TENNESSEE.
The Grand Lodge of North Carolina had issued Warrants for Lodges in Tennessee as early as 1796, as also had the Grand Lodge of Kentucky. A Convention was held at Knoxville, December 2, 1811, to form a Grand Lodge and the following Lodges were represented: Tennessee, No. 2; Greenville, No. 3; Newport, No. 4; Hiram, No. 7. The Grand Lodge of North Carolina gave her authority to the Proceedings and when the Convention met again on December 27, 1813, the Grand Lodge was duly established.
A Dispensation was issued by the General Grand High Priest on March 2, 1818, to Cumberland Chapter at Nashville, and a Charter was granted at the Convocation of the General Grand Chapter on September 11, 1819. Charters were issued to Franklin, Clarksville, and LaFayette Chapters in 1826 and on September 16 of that year, the Grand Chapter of Tennessee was recognized as a constituent of the General Grand Chapter. Companion William G. Hunt was chosen Grand High Priest; Companions Tannehill and Steel, Deputy High priests; Steel and Langtry, Strand Kings, and Dyer Pearl, Grand Scribe.
Nashville Council, No. 1, at Nashville was chartered by Companion John Barker on August 14, 1827. Other Councils were formed in the State but their records were lost by fire. On October 13, 1847, a Grand Council was formed which has since met regularly except during the Civil War.
Second reprint, Proceedings, Grand Encampment (page 90), records that "In 1842 a petition to revive Nashville Encampment was presented to Sir Knight Reese," suggesting former activity, but Proceedings, strand Commandery of Tenneasee, 1859 (page 17), states of Nashville Commandery No. 1: "After several preliminary meetings, this Commandery was organized in the City of Nashville on the 26th day of November A. D. 1846, A.O. 728." A Charter was granted September 14, 1847. A Dispensation was issued to Yorkville Commandery No. 2, Yorkville, July 10, 1857, and Charter, September 16, 1859; De Molay Commandery NTo, 3, Columbia, December 20, 1857, and September 16, 1859, and Cyrene Commandery No. 4, Memphis, Mareh 27, 1859, and September 16, 1859. These four subordinate Commanderies were authorized, September 16, 1859, to form a Grand Commandery, the Grand Master assigning Sir Louis J. Polk, October 3, 1859, to install the officers and this took place on October 12, 1859.
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was first introduced at Memphis when the John Chester Lodge of Perfection was chartered January 15, 1879. Three other Bodies were opened at the same plaee within a few years: Calvary Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1; Cyprus Couneil of Kadosh, No. 1, and Tennessee _ Consistory, No. 1, chartered respectively on January w 1, 1889; August 14, 1893, and Oetober 14, 1894.
TENSIO-DAI-SIN.
A deity held in adoration by the Japanese; the zodiacal sun, with its twelve eonstellations, as the representative of the god and his twelve apostles. This omnific being, like the zodiacal light, of triangular form, seen only in the evening after twilight and in the morning before dawn, and whose nature is unknown, is possessed of ineffable attributes, inexpressible and unutterable, with a supreme power to overcome eruptions of nature and the elements. Like unto Freemasonry, there are four periods of festival, to wit, in the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth of the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth months. The initiates are called Jammabos, and wear aurora-colored robes, like unto the light of the
dawn of day.
TENT.
The tent, which constitutes a part of the paraphernalia or furniture of a Commandery of Knights Templar, is not only intended for a practical use, but also has a symbolic meaning. The Order of the Templars was instituted for the protection of Christian pilgrims who were visiting the sepulcher of their Lord. The Hospitalers might remain in the city and fulfil their vows by attendance on the sick, but the Templar must away to the plains, the hills, and the desert, there, in his lonely tent, to watch the wily Saracen, and to await the toilsome pilgrim, to whom he might offer the erust of bread and the draft of water, and instruct him in his way, and warn him of danger, and give him words of good cheer. Often in the early history of the Order, before luxury and wealth and vice had impaired its purity, must these meetings of the toilsome pilgrim, on his way to the holy shrine, with the valiant Knight who stood by his tent door on the roadside, have occurred. And it is just such events as these that are eommemorated in the tent scenes of the Templar ritual.
TENURE OF OFFICE.
All offices in the Bodies of the York and American Rites are held by annual election or appointment. But the holder of an office does not become functus officii, serving as delegate, by the election of his successor; he retains the office wuntil that successor has been installed. This is teehnieally called holding over. It is not election only. but election and installation that give possession of an office in Freemasonry. If a new Master, having been elected, should, after the election and installation of the other officers of the Lodge, refuse to be installed, the old Master would hold over, or retain the office until the next annual election. The oath of office of every officer is that he will perform the duties of the office for twelve months, and until his successor shall have been installed. In France, in the eighteenth century, Warrants of Constitution were bestowed upon certain Masters who held the office for life, and were therefore called Maitres inamovibles, or immovable Masters. They considered the Lodges committed to their care as their personal property and governed them despotically, according to their own caprices.
But in 1772 this class of Masters had become so unpopular, that the Grand Lodge removed them, and
made the tenure of office the same as it was in England.
In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite the officers of a Supreme Council hold their offices, under
the Constitutions of 1786, for life. In the subordinate Bodies of the Rite, the elections are held annually
or triennially. W`his is also the rule in the Supreme Council of the Northern Jurisdiction, which has
abandoned the law of perpetual tenure. The Supreme Council elects its members independently of the Consistories and is thereby self-perpetuating.
TERCY.
One of the nine Elus recorded in the high Degrees as having been sent out bv Solomon to make the search which is referred to in the Laster's legend.
The name was invented, with some allusion, not now explicable, to the political incidents of Stuart Free
masons. The name is probably an anagram or corruption of some friend of the House of Stuart (see Anagram).
TERMINUS.
The god of landmarks, or boundaries, whose worship was introduced among the Romans by Numa. The god was represented by a cubical stone. Of all the gods, Terminus was the only one who, when the new Capitol was building, refused to remove his altar. Hence Ovid (fasti ii, 673) addressed him thus: "O Terminus, no inconstancy was permitted
thee; in whatever situation thou hast been placed there abide, and do not yield one jot to any neighbor asking thee." The Freemasons pay the same reverence to their landmarks that the Romans did to their
god Terminus.
TERNARY ALLUSIONS.
Some of the well considered and beautiful thoughts of Rev. George Oliver on Ternary Allusions as applicable to the construction of the Temple services of Solomon are the three principal religious festivals the Feast of Passover, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles. The Camp was three-fold. The Tabernacle, with its precinct, was called the Camp of the Divine Majesty; the next, the Camp of Levi, or Spittle Host of the Lord; and the largest, the Camp of Israel, or the Great Host.
The Tribes were marshaled in subdivisions of three, each being designated lay a banner containing one of
the cherubic forms of the Deity. The Temple, in like manner, had three divisions and three symbolical
references historical, mystical, and moral. The Golden Candlestick had twice three branches, each
containing three bowls, knobs, and flowers. In the Sanctuary were three sacred utensils the Candlestick, the Table of Shewbread, and the Altar of Incense; and three hallowed articles were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant the Tables of the Law, the Rod of Aaron, and the Pot of Manna. There were three Orders of Priests and Levites, and the High Priest was distinguished by a triple crown.
Three allusions may be observed through the whole of Jewish history. Thus, Elijah raised the widow's son by stretching himself upon the child three times. Samaria sustained a siege of three years. Some of the kings of Israel and Judah reigned three years, some three months, some three days. Rehoboam served God three years before he aposlated. The Jews fasted three days and three nights, by command of Esther, before their triumph over Haman. Their sacred writings had three grand divisions the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
In the Masonic system there were three Temples those of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod. The Jews speak of two that have been, and believe in one, as described by Ezeliiel the Prophet, yet to come The Rabbis say: "The third Temple we hope and look for" (see Three).
TERRASSON, THE ABBE JEAN.
The Abbé Terrasson was born at Lyons, in France, in 1670. He was educated by the Congregation of the Oratory, of which his brother André was a Priest, but eventually abandoned it, which gave so much offense to his father, that he left him by his will only a very moderate income. The Abbé obtained a chair in the Academy of Sciences in 1707, and a professorship in the Royal College in 1724, which position he occupied until his death in 1750. He was the author of a Critical Dissertation on the Iliad of Homer, a translation of Diodorus Siculus, and several other classical and philosophical works. Put the work most interesting to the Masonie scholar is his Séthos, Elistoire ou vale tirée des monuments, anecdotes de l'ancienne Egypte, published at Paris in 1731. This work excited on its appearance so much attention in the literary world, that it was translated into the German and English languages under the respective titles of:
1. Abris der wahren Helden-Tuyend, oder Lebensgeschichte des Sethos; translated by Chro. Gli. Wendt, Hamburg, 1732.
2. Geschichte des Fönigs Sethos; translated by Matthew Claudius, Breslau, 1777.
3. The Life of Sethos, taken from private Memoirs of the ancientEgyptians; translated from a Greek Manuscript into French, and done into English, by M. Lediard, London, 1732.
In this romance he has given an account of the initiation of his hero, Sethos, an Egyptian Prince, into the Egyptian Mysteries. We must not, however, be led into the error, into which Kloss says the Masonic Fraternity fell on its first appearance, that this account is a well-proved, historical narrative. Much as we know of the Egyptian Mysteries, compared with our knowledge of the Grecian or the Asiatic, we have no sufficient documents from which to obtain the consecutive and minute detail which the Abbé Terrasson has construeted. It is like Ramsey's Travels of Cyrus, to which it has been compared a romance rather than a history; but it still contains so many scintillations of truth, so much of the substantiate of fact amid the ornaments of fiction, that it cannot hut prove instructive as well as amus ing. We have in it the outlines of an initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries such as the learned Abbé could derive from the documents and monuments to which he was able to apply, with many lacurlae which he has filled up from his own inventive and poetic gemus.
TERRIBLE BROTHER.
The French title is Frere terrible. An officer in the French Rite, who in an initiation conducts the candidate, and in this respect performs the duty of a Senior Deacon in the York Rite.
TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION.
It has now become the settled principle of, at least, American Masonic law, that Masonic and political Jurisdiction should be co-terminous, that is, that the boundaries which circumscribe the territorial Jurisdiction of a Grand Lodge should be the same as those which define the political limits of the State in which it exists. And so it follows that if a State should change its political boundaries, the Masonic boundaries of the Grand Lodge should change with it. Thus, if a State should diminish its extent by the cession of any part of its territory to an adjoining State, the Lodges situated within the ceded territory would pass over to the Jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of the State to which that territory had been ceded.
The doctrine of Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction, as it is styled in the United States, was called into activity by the needs of the increasing number of contiguous Grand Lodges in America (see Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction).
Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley (Caementaria Hibernica, Fasciculus iii) goes on to say,
It partakes of the nature of an international compact rather than of an ancient landmark. The earliest regulations issued by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in November 176S, rule xxvii, enact that " No Army Lodge shall for the future make any Townsman a Mason where there is a Lodge held in any Town where such Lodge do meet: and no Town's Lodge shall make any man in the army a Masons where there is a warranted Lodge held in the Regiment, Troop, or Company, or in the Quarters to which such Man belongs. Any Army or other Lodge making a Mason contrary to this rule to be fined One Guinea."
From the position that one Regular Lodge ought not to interfere with another, it is but a logical step to the position that one Grand Lodge should not interfere with another.
TESSEL, INDENTED.
See Tessellated Border.
TESSELLATED.
Prom the Latin word tessella, a little square stone. Checkered, formed in little squares of Mosaic work. Applied in Freemasonry to the Mosaic pavement of the Temple, and to the border surrounding the Tracing-Board, probably ineorreetly in the latter ease (see Tessellated Border).
TESSELLATED BORDER.
Browne says in his Master Key, which is supposed to present the general form of the Prestonian lectures, that the ornaments of a Lodge are the Mosaic Pavemeut, the Blazing Star, and the Tessellated Border; and he has defined the Tessellated Border to be "the skirt-work round the Lodge." Webb, in his lectures, teaches that the ornaments of a Lodge are the Mosaic Pavement, the Indented Tessel, and the Blazing Star; and he defines the Indented Tessel to be that "beautifully tessellated border or skirting which surrounded the ground-floor of King Solomonis Temple.
The French call it la houpe dentelée, which is literally the indented tessel; and they describe it as "a cord forming true-lovers knots, which surrounds the Tracing-Board."
The Germans name it die Schnur son starken Faden, or the cord of strong threads, and define it as a border surrounding the Tracing-Board of an Entered Apprentice, consisting of a cord tied in lovers' knots, with two tassels attached to the ends.
The idea prevalent in the United States of America and derived from a misapprehension of the plate in the Monitor of Cross, that the tessellated border was a decorated part of the Mosaic pavement, and made like it of little square stones, does not seem to be supported by these definitions. They all indicate that the tessellated border was a cord. The interpretation of its symbolic meaning still further sustains this idea. Browne says "it alludes to that kind care of Providence which so cheerfully surrounds and keeps us within its protection whilst we justly and uprightly govern our lives and actions by the four cardinal virtues in divinity, namely, Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, and Justice."
This last allusion is to the four tassels attached to the cord (see Tassels).
Webb says that it is "emblematic of those blessings and comforts which surround us, and which we hope to obtain by a faithful reliance on Divine Providence."
The French ritual says that it is intended "to teach the Freemason that the Society of which he constitutes a part surrounds the earth, and that distance, so far from relaxing the bonds which unite the members to each other, ought to draw them closer."
Lenning says that it symbolizes the fraternal bond by which all Freemasons are united.
But Gadicke is more precise. He defines it as "the universal bond by which every Freemason ought to be united to his Brethren " and he says that "it should consist of sixty threads or yarns, because, according to the ancient Statutes, no Lodge was allowed to have above sixty members."
Oliver (Landmarks i, page 174) says "the Tracing Board is surrounded by an indented or tessellated border . . . at tlse four angles appear as many tassels." Cut in the old English Tracing-Boards the two looser tassels are often omitted. They are, however, generally found in the French. Lenning, speaking, we suppose, for the German, assigns to them but two. Four tassels are, however, necessary to complete the symbolism, which is said to be that of the four cardinal virtues. The tesselated, more properly, therefore, the tassellated, tasseled, border consists of a cord intertwined with knots, to each end of which is appended a tassel. It surrounds the border of the Tracing-Board, and appears at the top as in the illustration
There is, however, in these old Tracing-Boards, another border, which surrounds the entire picture with lines, as illustrated. This indented border, which was made to represent a cord of black and white threads, was, in Doctor Mackey's opinion, in time mistaken for tessellae, or little stones; an error probably originating in confounding it with the Tessellated Pavement, which was another one of the ornaments of the Lodge.
We find that we have for this symbol five different names: in English, the indented tarsel, the indented tassel, the indented tessel, the tessellated border, and the tessellated border; in French, the houpe dentelée, or indented teasel; and in German, the Schnur son starken Faden, or the cord of strong threads.
The question what is the true tessellated border would not be difficult to answer, if it were not for the variety of names given to it in the English rituals. We know by tradition, and by engravings that have been preserved, that during the ceremonies of initiation in the early part of the eighteenth century the symbols of the Order were marked out in chalk on the floor, and that this picture was encircled by a waving cord. This cord was ornamented with tassels, and formerly a border to the tracing on the floor was called the indented tassel, the cord and the tufts attached to it being the tassel, which, being by its wavy direction partly in and partly outside of the picture, was said to be indented. This indented tassel was Subsequently corrupted by illiterate Freemasons into indented tarsel, the appellation met with in some of the early Catechisms.
Afterward, looking to its decoration with tassels and to its position as a border to the Tracing-Board, it was called the tessellated border. In time the picture on the floor was transferred to a permanent TracingBoard, and then the tassels were preserved at the top, and the rest of the cord was represented around the board in the form of white and black angular spaces. These were mistal;en for little stones, and the tassilleted border was called by a natural corruption, the tessellated border.
Many years ago, when Doctor Mackey first met with the ideas of this corruption from tassellated to tessellated, which was suggested to Doctor Oliver by "a learned Scottish Mason," whose name he does not give, he was inclined to doubt its correctness. Subsequent investigations led him to change that opinion. Doctor Mackey believed that he could readily trace the gradual steps of corruption and change from the original name indented tassel, Which the early French Freemasons had literally translated by houped entelée, to indented tarsel, and sometimes, according to Oliver to indented trasel; then to tasseled border, and, finally, to tessellated border, the name which it has so long borne.
The form and the meaning of the symbol are now apparent. The tessellated horder, as it is called is a
cord, decorated with tassels, which surrounds the Tracing-Board of an Entered Apprentice, the said Tracing-Board being a representation of the Lodge, and it symbolizes the bond of love the mystic tie which binds the Craft wheresoever dispersed into one band of Brotherhood.
TESSERA HOSPITALIS.
A Latin term. Literally, the Token of the Guest, or the Hospitable Die. It was a custom among the ancients, that when two persons formed an alliance of friendship, they took a small piece of bone, ivory, stone, or even wood, which they divided into two parts, each one inseribing his name upon his half. They then made an exchange of the pieces, each promising to retain the part entrusted to him as a perpetual token of the Covenant into which they had entered, of which its production at any future time would be a proof and a reminder (see the Subject more fully treated in the article Mark, also note Stone, White).
TEST FEE.
The name given to the payment made annually to keep in good standing in the Lodges of Scotland. Another name for annual dues.
TESTIMONY.
In Masonic trials the testimony of witnesses is taken in two ways that of Profanes by affidavit, and that of Freemasons on their Masonic Obligation.
TESTS.
Test questions, to which the conventional answers would prove the Masonic character of the person interrogated, were in very common use in the eighteenth century in England. They were not, it is true, enjoined by authority, but were conventionally used to such an extent that every Freemason was supposed to be acquainted with them. They are now obsolete; but not very long ago such catch questions as "Where does the Master hang his hat?" and a few others, equally trivial, were in use.
Doctor Oliver gives (Golden Remains of the Early Masonic Writers iv, page 14) the following as the tests in use in the early part of the eighteenth century. They have been credited as introduced by Desaguliers and Anderson at the Revival in 1717. Some of them, however, were of a different source and character, being assumed to have been taken from the Catechism or Lecture then in use as a part of the instructions of the Entered Apprentice.
- What is the place of the Senior Entered Apprentice?
- What are the fixed lights?
- How ought the Master to be served?
- What is the punishment of a Cowan?
- What is the bone box?
- How is it said to be opened only with ivory keys7
- By what is the key suspended?
- What is the clothing of a Mason?
- What is the brand?
- How high was the door of the Middle Chamber?
- What does this stone smell of?
- The name of an Entered Apprentice?
- The name of a Fellow Craft?
- The name of a Master Mason?
In the year 1730, Martin Clare having, as certain old reports claim, by order of the Grand Lodge, remodeled the Lectures, he abolished the old tests and introduced the following new ones:
- Whence came you?
- Who brought you here?
- What recommendation do you bring?
- Do you know the secrets of Masonry?
- Where do you keep them?
- Have you the key?
- Where is it deposited?
- When you were made a Mason, what did you consider most desirable?
- What is the name of your Lodge?
- Where is it situated?
- What is its foundations ?
- How did you enter the Temple of Solomon?
- How many windows did you see there?
- What is the duty of the youngest apprentice?
- Have you ever worked as a Mason?
- What did you work with?
- Salute me as a Mason.
Ten years afterward Clare's tests were said to have been superseded by a new series of examination questions, which were asserted to have been promulgated by Doctor Manningham, and very generally adopted. They are as follows:
- Where were you made a Mason?
- What did you learn there?
- How do you hope to be rewarded?
- What access have you to that Grand Lodge?
- How many steps?
- What are their names?
- How many qualifications are required in a Mason?
- What is the standard of a Mason's faiths?
- What, is the standard of his actions?
- Can you name the peculiar characteristies of a Mason's Lodge?
- What is the interior composed of ?
- Why are we termed Brethren?
- By what badge is a Mason distinguished?
- To what do the reports refer?
- How many principal points are there in Masonry?
- To what do they refer?
- Their names?
- The allusion?
Thomas Dunckerley subsequently, we are told, made a new arrangement of the Lectures, and with them the tests. For the eighteen which composed the series of Manningham, he invented ten, but which were more significant and important in their bearing. They were as follows:
How ought a Mason to be clothed?
When were you born?
Where were you born?
How were you born?
Did you endue the brand with fortitude and patience?
The situation of the Lodge?
What is its name?
With what have you worked as a Mason?
Explain the sprig of Cassia.
How old are you?Preston subsequently, as his first contribution to Masonic literature, is asserted to have presented the following system of tests, which were at a later period adopted:
- Whither are you bound?
- Are you a Mason?
- How do you know that?
- How will you prove it to me?
- Where were you made a Mason?
- When were you made a Mason?
- By whom were you made a Mason?
- Prom whence come you?
- What recommendation do you bring?
- Any other recommendation?
- Where are the secrets of Masonry kept.
- To whom do you deliver them?
- How do you deliver them?
- In what manner do you serve your Master?
- What is your name?
- What is the name of your son?
- If a Brother were lost, where should you hope to find nim ?
- How should you expect him to be clothed?
- How blows a Mason's wind?
- Why does it thus blow?
- What time is itt?
These Prestonian tests continued in use until the lose of the eighteenth century, and Doctor Oliver says that at his initiation, in 1801, he was fully instructed in them. Tests of this kind appear to have existed at an early period. The examination of a Steinmetz, given by Findel in his History of Freemasonry, presents all the characteristics of the English tests.
The French Freemasons have one, "Comment etes vous entré dans le Temple de Salomon?" "How were you introduced in the Temple of Solomon?" In the United States of America, besides the one already mentioned, there are a few others which are sometimes used, but are without legal authority. A review of these tests will lead to the conclusion adopted by Doctor Oliver, that ' they are doubtless of great utility, but in their selection a pure and discriminating taste has not always been used."
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