Chinese Freemasonry.

CHINESE FREEMASONRY .

BY BRO . KEOTETH R . H . MACKENZIE , IX ° . ( Concluded from page 93 ) .

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A T present it will be as well to pass over some few sections of the Tan J ~* - Teh King , and proceed to the consideration of the section in which Lau-tzse gives expression to a most important series of thoughts . " What you cannot see by looking at it is called plainness ( I ) . What you cannot hear b y listening to it , is called rareness ( Hi ) . What you cannot get by grasping it , is called minuteness ( Wei ) . " With a very slight allowance for an ancient

divarication of pronunciation , we would seriously draw the attention of Masons , ancl especiall y Royal Arch Masons , to this memorable sentence . And the context very certainly plainly shows what the Chinese Grand Master meant to convey . "These three , " he says , "cannot be examined , ancl therefore they blend into unity . Above it is not bri ght , below it is not obscure . ( See the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes on this point ) . Boundless in its operationit

, cannot be named . Returning , it goes home into nothing . This I call the appearance of non-appearance—the form of nothing . Would you go before it you cannot see its face . ( No man can see God face to face ) . Would you go behind it you cannot see its back . ( Moses was placed in the cleft of " a rock

while the glory of El Shadclai , the Mighty , or Jehovah , passed by ) . "But , " he concludes this section with the remark , " to have such an apprehension of the Tau which was from of old as to regulate present things , ancl to know their beginning in the past ; this I call having the clue of Tau . " In like manner a Mason having possession of the substituted word , the El Shadclai , or Strong , can in limine perform true Masonic work . And that this is so is

further proved b y the passage immediately following , when Lau-tzse expressl y says that the skilful philosophers in times long anterior to his own had " a mystic communication with the abysses . " M y Rosicrucian brethren may at any rate ponder the deep significance of this last sentence . Nor is it long before Lau-tzse unequivocally speaks the language familiar to those to whom the transmutation of metals is secret" Having "

no . once , he observes , '' arrived at a state of absolute vacuity , keep yourself perfectl y still . All things come into active operation together , but I observe whither they return . When things have luxuriated for awhile , each returns home to its ori gin—this is called stillness , or a reversion to destiny , itself summed up K