ROYAL ARCH MASON.

CHAPTER XV.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEVENTH, OR DEGREE OF ROYAL ARCH MASON..

1

As Moses was commanded to pull his shoes from off his feet, on Mount Horeb, because the ground whereon he trod was sanctified by the presence of the Divinity: so the Mason, who would prepare himself for this exalted state of Masonry,* should advance in the naked paths of truth, be divested of every degree of arrogance, and approach with steps of innocence, humility, and virtue, to challenge the ensigns of an order, whose institutions arise on the most solemn and sacred principles of religion.-HUTCHINSON.

THIS degree is indescribably more august, sublime, and important, than all which precede it; and is the summit and perfection of ancient Masonry. It impresses on our minds a belief of the being and existence of a Supreme Deity, without beginning of days or end of years; and reminds us of the reverence due to his holy name.

It also brings to light many essentials of the craft, which were for the space of four hundred and seventy years buried in darkness; and without a knowledge of which the Masonic character cannot be complete.

* The Rev. Doctor Munkhouse, in one of his admirable discourses on Masonry, observes, that the author of Ahimon Rezon, (Lawrence Dermot) speaking of that part of it, which is called the Royal Arch, says, "This I firmly believe to be the root, heart, and marrow of Masonry."

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC HORARY

ASTOR, LINOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

The following passages from Holy Writ, serve to explain the form, furniture, and clothing of a chapter, duly congregated.

II. CHRONICLES, iii. 1.

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

2. And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.

8. And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

14. And he made the vail of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon.

EXODUS, Xxxix.

"And of the blue, and purple, and scarlet, they made clothes of service, to do service in the holy place, and made the holy garments for Aaron, as the Lord commanded Moses. And he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work. They made shoulder-pieces for it, to couple it together: by the two edges was it coupled together. And the curious girdle of his ephod, that was upon it, was of the same, according to the work thereof, of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen; as the Lord commanded Moses.

"And they wrought onyx-stones inclosed in ouches of gold, graven as signets are graven, with the names of the children of Israel. And he put them on the shoulders of

the ephod, that they should be stones for a memorial to the children of Israel; as the Lord commanded Moses.

"And he made the breast-plate of cunning work, like the work of the ephod; of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen. It was four square; they made the breast-plate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being doubled. And they set it in four rows of stones: the first row was a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle; this was the first row. And the second row an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. And the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper: they were inclosed in ouches of gold in their inclosings. And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, every one with his name according to the twelve tribes. And they made upon the breast-plate chains at the ends, of wreathen work of pure gold. And they made two ouches of gold, and two gold rings, and put the two rings in the two ends of the breast-plate. And they put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings on the ends of the breast-plate. And the two ends of the two wreathen chains they fastened in the two ouches, and put them on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod before it. And they made two rings of gold, and put them on the two ends of the breast-plate, upon the border of it, which was on the side of the ephod inward. And they made two other golden rings, and put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath, toward the fore part of it over against the other, coupling thereof, above the curious girdle of the ephod. And they did bind the breast-plate by his rings unto the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it might be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ephod; as the Lord commanded Moses.