THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
June 1918
volume 4 - number 6
THE DIVINE GEOMETRY
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA
Text: Proverbs 8:27, "he set a compass upon the face of the
deep."
AFTER Euclid had shown Ptolemy his treatise on geometry the
king inquired, somewhat wistfully, "Cannot the problems be made easier?" to
which the geometer replied, "There is no royal road to geometry." True enough,
but geometry itself is a royal road, and one that will lead us to Divine things
if we will but follow it, as I now ask you to do.
It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to retrace our
steps into the ancient day when men had not yet learned the orderliness of
nature. Before the calendar was discovered or clocks invented the navigator
steered his ship by the landmarks on the coast, and the farmer planted his crops
by chance, for it was not known that the seasons repeat their regular ritual or
that the heavens are ruled by order. "They saw things come and saw them go, but
whence or whither they could not know." Everything changed or passed away and
all things seemed to be in an eternal flux. In the midst of that everlasting
stream of circumstance, that wildering maze of vicissitude, the early people
felt helpless, if not mocked, for it always seemed that Nature was making sport
of them. Even Renan, so far removed from them in time, recognized the pathos of
this, for he said that "Nothing is so painful as the universal flow of things,"
while Tennyson set the mood to his music of accustomed sweetness:
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves, and go.
If the mutability of all things was so oppressive to the
recent thinkers, having at their hand science's unveiling of the lucid order of
the universe, how much more painful must it have seemed to human minds before
science came! "We are strangers before thee," they cried in their prayers, "and
sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and
there is no abiding."
Little wonder that the discovery of the North Star, one
fixed body among all the others that moved perpetually, was an event of such
importance that the simple folk worshipped it as a god and hung its symbol above
the altars of their temples ! Little wonder that Heraclitus, the first thinker
to state the fact with the thoroughness and system of philosophy, was called
"The Weeping Philosopher !" Where there is no stability the mind hangs in the
air and grows weary like a land bird at sea that finds no solid ground for its
feet.
It was for this reason that the discovery of numbers, and
especially of geometry, which is the application of numbers to form, was hailed
as a visitation from on high. This discovery was not made in a day but came so
gradually that men could hardly discern the lifting of the changing mists. And
it was after this wise it came, if we have rightly pieced together the fragments
of the story. The Egyptians lived along the Nile, their fields lying adjacent to
its current in order to profit from the rich deposits of its overflow. But this
very flood itself, source as it was of all fertility, gave rise to great
difficulties, for the rising waters obliterated all landmarks each season and
thus caused confusion among the owners of the fields. It was in their efforts to
discover some method of fixing their boundaries that the Egyptians learned how
to trace out the regular motions of the heavens, the periodicity of the seasons,
and the properties of numbers. How much the race is indebted to those
sun-browned workers in the fluviatile valley nobody can compute !
Inasmuch as numbers had won them order from chaos of their
first impressions these early peoples exalted mathematics to the level of
divinity, seeing in it, and rightly we may believe, a revelation, an uncovering,
of the Creative Mind. Triangles and squares were engraved on their monuments and
hung in their temples. The numbers three, five and seven were held especially
sacred for in them were many qualities not possessed by other numerals. The cult
of numbers arose at last and men formed secret societies for studying and
teaching the properties of geometry.
It was among these secret societies that there came at a
later day Pythagoras, one of the noblest of all thinkers, and the first to raise
mathematics to the level of an exact science. From his hidden schools in Greece
he taught his initiates the mystery of arithmetic, calling God "the Great
Geometrician" and telling his pupils that "All things are in numbers; crystals
are solid geometry."
Plato, also, the most opulent thinker of antiquity, found
in geometry a revelation of the Infinite Mind, looking upon it as the very
essence of religion, the knowledge of God. "What does Deity do all the while?"
one of his pupils asked him. "God is always geometrizing," was the reply.
"Geometry must ever tend to draw the soul towards truth." Over the portal of his
school he inscribed the legend: "Let no one who is ignorant of geometry enter my
doors."
What science is to all modern thinking the one science of
mathematics, "the sacred mathematics," was to early thinking; and those first
teachers felt it a sacred duty to transmit so valuable a knowledge to their
descendants. Therefore was it that, three hundred years before Christ, Euclid
wrote the treatise in which he embodied all that was known of the science at
that time. Indeed, the work of Euclid is still the standard treatise on the
subject, being used as the basis of every textbook in our schools. Better
methods for proving the problems have been worked out, and new propositions have
been discovered, but the fundamentals stand like adamant, and always will stand.
After the breakup of the ancient world and the general
inundation of culture under the Barbarian Invasion, geometry was lost. For
hundreds of years the people of Europe wandered among the mazes of chance and
caprice, as primitive men had done before them. Then at last along came Simon
Grynaeus, a contemporary of Luther, who rediscovered Euclid and gave his science
to the new peoples. How much this influenced the Reformation no historian has
yet undertaken to estimate but it is certain that it had far reaching
consequences and paved the way for modern science, which is itself a
superstructure built on mathematics.
If the earlier peoples were overjoyed to make their few
discoveries of the hidden but fixed order of Nature how delighted they would now
be to learn that all the endeavors of science have only served to make more
clear and more universal the reign of number and form throughout the universe.
For through a prophetic inspiration of the geometers we have had uncurtained to
us a spectacle of mathematical order throughout the universe which is as
revealing as it is beautiful.
Matter itself, immobile as it may appear to the eye, is in
reality a composite of atoms that move through the mazes of an everlasting
dance, every evolution of which seems timed to some exact pattern. Even the
chemical elements, which so long baffled the system makers, were proved by
Newlands to lie in a regular order of periodicity strangely grouped around the
number seven. Order is the first law of the elements. Crystallization is a solid
geometry. If one observes ice crystals forming across a window pane he will see
them grouping themselves together into symmetrical forms, intricate, involved,
beautiful, as if some unseen artist were at work depicting a scene from an
arctic fairyland.
Even when life gathers matter up about itself into its
organisms the same rhythm is preserved. Vitality is free and flowing, often
apparently erratic, and moving by the law of its own, yet it will always be
found at last to keep step with the geometrical motions of the world. If one
would expect the eternal harmony absent from any field surely it would be in
that little known realm which the insects inhabit; yet John Henri Fabre was so
impressed by the reign of numbers among these insignificant creatures that he
was moved to write this magnificent paragraph:
"He will admire as much as we do geometry the eternal
balancer of space. There is a severe beauty, belonging to the domain of reason,
the same in every world, the same under every sun, whether the suns be single or
many, white or red, blue or yellow. This universal beauty is order. Everything
is done by weight and measure, a great statement whose truth breaks upon us all
the more vividly as we probe more deeply into the mystery of things. Is this
order, upon which the equilibrium of the universe is based, the predestined
result of a blind mechanism? Does it enter into the plans of an eternal
Geometer, as Plato had it? Is it the ideal of a supreme lover of beauty, which
would explain everything? Why all this regularity in the curve of the petals of
a flower, why all this elegance in the chasings on a beetle's wing-cases? Is
that infinite grace, even in the tiniest details compatible with the brutality
of uncontrolled forces? One might as well attribute the artist's exquisite
medallion to the steamhammer which makes the slag sweat in the melting !"
The "regularity in the curve of the petals of the flower"
has attracted the attention of others as well as Fabre. Maeterlinck, who learned
so much from the veteran French naturalist, made a prolonged study of the Mind
that is at work in plants with what result anyone can read in a book of lovely
pages, "The Intelligence of the Flowers." Why are leaves set around the stem in
such mathematical regularity ? Why do flowers seem to love numbers, as the
trilium is partial to three, and the rose to five ? Surely it must be because
there is that in them which responds to the universal order. Like Plato's deity
they are always geometrizing.
An animal is a plant that has taken to moving about, and
just because it is so often apparently ungoverned in its movements, we lose
sight of the regular laws which rule among animals as much as among plants and
minerals. But those laws are there as many a scientist has proved. In the
Mid-nineteenth Century days, before the evolution theory was so well understood,
men fell to theorizing as if the universe had happened into existence through
chance. Life itself was defined as the result of a "fortuitous concourse of
atoms." The absurdity of this "thinking"--it was really an abdication of
thought--was never more clearly revealed than by the Duke of Argyll, whose work
on "The Reign of Law" is almost classical. The learned Duke took the wing of a
common bird and showed that the mechanism of flight is so unimaginably
complicated, so perfect, and solves so many mathematical problems, many of them
beyond the ken of a Lord Kelvin, that it tasks our credulity too much to be
asked to believe that this exquisite machinery could possibly have come through
"chance." In a more recent time, Sir Oliver Lodge has made the same use of the
human eye, an organ so intricate and nice in its adjustments and functions, that
a Swiss watch is simple by comparison.
What is true of the things we find on the earth holds good
in equal measure of the great bodies that sail round us through the sky. The
astronomer's charts are strangely like a page of Euclid. He has found that order
is the first law of the heavens as it is of Heaven. The wildest comet, careening
irresponsibly through space, moves in an orbit as rigidly fixed as the passing
of the hands about the clock. Surely it must be that an Infinite Mind has set
His compasses upon the face of the deeps of space, else how explain the
periodicity, the regularity, of the sidereal universe, the movement of any one
body of which may be predicted for thousands of years in advance!
This law of geometric harmony holds as true among the arts
of man as in those realms which are the art of God. Every building is geometric
demonstration. As we may read in the pages of a learned student of this: "The
language (geometry) spoke in the sloping wall and massive pillar and flat roof
of Egypt, or in the mighty piles of Chaldea, or in the Corinthian grace, or in
Roman boldness; the heart was that of the geometrician who spoke as he dreamed,
in anger, in epic, in poetry of stone and graceful curve--who planned by the
plumb and the square, by the secret of the arch and the balance of accurate
measure."
Even painting, when lightly understood, conforms to the
ancient patterns, being based on the principle described by one of its most
magisterial exponents: "All nature is modelled either like a cone, a sphere or a
cylinder. Painting is a colored mathematics of things." As for music, that is
geometry that has taken to wings, its freedom evermore being inbound in law. It
is the child of rhythm which is the purest manifestation of the law of numbers.
From of old it has been dreamed that the morning stars sang together, that the
rafters and beams of creation were laid deep in melody, that the spheres make
music as they move, that all "deep things are song." Of this truth every
musician is the priest as every poet is its apostle. As Dryden sings:
"From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began;
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man."
Yes, in Man, truly, for order holds in the soul as much as
in the heavens where the astronomer thinks God's thoughts after Him. Character
is no chance product but builds according to laws as immutable and as
ascertainable as any to be found in the builder's art. For the freedom of the
soul is not capriciousness, least of all lawlessness, but voluntary co-operation
with the fixed rules of the spirit. He who will build according to that
principle will erect a character as stable as that house which the wise
architect builded on the rock. Glorious will be the day when men learn the
geometry of the heart and square their actions to the fixed rules of moral life.
The significance of this geometry of the cosmos for our
faith has been know ever since men discovered it. At bottom there ale but two
philosophies: that which holds that this universe is a heap of dirt governed by
chance; and that which finds in it a reasoned reign of order resting in an
Infinite Mind. As between dirt and deity a man may make his choice, but surely
the thinker who sees everywhere the beautiful sweep of order will not for a
moment believe that this mighty music could have come to us out of the falling
atoms of chance. One might as well throw a handful of type into the air and
expect them to write a poem in their fall !
Twenty-five centuries ago Socrates labored to show the
little atheist, Aristodemus, that as a statue by Polytectetus could not possibly
have emerged from the quarries through mere chance, so is it impossible to
believe that the cosmos, infinitely greater in complexity as well as in beauty,
could ever have come into existence through mere fortuitousness. In the same
wise, Franklin, who may typify the modern thinker, exposed the fallacy of an
atheist astronomer friend of his. The astronomer was showing him an orrery,
which is a working model of the solar system, when Franklin said, "It is strange
that such a thing could build itself by chance." "Chance !" exclaimed the
astronomer, "I made that myself. How could so complicated a device have come by
chance?" "Then," said the philosopher, turning upon him, "how can you believe
that the solar system itself, of which this is a mere model, could have come by
chance ?"
Surely, when we have our minds with us, it must be apparent
that the everywhere present order of things is the revelation of a Divine
Orderer! Where there is so much intelligence there must be an Intelligence!
Where there is so much harmony there must stand near a great Musician! The
poetry of earth is the song of an Infinite Poet! The beauty of all creation is
the outshining, the splendor of an Eternal Artist !
Long ago a psalmist cried, "Whither shall I flee from Thy
presence?" We cannot flee from His presence. While we dig in the dirt He is
there, present in the dance of the atoms that compose the soil: while we walk
through the snow He draws His pictures about us in the traceries of the
crystals: the bird that wings above us is His angel, making hieroglyphics in the
air: the very tides move along the circle which His compasses draw upon the
deep. Everywhere He is. We live imbedded in His mind. To escape from Him is as
impossible as to climb out of the atmosphere !
Where there is so much order all must be ordered. King
Alphonso of Castile, looking out over the general muddle of affairs into which
Spain had fallen, doubted that a Mind ruled all. "If God had called me to His
councils," he sighed, "things would have been in better order." In these days
when it seems that the bottom has gone out of the world and chaos has come
again, we may fall into the mood of the old king. But let us despair not. The
plain is there; we have lost the perspective, or the key. It is said that the
frescoes on the ceiling of St. Peter's look like an inartistic jumble to the man
who climbs close to them; but from a station three hundred feet below they
spring up into a majestic beauty. They are wrought on too large a plan for a
close view. We humans, with our near-sightedness, our myopic eyes, are standing
too close to the program of creation; it may appear all jumble to us now. Let us
wait with patience. Some morning, soon or late, will find us on a mountain of
vision where we can see things as they are and watch the Divine Geometer draw
His circles across the deep.
----o----
WHERE THE RAINBOW NEVER FADES
It can not be that the earth is man's only abiding-place.
It can not be that our life is a mere bubble cast up by eternity to float a
moment on its waves and then sink into nothingness. Else why is it that the
glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts are
forever wandering unsatisfied ?
Why is it that all the stars that hold their festival
around the midnight throne are set above the grasp of our limited faculties,
forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory ?
And, finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty
presented to our view are taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our
affections to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts?
There is a realm where the rainbow never fades; where the
stars will be spread out before us like islands that slumber in the ocean; and
where the beautiful beings which now pass before us like shadows will stay in
our presence forever. --George D. Prentice.
----o----
BOYHOOD HOME OF ALBERT PIKE
BY BRO. HAROLD L. BAILEY. VERMONT
Having noticed in a
back issue of THE BUILDER a statement to the effect that you would like material
relating to Albert Pike, I am sending you a photograph of the house in which he
spent his boyhood. I made this photograph several years ago to illustrate a
short write-up of the subject for the Boston Globe.
A painted sign with
its characters nearly effaced by time proclaims a deserted, weatherbeaten house
in the parish of Byfield, Massachusetts, as the "Home of Gen. Albert Pike."
Although not his birthplace it stands for all those things generally connected
with a man's first days and years in the world.
General Pike was born
in Boston, Dec. 29, 1809, but was brought to this house when but a few days old.
His boyhood days were spent in Byfield, and a letter from which Mr. John Ewell
quotes in his "Story of Byfield," (George E. Littlefield, Boston, 1904,
publisher) expresses General Pike's affection for his boyhood home. He said:
"Many, many long years
ago I gathered walnuts and shot squirrels on Long Hill. It saddens me to look
back along the procession of departed years, and to remember how long the Future
then seemed and how short the Past is. I wish I could be a boy for one single
day again and ramble over Long Hill in the frosty air of October, and at night
sleep the sound sleep of youth. . ."
Byfield is the name of
an old-time church parish, the territory of which embraced several towns.
General Pike's home was in a section of the parish now included in the town of
Georgetown, Essex County, about thirty miles north of Boston.
----o----
It is best to take life gladly as we strive,
And best to face toil bravely day by day.
We are companioned in this busy hive
With other strugglers in this clay.
No fate selects us solely for its mark,
And no misfortune that can e'er befall
But what find other strugglers in the dark,
For care is common unto one and all.
----o----
LAFAYETTE'S FRATERNAL CONNECTIONS
BY BRO. JULIUS F. SACHSE, GRAND LIBRARIAN, PENNSYLVANIA
Since the entry of America into the World War there have
come to us many requests for information concerning that notable French ally of
America during the War of the American Revolution, Brother General Lafayette. We
were unable to learn but little concerning the Masonic connections of Brother
Lafayette until we discovered, in the report of the Committee on Library of the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for 1916, notice of the proposed publication in
pamphlet form of the following article by Brother Sachse. By permission of this
Committee we are enabled to herewith present to our readers the result of
Brother Sachse's researches.
It is very unfortunate that the name of Brother
Lafayette's, Mother Lodge is not known. Possibly some of our members may be able
to further enlighten us on this subject.
NO original documentary evidence is known to be in
existence which records the initiation of General Lafayette in the Masonic
Fraternity, nor in what Lodge or when this took place. It has always been a
tradition in Masonic circles that General Lafayette was made a Mason in one of
the Military Lodges at Morristown, New Jersey, where a Festal Lodge was held
December 27, 1779, for which occasion the jewels and furniture and clothing of
St. John's Lodge, No. 1, of Newark, New Jersey, was borrowed. The meeting proved
a great success, sixty eight brethren being present, one of whom was General
Washington.
There is another tradition that General Lafayette was made
a Mason in a Military Lodge, which met at Valley Forge during the winter of
1777-78, hut no official records of such action have thus far been discovered.
It was this uncertainty as to the Masonic standing of
General Lafayette, which led to the resolution of September 6, 1824, in the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and the appointment of a Committee to satisfy
themselves that General Lafayette was an Ancient York Mason. That the Committee
was satisfied with their investigation is evinced by their report and the
subsequent action of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, which resulted in
enrolling Brother General Lafayette an Honorary Member of the R.W. Grand Lodge,
F. & A. M. of Pennsylvania.
Brother General Marie Jean Paul Joseph Roche Yves Gilbert
du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, revisited America in the year 1784, arriving at
New York August 5 of that year. After remaining a short time in New York he
hastened forward to visit General Washington at Mount Vernon, reaching
Philadelphia on August 10, where he was presented with an address by Brothers A.
St. Clair, William Irving and General Anthony Wayne. It is not known whether
General Lafayette visited any Masonic Lodges in Philadelphia during this visit,
nor whether there was any communication with the Grand Lodge. One of the chief
objects of this visit with General Washington was to present him with a
beautiful white satin apron bearing the national colors, red, white and blue and
embroidered elaborately with Masonic emblems, the whole being the handiwork of
Madam the Marquise de Lafayette.
This apron was enclosed in a handsome rosewood box when
presented to Washington. This apron was worn by Washington, September 18, 1793,
when he laid the corner stone of the capitol at the Federal City (Washington, D.
C.), and is now in the Museum of the Grand Lodge, F. & A. M., of Pennsylvania.
After the death of Washington this Masonic relic was presented by the legatees
to the Washington Benevolent Society, who received it October 26, 1816. They in
turn presented it July 3, 1829, to the Right Worshipful Grand Lodge, F. & A. M.
of Pennsylvania, and bears the following inscription:
"To the
"WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.
"The Legatees of Gen. Washington, impressed with the most
profound Sentiments of respect for the Institution which they have the honor to
address, beg leave to present to them the enclosed relic of the revered &
lamented 'Father of His Country.' They are persuaded that the Apron, which was
once possessed by the man, whom the Philadelphians always delighted to honor,
will be considered most precious to the Society distinguished by his name, and
by the benevolent, and grateful feelings to which it owes its foundations. That
this perishable memento of a Hero whose Fame is 'more durable than Brass' may
confer as much pleasure upon those to whom it is presented, as is experienced by
the Donors.
"October 26th, 1816, "Is the sincere wish of the
"Legatees." Forty years later Brother Lafayette revisited the United States,
landing at New York as the nation's guest, August 15, 1824. He was accompanied
by his son George Washington Lafayette, and M. La Vasseur, his secretary, both
members of the fraternity. Tuesday, September 29, the party reached
Philadelphia.
At the Grand Quarterly Communication of the Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania held September 6, 1824, just ninety-four years ago, the following
motion was made, seconded, and adopted:
"Resolved, that a Committee consisting of the Grand
Officers and Past Grand Masters be appointed to enquire whether General La
Fayette be an Ancient York Master Mason, and if he be, to adopt such measures,
as in their opinion will best evince the affection and gratitude of his Masonic
Brethren, to this friend and benefactor of the United States."
At an adjourned Quarterly Grand Communication held Monday,
September 26, 1824, the committee made the following report:
"The Committee appointed on the 6 Septr. to enquire whether
Gen. La Fayette be an Antient York Mason presented the following Report and
Resolution which as amended were severally adopted:--
"The Committee appointed by the Grand Lodge to ascertain
and Report whether General La Fayette be an Antient York Mason, and if so to
report such measures it would be proper for the Grand Lodge to adopt in relation
to this Brother, respectfully Report,
"That they have been led to believe that this distinguished
man, for whose attachment and services to this Country our fellow Citizens have
evinced the warmest feelings of affection and gratitude has long been an Antient
York Master Mason and has honored the institution by his patronage and added to
its usefulness and respectability by a devoted attention to its interests. When
all classes are zealous to display their good feelings upon his arrival amongst
us, it would seem to your Committee that in a City where the Masonic
institutions deservedly stand high, some testimony of respect is due from them
to so worthy a brother.
"They have been anxious to avoid unnecessary ostentation
and expense, but at the same time to treat this guest as becomes the
Institution, and his character.
"The Committee recommended for adoption the following
Resolutions:- "Resolved, that a Committee of seven be appointed whose duty it
shall be as soon as they have received Masonic information that Gen. La Fayette
is an Antient York Master Mason, to invite him to partake with his Masonic
Brethren of a Dinner to be prepared for the occasion.
"Resolved, that the same Committee shall be authorized to
procure the Dinner, receive Subscriptions and make all necessary arrangements
for the same at the price of five dollars for each subscriber.
"Resolved, that the use of the Grand Salon shall be
appropriated on the evening on which the Dinner is to take place to the
subscribers to the same.
"Resolved, that the Grand Lodge Room shall also be
appropriated to the use of the subscribers on that day, with the consent of the
Lodge whose day of meeting it may be and that an address suitable to the
occasion be delivered.
"James Harper,
Thos. Kittera,
S. Badger,
B. Newcomb,
J. K. Kane, Committee."
J. Randall,
The R.W.D.G.M. was pleased to appoint Brothers J. Randall,
J. S. Lewis, J. M. Pettit, D. E. Wilson, Robt. Toland, D. F. Gordon and Jas.
McAlpin on said committee.
On motion made and seconded,
"Resolved, that the Grand Secretary transmit a copy of the
Report and Resolutions to the R. W. Grand Master (Bro. John B. Gibson being
absent from the City on official Duties as Judge of the Supreme Court), and
respectfully invite his attendance in the City on the day when the Dinner to
Gen. La Fayette shall take place."
Saturday, October 2, 1824, Brother Lafayette visited the
navy yard, then on the Delaware River at the foot of Federal Street, attended by
the governor and citizens of the first distinction, escorted by the United
States Marines, a regiment of militia, several independent companies, and a long
civic procession.
After leaving the Philadelphia navy yard in the afternoon,
Brother Lafayette was escorted by a committee of the Grand Lodge from his
Lodgings at the house of Mrs. Nicholas Biddle, to the Masonic Hall on Chestnut
Street, north side between Seventh and Eighth Streets, where he attended an
Extra Grand Communication of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, as stated in the
minutes, viz.:
"Philadelphia, Saturday, 2 Oct., A. D. 1824, A. L. 5824.
"Extra Grand Communication.
"This being the day appointed for a Dinner to our
Distinguished Brother General La Fayette, in pursuance of a Resolution of the
Grand Lodge adopted on the 20 September ulto., about three hundred of the Craft,
including a large proportion of the resident members of the Grand Lodge,
assembled in the Hall at an early hour in the afternoon.
"The R. W. Deputy Grand Master and Grand Officers and
members, being seated in the Grand Lodge Room, the door was tyled, the Grand
Lodge opened in form at four o'clock P. M.
"Present:--
"Bro. James Harper, R. W. Deputy G. M., in the Chair.
"Bro. Thomas Kittera, R. W. Senior G. Warden.
"Bro. Saml. Badger, R. W. Junior Warden.
"Bro. John K. Kane, Acting Grand Secretary.
"Bro. Joseph S. Lewis, Grand Treasurer.
"Saml. A. Thomas, Depy. Acting Grand Secy.
"Bro. Randall Hutchinson, Senior Grand Deacon.
"Bro. George C. Potts, Grand Chaplain.
"Bro. Jas. McAlpin, Grand Sword Bearer.
"Bro. William Wray, Grand Steward.
"Bro. S. F. Bradford, R. W. Past Grand Master.
"Bro. Walter Kerr, R. W. Past Grand Master.
"Bro. Bayse Newcomb, R. W. Past Grand Master.
"Bro. Josiah Randall, R. W. Past Grand Master."
Representatives and Past Masters from nearly all of the
Lodges in the City and County of Philadelphia, and a large number of visiting
brethren among whom were the following: by special invitation-- Brothers George
Washington La Fayette; M. La Vasseur and Colonel Victor Dupont, of Delaware,
former aid to Brother La Fayette.
Bro. Jones, P. G. M., Grand Lodge of Georgia.
" E. Hicks, R. W. Grand Secy. Gd. Lodge N. York.
" Geo. B. Porter, Lodge No. 43.
" M. C. Rogers, " " "
" Charles Stewart, Bro. Wm. Gamble,
" I. M. Gamble, " T. delaPomerage.
On motion made and seconded, the following resolution was
unanimously adopted:
"The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania glorying in the honour
thus conferred on her by the visit of Brother Gilbert Motier de la Fayette, and
anxious to enrol among her members an individual so much distinguished by all
the Virtues which ennoble the Masonic Character, has Resolved, that all the
rights, dignities and privileges of a member of this Grand Lodge be, and the
same are hereby conferred on Bro. Gilbert Motier de la Fayette."
A committee was appointed to wait upon La Fayette at his
lodgings and conduct him to the Hall. Here he was met at the door by the Grand
Marshal and Grand Sword Bearer and received into the Grand Lodge with the
highest honours.
The R. W. Depy. Grand Master then rose and addressed Bro.
La Fayette as follows:
"Bro. La Fayette.
"The Freemasons of Pennsylvania welcome you to their home
with sincere and universal pleasure.
"Warmly participating in the sentiments which have every
where spontaneously burst from our fellow citizens in the lively gratitude for
the services you have rendered our Country, in admiration of your high and
various virtues, and in cordially reciprocating the attachment you have
uniformly evinced for our liberties and for our happiness, we owe in addition
the pride and sympathy of Masonic Brotherhood. Your meritorious life has,
indeed, justly illustrated our principles; and those who now surround you, feel
that like Washington, and Warren and Franklin, you have won their most
affectionate veneration, by shedding honour on their beloved fraternity. Always
contending General, in the great cause of human rights, your success has
equalled the disinterestedness and perseverance of your devotion. In America, as
the companion and friend of the wisest and best of mankind, you will ever be
regarded as one of the founders of the greatest, purest and happiest of
republics; while, in your native land it cannot he forgotten, that amidst the
storms of political revolution, and through every vicissitude of personal
fortune, you have stood an inflexible example of consistency, moderation and
firmness. These impressions common to the people of the United States, but most
dear to us, are now indelibly inscribed upon the records of history and will
pass to our latest posterity with the sanction of national unanimity. Receive
then most valued Brother, the most heartfelt benedictions of our sacred
institution; receive the homage of free and upright men, who love you as an
early benefactor and whose affection must remain as secure as your own virtues
and as permanent as your own glory.
"I have also the honour of presenting you with a Resolution
passed unanimously by the Grand Lodge during its present session constituting
you one of its members: I hope you will accept this as an additional evidence of
the high sense they entertain of your virtues and of the services you have
rendered to mankind in general and to Masonry in particular."
To which Bro. La Fayette made the following reply:
"Right Worshipful Grand Master and Brethren:--
"I have often thought that we owe as much to our enemies as
to our friends, and if this observation is true, it is most true, when applied
to us as Masons. It is to the enmity and the persecutions of a Francis the 2d
and Ferdinand the 7th that the Masons of Europe in Modern times have been
indebted for opportunities of proving through much suffering and peril, that our
principles are pure, and that their devotion to them is unchangeable. The Lodges
of Spain in particular have been the victims of Royal fears but though
dispersed, their members still are Masons, and though much oppressed, their
light has not been extinguished.
"You R. W. Sir, and Brethren, reposing under the cover of
your own peaceful institutions, hear of these things only by the report of those
who come to admire your prosperity and to share by your hospitality, the fruit
of your labours.
"I thank you for the honour you have just conferred on me,
and assure you that I shall never forget this mark of your kind distinction, by
which I am made the member of a body of which Franklin was the father and
Washington the associate."
The Brethren were now severally presented to Bro. La
Fayette, when Grand Lodge closed in harmony at half past five o'clock.
MASONIC DINNER
A sumptuous banquet prepared by Bro. Daniel Rubicam being
ready in the grand salon and adjoining banqueting room, the brethren entered in
tlle follow;ng order:
Sojourning Brethren,
Grand Tyler,
Grand Pursuivant,
Grand Stewards,
Grand Deacons,
Grand Chaplain,
"The following report was received from the Committee
appointed on the claim of William Christie for furn;ture supplied to the
Committee of arrangement
Grand Secretary, Grand Treasurer,
Grand Wardens,
Invited Guests,
Brother La Fayette, supported by the R. W. Acting G.M. and
D.G.M.P.T.
The decorations of the room were prepared under the
direction of Bro. Haviland, to whose refined taste and superior skill the
fraternity were under great obligation; the beautiful salon and banqueting room
never appeared to so great an advantage.
The brethren sat down at six o'clock in the afternoon;
feelings of hilarity, mirth and Masonic hrotherhood prevailed at the festive
board. After the removal of the cloth a number of excellent toasts were given,
followed by appropliate music from the Marine Band attached to the navy yard,
for whose services the fraternity were indebted to the politeness of Bro. I. M.
Gamble, commanding the marine corps on this station.
The company adjourned at a proper hour, much gratified with
the events of the day.
The session of the Grand Lodge was held in the Grand Lodge
Room on the second floor; the dinner was given in the large room or salon on the
east side of the lower floor; this room was not used for Masonic purposes, but
was rented out for social functions and exhibition purposes. Considerable
difflculty was experienced by the committee to get the use of this room for the
banquet, as appears from the final report of the committee presented to the
Grand Lodge at the Grand Quarterly Communication held Monday, March 5, 1827,
viz.:
for the dinner to Bro. Genl. La Fayette-in 1824, and on all
similar demands.
"On motion and seconded, the same was adopted. "To the
Grand Lodge of Penna.
"The Comme. to which was referred the accounts Or William
Christie and others, against the Committee of arrangements appointed by the
Grand Lodge on the occasion of General La Fayette's visit.
"Report,
"That it appears to the Committee that the following bills
contracted by the Committee of arrangements remain unpaid, viz.:--
"William Christie for Upholstery $151.88
Clark, for Carpentry $155.34
Myers and Jones, for Painting $40.00
Russell, Oil $4.87
Porterage and Advertising $2.85
Total $354 91
That there remains in the hands of said Committee an
unexpended balance of $88.86
Leaving a deficit of monies to amot of $266.09
which deficit this committee is of opinion is justly and
equitably chargeable upon the Grand Lodge."
To elucidate the opinion of the committee, it is proper to
recur to some of the circumstances which preceded, as well as those which
attended the reception of Genl. La Fayette. As soon as it was understood that
this illustlious Mason intended to visit the Grand Lodge a committee was
directed to devise measules worthy of the occasion and among the resolutions
reported by them was one for the arrangement of a festival of welcome. It was
proposed that the task of carrying this part of the arrangement into effect
should be confided to a special committee and that the members of the fraternity
should be generally invited; they further proposed that the price of tickets
should be fixed at seven dollars. The Grand Lodge approved of the plan which its
committee submitted, but probably not aware of the increased expenses attendannt
on all entertainments which were given at that season of general festivity, it
reduced the price of tickets to the sum of five dollars, and in part
compensation for this reduction, it determined that the grand salon should he
appropriated to the purposes of the festival.
It was not until the special committee, which was
afterwards appointed, had made the more expensive part of their arrangements,
that it was discovered that the Grand Lodge had no right to the salon without
the consent of the tenant in possession. To obtain that consent it was necessary
to pay fifty dollars to dislodge an Italian artist from the banqueting room, and
a further sum of $67.75 to procure another room for a concert which had been
announced for the evening at the salon. The sum of $117.75 was thus required to
procure accommodations which the Grand Lodge had stipulated it would furnish
gratuitously. The obligation of the Grand Lodge to reimburse this sum, if
necessary, has not been at any time questioned and needs no remarks.
The great number of the brethren who came forward as
subscribers, gratifying as the fact was to the committee, had the effect of
increasing disproportionately the expenses of the banquet. The furniture and
decorations belonging to the Grand Lodge were found altogether insufficient for
the suite of apartments which it became necessary to open. New furniture and
additional decorations were purchased by the committee and these have since been
sold by the Grand Lodge and the proceeds carried into its treasury, or they
still remain in its possession.
The committee of arrangements, while mindful that it was
their duty to welcome their patriarchal guest in a style which might become the
Lodge of which "Franklin was the founder and Washington a member," yet anxiously
avoided every application of the sinking fund to purposes not strictly within
its specified objects.
All their proceedings were characterized by as much economy
as was consistent with the occasion. All the expenses of making preliminary
arrangements were borne by themselves individually and when the moneys which
they had received were found to be inadequate, they at once, with the aid of a
few friends, applied a considerable sum of their own to meet the deficiency.
The state of their accounts, strictly audited, stands thus:
"They receive from subscribers in all $1,358.
and appropriated from the private funds exclusive of the
amt.
expended in preliminary arrangements $80.
Total $1,438.60
They paid bill amounting to $1,349.65
They yet owe $354.94 $1,704.59
Balance due from committee $266.09
"On a full view of the circumstances which have occasioned
this balance against the committee of arrangements, first, that no discretion
was permitted them in fixing the terms of subscription, the grand Lodge itself
having defined the price on views of the subject which the result has proved to
be incorrect; second, that a large portion of the balance was applied to procure
rooms, which the Grand Lodge had, from an erroneous idea of its rights, declared
should be given without cost; third, that the Grand Lodge has received a full
equivalent for the residue in the property which it has sold or still retains,
and fourth, that the doings of the committee were wisely and satisfactorily
ordered and that the deficiency has been entirely occasioned by causes over
which they had no possible control, the committee to which the accounts were
referred have agreed to present the following resolution.
"Resolved, that the R. W. G. M. be requested to draw his
order on the grand treasurer for the sum of $266.09 in favour of Br. James
McAlpin, treasurer of the La Fayette Comme. of arrangements.
"All of which is respectfully submitted.
"Philad., 5th, March, 1827." "(signed.)
"Saml. F. Bradford,
John K. Kane,
Saml. Badger,
Saml. H. Thomas."
Among other relics of Brother Lafayette, we have in our
Archives the "Golden Book of The Supreme Council for the Western Hemisphere."
This contains a copy of the patent conferring the 33d degree upon Brother
Lafayette by this Supreme Council; it also contains the following note written
and signed by Brother Lafayette, May 10, 1834, just ten days before his death,
"It is the extreme indulgence of the Supreme Council of the
United States, that elevated to the 33d degree in spite of the superiority in
knowledge and in services of many of my brothers, I owe to-day the favors, of
which I am not worthy, with which the great Council of the Occidental Hemisphere
has deigned to overwhelm me, I accept them with a deep gratitude and will seek
to merit them by my zeal. "May our ancient institution propagate everywhere the
Liberty, the Equality, the Philanthrophy, and contribute to the great movement
of social civilization which ought to emancipate the two Hemispheres.
" (signed) Lafayette."
Brother Lafayette died in Paris May 20, 1834. At an Extra
Grand Communication of the Grand Lodge held Tuesday, June 24, 1834, his decease
was announced to the Grand Lodge whereupon:
"On Motion made and seconded, The following Preamble and
Resolutions were unanimously adopted:
"Whereas, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania have learned with
the deepest emotions of sorrow, the decease of their illustrious Brother and
Member, General Lafayette, 'an individual so much distinguished by all the
virtues which ennoble the Masonic character,' and
Whereas the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania feel it a mournful
duty to pay the last tribute of their respect to the memory of a Brother, the
last Major General of the Revolutionary Army, the disciple of Washington, the
companion of Franklin, and the steadfast friend of civil and religious liberty.
"Therefore Resolved, That the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
deeply deplore the loss of their revered and beloved Brother and Member, General
Lafayette, whose labours in the cause of American Independence and of rational
liberty and ardent devotion to the Fraternity, have endeared his memory to every
Member of this venerable order.
"Resolved, That the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania sympathize
most sincerely with the amiable family of their deceased Brother, in the
irreparable bereavement they have sustained, in the death of their excellent
father.
"Resolved, That as an humble testimonial of our respect for
the memory of our deceased Brother, the Jewels, Hangings, and other Furniture of
the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, be placed in mourning for the space of twelve
months.
"Resolved, That a correct Portrait of our deceased brother
be procured, and placed in a conspicuous part of the Grand Lodge Room.
"Resolved, That Brothers George M. Dallas, Thomas Kittera,
Robert Toland, Cornelius Stevenson, and John M. Read, be a Committee to
communicate the foregoing Resolutions to the family of Brother General
Lafayette.
"Resolved, That the foregoing Preamble and Resolutions be
published in the public journals of the day." The Grand Lodge having closed,
the Fraternity proceeded to the salon where they were gratified by hearing a
very beautiful and instructive Masonic address from Bro. George M. Dallas, R. W.
Dep. Grand Master.
The Grand Lodge was again opened, when upon motion made and
seconded it was unanimously resolved:
"That the thanks of this Grand Lodge be presented to Bro.
Dallas for his truly Masonic and admirable address delivered this day and that
he be requested to furnish a copy of it for publication."
The following is an extract from the very eloquent address
delivered before the Fraternity, on this day, by Brother Geol ge M. Dallas, R.
W. Deputy Grand Master.
"I would close here, did I not feel that the commemorative
purpose of the day may for a moment, be with propriety interrupted by a
reference to the recent departure of our illustrious friend and brother, Gilbert
Motier De Lafayette. This truly good and eminently great man died suddenly, at
the Capital of his European Country, and in the bosom of his family, on the
morning of the 20th of May last, and in the seventyseventh year of his age.
"It will be recollected by some whom I address, that on the
2d of October, 1824, General Lafayette, then the Guest of a Nation to whose
service he had dedicated his early enthusiasm, fortune and blood, was, in that
chamber, invested with all the rights, dignities and privileges of a member of
this Grand Lodge 'a body,' to use his own emphatic words, 'of which Franklin was
the father and Washington the associate.'
"Both hemispheres were alike the theatre of the virtues and
exploits of this exalted Mason. In both he passed, unscathed in honour, through
the ordeal of sanguinary revolution, in both he shone the firm, faithful and
fearless champion of human liberties and rights, in both he riveted himself, by
the loftiest and the gentlest qualities, in universal respect and affection, and
in both his death is now sincerely mourned as a common calamity. In the memory,
as in the life of their joint citizen and soldier, America and France have a
lasting bond of sympathy and union. In this respect, as the moral link to
connect two distant and powerful nations in mutual good will, his position on
the records of immortality is without parallel.
"While we join in the sad and solemn rites every where
performing by our countrymen, in melancholy attestation of their deep veneration
and undying gratitude for an early and indefatigable public benefactor, we
cannot but own one added pang, though accompanied by one peculiar pride as
kindling memory suggests that he also was a Mason."
On July 21, 1834, commemorative exercises were held at Zion
Lutheran Church, southeast corner of Fourth and Cherry Streets, in which the
Grand Lodge participated.
Other mementos of Brother Lafayette in the Museum of the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, beside the Washington Apron, are the two relics of
Brother Lafayette's visit to Philadelphia in 1824.
1. A piece of candle and holder used to illuminate one of
the window panes of Independence Hall during the procession, September 28,-1824.
2. A memorial cotton handkerchief upon which is printed his
portrait, scene of his arrival at New York on the ship Cadmus, and the memorial
arcll erected in front of Independence Hall, through which General Lafayette and
the procession passed at his reception, September 28, 1824.
3. A largefull length oil portrait of Brother General
Lafayette in the upper corridor.
4. A study in oil said to be from life in the library.
5. Copy of Houdan's marble bust of Brother General
Lafayette in the Library.
6. Two silk badges worn at the funeral procession and
commemorative service of Zion Lutheran Church July 21, 1838.
7. Two engraved French portraits in Washington alcove in
museum.
8. A number of Lafayette medals in the museum collection.
9. A Lafayette Silver Dollar coined by the United States in
the year 1900. 10. Four Masonic Lodges in Pennsylvania are named after this
distinguished brother, viz.:
No. 71, Philadelphia,
No. 194, Selinsgrove,
No. 199, Lock Haven,
No. 652, Carnegie.
In conclusion to illustrate how the memory of Brother
Lafavette is honored in both Masonic and civil life in the United States, as a
matter of fact, there are no less than thirty Masonic Lodges named after Brother
Lafayette in twenty-six states in the Union.
In the United States, there are fourteen villages, eleven
towns, five counties, one parish and one city which bear the name of our honored
brother, the Marquis General Lafayette.
As above stated, it was resolved at the Extra Grand
Communication held June 24, 1834, that a correct portrait of Brother Lafayette
should be procured and placed in a conspicuous part of the Lodge room.
It appears that after this resolution was adopted, the sum
of eighty dollars ($80) was collected towards obtaining this portrait.
At the Annual Grand Communication held Monday, December 28,
1835, when Washington Hall in South Third Street above Spruce Street was
dedicated and consecrated to Masonic uses, on motion of Brother F. Cooper and
seconded, it was resolved that a committee of five be appointed to receive the
amount collected June 24, 1834, with further authority to solicit donations from
Lodges and members within this Masonic jurisdiction, and as soon as a sufficient
sum shall have been collected, to have a likeness of Lafayette painted by an
eminent artist, and to have the same put up in a conspicuous place in the Grand
Lodge Room.
The R. W. Grand Master was pleased to appoint on said
committee Bros. F. Cooper, Geo. Fox, W. Mayweg, S. Wonderly and A. Quniton.
Nothing appeared to have been done in this matter until four months later, when
the following amendment was offered at an adjourned Extra Grand Lodge held April
18, 1836.
"On motion of Bro. Geo. Fox and seconded, the Resolution
adopted on the 28th December last, relative to a Painting of Bro. Lafayette was
reconsidered and the following offered as an Amendment thereof and adopted,
viz.:--
"Resolved, that the Committee appointed on the 28th Decr.
1835, be authorized to solicit donations from Lodges and members within the
jurisdiction and when a sufficient sum shall have been Collected to procure a
full length painting of Benjamin Franklin, and a portrait of Lafayette, and have
said paintings placed in a conspicuous situation in the Grand Lodge Room."
After this the matter slumbered for six years, wllen it was
revived at the Quarterly Grand Communication held Monday, March 7, 1842, by the
following minute:
"On motion duly made and seconded, the Grand Secretary was
directed to endeavour to procure information respecting collections made for
Likeness of Benjm. Franklin and Lafayette and report at next quarterly
Communication."
No action was taken in reference to the portrait for the
next six years, when the matter was again brought to the notice of the Grand
Lodge at the Grand Quarterly Communication held Monday, March 6, 1848, by a
comrmunication on the subject from Phoenix Lodge, No. 130, viz.:
"The following was received and referred to Past Grand
Masters Bros. Newcomb, Barger and Page.
Phil., Feby. 21, 1848. To Wm. H. Adams,
Rt.W.G.Secy. of G.L. of Pa. Dr. Sir & Bro.
"The following Resolution was on motion & seconded
unanimously Adopted at a meeting of Phoenix Lodge No. 130, held at Masonic Hall
South 3rd St., Wednesday evening, February 16th, A. L. 5848.
"Resolved, That the representatives of this Lodge be
directed to call the attention of the Grand Lodge to the fact that there has
been for a number of Years in the hands of Past Grand Master Bro. Jno. M. Read,
a sum of money, raised by Subscription for the purpose of procuring a portrait
of Bros. Franklin & Lafayette, that the said Portrait has never been purc1lased
and request the Grand Lodge to appoint a Committee to examine into the matter
and ask P. G. Mastel Jno. M. Read to account for the same.
"Extract from the Minutes. "Signed. Wm. S. Schultz, "Secy.
Lodge No. 130."
This was referred to Past Grand Masters Bro. Newcomb,
Barger and Page, wllo at the Quarterly Communication September 4, 1848, made the
following report, which was received and the resolution adopted, viz.:
"To the R.W. Grand Lodge of Penna.
"The Committee appointed in relation to the money
subscribed and paid for the purpose of procuring a portrait of Lafayette and
Franklin.
"Respectfully report, That a Sum of money for that purpose
subscribed was paid into the hands of Bro. John M. Read who cannot at present
find the subscription paper containing the precise amount, but believes it to be
about Eighty Dollars which Sum he is ready to pay over as the Grand Lodge may
direct and when the amt. can be ascertained to correct the same.
"Your Committee respectfully offer the following
Resolution. Resolved, that the Grand Treasurer call upon Bro. Read & receive
from him the above mentioned Sum of Eighty Dollars.
"Phil., Sept. 4, 1848.
"Signed. B. Newcomb,
Wm. Barger,
Jas. Page, Committee."
At the Grand Quarterly Communication held March 5, 1849,
the
following was offered by Brother John Thomson, R. W. G.
Treasurer,
and adopted, viz.:
"Whereas, there is in the hands of the Grand Treasurer the
sum of Eighty dollars contributed some years since by certain members of the
Grand Lodge for the purpose of a likeness of Bro. La Fayette and as said sum is
insufficient to accomplish the object intended therefore Resolved, That the
Grand Treasurer be instructed to add from the funds of the Grand Lodge $20 to
the $80 contributed and with the sum purchase one share Masonic loan for the
purpose of furthering the object intended."
It appears that the portrait of Lafayette which was
formerly in the Grand Lodge room and now in the second story corridor of the New
Temple was not procured until after the New Chestnut Street Hall was dedicated
in 1855.
No record has been found as to who the artist was or what
was the amount paid for same.
----o----
THE NEW PATRIOTISM
Fly the flag at half-mast
For the life that has been split,
For the wealth that has been built
On the bones of men;
Fly the flag at half-mast
Till the day breaks again.
Fly the flag at half-mast
For the greed that would not die,
For the hate that scorched the sky
With envenenomed fire;
Fly the flag at half-mast
For the deeds of men’s ire.
Fly the flag at half-mast
For the love that has been slain,
For the conflict’s bloody stain
On the hopes of men;
Fly the flag at half-mast
Till the day breaks again.
- T.C. Clark
----o----
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm
and superstitution - Adam Smith.
----o----
GEORGE FRANKLIN FORT, MASONIC HISTORIAN
BY JOHN HENRY FORT, NEW JERSEY
The following biographical sketch of Brother George
Franklin Fort, author of "The Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry,"
written at our request by his brother, Mr. John Henry Fort of New Jersey, is
intended as an introduction to an article to appear in the next issue of THE
BUILDER, The Masonic Writings of George Franklin Fort, by Brother Oliver D.
Street of Alabama.
GEORGE FRANKLIN FORT was born at Absecon, Atlantic County,
New Jersey, on November 20th, 1843. His father was Rev. John Fort, a member of
the New Jersey Methodist Episcopal Conference, who entered the ministry in the
old days of the itinerancy and whose father was one of the founders of the faith
in New Jersey. George Flanklin Fort was named after his uncle, Dr. George
Franklin Fort, who was Governor of New Jersey from 1851 to 1855. In later years
the State historian accredited the uncle with the authorship of the work by
confusing the names. George F. Fort was descended from an old Norman
French-Anglo-Saxon ancestry. The original Fort, or "Le Fort," was the Captain of
the Body Guard of William the Conqueror at Hastings in 1066 and his descendents
remained in England till 1695, when Roger Fort settled at Hampton-Hanover,
afterwards New Mills and now Pemberton, Burlington County, New Jersey, upon a
plantation which has remained in the family for generations. His family settled
in New Jersey when the population was probably not over five thousand, as
against nearly two million now. The period was an epochal one in the State and
the Fort family were distinctly active in the development of the State. His
great-great grandfather on his mother's side, William Emley, was a surveyor to
the Crown and acted as Colonial Governor of New Jersey and helped to survey the
lines dividing East and West Jersey. He was quite a linguist and of
Scotch-English descent, coming from Yorkshire.
George F. Fort's family were not only very prominent in New
Jersey, in having contributed two governors to the State, both born in the old
homestead at Pemberton, but also were honored by having two Assemblymen and one
State Senator in the Legislature, and one Judge of the Supreme Court, and two of
the Court of Errors and Appeals. The family had several ministers and
physicians, all prominent, and in the Revolutionary days contributed ten members
to the Continental Army, both the Line and Militia. With an ancestry dating back
to the Vikings and in which several languages had been spoken, it is not
surprising that George F. Fort easily acquired a knowledge of and mastered
seventeen languages and dialects. He read Latin, French, Spanish and Italian
with as much ease as English, and amused himself with reading the works of noted
writers in these languages. He read and spoke German as fluently as English and
his several trips to Europe widened his knowledge and perfection. He attended
lectures at Heidleburg University and studied Anglo-Saxon and several dialects
for historical purposes. The acquiring of a language with him was a sort of
heredity and if no glossary was available he would dig out certain roots from
dictionaries and in a short time would construct a grammar and glossary and soon
be reading the language as readily as English. It was a gift.
Mr. Fort studied law with Abraham Browning of Camden, then
the leading attorney of the State and at one time Attorney General, when family
prestige and ability made the appointment instead of political influence as in
modern times. While he was successful in his practice his tastes were of a
literary character and he regularly pursued a literary course. There is no
question but that he was one of the most learned men of the century and his
knowledge was not confined to archaic research and antiquities, but was
universal. Science, belles-letters, literature, mathematics, astronomy and
ancient history, all alike claimed his attention. He was a modest and retiring
man and any attempt to draw him out or into a discussion was fruitless, but if
something happened whereby he expressed an opinion, his erudition was apparent
at once and in a few moments extemporaneously a magnificent oration was
delivered upon any subject he spoke upon. It was like a prophet speaking and
when finished evidenced the depth of learning and greatness of thought.
In early life he became prominent in Masonic circles and
with several friends and an older brother established Trimble Lodge No. 117, A.
F. & A. M., at Camden, New Jersey, his residence. The new lodge aimed at a
higher personality than the other lodges and did not meet with immediate
success. Mr. Fort in order to infuse life into the lodge of which he was first
Senior Warden and had then become Worshipful Master, inaugurated a series of
lectures and while others spoke, his great knowledge upon the antiquities of
Freemasonry attracted so much attention and comment that he was urged to pursue
his researches and write a work upon the subject, which he afterwards did, first
visiting the Libraries of Europe and many of the old Cathedrals, the British
Museum, Library at the Vatican and the Bodlein at Oxford. This work was named
the Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry. It was immediately recognized
by the literally world as the authority, and the Encyclopedia Britannica in all
succeeding editions recognized it as authoritive and quoted it on the subject of
Freemasonry. Immediately the literary men of the world began to write him for
opinions upon other Masonic subjects and this caused him to write "A Historical
Treatise on Early Builders' Marks," and a monograph entitled "Medieval
Builders." Later he wrote the Medical Economy of the Middle Ages. The latter was
written after, as associate editor of his brother's newspaper, he criticised the
statement of a prominent physician at the 100th Anniversary of the New Jersey
Medical Society "that medicine had no history beyond Galen and Hippocrates," and
a committee from the Association requested him to write a history of the ancient
cult.
Mr. Fort was a regular contributor to the several
newspapers owned by his youngest brother, John H. Fort, upon Masonic subjects.
Some of them were fugitive and others in series. They were copied in the Masonic
Journals of France, England, Australia, and the leading magazines, and often
created a learned controversy, but his knowledge of languages always enabled him
to give authoritive data. Some of the critics thought he should literally
translate his authorities, as but few could read the original. This he always
refrained from doing as he claimed the quotation was the authority. Among his
correspondents were such men as Hughan, Gould, Woodford and other Masonic
writers and antiquarians. His books were reviewed by all the great newspapers of
the world such as the New York Herald, Sun, Times, World, the London Times,
Globe, Blackwoods Magazine and Masonic Journals, the Chaine d'Union of Paris,
the Melbourne Australian, all the Philadelphia papers, especially the Ledger,
Press, Record, Bulletin, Telegraph and the Keystone. Gould, the Masonic writer,
said of him "Fort has succeeded where all others failed in making the study of
our antiquities an interesting task." Other writers said "his history of
Freemasonry is as interesting as a Romance of the Middle Ages." The Golden Age
of New York characterizes it as "a work of which members of the craft may well
be proud." The Encyclopedia Britannica says of it, "the book is instructive as
throwing light on certain phases of Middle Age life." In fact the newspaper
criticisms are all highly eulogistic and place the History as the highest
contribution to Masonic literature. All his other works were just as favorably
received by the press of the world. The criticisms are in many languages and
would fill a volume in themselves. In a scrap book of Mr. Fort's are not only
the notices of the press but letters in many languages from the literatti of the
world and most of his fugitive articles which are well worth publishing
collectively in book form. All his other works were equally as well received.
Mr. Fort has been compared to such writers as Hallam, Draper, Lecky, Macauley,
and other archaic, historic and antiquarian writers, and all refer to his
writings as showing vast erudition and research.
George F. Fort was primarily educated in the Public Schools
of New Jersey in the various towns his father was stationed at as a pastor, and
afterwards graduated from Pennington Seminary, a Methodist Institution of
learning, under the direction of the New Jersey Annual Conference. His after
studies of the various languages and literature were by his own effort and
attendance of lectures abroad and by visits to European Institutions of
Learning. Mr. Fort has given to America the credit of being the standard writer
upon Masonic and Medical histories.
Mr. Fort was a member of Trimble Lodge No. 117, A. F. & A.
M., of which he was practically the founder. He was the first Senior Warden and
Second Worshipful Master. He lived to see the lodge become the largest in
membership in New Jersey. He was a Knight Templar, belonging to Cyrene
Commandery Vale (No. 7) of Camden, Vanhook Council No. 8, Royal and Select
Masters, Siloam Chapter Royal Arch Masons, Excelsior Consistory 32nd Degree, and
all the intermediate Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite degrees. It has been stated
that he was also a 33rd Degree Mason, it having been conferred upon him in
Europe.
In December, 1877, York Lodge of England in recognition of
his great services to Freemasonry, conferred upon him Honorary Life Membership
and sent him a specially engraved certificate bearing a picture of the crypt in
York Minster where the lodge anciently met. The original certificate from York
Lodge is now in possession of Trimble Lodge No. 117 of Camden.
Mr. Fort spent a long time in Europe on different trips and
was well acquainted there in Masonic circles. He was made the Grand
Representative of the Grand Lodge of England to the Grand Lodge of New Jersey by
the then Prince of Wales, Grand Master of Masons of England, who afterwards
became the King of England as Edward VII.
George F. Fort died at the home of his nephew while on a
visit at Atlantic City, a few miles from where he was born, on March 30th, 1909.
Mr. Fort was practically a recluse the latter years of his life. His health was
poor and his literary tastes naturally caused him to avoid society. For years he
was editor of the Keystone, a Masonic Journal published in Philadelphia, and a
contributor to the America Notes and Queries and several newspapers published by
his brother John H. Fort. Some time before his death he told a friend he had
finished a History of Norse Mythology and claimed he had in the destruction of
the God Baldur by the other Mythological Norse Gods discovered the origin of the
story of Hiram Abif. He stated the work was ready for the printer but he was
holding it back as he had been unable to secure a font of Norse type and was
afraid he would have to have it cast to give the data exact. Since his death no
trace has so far been found of the manuscript. In all probability this valuable
history may be lost and the researches of a master mind for nearly a half
century gone to waste. His scrap book would be a most interesting publication if
edited by someone skilled in Masonic lore. There are many articles of rare
interest that never got beyond local readers.
Mr. Fort's works are on the shelves of most all the
prominent libraries of the world, such as the East India Library, British
Museum, Congressional Library at Washington, and Institutions of learning
everywhere, and thousands of private libraries. His own library was entirely
filled with works in foreign languages and were upon historic, antiquarian and
archaic subjects. He was at one time Judge Advocate of the Sixth Regiment
National Guard of New Jersey with rank of Captain.
----o----
FOR THE MONTHLY LODGE MEETING
CORRESPONDENCE CIRCLE BULLETIN---No. 19
DEVOTED TO ORGANIZED MASONIC STUDY
Edited by Bro. Robert I. Clegg
THE BULLETIN COURSE OF MASONIC STUDY FOR MONTHLY LODGE
MEETINGS AND STUDY CLUBS
FOUNDATION OF THE COURSE
THE Course of Study has for its foundation two sources of
Masonic information: THE BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia. In another paragraph
is explained how the references to former issues of THE BUILDER and to Mackey's
Encyclopedia may be worked up as supplemental papers to exactly fit into each
installment of the Course with the paper by Brother Clegg.
MAIN OUTLINE
The Course is divided into five principal divisions which
are in turn subdivided, as is shown below:
Division I. Ceremonial Masonry. A. The Work of a Lodge. B.
The Lodge and the Candidate. C. First Steps. D. Second Steps. E. Third Steps.
Division II. Symbolical Masonry.
A. Clothing. B. Working Tools. C. Furniture. D.
Architecture. E. Geometry. F. Signs. G. Words. H. Grips.
Division III. Philosophical Masonry. A. Foundations. B.
Virtues. C. Ethics. D. Religious Aspect. E. The Quest. F. Mysticism. G. The
Secret Doctrine.
Division IV. Legislative Masonry. A. The Grand Lodge. 1.
Ancient Constitutions. 2. Codes of Law. 3. Grand Lodge Practices. 4.
Relationship to Constituent Lodges. 5. Official Duties and Prerogatives. B. The
Constituent Lodge. 1. Organization. 2. Qualifications of Candidates. 3.
Initiation, Passing and Raising. 4. Visitation. 5. Change of Membership.
Division V. Historical Masonry. A. The Mysteries--Earliest
Masonic Light. B. Studies of Rites--Masonry in the Making. C. Contributions to
Lodge Characteristics. D. National Masonry. E. Parallel Peculiarities in Lodge
Study. F. Feminine Masonry. G. Masonic Alphabets. H. Historical Manuscripts of
the Craft. I. Biographical Masonry. J. Philological Masonry--Study of
Significant Words.
THE MONTHLY INSTALLMENTS
Each month we are presenting a paper written by Brother
Clegg, who is following the foregoing outline. We are now in "First Steps" of
Ceremonial Masonry. There will be twelve monthly papers under this particular
subdivision. On page two, preceding each installment, will be given a number of
"Helpful Hints" and a list of questions to be used by the chairman of the
Committee during the study period which will bring out every point touched upon
in the paper.
Whenever possible we shall reprint in the Correspondence
Circle Bulletin articles from other sources which have a direct bearing upon the
particular subject covered by Brother Clegg in his monthly paper. These articles
should be used as supplemental papers in addition to those prepared by the
members from the monthly list of references. Much valuable material that would
otherwise possibly never come to the attention of many of our members will thus
be presented.
The monthly installments of the Course appearing in the
Correspondence Circle Bulletin should be used one month later than their
appearance. If this is done the Committee will have opportunity to arrange their
programs several weeks in advance of the meetings and the Brethren who are
members of the National Masonic Research Society will be better enabled to enter
into the discussions after they have read over and studied the installment in
THE BUILDER.
REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS
Immediately preceding each of Brother Clegg's monthly
papers in the Correspondence Circle Bulletin will be found a list of references
to THE BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia. These references are pertinent to the
paper and will either enlarge upon many of the points touched upon or bring out
new points for reading and discussion. They should be assigned by the Committee
to different Brethren who may compile papers of their own from the material thus
to be found, or in many instances the articles themselves or extracts therefrom
may be read directly from the originals. The latter method may be followed when
the members may not feel able to compile original papers, or when the original
may be deemed appropriate without any alterations or additions.
HOW TO ORGANIZE FOR AND CONDUCT THE STUDY MEETINGS
The Lodge should select a "Research Committee" preferably
of three "live" members. The study meetings should be held once a month, either
at a special meeting of the Lodge called for the purpose, or at a regular
meeting at which no business (except the Lodge routine) should be
transacted--all possible time to be given to the study period.
After the Lodge has been opened and all routine business
disposed of, the Master should turn the Lodge over to the Chairman of the
Research Committee. This Committee should be fully prepared in advance on the
subject for the evening. All members to whom references for supplemental papers
have been assigned should be prepared with their papers and should also have a
comprehensive grasp of Brother Clegg's paper.
PROGRAM FOR STUDY MEETINGS
1. Reading of the first section of Brother Clegg's paper
and the supplemental papers thereto.
(Suggestion: While these papers are being read the members
of the Lodge should make notes of any points they may wish to discuss or inquire
into when the discussion is opened. Tabs or slips of paper similar to those used
in elections should be distributed among the members for this purpose at the
opening of the study period.)
2. Discussion of the above.
3. The subsequent sections of Brother Clegg's paper and the
supplemental papers should then be taken up, one at a time, and disposed of in
the same manner.
4. Question Box.
MAKE THE "QUESTION BOX" THE FEATURE OF YOUR MEETINGS
Invite questions from any and all Brethren present. Let
them understand that these meetings are for their particular benefit and get
them into the habit of asking all the questions they may think of. Every one of
the papers read will suggest questions as to facts and meanings which may not
perhaps be actually covered at all in the paper. If at the time these questions
are propounded no one can answer them, SEND THEM IN TO US. All the reference
material we have will be gone through in an endeavor to supply a satisfactory
answer. In fact we are prepared to make special research when called upon, and
will usually be able to give answers within a day or two. Please remember, too,
that the great Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa is only a few miles away, and,
by order of the Trustees of the Grand Lodge, the Grand Secretary places it at
our disposal on any query raised by any member of the Society.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The foregoing information should enable local Committees to
conduct their Lodge study meetings with success. However we shall welcome all
inquiries and communications from interested Brethren concerning any phase of
the plan that is not entirely clear to them, and the services of our Study Club
Department are at the command of our members, Lodge and Study Club Committees at
all times.
QUESTIONS ON "THE OBLIGATION" I Define the word
"obligation." Have oaths and obligations been in universal practice ? Why ? Can
you name oaths administered outside the Fraternity with which the Masonic
obligation may be compared? Are the marriage oath, the President's oath, etc.,
such forms ? Why is a religious sanction thrown about an oath ? Does the taking
of an obligation imply that the candidate cannot be trusted? Does it make his
obligation or does it define it? What does Tyler say about the universality of
oaths ? How do Philo and Cicero define an oath ? Can you give a better
definition of an obligation than any herewith offered? If so, will you send it
in to the Society ?
II What does Gould believe to have been the original of the
Masonic oath ? Why was the oath taken by the freemen adopted into the forms of
the Masonic lodge? Do we see today any institutions copying the forms of oaths
employed by some other institution ? Name them. Were the earliest Masonic
obligations short or long? How did the obligation evolve into such length? Is
this legitimate? Have any other parts of the ceremonies evolved similarly? Are
Masonic ceremonies still changing and growing? If so, why? If not, why not? What
was the substance of the earliest obligations? Why were the building secrets so
jealously guarded? How did these secrets come to be public property ? What
effect did such publicity have upon the Freemasons?
III What is the whole point of the present obligation? Have
we any trade secrets ? If you believe that a simpler, more effective obligation
might be written, will you offer one? Why should Masonic secrets be still so
jealously guarded? What is the function of secrecy in Masonry? Does friendship
have its secrets? Business? Diplomacy? What would happen to the Fraternity if it
should abandon its policy of secrecy ? Does secrecy attract men to it? Why?
IV What is the meaning of "due form"? Whence came the term
? What is the difference between form and formality ? When two friends meet do
they shake hands in "due form"? Does the form in which the obligation is given
add to its dignity and impressiveness ? Do you permit any flippancy in your own
lodge's ceremony of initiation ? Why not ?
V Why are the penalties kept so secret? How much can you
talk about Masonry without violating your obligation to secrecy? Did the
earliest obligations have any penalties attached ? If not why not? What is the "Harleian
Manuscript" ? What is meant by "Old Charges"? Why did the Semites fear drowning
so? What do Old Testament writers seem to feel concerning the sea ? When the
sailors cast Jonah overboard did they suppose they were putting him out of reach
of the God he had offended ? Would you as soon be buried in the sea as on the
land? What is meant by "consecrated ground" ? What churches still bury their
dead in consecrated ground? Why? Does the custom of setting apart a special
tract of ground for burial add dignity to the thought of death? Would you as
soon think yourself dead as lying in the sea as lying in a grave ? Who added the
present penalties to our obligations? When? What hint do you get from Brother
Clegg's suggestions? Why have anti-Masons so rabidly attacked the obligation? Is
a man scared by penalties which he knows will never be inflicted? Who was John
Quincy Adams ? Why did he fight the Fraternity? Do you agree with what Brother
MacBride says about the obligation? If not, why not ? If you do, why ? Is there
any way in which the obligation could be recast ? Who would have the authority
to do so ? Would it be of any advantage to have a General Grand Lodge of America
to take care of such matters ?
VI Why is the cable tow removed when it is? What does it
signify ? Is the obligation an appeal to a man's sense of honor ? Or is it a
slam against his sense of honor? Does the wedding oath add to or detract from
the stability and dignity of marriage? If marriages were left to private wills
could the law have any control over them ? How could Masonic law be brought to
bear upon a man who had never taken an obligation ? What is the real "Masonic
Tie" ? Does that tie draw you to other Masons ? Does it ever restrain you from
doing a wrong to a brother Mason ? Why ?
SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES
Mackey's Encyclopedia: Oath, p. 622; Oath, Corporal, p.
524; Oath of the Gild, p. 624. Obligation, p. 525. THE BUILDER: Vol. I.--Oath,
The Freeman's, p. 237. Obligations not political, p. 88. Vol. II.--Oaths, p.
272; Dec. C. C. B. 2; Cor. 190; Q. B. 94, 348 Obligations, Q. B. 348. Vol.
III.--Oaths, p. 345; Jan. C. C. B. 2; Apr. C. C. B. 1; June C. C. B. 2- Penalty
of Violation, p. 36. Obligations, p. 334; Dec. C. C. B. 4 Vol. IV.--A Hint as to
Penalties, p. 178; this issue.
FIRST STEPS BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA
PART VII--THE OBLIGATION I THE word "obligation" means,
according to its derivation, a "binding to." It is more than an oath and more
than a vow, for it combines both, and it has been used, in one form or another,
ever since the earliest times. Cicero defined it as "an affirmation under the
sanction of religion," while Philo called it "the most sure symbol of good
faith." Some obligations have had penalties attached, others have not.
Obligations have been in such universal practice that J.E. Tyler was justified
in saying that "through all the diversified stages of society--from the lowest
barbarism to the highest cultivation of civilized life--where the true religion
has been professed, no less than where paganism has retained its hold, recourse
has been had to oaths as affording the nearest approximation to certainty in
evidence, and the surest pledge of the performance of a promise." This last
phrase furnishes us with a good working definition of an obligation; it is the
solemn pledge to perform a promise.
II In old England, when Masonry was still purely operative,
obligations were in use in all sections of society, but the most solemn of all
was the obligation which a free man took to remain faithful to the king; that
oath ran as follows: "You shall be true and faithful to our Sovereign Lord the
King." Brother R. F. Gould is of the opinion that this oath was the original of
the Masonic obligation because the earliest obligations found in the Old Charges
are very similar to it.
However that may be, we are certain that the first
obligations were short and simple for this is proved from the written records.
This does not mean that later forms have any less validity, because, as the
Institution grew in numbers and power, new duties would arise, new conditions
would have to be met, and the candidate would be required to obligate himself
accordingly. If the Fraternity were now to be called upon to perform some new
duty to the world it could lawfully require of each candidate a pledge to do his
share therein. The Masonic obligation has evolved in the past; it may continue
to evolve in the future.
There has been much controversy among our authorities as to
the substance of the earliest Masonic obligations; they have not yet arrived at
unanimity but it is safe to say that a majority of them agree that they had to
do chiefly with building secrets. At a time when architectural methods were the
chief stock in trade of the Institution, when it made its living by the practice
of them, and before handbooks of architecture were dreamed of, it seems
reasonable to suppose that the candidate would have been chiefly called upon to
keep these invaluable secrets to himself.
III But when the Institution was transformed from a craft
of Masons doing operative work into a Fraternity of Masons banded together for
speculative work, it was necessary to change the substance of the obligation.
Trade secrets had become public property; any man could find them in printed
manuals. Moreover, building came to be done by men outside the Fraternity, and
it was no longer a matter of life and death to preserve building secrets.
Accordingly, the obligation has changed in substance. At the present time it has
no other purpose than to bind the candidate to absolute secrecy as to what goes
on inside the lodge and what is done during the ceremonies of initiation. Some
Masonic leaders believe that if the obligations were recast so as to oblige the
candidate to nothing except the vow of secrecy that the ceremony would gain in
reality and impressiveness. On that every Mason is entitled to hold his own
opinion.
IV How much importance the Fraternity attaches to the
obligation itself is shown by the elaborate precautions which are thrown about
it and by the careful method whereby the candidate is put in position to take
it. "Due form" simply means that he is in a posture which is a fitting form in
which to make such a vow; the term itself is of comparatively recent American
origin but the ceremony represented by it is probably as old as the Craft
itself. One touch of flippancy or carelessness in giving or in taking the
obligation would rob it of much of its impressiveness.
V Veils must be thrown about the penalties of the
obligation for there is nothing in all the ceremonies more secret than these;
nevertheless it may be possible to say a word or two concerning them without
violation of our own oath of secrecy.
It is certain that the earliest obligations had no
penalties attached to them at all, as is evidenced by the following specimen,
which has been taken from the Harleian Manuscript No. 2054, dating from the
seventeenth century:
"There are several words and signs of a Freemason to be
revealed to you which as you will answer before God at the great and terrible
day of Judgment, you keep secret and not reveal the same to any in the hearing
of any person but to the Masters and Fellows of the said society of Freemasons.
So help me God." (Spelling modernized.)
There is in possession of the Grand Lodge Library of Iowa a
very old ritual in which the obligation has no penalties at all.
Among many ancient peoples (more especially the Semites) it
was believed that death in the sea was a fate too terrible to be contemplated
because it was supposed that those lying on the floor of the sea would never
rise on the Resurrection Day. The land belonged to God; the sea to some alien
deity; it was feared that this alien deity would refuse to surrender up his
dead. To perish in the sea was the most awful of fates.
During medieval times it was universally believed that only
those would be raised to a happy future life who had been buried in consecrated
ground. The criminal burned at the stake, the felon drowned in the sea, the
suicide buried at the cross-roads with a stake through his breast--it was feared
that these would have no part in the Resurrection.
When and by whom the present penalties were attached to the
Masonic obligation remains a mystery, albeit many suggestions have been offered
which throw some light on the matter. One of the most valuable of these hints is
that offered by Brother Robert I. Clegg, who says:
"Death by slow drowning was once by legal authority
established as a proper punishment. . . Consider the following: In the curious
ordinances of Henry VI for the proper conduct of the Court of Admiralty of the
Humber, are enumerated various offenses of a maritime connection and their due
punishment. To adhere closely to the character of the Court, and be within
proper jurisdiction of the Admiralty, the punishments were generally inflicted
at low water-mark." This court, he continues, being composed of "Masters,
merchants and marines, with all others that do enjoy the King's stream with
hook, net or any engine," was addressed, when assembled, as follows:
"'You, Masters of the Quest, if you or any of you discover
or disclose anything of the King's secret counsel or of the counsel of your
fellows (for the present you are admitted to be the King's counsellors) you are
to be, and shall be, had down to the low water-mark, where must be made three
times, 'O Yes !' for the King, and then and there this punishment, by the law
prescribed, shall be inflicted upon them; that is, their hands and feet bound,
their throats cut, their tongues pulled out and their bodies thrown into the
sea.' "
The penalties, it need not be said, have ever been one of
the chief points attacked by the enemies of the Fraternity. Thus, while leading
the rabid attack on Freemasonry which disfigured the early half of the last
century, John Quincy Adams said that "the whole case between Masonry and
anti-Masonry, now on trial before the tribunal of public opinion, is consecrated
in a single act," and that act, he goes on to explain, is the obligation, more
especially its penalties.
Masons have no need to feel ashamed of any part of their
ceremonies, least of all the obligations; yet it may be said, within certain
reserves, that if the present penalties, with their obsolete language and their
impossible punishments, were to be revised, and brought into harmony with modern
ideas and usages, the initiatory ceremony would gain in simplicity and
convincingness. Brother MacBride has said a weighty word on this matter which I
am glad to re-publish, especially since the utterance of such a scholar and
authority would have much more weight than any word of ours:
"It seems to us, with these obligations before us, there is
only one course open to all Masons desiring the welfare of our ancient
Institution, and that is to insist that a simpler, more sensible, and
consequently, more solemn and binding form shall be substituted, wherever the
corrupt form now prevails. The latter has neither the sanction of age, or law,
nor of good taste."
IV The removal of the cable tow after the administering of
the obligation is a most significant act; it means that heretofore the candidate
has been bound to the lodge by means of physical force and that hereafter he is
bound by the invisible cord of his own honor. The removal of the cable tow,
therefore, does not mean that he is less bound; it means that his tie henceforth
is one that can never be removed or broken because it is in the heart. Before
the obligation the candidate is held by compulsion; afterwards it is the Mystic
Tie which binds him to his fellows with bonds unbreakable.
NOTICE TO STUDY COMMITTEES
Owing to the fact that Masonic work of all kinds is
generally dispensed with during the months of July and August we are
discontinuing the Correspondence Circle Bulletin section of THE BUILDER after
this issue and shall resume its publication with the issue for September. By so
doing we shall not get ahead of the lodges and study clubs using these
installments.
----o----
THE DREAMLAND OF YOUTH
BY BRO. A. W. ARMSTRONG
Our days are passing by;
Their sandaled tread falls heedless on the ear,
Yet here and there some landmarks do appear
To catch the casual eye.
Life looks so bright and fair
To young hearts in its amaranthine bowers;
A summer day with birds and bees and flowers,
And sunshine everywhere.
The streamlet in the vale,
Whose dewey lips caress the lily's cheek,
Seems in soft cadences to speak,
Soothing the wind's low wail.
The pale white cloud that smiles
Along its pathway in the upper deeps,
Is but a fairie barque within which sleeps
Some queen of heavenly isles.
Night holds her grand levee,
And sends us messages upon the dew;
The stars that glisten in the vault of blue,
Sweet angel-eyes may be.
O! brilliant youthful dreams!
O! world of beauty to unpracticed eyes!
Thou art more lovely than the starlit skies,
With all their silvery beams.
Let Hope still linger bright
Amidst the tempest on life's stormy sea;
Our boat shall weigh its anchor soon, and we
Bid last adieu to Night.
----o----
MEMORIALS TO GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS
BY BRO. FREDERICK W. EIART, OHIO
JAMES A. GARFIELD
OUR late Brother and
President, James A. Garfield, was a man whom the Masonic Fraternity ever held in
profound esteem and regard - for he was ever a worthy and loyal member and
seriously accepted the suggestion that he, as a "just and upright" Craftsman,
should "ever walk and act as such." His history and record is as an open book
and needs no repetition here, except as to his record as a Mason which will he
of special interest to the Craft.
James A. Garfield was
in training as a soldier of the Union Army in Camp Chase, just west of Columbus,
Ohio, when he first crossed the tiled threshold. On November 29th, 1861, his
thirtieth birthday, he was initiated an Entered Apprentice and on December 3rd
was passed to the degree of a Fellowcraft, in Magnolia Lodge No. 20, at
Columbus, Ohio. He immediately left for the front and went through the Civil War
as a Fellowcraft.
This Fellowcraft had
wrought so valiantly in the military service that he returned as a Major General
of Volunteers, and with a splendid record as a soldier. General Garfield was
raised to the Master's degree on Nov. 22nd, 1864, in Columbus Lodge No. 30,
Columbus, Ohio, at the request of Magnolia Lodge.
In 1865 Brother
Garfield dimitted from his mother lodge and affiliated with Garrettsville Lodge
No. 246, at Garrettsville, Ohio, which was near his home and work at Hiram
College, four miles distant. In 1868-69 he served as Chaplain of this lodge. On
May 4, 1869, he became a charter member of Pentalpha Lodge No. 23, at
Washington, D.C., of which lodge he remained a member until his death.
During the year 1866
Garfield received the Capitular and Chivalric degrees in Washington, becoming a
member of Columbia Chapter No. 15, R.A.M., (now No. 7), and of Columbia
Commandery No. 2, K. T., in the Capital City. In 1871 he received the degrees of
Select Architect and Most Excellent Architect and received the fourth and fifth
degrees of the Scottish Rite in Mithras Lodge of Perfection, and the fourteenth
degree on January 2nd, 1872, the intervening degrees having been communicated to
him during the year 1871 by a no less distinguished and competent instructor
than Brother Albert Pike, then Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Masonic
Jurisdiction, A. and A. S. R., at Washington.
Brother Garfield was
buried in September, 1881, with Masonic honors, with an escort of Knights
Templar. The Craft laid the cornerstone of his memorial at Cleveland and
contributed largely to its construction and maintenance. Soon after his death
steps were taken to erect a suitable memorial which should also be his tomb, and
a Memorial Association was appointed consisting of the following distinguished
citizens: Governor Foster, ex-President Hayes, Hon. J. H. Wade, Senator H. B.
Payne, Joseph Perkins, T. P. Handy, Daniel P. Eels, W. S. Streator, J. H.
Devereaux, Selah Chamberlain, John D. Rockefeller, H. B. Perkins, Hon. John Hay
and J. H. Rhodes. This Association finally chose the design for the memorial,
after a competitive contest of designs, selecting the design submitted by Mr.
George Keller, of Hartford, Connecticut. Excavation for the foundation was begun
in 1885 and the structure was dedicated with much ceremony on Decoration Day,
May 30,1890. Knights Templars were much in evidence on that occasion, as the
writer well remembers, and the paraders were drenched with rain on their return
from the dedication exercises.
The memorial to
Garfield, when completed, cost approximately $225,000, and stands on a high
terrace in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio, a city where many of Garfield's
interests settled and near to his birthplace and his Mentor home. The memorial
is of stone, rising 180 feet above the ground and its base is 200 feet above the
level of Lake Erie. From its tower there may be obtained a beautiful panoramic
view of the city, and of the lake which it faces.
A volume could be
written describing the many features of the beautiful memorial. It is composed
of a pointed tower, 180 feet high fronted by a square "porch," very much
resembling a triumphal arch of ancient Rome. The break between the porch and the
main tower is neutralized by the presence of two smaller, shorter towers which
contain stairways. The porch is decorated with a series of five friezes in high
relief representing events in the life of the man. One of these friezes contains
that which probably no other national memorial contains, a Masonic picture - a
Knight Templar in uniform.
The first frieze at
the left in the view shows Garfield as a country school-teacher; the second
shows him bearing dispatches under fire, to General Thomas at Chickamaugua; the
third, the central one over the entrance, shows him as an orator addressing a
crowd of his fellow-citizens, while the fourth pictures him as taking the oath
of office as President of the Republic and contains, besides the President, a
number of portraits that are now historic but strangely omits the beloved mother
of Garfield, who sat near and received his kiss after he had "kissed the book."
The fifth frieze is an ideal representation of the dead President lying in state
and is of peculiar interest. The photograph herewith shown indicates the stream
of men and women, boys and girls, who viewed the remains of the martyred
President and the very styles of men's and women's dress are preserved for our
study. The stream of hushed people passes on, a young boy with his mother looks
back at the bier, a sailor looks down into the face of his late
Commander-in-Chief, and the mother lifts her babe to see the dead President.
Then come an aged man and a young man, others tarry in front of the bier, and in
the line is a colored man - perhaps a former slave. A girl adds another wreath
to the heap beside the bier, and two soldiers in the full dress uniform of the
Eighties, with spiked helmets and fixed, angular bayonets, stand guard over the
remains. At the left of one soldier stands a Knight Templar at parade rest, in
chapeau, baldric and gauntlets - a tribute to the Masonic character of the dead
President. The Sir Knight is a sturdy specimen with features like that of
General John A. Logan, and the artist's idea of a Capitular Mason is worthy of
study. There is no mean style of man delineated here.
This is probably the
only monument or memorial of national character in all America that bears a
Masonic figure or picture, and yet none can doubt the fitness and
appropriateness of it, for the man here entombed and commemorated was a lover of
Masonry and it had a large part in his life - a worthy part. And KnightsTemplar
guarded his remains.
Within the memorial is
a gorgeous "shrine" inlaid with stucco-mosaic work in gold and colors, with
another line of symbolic friezes, and memorial windows or panels for fourteen
States, (the original thirteen, and Ohio), as well as panels representing "War"
and "Peace," in both of which Garfield was distinguished. The rotunda is
brilliant with mosaics and in the center of the shrine stands a life-size marble
statue of the President rising from his chair to make an address. Alexander
Doyle, a native of Ohio, was the sculptor of this meritorius marble portrait.
Beneath the statue, in
a crypt, is the casket of Garfield, and visitors may approach and view it. Here
lie the remains of our Brother, stricken down in the discharge of his duty - and
here many people visit and silently learn the lesson of memento mori,
"remembering our dead."
Large and small
amounts for the erection of the memorial were contributed from citizens all over
our land. About $89,000 of the total amount was given by Ohioans and $75,000 of
this was contributed by citizens of Cleveland. The Ohio Knights Templar
contributed $4,328.91. Cleveland people have contributed much more than is shown
by the figures, in care and landscape effects, and probably in many
contributions that were never listed; for Cleveland loved and loves Garfield. He
was their friend and neighbor and loved the city as if it were his home town.
Banks, parks and streets are named for him in this city.
No attempt has been
made in this article to do justice to the many beautiful details of the Garfield
memorial in stone, mosaic, stained glass and surrounding landscape. Such details
would fill a volume and would make memorable a personal visit.
The relatives of
Garfield have no knowledge of any existing Masonic relics and there are no
relics of any sort exhibited in the memorial. Acknowledgment for valuable data
in connection with Brother Garfield and the memorial are due Mr. A. N. Stowell,
the genial custodian of the memorial, and also Brothers R. I. Clegg, of
Cleveland, and George N. Cole, of New York, the latter a personal friend of our
late Brother Garfield.
----o----
IN THE GOOD OLD TOWN
Now and then we walk old streets
In the good old town -
Footbeats - heartbeats -
Passing up and down.
Though we wander far away
We go making merry play,
We go making holiday,
In the good old town.
Now and then we meet old friends
In the good old town -
Old friends - good friends -
Walking up and down.
Tho those friends are sleeping now
Time has turned them with his plow,
Still we meet them anyhow
In the good old town.
There are many memories
In the good old town -
Night thoughts - long thoughts -
Passing up and down.
In our wider world concerns
Nothing new the spirit learns,
Every hour of freedom turns
To the good old town.
Take me back when I am done
To the good old town -
Life done - work done -
Let me settle down;
And I know when you are free,
Then, I know, wherever you be,
You will come and walk with me
In the good old town.
- Douglas Mallock.
----o----
WHAT A FELLOW CRAFT OUGHT TO KNOW
BY BRO. HAL RIVIERE, GEORGIA
AS we look about this world in which we live and consider
the various forms of life with which we are familiar, we find a sameness in the
general plan that would be monotonous if it were not so beautiful in the
infinite variety of the details. The life of a world, the life of a race, of a
nation, a man, an animal, a flower, an insect--each of these goes through the
same relative processes, a progress from beginning to end and as they pass
beyond it seems likely that those processes are repeated. First there is the
period of preparation, then the birth, the growth, the fruiting time, the
decline and finally the dissolution.
For countless ages a fragment clings to its sun--a world in
preparation; eventually it is thrown whirling into space to begin a separate
existence--the birth of a world; the gases solidify, land and water appear--the
period of development; vegetable and animal life are brought forth, the period
of fruitfulness; then come the decline and dissolution.
A tiny seed lies in the ground; it bursts and the sprout
makes its way to the top of the soil and a plant is born; it grows and
flowering, sheds a sweetness abroad and perhaps gives useful fruit; but its work
done, it too, fades and dies. Whence came the plant and whither has it gone ? It
knows not, nor cares.
From a tiny egg in the waxen cell within the hive a larva
is hatched, passes through the various stages of development until eventually
the bee comes forth to perform its amazing, complicated series of duties;
finally, with flayed wings worn out in gathering the nectar from a myriad of
blossoms, it crawls away to die alone. Whence came the bee and whither has it
gone? It knows not, nor cares.
After a suitable period of preparation a babe is born,
grows to manhood, does his work whether of good or ill, declines and dies.
Whence came the man and whither has he gone? Man knows not, but cares and the
question that he has ever asked himself from the time when the first gleams of
intelligence were developed in him is, "whence come you ?" and later, "whither
are you traveling?" Perhaps the first question a child will ask upon seeing a
new born infant is, "where did he come from?" Later, as he comes to realize the
meaning of death he will ask, "where do the dead go?" For there is in mankind a
feeling that death does not end it all and he has ever refused to concede to
death the victory, feeling rather that human life is a preparation for a greater
life to come beyond the grave.
Two stages of human life have ever been awe inspiring,
Infancy and Old Age; the infant, a candidate for the mysteries of this world,
and the old man, a candidate for the mysteries beyond the grave. Whence comes
the infant, from the everywhere, or nowhere? Who can stand beside the cradle of
a babe only a few days old and see it smile in its sleep, without feeling that
it has had an experience? It has no consciousness of the present world; then
whence its smile? Can there be still memories of the everywhere it has left
before the experience of this world crowd them out? What possibilities lie
before it during the few years it is to spend in this life! Who knows the
consequences that may hang upon the use it makes of the opportunities of human
existence! And so it is that Old Age also, facing the end of human existence,
facing a journey into undiscovered countries, fills the contemplative mind with
serious thoughts. If there be sleeping and dreaming in that undiscovered country
from whose bourne no traveler returns, will the dreams that shall come to him
newly born to the heavenly life, cause sweet smiles to play across his radiant
face and bear witness to the beauty and happiness of a useful mortal life ?
It is only by realizing that human life is a preparation
for a greater life beyond, that he has lived before and shall live again after
death ends mortal existence, it is only by so realizing that one can understand
the significance of Freemasonry because it is an epitome of human life and each
degree teaches the duties of certain stages of life using the customs of the
Ancient Operative Masons as a foundation and teaching great moral and
intellectual lessons by means of allegories and symbols.
When we speak of our Ancient Operative brethren we allude
to those men who composed the lodges of stone masons who built the cathedrals,
abbeys, temples and national and civic edifices prior to the seventeenth
century. But those men were not merely stone masons; their leaders were
architects and master builders and possessed that secret knowledge of the
building arts which they guarded among themselves and taught only to those
proven worthy.
Operative Masons have plied their art in the building of
many famous structures from the dawn of civilization in Egypt and we have
records of many distinguished Master builders; The first architect to erect a
building of stone was Imhotep the Wise, who completed his initial work about the
year 3000 B.C. A few years later, in 2900 B.C., the architects of King Khufu
built the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, an undertaking which demonstrates upon the
part of those men, a knowledge of arithmetic, geometry and astronomy marvelous
to contemplate.
Egypt became the fountain head of knowledge and as the
secrets of the builders' arts were jealously guarded by those learned in
architecture and the correlated arts and sciences, men of other nations
journeyed thither to be initiated into the mysteries. Those found worthy were so
initiated, spread abroad to ply their trade and became the teachers and builders
of other nations. Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Crete and later Greece and
Rome, felt the influence of Egyptian civilization.
Next to the Pyramids, the most famous structure of ancient
times was the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. This was built by men of Phoenicia
headed by Hiram the Architect whom Hiram, King of Tyre, sent to supervise the
work for his friend and ally, Solomon, King of Israel.
It is comparatively easy to trace the progress of the Art
of Architecture from that day until modern times. In company with that progress
went oathbound secret societies guarding the knowledge of the builders' arts and
today we find Speculative Masonry as the direct descendant of those old secret
societies of builders. The knowledge of Architecture once so closely guarded in
oath-bound fraternities has become the common property of all who care to learn
it. Lodges of Operative Masons have ceased to exist but Speculative Masonry has
attached a symbolic meaning to the various working tools and to many words,
terms and expressions used by the Ancient brethren.
As the lessons of Speculative Masonry are taught so largely
in terms of the practices of the Ancient Operative Masons a few words as to
their customs will make it easier to draw a parallel between those practices and
the ceremonies of this degree.
In ancient times, when a person desired to become a Mason
he made application to some Master who, if he was pleased with the applicant's
appearance, took him on trial. The trial satisfactory, he was formally Entered
as an Apprentice, that being his Masonic birth. Entered Apprentices were
required to serve for seven years, that being a period of growth or development
and during that time they learned the fundamental principles of the Craft;
obedience, sobriety, truthfulness, industry and consideration for and charity
toward the brethren; they learned to adjust themselves to their surroundings and
to work in harmony with those about them, meanwhile catching a vision of the
seriousness of life and the beauty and dignity of their calling. Each was
expected to become fixed in the habits of right living, skillful in the handling
of his tools, familiar with the labors of a stone mason and ambitious to
advance. The time of apprenticeship drawing to a close he worked upon and
perfected a masterpiece as an evidence of his skill, which he carried before the
Annual Assembly where he was required to stand an examination to demonstrate to
his superiors his ability and his worth; upon the result of the examination
depended his advancement.
In our time, my brother, Free and Accepted Masons carry out
many of the ancient customs. You were initiated as an Entered Apprentice, served
a suitable time as such, passed a satisfactory examination before the lodge,
were elected to advance and have been passed to the degree of Fellow Craft. But
I wonder if during the days of your apprenticeship, you became proficient in the
use of the working tools of an Entered Apprentice. You remember that they are
the twenty four inch gauge, or rule, and the gavel, or mallet.
Our Ancient Operative brethren used the gauge to measure or
lay out their work. You, my brother, should use your mind or reason to measure
your work as you labor in the building of a beautiful character. During your
apprenticeship have you used your reason to measure yourself, your conduct, your
usefulness, your capacity for service? Do you measure up to the high standard of
upright moral and Masonic manhood? We are not enough in the habit of so
measuring ourselves but it is only by so doing that we can keep our characters
straight.
But it is not enough for one to measure himself; a man may
measure and measure yet accomplish nothing.
Shakespeare says "Sure, he that made us with such large
discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and Godlike
reason to fust in us unused." That is the great point--to use our faculties. As
our Ancient Operative brethren used the gavel to knock off the corners of rough
stones, so we are to use our will power to divest ourselves of the vices and
imperfections of our characters. Have you so used your will power? Is there any
fault, any imperfection, any vice that you have resolved to forsake since you
became a laborer among us? Remember,
"You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its
false content In that poor word environment, But spirit scorns it and is free.
"It masters time, it conquers space, It cowes that boastful
trickster, chance, And bids the tyrant circumstance Uncrown and fill a
servant's place.
"The human will, that force unseen, The offspring of a
deathless soul, Can hew a way to any goal Though walls of granite intervene.
"Be not impatient at delay But wait as one who
understands, When spirit rises and commands, The gods are ready to obey."
My brother, it is a deplorable fact that this beautiful
Fellow Craft degree is neither understood nor appreciated by the vast majority
of Masons. Its purpose is not discerned and there seems to be no connection
between it and the other two degrees of the Blue Lodge. In reality, the three
degrees of Freemasonry form a beautiful system and the Fellow Craft is the only
logical connecting link between the other two; but it is only when a view of the
whole is taken that one comes to see the necessary place in the scheme that each
degree occupies. We must bear in mind that Masonic Light is the object of a
Mason's search and that Masonic Light is a symbol for Truth; we must know that
in trying to answer the question of his origin and destiny man has come to
realize that there are certain laws that govern him. These he has specified as
Divine Truth and it is to know and to bring himself into conscious harmony with
them that he labors.
One of our beautiful charges opens with these words: "The
ways of Virtue are beautiful; Knowledge is attained by degrees; Wisdom dwells
with contemplation; there must we seek her." In those words we have expressed
the degree plan of Freemasonry. Man has found that in striving to attain Divine
Truth a foundation of good habits is necessary--a training in the ways of
virtue; these good habits are used in the acquisition of knowledge or the
development of the intellect; a combination of good habits and high intellectual
development produces a lofty train of thought whence result keen judgment,
foresight, prudence- all those qualities which go to make a wise man.
"Wisdom," said Solomon, "is the principal thing; therefore
get wisdom." Wisdom might be defined as Virtue plus Knowledge multiplied by
Contemplation. Its attainment is a slow process, a matter of growth. Wisdom is
the border-land from whose heights a man beholds Truth while Truth is the land
of Canaan which a Moses may behold yet never fully attain.
The foundation of Wisdom is Character. It is in the
building of character that every Fellow Craft is employed and this degree deals
particularly with the training of the body in right habits and the cultivation
of the mind. The legend of this degree presents the matter in beautiful, logical
form and should leave no doubt in the mind of the candidate that the ways of
virtue are beautiful and that knowledge is attained by degrees.
Let us ever remember that it is not the purpose of
Freemasonry to enter into scientific dissertations upon Hearing, Seeing,
Feeling, Smelling and Tasting; by entering such a maze the lessons of the degree
are lost. Only architects and delvers into antiquity care to enter minutely into
the history of the various Orders of Architecture or to learn with mathematical
exactitude the proportion of the several columns. Nor is it the purpose of the
Order to define Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and
Astronomy. Such learned disquisitions upon the Senses, Orders of Architecture
and the Liberal Arts and Sciences are a relic of the bygone days of Operative
Masonry when the lodge was workshop, home and school--in fact, the whole life of
the brethren; such practices were then advisable and necessary but in our time
the object in view is to learn practical lessons from a symbolical presentation
of those subjects.
The proper development and use of the five human senses
enables us to support and protect ourselves, to enjoy the blessings and comforts
of life that surround us and to contribute to the happiness of others. Their
improper use may lead to animalism on the one hand or asceticism on the other;
in either case it will tend to limit the capabilities. Overindulgence and
excesses tend to blunt and asceticism to dwarf the bodily powers while the
reward for moderation and simplicity in the employment of the senses is certain
and sure.
From the Orders of Architecture we should learn that an
absolute mastery of the details pertaining to his particular line of work is
necessary for a man's success; and as these orders are used to beautify and
adorn as well as to be of service, we should not be satisfied with building
merely an upright character but should cultivate those graces that are so
pleasing when naturally and sincerely displayed. As the Ionic column, emblematic
of Wisdom, bears a mean proportion between the ornamental and solid orders, so
our characters should preserve the mean between a sordid, mechanical existence
and artistic temperamentalism.
The acquisition of knowledge and the training of the mind
into habits of logical thought is no less a part of character building than the
training of the body. The study of the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences is
typical of that intellectual development that is necessary before wisdom can be
attained and the blending of the beautiful and pleasing arts with the useful
sciences teaches us that something more than utility is required in the well
rounded character. One may reason logically in ungrammatical language but if his
speech be polished by the use of correct grammatical constructions and adorned
by the use of rhetorical figures, his reasoning and personality are given an
added force. While the training of the mind to a high degree in the mathematical
sciences is desirable it is not sufficient in a well developed character for one
so trained may become coldly precise unless a love for the beautiful enters in
to temper his exactitude. If in studying astronomy, a man becomes so engrossed
with the lines, angles, circles and distances of the heavenly bodies that he
perceives none of the beauty of the handiwork of the Great Architect nor hears
the "music of the stars," he is one of those who having eyes to see, see not and
having ears to hear, hear not.
One of the purposes of this degree is to teach perfection
in practice and accuracy in information. Science is systematic thought; it is
organized knowledge, while art is skill in the employment of the principles of a
science. One should cultivate a due regard for all phases of intellectual
activity, remembering that perfection in any art or calling will come in the
degree that knowledge of it is systematic and orderly. A Fellow Craft should not
be content to perform his duty in a mechanical way but should learn the
underlying scientific principles upon which it is based, thus becoming an artist
instead of a laborer; his daily toil a joy instead of a task and his life a
blessing and inspiration to those who come in contact with him.
Realizing that man is a builder engaged in the erection of
a temple of character fit for the indwelling of the living God, Freemasonry uses
the Temple of Solomon as a type to visualize the processes of building and to
illustrate the end in view. Now that you have been passed to the degree of
Fellow Craft, the account of the building of this Temple as recorded in the
Bible will be of peculiar interest to you. Many traditions in regard to the
Temple have been handed down to us, one of the most beautiful being the legend
of the Fellow Craft degree. This legend is founded upon a verse in the sixth
chapter of I Kings, which is in these words: "The door for the Middle Chamber
was in the right side of the house and they went up by winding stairs into the
Middle Chamber and out of the Middle into the Third." We must not confuse
history and tradition. Eighty thousand men would find it impossible to ascend to
the second story of a building in one afternoon and receive their wages nor
would the room contain the wages due them. This incident is of value to us as
Masons only insofar as we see the lessons designed to be taught and make
practical use of them in the development of our characters.
After faithfully performing his duty the ancient Fellow
Craft was invested with certain words, signs and tokens that secured his
admission into the Middle Chamber where he received the wages due him. A shirker
or an impostor might ascend the stairs but only he who was duly prepared by
being in possession of these words, signs and tokens could gain admission.
So in life. Every man is invested with certain words, signs
and tokens that determine the circle to which he shall be admitted. Every honest
effort put forth and every faithful performance of duty bring their reward. A
man may enter any circle or attain any desired height if he shall work until his
labor brings as a reward the words, signs and tokens necessary to gain an
entrance into the coveted place. The passwords must be unequivocal and no
impostor by dissimulation can escape the vigilance that eternally rewards a man
according to his deserts. There must be evidence in plenty that the preparation
is not superficial nor assumed as a cloak to gain unworthy ends. It is not until
a sign or token is given that the required qualities have become established as
part and parcel of his very being that a man is accepted with confidence into
the innermost circle of his desire. He cannot hope to enter the circle of those
who have labored and earned the wages due who displays no token that by earnest
effort he has earned his reward. Man must give equal value for what he receives.
He must pay the price.
So also, the laborer is worthy of his hire. Solomon gave
the workers upon the Temple a wage of Corn, Wine and Oil. These, being
emblematic of nourishment, refreshment and joy, indicate that the honest,
earnest effort receives not only a material wage but that there should be a wage
of satisfaction and joy in the performance of duty without which a man labors in
vain and spends his strength for naught. He who finds no joy in his work has not
received the full wages of a Fellow Craft.
There are three things that a Fellow Craft should value
highly and treasure as precious jewels; an attentive ear, an instructive tongue
and a faithful breast. The attentive ear symbolizes that earnest desire for
knowledge, that openness of mind, that willingness to learn that keeps a man
young in spite of his years. No quality is more valuable than that of finding
the instructive tongue in all the experiences of life, hearing its message and
treasuring that message within the repository of a faithful breast. He who
earnestly seeks knowledge will value every source of information and if the
instructive tongue be sharp and wound the pride or tear the heart yet will he
receive its message humbly, gladly. "Man, know thyself," is a goal gained sooner
through experience in the ways of adversity than by resting on flowery beds of
ease or through the lying tongue of flattery.
And now, my brother, that you have attained the Middle
Chamber and stand in the strength of manhood to receive the reward of a faithful
workman, remember that it is not by your own strength alone that you have
attained this position but by the assistance and guidance of the Great Architect
of the Universe. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord."
All the labor you have expended and all the efforts you have put forth in the
development of your character have been to the end that you might attain the
Wisdom to know the will of God concerning you and to make of yourself a temple
fit for the indwelling of the Most High.
The true Mason is essentially a religious man, fearing God
and keeping his laws and reverence for his name should be a distinguishing
characteristic of all who have gone this way. Let no profanity or irreverance
for his Holy Name bring discredit upon your profession as a Mason.
----o----
A HINT AS TO PENALTIES BY BRO. H. L. HAYWOOD, IOWA
Shakespeare borrowed many of his plots from other authors
and from old books, but the materials wherewith he filled in the frame-work was
taken, almost all of it, from observation and experience. The dramatist was a
man with wide-opened eyes who was quick to catch up contemporaneous ideas, facts
and customs in order to establish a basis of contact with his hearers and
readers. It is this that gives some value to the reference made in The Tempest
to a method of execution that is not without a mite of interest to students of
the origins of our ritual. The Tempest was written, according to a consensus of
expert opinion, somewhere near 1611. At this time, as the reader will know, the
ritual had not yet been cast into its present form; the inference may be made
that the method of execution referred to by Shakespeare was well known in the
beginnings of the seventeenth century, and that the men who wrote the penalties
may have borrowed a hint from it. This is a reasonable conjecture not to be
lightly thrown aside when research is being made for light on such a foggy
problem as the origin of the penalties.
The reference above mentioned occurs in the famous
description of the ship-wreck in the first scene of the first act of The
Tempest. The boatswain, who has been laboring breathlessly to make his ship
storm-safe and to keep his men toiling toward safety, has been interrupted by
the nobles who have come up on deck. He upbraids them for their interference,
whereupon Antonio, the Duke of Milan, exclaims:
"We're merely cheated out of our lives by drunkards. This
wide-chopped (wide-mouthed) rascal-- wouldst thou might lie drowning the washing
of ten tides !"
On this Professor Hudson makes the following comment:
"Pirates were hanged on the shore at low water-mark, and left till three tides
had overwashed them. 'Ten' is substituted for 'three,' either for the sake of
alliteration or to intensify the guilt of 'the widechopped rascal.' "
----o----
UNIFICATION IN THE PHILIPPINES
BY BRO. CHARLES S. LOBINGIER, CHINA
March 15, 1917.
To the Sovereign Grand Commander and the Supreme Council:
Illustrious and Very Dear Brethren:
IN closing his memorable Allocution (1) of 1915 the Grand
Commander said: "Let us above all else be united! Discord and dissension are
destructive forces engendered by causes which should not be tolerated among
Masons. It is only when 'unified' that our Scottish Freemasonry can truly
exercise that influence in the World which its power should enable it to do."
It is with a gratification second only to that which I know
you will all feel as a result of it, that I am able to report for my
jurisdiction a practical observance of this admonition, and a complete
realization of the ideal. Within the past year a divided house has been joined
together. Where there was diversity there is now unity; where there was weakness
there is potential strength. In short it is my privilege to announce the
unification of our rite in the Philippines. Not that there has ever been
dissension among the bodies of our obedience here; but, as you will note from
previous reports of mine, Scottish Rite bodies, acknowledging allegiance to
other Supreme Councils, have continued to exist there alongside our own. The
reasons for this were mainly historical and call for a brief review.
In the Philippines, Masonry considerably antedates the
American occupation. As long ago as 1856 the Spanish Admiral Malcampo, later
Governor General, organized a lodge at Cavite under the Grand Orient of
Portugal. (2) For some years, however, Masonic membership in the Philippines was
restricted to Spaniards. Finally in the later eighties a movement was
inaugurated in Spain itself (3) by Miguel Morayta, recently deceased, and then
head of the Spanish Grand Orient, and Marcelo H. del Pilar, a Filipino residing
in Spain, which resulted in admitting some leading natives of the Philippines
into the ranks of Masonry; and then it began to exert a real influence upon the
affairs of the archipelago. It was the ideas of the Scottish Rite which largely
furnished the inspiration for the uprising against the Spanish government in
1896. All Masons were then under suspicion; many suffered and others died for
their allegiance to the craft and its principles. Then, too, the Spanish Masons
were practically the only Spaniards who sympathized with the Filipinos in their
struggles for a more liberal form of government. It was not strange, therefore,
that, in the hearts of the latter, Spanish Freemasonry won a high place and that
those who had allied themselves therewith were loth to leave it notwithstanding
changed conditions. Indeed I sometimes wonder if we, ourselves, have rated
sufficiently high the character and achievements of our Spanish Brethren and if
we have not been too prone to judge them by adventurers, parading under their
name, in our own country. We must remember that to be a Mason in Spain involves
a great personal sacrifice and that few but the tried and true are found in
their ranks. Perhaps for that reason they are extremely careful whom they
receive and require a long period of probation (4) such as formerly prevailed in
our own jurisdiction. (5)
American Masonry, coming into the Philippines with the
army, followed for a time the course of its predecessor in admitting only
Americans, just as the Spanish lodges at first received only Europeans, but in
establishing the Scottish Rite there I insisted that there should be no
invidious distinctions of nationality and the first class upon which I conferred
the 320, in 1911, included a well known Filipino, now a Judge, who has been very
helpful to us ever since. Other Filipinos, not inconsiderable in number, have
joined the Manila bodies from time to time, and, so far as I have been able to
prevent it, there has been no deviation from the principle upon which those
bodies were started. Meanwhile, not unnaturally, some of the lodges and other
bodies claiming authority from the Grand Orient of Spain continued to work. The
transfer of sovereignty had severed that authority as completely as it had the
political tie (6) but it was difficult to make this clear to Masons who knew
little of the Anglo-Saxon doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction; who
felt a sentimental attachment to the Spanish Grand Orient for the reasons
already mentioned; and who, as yet, saw little manifestation of a similar
attitude among American Masons. It seemed like asking much of our Filipino
brethren to require them to surrender an affiliation which had cost them so dear
while nothing was offered in its place, and when they were not responsible for
the grounds on which the requirement was based. While, therefore, our Scottish
Rite bodies in the Philippines could hold no official intercourse with those
claiming authority from Spain, it was quite possible to get their viewpoint and
to prepare the ground for a solution of the most important problem which
confronted us--the union under one head of all Scottish Rite Masons in the
Archipelago. If you will refer to my previous reports upon our status here you
will note that while I have repeatedly called attention to the existence of a
Scottish Rite Chapter of Rose Croix, claiming authority from Spain, I have never
recommended drastic action toward it, believing that a solution of the
difficulty could be found which would be just and honorable to both parties.
Fortunately my belief has proven to have been well founded.
The Grand Commander will recall that, during a conference
with him in October, 1915, I brought up the question of establishing a new group
of bodies in the Philippines and he stated that the granting of Letters
Temporary was entirely within my discretion. Among the purposes which I had in
view in this project was unification and the placing of the Rite on a basis
which would render it a real force in the country.
Upon my return I took the matter up with two of our
members, Bros. Austin Craig, 32d, and Manuel Camus, 32d, who were in close touch
with Masons of Spanish allegiance, and by February of 1916 conditions were ripe
for opening a new Lodge of Perfection. The petitioners for Letters Temporary
were all members of the Manila bodies but the new lodge was soon exercising its
express authority to receive new members by initiating and affiliation.
On August 14, 1916, I opened under Letters Temporary,
Burgos Chapter of Rose Croix; on December 22, Malcampo Preceptory was opened and
finally on February 14, 1917, I enjoyed the extreme satisfaction of completing
the group at an occasion marked by imposing ceremonies, including the
presentation of Letters Temporary to Rizal Consistory.
Meanwhile the work of winning over our brethren of Spanish
allegiance had been actively proceeding and in this Brothers Craig and Camus had
found an active ally in Bro. Manuel L. Quezon, 32d, then of the Spanish bodies.
Toward the close of prolonged negotiations and innumerable conferences with
members of the last named bodies I addressed to them the following letter:
Manila, P.I., Feb. 5, 1917.
To the Scottish Rite Masons residing in the Philippines,
but belonging to Bodies Chartered by Other Recognized Supreme Councils:
Very Dear Brethren:
In the name of Universal Masonry, for whose realization we
all hope and strive, and in behalf of the Mother Supreme Council of the World,
whose Deputy I have the honor to be, I take pleasure in extending to you a
cordial and fraternal invitation to present applications for affiliation with
the Bodies of the Rite now working in this Valley under the authority of said
last named Supreme Council.
It is of the utmost importance to the interests of the
Craft in these Islands that Masonry in all its forms be united. In union there
is strength; in division weakness.
The growth of the Bodies referred to has been gratifying
and rapid, but the Mother Council long to bring under its protecting aegis all
Scottish Rite Masons residing within its territorial jurisdiction, and to enlist
them under a common banner.
Come with us Brethren, and make the union complete.
Fraternally yours, Charles S. Lobingier, 33d Hon., Deputy of the Supreme
Council.
The members of the Spanish Bodies finally decided to
dissolve their organizations, return their charters and petition for affiliation
with the new Philippine bodies. They did this without exacting any concessions
in return. They surrendered a status which was to them cherished and valuable;
they even paid the fees of "newly created" members under Statutes, Art. VI, Sec.
6, and they did not reserve the small privilege of continuing their former
bodies under new charters.
Their petitions were acted upon favorably by such of the
bodies addressed as were then organized and they were ready for affiliation in
the highest degree which they had received in the Spanish bodies. Not many of
them, however, had passed beyond the 30d; for in Spain, as elsewhere in Europe,
the 31d and 32d are not conferred generally but are confined to a limited
number, much like our 33d Honorary; and, as I have already shown, the
Regulations of the Spanish Supreme Council require a much longer interval to
elapse between the reception of degrees than do our own.
To complete the affiliation of the petitioners it was
necessary that each "take all the pledges and vows of all the Degrees of the
Body with which he affiliates." (7) For this purpose they were assembled in
large numbers on the evenings of February 12 and 14. Our obligations had all
been translated into Spanish by Bro. Leo Fischer, 32d, Secretary of the
Philippine Bodies, for the benefit of those petitioners who understand that
language better than English, and were administered in full after the body to
which they corresponded had been duly opened. The new Philippine bodies will
need to work in Spanish as well as English and it will save them a tremendous
and unnecessary burden if they can have the benefit of what has been done in
Porto Rico.
Thus, through the organization of the new Philippine
bodies, the unification of the Scottish Rite in the Archipelago has been
accomplished. I trust that the Charters for these new bodies will be issued in
due course. For I cannot but regard this result as one of the most important and
far reaching achievements which has yet been consummated within the jurisdiction
of our Supreme Council.
(1) Transactions, (1915) 148.
(2) This was known as Logia Primera Luz Filipina. See The
Far Eastern Freemason, II, 103.
(3) See Derbyshire, Introduction to Translation of Rizal's
"Noli Me Tangere" XXXIX.
(4) Bro. C. A. Tansilll, K.C.C.H., of the Manila Bodies has
been investigating this interesting topic and reports as follows: "The minimum
time for progression in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry as
practiced by the Spanish Grand Orient requires that an Entered Apprentice must
serve to the satisfaction of his brethren, not less than five months before
being passed to the degree of Fellow Craft, and the Fellow Craft must serve to
the satisfaction of his brethren, not less than seven months before being raised
to the sublime degree of Master Mason. Thus, an Entered Apprentice is under the
careful scrutiny of his brethren for at least one year before being raised to
the sublime degree of Master Mason.
"Subjoined is the minimum time for progression and
advancement in the Supreme Council of Spain, under which Supreme Council the
4th, 9th, 13th, 18th, 24th, 30th, 31st, 32nd and 33rd degrees are considered
essentially necessary to be conferred in full form:
"Master Mason--1 year to receive the 4d
4d " --1 year to receive the 9d
9d " --1 year to receive the 13d
13d Mason--1 year to receive the 18d
18d " --2 years to receive the 24d
24d " --2 years to receive the 30d
30d " --1 year to receive the 31d
31d " --1 year to receive the 32d
32d " --1 year to receive the 33d
"It will be noticed that an Entered Apprentice may not
attain the 32d until after at least eleven years' service, and that it requires
ten years' service as a Master Mason before receiving the 32d."
(5) See the observations of Ill. Bro. Hugo in the New Age
(XXV 40 et seq.) showing that eighty-one months were once required for taking
twenty-five degrees.
(6) Allocution, 1905, p. 47; Cf. Id. 1903, p. 45.
(7) Statutes, sec. 32, Art. VIII.
----o----
AN AMBASSADOR
BY BRO. JOSEPH FORT NEWTON, ENGLAND
LINKING ENGLAND AND AMERICA
PRESIDENT WILSON'S
desire is to make the world "secure for democracy," to abolish the nightmare
fear of sudden war, and with it the necessity for maintaining huge armies and
navies. It is no selfish motive, for he wishes for the people whom he rules what
they would eagerly and whole-heartedly share with all mankind.
At present that high
purpose is not only unaccomplished, but actually menaced with final
disappointment. So far from hard-won democratic institutions being safe they are
at this moment in dire peril. They are in peril so great and urgent that a
peace-loving people, separated from Europe by a thousand leagues of ocean, still
cherishing a tradition inherited from Washington and Franklin of
non-intervention in the quarrels of the Old World, feel that duty, religion,
honour, and humanity bid them take up arms and wage war with all their might
against a soulless autocracy which threatens to enslave the world.
This seems to me the
greatest event of modern times, because, if it be crowned with success, as we
believe it will be, it may well inaugurate a new era, the Era of Settled Peace.
And not only or chiefly because the "men that delight in war" have been subdued,
but because the association of Britain and America in this great and holy cause
is likely to eradicate, to uproot the last vestige of remembrance of the quarrel
which separated them.
That quarrel has long
ago been virtually forgotten in Britain. But American history begins not with
Julius Csesar, but with George Washington, not with the Battle of Hastings, but
with a revolution, which resulted in thirteen British colonies, hitherto
passionately loyal, taking the style and title of the United States of America;
not with Magna Charta, but with that Declaration of Independence the signing of
which is the chief landmark in the American citizen's historical landscape.
The boys and girls
read of these things in the earliest pages of their school-books. Bunker Hill
and Lexington become magical names to them. First impressions being lasting,
grown-up Americans have been apt to forget it was a German king, George the
Third, opposed by the best and noblest of his advisers, and contrary to the
wishes of the people of Britain, whose blind obstinacy and congenital insanity
drove the American colonies into revolt.
Yes, and they are also
apt to forget, whilst knowing speeches of Franklin, Webster and Lincoln by
heart, the words thundered by Pitt in the British House of Commons: "I rejoice
that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings
of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit
instruments to make slaves of the rest."
Today those three
millions have become one hundred millions. Yet, mark the miracle, America is
still but a larger Britain across the ocean. From Atlantic to Pacific she speaks
the tongue of Shakespeare and Bunyan; her public and private life is based on
English custom; her traditions and literature are one with the Motherland; her
ideals of civilisation those of the isle from which her Pilgrim Fathers sailed.
Furthermore, America's
greatest church was founded by Wesley, an Oxford clergyman; her two leading
universities, Yale and Harvard, by Englishmen; every president she has elected,
except two, has borne a British surname. Her laws are confessedly founded on
English law, and the usages and precedents of the courts in the two countries
are almost identical. Her ideas of liberty, justice, and freedom, for
conscience, for the individual, for the Press, are the ideas promulgated by the
great Puritans, Cromwell, Hampden, Milton, and Bunyan.
In short, the
influence upon the fundamental life of America of all other nations combined is
negligible compared with the profound and ineradicable influence of Britain.
Then how greatly
desirable is a sympathetic and intelligent understanding between these two
kindred peoples. Neither nation has taken sufficient pains to understand the
other. Superficial differences have been able to obscure fundamental unities.
But in the furnace of
this world war, upon the anvil of a common and noble purpose, under the hammer,
kindred peoples will be rewelded, and then in their keeping chiefly will be the
future of mankind.
And who can doubt that the heart-union of the British
Empire and the United States of America means for the world an era of unbroken
Peace in which service and not enslavement, enlightenment and not exploitation,
arts - ay, hearts - and not arms will be the watchword of statesmen and rulers?
Certainly all whe help forward this great friendship are thereby labouring for
the better future of humanity.
----o----
EDITORIAL
FRATERNIZING IN FRANCE
FRATERNIZING with the
French Masons progresses apace, one Grand Lodge after another having stepped in
that direction. It is curious to note that while we are showing such a tendency
to cross the frontier of our own creation against the Freemasonry of France, the
British whom we first followed away from the land of Lafayette are not nearly so
ready to return though their regard for that nation has been proven by the
greatest sacrifices and the utmost tests of loyalty and devotion.
While British are
formally far from the Freemasonry of France they are close to the French
Freemasons. There has been neither submission nor subjection. The one and the
other retain their individual dogmas, their peculiar doctrines endure, yet their
entwining friendliness calls a truce to the acidities of the past.
Frigidity between
French and British is melted into fraternity by the sunlight of a common cause.
Righteousness enriches recollection with the warmer treasures of a joint purpose
for humanity. Each with parallel aims proves to the other how adequate indeed to
the end is their resource for good, that perhaps the difference after all is
rather in name and phrases than in principles.
We shall
sympathetically watch the fine old traditional Masonry of Greater Britain - of
the United Kingdom and its overseas empire, the mother country and her colonies
- and that stalwart French Freemasonry with her sociological and philosophic
excellencies, as the two go forward in the brunt of gigantic battles. Out from
all these gory struggles there will be a rebirth of the ancient faiths, not
throwing them upon the scrap heap, but the old less cold, the renewed less raw.
Our hearts are with
them. When dawns the sun of victory there will be many a tale told of the place
Freemasonry has filled for brethren united in the family of fraternity though
having their birthrights from quite different Grand Lodges. R.I.C.
* * *
THE A.A.O.N.M.S.
Perhaps the Committee
on History will this year make a final report to the Imperial Council at
Atlantic City. Maybe this is not to be expected.
Death has been busy
with the older members whose memories held the facts of the Shrine's origin.
Every year this reservoir recedes. Whatever we can do to get the particulars
into perfect consonance and into complete records should be done while our
pioneer brethren remain available for checking up the information advanced by
others, and being themselves in turn subjected to the same sort of checks
against any and every inaccuracy.
Not unlikely there has
also been an inclination to preserve the true story of the Shrine from what some
may deem excessive publicity. Why blaze with bright sunlight what has thrived
without it? Where there was no evil, there are no regrets remaining. And what a
joke will endure while there is an element of surprise about it is one thing.
Turning the light upon it brings about an entirely different outcome.
But have we not
arrived at the stage when the true story of the Shrine's origin may be
disclosed? Has the old account of its Eastern source any life? How muck is worth
repetition as fact or as joke?
Writing as one who
dearly loves the Shrine for its charity and cheer, who richly enjoys both its
boys and noise, sympathy and cymbals, I beg of the historians candor. For to me
the Shrine will be as attractive if its first ritual were fashioned by Fleming,
flourished with Florence, and practically elaborated by Briggs, these noblest of
the nobility. Lower Broadway, or the Knickerbocker Club, or Moquin's old
quarters, suit me just as well for a place of origin as a fellaheen's hut near
the pyramids. All may not think so. Tradition dies hard among Masons. For those
there will ever be jewels such as the sad passing of our late Brother (?) the
Khedive of Egypt as reported and adorned by a whimsically diverting
correspondent at Malta! But the truth will out, even in an affidavit. R.I.C.
----o----
RAIN
It always rains when I go out
And clears when I come in,
Until I very often doubt
The theory of sin.
They tell me that it rains upon
The unjust and the just;
It doesn't rain on ev'ryone
The way they say it must.
Some sinners never get a bath
When they go out to stroll;
The weather always pours its wrath
On me, unlucky soul.
There is no justice in the strife
Of living, that is plain;
I've had to take, all thru my life.
Somebody else's rain.
- Douglas Mallock.
----o----
THE LIBRARY
EDITED BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD
The object of this
Department is to acquaint our readers with time-tried Masonic books not always
familiar; with the best Masonic literature now being published; and with such
non-Masonic books as may especially appeal to Masons. The Library Editor will be
very glad to render any possible assistance to studious individuals or to Study
Clubs and Lodges, either through this Department or by personal correspondence;
if you wish to learn something concerning any book - what is its nature, what is
its value, or how it may be obtained - be free to ask him. If you have read a
book which you think is worth a renew write us about it; if you desire to
purchase a book - any book - we null help you get it, with no charge for the
service. Make this your Department of Literary Consultation.
"BOBBIE BURNS"
HALF the charm of
Burns lies in the fact that one can dare to call him "Bobbie!" Mark Twain once
attempted to call Emerson "Ralph," and Longfellow "Henry" (or was it "Hen!"),
but he met such a rebuff that the memory of it smarted all his life. Browning
bore the same christian name as Burns, but who has ever dreamed of speaking of
"Bob" Browning ? Or who would ever refer to Browning's great colleague as "Alf"
Tennyson? The very mention of such familiarities makes us shiver! But it seems
far more fitting to speak of "Bobbie" Burns than it would of "Robert" Burns.
This, I say, is half
the charm of the Scottish singer; he comes so close home to us, he seems so like
a personal friend, that we instinctively think of him as one of our intimate
chums. So was it with those who knew him in the flesh; to them also he was just
"Bobbie," and to Scotchmen he ever will be nothing else. Burns was one of the
most democratic of men. It is easy to be democratic in theory; it is often
difficult to play the part; Burns played the part. He was himself that which he
sang, and never did a man sing so much of the joy of friendship, the glow of
fellowship, or of the appeal of average, undistinguished human nature. Many of
his love affairs were with peasant girls and many of his friendships were with
peasant men.
Yet, in spite of this,
it has become somewhat difficult for a twentieth century American to know Burns,
and this for at least two reasons. For one thing, most of his poetry sprang up
out of actual experiences, and it is often necessary to know the story of those
experiences in order to have a clew to the poetry. For another thing, he wrote
his best songs and poems in the Scotch dialect and this is now almost as hard to
read as Chaucer's English. How many, for instance, would know offhand that "ilka
green shaw" means "a wooded dell," or that a "laverock" is a "thrush" ? Burns'
poems are strewn with these Scotticisms, most of which are as so much Greek to
the majority of us.
It is for these
reasons that one may take pleasure in recommending to one's friends - all of
whom may be presumed to be lovers of Burns' poetry - such a work as W. A.
Neilson's "Burns: How to Know Him" (published by Bobbs-Merrill of Indianapolis,
at $1.50). Mr. Neilson tells the story of the poet's life in such manner as to
cast in relief the biographical experiences which throw most light on his work;
and he also writes into the margin the English equivalent of all the Scotch
expressions. Furthermore, he quotes nearly all the old favorites from the poems
in such order as to place each one in its appropriate biographical context.
This biographical
context is of great importance in understanding most of the songs, for Burns was
truly one who "wrote from the heart." Some poets are deliberate artists; they
sit down cold-bloodedly to build up a burnished column of verse, as Gray did in
his "Elegy"; others are children of inspiration; they can never write anything
worth while except when the mood is upon them; Burns was such an one. The poems
which he wrote for special occasions, or because he chanced to consider it his
duty to write something, are almost invariably artificial and lifeless, as one
may learn from the various specimens of the same displayed by Mr. Neilson; but
when it was a genuine passion that caused him to take his pen in hand he could
compose such songs as never a poet could before him. Carlyle declared "My Nannie,
O" to be the greatest song ever written. Carlyle was Scotch himself, and may
therefore have had his bias, but others not Scotch have agreed with him.
Many of the finest
flowers of Burns' song grew up, it may be confessed, from a rather rank soil.
The poet was possessed of a dangerous nature. His blood was usually at the
boiling point, and all too frequently it boiled over. Even in his own circles he
was called "a wild one," and the Burns worshipper is never permitted to forget
that his idol had feet of clay. But the poet himself surpassed everybody in
regret for his wildness and never have lines of truer penitence been penned than
are certain of his verses; he had a hard row to hoe both domestically and
financially and allowances must be made accordingly even by the most puritan.
But it may be said
without exaggeration, and without making light of any of the great moral
sanctions, that the very darkness of much of the background of Burns' poetry
only serves to bring out in stronger relief the amazing qualities of his genius.
Shakespeare would take over an old bloodthirsty play and transfigure it; in his
genius an Italian tale or an old Danish drama would suffer a sea change into
something rich and strange. The genius of Burns had the same magical power when
dealing with his own raw experiences or misadventures. Take, as an example, that
song entitled "Ae Fond Kiss" which contains the haunting lines,
"Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met - or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted."
This song, and the
companion song, entitled "My Nannie's Awa," sprang from a love affair of which
Burns himself came to feel very much ashamed; nevertheless, his genius
transformed it into a melody which will sing itself around the world while men
continue to love poetry.
No other singer can
ever have quite the same place in the affection of Masons because Burns was the
first great poet laureate of our Fraternity; every lodge should keep a volume of
his poems at hand to serve as a poetical commentary on the teachings of the
Fraternity. Those lodges which desire to build up a Burns library will receive a
full list of Burnsiana from the Grand Lodge Library of Iowa, situated at Cedar
Rapids; this library now possesses one of the largest collections of books on
Burns and by Burns that can be found anywhere.
* * *
"THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS"
Dreams unroll their
evanescent dramas within those houses of sleep which are nearer to us than
breathing and closer than hands and feet, yet are they often so eerie, so
fantastic, that we wonder whether they may not belong to an order of being very
remote from our own. They are ours, they are not ours; they borrow such
substance as they have from our waking hours, their language is our language,
their colors are such as we have seen, yet their figures and their motions are
so fantastic that when we awaken from them into the actual world we feel that we
have returned from some aerial voyage into a land that lies over the abysses of
the inane. Is it any cause for wonder that men who dream every night of their
lives are quick to forget the insubstantial phantoms? that ancient peoples
attributed them to gods or demons? that credulous medieval folk feigned to
accept them as prophecies from the unseen? or that the more pragmatic men of
today dismiss them as having no significance at all ?
This indifference with
which most of us are wont to consider our dreams is not shared, however, by the
men of science; how could they be, when it is the dearest dogma of science that
every slightest thing, the atom of dust, the faintest nuance of feeling, has its
value, its ray of light to throw on the ineluctable mystery of existence ?
Dreams are normal functions of the human mind; as much a part of ourselves as
our own brains; how can we continue to imagine that they play no part in the
real business of our lives ?
Of the scores of men
of science who have undertaken to translate the rosetta stone of dreams,
Professor Sigmund Freud is easily chief. Assisted by a band of workers he has
analyzed thousands of dreams, and the sleepers whose visions he has studied have
come from both sexes, from all ages, and from many walks of life. After years of
such research he and his colleagues have something to tell us about the least
understood of all our common experiences, and it must be worth our while to
listen to these savants, though we cannot always understand them nor always
agree with them. The story of these explorations into the shadowy lands will be
found, unhampered by many of the technicalities of the specialist, in Professor
Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," (Macmillan Co., New York, $4.00).
Professor Freud tells
us that our dreams are composed of our own experiences albeit these are usually,
and for a good reason, disguised beyond recognition. The larger part of these
materials are borrowed from the day immediately preceding; next in order come
the recollections of childhood, many of which have seldomly lifted themselves
into the waking consciousness; and lastly are those memories which drift, like
flotsam and jetsam, over the intervening years. These may be memories of
thoughts, of feelings, or of events.
Oftentimes the dream
will make use of some physical sensation arising from the body during the very
moment of the fantasy. The purpose of this, so it seems, is to protect us
against awakening. If, for instance, a member of the body is exposed to the cold
the unpleasant sensation would arouse the sleeper did not the genius of the
dream dress it up in some exciting drama to hold the attention and to prevent it
returning to the actual surroundings. "In a certain sense," writes our author,
“all dreams are dreams of convenience: they serve the purpose of continuing
sleep instead of awakening. The dream is the guardian of sleep, not the
disturber of it."
But this guardianship
of sleep is not, so Professor Freud believes, the principal function of the
dream; he believes that in a majority of cases the dream "may be recognized as
the fulfillment of a wish." In this simple statement the savant has presented an
hypothesis which has revolutionized the whole subject and has caused many
psychologists to recast their theories. As his own exposition of this idea runs
through almost 500 pages I cannot hope to explain it in as many words, but I may
be able, if due caution is employed, to furnish some slight hint of the matter.
It is the nature of the mind to be incessantly desiring; it is the nature of our
surroundings to thwart the larger number of these wishes; when a desire is
thwarted it creates a tension in the mind which causes a feeling of uneasiness
or pain; these thwarted desires, always pressing toward fulfillment, resort to
the device of dreaming and therein find the satisfaction denied them in the
actual world. Were our unfulfilled wishes always accumulating their tension the
nervous system would at last be shattered by the strain; dreaming is nothing
other than the mechanism whereby the mind finds relief, illusory but sufficient,
and thereby frees itself of its otherwise intolerable tension.
Some may object to
this by saying that their dreams are the last things that they would wish, so
terrible are they, oftentimes. Professor Freud's explanation of this is one of
the most ingenius features of his argument. He says that many of our wishes are
such as we would not even acknowledge to ourselves and that therefore to present
themselves before the mind they must disguise themselves. When John of Patmos
wrote his Revelation, the last book in our bible, he had a few simple things to
say, but these things were distasteful to the Roman authorities; to get his book
past the censors he composed it in allegorical fashion; the quickest-witted
Roman could not discern behind the phantasmagoria of the book the message which
it carried to the initiated. Professor Freud contends that a similar process
goes on in our dreaming, and the mental process which throws its strange
disguises about a dream he calls "the censor complexes," thereby using the very
phraseology of our illustration. A very terrible dream may thus prove after all
to be the disguised fulfillment of a wish.
In its habits of
disguise the dream faculty uses certain symbolisms and these are employed many
times over, by all persons, just as writers repeat the same figures of speech;
by studying and comparing thousands of dreams Professor Freud and his helpers
have placed in our hands a key to the language of our visions. Equipped with
this, and with a modicum of patience and curiosity, we can learn to interpret
our own dreams. He who undertakes this will be surprised to learn how simple are
many of the most gigantic grotesqueries; he will learn nothing of any world
outside the real world; he will receive no messages from gods or ghosts; but he
will learn many things about himself which may prove a surprise. Did space
permit I might describe such instances of self-revelation, and I might indicate
certain practical uses of dream analysis, especially in way of the diagnosis and
the cure of a few diseases; as it is I must refer the reader to the fascinating
pages of Sigmund Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams."
This book is of
considerable interest to Masons because it tends to throw light on the origin of
ancient and universal symbols. Freud holds that, as the sex impulse is one of
the strongest in human nature, a great many dreams are disguised sex wishes or
resumes of secret sex experiences. Also, he has discovered that the dream
faculty makes uses of the same sex symbols over and over again, and these
symbols, so he holds, are identical with many of the symbols used by secret
societies and religions from the dawn of history. Many of our Masonic scholars,
and they the sanest, have always held that certain of our emblems and symbols,
the pillars for example, originally had a sex origin; to those who care to
pursue such studies Professor Freud's work will be most illuminating.
----o----
THE QUESTION BOX
THE BUILDER is an open
forum for free and fraternal discussion. Each of its contributors writes under
his own name, and is responsible for his own opinions. Believing that a unity of
spirit is better than a uniformity of opinion, the Research Society, as such,
does not champion any one school of Masonic thought as over against another; but
offers to all alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each to
stand or fall by its own merits.
The Question Box and
Correspondence Column are open to all members of the Society at all times.
Questions of any nature on Masonic subjects are earnestly invited from our
members, particularly those connected with Lodges or Study Clubs which are
following our "Bulletin Course of Masonic Study." When requested, questions will
be answered promptly by mail before publication in this department.
"REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR"
Can you put me on the
track of some reliable exposition of Ecclesiasties 12:1-7? It sounds beautiful
in recitation, but largely meaningless. As chaplain of Norwood Lodge, No. 119,
in the Grand Registry of Manitoba I am especially interested as it falls to me
to recite the passage in "raising." "Let there be light." L.F., Manitoba.
Good for you, Brother
Fraser! The bane of Masonry is the constant repetition of the ritual by men who
never make an attempt to discover the meaning of what they are saying.
The sacred sentences
which fall on the ears of the candidate as he makes his mystic round are so
heavy with poignant beauty that one hesitates to intrude the harsh language of
prose upon such strains of poetry, solemn sweet. We may well believe that the
men who introduced the reading here had no other thought than that the words
might the better create an atmosphere in which the coming drama of hate and doom
might all the more impressively come home to the heart of the participants. If
such was their purpose neither Shakespeare nor Dante could have found words or
sentiments more appropriate to the hour. There is a music and majesty in the
twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes which
leaves us dumb with awe and wonder and our hearts open to the impressions of a
tragedy alongside which the doom of Lear seems insignificant and vain.
For generations the
commentators of Holy Writ have seen in the allegory of this chapter a reference
to the decay of the body and the coming of death; to them, the golden bowl was
the skull, the silver cord was the spinal nerve, "the keepers of the house" were
the hands, the "strong men" the limbs; the whole picture is made to symbolize
the body's falling into ruin and the approach of death. * One hesitates to
differ from an interpretation so true in its application and so dignified by its
associations. But it must be doubted whether the sad and disillusioned man who
penned the lines possessed either the knowledge of human anatomy implied by the
old interpretation or the intention to make his poem into a medical description
of senility. A more thorough scholarship has come to see in the allegory a
picture of the horror of death set forth by metaphors drawn from an Oriental
thunderstorm.
It had been a day of
wind and cloud and rain; but the clouds did not, as was usual, disperse after
the shower. They returned again and covered the heavens with their blackness.
Thunderstorms were so uncommon in Palestine that they always inspired fear and
dread, as many a paragraph in the Scriptures will testify. As the storm broke
the strong men guarding the gates of rich men's houses began to tremble; the hum
of the little mills where the women were always grinding at even time suddenly
* For this version
see the article by Bro. Wm. F. Kuhn, "When the Almond Tree Blossoms," THE
BUILDER, vol. I, p. 138.
ceased because the
grinders were frightened from their toil; the women, imprisoned in the harems,
who had been gazing out of the lattice to watch the activities of the streets,
drew back into their dark rooms; even the revelers, who had been sitting about
their tables through the afternoon, eating dainties and sipping wine, lost their
appetites, and many were made so nervous that the sudden twitting of a bird
would cause them to start with anxious surprise.
As the terror of the
storm, the poet goes on to say, so is the coming of death, when man "goes to his
home of everlasting and mourners go about the streets." Whatever men may have
been, good or bad, death brings equal terror to all. A man may have been rich,
like the golden lamp hung on a silver chain in the palace of a king; he may have
been as poor as the earthen pitcher in which maidens carried water from the
public well, or even as crude as the heavy wooden wheel wherewith they drew the
water; what his state was matters not, death is as dread a calamity to the one
as to the other. When that dark adventure comes the fine possessions in which
men had sought security will be vain to stay the awful passing into night.
"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." The one bulwark against the common
calamity, the Preacher urges, is to remember the Creator, yea, to remember Him
from youth to old age; to believe that one goes to stand before Him is the one
and only solace in an hour when everything falls to ruin and the very desire to
live has been quenched by the ravages of age and the coming of death.
* * *
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE AND EARLY HISTORY OF MASONRY
Will you kindly
enlighten me on the following questions:
1. Is there any
Masonic history before the establishment of the first Grand Lodge in England on
June 24, 1717 ?
2. If there is not,
whom is the Widow's Son supposed to represent ?
3.
What connection is there between Masonry as we know it today, and the building
of King Solomon's Temple ? In other words, was the Temple built by the
Freemasons?
4. Is the Temple of
Solomon described in Jewish history as a very common building, 124 feet long by
65 feet wide, and 52 feet high, built of square blocks of stone, supposed to be
the same as the one described in the lecture of the Entered Apprentice degree?
If so, why such a difference?
C.N.R., Nevada.
1. Yes, June 24, 1717,
is not the beginning of Masonic history; it is hard to tell where the legend
ceases and history begins. We have no means of knowing how old Masonry is, but
we do know that it existed long before the formation of the Grand Lodge in 1717.
For instance, Elias Ashmole in his diary, under date of October 16, 1646, says
that he was made a Freemason at Warrington. He also gives the names of those
"who were at the lodge," and his mention of the institution is in the casual
manner in which you would speak of it at the present date, as though it were so
well known that it was not necessary to explain what the Society of Freemasons
is.
In a churchyard in
London an old tombstone bears the inscription: "Here lieth the body of Wm.
Kerwin, of this city of London, a Freemason who departed this life the 26th day
of December Ano 1594."
There are lodge
records and also other evidence to prove that Freemasonry existed prior to 1717.
These are but samples of several records similar in nature which indicate that
Masonry existed long before 1717.
2. All the history we
have in regard to Hiram is found in the Bible (see I Kings 7:13-14) and the
works of Josephus. Most of what we are told about him means that we have no way
of proving that it is historical.
3. Whether or not
Solomon's Temple was built by Freemasons we have no way of determining. We know
that there were societies of architects at Tyre, and that Hiram, King of Tyre,
sent workmen to King Solomon. There is no doubt that the Society of Dionysiac
Architects resembled the Society of Freemasons very closely, but we have no
positive proof of an identity between them.
4. Yes, the Temple of
King Solomon is the one on which our Masonic symbolism is based, but I must
remind you that neither biblical nor secular history speaks of King Solomon's
Temple as a common building. It is always referred to as a very magnificent
structure. In calling it a very common building we presume that you refer only
to the size, and that you are contrasting that with the reference to its
stupendous magnitude in the Entered Apprentice lecture. The same size applies
only to the main body of the Temple. The outer court had enormous and
magnificent terraces, spacious courts, and the whole structure was at least
one-half mile in circumference. The Temple itself was but a very small part of
the entire edifice.
* * *
WHO WILL HELP THIS LODGE TO BUILD UP A LIBRARY?
As we are starting a
library in connection with our lodge and study club, I have been wondering
whether some of our American brothers have any Masonic literature to spare. If
so, it would be very gratefully received by the brethren in these distant parts.
I would personally acknowledge anything that may be sent. - Robert W. Stiles,
Sec'y Victory Lodge No. 40, Nelson, New Zealand.
This is the kind of
query we like to receive; it shows that the New Zealand brethren are alive; when
a lodge has both a library and study club that lodge is in good health. We are
leaving our readers to answer this question; if you have any volumes or papers
or journals that aren't doing business with you. send them over to Brother
Stiles.
* * *
AID AND ASSISTANCE FROM ENEMY MASONS IN THE WAR
Can you give or refer
me to any incidents in the present war where enemy Masons have aided each other
when found in difficult places? Or (and I hesitate to ask the question) have you
heard of instances where enemy Masons have forgotten their obligations? The term
"enemy" is used to imply that Masons are in opposing armies. C.V.H., California.
We cannot refer to any
such instances though there have doubtless been many such cases, as was true of
the Civil War, when the Blue and the Gray sometimes forgot their enmities and
met fraternally beneath the square and compass. Can any reader cite such
instances from his observation, hearsay, or reading?
Your second question
doesn't quite "get across to us"; do you mean their Masonic obligations, using
the word in its general sense; or do you mean the obligation taken at the altar;
or do you mean a Mason's obligations to society at large ? It is a temptation to
charge the German Masons with violation of their obligations in all senses,
especially in breaking relations with the English Grand Lodge at a time when the
latter was willing, and even eager, to maintain relations, and in the invasion
of Belgium - one of the most un-Masonic acts in history - but it must be
remembered that the German overlords maintain control of everything in their
empire, lodges as well as all else, and that the Masons have been as much robbed
of their rights of "self direction" as any other group in Germany. If German
autocracy were to turn out victorious in this struggle, Masons the world over
would be placed under a system of espionage as they have been in the Fatherland:
how would Masons enjoy that? Yet there are Masons here and there who say that
Masonry has no stake in the war and that we are not under obligations, as
Masons, to help whip the Kaiser! Water and fire are not more opposite than
Masonry and Kaiserism!
* * *
NO PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF MASONRY IN RHODE ISLAND IN THE
17th CENTURY
The following is the
first paragraph of an article entitled "The Jew in Masonry," appearing in the
December number of the "Masonic Journal of South Africa," and there quoted as
taken from the "Masonic Voice Review":
"Mr. Madison C.
Peters, of New York, quotes from the Rev. Edward Peterson's History of Rhode
Island to show that in 1658 some Jews from Holland established a Masonic lodge
in Newport which continued to meet in the house of Brother Campanall until 1842.
"Peterson quotes Past
Grand Master Gould, of Massachusetts, who asserted that in 1839 certain papers
found among the effects of a deceased relative who was a
great-great-grand-daughter of Gov. John Wanton of Rhode Island, 1734-1740, one
of which contained this item:
" 'That ye (day and
month obliterated) 165 - (either 6 or 8) wee (sic) met at y house of Mordecai
Campunall and after Synagog we gave Abm Moses the degree of Maconrie.' "
The remainder of the
article goes on to later dates, which give rise to no question, but the last
three lines quoted prompt a query as to whether you or any of your readers can
say whether any investigation has been made concerning a seventeenth century
meeting in America, founded on previous meetings in Holland, where Masonry has
hitherto been supposed to have made its first appearance some years after the
foundation of the Grand Lodge of England. O.H.B., England.
We asked Brother
Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master of Massachusetts, if he could throw any
light on the foregoing subject and received the following reply:
I can throw all the
light on the subject that there is to throw on it. The fact is that the
assertions made with regard to the Rhode Island document in question will not
bear having any light thrown on them.
On page 111 of THE
BUILDER for May, 1915, you will find a comment on this same subject matter and
you will find the evidence carefully reviewed in the Printed Proceedings of the
Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for 1870, pages 357 to 361, inclusive. See also my
"Freemasonry in America Prior to 1750," published by the National Masonic
Research Society, page 20.
The fairy tale that
certain Hebrews were given the degrees of Masonry at Newport, Rhode Island, in
1656 and 1658, grew out of a statement published in 1853 by Rev. Edward
Peterson, on page 101 of his "History of Rhode Island and Newport in the Past,"
and quoted by J. L. Gould, of Connecticut, in 1868 in a manual entitled "Guide
to the Chapter." Mr. Peterson says that his statement was "taken from documents
now in possession of N.H. Gould, Esq."
Brother N. H. Gould
was a 33d Mason. In 1870 he wrote a letter in which he says that in January,
1839, Hannah Hull, a distant relative of his, died leaving some papers. She was
a great-great-grand-daughter of Governor John Wanton who was Governor of the
Colony from 1734 to 1740. Brother N.H. Gould says that his father settled her
estate and in looking over her effects they found in an old trunk some letters.
Among them, he says, was a memorandum which read:
"Ths ye
(day and month obliterated) 1656 or 8 (not certain which, as the place was
stained and broken: the first three figures were plain) wee mett att y House off
Mordecai Campunnall and affter Synagog wee gave Abm Moses the degree of Maconrie."
Brother Gould added
that the document was "nicely enveloped and packed away, with some of my papers
in my house, securely, but not where I can at present put my hand upon it."
The document has never
been seen since, although Bro. Gould, while he lived, was applied to time and
time again by historians including M.W. William Sewall Gardner, Grand Master of
Massachusetts, and Wor. Brother William James Hughan, but he never produced it
or permitted any one to see it if he ever had such a document at all.
Unless and until the
document is produced or accounted for, no credit whatever can be given it.
Indeed, no credit is given it in Rhode Island.
M.W. Thomas A. Doyle,
who was then Grand Master of Masons in Rhode Island, in December, 1870, wrote to
the Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts a letter reading as follows:
"Providence, December, 1870.
"Dear Sir and M. W. Brother:
"As to the statement,
in Peterson's History of Rhode Island, that Masonry was worked in this State
from 1658 to 1742, I can only say that, from the best information I can obtain
in regard to that history, the statement is not to be taken as a fact, unless
supported by other reliable testimony. What he has said about Masonry is, I
understand, asserted upon the authority of documents in the possession of W. Br.
N.H. Gould. I have made many enquiries about these documents of brethren in
Newport, members of the Grand Lodge and others, and do not find that any one has
ever seen them; neither do the brethren believe that any proof exists of the
truth of Peterson's statement.
"From Brother Gould's
letter to you, it would seem that the only authority in his possession, for the
assertion of Peterson, is a document showing that, in 1656 or 1658, somebody met
some other persons at some house in Newport, and gave 'Abm. Moses the degrees of
Maconrie.'
"This may have
occurred * then and there just as it is stated; but, if so, it is no authority
for the statement that a lodge of Masons existed then in Newport, or that there
was any legal Masonic authority for the work done, or that any other person was
ever legally made a Mason in Newport, between 1658 and 1742.
"My own opinion is,
that the first lawful lodge of Masons ever convened in this jurisdiction, was
the one which met in Newport, in 1749, under the authority of R. W. Thomas
Oxnard, Provincial Grand Master of Massachusetts, which lodge has existed since
that time, and is now known as Saint John's Lodge.
"Yours truly and fraternally,
Thomas A. Doyle,
Grand Master of Masons
in Rhode Island.
"M.W. William S.
Gardner,
Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts."
One of the hardest
animals to kill is a snake. It is even harder to kill a false statement which is
made as real historical fact. This canard with regard to 1656 has been copied by
one writer after another. Most of those who have given it any credit whatever
have been the kind of historians who are doing the Masonry the most harm -
historians who are willing to give the credit of their names to wild and
unreliable statements so long as they have the flavor of antiquity.
The late Brother
Robert Freke Gould founded a new era in the writing of Masonic history and it
will be much to our advantage if we follow his lead and do not assert facts as
historical until the evidence therefor has been examined and found worthy of
approval.
* Impossible. There
were no degrees in Masonry until 1719. Whoever concocted the story about this
document forgot that. - M.M.J.
----o----
CORRESPONDENCE
EXPLORATION OF THE HOLY LAND
I want to make a
suggestion, but perhaps the matter has already had consideration. Doubtless when
the present war is over there will be some geographical changes made in the
earth's surface; possibly we all have ideas of what they should be. I should
like to see Armenia given to the Armenians, and Jerusalem given to the Jews.
There is much to be found out concerning the Holy Land and Jerusalem of historic
value to the world. The exploring and examination of ancient and venerable
places should be done by our Research Society, possibly combined with the
National Geographic Society and institutions of like kind in England and France,
but under license of a Jewish government. There are many Jews in both of our
Societies, and no doubt a happy combination could easily be formed.
There are at present
in the world sufficient miracle-working bones, parts of the true cross, and what
not, without any more being unearthed. It is my opinion that whatever may be
found in that land should be found by honest people, and if put anywhere for
exhibition, should be placed in public museums and on exhibition at all times
and not to be worshipped and expected to work miracles.
B. F. Bache, Florida.
* * *
NAMES OF CANDIDATES lN LODGE NOTICES
Permit me this attempt
to answer Brother C.H.S. of Connecticut. For several years my own lodge has
followed the practice of reporting to our membership the names and addresses of
all applicants for the degrees and for affiliation, there being no prohibition
in this Grand Jurisdiction.
We do it because it
adds nothing to the expense of the notices which are sent out for each meeting
and because it is manifestly impossible for every resident member to attend
every meeting, much as we should like to have them do so, and we believe they
are entitled to the protection afforded by such notice. It is not possible for
one man, or two, to know all there is to be known about another. Even our
investigating committees of three, newly appointed for each applicant, do not
get all the facts the lodge should have upon which to base a judgment as to the
qualifications of the applicant to be made a Mason. Instances are very numerous
of favorable reports by such committees following the favorable recommendation
of two brothers, which comes with the application, and all followed by a ballot
which is "dark."
In his address before
the last Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, our Grand Master
cited one instance which I commend to Brother C.H.S. for his careful perusal and
if he declares it an exceptional case and not to be relied on for a rule, I
would remind him that he also has cited but a single case and it is even less of
a "precedent" or reason for a rule barring the giving of these notices than the
one which our Grand Master used to point out his plea for still more care in the
investigating of applicants. In our Grand Master's case the facts were within
the knowledge of only one man, and if he had been unavoidably absent, and so
unable to stop the applicant, what a dreadful situation would have resulted!
I think there are
therefore twosreasons why these names should be published in advance to all the
members. First, that if any doubt exists it must be resolved in favor of the
lodge, and not the applicant, and second, that every brother now in the lodge
must be made to feel that he is to be protected against the possibility of
having to assume Masonic responsibility for one he knows to be unworthy.
Doubt does exist as to
every applicant. If not, why investigate? And if we do investigate, why not be
thorough and use every possible channel of investigation? No man goes about
spreading his knowledge of another's character, but if that other is to be made
his Masonic brother he must be made acquainted with that fact. If not, then we
have failed in our responsibility to him.
It is unfortunately
true that one may not safely rely upon the fact that another is a Mason. It is
needless to say that this should not be so. The reason is in the lack of
thorough investigation, it will be said, but I reply that none can read the mind
of another if he choose to hide it, and I know at least one instance where three
investigations (two of which followed the first rejection) failed to disclose
any reason and yet some one knew, because two other rejections followed.
If the applicant is
worthy, he will be admitted. If he is not, within the knowledge of even one
unknown brother, the lodge should not want him so badly as to prefer that one
unknown brother shall not have every possible chance to express his opinion at
the ballot-box, and remain unknown.
I insist upon assuming
the good faith of the brother who is "in" rather than relying upon the
qualifications of the applicant whom I may not know.
William Burrows, Minnesota.
* * *
ORIGIN OF THE GRAND LODGE OF CUBA
May I obtain from you
the insertion in THE BUILDER of the following correction to Brother Johnson's
and Odell's article on the recognition of the Grand Lodge of Panama? I have
corresponded with M. W. Brother Johnson and he accepts my correction and
indicated that it could be published. I cannot but still congratulate the
Society for the excellence of the article. The correction follows:
It is said in the
article that the Grand Lodge of Cuba was started by the Supreme Council, A. and
A.S.R. This is an error, as it was constituted on the fifth of December, 1859,
and the Supreme Council was constituted on the twenty-seventh of the same month.
The Grand Lodge was composed of three lodges, two of them holding original
charters from Pennsylvania and one from South Carolina, purposely chartered for
that end.
It is true that
sometime afterward some relations existed between the Grand Lodge and the
Supreme Council, but these relations had no restraint upon the independence of
the Grand Lodge, and lasted but a short time.
F. de P. Rodriguez,
Chairman Committee on Foreign Correspondence
of the Grand Lodge of Cuba.
* * *
VIRGINIA MILITARY MASONIC CLUB
Brother C. F. Bushman,
Virginia, sends us the following item written for the Virginia Masonic Journal
which should prove interesting to the readers of THE BUILDER:
At a meeting composed
of officers and enlisted men of the 315th Field Artillery, National Army, at
Camp Lee, Va., February 6th, 1918, all of whom were Master Masons, it was
suggester by Lieutenant Colonel Russell P. Reeder, the Commander of the
Regiment, that we form a Masonic Club, and that we attend the Grand Lodge the
following week at Richmond, Va., for the purpose of gaining recognition from
that august body.
On February 12th, the
Master Masons of this Regiment attended in a body the Grand Lodge of Virginia,
then in session at Richmond, where we were welcomed with much feeling and
pleasure, and were granted permission to organize a Masonic Club, for social
purposes only.
This having been
accomplished, the Club was organized and the following officers elected:
Worshipful Master Sergeant Major C. F. Bushman
Senior Warden Sergeant B. F. Hatton
Junior Warden Sergeant R. A. Lampton
Treasurer Private Lacey Cole
Secretary Sergeant R. H. Counts
Senior Deacon Sergeant James H. Petty
Junior Deacon Private H. J. Lilly
Tiler Corporal William E. Kirk
The Club, at present,
has a membership of fifty Masons.
At a meeting held on
March 6th, the Club was honored by the presence of Dr. Joseph W. Eggleston, Past
Grand Master of
Virginia, and Major W. McK. Evans, both of whom served
as artillerymen in the Civil War,
and who were elected Honorary members. During his visit, Dr. Eggleston delivered
a very strong and interesting talk, choosing as his subject "Masonry and the
War," which proved very beneficial to us and was much appreciated by all.
The name of our club
was selected in honor of our Regimental Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Russell P.
Reeder, and Dr. Joseph W. Eggleston, but for whose kind interest and
co-operation it would have been impossible for the club to have attained its
present well established condition.
The club was organized
for social and benevolent purposes only, and as a means whereby the Masons of
this, as well as other Regiments in the cantonment, may assemble together and
get better acquainted. At the present time it is the only organization of its
kind in the Division.
* * *
DEPUTY FOR CHINA - A CORRECTION
In the March issue we
gave the title of Brother Charles S. Lobingier, who wrote the interesting
article "Freemasons in the American Revolution," as "Deputy for China." While
Brother Lobingier is a resident of Shanghai, China, he is not the Supreme
Council Deputy for that country but for the Philippines. The Deputy for China is
Brother John R. Hykes.
----o----
AN ACROSTIC
Always and ever I cherish thee still
My home and the land of my birth.
Each mountain, valley, river and plain
Rises to view, the fairest on earth.
I ever will serve and support the
Country whose name, by the letters you see
Are first in each line, the home of the free.
- W.S. Vawter. Texas.
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