RIDDICE
and energy to the planning and construction of the magnificent House of the Temple, and was also an author of several scholarly historical books. His prompt and continued encouragement of the writer of these lines is a treasured memory and a gladly acknowledged fraternal service. Deputy Provincial Grand Master, Royal Order of Scotland, 1901, he became Provincial Grand Master, 1903. His death occurred on July 24, 1914.
ROBERTSON, JOHN ROSS.
Born December 28, 1841, Toronto, Canada. Educated at Upper Canada College, giving much of his time, however, to the study of the printing trade and editing a small college paper from his father's home during three years, from 1857 to 1860.
Every stage in the development of this paper was handled by John Robertson personally—literary, mechanical and clerical. Thus he naturally cultivated journalism, editing in turn Young Canada, the Grumbler, Sporting Life, and Canadian Railway Guide. By 1863 he was city editor of the Toronto Globe and founder, 1866, of the Daily Telegraph. March 14, 1867, made a Freemason in King Solomon's Lodge No. 22, Toronto. Brother Robertson spent several years in England for the Toronto Globe. Returning to Canada, he managed the Nation in 1875 and in April, 1876, founded the Evening Telegram. He found time to devote his talents to Freemasonry. In 1879 he was elected Junior Warden; in 1880, Worshipful Master. He had served as Worshipful Master of Mimico Lodge No. 369, 1879; Grand Steward, Grand Lodge of Canada, 1880, and two years later was Senior Grand Warden. In 1886 Brother Robertson was Deputy Grand Master of the Toronto District.
In 1888 the Grand Lodge of Canada unanimously elected him Deputy Grand Master and he was re-elected In 1890 he was elected Grand Master and was re-elected the following year. Elected a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, May 6, 1904. Brother Robertson's Masonic writings included Talk's with Craftsmen, 1893; History of the Cryptic Rite, 1888 and 1890; History of the Knights Templar of Canada , 1890, and History of Freemasonry in Canada, 1899. Brother Robertson was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for Sick Children and for thirty-five years furthered this worthy cause and is said to have visited the hospital every day. He personally equipped and presented to the Charity the Hospital buildings in College Street and Elizabeth Street, built and founded the Lakeside Home for Little Children, Toronto Island, built a Nurses' Hostel, a Pavilion for tubercular treatment and established the pasteurizing of milk in the Hospital grounds at Toronto.
Many civic and public benefits in Toronto are due to him, improvements in the ambulance service, health department, and supplying free medical inspection and aid in schools. He made many public gifts in the way of books, pictures, and so forth. He three times declined to he candidate for Mayor of Toronto. In 1902 he also gratefully declined a Knighthood and a Senatorship. For many years Brother Robertson was President of the Canadian Copyright Association; he served as Vice-President and President of the Canadian Associated Press, and was Honorary President of the Toronto Press Club at his death. His own statement as an editor was: "I am not a party politician; my aim is to keep both parties right." Brother Robertson died May 31, 1918, a last act of benevolence being to donate $111,000 on May 20 to the Children's Hospital (see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume iii, page 137, and volume xxxi, page 178).
ROBES.
A proposition was made in the Grand Lodge of England, on April 8, 1778, that the Grand Master and his officers should be distinguished in future at all public meetings by robes. This measure, Preston says in his Illustrations, 1792 edition (page 332), was at first favorably received; but it svas. on investigation, found to be so diametrically opposed to the original plan of the Institution, that it was very properly laid aside. In no Jurisdiction are robes commonly used in Symbolic Freemasonry. In many of the advanced Degrees, however, they are employed. In the United States and in England they constitute an important part of the paraphernalia of a Royal Arch Chapter (see Royal Arch Rolves).
ROBIN, ABBE CLAUDE.
A French litterateur, and Curate of Saint Pierre d'Angers. In 1776 he advanced his views on the origin of Freemasonry in a lecture before the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris. This he subsequently enlarged, and his interesting work was published at Paris and Amsterdam, in 1779, under the title of Recherches sur les Initiatiolls Anciennes et Modernes. Studies on Ancient and Modern Initiations. A German translation of it appeared in 1782, and an exhaustive review, or, rather, an extensive synopsis of it, was made by Chemin des Pontes in the first volume of his Encyclopédie Maçonnique. In this work the Abbé deduces from the ancient initiations in the Pagan Mysteries the Orders of Chivalry, whose branches, he says, produced the initiation of Freemasonry.
ROBINSON, SIMON WIGGIN.
Grand Master of Massachusetts, December 27, 1845, to December 27, 1848, a Thirty-third Degree Freemason, was born at New Hampton, New Hampshire, February 19, 1792. At twenty was Adjutant, stationed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during the War of 1812.
For a year he served as a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Initiated November 29, 1819, in Mount Lebanon Lodge, Boston. Received Fellow-Craft Degree the same day and on January 20, 1820, his Master's Degree. For several years served as Worshipful Master and from 1828 to 1843 as Treasurer. Grand Scribe of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Massachusetts in 1834 and 1835; Grand King in 1836; and in 1837, 1838 and 1839 acted as Grand High Priest. Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1840. Presided over the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Supreme Council awarded Brother Robinson the Thirty-third Degree at Boston in 1851; Grand Treasurer in 1859, and Lieutenant Grand Commander from 1861 to 1865; Sovereign Grand Commander, 1865. Died October 16, 1868.
ROMAN EAGLE.
See Golden Fleece.
ROMAN KNIGHTHOOD.
See Stukely, Doctor.
ROMVEL.
In the Hiramic Legend of some of the advanced Degrees, this is the name given to one of the assassins of the Third Degree. This seems to be an instance of the working of Stuart Freemasonry, in giving names of infamy in the legends of the Order to the enemies of the House of Stuart. For we cannot doubt the correctness of Brother Albert Pike's suggestion, that this is a manifest corruption of Cromwell. If with them Hiram was but a symbol of Charles I, then the assassin of Hiram was properly symbolized by Cromwell.
ROSAIC SYSTEM.
The system of Freemasonry taught by Rosa in the Lodges which he established in Germany and Holland, and which were hence sometimes called Rosaic Lodges. Although he professed that it really was the system of the Clerrnont Chapter, for the propagation of which he had been appointed by Baron von Printzen, he had mixed with that system many alchemical and theosophic notions of his own. The system was at first popular, but it finally succumbed to the greater attractions of the Rite of Strict Observance, which had been introduced into Germany by the Baron von Hund.
ROSA, PHILIPP SAMUEL.
Born at Ysenberg; at one time a Lutheran clergyman, and in 1757 rector of the Cathedral of Saint James at Berlin. He was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge of the Three Globes, and Von Printzen having established a Chapter of higher Degrees at Berlin on the system of the French Chapter of Clermont, Rosa was appointed his Deputy, and sent by him to propagate the system.
He visited various places in Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. In Denmark and Sweden, although well received personally on account of his pleasing manners, he made no progress in the establishment of the Rite; but his success was far better in Germany and Holland, where he organized many Lodges of the advanced Degress, engrafting them on the English system,which alone had been theretofore known in those countries. Rosa was a mystic and a pretended alchemist, and as a Masonic charlatan accumulated large sums of money by the sale of Degrees and decorations. Lenning does not speak well of his moral conduct, but some contemporary writers describe him as a man of veryattractivemanners, to which indeed may be ascribed his popularity as
a Masonic leader. While residing at Halle, he, in 1765, issued a protestation against the proceedings of the Congress of Jena, which had been convoked in that year by the impostor Johnson. But it met with no success, and thenceforth Rosa faded away from the knowledge of the Masonic world. We can learn nothing of his subsequent life, nor of the time or place of his death.
ROSE.
The symbolism of the rose among the ancients was twofold. First, as it was dedicated to Venus as the goddess of love, it became the symbol of secrecy, and hence came the expression "under the rose," to indicate that which was spoken in confidence. Again, as it was dedicated to Venus as the personification of the generative energy of nature, it became the symbol of immortality. In this latter and more recondite sense it was, in Christian symbology, transferred to Christ, through whom "life and immortality were brought to light." The "Rose of Sharon" of the Book of Canticles is always applied to Christ, and hence Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, calls IIim "that prime rose and lily." Thus we see the significance of the rose on the cross as a part of the jewel of the Rose Croix Degree.
Reghellini (volume i, page 358), after showing that anciently the rose was the symbol of secrecy, and the cross of immortality, says that the two united symbols of a rose resting on a cross always indicate the secret of immortality. Ragon agrees with him in this opinion, and says that it is the simplest mode of writing that dogma. But he subsequently gives a different explanation, namely, that as the rose was the emblem of the female principle, and the cross or triple phallus of the male, the two together, like the Indian lingam, symbolized universal generation. But Ragon, who has adopted the theory of the astronomical origin of Freemasonry, like all theorists, often carries his speculations on this subject to an extreme point.
A simpler allusion will better suit the character and teachings of the Degree in its modern organization. The rose is the symbol of Christ, and the cross, the symbol of His death—the two united, the rose suspended on the cross—signify Allis death on the cross, whereby the secret of immortality was taught to the world. In a word, the rose on the cross is Christ crucified.
W. B. Yeats says beautifully in his poem, The Secret Rose,
Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours, where those
Who sought Thee in the Holy Sepulchre
Or in tho wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams.
ROSE AND TRIPLE CROSS.
A Degree contained in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Réunis at Calais.
ROSE CROIX.-.
ROSE CROIX,
ROSE CROIX, BRETHREN OF THE.
ROSE CROIX, JACOBITE.
ROSE CROIX, JEWEL OF THE.
ROSE CROIX, KNIGHT.
ROSE CROIX, MAGNETIC.
ROSE CROIX OF GERMANY.
ROSE CROIX OF GOLD, BRETHREN OF THE.
ROSE CROIX OF HEREDOM.
ROSE CROIX OF THE DAMES.
ROSE CROIX OF THE GRAND ROSARY.
ROSE CROIX, PHILOSOPHIC.
ROSE CROIX, PRINCE OF.
ROSE CROIX, RECTIFIED.
ROSE CROIX, SOVEREIGN PRINCE OF.
ROSE CROIX.
A French term, meaning, literally, Rose Cross and applied to a series of ceremonial grades:
1. The Seventh Degree of the French Rite
2. The Seventh Degree of the Philalethes.
3. The Eighth Degree of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophie Scottish Rite.
4. The Twelfth Degree of the Elect of Truth.
5. The Eighteenth Degree of the Mother Scottish Lodge of Marseilles.
6. The Eighteenth Degree of the Rite of Heredom, or of Perfection.
ROSE CROIX, BRETHREN OF THE.
Thory says in his Foundation of the Grand Orient (page 163), that the Archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite at Paris contain the manuscripts and books of a secret society which existed at The Hague in 1622, where it was known under the title of the Freres de la Rose Croix, Brothers of the Rose Crox, which pretended to have emanated from the original Rosicrucian organization of Christian Rosenkreuz. Hence Thory thinks that the Philosophic Rite was only a continuation of this society of the
Brethren of the Rose Croix.
ROSE CROIX, JACOBITE.
The original Rose Croix conferred in the Chapter of Arras, whose Charter was said to have been granted by the Pretender, was so called with a political allusion to King James III, whose adherents were known as Jacobites.
ROSE CROIX, JEWEL OF THE.
Although there are six well-known Rose Croix Degrees, belonging to as many systems, the jewel has invariably remained the same, while the interpretation has somewhat differed. The usual jewel of a Rose Croix Knight and also that of the Most Wise Sovereign of an English Chapter are illustrated.
ROSE CROIX, KNIGHT.
The French title is Chevalier Rose Croix. The Eighteenth Degree of the Rite of Perfection. It is the same as the Prince of Rose Croix of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
ROSE CROIX, MAGNETIC.
The Thirty-cighth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.
ROSE CROIX OF GERMANY.
A Hermetic Degree, which Ragon says belongs rather to the class of Elus than to that of Rose Croix.
ROSE CROIX OF GOLD, BRETHREN OF THE.
In French the title is Freres de la rose Croiz d'Or. An Alchemical and Hermetic Society, which was founded in Germany in 1777. It promised to its disciples the secret of the transmutation of metals, and the panacea or art of prolonging life. The Baron Gleichen, who was Secretary for the German language of the Philalethan Congress at Paris in 1785, gives the following history of the organization of this society:
The members of the Rose Croix affirm that they are the legitimate authors and superiors of Freemasonry, to all of whose symbols they give a hermetical interpretation. The Masons, they say, came into England under King Arthur. Raymond Lully initiated Henry IV. The Grand Masters were formerly designated, as now, by the titles of John I, II III, IV, etc.
Their jewel is the goiden compasses attached to a blue ribbon, the symbol of purity and wisdom. The principal emblems on the ancient Tracing-Board were the sun, the moon, and the double triangle having in its centre the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Brethren wore a silver ring on which were the letters I. A. A. T., the initials of Ignis, Aer, Aqua, Terra, or Fire, Air, Waler, Earth.
The Ancient Rose Croux recognized only three Degrees; the Third Degree, as we now know it, has been substituted for another more significant one.
The Baron de Westerode, in a letter dated 1784, and quoted by Thory (Acta Latomorum i, page 336) gives another mythical account. He says:
The disciples of the Rose Croux came, in 1188, from the East into Europe, for the propagation of Christianity after the troubles in Palestine. Three of them founded in Scotland the Order of the Masons of the East— Knights of the East, to serve as a seminary for instruetion in the most sublime sciences. This Order wan in existence in 1196. Edsvard, the son of Henry III, was received into the Society of the Rose Croix by Raymond Lully. At that time only learned men and persons of high rank there admitted.
Their founder was a seraphic priest of Alexandria, a Magus of Egypt named Ormesius, or Ormus, who with six of his companions was converted in the year 96 by Saint Mark. He purified the doctrine of the Egyptians according to the precepts of Christianity and founded the Society of Ormus, that is to say, tile Sages of Light, to the members of which he gave a red cross as a decoration. About the same time the Essenes and other Jews founded a school of Solomonic wisdom to which the disciples of Ormus united themselves. Then the society was divided into various Orders known as the Conservators of Mosaic Secrets, of Hermetic Secrets, etc.
Several members of the association haling yielded to the temptations of pride, seven Masters united, effected a reform, adopted a modern Constitution and collected together on their Tracing-Board all the allegories of the Hermetic Work.
In this almost altogether fabulous narrative we find an inextricable confusion of the Rose Croix Freemasons and the Rosicrucian philosophers.
Dr. Bernhardt Meyer, Librarian of the Grand Lodge Zur Sonne at Beyreuth, Germany, has collected most industriously much information in his book Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold—und Rosenkreuzer
(Pansophic-Verlag, Leipzig-Berlin, 1925) with curious details of the several grades, the private alphabets and ciphers, etc. (see Rosicrucianism).
ROSE CROIX OF HEREDOM.
The First Degree of the Royal Order of Scotland, the Eighteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Eighteenth of the Rite of Perfection, the Ninetieth of the Rite of Mizraim, and some others affix to the title of Rose Croiz that of Heredom, for the signification of which see the word.
ROSE CROIX OF THE DAMES.
In French, Rose Croiz des Dames. This Degree, called also the Ladies of Beneficence, or in French the Chevalieres de la Bienfaisance, is the Sixth Capitular or Ninth Degree of the French Rite of Adoption. It is not only Christian, but Roman Catholic in its character, and is derived from the ancient Jesuitical system as was perhaps, as Doetor Mackey believed, first promulgated in the Rose Croix Chapter of Arras.
ROSE CROIX OF THE GRAND ROSARY.
In French, Rose Croiz du Grand Rosaire. The Fourth and highest Rose Croix Chapter of the Prirnitive Rite.
ROSE CROIX, PHILOSOPHIC.
A German Hermetic Degree found in the collection of M. Pyron. and in the Archives of the Philosophic Scottish Rite. It is probably the same as the Brethren of the Rose Croix, of whom Thory thinks that Rite is only a continuation.
ROSE CROIX, PRINCE OF.
This in French, Souverain Prince Rose Croiz, and in German, Prinz vom Rosenkruz. This important degree is, of all the advanced grades, the most widely diffused, being found in numerous Rites. It is the Eighteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Seventh of the French or Modern, the Eighteenth of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, the Third of the Royal Order of Scotland, the Twelfth of the Elect of Truth, and the Seventh of the Philalethes. It was also given, formerly, in some Encampments of Knights Templar, and was the Sixth of the Degrees conferred by the Encampment of Baldwyn at Bristol, in England. It must not, however, be confounded with the Rosicrucians, who, however, similar in name, were only a Hermetie and mystical Order.
The degree is known by various names: sometimes its possessors are called Sovereign Princes of Rose Croix, sometimes Princes of Rose Croix de Heroden, and sometimes Knights of the Eagle and Pelican. In relation to its origin, Masonic writers have made many conflicting statements, some giving it a much higher antiquity than others; but all agreeing in supposing it to be one of the earliest of the advancess Degrees.
The name has, undoubtedly, been the cause of much of this confusion in relation to its history; and the blasonic Degree of Rose Croix has, perhaps, often been confounded with the Cabalistical and alchemical sect of Rosierueians, or Brothers of the Rosy Cross, among whose adepts the names of such men as Roger Bacon, Paracelsus, and Elias Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, are to be found. Notwithstanding the invidious attempts of Barruel and other foes of Freemasonry to confound the two Orders, there is a great distinction between them. Even their names, although somewhat similar in sound, are totally different in signification.. The Rosicrucians, who were alchemists, did not derive their name, like the Rose Croix Freemasons, from the emblems of the rose and cross—for they had nothing to do with the rose—but from the Latin ros, Signifying dew, which was supposed to be of all natural bodies the most powerful solvent of gold, and crux, the cross, a chemical hieroglyphic of light.
Baron de Westerode, who wrote in 1784, in the Acta Latomorum (i, page 336), gives the earliest origin of any Masonic writer to the Degree of Rose Croix. He supposes that it was instituted among the Knights Templar in Palestine, in the year 1188, and he adds that Prince Edward, the son of Henry III of England, was admitted into the Order by Raymond Lully in 1296. De Westerode names Ormesius, an Egyptian priest, who had been converted to Christianity, as its founder.
Some have sought to find its origin in the labors of Valentine Andrea the reputed founder of the Rosicrucian fraternity But the Rose Croix of Freemasonry and the Hermetic Rosicrucianism of Andreä were two entirely different things; and it would be difficult to trace any connection between them, at least any such connection as would make one the legitimate successor of the other. J. G. Buhle, in a work published in Göttingen in 1804, under the title of Ueber den Ursprung und die vornehmsten Schicksale per Orden der Rosenkreutzer und Freimaurer, on the Origin and Principal Purpose of the Order of Rosicrucians and the Freemason, reverses this theory, and supposes the Rosicrucians to be a branch of the Freemasons.
Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis (ii, page 388), thinks that the "modern Templars, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons are little more than different dodges of one Order," all of which is only a confusion of history in consequence of a confounding of names. It is thus that Inge has written an elaborate essay on the Origine de la Rose Croix (Globe, volume iii); but as he has, with true Gallic insouciance (indifference) of names, spoken indiscriminately of Rose Croix Freemasons and the Rosicrucian Adepts, his statements supply no facts available for history.
The Baron de Gleichen, who was, in 1785, the German Secretary of the Philalethan Congress at Paris, says that the Rose Croix and the Freemasons here united in England under King Arthur (Acta Latomorum i, page 336).
But he has, undoubtedly, mixed up Rosicrucianism, with the Masonic legends of the Knights of the Round Table, and his assertions must go for nothing.
Others, again, have looked for the origin of the Rose Croix Degree, or, at least, of its emblems, in the ,Symbola divina et humana pontifical, imperatorum, regum of James Typot, or Typotius, the Historiographer of the emperor Rudolph II, a work which was published in 1601; and it is particularly in that part of it which is devoted to the Symbol of the Holy Cross that the allusions are supposed to be found which would seem to indicate the author's knowledge of this Degree. But Ragon refutes the idea of any connection between the symbols of Typotius and those of the Rose Croix. Rohison (Proofs of a Conspiracy, page 72) also charges Von Hund with borrowing his symbols from the same work, in which, however, he declares "there is not the least trace of Masonry or Templars."
Clavel, with his usual boldness of assertion, which is too often independent of facts, declares that the Degree was invented by the Jesuits for the purpose of eountermining the insidious attacks of the freethinkers upon the Roman Catholic religion, but that the philosophers parried the attempt by seizing upon the Degree and giving to all its symbols an astronomical signification.. Clavel's opinion is probably derived from one of those sweeping charges of Professor Robison, in which that systematic enemy of our Institution declares that, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Jesults interfered considerably with Freemasonry, "insinuating themselves into the Lodges, and contributing to increase that religious mysticism that is to be observed in all the ceremonies of the Order."
But there is no better evidence than these mere vague assertions of the connection of the Jesuits with the Rose Croix Degree.
Brother Oliver (Landmarks ii, page 81) says that the earliest notice that he finds of this Degree is in a publication of 1613, entitled La Réforzeation universelle do monde entier at~ec la fama fraSerrtilatis de l'Qrdre respectable de la Rose Croix, Universal Reformation of the Whole World with the famous Fraternity of the Respectable Order of the Rose Croix. But he adds, that "it was known much sooner, although not probably as a Degree in Masonry; for it existed as a cabalistic science from the earliest times in Egypt, Grecee, and Rome, as well as amongst the Jews and Moors in times more recent." Doctor Oliver, however, undoubtedly, is the latter part of this paragraph, confounds the Masonic Rose Croix with the alchemical Rosicrucians; and the former is singularly inconsistent with the details that he gives in reference to the Rosy Cross of the Royal Order of Scotland.
There is a tradition, into whose authenticity we shall not stop to inquire, that after the dls.solution of the Order, many of the Knights repaired to Seotland and placed themselves under the protection of Robert Bruce; and that after the hat.tle of Bannoskburn, which took place on Saint John the Baptist's Day, in the year 1314, this monarch instituted the Royal Order of Heredom and Knight of the Rosy Cross, and established the chief seat of the Order at Kilwinning. From that Order, it seems to us by no means improbable that the present Degree of Rose Croix de Heroden may have taken its origin.
In two respects, at least, there seems to be a very elose connection between the two systems: they both claim the kingdom of Scotland and the Abbey of Kilwinning as having been at one time their chief seat of government, and they both seem to have been instituted to give a Christian explanation to Ancient Craft Masonry. There is, besides, a similarity in the names of the Degrees of Rose Croiz de Heroden, and Heredom and Rosy Cross, amounting almost to an identity, which appears to indicate a very intimate relation of one to the other.
The subject, however, is in a state of inextricable confusion, and Doctor Mackey confessed that, after all his researches, he was still unable distinetly to point to the period when, and to the place where, the present Degree of Rose Croix received its organization as a Masonic grade. We have this much of history to guide us. In the year, 1747, the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, is said to have established a Chapter in the town of Arras, in France, with the title of the Chapitre Primordial de Rose Croix. The Charter of this Body is now extant in an authenticated copy deposited in the departmental archives of Arras. In it the Pretender styles himself "King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, and, by virtue of this, Sovereign Grand Master of the Chapter of H. known under the title of the Eagle and Pelican, and, since our sorrows and misfortunes, under that of Rose Croix."
From this we may infer that the title of Rose Croiz was first known in 1747; and that the Degree had been formerly known as Knight of the Eagle and Pelican, a title which it still retains. Hence it is probable that the Rose Croix Degree has been borrowed from the Rosy Cross of the Scottish Royal Order of Heredom, but in passing from Scotland to France it greatly changed its form and organization, as it resembles in no respect its archetype, except that both are eminently Christian in their design. But in its adoption by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, its organization has been so changed that, by a more liberal interpretation of its symbolism, it has been rendered less sectarian and more tolerant in its design. For while the Christian reference is preserved, no peculiar theological dogma is retained, and the Degree is made cosmopolite in its character.
It was, indeed, on its first inception an attempt to Christianize Freemasonry, to apply the rites, and symbols, and traditions of Ancient Craft Masonry to the last and greatest Dispensation; to add to the first Temple of Solomon and the second of Zerubbabel a third, that to which Christ alluded when He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days will I raise it up."
The great discovery which was made in the Royal Arch ceases to be of value in this Degree; for it another is substituted of more Christian application; the Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty which supported the ancient Temple are replaced by the Christian pillars of Faith, Hope and Charity; the Great Lights, of course, remain, because they are of the very essenee of Freemasonry; but the three lesser give way to the thirty-three, which allude to the years of the Messiah's sojourning on earth. Everything, in short, about the Degree, is Christian; but, as we have already said, the Christian teachings of the Degree have been applied to the sublime principles of a universal system, and an interpretation and illustration of the doctrines of the Master of Nazareth, so adapted to the Masonic dogma of tolerance, that men of every faith may embrace and respect them. It thus performs a noble mission. It obliterates, alike, the intolerance of those Christians who sought to erect an impassable barrier around the sheepfold, and the equal intolerance of those of other religions who would be ready to exclaim, "Can any good thing come out of -Nazareth?"
In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, whence the Rose Croix Freemasons of the United States have received the Degree, it is placed as the eighteenth on the list. It is conferred in a Body called a Chapter, which derives its authority immediately from the Suprelne Couneil of the Thirty-third, and w hieht confers with it only one other and inferior Degree, that of Knights of the East and West. Its principal officers are a Most Wise Master and two Wardens. Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday are two obligatory days of meeting. The aspirant for the Degree makes the usual application duly recommended; and if accepted, is required, before initiation, to make certain declarations which shall show his competency for the honor which he seeks, and at the same time prove the high estimation entertained of the Degree by those who already possess it.
The jewel of the Rose Croix is the golden compasses, extended to an arc to the sixteenth part of a circle, or twenty-two and a half Degrees. The head of the compasses is surmounted by a triple crown, having three series of points arranged by three, five and seven.
Between the legs of the compasses there is a cross resting on the arc; its center is occupied by a full-blown rose whose stem twines around the lower limb of the cross; at the foot of the cross, on the same side on which the rose is exhibited, is the figure of a pelican wounding its breast to feed its young which are in a nest surrounding it, while on the other side of the jewel is the figure of an eagle with wings displayed. On the arc of the circle, the P . -. W . -. of the Degree is engraved in the cipher of the Order. In this jewel are included the most important symbols of the Degree. The Cross, the Rose, the Pelican, and the Eagle are all important symbols, the explanations of which will go far to a comprehension of what is the true design of the Rose Croix Order. They may be seen in this work under their respective titles.
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