As I have elsewhere shown, blood was sworn by as the type of that which was true, the primary one of the typical Two Truths of Egypt. It was so in all the mysteries, and is so to-day, including the mysteries of Masonry. I have suggested the derivation of the masonic name from the Egyptian _Sen_ = son, for blood and brotherhood. The working Mason in Egyptian is the _makh_ (_makht_) by name. _Makh_ means to work, inlay by rule and measure. We see that _makh_ modifies into _mâ_ for measure, and for that which is just and true. _Mâ-sen_ = Mason, would denote the true brotherhood; and as _sen_ is also blood, the true brotherhood as the blood-brotherhood would be the masons in the mystical or occult sense. Red is the colour of _Mâ_ or Truth personified, and _sen_ is blood. Blood is sworn by because it is the colour of truth, or the true colour. Now in old English the word _seng_ means both “blood” and “true.” Here, then, we find the origin of the oath, which constitutes the supreme expression in the vocabulary of our English roughs, when they use the oath of the blood-covenant, and swear by the word “bloody!” When they wax emphatic, everything they say becomes “bloody true.” This is the exact equivalent of “seng it is” for “it is true.” According to the primitive mysteries, this mode of swearing, or establishing the covenant, was sacred whilst kept piously secret, and it becomes impious when made public or profane. Such mysteries were very simply natural at first, and it was this primitive simplicity and nearness to nature which demanded the veil to protect them from the gaze of the later consciousness. Time was when the English felon would carry a red handkerchief with him to the scaffold, and hold it in his hand as a signal that he had betrayed no secrets, but died “bloody true,” or true blood. These customs were symbolical, but there is a hint of the blood-covenant beyond them—a hint received direct from Nature herself—call it revelation if you please. In the first rude ethics we find that the time for the sexes to come together was recognised by the intimation of nature, made in her own sign-language at the period of feminine pubescence. Nature gave the hint, and a covenant was established. Henceforth, the child that could not enter that covenant would be protected from brutal assault, and was allowed, or rather compelled, to run about unclothed in token of her exemption. It is here in the swearing-in and covenanting of the sexes at the time of pubescence that we discover another real and most secret, _i.e._, sacred root of the rite.