In the legends of the Master’s degree and of the Royal Arch there is a commingling of the historical myth and the mythical history, so that profound judgment is often required to discriminate these differing elements.  As, for example, the legend of the third degree is, in some of its details, undoubtedly mythical—­in others, just as undoubtedly historical.  The difficulty, however, of separating the one from the other, and of distinguishing the fact from the fiction, has necessarily produced a difference of opinion on the subject among masonic writers.  Hutchinson, and, after him, Oliver, think the whole legend an allegory or philosophical myth.  I am inclined, with Anderson and the earlier writers, to suppose it a mythical history.  In the Royal Arch degree, the legend of the rebuilding of the temple is clearly historical; but there are so many accompanying circumstances, which are uncertified, except by oral tradition, as to give to the entire narrative the appearance of a mythical history.  The particular legend of the three weary sojourners is undoubtedly a myth, and perhaps merely a philosophical one, or the enunciation of an idea—­namely, the reward of successful perseverance, through all dangers, in the search for divine truth.

“To form symbols and to interpret symbols,” says the learned Creuzer, “were the main occupation of the ancient priesthood.”  Upon the studious Mason the same task of interpretation devolves.  He who desires properly to appreciate the profound wisdom of the institution of which he is the disciple, must not be content, with uninquiring credulity, to accept all the traditions that are imparted to him as veritable histories; nor yet, with unphilosophic incredulity, to reject them in a mass, as fabulous inventions.  In these extremes there is equal error.  “The myth,” says Hermann, “is the representation of an idea.”  It is for that idea that the student must search in the myths of Masonry.  Beneath every one of them there is something richer and more spiritual than the mere narrative.[153] This spiritual essence he must learn to extract from the ore in which, like a precious metal, it lies imbedded.  It is this that constitutes the true value of Freemasonry.  Without its symbols, and its myths or legends, and the ideas and conceptions which lie at the bottom of them, the time, the labor, and the expense incurred in perpetuating the institution, would be thrown away.  Without them, it would be a “vain and empty show.”  Its grips and signs are worth nothing, except for social purposes, as mere means of recognition.  So, too, would be its words, were it not that they are, for the most part, symbolic.  Its social habits and its charities are but incidental points in its constitution—­of themselves good, it is true, but capable of being attained in a simpler way.  Its true value, as a science, consists in its symbolism—­in the great lessons of divine truth which it teaches, and in the admirable manner in which it accomplishes