s also made by the philosophers and priests in the
Mysteries of the Spurious Freemasonry.

LOTUS. The sacred plant of the Brahminical Mysteries, and the analogue of
the acacia.

It was also a sacred plant among the Egyptians.

LUSTRATION. A purification by washing the hands or body in consecrated
water, practised in the ancient Mysteries. See _Purification_.

LUX (_light_). One of the appellations bestowed upon Freemasonry, to
indicate that it is that sublime doctrine of truth by which the pathway of
him who has attained it is to be illumined in the pilgrimage of life.
Among the Rosicrucians, light was the knowledge of the philosopher's
stone; and Mosheim says that in chemical language the cross was an emblem
of light, because it contains within its figure the forms of the three
figures of which LVX, or light, is composed.

LUX E TENEBRIS (_light out of darkness_). A motto of the Masonic Order,
which is equivalent to "truth out of initiation;" light being the symbol
of truth, and darkness the symbol of initiation commenced.

M

MAN. Repeatedly referred to by Christ and the apostles as the symbol of a
temple.

MASTER MASON. The third degree of Ancient Craft Masonry, analogous to the
epopt of the ancient Mysteries.

MENATZCHIM. Hebrew _superintendents_, or _overseers_. The Master
Masons at the temple of Solomon. (2 Chron. ii. 2.)

MENU. In the Indian mythology, Menu is the son of Brahma, and the founder
of the Hindoo religion. Thirteen other Menus are said to exist, seven of
whom have already reigned on earth. But it is the first one whose
instructions constitute the whole civil and religious polity of the
Hindoos. The code attributed to him by the Brahmins has been translated by
Sir William Jones, with the title of "The Institutes of Menu."

MIDDLE CHAMBER. A part of the Solomonic temple, which was approached by
winding stairs, but which was certainly not appropriated to the purpose
indicated in the Fellow Craft's degree.

The legend of the Winding Stairs is therefore only a philosophical myth.

It is a symbol of this life and its labors.

MISTLETOE. The sacred plant of Druidism; commemorated also in the
Scandinavian rites. It is the analogue of the acacia, and like all the
other sacred plants of antiquity, is a symbol of the immortality of the
soul. Lest the language of the text should be misunderstood, it may be
remarked here that the Druidical and the Scandinavian rites are not
identical. The fo