ng" one. Though we may love and die of the
pain of unrequited loving, yet love is its own self-justification, and
its own reward. The pathway of love leads up the mountain top, but no
one who reaches the summit shall fail to find that for which he seeks.

The soul of man, and of woman, has been playing a game of blind-man's
bluff--a fitting name for the game it is, too. Unable to see anything
but the exterior nature, and longing for success in the search, we
have frantically grabbed here and there, and appropriated that which
we grabbed, with a self-complacency and an egotism of which little
Jack Horner would be ashamed.

In the symbolical rites and ceremonies of secret orders, such as the
Ancient Alchemists; the Hermetics; the Rosicrusians; and in modern
times, the Free Masons, we have this story of the search for the
ultimate balance of soul union, told in language veiled unless we are
fit to know; but openly enough if we are fit. And in all these orders
(alleged guardians of the hidden wisdom) we have varying degrees of
initiation; and in each degree the initiate must undergo certain
trials to prove his fearlessness; his fidelity; his fitness, in other
words, for the final revealment of all, which is the initiation into
the "holy of holies;" the "secret chamber" and the degree of
"mastership."

In the order of Masonry, the highest degree is that of the Templar.
The symbol of the Templars is the red rose on the cross, together with
the star and the crescent. The star preserves the esotericism of its
nomenclature, in whatever sphere it is used, namely, the power of
radiating light. It stands for the radiant center. The Knights Templar
sought the radiant center to complete their half circle, and when they
should have found, they were to become radiant with the light of
spiritual power. That they originally at least, understood the way of
this initiation, is evident by the symbol of the rose and the
cross--the combined phallus and yoni.

This fact is the underlying cause of the open and hereditary enmity of
the Church of Rome for the modern order of Freemasons. The Church
sought to specialize in the persons of the Virgin Mary and her Son the
eternal principles of the "way of the cross." The temporal power of
the Church could be built up only by offering a complete system of
salvation within the church itself. At the same time, the utter
degradation of Sex, which had reached its depths under Roman
civilization, calle