Master: Our Grand Master Hiram may be ill. You will cause search to be made for him in the secret antichambers of the Temple and see if he can be found. Sen. War.: Search has been made, Worshipful, and he cannot be found. According to the Egyptian religion Souphis Khunfu Nefer Hept, Lord of the Underworld, murdered the Great Architect. The victim, whether he be called the Great Architect, or Hiram, or Adonis, or Horus, or Christ is always and ever the setting sun murdered by the darkness, or Prince of Darkness, called Sat in Egypt and Satan with us. The sacrifice of Hiram Abiff is one form of the Passion Play. A Masonic society, established in China from the earliest times, is called Our Ladyship’s Society and the Queen of Heaven Society. In the Chinese society the candidate is made to pass through the arch of swords. He could not be born again or come forth into the light unless he passed through the door of life and came out of the cave. The Chinese god Fo was born of a virgin impregnated by a ray of the sun, as shown in Christian pictures of Mary. In the Indian Mysteries three hierophants sit in the East and the West and the South. After an invocation to the sun, the candidate is baptized, his shoes taken away from him, and he is made to circumnavigate the cavern three times with the sun. He is conducted through seven dark caverns and assailed by legions of hobgoblins. The victim slaughtered is called Siva, and the lamentations of Maya for the death of Siva correspond to the weeping of Mary at the tomb of Christ. The sword was aimed at the throat of the candidate by the Evil One, but he was brought forth at last into the light. The Eye was marked on his forehead and the Tau Cross on his breast. He was presented with the sacred girdle or apron, the magical stone and the talismanic jewel for the breast.—Isis Unveiled. In the Mysteries of Aphrodite, a male emblem is handed to the initiate, and those initiated bring a piece of money to her as her hire. Demeter, of the Eleusinian Mysteries, is identical with Mary, and Clement says that he knows not whether she is the mother or wife of the god Zeus or Deus. This god is a serpent. The token of the Sabazian Mysteries is this serpent god gliding over the human breast. The offspring of the rape of Proserpine (Mary) by this god was christ, the bull.—Clement 1-29. If you wish to know what foul things were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, see Clement 1-31.