‘The great object of pursuit in Masonry’

   

The Craftsman’s Apron

The great object of pursuit in Masonry—the scope and tendency of all its investigations—is TRUTH. This is the goal to which all Masonic labor evidently tends. Sought for in every degree, and constantly approached, but never thoroughly and intimately embraced, at length, in the Royal Arch, the veils which concealed the object of search from our view are withdrawn, and the inestimable prize is revealed.

This truth which Masonry makes the great object of its investigations is not the mere truth of science, or the truth of history, but is the more important truth which is synonymous with the knowledge of the nature of God—that truth which is embraced in the sacred tetragrammaton or omnific name, including in its signification His eternal, present, past, and future existence, and to which He himself alluded when He declared to Moses: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them.”

This knowledge of divine truth is never thoroughly attained in life. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and cloud the human intellect, hide it as with a thick veil from mortal eyes. It is only beyond the tomb and when released from the burthen of life that man is capable fully of receiving and appreciating the revelation. Hence, when we figuratively speak of its discovery in the Royal Arch Degree, we mean to intimate that the sublime portion of the Masonic system is a symbolic representation of the state after death. The vanities and follies of life are now supposed to be passed away. The first Temple, which we had erected with such consummate labor and apparent skill for the reception of the Deity, has proved an imperfect and transitory edifice. Decay and desolation have fallen upon it, and from its ruins, deep beneath its foundations, and in the profound abyss of the grave, we find that mighty truth, in the search for which life was spent in vain, and the mystic key to which death only could supply, when, having passed the portals of the grave, we shall begin to occupy that second temple—“that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Albert G. Mackey

Book of the Chapter

1858

I didn’t make it to that Royal Arch Degree last night after all. While reviewing Masonic rituals helps reinforce their meanings, the lessons are accessible and portable—and a good book can keep things sparking in your head.

My congratulations to the newly exalted Royal Arch companions of Alpha, Three Times Three, and Union chapters!