especially suggests the Lamb slain, whence the aptitude of Scott's remarks (Keystone of the Masonic Arch, p. 353): "We have looked upon the Lambskin as an emblem of innocence and the badge of a Mason; and while we have regarded it as being worn in honor of a departed worthy (Hiram, the Builder,) it was, nevertheless, adopted as a token of the blood which was shed for the benefit of the whole Craft.” Elsewhere he adds (Keystone, pp. 292, 293): "Our traditions present the Chief Builder in a glorious light, for it is by and through him that all Masonic Wisdom is attained, and we are made the Sons (Suns) of Light." "Is not the Lambskin," he furthermore persists, "typical of that purity and integrity which distinguished the Chief Architect? Is it not emblematical of him who is exalted above all other Masons, and of that sacrifice which sanctified the Ground Floor of the Lodge?" (Keystone, p. 166.) Knowingly he also declares: "As the freed Mason enjoys in our solemn assemblies the symbolic presence of Hiram the Builder, and in all parts of the Lodge beholds unmistakable emblems of his being a mediator of the Craft, so in God's holy church, is the Son (Sun) of Glory (the Spring quadrant) ever present-a living stone of singular but heavenly beauty, which was despised and rejected of men (Aries, Taurus, and Gemini), thrown among the rubbish and buried in it (the dregs of the year-tomb of the Winter solstice), but at length found and enacted to be the Chief Corner Stone (Sun at Vernal Crossing) of the building (Temple-House of Time-Zodiac), the main support of the edifice, and a center of union for Jew (the Light Powers) and Gentile (the Dark Powers). Without it the edifice could not be finished. It was found and raised to give wisdom (the Yellow Ray), strength (the Red Ray), and beauty (the Blue Ray) to redemption (ransom from darkness). And, when the Son of Man (Sun as Earth Vivifier) was about to expire on the cross, three words of sublime import fell from his quivering lips: It is finished.' The stone was marked and numbered with a new name written in it. Smitten of God and afflicted, his visage was marred more than any man's (like unto Cain's whose countenance fell). With hands uplifted and nailed to the cross, he gave a sign and uttered words of distress. None came to his relief. He died and was buried, but the fallen Temple arose once more; Christ is the foundation, and the name of God is carved on every stone, and sculptured on every pillar.'" (Keystone, pp. 246, 247.)

That Christ, Hiram the Builder, Dionysus, Bacchus, etc., are but the one Solar God is exhaustively evidenced by Mackey, in his Symbolism of Freemasonry, to which the reader is referred. Hiram Abif, as the cunning workman, is the building power of the Creative Light, the name signifying "the most exalted wisdom of the Father," or "the highest Father Wisdom." When Light is in the plentitude of its power its evolution into tangible forms is conspicuously marked by an extraordinary degree of intelligence there being a perfect adaptability of means to ends showing absolute excellence of economy, which, as a condition, could only exist by virtue of the inherent possession of the thing or quality exemplified, causing, as we see, the constant reference of the Wisdom-Principle to Light. When this Principle is struck down, Hiram, or the Stone. of Beauty, is rejected by the builders, Christ crucified or crossified, righteous Abel (a keeper of sheep or of the Light) slain, and Cain. cursed. This at that particular moment of time when the Craft universal are in the midst of exceeding great rejoicing and hilaritySt John's or Summer solstice day, whence the Sun goes down and the Omnific Word is lost!

The imperative requirement of Lambskin for the Masonic Apron is based upon its direct and paramount symbolism of the fluid Light as the sublimest Cosmic force that exists, particularly the Light that obtains during the Sun's passage of the Spring quadrant. And though it be that the Linen Apron also bears allusion to the Light, it does so only in a secondary sense, its primary reference being to earth as the element out of which it was grown in the form of flax; hence, Masonry, professing itself the science of Light, cannot properly accept the Linen or any other Apron to the exclusion of the Lambskin. For the symbolism that attaches to Linen, see Mackey's Lexicon of Freemasonry, article "Veils." Mackey avers the silk or linen Apron to be a French innovation, wholly un-Masonic, incompatible with the emblematic instruction of the investiture, and never to be tolerated in a Lodge of York Masons.

Light and freedom being synonymous terms, as are darkness and bondage, it follows that the Badge of the Mason must needs express that Light wherewith he was made free when clothed as a Mason, and such Light can only obtain, in the typical sense, from the Divine Lamb on passage of the Sun into the Vernal quadrant.

Upon the subject of typical investiture we glean from the Biographia Ecclesiastica: "The ancients were wont to put a white gar

ment on the person baptized (immersed in or sprinkled with water, typical of the fluid Light) to denote his having put off the lusts of the flesh (figuratively, the evils or dark trammels of Winter), and, of his being cleansed from his former sins (declinations from the path of astronomical rectitude or of symbolical persistence in Sun's course below as opposed to his course above the Equator), and that he had obliged himself to maintain a life of unspotted innocence (Summer purity). Accordingly the baptized (those who had symbolically crossed the Spring equinox) were both by the Apostles (the Zodiacal Twelve) and the Greek Fathers (the hierophants or revealers of the mysteries) frequently styled 'the Enlightened,' because they professed to be the children of light (i. e., the children of the Spring quadrant or of the Summer hemisphere or of the Sun above the Equator), and engaged themselves never to return to the works of darkness (figuratively, the deeds, conditions, or ways of Winter). This white garment used to be delivered to them with the following solemn charge: Receive the white and undefiled garment (the pellucid Light, in allegorical sense,) and produce it without spot (cloud-opacity of Ether-shade of Winter) before the tribunal (the Yellow, the Red, and the Blue Rays) of our Lord Jesus Christ (Sun at Spring equinox, or Sun in the Sign of the Ram), that you may obtain eternal life (vivification of Summer in unending return). Amen (Ammon - Ram's Sun or Sun of March or Springtime).

"They were wont to wear these white garments (purified Light or Ether) for the space of a week (i. e., seven days-metaphorically, the seven months of Summer), after they were baptized (had received the Light of the Spring equinox), and then (Summer ending) put them off, and laid them up in the Church (Sun's bride-Zodiac -Ark of the. Covenant), that they might be kept as a witness against them, if they should violate the baptismal covenant (that is, fail to reproduce, in typical way, the white Light of the Spring quadrant)."

Dr. Oliver, justified by his researches, thus uniquely disposes of the Apron He causes it to note the division of the human body into two equal parts, after the manner of representation of the FishGod, Dagon or Oannes, at the period of the Spring equinox. The upper or noble portion which symbolizes Summer, and which contains the head and vital parts, as seen in the Mystical Man of the Almanac, he represented as standing erect and open to view, while

the lower and less important parts by which Winter is mystically denoted he holds to be concealed from observation with the Apron, as the inferior portion of the Fish God is obscured and hidden by submersion in its native element, water, the emblem of Winter. Thus presenting to consideration the Mason, clothed with his Lambskin, he declares him "a striking emblem of truth, innocence, and integrity," or possessed of the identical virtues ascribed by the ancients to the Creative or Spring Sun, which, really he impersonates in his manifold mystic relations

To the Apron a phallic significance attaches, which is plainly obvious in its imperatively required use during the hours of Lodge labor, which is but generation. Hence we advert to the fact that the coupling of the Fish God Oannes with the Masonic Apron by Dr. Oliver, bringing to mind the Signs Pisces and Aries, the former belonging to the Watery Triplicity and the latter to the Fiery, and Fire and Water being essentials to generation, that of all the Zodiacal Symbols the Fishes and the Ram express the greatest fecundity; the making of Aprons from fig-leaves, mentioned in Gen. iii, 7, from the fig, by its exuberance of seeds, denoting the dominion of the phallic power over all organic matter, sustaining the symbolic import alleged.

(To be Continued.)

IN MEMORIAM.

BRO. ALFRED BALL, M. D., Zanesville, Ohio.

To those who mourn because of family ties, we extend the Masonic hand of sympathy, and say:

Trust a little, tears forelet,

Tho' our day of coil and fret

Seem full long;

Tho' our twilight shade be drear,
Yet Hope's star shines ever clear,
And her song,

Reaching towards us from the sky,
Softening many a pang and sigh,
Keeps us strong.

Stay, then, lest thy heart might say,
Would I never knew a day

So cast down;

Rise, yon star beams brighter now,

Hope take from thy heart and brow
Fret and frown.

Trust a little, whelmed with loss,
Trust, and haply o'er thy cross
Floats a crown.

ROSICRUCIAN SOCIETY OF ENGLAND.

Huddersfield.-YORK COLLEGE. - A most interesting and successful gathering of the members of this Masonic Archæological Society took place on Wednesday, the 17th inst. The meeting was fixed for 3 P. M., but before that period a number of brethren had assembled in the hall of Lodge Harmony, No. 275, which had been fraternally placed at the disposal of the College. It has been a pleasant experience on the part of the Rosicrucians of Yorkshire to find the readiness of the Lodges in the various towns to hold out to them the hand of hospitality on occasions of their visits, which are made during the fine weather to widely separated centers of population in the county of Broad Acres.

At 3 P. M. the M.C. was formed by the following fraters: T. B. Whytehead, Chief Adept; Tudor Trevor, Suffragan; C. Fendelow, Prov. Treasurer; Major Moore, Celebrant; J. M. Meek, Treasurer; W. Brown, Secretary; Col. Monks, P.A.; C. L. Mason, as S. A. R. Craig, as T A.; W. F. Tomlinson, as Q.A.; J. W. Monckman, Conductor of Novices; D. Grant, as Torch Bearer; J. R. Dore, Guard of the Temple; T. Trevor, Major MacGachen, W. H. B. Atkinson, E. C Patchitt, C. Palliser, A. H. J. Fletcher, F. Laxton, GA. Locking and W. B. Dyson. A ballot was taken for Bro. J. R. Ramsden Riley, P. M. 387, author of "The Yorkshire Lodges," and that brother was received into the M. C. with the usual ceremonial, which was conducted by Frater Tudor Trevor, the celebrant being partially disabled by a bronchial affection.

The Chief Adapt made a few remarks, in which he alluded to the remarkable nature of the discovery referred to by Bro. Professor Hayter Lewis in his paper read before the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the previous week. If investigation justified the fact of the present existence of such a MS. as had been described, it would bring about almost a revolution in existing notions of the history of Speculative Masonry. Doubtless the first thing to be done would be to unearth the MS. referred to, and this should not be a task of great difficulty with the clues afforded to its whereabouts.

Frater Ramsden Riley expressed his gratification at having joined the Society, and hoped to be able to contribute his quota to the researches of the members.

Vol. 66.-No. 6.-2.