Page:Devil-Worship in France 1896.djvu/45

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THE MASK OF MASONRY
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took active part, Pike removed to Memphis in Tennessee, where he again followed law and literature, establishing the Memphis Appeal, which he sold in 1868, and migrated to Washington. His subsequent history is exclusively concerned with unwearying Masonic labours.

Now, it was at Little Rock in Arkansas that Albert Pike was first initiated, and ten years later, that is, in 1859, he was elected Sovereign Commander Grand Master of the Supreme Council of Charleston. Having extraordinary powers of organisation, he became a person of wide influence in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite, and a high authority also on the ritual, antiquities, history, and literature of Masonry. Under his guidance, the Scotch Rite extended and became dominant. Hence, when the Italian patriot Mazzini is said to have projected the centralization of high grade Masonry, he could find no person in the whole fraternity more suited by his position and influence to collaborate with him. Out of this secret partnership there was begotten on September 20, 1870—that is to say, on the very

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