The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-08-11

ny JOSEPH ROBBINS.
Earnest truth-seekers are always idol
breakers, often ipnocently so, so far as any
desire to smash things is concerned, but
mourning, nevertheless, the perpetual dis
pleasure of worshippers. They incur
this penalty by law of the human mind,
existing since it had being, and to exist
while it endures. We cannot look I'M
moved on the destruction of the fetiches
which we have set up and invested with
special attributes of sanctity, Our first
feeling under such circumstances is one of
anger the next, of fear; then of wonder,
and finally, of gratitude. Anger at the
presumption that lays sacrilegious hands
on what we consider essential fear for the
consequences of such recklessness, Won
der that the world moves on all the same;
an object which occupied so much of our
field of vision, enabled us to see more
clearly the truth that lies close about us.
Sometimes we learn wisdom from sim
gle experience of this kind, but too often
we have to pass through the same state of
mental perturbation whenever we see one
| of our idols shattered. We are prone to
forget that truth is greater than the seeker,
that it is mighty above all things, and that
our idols are broken no less in our interest
than in the interest of those who break
them.
| Nowhere do these remarks apply better
than in Masonry. Indeed they apply with
especial force here, because all our teach
ing tends to the maintenance of the status
quo. As we have before said in these pages
the very means relied on to prevent inno-
vations tend to perpetuate them when once
they have made, because the latest of them,
when once it has gained a foothold, rests
upon the next novitiate with all the force
of that ancient truth which is SO strongly
bound to preserve and defend. In this way
upon that high throne where Truth alone
may lawfully sit, and we bow down before
them until the rghtful heir comes to toucl
them with Ithuriels spear, and they depar
like shadows as they are. And as they
vanish one by one, to those of us who have
cherished them it seems as if nothing wa
left, and great is our dismay.
The inventive genuses who have flour
ished in Masonry, some as ritualists, som'
as historians, have peopled our temples
with idols innumerable, and we, entering
there after they were set up, have accepted
them with unquestionable faith as part y
the original design. One after anothe
come Findel, IIughan, Buchan, Lyon, Nor
ton, and apply the acid of methodcal in
vestigation, first to this idol and then Il
that, and what has passed as pure gol'
proves to be only Pinchbeck
The pretended history of the so-calle
Scottish Rite; the tabled connection of Ma
sonry and the Templars in the Middle Ages
the claimed antiquity of the Royal Arcl
degree; the assumption that either of tn
saints John were in any way connected VIII
the Craft the existence of the Third dc
gree and its legend as part OF orig'ha
Masonry--have one after another have SUD
iected to the test, and found wanting
, Much of our ritual over whose propaol
, ancient meaning an untold amount OF pro
found exegetical talk has been expended
and over whose verbiage whole jurisdiction
, become convulsed, is exceedingly modern
So also with some, we know not yet how
many, of the symbols. For several we are
J indebted to the genius of Bro. Jeremy L
] Cross. notable instance is the Marble