the vengeance of JOABERT, which forms the staple of the degree of Elected Knights, are evident violations of historical truth.

Respecting the lost word and its substitute, some say that King Solomon advised the change, while others affirm that the three Fellow-crafts adopted the substituted word without consulting him. And Dalcho observes that the interpolated word "is not to be found in any language that ever was used. It is, in fact, not a word, but merely a jumble of letters forming a sound without meaning. The manner in which the pristine word is said to have been lost, and the particular situation in which another was substituted, is too well known for me to repeat. The first expressions of the Fellow-crafts, according to the system of the ancient Masons, were two Hebrew words highly significant and appropriate to the melancholy occasion. From the corruption of these, the present word was formed, not from design, because it means nothing, but from ignorance and inattention."

There were many conflicting opinions respecting this theory; one party contending that the word was found by the Knights Templars at the time when the Christians were building a church at Jerusalem. In digging the foundations in that part on which the Most Holy Place of Solomon's Temple formerly stood, they discovered three stones which had been a part of the foundations. The form and junction of these stones drew the attention of the Templars, and their astonishment may be easily conceived when they beheld this important word engraven on one of

them. Others say that it was taken from a fable invented by the Jewish Rabbins to rob Christ of his divinity and power; for that being one day in the Temple at Jerusalem, Jesus entered into the Holy of Holies where the High Priest alone had a right to enter. He there saw this omnipotent WORD, and secreted it about his person; and that it was by virtue of this ineffable Word that he wrought all his miracles.

It was, however, asserted by some incredulous Brethren that these conjectures, and others of a similar character, were nothing better than senseless fables; for that the true Word never was lost, but transferred by the seceding Brethren at the great schism in 1740 to the Royal Arch. And in corroboration of this hypothesis, I have now before me an old French engraving of the ichnography of a Master's Lodge, dated in that very year, containing the usual emblems, and on the coffin the veritable Word in Roman capitals.

The system of Freemasonry, as practised in different countries and at different periods, is not uniform on the Sprig of Cassia, as well as other subjects connected with the degree. One version of the Lecture says that fifteen Fellow-crafts went in search; another twelve; one asserts that the three conspirators left the Sprig of Cassia; others affirm that it was the recanters who placed it there as a mark. Some say that many days were expended in the search, and that the lost body was found near the sea-side; others that it was at once discovered near to the Temple. The York Masons name the sea-side, the

And

Americans say Mount Moriah, the French Mount Lebanon. In one account the Brethren disperse widely, east, west, south; in another, they keep within hail of each other. Some make the sprig to bloom, which, others say (as it was not an evergreen), could not be true after it had been slipped twelve days, according to the continental version. finally one party asserted that it was planted before, while another maintained that it was placed there after the body was found. But Grand Master Dalcho affirms that it is altogether a mistake, for cassia did not grow in Palestine. He supposes the word to be a corruption of Acacia, the Mimosa nilotica of Linnæus, belonging to the 23rd class and first order, polygamia monacia, of his system. "This shrub grew there in abundance, and from the habit arising out of an indispensable custom among the Hebrews, a branch was broken off from a neighbouring bush, and placed where the Fellow-crafts found it, who, perceiving it to be withered, while all around flourished in perfection, they were led to draw those conclusions which we teach in our Lodges."

Hence Hutchinson, in his Lectures, gives the following illustration :-"We Masons, describing the deplorable estate of religion under the Jewish law, speak in figures thus. Her tomb was in the rubbish and filth cast forth of the Temple, and acacia wove its branches over her monument; akakia being the Greek word for innocence or freedom from sin; implying that the sins and corruptions of the old law, and devotees of the Jewish altar, had hid religion from those who sought her, and she was only to be

found where innocence survived, and under the banner of the divine Lamb;-ourselves professing to be distinguished as true acacians in our religious faith and tenets." It may not be improper to remark in this place that in the primitive system the word Cassia was actually used as the name of the shrub, and hence by metonomy it becomes the name of a Master Mason.

LECTURE XLVIII.

THE

CONSPIRATOR S.

"To him that all things understood;

To him that found the stone and wood;
To him that hapless shed his blood
In doing of his duty;

To that blest age and that blest morn,
Whereon those three great men were born,
This noble science to adorn

With Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty."

-SECTIONAL CHARGE.

THE disagreements are equally striking on the subject of the names given to the three worthies who figure in this tradition. They were not personal, as many of our Brethren suppose, but operative. They

,(נבלים or ניבל) were indeed Tyrian Stone-Squarers

of which the homines contumeliosi were corruptions, the terminations being indisputably arbitrary. Their real names (if there be anything real in the whole transaction, which is more than doubtful), as preserved in a subsidiary degree, were GRAVELOT, QUIBO, and AKIROP. But in the oldest Rituals, both here and on the Continent, no names are given; and in the degrees called Elus the names vary considerably. In one of them the conspirators are called ROMVIL (a corruption, as some think, of Cromwell the regicide), GRAVELOT, and ABIRAM;