced to add a Medical Department to the College. A special agent for the College Endowment Fund was to receive ten per cent on all monies collected. Ninety-five students were reported in 1849.

But the succeeding meetings of the Grand Lodge show the College expenses exceeding the income, although the Endowment Fund in 1853 amounted to $53,198. We note that the average age of the college students in 1854 was fifteen and the number admitted was 175. A mortgage of $1,500 was placed by the Grand Lodge on the College property in 1855 and we see in 1857 that only eight beneficiaries mere among the 175 students, the original planning of the College, to educate children of indigent brethren notwithstanding. The Grand Lodge in 1859, after a brave and benevolent purpose, pursued faithfully for years, decided that experience showed the fixed fact that the Masonic College had failed to meet the reasonable and just expectations of the Grand Lodge and of its warmest and most ardent friends, that the Grand Lodge would not put forth any further efforts for its sustenance and whereas the treasuries of the Lodges were constantly drained for its support, thereby in a very great measure cutting off their resources for dispensing their own charities, it was therefore resolved "That at the close of the present Collegiate year the College be closed, sine die (without date) and that no more of the funds of this Grand Lodge be appropriated for its sustenance, further than to meet its present liabilities; that all Scholarships held either by Lodges or individuals, shall at the swish of the parties holding them, be cancelled, and such parties be released from all further obligations under the same."

Citizens of Lexington had given $30,000 to sustain the College. The Grand Lodge and the Lodges gave even more. only to fail. During the Civil Bar the Battle of Lexington, September, 1861. was fought there, Union soldiers occupied the buildings, and the College and boarding-house were badly wrecked by cannon fire. At last the Grand Lodge gave the College and grounds to the Marvin Female Institute. The report adopted by the Grand Lodge, in 1872, says,

From the 1st of February, 1872, the Marvin Female Institute at Lexington, Missouri, will be known be the name of " Central Female College." and the same obligations entered into between the Grand Lodge and the institute will be carried out by the College, viz.: The Grand Lodge has the right to keep constantly at the College thirty daughters of deceased indigent Master Masons, free of tuition charge, they boarding in the College and paying their own expenses, except tuition. The religious proclivities of these students are not to be interfered with, contrary to such directions as their parents or guardians may dictate.

Applications for admission of Masonic beneficiaries must be made through the committee appointed by the Grand Lodge: and the fact of the father having died while in good Masonic standing or the father now living being such, can be certified to by the nearest Lodge, or by some brother known to the committee.

The old College building still forms a part of the main structure of what is the justly celebrated Central College for Women under the control of the Methodist Church.

When the Grand Lodge of Missouri, on October 2, 1849, purchased the property in Marion County, the membership in that State was only 1139. Dr. William F. Kuhn, discussing with us the ambitions of the Brethren, alluded to the direction of their ideas, saying, "The curriculum embraced four departments, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, Mathematics, Mental and Moral Science, Ancient Languages and Literature, six months tuition was given free, and $25.00 paid for board, room and washing for a whole session. The College in 1844 had forty students. Later, at Lexington, the enthusiasm of its projectors ran high. Hopes were entertained to have it rival Yale and Harvard but it became a burden and was an unfortunate adventure. So that is the story of a Masonic College in Missouri, and ought to be a warning for all such attempts in the future."

Because of this very point, possible recurrence anywhere and everywhere of the same sort of project, and recognizing the importance of the advice of Past Grand Master Kuhn, space is freely given to this experiment in Missouri. Similar projects developed elsewhere as we shall note.

Probably the visit of Brother Carnegy of Missouri in 1844 to the Grand Lodge of Kentucky had due weight in focusing the attention of his hosts upon the subject of Masonic Colleges. He was not the first to bring the matter of education to their attention. Grand Master Henry Wingate on August 28, 1843, urged the fostering of local and general schools, endowing professorships in colleges, and securing scholarships for indigent Freemasons' children. A proposition in 1844 to establish a Masonic School and Asylum resulted in recommending the appointment of seven as Trustees of Funk Seminary, a new school building at La Grange, Oldham County, Kentucky, with an endowment of $6,000 offered upon condition of maintaining a school and receiving pay scholars. The Committee on Education, or Trustees, were to employ teachers but contract no debt beyond the amount due from the lottery or manager; adopt by-laws, which Grand Lodge might alter, and at each annual communication of the Grand Lodge five Brethren were to be chosen as a Board of Trustees who were to make provision for the education of Masonic orphans in said seminary, but not to incur debt. The Trustees were to solicit contributions and make report. Every Freemason in Kentucky was requested to pay $1 towards the support of this educational charity.

A further explanation, in 1845, shows that the LaGrange property included a two-story building, cost $4,580 with the lots, and $6,000, well secured, all conveyed to the Grand Lodge conditional on an efficient school being maintained where sons of citizens of the town and county might attend as pay pupils. James C. Davis took charge of the Primary department for the tuition fees, agreeing gratuitously to educate ten students to be sent by the Grand Lodge. Rev. J. R. Finley was made Principal and agent to solicit funds. Rev. A. A. Morrison was appointed Professor of Languages to find his compensation in the fees of his department. There were 127 pupils. A female school at LaGrange desired to be transferred to the Funk Seminary under control of the Grand Lodge. Six hundred dollars a year was voted to the seminary as long as it remained under Grand Lodge control. Soon the school is mentioned as the Masonic Seminary and Masonic College and in 1847 there were 170 students with beneficiaries from twelve Lodges. Mention is made that the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia recommended the Masonic College of Kentucky to its Lodges and their members, and that Mississippi reported "The Masonic College of Kentucky is one of the wisest and one of the most philanthropic establishments of the present age," and so on, leading up to the Committee on Education of Kentucky advising that the Trustees of the College be authorized to contract with the Grand Lodge of Alabama to educate one hundred students a year for ten successive years, for $1,000 a year in advance.

The tide turned. At the Communication of 1848 the reduction in pay students and withdrawal of scholarships by Lodges had "strained the institution in its finances" and in 1849 "four hundred dollars as an increase of appropriation to the College for the year was made." Let it not be understood that this was the sum of what the generous Grand Lodge undertook for educational labors. In 1850, realizing that much had been done for boys to the exclusion of girls, therefore $1,000 a year was set apart for the education of female children of deceased Master Masons, and a Committee was also appointed "to devise the most suitable plan for supporting and educating daughters of poor deceased Master Masons." Grand Secretary H. B. Grant says the Grand Lodge's works of benevolence mounted up to over a million in one hundred years, 1800-1900 (footnote, Centennial History, page 210). The college under critical examination showed conditions not favorable to successful continuance. Brother Grant says (page 217, Centennial history), "No doubt the trouble was the Grand Lodge started with a school on too small a capital to be a seminary, college and university, so that as the school grew, Grand Lodge floundered about under all these names, and more of them." At last the property was leased in 1857 by the Trustees at a nominal rental for five years. Reports now came to the Grand Lodge as landlord concerning building repairs and so forth, incidentally alluding to the educational conditions and prospects, but in 1873 the report showed there had been no school there for years, the Grand Lodge surrendered the property, and with the few later allusions to legal adjustments the College came to an end.

Ohio had a like opportunity but escaped. The Grand Lodge at Columbus, 1848, received a proposition from the Trustees of Worthington College for the transfer of that property for use in founding a Masonic College. The offer was made through James Kilbourne, President, and was referred to the Committee on Education. The Brethren submitted an elaborate report to the Grand Lodge, probably too long an essay for easy rapid digestion, as no final action resulted. However, a start was made and some interest aroused. At the following Communication Brother William T. Leacock, D.D., President of the Masonic College of Kentucky, presented and read a letter from the Grand Master of Kentucky to this Grand Lodge, introducing him, and asking fraternal consideration of the object of his visit, which letter was referred to a Committee, which reported, commending Brother Leacock to the subordinate Lodges of the State. The good Brother, two days later, delivered a Masonic address in the Episcopal Church to the Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, and Grand Encampment of Ohio. Perhaps his hearers preferred to subscribe to the College outside the State, hut no action seems to have been exerted toward a Masonic College in Ohio.

Arkansas experimented with the idea. The Grand Lodge once bought a large amount of property in the east end of Little Rock, which was then merely a town, and on this site they built an institution of learning, Saint John's College. This was a semi-military College. For some time it prospered. But the town was not big enough to support. it and later on the College was abandoned. The Grand Lodge continued to own the property for many years. Finally it was sold in one lump. With the proceeds the Grand Lodge built a Masonic Temple on the corner of Fifth and Main Streets, Little Rock. That building since then has burned down and that property was sold. Brother Charles E. Rosenbaum, Past Grand Master of Arkansas, and Lieutenant Grand Commander, Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, who furnished these notes on Saint John's College, writes further: "Had they (the Grand Lodge) held the original Saint John's College property until within the past five or ten 5 ears, the Grand Lodge would have bad more money to invest than they could reasonably have found a place to put it. That is only one of the events that go along in Masonic as well as other affairs. We now have an Orphans' Home and School in Batesville in this State and it is running in good shape. I have been the President of the Board of Trustees of that ever since the Edict was created to build it."

Georgia took over an educational institution at Covington in that State. That was in 1859, the Southern Masonic Female College. This was conducted by the Grand Lodge from 1859 up to 1873.

EDUCATIONAL LOAN FUNDS

The Grand Encampment of Knights Templar, E. S. A., at its triennial session in New Orleans, Louisiana, April, 1992, in compliance with and pursuant to a recommendation of Grand Master Joseph Style Orr, of Atlanta, Georgia, established a revolving educational loan fund, which was to be available to assist worthy and needy students to secure a loan to aid them in completing the last two years of their course in the normal schools, colleges and universities of their state. The Grand Master-elect, Leonidas P. Newby, was authorized to appoint a Committee, with full power to carry the plan into effect, and did so.

The Grand Encampment also established an educational endowment fund, the income of which only can be used, by levying an assessment of one dollar per annum on each Knight Templar under the jurisdiction of the Grand Encampment, payable July 1 of each year; one-half of which was to form a part of the endowment fund, which was supplemented by a transfer of $100,000 from the fund of the trustees of the Grand Encampment.

These loans, in each Jurisdiction were to be made by a Committee of their own Grand Commanderies, appointed as their Grand Commander directed. The loans were made not exceeding two hundred dollars in one year, to suitable students, upon their personal notes, given without any security, with interest at five per cent commencing upon the date of their graduation, and the entire amount to be repaid by annual payments within four years from that date.

The Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite has also an educational loan fund of like character to enable deserving applicants to make their way successfully through universities and colleges of approved standing.

EDWARD, KINGS

The four kings, numerically known as the First, Second, Third, and Fourth, appear as favorers, abettors, and protectors of the Institution of Freemasonry.

EDWARD, PRINCE

Son of George III, and Duke of Kent, was initiated in 1790, at Geneva, in the Lodge De I' Union des Coeurs, meaning in French Of the Union of Hearts, was Grand Master of the Ancients, and resigned to the Duke of Sussex on the memorable occasion of the Union in England, 1813.

EDWARD III MANUSCRIPT

A manuscript quoted by Anderson in his second edition (page 71), and also by Preston, as an old record referring to "the glorious reign of King Edward III." The whole of the record is not cited, but the passages that are given are evidently the same as those contained in what is now known as the Cooke Manuscript, the archaic phraseology having been modernized and interpolations inserted by Anderson, as was, unfortunately, his habit in dealing with those old documents. Compare, for instance, the following passages, taking first these lines from the Cooke Manuscript.

When the master and the felawes be forwarned ben y come to such congregacions if nede be the Schereffe of the countre or the mayer of the Cyte or alderman of the towne in wyche the congregacions is holde schall be felaw and sociat to the master of the congrgacions in helpe of hym a yest rebelles and upberying (upbearing) the rygt of the reme (see Lines 901 to 912).

Edward III Manuscript, as quoted by Anderson:

That when the Master and Wardens preside in a Lodge, the sheriff if need be, or the mayor or the alderman (if a brother) where the Chapter is held, shall be sociate to the Master, in help of him against rebels and for upholding the rights of the realm.

The identity of the two documents is apparent. Either the Edward III Manuscript was copied from the Cooke, or both were derived from a common original.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, KING

Said to have been a patron of Freemasonry in England in l041

EDWARD VII, KING OF ENGLAND

Albert Edward, born November 9, 1841, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort. Initiated by the King of Sweden, at Stockholm, 1868. In 1870 the rank of Past Grand Master of England was conferred upon him; installed as Most Worshipful Grand Master by the Earl of Carnarvon, April 98, 1875; served as Worshipful Master in the Apollo University Lodge, Oxford; the Royal Alpha Lodge, London, and from 1574 was Worshipful Master of the famous Prince of Wales Lodge, No. 959, never losing an opportunity to publicly show his attachment to the Masonic Fraternity.

He was enrolled as Patron of the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland and was an honorary member of the Lodge of Edinburgh, No.1; member and Patron of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree for England and Grand Master of the Convent General of the Knights Templar. In 1901 he ascended the throne, and then assumed the title of Protector of the Craft, his brother, the Duke of Connaught, succeeding him as Grand Master of Freemasons. Edward VII died May 6, 1910.

EDWIN

The son of Edward, Saxon king of England, who died in 924, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Athelstan. The Masonic tradition is that Athelstan appointed his brother Edwin the Patron of Freemasonry in England, and gave him what the Old Records call a free Charter to hold an Annual Communication or General Assembly, under the authority of which he summoned the Freemasons of England to meet him in a Congregation at York, where they met in 926 and formed the Grand Lodge of England.

The Old Records say that these Freemasons brought with them many old writings and records of the Craft, some in Greek, some in Latin, some in French, and other languages, and from these framed the document now known as the York Constitutions, whose authenticity has been for years so much a subject of controversy among Masonic writers. Prince Edwin died two years before his brother, and a report was spread of his being put wrongfully to death by him; "but this," says Preston, "is so improbable in itself, so inconsistent with the character of Athelstan, and, indeed, so slenderly attested, as to be undeserving a place in history." William of Malmesbury, the old chronicler, relates the story, but confesses that it had no better foundation than some old ballads.

But now come the later Masonic antiquaries, who assert that Edwin himself is only a myth, and that, in spite of the authority of a few historical writers, Athelstan had no son or brother of the name of Edwin. Woodford (Old Charges of the British Freemasons, page xiv) thinks that the Masonic tradition points to Edwin, King of Northumbria, whose rendezvous was once at Auldby, near York, and who in 627 aided in the building of a stone church at York, after his baptism there, with Roman workmen. "Tradition," he says, "sometimes gets confused after the lapse of time; but I believe the tradition is in itself true which links Freemasonry to the church building at York by the Operative Brotherhood, under Edwin, in 627, and to a gild Charter under Athelstan, in 927."

The legend of Prince Edwin, of course, requires some modification, but we should not be too hasty in rejecting altogether a tradition which has been so long and so universally accepted by the Fraternity, and to which Anderson, Preston, Krause, Oliver, and a host of other writers, have subscribed their assent. The subject will be fully discussed under the head of York Legend, which see.

EDWIN CHARGES

The charges said to have been given by Prince Edwin, and contained in the Antiquity Manuscript, are sometimes so called (see Antiquity Manuscript).

EFFINGHAM, CHARLES HOWARD, EARL OF

Said to have been Grand Master of England from 1579 to 1588 (see William Preston's Illustrations of Masonry, section v). The Earl was born in 1536 and was Lord High Admiral, defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588. IIe died in 1624.

EFFINGHAM, THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF

The Duke of Cumberland made the Earl his Pro Grand Master in 1782, serving until 1790.

EGAY, MONEY

Thory lists Egay as Grand Master of Portugal in 1805.

EGG, MUNDANE

It was a belief of almost all the ancient nations, that the world was hatched from an egg made by the Creator, over which the Spirit of God was represented as hovering in the same manner as a bird broods or flutters over her eggs. Faber (Pagan Idolatry i, 4), who traced everything to the Arkite worship, says that this egg, which was a symbol of the resurrection, was no other than the ark; and as Dionysus was fabled in the Orphic hymns to be born from an egg, he and Noah were the same person; wherefore the birth of Dionysus or Brahma, or any other hero god from an egg, was nothing more than the egress of Noah from the ark.

Be this as it may, the egg has been always deemed a symbol of the resurrection, and hence the Christian use of Easter eggs on the great feast of the resurrection of our Lord. As this is the most universally diffused of all symbols, it is strange that it has found no place in the symbolism of Freemasonry, which deals so much with the doctrine of the resurrection, of which the egg was everywhere the recognized symbol. It was, however, used by the ancient architects, and from them was adopted by the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages, one of whose favorite ornaments was the ovolo, or egg-molding.

EGLINTON MANUSCRIPT

An old document dated December 28, 1599. It is so named from its having been discovered some years ago in the charter chest at Eglinton Castle. It is a Scottish manuscript, and is valuable for its details of early Freemasonry in Scotland. In it, Edinburgh is termed "the first and principal Lodge," and Kilwinning is called "the heid and secund Ludge of Scotland in ad tyme cuming." An exact copy of it was taken by Brother D. Murray Lyon, and published in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh (page 12). It has also been printed in Brother Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Reprints.

EGYPT

About this country of famed antiquity along the Valley of the River Nile in Northeast Africa, has clustered many suggestive allusions of interest to the Craft. The old Cooke's Manuscript tells us that from Egypt, Freemasonry "went from land to land and from kingdom to kingdom." In more modern days the claim has been made that a Lodge of the Order of Memphis, was founded by Freemasons of the prominence of Napoleon Bonaparte, General Kleber, and others of the French Army during the Egyptian Campaign of 1798.

The Grand Orient of France founded a Lodge in Egypt, La Bienfaisance, or Benevolence, of 1802, and another in 1806, Les Amis de Napoleon le Grand, Friends of Napoleon the Great, and other Lodges in 1847 and 1863, all at Alexandria; one at Cairo in 1868, and another at Alexandria in 1848, and one at Mansourah in 1882. Lodges at Alexandria were established by the Grand Lodge of France, one in 1871, the other in 1910, also three at Cairo, in 1889, 1910, and 1911, with one at Port Said in 1867.

A German Lodge was set at work in Cairo in 1866, and one at Alexandria in 1908. The first of two Lodges was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1867 and 1884. The Grand Orient of Italy has had six Lodges at Alexandria, three at Cairo, one at Port Said, and another at Suez. The Grand Lodge of England also chartered Lodges at Alexandria in 1862 and 1865; Zetland Lodge in 1867, Alexandria Lodge in 1920, have survived; nine Lodges were chartered at Cairo, Bulwer Lodge, the oldest, 1865; Grecia Lodge, 1866 Star of the East Lodge, 1871, and Lotus Lodge, 1908, continuing; three were erected at Khartoum: Khartoum Lodge, 1901; Saint Reginald Wingate Lodge, 1908; Mahfel-el-Ittihad Lodge, 1908, and one each at Le Caire, Port Said, Suez, and Tantah.

The Order of Memphis is said to have been revived or repeated in Egypt by J. E. Marconis, who constituted a Lodge at Cairo and founded a Supreme Council at Alexandria before 1862. After Marconis resigned his powers to the Grand Orient of France, the Body in Egypt was independent and the son of Mehemet Ali, Prince Halim Pasha, became Grand Master, the Order prospering until his exile in 1868.

The Sanctuary, Patriarchs of Memphis, worked for a time in secrecy but eventually ceased operations. On December 21, 1872, the Rite of Memphis was again set at work and with the approval of the Khedive, a Grand Master, S. A.Zola, was elected over the Sanctuary of Memphis and the Grand Orient of EzvDt: two years later he became Grand Hierophant, ninety-seven Degrees, the Supreme Officer. This position Zolare signed in 1883 to Professor Oddi. An Ancient and Accepted Rite of the Thirty-third Degree instituted by the Grand Orient of Naples in 1864 arranged with the Rite of Memphis of ninety-six Degrees that these two organizations should work other than the three symbolic Degrees which were to be conferred by a Grand Orient. On May 8, 1876, a reorganization resulted in three separate Grand Masonic Bodies, the National Grand Lodge of Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite, and the Sovereign Grand Council of the Memphis Rite. The National Grand Lodge in 1879 was proclaimed "free, sovereign and independent" of the other Bodies.

There is now a Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite instituted in 1907. Some Brethren withdrew from the National Grand Lodge in September of 1922 to form another Grand Lodge of Egypt.

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS

The extent of parallelism between the innumerable hieroglyphs or picture-writing on the tombs and monuments of India find Egypt and the symbols and emblems of Freemasonry, taken together with their esoteric interpretation, has caused very many well-thinking Freemasons to believe in an Indian or Egyptian origin of our speculative institution of the present day. So close and numerous are these symbols and their meaning that it becomes difficult for the mind to free itself from a fixed conclusion; and some of the best students feel confident in their judgment to this end, more especially when tracing the Leader, "Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," from that country to Palestine with the twelve tribes of Israel and their successors building that Holy House in Jerusalem, which has become the chief Masonic symbol. Some have abominated this theory on the ground of alleged polytheism existing among the Egyptians; but this existed only at a later day in the life of the nation, as it also existed among the corrupted Jews in its worst form, for which see Second Kings, chapters 17 to 21.

Brother Thomas Pryer presents this evidence of a monotheistic belief, of pristine purity, among the early Egyptians, ages prior to Abraham's day. We give the hieroglyphs and their interpretation in the illustration.

How prophetical were the Books of Hermes.

O Egypt Egypt! a time shall come, when, in lieu of a pure religion, and of a pure belied thou wilt possess naught but ridiculous fables incredible to posterity, and nothing will remain to thee, but words engraven on stone, the only monuments that will attest thy piety.

EGYPTIAN MASONRY

See Cagliostro

EGYPTIAN MONTHS

Named Thoth, Paophi, Athyr, Choiak, Tybi, Mechir, Phamenoth, Pharmuthi, Pashons, Payni, Epiphi, and Mesore. The above twelve months, commencing with March 1, were composed of thirty days each, and the five supplementary days were dedicated to Hesiri or Osiris, Hor or Horus Set or Typhon, IIis or Isis, and Nebti or Nephthys. The sacred year commenced July 20; the Alexandrian year, August 29 in the year 25 B.C.

EGYPTIAN MYSTERIES

Egypt has always been considered as the birthplace of the Mysteries. It was there that the ceremonies of initiation were first established. It was there that truth was first veiled in allegory, and the dogmas of religion were first imparted under symbolic forms. From Egypt "the land of the winged globe" the land of science and philosophy, "peerless for stately tombs and magnificent temples the land whose civilization was old and mature before other nations, since called to empire, had a name" this system of symbols was disseminated through Greece and Rome and other countries of Europe and Asia, giving origin, through many intermediate steps, to that mysterious association which is now represented by the Institution of Freemasonry. To Egypt, therefore, the Freemasons have always looked with peculiar interest as the cradle of that mysterious science of symbolism whose peculiar modes of teaching they alone, of all modern institutions, have preserved to the present day.

The initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries was, of all the systems practiced by the ancients, the most severe and impressive. The Greeks at Eleusis imitated it to some extent, but they never reached the magnitude of its forms nor the austerity of its discipline. The system had been organized for ages, and the Priests, who alone were the hierophants the explainers of the Mysteries, or, as we should call them in Masonic language, the Masters of the Lodges were educated almost from childhood for the business in which they were engaged. That "learning of the Egyptians," in which Moses is said to have been so skilled, was all imparted in these Mysteries. It was confined to the Priests and to the initiates; and the trials of initiation through which the latter had to pass were so difficult to be endured, that none but those who were stimulated by the most ardent thirst for knowledge dared to undertake them or succeeded in submitting to them.

The Priesthood of Egypt constituted a sacred caste, in whom the sacerdotal functions were hereditary. They exercised also an important part in the government of the state, and the Kings of Egypt were but the first subjects of its priests. They had originally organized, and continued to control, the ceremonies of initiation. Their doctrines were of two kinds exoteric or public, which were communicated to the multitude, and esoteric or secret, which were revealed only to a chosen few; and to obtain them it was necessary to pass through an initiation which was characterized by the severest trials of courage and fortitude.

The principal seat of the Mysteries was at Memphis, in the neighborhood of the great Pyramid. They were of two kinds, the greater and the less; the former being the Mysteries of Osiris and Serapis, the latter those of Isis. The Mysteries of Osiris were celebrated at the autumnal equinox, those of Serapis at the summer solstice, and those of Isis at the vernal equinox. The solstice is when the sun is at its greatest declination, usually June 21 and December 22. The equinoxes are twice a year when the days and nights are equal all over the world. The vernal equinox is March 21, the autumnal is September 22. These important astronomical events observed by the ancients were deemed especially suitable occasions for the most ceremonial of their mysterious customs. The candidate was required to exhibit proofs of a blameless life. For some days previous to the commencement of the ceremonies of initiation, he abstained from all unchaste acts, confined himself to an exceedingly light diet, from which animal food was rigorously excluded, and purified himself by repeated ablutions.

Apuleius (Metamorphosis, book xi), who had been initiated in all of them, thus alludes, with cautious reticence, to those of Isis:

The priest, all the profane being removed to a distance taking hold of me by the hand brought me into the inner recesses of the sanctuary itself, clothed in a new linen garment. Perhaps curious reader, you may be eager to know what was then said and done. I would tell you were it lawful for me to tell you; you should know it if it were lawful for you to hear. But both the ears that heard those things and the tongue that told them would reap the evil results of their rashness. Still however kept in suspense as you probably are, with religious longing, I will not torment you with long-protracted anxiety. Hear. therefore. but believe what is the truth. I approached the confines of death, and, having trod on the threshold of Proserpine, I returned therefrom, being borne through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with its brilliant light; and I approached the presence of the gods beneath and the gods above, and stood near and worshiped them. Behold, I have related to you things of which though heard by you, you must necessarily remain ignorant.

The first Degree, as we may term it, of Egyptian initiation was that into the Mysteries of Isis. What was its peculiar import, we are unable to say. Isis, says Knight, was, among the later Egyptians, the personification of universal nature. To Apuleius she says: "I am nature—the parent of all things, the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time." Plutarch tells us that on the front of the Temple of Isis was placed this inscription: "I, Isis, am all that has been, that is, or shall be, and no mortal hath ever unveiled me." Thus we may conjecture that the Isiac Mysteries were descriptive of the alternate decaying and renovating powers of nature.

Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis in, 102), it is true, says that during the Mysteries of Isis were celebrated the misfortunes and tragical death of Osiris in a sort of drama; and Apuleius asserts that the initiation into her mysteries is celebrated as bearing a close resemblance to a voluntary death, with a precarious chance of recovery. But Higgins gives no authority for his statement, and that of Apuleius cannot be constrained into any reference to the enforced death of Osiris. It is, therefore, probable that the ceremonies of this initiation were simply preparatory to that of the Osirian, and taught, by instructions in the physical laws of nature, the necessity of moral purification, a theory which is not incompatible with all the mystical allusions of Apuleius when he describes his own initiation.

The Mysteries of Serapis constituted the second Degree of the Egyptian initiation. Of these rites we have but a scanty knowledge. Herodotus is entirely silent concerning them, and Apuleius, calling them "the nocturnal orgies of Serapis, a god of the first rank," only intimates that they followed those of Isis, and were preparatory to the last and greatest initiation. Serapis is said to have been only Osiris while in Hades; and hence the Serapian initiation night have represented the death of Osiris, but leaving the lesson of resurrection tor a subsequent initiation. But this is merely a conjecture.

In the Mysteries of Osiris, which were the consummation of the Egyptian system, the lesson of death and resurrection was symbolically taught; and the legend of the murder of Osiris, the search for the body, its discovery and restoration to life is scenically represented. This legend of initiation was as follows:

Osiris, a wise king of Egypt, left the care of his kingdom to his wife Isis, and traveled for three years to communicate to other nations the arts of civilization.

During his absence, his brother Typhon formed a secret conspiracy to destroy him and to usurp his throne. On his return, Osiris was invited by Typhon to an entertainment in the month of November, at which all the conspirators were present. Typhon produced a chest inlaid with gold, and promised to give it to any person present whose body would most exactly fit it. Osiris was tempted to try the experiment; but he had no sooner laid down in the chest, then the lid was closed and nailed down, and the chest thrown into the river Nile.

The chest containing the body of Osiris was, after being for a long time tossed about by the waves, finally cast up at Byblos in Phenicia, and left at the foot of a tamarisk tree. Isis, overwhelmed with grief for the loss of her husband, set out on a journey, and traversed the earth in search of the body. After many adventures, she at length discovered the spot whence it had been thrown up by the waves and returned with it in triumph to Egypt. It was then proclaimed, with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy, that Osiris was risen from the dead and had become a god. Such, with slight variations of details by different writers arc the general outlines of the Osiris legend which was represented in the drama of initiation. Its resemblance to the Hiramic legend of the Masonic system will be readily seen, and its symbolism will be easily understood. Osiris and Typhon are the representatives of the two antagonistic principles—good and evil, light and darkness, life and death.

There is also an astronomical interpretation of the legend which makes Osiris the sun and Typhon the season of winter, which suspends the fecundating and fertilizing powers of the sun or destroys its life, to be restored only by the return of invigorating spring.

The sufferings and death of Osiris were the great mystery of the Egyptian religion. His being the abstract idea of the Divine goodness, his manifestation upon earth, his death, his resurrection, and his subsequent office as judge of the dead in a future state, look, says Wilkinson, like the early revelation of a future manifestation of the Deity converted into a mythological fable. Into these Mysteries Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pythagoras were initiated, and the former two have given brief accounts of them. But their own knowledge must have been extremely limited, for, as Clement of Alexandria (Stromoteis v, 7) tells us, the more important secrets were not revealed even to all the priests, but to a select number of them only.

EGYPTIAN PRIESTS, INITIATIONS OF THE

In the year 1770, there was published at Berlin a work entitled Crata Repoa; oder Einweihungen der Egyptischen Priester; meaning in English, Crata Repoa, or Initiations of the Egyptian Priests. This book was subsequently republished in 1778, and translated into French under the revision of Ragon, and published at Paris in 1821, by Bailleul. It professed to give the whole formula of the initiation into the Mysteries practiced by the ancient Egyptian Priests. Lenning cites the-work, and gives an outline of the system as if he thought it an authentic relation; but Gadicke more prudently says of it that he doubts that there are more mysteries described in the book than sere ever practiced by the ancient Egyptian Priests. The French writers have generally accepted it as genuine. Forty years before, the Abbé Terrasson had written a somewhat similar work, in which he pretended to describe the initiation of a Prince of Egypt. Kloss, in his Bibliography, has placed this latter work under the head of Romances of the Order; and a similar place should doubtless be assigned to the Crata Repoa. The curious may, however, be gratified by a brief detail of the system.

According to the Crata Repoa, the Priests of Egypt conferred their initiation at Thebes. The Mysteries were divided into the following seven degrees:

1. Pastophoros.
2. Neocoros.
3. Melanophoros.
4. Ristophoros.
5. Balahate.
6. Astronomos.
7. Propheta.

The first degree was devoted to instructions of the physical sciences; the second, to geometry and architecture. In the third degree, the candidate was instructed in the symbolical death of Osiris, and was made acquainted with the hieroglyphical language. In the fourth he was presented with the book of the laws of Egypt and became a judge. The instructions of the fifth degree were dedicated to chemistry, and of the sixth to astronomy and the mathematical sciences. In the seventh and last degree the candidate received a detailed explanation of all the mysteries, his head was shaved, and he was presented with a cross, which he was constantly to carry, a white mantle, and a square head dress. To each degree was attached a word and sign. Anyone who should carefully read the Crata Repoa would be convinced that, so far from being founded on any ancient system of initiation, it was simply a modern invention made up out of the high degrees of continental Freemasonry. It is indeed surprising that Lenning and Ragon should have treated it as if it had the least claims to antiquity.

Brother Hawkins says that it has been suggested that Crata Repoa may be an anagram for Arcta Opera or close finished works. The letters of a word being so transposed as to give a different one, then the one is an anagram for the other.

EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH

The pronunciation which means, I am that I am, and is one of the pentateuchal names of God. It is related in the third chapter of Exodus, that when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and directed him to go to Pharaoh and to the children of Israel in Egypt, Moses required that, as preliminary to his mission, he should be instructed in the name of God, so that, when he was asked by the Israelites, he might be able to prove his mission by announcing what that name was; and God said to him, Eheyeh, or I am that I am; and he directed him to say, "I am hath sent you." Eheych asher eheyeh is, therefore, the name of God, in which Moses was instructed at the burning bush.

Maimonides thinks that when the Lord ordered Moses to tell the people that Eheyeh sent him, he did not mean that he should only mention his name; for if they were already acquainted with it, he told them nothing new, and if they were not, it has not likely that they would be satisfied by saying Rich a name sent me, for the proof would still be wanting that this was really the name of God; therefore, he not only told them the name, but also taught them its signification. In those times, Sabaism being the predominant religion, almost all men were idolaters, and occupied themselves in the contemplation of the heavens and the sun and the stars, without any idea of a personal God in the world. Now., the Lord, to deliver his people from such an error, said to Moses, "Go and tell them I am that I am hath sent me unto you," which name Eheyeh, Signifying Being, is derived from, Heyeh, the verb of existence, and which, being repeated so that the second is the predicate of the first, contains the mystery. This is as if He had said, "Explain to them that I am What I am: that is, that My Being is within Myself, independent of every other, different from all other beings, who are so alone by virtue of My distributing it to them, and might not have been, nor could actually be such without it." So that denotes the Divine Being Himself, by which He taught Moses not only the name, but the infallible demonstration of the Fountain of Existence, as the name itself denotes.

The Cabalists say that Eheyeh is the croum or highest of the Sephiroth, and that it is the name that was hidden in the most secret place of the tabernacle.

The Talmudists had many fanciful exercitations on this word rend, and, among others, said that it is equivalent to Ore, meaning the Almighty, and the four letters of which it is formed possess peculiar properties. The letter X is in Hebrew numerically equivalent to 1, and 8 to 10, which is equal to 11; a result also obtained by taking the second and third letters of the holy name, or is and 1, which are 5 and 6, amounting to 11. But the 5 and 6 invariably produce the same number in their multiplication, for 5 times 5 are 25, and 6 times 6 are 36, and this invariable product of is and 1 was said to denote the unchangeableness of the First Cause. Again, I am commences with R or 1, the beginning of numbers, and Jehovah, with 10, the end of numbers , which signified that God was the beginning and end of all things.

The phrase Eheyeh asher eheyeh is of importance in the study of the legend of the Royal Arch system. Years ago, that learned Freemason, William S. Rockwell, while preparing his Ahiman Rezon for the State of Georgia, undertook its use in the veils.

EIGHT

Among the Pythagoreans the number eight was esteemed as the first cube, being formed by the continued multiplication of 2 by 2 by 2, and signified friendship, prudence, counsel, and justice; and, as the cube or reduplication of the first even number, it was made to refer to the primitive law of nature, which supposes all men to be equal.

Christian numerical symbologists have called it the symbol of the resurrection, because Jesus rose on the 8th day, that is, the day after the 7th, and because the name of Jesus in Greek numerals, corresponding to its Greek letters, is 10, 8, 200, 70, 400, 200, which, being added up, is 888. Hence, too, they call it the Dominical Number. As eight persons were saved in the ark, those who, like Faber, have adopted the theory that the Arkite Rites pervaded all the religions of antiquity, find an important symbolism in this number, and as Noah was the type of the resurrection, they again find in it a reference to that doctrine. It can, however, be scarcely reckoned among the numerical symbols of Freemasonry.

EIGHTY-ONE

A sacred number in the advanced Degrees, because it is the square of nine, which is again the square of three. The Pythagoreans, however, who considered the nine as a fatal number, and especially dreaded eighty-one, because it was produced by the multiplication of nine by itself.

EL

Hebrew, be. One of the Hebrew names of God, signifying the Mighty One. El, the first letter with a short sound, is the common pronunciation but perhaps more correctly should be sounded as if spelled ale. It is the root of many of the other names of Deity, and also, therefore, of many of the sacred words in the high Degrees. Bryant (Ancient Mythology i, 16) says it was the true name of God, but transferred by the Sabians to the sun, whence the Greeks borrowed their helios. Here we may add that the speculations of Bryant are by a later generation deemed less valuable than formerly.

ELAI BENI ALMANAH

Hebrew, xxw, Huc venite filii vidua. Associated with a Degree, the Third, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

ELAI BENI EMETH

Hebrew, Huc venite filii veritatis. Sometimes applied to the Twentysixth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

ELCHANAN

Hebrew, xxnds. God has graciously given. In the authorized version, it is improperly translated Elhanan. Jerome says that it meant David, because in second Samuel (xxi, 19), it is said that Elchanan slew Goliath. A significant word in the advanced Degrees, which has undergone much corruption and various changes of form. In the old rituals it is Eleharn. Lenning gives Elchanam, and incorrectly translates, mercy of God; Delaunay calls it Eliham, and translates it, God of the people, in which Pike concurs.

ELDERS

This word is used in some of the old Constitutions to designate those Freemasons who, from their rank and age, were deputed to obligate Apprentices when admitted into the Craft. Thus in the Constitutions of Masonry, preserved in the archives of the York Lodge, No. 236, York Roll No2. If with the date of 1704, we find this expression, Tum unus ex Senioribus Teneat librum, etc., which in another manuscript, dated 1693, preserved in the same archives, York Roll No. 4, is thus translated: "Then one of the elders taking the Booke, and that hee or shee that is to bee made Mason shall lay their hands thereon, and the charge shall be given." These old manuscripts have been published by Brother W. J. Hughan in Ancient Masonic Rolls of Constitutions, 1894.

ELECT

See Elu

ELECT BROTHER

The Seventh Degree of the Rite of Zinnendorf and the National Grand Lodge of Berlin.

ELECT COHENS, ORDER OF

See Paschalis, Martinez

ELECT COMMANDER

The French term is Ells Commandeur. A ceremony mentioned in Fustier's Nomenclature of Degrees

ELECT, DEPOSITARY

A Degree mentioned in Pyrons collection

ELECT, GRAND

The French expression is Grand Elu. The Fourteenth Degree of the Chapter of the Emperors of the East and West. The same as the Grand Elect, Perfect and Sublime Mason of the Scottish Rite.

ELECT, GRAND PRINCE OF THE THREE

A Degree mentioned in Pyron's collection.

ELECT, IRISH

in French the term is Elu Irlandais. The first of the advanced grades of the Chapters of that name.

ELECT LADY, SUBLIME

The French name is Dame, Elu Sublime. An androgynous Degree contained in the collection of Pyron.

ELECT, LITTLE ENGLISH

In French this is called the Petit Elu Anglais. The Little English Eled was a Degree of the Ancient Chapter of Clermont. The Degree is now extinct.

ELECT MASTER

Named in French the Mattre Elu. 1. The Thirteenth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France. 2. The Fifth Degree of the Rite of Zinnendorf.

ELECT OF FIFTEEN

The French expression is Elu des Quinze. The Tenth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The place of meeting is called a Chapter; the emblematic color is black, strewed with tears; and the principal officers are a Thrice Illustrious Master and two Inspectors. The history of this Degree develops the continuation and conclusion of the punishment inflicted on three traitors who, just before the conclusion of the Temple, had committed a crime of the most atrocious character. The Degree is now more commonly called Illustrious Elu of the Fifteen. The same Degree is found in the Chapter of Emperors of the East and West, and in the Rite of Mizraim.

ELECT OF LONDON

Named in French Elus des Londres. The Seventieth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ELECT OF NINE

The French name is Elu des Neuf. The Ninth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In the old books there were two officers who represented Solomon and Stolkin. But in one leading Jurisdiction, the principal officers are a Master and two Inspectors. The meetings are called Chapters. The Degree details the mode in which certain traitors, who, just before the completion of the Temple, had been engaged in an execrable deed of villainy, received their punishment. The symbolic colors are red, white, and black; the white emblematic of the purity of the knights; the red, of the crime which was committed; and the black, of grief. This is the first of the Elu Degrees, and the one on which the whole Elu system has been founded.

ELECT OF NINE AND FIFTEEN

The German expression is Auserwahlte der Neun und der Funfzehn. The first and second points of the Fourth Degree of the old system of the Royal York Lodge of Berlin.

ELECT OF PERIGNAN

In French the name is Elu de Perignan. A Degree illustrative of the punishment inflicted upon certain criminals whose exploits constitute a portion of the legend of Symbolic Freemasonry. The substance of this Degree is to be found in the Elect of Wine and Elect of Fifteen in the Scottish Rite, with both of which it is closely connected. It is the Sixth Degree of the Adonhiramite Rite (see Perignan).

ELECT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

Formerly the Eighth and last of the advanced Degrees of the Grand Chapter of Berlin.

ELECT OF THE TWELVE TRIBES

Called in French the Elu des douze Tribus. The Seventeenth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ELECT OF TRUTH, RITE OF

The French name is Rite des Elus de la Vérité. This Rite was instituted in 1776, by the Lodge of Perfect Union, at Rennes, in France. A few Lodges in the interior of France adopted this system; but notwithstanding its philosophical character, it never became popular, and finally, about the end of the eighteenth century fell into disuse. It consisted of twelve Degrees divided into two classes, as follows.

Knights Adept.

1. Apprentice
2. Fellow Craft
3. Master
4. Perfect Master
Elects of Truth
5. Elect of Nine
6. Elect of Fifteen
7. Master Elect
8. Architect
9. Second Architect
10. Grand Architect
11. Knight of the East
12. Prince of Rose Croix

ELECT OF TWELVE

See Knight Elect of Twelve

ELECT, PERFECT

Named in French the Parfait Elu. The Twelfth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France, and also of the Rite of Mizraim.

ELECT, PERFECT AND SUBLIME MASON

See Perfection, Lodge of

ELECT PHILOSOPHER

A Degree under this name is found in the instructions of the Philosophic Scottish Rite, and in the collection of Viany.

ELECT SECRET, SEVERE INSPECTOR.

The French name is Elu Secret, Sésbre Inspedeur. The Fourteenth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ELECT, SOVEREIGN

The name in French is Elu Souverain. The Fifty-ninth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.

ELECT, SUBLIME

Expressed in French as Elu Sublime. The Fifteenth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

ELECT, SUPREME

Named in French Elu Supreme. The Seventy-fourth Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of France. It is also a Degree in the collection of M. Pyron, and, under the name of Tabernacle of Perfect Elect, is contained in the archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite.

ELECT, SYMBOLICAL

Fifth Degree of the Reformed Rite of Baron Von Tschoudy.

ELECTA

Fifth Degree in the American Adoptive System of the Order of the Eastern Star. So named from the lady, whose real name is unknown, to whom the Second Epistle of Saint John is addressed! and who, according to tradition, "joyfully rendered up home, husband, children, good name and life. that she might testify to her Christian love by a martyr's death."

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

The election of the officers of a Lodge is generally held on the meeting which precedes the festival of Saint John the Evangelist and sometimes on that festival itself. Should a Lodge fail to make the election at that time, no election can be subsequently held except by Dispensation; and it is now very generally admitted, that should any one of the officers die or remove from the Jurisdiction during the period for which he was elected, no election can take place to supply the vacancy, but the office must be filled temporarily until the next election. If it be the Master, the Senior Warden succeeds to the office. For the full exposition of the law on this subject, see Vacancies in Office.

ELECTIVE OFFICERS

In the United States of America, nearly all the offices of a Symbolic Lodge are elected by the members of the Lodge. Such is the general practice though the several Jurisdictions have no uniform custom. In England, the rule is different. There the Master, Treasurer, and Tiler only are elected; the other officers are appointed by the Master.

ELEHA

See Elchanan

ELEMENTS

It was the doctrine of the old philosophers, sustained by the authority of Aristotle that there were four principles of matter—fire, air, earth, and water—which they called elements. Modern science has shown the fallacy of the theory. But it was also taught by the Cabalists, and afterward by the Rosicrucians, who, according to the Abbé de Pillars, sometimes known as Le Comte de Gabalis, peopled them with supernatural beings called, in the fire, Salamanders; in the air, Sylphs; in the earth, Gnomes; and in the water, Undines. From the Rosicrucians and the Cabalists, the doctrine passed over into some of the advanced Degrees of Freemasonry, and is especially referred to in the Ecossais or Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew, which has so often been claimed as an invention of the Chevalier Ramsay. In this Degree we find the four angels of the four elements described as Andarel, the angel of fire; Casmaran, of air; Talliad, of water; and Furlac, of earth; and the signs refer to the same elements.

ELEMENTS, TEST OF THE

A ceremonial in the First and Twenty-fourth Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

ELEPHANTA

The Cavern of Elephanta, situated on the island of Gharipour, in the Gulf of Bombay, is the most ancient temple in the world, and was the principal place for the celebration of the Mysteries of India. It is one hundred and thirty-five feet square and eighteen feet high, supported by four massive pillars, and its walls covered on all sides with statues and carved decorations. Its adytum at the western extremity, which was accessible only to he initiated, was dedicated to the Phallic Worship. On each side were cells and passages for the purpose of initiation, and a sacred orifice for the mystical representation of these doctrine of regeneration (see Maurice's Indian Antiquities for a full description of this ancient scene of initiation).

ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Of all the Mysteries of the ancient religions, those celebrated at the Village of Eleusis, near the City of Athens, were the most splendid and the most popular. To them men came, says Cicero, from the remotest regions to be initiated They were also the most ancient, if we may believe Epiphanius, who traces them to the reign of Inachus, more than eighteen hundred years before the Christian era. They were dedicated to the goddess Demeter, the Ceres of the Romans, who was worshiped by the Greeks as the symbol of the prolific earth; and in them severe scenically represented the loss and the recovery of Persephone, and the doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul were esoterically taught.

The learned Faber believed that there was an intimate connection between the Arkite Worship and the Mysteries of Eleusis; but Faber's theory was that the Arkite Rites, which he traced to almost all the nations of antiquity, symbolized, in the escape of Noah and the renovation of the earth, the doctrines of the resurrection and the immortal life. Plutarch (De Isis et Osiris) says that the travels of Isis in search of Osiris were not different from those of Demeter in search of Persephone; and this view has been adopted by Saint Croix (Mysteres du Paganisme) and by Creuzer (Symbolik und Arkaologie); and hence we may well suppose that the recovery of the former at Byblos, and of the latter in Hades, were both intended to symbolize the restoration of the soul after death to eternal life. The learned have generally admitted that when Virgil, in the sixth book of his Aeneid, depicted the descent of Aeneas into hell, he intended to give a representation of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The Mysteries were divided into two classes, the lesser and the greater. The lesser Mysteries were celebrated on the banks of the Ilissus, whose waters supplied the means of purification of the aspirants. The greater Mysteries were celebrated in the temple at Eleusis. An interval of six months occurred between them, the former taking place in March and the latter in September; which has led some writers to suppose that there was some mystical reference to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, March 21 and September 22 when the nights and days are equal all over the world. But, considering the character of Demeter as the goddess of Agriculture, it might be imagined, although this is a mere conjecture, that the reference was to seed-time and harvest. A year, however, was required to elapse before the initiate into the lesser Mysteries was granted admission into the greater.

In conducting the Mysteries, there were four officers, namely:

1. The Hierophant, or explainer of the sacred things. As the pontifex maximus in Rome, so he was the chief priest of Attica; he presided over the ceremonies and explained the nature of the Mysteries to the initiated.

2. The Dadouchus, or torch-bearer, who appears to have acted as the immediate assistant of the Hierophant.

3. The Hieroceryx, or sacred herald, who had the general care of the Temple, guarded it from the profanation of the uninitiated, and took charge of the aspirant during the trials of initiation.

4. The Epibomus, or altar-server, who conducted the sacrifices.

The ceremonies of initiation into the lesser Moniteries were altogether purificatory, and intended to prepare the neophyte for his reception into the more sublime rites of the greater Mysteries. This, an ancient poet, quoted by Plutarch, illustrates by saying that sleep is the lesser Mysteries of the death. The candidate who desired to pass through this initiation entered the modest Temple, erected for that purpose on the borders of the Ilissus, and there submitted to the required ablutions, typical of moral purification. The Dadouchus then placed his feet upon the skins of the victims which had been immolated to Jupiter. Hebsychius says that only the left foot was placed on the skins. In this position he was asked if he had eaten bread, and if he was pure; and his replies being satisfactory, he passed through other symbolic ceremonies, the mystical signification of which was given to him, an oath of secrecy having been previously administered. The initiate into the lesser Mysteries was called a mystes, a title which, being derived from a Greek word meaning to shut the eyes, signified that he was yet blind as to the greater truths thereafter to be revealed.

The greater Mysteries lasted for nine days, and were celebrated partly on the Thriasian plain, which surrounded the temple, and partly in the Temple of Eleusis itself. Of this Temple, one of the most magnificent and the largest in Greece, not a vestige is now left. Its antiquity was very great, having been in existence, according to Aristides the rhetorician, when the Dorians marched against Athens. It was burned by the retreating Persians under Xerxes, but immediately rebuilt, and finally destroyed with the city by Alaric, "the Scourge of God," and all that is now left at Eleusis and its spacious Temple is the mere site occupied by the insignificant Greek Village of Lepsina, an evident corruption of the ancient name.

The public processions on the plain and on the sacred way from Athens to Eleusis were made in honor of Demeter and Persephone, and made mystical allusions to events in the life of both, and of the infant Iacchus. These processions were made in the daytime, but the initiation was nocturnal, and was reserved for the nights of the sixth and seventh days.

The herald opened the ceremonies of initiation into the greater Mysteries by the proclamation, xxx, FKaSS Ea7f meaning "Begone, begone, O ye profane. " The old meaning, and of course the Masonic one, of profane is of a person not yet received within the temple, from the words pro meaning before, and fanum, temple. Thus were the sacred precincts tiled.

The aspirant was clothed with the skin of a calf. An oath of secrecy was administered, and he was then asked, "Have you eaten bread?" The reply to which was, "I have fasted; I have drunk the sacred mixture; I have taken it out of the chest; I have spun; I have placed it in the basket, and from the basket laid it in the chest." By this reply, the aspirant showed that he had been duly prepared by initiation into the lesser Mysteries; for Clement of Alexandria says that this formula was a shibboleth, or password, by which the mustae, or initiates, into the lesser Mysteries were known as such, and admitted to the epopteia or greater initiation. The gesture of spinning wool, in imitation of what Demeter did in the time of her affliction, seemed also to be used as a sign of recognition. The aspirant was now clothed in the sacred tunic, and awaited in the vestibule the opening of the doors of the sanctuary.

What subsequently took place must be left in great part to conjecture, although modern writers have availed themselves of all the allusions that are to be found in the ancients. The Temple consisted of three parts: the megaton, or sanctuary, corresponding to the holy place of the Temple of Solomon; the anactoron, or holy of holies, and a subterranean apartment beneath the temple. Each of these was probably occupied at a different portion of the initiation.

The representation of the infernal regions and the punishment of the uninitiated impious was appropriated to the subterranean apartment, and was, as Sylvestre de Sacy says ( Notes to Crozz i, 360) an episode of the drama which represented the adventures of Isis, Osiris, and Typhon, or of Demeter, Persephone, and Pluto. This drama, the same author thinks, represented the carrying away of Persephone, the travels of Demeter in search of her lost daughter her descent into hell; the union of Pluto with Persephone, and was terminated by the return of Demeter into the upper world and the light of day.

The representation of this drama commenced immediately after the profane had been sent from the Temple. And it is easy to understand how the groans and wailings with which the Temple at one time resounded might symbolize the sufferings and the death of man, and the subsequent rejoicings at the return of the goddess might be typical of the joy for the restoration of the soul to eternal life. Others have conjectured that the drama of the Mysteries represented, in the deportation of Persephone to Hades by Pluto, the departure, as it were, of the sun, or the deprivation of its vivific power during the winter months, and her reappearance on earth, the restoration of the prolific sun in summer. Others again tell us that the last act of the Mysteries represented the restoration to life of the murdered Zagreus, or Dionysus, by Demeter. Diodorus says that the members of the Body of Zagreus lacerated by the Titans was represented in the ceremonies of Mysteries, as well as in the Orphic hymns; but he prudently adds that he was not allowed to reveal the details to the uninitiated.

Whatever was the precise method of symbolism, it is evident that the true interpretation was the restoration from death to eternal life, and that the funereal part of the initiation referred to a 1088, and the exultation afterward to a recovery. Hence it was folly to deny the coincidence that exists between this Eleusinian drama and that enacted in the Third Degree of Freemasonry. It is not claimed that the one was the uninterrupted successor of the other, but there must have been a common ideal source for the origin of both. The lesson, the dogma the symbol, and the method of instruction are the same. Waving now, as Pindar says, "descended beneath the hollow earth, and beheld those Mysteries," the initiate ceased to be a mystes, or blind man, and was thenceforth called an epopt, a word signifying he who beholds.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, which, by their splendor, surpassed all contemporary institutions of the kind, were deemed of so much importance as to be taken under the special protection of the state, and to the council of five hundred were entrusted the observance of the ordinances which regulated them. By a law of Solon, the magistrates met every year at the close of the festival, to pass sentence upon any who had violated or transgressed any of the rules which governed the administration of the sacred rites. Any attempt to disclose the esoteric ceremonies of initiation was punished with death. Plutarch tells us (Life of Alctotades) that the votary of pleasure was indicted for sacrilege, because he had imitated the mysteries, and shown them to his companions in the same dress as that worn by the Hierophant; and we get from Livy (xxxi, 14), the following relation:

Two Acarnanian youths, who had not been initiated, accidentally entered the Temple of Demeter during the celebration of the Mysteries. They were soon detected by their absurd questions, and being carried to the managers of the Temple, although it was evident that their intrusion was accidental, they were put to death for so horrible a crime. It is not, therefore, surprising that, in the account of them, we should find such uncertain and even conflicting assertions of the ancient writers, who hesitated to discuss publicly so forbidden a subject. The qualifications for initiation were maturity of age and purity of life. Such was the theory, although in practice these qualifications were not always rigidly recorded. But the early doctrine was that none but the pure, morally and ceremonially, could be admitted to initiation. At first, too, the right of admission was restricted to natives of Greece; but even in the time of Herodotus this law was dispensed with, and the citizens of all countries were considered eligible. So in time these Mysteries were extended beyond the limits of Greece, and in the days of the Empire they were introduced into Rome, where they became exceedingly popular. The scenic representations, the participation in secret signs and words of recognition, the instruction in a peculiar dogma, and the establishment of a hidden bond of fraternity, gave attraction to these Mysteries, which lasted until the very fall of the Roman Empire, and exerted a powerful influence on the mystical associations of the Middle Ages. The bond of union which connects them with the modern initiations of Freemasonry is evident in the common thought which pervades and identifies both, though it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to trace all the connecting links of the historic chain. We see the beginning and we see the end of one pervading idea.

For a general discussion and study of theory consult Brother Goblet d'Alviella's Eleusinia.

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