HIEROPHANT. The chief director of the ceremonies and expounder of the doctrines in the mysteries of Eleusis. No one but a descendant of Eumolpus could hold this office. It was necessary for him to have the experience and gravity of age, and to be perfect in his physical organization. In the inferior mysteries, he introduced the novice into the Eleusinian temple, and initiated those who had undergone the final probation into the last and great mysteries. He represented the Creator of the world, and explained to the novice the various phenomena that appeared to him. In the great mysteries, he was the sole expounder of the secrets of the interior of the sanctuary, and of those esoteric doctrines which it was the only object of the institution to communicate to its adepts. No person was permitted to pronounce his name in the presence of an uninitiated person. He sat in the East, and wore, as a symbol of authority, a golden globe, suspended from his neck. He was also called Mystagogue.

HIGH PLACES. It seems natural to man to regard mountains and high places with a certain degree of reverence; and the sentiment of religion has always, and everywhere, impelled him to consecrate them as places of worship. Solomon went to Mount Gibeon to offer sacrifice, because it was a high place. The Druids, too, were partial to hills, and erected their altars on their highest summits. And thus Masons are said to have met on "lofty hills or in low valleys" in the olden time, when the earth, with its carpet of variegated flowers, was literally the mosaic pavement, and the star-decked heavens the only covering of the Lodge.

HIGH-PRIESTHOOD. The order of the High-Priesthood is conferred only on Past High-Priests of Chapters, as an honorary degree, and corresponds to that of Past Master.

HIRAMITES. A name sometimes given to Freemasons as disciples or followers of Hiram, the Tyrian Builder.

HOLY GHOST, ORDER OF. 1. An order of male and female hospitallers. It was founded in the twelfth century by Guy, son of the Count of Montpellier, for the relief of the poor, the infirm, and foundlings. He took the vows himself, and gave a rule to the order. Pope Innocent III., confirmed it in 1198, and founded a hospital at Rome. The dress of both sexes is black, with a double white cross of twelve points on the left breast. 2. The principal military order in France, instituted in 1574, by Henry III. The revolution of 1830 swept it away. Several brotherhoods have borne this name, which is also known in some Masonic systems.

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ANCIENT CHARACTERS OF THE INSCRIPTION.

HOLINESS TO THE LORD. An inscription worn on the forehead of the High-Priest, as described in Exodus XXXIX. 30: "And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it a writing like to the engraving of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD."

HONORABLE. In former times a title given to the degree of Fellow-Craft, on account of its scientific character.

HONORARY DEGREE. A degree like that of Past Master, or the Order of the High-Priesthood, conferred as a reward for official service.

HONORARY MASTER. An honorary title given to learned and worthy brothers, who have not filled the oriental chair, as a recognition of their Masonic science and worth. An honor not known in the United States.

HONORS, GRAND. A peculiar ceremony among Masons by. which they applaud, or express their agreement, satisfaction or sorrow. They are divided into private and public. The first can only be given in a Master's Lodge, and cannot be described here. The public grand honors, as their name imports, do not partake of this secret character. They consist of clapping of the hands three times, in rapid succession, and are given on all public occasions in which the ministrations of the Fraternity are required, in the presence of the profane as well as the initiated. The funeral grand honors are given in the following manner: Both arms are crossed on the breast, the left uppermost, and the open palms of the hands touching the shoulders; the hands are then raised above the head, the palms striking each other, and then made to fall sharply on the thighs, with the head bowed. This is repeated three times. While the honors are being given the third time, the brethren audibly pronounce the following words-when the arms are crossed on the breast:-"We cherish his memory here;" when the hands are extended above the head-"We commend his spirit to God who gave it;" and when the hands are extended toward the ground-" And consign his body to the earth."

HOST, CAPTAIN OF THE. Among the Jews a military rank. In a Royal Arch Chapter the title designates a kind of master of ceremonies.

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I-COLM-KILL. An island, situated near the Hebrides, in a southerly direction therefrom. In ancient times it was the seat of the Order of Culdees, and contains the ruins of the monastery of St. Columba, which was founded A. D. 565. Here the Rite of Herodem, it is claimed, originated.

IDIOT. This word did not always have the meaning which is now attached to it. It is derived from the Greek, idiotės, which signified a private citizen. In Sparta it denoted one who felt no interest, and took no part, in public affairs, and hence came to mean an ignorant person. It was used in this sense in the middle ages, and this is its Masonic meaning. The modern meaning-fool-would be out of place; for it would be as absurd to establish a rule that no fool should be made a Mason as it would be to enact a law that no horse, or infant, or dead man, should be admitted to the mysteries of Freemasonry. The word means, masonically, not a fool, but a listless, indifferent, ignorant, fellow, who could only be a disgrace to the Craft.

ILLUMINATI OF AVIGNON. This system was organized as a species of Masonry intermingled with the reveries of Swedenborg, somewhere about the year 1760, by Pernetti (who was a Benedictine Monk), and the Baron Gabrianca, a Polish nobleman. Very little is known of the institution, and it might have been forgotten but for the Marquis de Thormé,in 1783, taking up the system that had been adopted in the Avignon Lodge, and from it framing what is now known as the Swedenborg rite—which see.

ILLUMINATI, OR THE ENLIGHTENED. During the second half of the eighteenth century, among the numerous secret societies which were more or less connected with Freemasonry there was not one that attracted so much attention, received the support of so many distinguished men, and created so rich a literature, as this. It was founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, professor of law, at Ingolstadt, a man of great originality and depth of thought, and remarkable for the earnestness of his character. The objects which he sought to effect by this association were the highest and noblest ever entertained by the human mind. He desired to assert the individuality of man as a fundamental principle-and hence

was an apostle of civil and religious liberty-to discover the means of advancing human nature to a state of higher perfection-to bind in one brotherhood men of all countries, ranks, and religions, and to surround the persons of princes with trustworthy counselors. Apostles, styled Areopagites, were sent into various parts of Europe to make converts, and in a short time the Order was flourishing in Germany, Holland, and Milan. Protestants, rather than Catholics, were preferred as members. The degrees were eight in number: 1. Novice; 2. Minerval; 3. Illuminatus Minor; 4. Illuminatus Major; 5. Knight; 6. Priest; 7. Regent; 8. King. Attracted by the liberality of its doctrines, and the grandeur of its objects, large numbers of illustrious Masons, and among them the celebrated author Knigge, became active members of it. In 1784 the society was dissolved by order of the Bavarian government. No association of men was ever more calumniated and misrepresented than the Order of Illuminati. It is common to dismiss them with the remark that they were "a body of men united together for the purpose of destroying society and religion," whereas, they were men of the profoundest religious convictions, and only desired such a reform in politics as would give man a greater degree of freedom, and afford him larger opportunities and facilities for the development of his faculties. It is humiliating to see that some Masonic writers have repeated the infamous calumnies of those high-priests of the lying fraternity, Robison and Baruel, in regard to them. If they were infidels and anarchists, then the whole American people are; for they were only inspired with, and sought to propagate, the ideas which we hold in the highest reverence, and have embodied in our institutions. This name has been borne by other orders, as the religious society of the Alombrados, in Spain, founded in the sixteenth century; the Order of Guerinets, in France, in the seventeenth; and many others before and since.

ILLUSTRIOUS ELECT OF FIFTEEN. The 10th degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite. The body is called a chapter. The decorations are black, sprinkled with red and white tears; there are 15 lights, 5 in the East, and 5 before each Warden, and 1 in the center-all of yellow wax. The officers are: Thrice Illustrious, Senior and Junior Inspectors, Orator, Secretary and Treasurer, Hospitaller, Master of Ceremonies, and Captain of the Host. This degree is devoted to the same objects as the Elective Knights of Nine-the conclusion of the punishment of the traitors, who, just before the completion of the temple, had committed an infamous crime.

IMMANUEL. A name applied to Christ, and means "God with us."

INDIA, MYSTERIES OF. The leading idea of the India philosophy is that a state of absolute quiescence or rest constitutes the most perfect bliss, and that it can be attained only by the most complete self-abnegation. This idea naturally grows out of the pantheistic nature of their religion. They believe in unity existing in all things, and all things in unity; God in the universe, and the universe in God; and regard nature as a revelation of the divine intelligence. Everything is thus the perpetual transformation or metamorphosis of God. This doctrine is taught in all their mysteries, and upon this theory rests the idea of the reciprocal influence of worlds upon each other, and their central light, and the conception of the universe as a perpetual creation, as does, likewise, the belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls after death. Beginning and end are mingled, and mind and matter are continually striving for predominance in the universe, which, therefore, exhibits an eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. The notion of God taught in the highest Hindoo mysteries is pure and elevated. He is called Brahm, Atma, Bramatma. Before the creation he reposed in silence, and absorbed in himself. "This world," says Menou, "was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguishable, altogether as in profound sleep, till the self-evident and visible God, making it manifest with five elements, and other glorious forms, perfectly dispelled the gloom. He, desiring to raise up various creatures by an emanation from his own glory, first created the waters, and impressed them with the power of motion; by that power was brought the wondrous egg, bathed in golden splendors and blazing like a thousand suns, from which sprang Brahma, the self-existing, the parent of all rational beings. In the Hindoo mysteries God is represented under three forms: Vishnu, Siva, and Brahma; for that is the order in which the three are expressed by the letters A UM, that form the mysterious and ineffable name, OM, which is never spoken, but is the object of silent and constant contemplation. The Lingam is worshiped in these rites the same as the Phallus in the Egyptian. The Lotos, too, is a sacred attribute in these mysteries, as it was in those of Isis. The whole initiation represented the same idea as the Egyptian. The eternal combat between the opposing forces of good and evil, of light and dark, and the ultimate triumph of the former, is the leading feature of both, showing conclusively, that the Egyptian system, which is the parent of the Grecian, Roman, and, consequently, of our Masonic system, was itself the offspring of the old Indian mysteries. The most celebrated temples where these rites were performed were those of Elora, Salsette, and Elephanta.