Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

67."It is built, indeed, without the sound of hammer or any tool of iron. It is like (made in the likeness of,) that other, spiritual temple, not made with hands, eternal in the heaven; for the old philosophy (Kabalah) teaches that the Immortal Spirit of man is ^[57] the Artificer of the body and its source of life; that it does not so -much enter in, as overshadow man, while the Soul, the immediate vehicle of the Spirit, inhabits the body, and is dissipated at death. The Spirit is Immortal, pure, and forever undefiled. It is Christos, or Hiram, the Mediator between the Soul, or physical man, and the Universal Spirit — the Father in Heaven. The 'poor, blind Candidate,' that is, the man of sense, immersed in matter, would learn the Ineffable Name, and obtain the Lost Word, and, seeking a short-cut, 'climbs up some other way.' He would have wisdom without self-conquest, power without sacrifice. He will not listen to the voice of pleading. ' Be patient, my brother, and when the temple is completed, if found worthy, you shall receive that for which you have so long wrought.' No! he will have it now I and he silences the pleading voice, and, defeating only himself, flees into the deserts of remorse and calls upon the rocks to hide him from the pursuit of his accusing conscience. Hiram (Christos) is resurrected. Being immortal, he can not really die. No sin of man is final. Realizing his error and purified by suffering, the spirit of man being again lifted up, even defeat gives promise of victory, and he receives a Substitute for the Lost Word. He hears, however, faint or dim, the Divine Harmony. Future generations, that is, further trials and more sincere endeavor, promise greater reward. He learns to 'know, to will, to dare, and to keep silent. * Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice and Mercy — nil the virtues and all the Beatitudes are inculcated

^[58] 68. " The candidate is taught, not merely to tolerate another 's religion, but to respect it as his own; though still adhering to that into which he was born. To make reasonable this obligation, he is shown through the Kabalah or Secret Doctrine that, at the heart of every great religion, lie the same eternal truths. Forms and observances only differ. The Ineffable Name is spelled in many ways, yet the Word is one and eternal. Masonry is not only a universal science, but a world-wide religion, and owes allegiance to no one creed, and can adopt no sectarian dogma, as such, without ceasing thereby to be Masonic. Drawn from the Kabalah, and taking the Jewish or Christian verbiage or symbols, it but discerns in them universal truths, which it recognizes in all other religions. Many degrees have been Christianized only to perish; as every degree eventually will if circumscribed by narrow creeds, and dwarfed to the apprehension, so as to exclude good men of any other communion. Is Jesus any the less Christ os, because Christna was called 'the Good Shepherd?' or because the Mexican Christ was crucified between two thieves? Or, because Hiram was three days in a grave before he was resurrected? Are we not as selfish in our religion as in our other possessions? Then why is man, while cherishing as his most sacred possession, the religion of his fathers, eternally seeking to degrade and destroy that of his Brother?