"Why should I take the Scottish Rite Degrees?"

Almost every Master Mason who is invited or afforded an opportunity to petition for the Scottish Rite Degrees, naturally raises the question in his mind, "Why should I take the Scottish Rite Degrees?"

It is a fair and quite appropriate question for him to ask, as it is of utmost importance that the prospective initiate have a clear and definite understanding of what the Rite stands for, and is endeavoring to accomplish. Herewith, though of necessity brief, is set forth some of the aims and purposes of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

The Scottish Rite Degrees give us a sense of historical values and standards. Today is the child of yesterday and no one can understand the significance of the epochal events that are shaking the world unless he sees them from the vantage point of history. Out of the crises of the past, man has discovered principles that are as solid as the mountains, as enduring as the stars. The moral truths that prevail in Jerusalem, Athens and Rome are just as valid, just as imperative in the twenty-first  century. In his confidence in the reality of these principles he has built his faith in the permanent value of moral truth. Here is to be found the basis of optimism, of faith in the free institutions and a civilization resting on ethical principles. No man can witness the degrees of the Scottish Rite and be either a cynic or a pessimist. They renew his faith in God, in man, in the process of history.

The Scottish Rite Degrees put in to picturesque but explicit language the civic and social Ideals, implicit in the Blue Lodge Degrees. For centuries Freemasonry has been a tremendous force for enlightenment, freedom and social progress, in Europe and in the Americas. It was not caprice or mere prejudice that caused the Nazi and Fascist aggressors to proscribe Freemasonry. Why did the Nazi oppressors hate Masonry, why did they violate the sacred emblems of the craft, why did they hunt down with ruthless cruelty our Masonic Leaders? Particularly, why did the totalitarians persecute the "Masons of all degrees?" They know that tyranny is threatened wherever a Masonic Lodge exists.