Council of Kadosh

As Grand Master of all Lodges, one must first learn to be able to teach. There is nothing more sublime than leading the initiate into the sublime truth of Masonry, but to do so properly requires study and thought. The legends and allegories recited by Masonry are of worth only when understood. The lessons of this degree are Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. These must be applied to everyday life and not reserved for the lodge room only. The world will judge us by our acts and Masonry itself will be judged by the character of its members. Let the light shine always.

In the 21st Degree we are admonished to be modest and humble, speaking only of the good in mankind and forgetting the evil. Slander is the exact opposite to mercy, for “Mercy blesseth him that gives and him that takes” while slander curses him that speaks it, and to say the least, does no good to the other. Our ancient brethren met to redress wrongs and defend the helpless. Masonry today has the same great mission and woe to him who would attempt to destroy it.

The lessons of this degree have always been of great moment to a large number of people. The respect for labor itself and sympathy for the laboring classes are purely Masonic. Masonry has made the working man and his associates the heroes of her principal legend, and himself the companion of kings. From first to last, Masonry is work. Labor is man’s great function, his peculiar distinction and his privilege. He pours his own thoughts into the molds of nature, fashioning them into forms of grace and fabrics of convenience. But greater than these, every man has work to do in himself, upon his own soul and intellect, and so may attain the highest nobleness and grandeur on earth or in Heaven.

In most of the ancient ceremonies of public worship and private rites, called Mysteries, only the initiated could attend. Only after years of practice of the most rigid virtue, and great spiritual development, could the initiated hope to attain the greater mysteries. These ceremonies were often held at night in some secret place and consisted of sacred dramas, portraying some legend which contained a lesson, but little explanation was given and each candidate was left to interpret the truths for himself. Moses undoubtedly received from the Egyptians these Mysteries and in turn taught them to the Hebrew priesthood, emphasizing the doctrine of the one God, supreme and unapproachable.

The Jewish tabernacle was more symbolic than an ordinary reading of the Scriptures would indicate. Whether it was copied after other religions or not has never been settled to the satisfaction of the leading scholars. Josephus, the great Hebrew historian, says that in the construction of it, and its vestments and sacred vessels, the whole world was in some way represented. In this we again see the influence of the Egyptian teachings. The twelve loaves of shew bread signify the twelve months of the year and the candlestick the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Philo asserts that the cherubim represented the two hemispheres.
Symbols were the univeral language of ancient theology. Symbolic instruction was the uniform usage of antiquity as a system of mysterious communication. The Mysteries were a series of symbols which strive to recall man to his Divine Origin, and point out to him the means of returning hither. The great science acquired in the Mysteries was knowledge of man’s self, of the nobleness of his origin, the grandeur of his destiny, and his superiority over the animals, which can never acquire this knowledge. The human mind still speculates upon the great mysteries of nature, and still finds its ideals anticipated by the ancients, whose profound thoughts are to be looked for, not in their philosophies, but in their symbols, by which they endeavored to express the great ideas that vainly struggled for utterance in words, as they viewed the great circle of phenomena – Birth, Life, Death, and New Life out of Death – to them the greatest of mysteries.