lace in the ritual of Freemasonry.

And here, in passing, I may be permitted to say that it is a very great
error to designate the symbolic plant of Masonry by the name of
"Cassia"--an error which undoubtedly arose, originally, from the very
common habit among illiterate people of sinking the sound of the letter
_a_ in the pronunciation of any word of which it constitutes the initial
syllable. Just, for instance, as we constantly hear, in the conversation
of the uneducated, the words _pothecary_ and _prentice_ for _apothecary_
and _apprentice_, shall we also find _cassia_ used for _acacia_.[177]
Unfortunately, however, this corruption of _acacia_ into _cassia_ has not
always been confined to the illiterate: but the long employment of the
corrupted form has at length introduced it, in some instances, among a few
of our writers. Even the venerable Oliver, although well acquainted with
the symbolism of the acacia, and having written most learnedly upon it,
has, at times, allowed himself to use the objectionable corruption,
unwittingly influenced, in all probability, by the too frequent adoption
of the latter word in the English lodges. In America, but few Masons fall
into the error of speaking of the _Cassia_. The proper teaching of the
_Acacia_ is here well understood.[178]

The _cassia_ of the ancients was, in fact, an ignoble plant having no
mystic meaning and no sacred character, and was never elevated to a higher
function than that of being united, as Virgil informs us, with other
odorous herbs in the formation of a garland:--

"...violets pale,
The poppy's flush, and dill which scents the gale,
Cassia, and hyacinth, and daffodil,
With yellow marigold the chaplet fill." [179]

Alston says that the "Cassia lignea of the ancients was the larger
branches of the cinnamon tree, cut off with their bark and sent together
to the druggists; their Cassia fistula, or Syrinx, was the same cinnamon
in the bark only;" but Ruaeus says that it also sometimes denoted the
lavender, and sometimes the rosemary.

In Scripture the cassia is only three times mentioned,[180] twice as the
translation of the Hebrew word _kiddak_, and once as the rendering of
_ketzioth_, but always as referring to an aromatic plant which formed a
constituent portion of some perfume. There is, indeed, strong reason for
believing that the cassia is only another name for a coarser preparation
of cinnamon, and it is also to be remarked that it