Page:Manual of the Lodge.pdf/147

102 Israelites, and was therefore the point through which all passage out of or into the country was effected.

The small hill near Mount Moriah can be clearly identified by the most convincing analogies as being no other than Mount Calvary. Thus Mount Calvary was a small hill; it was situated in a westerly direction from the Temple, and near Mount Moriah; it was on the direct road from Jerusalem to Joppa, and is thus the very spot where a weary brother, traveling on that road, would find it convenient to sit down to rest and refresh himself; it was outside of the gate of the Temple; and lastly, there are several caves, or clefts in the rocks, in the neighborhood, one of which, it will be remembered, was, subsequently to the time of this tradition, used as the sepulchre of our Lord. The Christian Mason will readily perceive the peculiar character of the symbolism which this identification of the spot on which the great truth of the resurrection was unfolded in both systems—the Masonic and the Christian—must suggest.

The Sprig of Acacia is an important symbol in Freemasonry. The plant is known to botanists as the acacia vera of and the mimosa nilotica of. It is an evergreen that grows in great abundance in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Its name in Hebrew is Shittah, or in the plural, Shittim, and it was always esteemed as a sacred tree by the Israelites. The tabernacle and its furniture, with the Ark of the Covenant, was made