y.

It is a symbol of the candidate on his initiation.

As a symbol it is exclusively masonic, and confined to a temple origin.

COVERING OF THE LODGE. Under the technical name of the "clouded canopy or
starry-decked heavens," it is a symbol of the future world,--of the
celestial lodge above, where the G.A.O.T.U. forever presides, and which
constitutes the "foreign country" which every mason hopes to reach.

CREUZER. George Frederick Creuzer, who was born in Germany in 1771, and
was a professor at the University of Heidelberg, devoted himself to the
study of the ancient religions, and with profound learning, established a
peculiar system on the subject. Many of his views have been adopted in the
text of the present work. His theory was, that the religion and mythology
of the ancient Greeks were borrowed from a far more ancient people,--a
body of priests coming from the East,--who received them as a revelation.
The myths and traditions of this ancient people were adopted by Hesiod,
Homer, and the later poets, although not without some misunderstanding of
them, and they were finally preserved in the Mysteries, and became
subjects of investigation for the philosophers. This theory Creuzer has
developed in his most important work, entitled "Symbolik und Mythologie
der alten Voelker, besonders der Greichen," which was published at Leipsic
in 1819. There is no translation of this work into English, but Guigniaut
published at Paris, in 1824, a paraphrastic translation of it, under the
title of "Religions de l'Antiquite considerees principalement dans leur
Formes Symboliques et Mythologiques." Creuzer's views throw much light on
the symbolic history of Freemasonry.

CROSS. No symbol was so universally diffused at an early period as the
cross. It was, says Faber (Cabir. ii. 390), a symbol throughout the pagan
world long previous to its becoming an object of veneration to Christians.
In ancient symbology it was a symbol of eternal life. M. de Mortillet, who
in 1866 published a work entitled "Le Signe de la Croix avant le
Christianisme," found in the very earliest epochs three principal symbols
of universal occurrences; viz., the _circle_, the _pyramid_, and the
_cross_. Leslie (Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 312), quoting from him in
reference to the ancient worship of the cross, says "It seems to have been
a worship of such a peculiar nature as to exclude the worship of idols."
This sacredness of the crucial symbol may be one r