THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
may 1922
volume 8 - number 5
Masonry and the World's Work
(Written for the
DETROIT MASONIC NEWS and published by permission of the editor of that
publication)
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD,
IOWA
ONE MIGHT quibble a
good deal about the exact significance of the important question that you have
posed, but I take it that you mean to ask if I believe that Freemasonry should
discharge its influence altogether, so to speak, into its own vitals and in its
own interests, or if it should turn some of its influence into the great world
outside itself, in order that that world may feel something of the force and
beauty of Freemasonry. I am very sure that you do not mean to infer that at any
time or under any circumstances Masonic lodges should engage in politics, or as
lodges assume an active part in the direction of public affairs. Needless to
say, I should instantly reply in the latter instance that Masonic lodges never
should - as lodges - engage in politics of any kind, or anything like politics:
but I am quite as ready to say that I do believe that Freemasonry should cease
to hibernate inside its own hollow tree, and that it should be harnessing its
great powers up to some of the worthful social causes in orier that it may do
something for the world in general.
I believe that it was
a good thing for the Fraternity to attempt to go abroad in order to lend
fraternal aid and encouragement to Masonic brethren there, and to their friends.
I believe it was a
good thing for Freemasonry to play the part it did in the Revolutionary War, and
in the founding of the United States government.
I believe it is a
good thing for Freemasonry to watch with jealous care the interests of the
public school system of the land, not only because the disruption or
disintegration of that great educational system would defeat many of its own
most cherished purposes but also because such a disintegration would work an
irreparable injury to this nation.
I believe it was a
good thing for a large number of our Grand Lodges to fashion the Masonic Service
Association of the United States in order that all our Grand Lodges may work as
a unity in any cause that may call for the assistance of the Fraternity as a
whole. Freemasonry now has its own Red Cross system, and that is a fact of which
every one of us may feel proud.
I believe it was a
noble thing for this same Masonic Service Association to send to President
Harding, at the beginning of the great conference on the limitation of armament,
a resolution in which Brother Harding was assured the support and
congratulations of the Association, which represented at the time thirty-four
jurisdictions; and I know that the members of all the other jurisdictions would
readily have signed the resolutions, which adequately expressed the fact that
Masons, aloof them, pray for the peace of the world, and stand ready to lend
their aid to any project for bringing to pass the end of war.
I believe that the
Fraternity could - if only it would - do very much toward bringing about a
better understanding among the nations of the world to the end that they may
learn to live together upon the level and discover how good a thing it would be
for peoples to live together in harmony. If that good will does not come among
nations it can never rest secure inside any one nation, because in the community
of the world no nation can live or die unto itself.
And furthermore I
believe that it would be a good thing if every Masonic lodge made it a point to
take up some kind of community service in its own locality. This service need
not be advertised to the profane or undertaken with a flourish of trumpets, but
it could be organized in such a manner as to win the support of every Freemason
in the province of the lodge. Many have been the explanations of Masonic apathy,
of the indifference which falls upon so many men, even after they have passed
the chairs: to my own mind one of the cardinal causes of this apathy lies in the
fact that in so many cases the lodge is a mere engine which keeps all its wheels
turning but does not accomplish anything by its discharge of power. A lodge that
is content with meeting twice a week for initiations and once a month to
transact its little modicum of business, and then "lets it go at that," isn't
much good to itself or to the world; and many of the better men among its
members will soon grow disgusted with such child's play, and remain home. If
that lodge would only enlist its energies in some worthful community cause it
would find that its members would soon lose their apathy. Social service is
necessary for Masonic health.
In the discharge of
my own humble duties in the National Masonic Research Society I receive and
reply to a great grist of letters which come to me from brethren all over the
world, and it will be no betrayal of confidence if I say here, in pages read by
Craftsmen, that a large number of these letters contain complaints against the
fruitlessness of so much of our Masonic endeavor. "Why is it," many of these
brethren ask, "that Freemasonry isn't doing something with itself ?" If one will
carefully scan the fifty or more Masonic journals published in this land; if he
will keep a weather eye out for the Masonic books now being published; and
furthermore if he will study the Grand Lodge Proceedings each year (one of the
most valuable things a Masonic student can do for himself) he will find that the
Fraternity as a whole is now in a kind of ferment, and that the multitudes of
young men who have joined us during the past five or six years are impatiently
asking - if I may echo one of the now melancholy catch phrases of the Great War
- "where do we go from here ?" These men are not satisfied with meekly sitting
on the sidelines watching the ceremonies: they are eager to see all the things
taught in those ceremonies at work in the world, catching on to people's minds,
and taking effect in the general life. In other words, I am quite sure that the
rank and file of members, as things now are, are not only in favor of, but
insistently clamantly in favor of Freemasonry's taking some part "in the work of
the world."
If any of the more
conservative brethren shrink from this, fearing lest it violate the old
traditions or transgress the Ancient Landmarks, let them in all patience study
those ancient traditions, and learn to know what Freemasonry actually has done
in the past! If they will do this they will discover that the more or less
stereotyped American Freemasonry of the 1890's is in no sense representative of
the Freemasonry that the world at large has known these past two centuries. It
would surprise even the ardent and restless youngest member could he learn just
how much the Fraternity has actually done in carrying on the "world's work"
during those two centuries! Recently, while going through all the references to
Freemasonry in the Encyclopedia Britannica and in the Catholic Encyclopedia I
was struck by the fact that in almost every instance the Fraternity is mentioned
as having been at work to win for men more liberty, more equality, and more
democracy.
Consider why it was
that Freemasonry was banned from Russia. Learn what it did in Germany in the
1848's, and what part it played in Belgium and Holland in 1820. Read its history
in Austria and Hungary and discover why it was so cordially hated by the
aristocracy that they at last violently destroyed it. Consider the part that it
played in the liberation and unification of the Italian Peninsula, and recall
how that Garabaldi himself was an active Freemason. Go through the story of
Freemasonry's role in France from the time when it assisted so powerfully to
overturn the Ancient Regime until the present, when it is once more in a death
grapple with the Jesuits who again got their innings during the Great War; and
how that during that long period the Craft was very largely instrumental in
gaining a public school system for France, and in securing the separation of
church and state! The Republic of Portugal is often called "a child of Masonry";
while in Spain the Fraternity has been persecuted again and again on the grounds
that it was instilling the ideas and ideals of democracy into the minds of the
Spanish. There is no need to lengthen this list of references, save to say that
the part played by the Fraternity in our own land has not only not been
exaggerated, but hasn't even yet been fully recognized. One of these days it
will be proved that the Craft saved the Colonists at the most critical stage of
the Revolutionary War, and that if it had not been for Freemasonry the War would
have been lost, and the freeing of the Colonists would have been delayed if not
defeated, and a very different type of government would have been constructed.
These last statements sound strong but they can be every one substantiated by
incontrovertible evidence.
I don't mention these
hints from history in order to illustrate my point that the Craft should do its
own right part in carrying on "the world's work," for an illustration has no
weight in logic: nor do I advance this as a precedent for our social activity,
because a precedent may merely permit - not demand - a given course of action: I
recall this history in order that it may reveal what has ever been the nature of
the Fraternity, and indicates that what it has been in the past it will
necessarily be in the future.
Sooner or later,
Brother Editor, we shall not raise the question that you have raised because by
that time it will have become taken for granted that Freemasonry, being a public
institution, owes certain duties to the world of which it is a part, just as
every other institution owes social duties. The question then will be as to ways
and means and as to specific tasks. At present we can't talk much about specific
tasks, and as to ways and means that must be decided as the occasion arises.
----o----
FURTHER NOTES ON THE
ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES
BY BRO. N. W. HAYDEN,
ONTARIO
IN THE BUILDER for
March, 1920, were published "Some Notes on the Mysteries of Eleusis," which I
sent by way of a comment on the valuable articles on this subject from the pen
of Brother Dudley Wright, of which Part IV appeared in THE BUILDER for
September, 1919. In this portion, and in his little book which reproduces the
whole, (1) Brother Wright offers this question, "It would be interesting to know
why . . . wheat was chosen (for exaltation); why the ear more than the grain;
why it should be emphasized that it was 'gathered'; . . . and in what manner it
secured, or ensured, for the individual a blissful existence after death."
An attempt to answer
this query, after so many centuries have passed since it ceased apparently to be
a living usage, would surely be speculative enough for any of us, but I
addressed myself to it and trust my answer will not be judged as falling short
of its intent.
Let me first draw
attention to a quotation from Vol. II of Frazer's Golden Bough. "In the great
mystelies solemnized at Eleusis in the month of September, the union of the sky
god Zeus with the corn goddess Demeter appear to have been represented by the
union of the hierophant with the priestess of Demeter, who acted the parts of
the god and goddess. But this intercourse was only dramatic or symbolical, (2)
for the hierophant had temporarily deprived himself of his virility by an
application of hemlock. (3) The torches having been extinguished the pair
descended into a murky place while the throng of worshippers awaited in anxious
suspense the result of the mystic congress, on which they believed their own
salvation to depend."
"After a time the
hierophant reappeared and, in a blaze of light, silently exhibited to the
assembly a reaped ear of corn, (4) the fruit of the divine marriage. Then, in a
loud voice, he proclaimed 'Queen Bromo has brought forth a sacred boy, Brimas'
by which he meant 'The Mighty One has brought forth the Mighty.' The
corn-mother, in fact, had given birth to her child, the corn, and her travail
pangs were enacted in the sacred drama. This revelation of the reaped ear of
corn appears to have been the crowning act of the Mysteries."
In addition to the
above, there is the witness of Hippolytus, one of the "early Fathers" (A. D.
160-236), who was bitterly opposed to the religions of the heathen. In his
Philosophoumena he gives a "Translation and Refutation" of the rites and
teachings contained in a Naasene manuscript which had been written for private
circulation, somewhat like our Book of The Work, which contained the following:
"Knowledge of the Perfect Man is deep and hard to comprehend. For the beginning
of Perfection is Gnosis of Man, but Gnosis of God is perfect Perfection. (5) And
the Phrygians called him also 'Plucked Green Wheat Ear,' and after the
Phrygians, the Athenians so designate him, when, in the secret rites of Eleusis
they show those who receive in silence the final initiation there into the
Great, and Marvelous, and Most Perfect Epoptic Mystery, a plucked wheat ear. And
this wheat ear is also with the Athenians the Light-Giver perfect and mighty,
from the Inexpressible, the Holy Son born of Our Lady, the Virgin Spirit."
One can see by the
foregoing that in these Mysteries an ear of corn, which had been reaped - i.e.,
separated from its root and stalk - was used as an emblem of the Deity, who came
through the gate of physical birth and separation for the good of his
worshippers, even as the corn itself has to be separated and prepared that our
bodies may be nourished thereby.
"But why," asks
Brother Wright, "was wheat chosen out for this purpose from among all the plants
which revive and die in the course of the year?"
I believe there is
very much more hidden in this query than appears on the surface, for it takes us
back to the origins of life, the "Divine Kings" of old Egypt, and all that title
connotes. It is a strange fact of our terrestrial life that wheat has never been
traced to any form of wild grass. It is older than history; it has been found
wrapped up with mummies, and the Book of the Dead has several references to it
as the "Corn of Life"; evidently of a symbolic nature as its height varies from
three to seven cubits according to the spiritual condition of the servant of
Horus who is "gleaning the fields of Aanroo," i. e., receiving the due reward of
his actions, good or bad. In one sentence, Isis says "I reveal to mortals the
mysteries of wheat and corn."
Plato in his Critias
(I think) and in his Fourth Book of Laws, suggests that just as man governs his
flocks and herds, not by one of their own kind, but by a superior being, so the
Creator ruled primitive humanity with Divine Shepherds. When these were retired,
"Inventors" appeared who "discovered" fire, wheat, wine and letters. Brother
Wright tells us, "According to some ancient writers the Greeks, prior to the
time of Demeter and Triptolemus, fed upon the acorns of the ilex or the
evergreen oak. Acorns, according to Virgil, were used as food in Epiros; and in
Spain, according to Strabo. The Scythians made bread with acorns. By another
tradition before Demeter's time, men neither cultivated corn nor tilled the
ground, but roamed the mountains and woods in search for the wild fruits which
the earth produced. Isocrates wrote, "Ceres hath made the Athenians two presents
of the greatest consequence: corn, which brought us out of a state of brutality;
and the Mysteries, which teach the initiated to entertain the most agreeable
expectations touching death and eternity." Thus the Greeks trace their knowledge
of tillage to the goddess Ceres. The Chinese trace theirs to the instructions of
"celestial genii." These were the Kabiri, also named in the Vedas the Agni-putra,
both terms meaning "The Sons of Flame," who were too, the first workers in
minerals and metals, the true Te-Baal-Kayin, whose name is remembered because
they were "Lords of the Smiths" and not because of any worldly possessions they
may have acquired.
One of the most
plausible explanations of the fact that the Egyptian civilization seems to have
no beginning, is that it was originally in that respect, a colony from Atlantis,
coeval with another in Yucatan, for knowledge of which we are so indebted to the
labors of Dr. and Mrs. Le Plongeon. An extended review of the evidence on this
point can also be gained from Atlantis by Ignatius Donnelly. Bro. Churchward in
his great work Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man writes: "We are enabled to
give two figures from photographs of 'Two Gods' recently discovered near the
ruins of Mitla, by Prof. Marshall H. Saville. (Mitla is one of the ruined cities
of Yucatan.) These two figures are symbolically typical of the Egyptian Horus,
in two of his characters. The one on the right has a crown on his head, with
four ears of corn, two on each side, and between them the hieroglyphic figure
for running water. In front, between his arms, is the Egyptian ideographic
hieroglyph RHI - 'The Garden of Earth.' His tongue is hanging out, apparently as
two tongues, symbolically uttering or saying that he is the Lord and Bringer of
food and of water; this is identically the same as the Egyptian at Philae, where
'The Corn Spirit' is represented by stalks and ears of corn springing from its
mummy near running water - i. e., Horus is represented as a bringer of food and
water; which must be interesting to Freemasons as being the origin of 'an ear of
corn near a fall of water.'
"The figure on the
left side is one of the Mexican depictions of Horus as 'The Light of the World.'
He has a crown on his head surmounted by several groups (there should be seven)
of Three Rods, or Rays, of Light. In front between the arms is a head with a
rope around its neck which passes over the shoulders of the god, symbolical of a
power bringing death, darkness, or ignorance to the Light Eternal, through or by
Horus. The one Power through whom you are led from death to the mansions of the
Blessed."
On page 381 of
Mexican Antiquities, by Dr. Edward Soler, figure A, Horus is seen as “The Young
Ear of Corn" represented here by maize. He is giving life and plenty, he is the
bringer of food, of life, to the world.
In Memoires de la
Mission Francaise, by Lefebvre, Vol. II, pages 29 and 31, are shown figures from
the coffin of the Pharoah Seti 1st,6 amongst which is the "grain-god"
represented as a man wearing two full ears of wheat upon his head.
It will be useful at
this point to quote from the translation of the Book of Gates, as delineated on
the inside and outside of this sarcophagus, for which we are i debted to the
Efforts of Dr. Wallis Budge:
"On the left of the
course of Afu-Ra are twelve male figures, who represent the 'workers in the
wheat fields of the Tuat.' . . . The ears of wheat are said to he the 'members
of Osiris,' and thus the great god is the food upon which the gods and the
beatified live in the Tuat.... Every ear of wheat which flourished there was a
member of the body of Osiris, for this god himself was the wheat-god, and was
the source of life of every plant of wheat in his kingdom. Thus it follows that
the beatified lived upon the body of their god, whom they ate daily.... The
texts, from the earliest period, speak of Osiris as the everliving and
Everlasting god, and the Prince of eternity, and as he was the wheat-god it alas
his body which was the 'bread of everlastingness' according to the texts which
were written under the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, about 3600-8300 B. C....
Though in the texts under consideration the grain-god Nepra is mentioned by
name, it is Osiris who assumes the lordship of the celestial grain. The
connection between Maat, or righteousness, and the grain-god is not easy to
explain, but it seems to me that we have here a mixture of two conceptions of
Osiris. As the grain-god he would satisfy those who wished for a purely material
heaven, where hunger would be unknown; and as the god of righteousness, of whom
the spiritually-minded hoped to become the counterpart, he would become the hope
and consolation, and the symbol of the Eternal God."
lI have been unable
to get a copy of this figure, but it would probably be similar to the one shown
in Egyptian Mythology by Max Muller, figure 73, page 66, as that of Nepri (male)
or Nepret (female), divine guardian of grain. This authority writes: "The god of
grain, who in female form is sometimes identified with Renemutet, the goddess of
harvest, is rather more of a poetic abstraction, like the gods 'Abundance' and
'Plenty.' In this way Nepri is Lord of Food generally rather than a god of grain
particularly."
I think Brother
Wright's query is answered fairly completely by the foregoing, but there is a
further development which is worth consideration as regards the last sentence of
his question. As I pointed out in my "Notes" of March, 1920, the Mysteries of
Eleusis were the nearest approach to modern Freemasonry of which we have any
historical evidence. For nearly 1500 years they exerted their influence for good
over most of the known world; their initiates were numbered by the thousand, and
all the civilized peoples of the time were represented annually in that little
corner of the world, even as in our own day the otherwise obscure village of
Ober-Ammergau attracted the citizens of Christendom to its decennial Passion
Play.
Is it to be supposed
that the fanaticism of the Byzantine Christians entirely destroyed these ancient
and worshipful ceremonies ? I think not. How many of our modern religious
customs, ceremonies, and anniversaries are but a thin veneer of changed names
laid upon a foundation of "pagan" usages, whose inherent life continued because
they were connected with that inner shrine in humanity where dwells the Great
Architect, no matter how variously our minds may cognize and name Him!
And just as the
popularly useful features of the Eleusinia are reborn in our Masonic usages, so,
I think, the essential intent of the last and greatest of its series of
Mysteries has been preserved for us in a custom which to many today is, as it
was to our Greek forbears, an approach to and communion with our vision of
Deity, the most revered and intimate of all our religious acts.
In the Encyclopabdia
of Religions under the subdivision "Christian, Western," of the subject
"Sacraments" we are shown how the Church Fathers, Tertullian, Jerome, Cyprian,
and Augustine, used the Latin word "sacramentum" as.an equivalent of the Greek
word "musterion," the chief requisite in this valuation being the mutual use of
a material symbol, of an intelligible reality, or to paraphrase the definition
in the Catechism - it must be an outward and physical sign of an inward and
psychical process. Augustine also admits that every religion, true or false, has
its visible signs or sacrament (Cont. Faust. XIX, XI).
From this same
source, under the general heading of "Sacraments," we read: "In the Eleusinia
certain acts of a sacramental character had a place.... Apart from other things
done or seen, they partook of a cup of 'kukeon,' a thick gruel of meal and water
resembling the draught of barley, groats, water and pennyroyal leaves drunk by
the mourning Demeter after her nine days fast. The unemended text of Clement of
Alexandria suggests the handling of a sacred object, rather than the tasting of
a sacred food. What did this drinking and eating mean to the worshippers ? Some
enquirers have seen in it a sacramental communion with Demeter in her passion,
e. g., Gardner in his Origins of the Lord's Supper."
My conclusion, too,
arrived at this same result, as the only explanation of a custom honored through
centuries of observance. It must have satisfied some more or less conscious need
in the psychologic economy of its participants, and our own personal experiences
will sympathize with them. Why should we think like the priests with Cortez and
Pizarro, who held that the signs of the cross and the eucharistic ceremonies
they found in the New World had been planted there by Satan to deceive a people
who were ignorant of the "Holy Mother Church" ? Is it not rather more worthy of
our motto, "Follow Reason," and our belief in an everliving and immanent
Builder, to see in these ancient customs the evidence of a divine method through
which each succeeding race of man, after it has come to a certain growth of
spiritual evolution, can have unsealed in its inmost sanctuary, a new fount of
energy wherewith to meet new trials and win new victories? One can see herein
the vision that inspired the Eastern prayer, the most sacred verse of the
Rig-Veda, the "Gayatri" whose beauty I have not found surpassed anywhere - "Oh
Thou, that givest sustenance to the universe, Thou from whom all things proceed,
and to whom all shall return, unveil that face of the true sun, now hidden by
this vase of golden light, that we may know the Truth and do our whole duty as
we journey to Thy sacred seat." Three thousand years after the mind that framed
this prayer had left its corporeal tenement, we find the same hope and desire
embodied in Cardinal Newman's famous hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light"; and Tennyson
voices our thought that through prayer "men are bound by gold chains up to the
throne of God." The Great Architect has many names and wears many vestures, in
the minds of His offspring, yet withal "He inhabiteth Eternity" as Brother
Hosmer wrote in THE BUILDER for May, 1917. Happy are they who know this, whether
Hindoo, Eleusinian, or the man of today.
(1) "The Eleusinian
Mysteries & Rites," by Dudley Wright, with an Introduction by the Rev. J. Fort
Newton, D. Litt., D. D.
(2) As to the
symbolic nature of the union, Frazer gives quotations from Tertullian, Ad
Nationes, II, 7; Amasenus, in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, XL, col. 324;
Hippolytus, Refutatic omnium EIaeresium, Vol. 8, pp. 162-4, etc.
(3) In antiquity it
was believed that an ointment or plaster of hemlock applied to the genital
organs prevented them from discharging their function. See Dioscorides, De
Materia Medica IV, 79; Pliny, Nat.
History XXV, 154. Dr.
J. B. Bradbury, Downing Professol of Medicine in the University of Cambridge,
informs me that this belief is correct.
(4) Perhaps it may be
necessary to remind American readers that Wheat is always known as "corn" in
Europe; whereas the Corn of the United States is known there as "maize" or
"Indian corn.'
(5) "Perfect" as used
here is a technical term of the Schools It does not indicate a quality, as with
us today, but rather a rank, somewhat as our term "worshipful" in Masonic usage.
(6) This coffin was
carved from alabaster, and is now in the Sir John Sloane Museum, in London,
England.
----o----
MASONIC TOLERATION
BY BRO. MALCOLM W.
BINGAY, MICHIGAN
THE BUILDER MAY 1922
MAN IN his egotism
has quarrelled about religion since the first day of recorded history; from the
cloud worship of the first Aryan down to our own sadly disturbed times it has
been ever the same: martyrs have given up their anguished souls, armies have
been massacred, empires have been shattered and civilizations sent to decay -
all in the name of God. And yet through all these wars about religion there
never has been and there never can be a religious war for a religious war is a
contradiction in terms: no one can love God and at the same time hate his
brother man.
Religion has been the
pretext for war, but for an explanation of the hate which prompts men to fight
we must turn from the fields of religion to the study of psychology, and it is a
simple fact in psychology that we dislike, even unto hate, those who disagree
with us.
The more strongly we
feel a thing the more firmly we believe in the merit of our feeling; our logic
appeals to us as absolute and we subconsciously justify our attitude often to
the exclusion, in our narrow intensity, of possible outstanding facts. It all
seems so simple and sane and understandable to us from our own personal
viewpoint that we marvel at the inability of others to understand and see as we
do. The average man, when filled with the ardor of an idea resents having
anybody fail to agree with him in that ardor; the one who refuses to be
converted to his attitude is either maddeningly stupid and unworthy of further
consideration and sympathy, or he is purposely venal and vicious. The ratio of
this resentment depends on the strength of the advocate's ardor, on his
narrowness or breadth of mind, and on his inner spiritual qualities or lack of
them.
Christ understood and
forgave; too many of his followers, or those who devoutly believe they are his
followers, scream for the tar and the torch. As Swift said:
"Some men have just
enough religion to hate each other and not enough to love one another."
The blame cannot be
placed upon religion, but rather upon our failure to understand the three
impulses by which man lives, moves and has his being: First, instinct - that
something which man shares with the animals, the simple impulse to exist; Second
- reason, that something by which he is able to differentiate himself from the
animals and through which he has piled up, through the ages, his material
wealth; Third - spirit, that indefinable, ineffable Something transcending both
instinct and reason and which permits him, in his loftier moods to glimpse
faintly a possible answer to those eternal questions which have ever harried his
mortal reason, but which leave his immortal soul calm and at peace with the
Infinite. But Man is ever the egotist; he is proud that he is a reasoning
animal; and he has struggled throughout the ages to gain answer to those
questions by reason alone.
By reason he has
built the cities of the earth; by reason he has encompassed the globe; by reason
he has made the temporal triumphs on which our civilization now exists-and which
seems to be crumbling again into the dust. The spirit alone can save mankind
from himself and his ruthless reasoning. Terrible as was the World War through
which we have just gone, there is one thing more terrible: the state of society
which makes such a thing possible. The battles of the Western front in France
were but outward manifestations of the war which tore the hearts of men before
the guns were unleashed. Peace is a state of mind, and the war was raging in
the minds of men long ere the first gun sung its song of death in the year
1914. When a world is bad enough to make war, war follows even as the boil
protrudes its ulcerous ugliness when the body is bad enough to make boils!
We have boasted of
our Age of Reason, and it has been an age of reason - reason without spirit,
without faith in our God and our fellow man, reason like a giant ship rushing in
circles driven madly on by powerful engines with no rudder to guide its course.
The first question
which stirred the mind of primitive man concerned his God. Since the first
shepherd, stretched on the hills at night, wondered, man has asked himself these
questions and has tried by reason alone to solve them:
What is the nature of
God?
What is the origin of
the world?
Whence came we?
Whither do we go? And why?
They are the
questions on which all the warring theologies of the world have been built; and
they cannot be answered by reason alone - they cannot be answered by reason at
all, for they take in the realms of the immortal and we are only mortal. As
Plotinus, the Alexandrian, said: "I am a finite being; how can I comprehend the
infinite? As soon as I comprehend the infinite, I am infinite myself." Human
reason is a limited and an erring faculty, unable to grasp "the sorry scheme of
things entire" even as the stillest lake fails to reflect the sky as a whole.
But reasoning man will not permit of such a thought; he will answer and explain
to please himself and applaud his own wisdom.
From Thales, Plato
and Aristole to Des Cartes, Fichte and Schelling, man the reasoning animal has
run in the revolving squirrel cage of his reason, trying to solve the mystery of
immortality on his mortal treadmill; from Copernicus, Galilee, Kepler and Newton
to Einstein; from Locke to James; from Pyrrho to Anatole France; from the Sacred
Bull Amon of Egypt to the psycho-analysis of Freud; from Apsu and Tiamit of
Babylonia to Edisonian incandescence; from the fable of Prometheus unbound to
the dream of the arrested energy of the atom - thus man has sought in the stars
and in the human brain for answer to the riddle of existence, that answer which
is hidden away in his own heart. And always he runs in a circle that runs with
him; Hegel is applauded for saying that to which Heraclitus gave utterance two
thousand years before, and a modern Pythagoras still stands at the shore of a
strange sea, pondering the Whence? the Whither? and the Why?
"There was a door to
which I found no key," sang old Omar and for him there was no key and for him
who cannot find it within his own soul there will be no key, for the key is the
key of faith, the key of the spirit which transcends reason. "Faith," said
Tolstoy, "is that by which man lives." That faith is the song in the soul of man
when he ceases to run the circles of his reason, when he rises above the earthly
passions of greed and lust and hate, and sits him down in meekness and humility,
awed by the mightiness of the universe about him - and listens.
The history of human
understanding is the history of man's failure to rise above his own being; he
cannot by the boot-straps of his reason pull himself above the rim of the bowl
of Plato - the Tower of Babel is not the story of ancient days, it is the
outstanding fact of our civilization today. The question that begins with a
childlike wonderment and a childlike glory in our self-sufficiency ends in an
aged doubt. All metaphysics, all philosophy, have swung the circle back to the
beginning point. We are circumscribed and kept within due bounds when in our
egotism we trust to intellect alone. On the grave of the cynical Montaigne
there are engraved his own words in mockery to his dust: "What do I know?"
Primitive man was
guided alone by instinct; to eat, to propagate, to exist was the only urge
within his being which gave itself expression; dormant within him were reason
and spirit. When man began to wonder he began to reason, and when he began to
reason his material development started. So not in vain have all the
philosophers of all the world pondered on the unknowable; for while they have
not found that for which they sought they have developed the cerebral
functioning by which man finds his thought processes laid out for him. The
squirrel running in its revolving cage has developed itself for the duties
inherent to that cage. Seeking answer to the unknowable by the rule of reason,
man has been able to grasp and understand the knowable.
Throughout the ages
there have been flashes of that spirit which completes the triangle of man's
impulses; yet we have but to point to the war, the chaos and anarchy of today,
of the hate and suspicion which sweeps the world to know that it has not yet
spread its divine effulgence so far over the earth that we have with us a social
conscience, a social mysticism, which, when it comes, will be that brotherly
love and affection - outward manifestations of the spirit within us - symbolized
by the trowel and cement of Masonry.
Instinct without
reason leaves man as the beast of the field; reason without conscience is a
ruthless Frankenstein which shall destroy mankind; the spirit alone, working
through the alembic of man's inner self, must be the censor and control of
reason. Our "Age of Reason" has been an age of blind hate, of greed, of horrid
fighting and of awful consequence. We stand at the crossroads. We have no
alternative. We must go one way or the other. Either we must cooperate or go
on fighting until the last battle-axed, bullet-riddled, gas-torn torso writhes
to its end and man is no more. We must find understanding, born of the spirit,
to bring to this blood-stained globe the peace of God. And as long as we have
within our own hearts hatred for our fellow man, and engender that hate in the
hearts of others by seeking evil in them rather than purity in ourselves, just
so long do we delay the oncoming of the Great Brotherhood.
"The man who has the
life of the spirit within him views the love of man and woman, both in himself
and others, quite differently from the man who is exclusively dominated by
mind," writes Bertrand Russell. "He sees in his moments of insight, that in all
human beings there is something deserving of love, something mysterious,
something appealing, a cry out of the night, a groping journey and a possible
victory. When his instinct loves, he welcomes its help in seeing and feeling the
value of the human being whom he loves. Instinct becomes a reinforcement in
spiritual insight. What instinct tells him spiritual insight confirms, however
much the mind may be aware of littleness, limitations, and the enclosing walls
that prevent the spirit from shining forth. His spirit divines in all men what
his instinct shows him is the object of his love."
Socrates was the
first to discover this truth in the development of his ethies. "Man," he said,
"is the measure of all things. Descend deeper into his personality and you will
find that underneath all varieties there is a ground for steady truth. Men
differ but men also agree; they differ as to what is fleeting; they agree as to
what is eternal. Difference is the region of opinion; agreement is the region of
truth; let us endeavour to penetrate that region."
It was the aged
arguer of Athens who first sensed a universal law of morals, but all thinkers
have found it out; each man conquering truth for himself, following, as Socrates
did, the inscription at Delphos: "Know Thyself." Plato proved God to exist by
the very feeling of affinity to His nature which stirs within our souls. Guizot,
Tyler, Frazer, in their studies of primitive culture found that whether in the
darkest wilds of Africa, the peasant fields of Europe, or the rushing cities of
America, wherever the hearts of men beat in every age and clime: God is. Man
feels the spirit of divinity within him and seeks to give outward manifestation
to that inner spirit as his capacities permit. His means are determined by his
birth and his environment. He may begin by worshipping the sun which warms him
and sees him on his way, or as the years pass and he develops a greater
knowledge, he may worship Him who made the sun, worshipping God in some temple
of gilt and gold, which reflects the glory of that sun and which has been
erected as the earthly conception of the glory of Him on high. Well may the
proudest Christian gentleman paraphrase the words of John Bunyan, point to the
primitive native in his childlike worship, and say: "There but by the grace of
God, goes he who bears my name."
The great outstanding
fundamental fact of life is that all men, deny as they will with their lips,
know in their higher moods that there is a God; not something that can be
defined for them, but something that is, the ineffable, the inexpressionable
fact of life, symbolized by the Lost Word of Masonry. Only "the fool hath said
in his heart there is no God." "God," said Fichte, "must be believed in, not
inferred." And St. Thomas a Kempis said: "It is better to love God than to
define him." Far easier it would be to explain by what rules of music the deaf
Beethoven drew from the song of his soul his divine harmonies, or what rules of
oratory went to make up the Gettysburg speech, or what geometrical genius
conceived the lowly spider's web.
Yet man the Reasoner
crushes aside the spirit and, in his egotism, proclaims himself dictator by
intellect alone, and wages war on those who will not agree with him. How
unconsciously fitting was the action of those French revolutionists who placed a
naked courtesan on an altar and hailed her as the Goddess of Reason!
This to me is me very
genius of Masonry: A love of God, simple, pure and undefiled, and a deep and
unfeigned friendship for our fellow man with an understanding of his frailties,
perhaps sometimes what we may call his narrowness and his devout inability to
understand some things in the same spirit that we do - the pure essence of
toleration: a recognition of the spirit groping within and not the clumsy
reasoning without.
Yet it is a
deplorable fact and one not avoidable in any discussion of the subject of
Masonic toleration that the greatest message of Christ, "Love thine enemy," has
been so misunderstood as to cause quarrels and bitter misunderstandings among
Christian peoples. Christianity has been split into three general factions: the
Greek church, the Roman Catholic church, and the so-called Protestant churches.
Of the Greek church there need be nothing said as it is not the cause of the
bitterness that has existed for centuries between the two remaining factions -
those who adhere to the Papal authority and those who revolted from its
domination at the time of the Reformation.
From the time of
Uranus, the first Aryan God - and no doubt ages before - man had sought God in
strange and devious ways; hideous were some of his efforts to give expression by
outward manifestation to the spirit within him and needless it is here to trace
this seeking, down to the cradle of Christianity, borne on the cries of Isaiah,
ere the Jehovah of the tent became the God of the altar. Suffice it is to touch
upon the darkness that was upon the earth before the Son of Man poured forth His
flood of light by His divine axiom: "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies
and pray for them that persecute you that ye may be sons of your Father in
heaven." His words to mankind still mean for us the beginning of time. How long
have the years rolled on, and how blood-stained is the calendar!
Rome was ascendant.
She ruled the earth and the people bowed down and worshipped the Caesars. As
country after country was crushed and the people conquered they adopted the
worship of the Romans or gave careless lip service to their own. Isis, Osiris
and Horus competed with the gods of the Greeks, now fallen from Olympus, in the
temples of Rome - and above all stood the Caesar, god of all; the empire shone
externally but it was rotten at the core. There came the cleansing words of
Christ; "the blood of the martyrs" became "the seed of the Church."
There was no other
civilization but that of Rome and when the Christian faith was brought from the
catacombs to its triumph it knew no other form of adaptability than the Roman
law; drawing its religious element from Judea, its philosophy from the Greeks,
it took its constitutional organization from the Romans. Ranke, the great
German Protestant scholar, in his History of the Popes tells eloquently of how
Christ gave to the world its moral awakening:
"How obscure and
unpretentious was His life!" he exclaims, "His occupation was to heal the sick
and to discourse of God in parables with a few fishermen, who did not always
understand His words. He knew not where to lay His head. Yet, even from the
worldly point of view, whence we consider it, we may safely assert that nothing
more guileless or more impressive, more exalted or more holy, has ever been seen
on earth than were His life, His whole conversion, and His death. In every word
there breathes the pure life of God. They are words, as St. Peter expressed it,
of eternal life. The records of humanity present nothing that can be compared
however remotely with the life of Jesus.
"If the earlier forms
of belief had ever contained an element of true religion, this was now entirely
obscured; they no longer, as we have said, could pretend to the slightest
significance. In Him who united the nature of man with that of God, there shone
forth, in contrast with those shadows, the universal and eternal relation of God
to the world, and of man to God."
He continues:
"The church was at
first governed according to Republican forms but these disappeared as the new
belief rose to pre-eminence and the clergy gradually assumed a position entirely
distinct from that of the laity. . . .
"It was imperative on
the ecclesiastical body to form their constitution on the model of that of the
empire." . . . With the Caesars turned Christian, "Theodosius, the Great,
commands that all nations claiming the protection of his grace should receive
the faith as propounded by St. Peter to the Romans."
Such was the
beginning of the Christian church. When the Lombards, with other barbarians,
sought to destroy the church, Pepin the younger, of the Franks, went to the
rescue. To gain his aid the bishop of Rome gave the sanction of the church to
his title of king. Victorious, he tore from the Lombards lands which they had
conquered from the Roman empire, territory known as the Exarchate. This should
have been returned to emperor, but Pepin answered, to again quote Ranke, "that
for no favour of man had he entered the strife, but from veneration of St. Peter
alone, and in the hope of obtaining freedom from his sins." The keys of the
conquered towns be placed on altar of St. Peter, and "in this act he laid the
foundation of whole temporal power of the popes."
Enough of history.
Suffice to show that the spirit of times, the demands of emperors and kings made
necessary, seemingly so, a Caesarian form of government for the Christian
church. Democracy as we know it today was unknown. The republics of Greece and
Rome were Republics of the leisure or propertied classes, with slaves to be
bought or sold to do the work. Aristotle argues that without slavery there can
be philosophy - the slaves must work that the philosophers may think. Plato's
Republic provided slaves to do the work. Democracy came with the awakening of
the world following Reformation and the development of the printing press. The
church of Rome was the matrix for the faith of the Christian people, built 'tis
true in the spirit of its times, when 'twas said: "If you are in doubt appeal to
Caesar; when Caesar speaks matter is closed!"
Nor need we dwell
long, for our purpose, on the Reformation and the Thirty Years war over dogma,
with both sides hating blind bitterness - hating each other over how each should
expre his love for God! That the church fell into evil days even Roman Catholic
scholar does not deny.
"What," asks the
Roman Catholic Encyclopedia, "has the church of today to do with the fact that
long vanished generations inflicted, in the name of religion, cruelties with
which modern man is disgusted? The children's children cannot held accountable
for the misdeeds of their forefathers. Protestants must also take refuge in this
principle of justice. However much they endeavour to blink the fact, they have
also to regret similar occurrences during the Reformation epoch, when as
everybody knows, the Reformers and their successors made free use of the
existing penal ordinances and punished with death many inconvenient, and,
according to their views, heretical persons. Hundreds of faithful Roman
Catholics who fell victims to the Reformation in England are venerated today as
the English martyrs. The greater number of executions occurred not under Mary,
the Roman Catholic, but under Queen Elizabeth. It is, however, unjust to hold
modern Protestantism, in the one instance, and Roman Catholicism in the other,
responsible these atrocities."
I think even the most
casual student of history will agree that they were rough and ready and
passionate folks in those days, with the civil law and the moral law of the land
rising higher than to really enjoy frying martyrs over live coals. Both sides
did it with freedom and abandon and as to just which side did the most is
childish and endless argument. It would be sensible for the French people today
with their love of Joan of Arc to hate the English people because English
soldiers burned her alive. No church has ever risen above the spirit of the
people that go to make up that church; it cannot rise above the spirit of its
times; where there are a backward and an ignorant people you will find a
backward and an ignorant church, no matter what the denomination.
Let us go not back
into the Dark Ages, digging down into the dust of a dead past to find something
on which we can hinge a hate for living men, women and children!
Let us look to the
present and the future; and what have we?
To begin with, and to
get more directly into the subject Masonic toleration, have the opposition of
the Roman Catholic church to Masonry. Of what does that opposition consist? It
consists of a series of pronouncements directed to the members of the Roman
Catholic church against joining the Masonic Order; worded too harshly to sound
pleasantly to Protestant ears, but they are not directed to the ears of
Protestants but solely to members of the Roman Catholic church.
It is to be assuredly
agreed that no member of any other religion would follow as necessary any ruling
given by the papal authorities, that only devout Roman Catholics would adhere to
his orders. And it is to be further agreed by all Freemasons that there is a
fundamental law of the Order that no man shall be asked to join, but shall, of
his own free will and accord, make application. Therefore, what harm is done
Freemasonry because a certain leader of a certain denomination decrees that his
people should not join? The papal edicts against Freemasonry today mean no more
than if he were to issue an edict to the effect that no faithful member of the
Roman Catholic church should join the Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist or
Christian Scientist churches. Everybody would readily exclaim: "Why, certainly
not!"- and wonder what it was all about.
The fundamental
opposition of the church of Rome to Freemasonry is the fear of indifferentism:
"the indifferentism which equalizes all religions and gives equal rights to
truth and error," as Cardinal Manning expressed it. Because of the very process
of its organization and beginning, as briefly touched upon above, the Roman
Catholic Church feels that it has the one true religion. Masonry cannot adhere
to any such belief. As our own beloved Dr. Newton says in his eloquent book,
"The Builders": "Of no one religion, Masonry finds great truths in all
religions. Indeed it holds that truth which is common to all elevating and
benign religions, and is the basis of each; that faith which underlies all sects
and over-arches all creeds like the sky above and the river bed below the flow
of mortal years. It does not undertake to explain or dogmatically to settle
those questions or solve those dark mysteries which out-top human knowledge.
Beyond the facts of Faith it does not go. With the subtleties of speculation
concerning those truths and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it has not
to do. There divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to
unite them, leaving each man free to think his own thoughts and fashion his own
system of ultimate truth."
Now, here we have
clearly expressed the two points of opposition between Freemasonry and Roman
Catholicism. Pope Leo XIII said of Freemasonry: "By opening their gates to
persons of every creed they promote the great modern error of religious
indifference and of the parity of all worships, the best way to annihilate every
religion, especially the Roman Catholic, which being the one true one, cannot be
joined with others without enormous injustice."
Assuredly this should
not occasion quarrel. It is a striking fact of our civilization that no matter
how low a man may be or how poor his ancestry, common opinion gives that man the
right to display vigorous resentment of any aspersions cast on the character of
his mother. Almost all of us are born to our religions as we are born to our
mothers. We gain our faith as we gain life from a mother's breast; and we
should hold it as hallowed and sacred as we do the love of her who bore us - not
something to be brawled about and to be hating each other over.
It is regrettable
that some should hold that view of Freemasonry, that it leads to indifferentism,
not unlike Kipling's: "the more you 'ave known of the others, the less you will
settle to one." Freemasons know better. We devoutly believe that our Order
holds men close to their individual religious opinions; but the Roman Catholic
church leaders feel otherwise and in their judgment those of their faith should
not join. As religion is a matter of faith and not of mundane reasoning, as it
is something that transcends reason, therefore he who is born of Roman Catholic
parentage adheres to the faith of his fathers, and it would be grossly unmasonic
to question him in that faith and in his adherence to the edicts of his pope
whom he holds to be infallible on all matters of faith and morals. While it may
strike strangely on Protestant ears, the doctrines of the Protestant sects, we
may rest assured, strike as strangely on his.
"Creeds" says
H.Fielding, "are the grammar of religion, they are to religion what grammar is
to speech. Words are the expression of our wants; grammar is the theory formed
after-wards. Speech never proceeded from grammer but the reverse. As speech
progresses and changes from unknown causes, grammer must follow."
William James, the
greatest of American philosophers (and certainly no supporter of the Roman
faith), expresses thought more in detail, in his masterly volume, "Varieties of
Religious Experiences."
"Men need formulas
just as much as they need fellowship in worship," writes James. "It enriches
our bare piety to carry these exalted and mysterious verbal additions just as it
enriches a church to have an organ and old brasses, marbles and frescoes and
stained windows. Epithets lend an atmosphere an overtones to our devotion.
They are like a hymn of praise an service of glory, and may sound the more
sublime for being incomprehensible. . . . Although some persons aim most at
intellectual purity and simplification, for others richness is the supreme
imaginative requirement. When one's mind is strongly of this type, an
individual religion will hardly serve the purpose. The inner need is rather of
something institutional and complex, majestic in the hierarchic interrelatedness
of its parts with authority descending from stage to stage, and at every stage
objects for adjectives of mystery and splendour, derived the last resort from
the Godhead who is the fountain and culmination of the system. One feels then
as if in the presence of some vast encrusted work of jewelry or architecture;
one hears the multitudinous liturgical appeal; one gets the honorific vibration
coming from every quarter. Compared with such noble complexity, in which
ascending and descending movements seem in no way to jar upon stability, in
which no single item, however humble, is insignificant, because so many august
institutions hold it in its place, how flat does Evangelical Protestantism
appear, how bare the atmosphere of those isolated religious lives whose boast is
that 'man in the bush with God may meet.' What a pulverization and levelling of
what a gloriously piled-up structure! To an imagination used to the perspective
of dignity and glory, the naked gospel seems to offer an almshouse for a
palace.
"It is much like the
patriotic sentiment of those brought up in ancient empires. How many emotions
must be frustrated in their object, when one gives up the titles of dignity, the
crimson lights and blare of brass, the gold embroidery, the plumed troops, the
fear and trembling, and puts up with a president in a black silk coat who shakes
hands with you, and comes, it may be, from a 'home' upon a veldt or prairie with
one sitting room and a Bible on its centertable. It pauperizes the monarchial
imagination!
"The strength of
these aesthetic sentiments makes it rigorously impossible, it seems to me, that
Protestantism, however superior in spiritual profundity it may be to Roman
Catholicism, should at the present day succeed in making many converts from the
more venerable ecclesiasticism. The latter offers so much richer pasturage and
shade to the fancy, has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey, is
so indulgent in its multiform appeals to human nature, that Protestantism will
always show to Roman Catholic eyes the almshouse physiognomy. The bitter
negativity of it to the Roman Catholic mind is incomprehensible. To intellectual
Roman Catholics many of the antiquated beliefs and practices to which the Roman
Catholic church gives countenance are, if taken literally, as childish as they
are to Protestants. But they are childish in the pleasing sense of 'childlike'
- innocent and amiable and worthy to be smiled on in consideration of the
undeveloped condition of the dear people's intellects. To the Protestant on the
contrary they are childlike in the sense of being idiotic falsehoods. He must
stamp out their delicate and lovable redundancy, leaving the Roman Catholic to
shudder at his literalness. He appears to the latter as morose as if he were
some hard-eyed, numb, monotonous kind of reptile. The two will never understand
each other - their centers of emotional energy are too different. Rigorous
truth and human nature's intricacies are always in need of a mutual interpreter.
. . . How can any possible judge or critic help being biased in favour of the
religion by which his own needs are best met? He aspires to impartiality; but he
is too close to the struggle not to be to some degree a participant, and he is
sure to approve most warmly those fruits of piety in others which taste most
good and prove most nourishing to him.
In other words, that
we may grasp it more readily, let us take the Roman Catholic ritual as a
symbolism, an eagerness to express the soul within by the outward manifestation
of signs and allegories: that is all it is to the devout Roman Catholic. Down,
each in his own heart, the devout Roman Catholic and the devout Protestant
Freemason, simple and unafraid in his faith, differs in no way, other than in
symbolism - and church symbolism is the clothes of religion. Why quarrel about
the clothes? Assuredly the narrow and the ill-bred on each side will, but that
is something to be regretted and not to be emulated.
The Romanist has his
symbols and we of Freemasonry have ours; yet each teaches the fundamental
philosophy that these forms shall pass, that the spirit alone keeps step with
the march of eternity. The soul of Hiram springs from his grave and cries out,
"My name is Acacia!" and down through the endless ages, there comes the voice of
Divinity, saying, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." In form we are far
apart: "for now we see through a glass darkly": but in spirit, if we but have
faith and charity, we are as one. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and
of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal."
"But," someone
interrupts, "the Roman Catholic church still adheres to its age-old contention
of temporal power and now seeks by its 'invisible empire' to again control the
world. It is this that members of the Protestant faiths fear."
Let us examine the
menace to see how solid is the ground on which our fears are based; for hatred
is born of fear and hate is chiefly what is wrong with our world today. Let us
consider statistics for a moment to judge properly the size of the threat which
is made against the fruits of the Reformation.
In fact, let us get
away from ourselves and our little sphere of life and get to the top of some
high mountain and there take in the world as a whole. Our statistics are taken
from the World Almanac.
There are, according
to the latest estimates, 1,702,520,366 people in the world today.
Of this total,
576,000,000 are of the Christian faith.
Of the Christian
faith there are 288,000,000 Romanists and 167,000,000 Protestants. The Greek
church has 121,000,000.
One billion and
several hundred million are not Christian.
In the United States
there are 105,683,000 people. Of these there are but 15,721,815 who are
Catholic.
Now, the problem
resolves itself down to this: how will a relative handful of 288,000,000 Roman
Catholics, scattered over the face of the earth, seize the reins of the world
from a billion, seven hundred million people? How will 15,721,815 men, women and
children of any denomination control America?
In the fifteenth
century, the total population of Europe was estimated at 50 millions. Today it
is 464 millions. In the centuries when the pope had temporal power and swayed
kingdoms and peoples even as did the Caesars, the human race lived in a static
world. Men seldom moved from the towns in which they were born; only a few
hardy adventurers blazed the way around the world. Men lived and died without
ever knowing what went on perhaps in the next town to them. Kings and lords and
churchmen ruled the world and the people were dumb, inert as the beasts in the
field: "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." Even down into our
own day and age the world stood almost still. Seventy-five years ago it took
three weary months for a message to go across the Atlantic; today it takes three
seconds. The ships of John Paul Jones could travel no faster nor were they
better manned than were the ships of the Phoenicians; the soldiers of Napoleon
could travel no faster than could the soldiers of Hannibal; the messengers of
George Washington could carry tidings no faster than could the messengers of
Julius Caesar.
All that is changed.
Today we live in a
little world, a globe made small by the inventive genius of mankind. The earth
is covered by a fine gauze of electrically charged copper wires that tell the
story of all the world every twenty-four hours. A century ago a newspaper was a
rarity and its news was months old. It was weeks before the press of England
heard of the battle Waterloo a few miles away. Today the census shows there
more than one and a half billion copies of newspapers publish yearly in the
United States alone. We live in a new and a thinking world; if any denomination
or sect or order or faith ever again denominates the civilized globe it will be
by the triumph the spirit of truth alone and not by external domination. But
let us get back again to statistics.
The two largest Roman
Catholic nations of the world today are France and Italy. France has a
population of 41,500,000 people. No religious census has been taken since 1872
but best non-Roman Catholic authorities estimate that 75 per cent are members of
the Roman church. Let us look then into its political being and see how much
the church of Rome has had do with the government of that country. For the past
quarter of a century its premiers and its government have been non-Roman
Catholic: Briand, Viviani, Clemenceau, Millerand now Briand again-all are
outside the papal church.
In Italy we find an
even more interesting case. It was great political genius, Cavour, who broke
the last link of pope's hold an temporal power. The story can be found any
standard history on the uniting of Italy. He gave voice his historic utterance,
"a free state and a free church," with Mazzini and Garibaldi he brought the
warring states of Italy together into a great nation, took from the pope the
lands he had held since the days of Pepin, the younger, and made the pope a
self-elected "prisoner of the Vatican." In the very shadow of the Vatican the
people of Rome, under a plebiscite conducted in 1870, voted by a ballot of
134,000 to 1,500 to join Italy, the new nation. This is still the condition in
the land of the ancient Caesars. And yet, of Italy's population of less than
40,000,000 there are 32,983,664 members of the Roman Catholic church.
What, then, is this
fear of the Roman Catholic church seeking domination? The people of its own
faith have shown in its two largest countries that they stand for a separate
church and a separate state.
Japan is the third
largest power in the world today. It has a population of 78,263,000 aggressive
and progressive citizens of a non-Christian faith. There are more than a
billion others who do not come under the banners of the Christian church. Is it
not time the followers of the lowly Nazarene ceased their childish bickering
with each other, overlooked each other's pettiness, and sought for the spirit of
His teachings and not grounds on which to quarrel over how they disagree about
the form?
As long ago as 1643,
John Milton exclaimed:
"How many other
things might be tolerated in peace left to conscience had we but charity and
were it not the chief stronghold of our hyprocrisy to be ever judging one
another!"
As my favourite
Scotch songster sings so well: "We're a going home the same way"; so are we all
going in our chosen route to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no
traveller returns. We're all going home - all on our way to Beulah land of John
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. How shall we go? The modern Pilgrim would take an
auto; let us least use the symbolism.
The old gentleman in
the big car thinks he is driving in majestic Rolls-Royce and looks down upon the
rest in compassion not unmixed with annoyance that "these flivvers" should be
scooting along his highway. What the Roman gentleman sese as "flivvers" we see
as simple, powerfully built and altogether beautiful cars of our own design
which we insist on driving ourselves. He cannot understand how some of "our
side," being not all together well-mannered and perhaps out of patience at his
insistence on his being the only machine, possess the temerity to yell at him
and call his car an "ancient circus wagon." Such scolding and unkindness on the
highroad of life is unseemly. It is a violation of the law and the spirit of the
highway. Let each forgive the other in the order of his peculiarity. The road
is very rough and very long and there are many tempting detours. We, all of us,
have all we can do to keep on our own way, without seeking to find faults in the
other.
Some little while ago
there was a convention of Episcopalian bishops in the city of Detroit and as
Cardinal Mercier, the heroic figure of Belgium's struggle against the German
army, was in the city the Roman prelate was asked to address the convention.
There was considerable curiosity among the laymen present as to how he would
first address the Protestant bishops. He held out his long thin hands as though
in benediction and in a deep, quiet voice opened his remarks by calling to them:
"Brothers in Christ."
He bespoke the true
spirit of Toleration; that toleration which is willing to overlook differences
in dogma in seeking for the inward spirit.
Let us turn for a
moment to that standard authority of the Roman church, the Roman Catholic
Encyclopedia. "The man who is tolerant in every emergency is alone lovable and
wins the hearts of his fellow man," it says. "Such tolerance is all the more
estimable in one whose royal practice of his own faith wards off all suspicion
of unbelief or religious indifference, and whose friendly bearing towards the
heterodox, emanates from pure neighbourly charity and a strict sense of
justice. It is also an indisputable requisite for the maintenance of friendly
intercourse and cooperation among a people composed of different religious
denominations, and is the root of religious peace in the state. It should
therefore be prized and promoted by the civil authorities as a safeguard to
public weal, for a warfare of all against all, destructive of the state itself,
must again break out, if citizens be allowed to assail one another on account of
religious differences. A person who by extensive travel and large experience
has become acquainted with the world and men and with the finer forms of life
does not easily develop into a heretic hunter, a sadly incongruous figure in the
modern world."
We certainly do not
like the wording of some of the papal edicts against the Masonic order; they
sound rather rough on us, but we must remember they are not directed to us but
to the members of that faith to warn them against what the church fears is
indifferentism. The ecclesiastical language is medieval and the bark is worse
than the bite. "The ancient expression, 'heretical poison'," says the same
encyclopedia, "which has passed from canon law into the set phraseology of the
papal chancery and quite naturally sounds hard to the Protestant is not intended
to express any offensive slur on the heterodox who adhere to their opinions in
good faith and in honest conviction."
But, taking all that
the most narrow minded man who happens to be in the Roman Catholic church has to
say about and against Masonry, should we not pity him in his plight of being so
handicapped by the blinkers he wears? Or should we also don blinkers so that we
can only look in one direction - and that straight at him - and reduce ourselves
to his limited view? Rather, opening our eyes, seeing the whole glorious world
and all its future before us, we gain a the perspective on man's narrowness and
go on our way, not in blind anger and hate, but in love and compassion.
I once was asked to
write an article on the Roman church as the "enemy" of Freemasonry; my answer
was, and is, that Freemasonry in this day of quick spreading of intelligence, in
a dawning era of the ready exchange of world ideas and ideals, has no enemy
except that which it creates for itself: that enemy being a narrowness of
outlook, a refusal to look at facts in co-relation to their true values and a
hatred born of fears unfounded. Hate is the child of fear and fear is too often
found within us when we lack faith in ourselves. We have nothing to fear if we
"have faith that right makes might; and in that faith dare to do our duty as we
understand it."
The genius of
Freemasonry is that it welcomes, in a spirit of brotherly love and affection,
men of all creeds to its altars if they but confess a sincere and an abiding
faith in God; nor does it ask them more. Do we not then but vitiate our Masonic
birthright by hating a man who by accident of birth, let us say, holds to
religious views that are different than ours, religious views that will not
permit him to kneel at our altars? Nor need we sneer at his church and his
dogmatism, which is as sacred to him as is ours, even though he does hold to
views that we think harsh toward us; not by returning malediction for
malediction can we keep our spiritual faith and our intellectual freedom. If we
seek to ennoble the souls of men, we must look well into our own hearts for the
purity that is there, rather than into the hearts of other men for that which we
think is evil.
The universal
Brotherhood of Man must come through the souls of men: the divine spirit of
freedom: and not through that blind and ruthless impulse which we in our egotism
as mortal beings are pleased to call reason!
----o----
BROTHER MELVIN
JOHNSON AGAI HONORED
From the always
valued pages of The New England Craftsman we have clipped a news item that will
be of especial interest to the members of the National Masonic Research Society.
Brother Johnson holds an illustrious position in American Freemasonry, and
deservedly so, for he has wrought mightily in its interests, and that with a
noble character and a fine mind. His many friends among the readers of THE
BUILDER will be glad herewith to Bass to him their sincere congratulations.
MELVIN MAYNARD
JOHNSON, 33d
This distinguished
Massachusetts Mason was elected to Active Membership in the Northern Supreme
Council A. & A.S.R., at the Chicago session, September 23, 1920. He has just
passed his fiftieth year as we write these lines, being born in Waltham, Mass.,
May 11, 1871.
He comes of colonial
forbears. Captain Edward Johnson landed in America in 1628, settled in
Charleston, was surveyor-general of the colony and one of the founders of what
is now the city of Woburn. Byron B. Johnson, the father of the new active member
was the first Mayor of Waltham.
Melvin M. Johnson
graduated from the public school in 1888 and entered Tuft's College, graduating
in 1892. He attended Boston University Law School, graduating "Magna cum laude"
in 1895. After practicing law with his father until 1902 he formed the firm of
Johnson & North which continues in active practice at this time.
Ill. Brother Johnson
is a professor of law in the law school of Boston University, and a trustee of
Tuft's College. He is a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and was
admitted to the Phi Beta Kappa honorary society and is a member of the Phi Delta
Phi law school fraternity. He belongs also to the American Bar Association, the
Massachusetts Bar Association and the Middlesex Bar Association; in some of
these he has held official position.
Masonically, Brother
Johnson has labored steadily and faithfully since he reached manhood. Me was
raised in Monitor Lodge, Waltham, in 1892, and was Master in 1902-3, District
Deputy Grand Master in 1904-5, Grand Marshal in 1906-08, Senior Grand Warden in
1909, and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1914-15-16. Since
1910 he has been a member of the board of directors of the Grand Lodge and since
1911 a member of the board of Masonic relief. Fifteen Massachusetts lodges and a
lodge in Havana, Cuba, count him an honorary member. He is also an honorary
member of New Jersey Consistory A. A. S. R.
The National Masonic
Research Society, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association,
the Masonic Service Association of the United States all command his interest as
member or officer.
----o----
Boys flying kites
haul in their white-winged birds;
You can't do that
when you're flying words;
Things that we think
may sometimes fall back dead,
But God himself can't
kill them when they're said.
- Will Carleton.
----o----
There are two ways of
being happy - we may either diminish our wants or increase our means; either
will do, - the result is the same. - Benjamin Franklin.
----o----
MEMORIALS TO GREAT
MEN WHO WERE MASONS--
ANDREW JOHNSON
BY BRO. GEO. W.
BAIRD, P. G. M., DISTRICT OF COLllMBIA
ANDREW JOHNSON, the
seventeenth President of the United States, was a member of what is now
Greeneville Lodge No. 119, of Greeneville, Tennessee.
He was born in
Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, of poor but respectable parents. His father
lost his life in an effort to save a drowning man, and left the boy an orphan
when he was but five years of age. He was obliged to help support the family,
and at the age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor. He learned to read during
his apprenticeship and, when a journeyman tailor, he became an earnest student.
Education was not so easy to get in those days as it is now. When he became a
man he married Miss McCardle, whose capacity and whose devotion to him worked
wonders in his development. He identified himself with the mechanical classes,
which was appreciated by them, and which won for him their political support,
which was a factor in his democratic Jacksonian politics.
Johnson was elected
to the state senate in 1841. He had been an elector on the Van Ruren ticket
before that. In 1843 he was elected to Congress, was re-elected for ten
consecutive years and, in 1857, was elected to the Senate. In 1862 he was
appointed Military Governor of Tennessee.
He was a busy man,
always easily approached, never impatient, but ever independent. He did not
resent sneers at his humble origin, but on the contrary, often mentioned it.
He was a Union man in
a secession state, maintaining the letter and intent of the Constitution and
forever urging that the best interests of the commonwealth were served by
adhering to the Constitution, instead of modifying it to suit the clamor of the
public. His course in Congress so displeased the people in Memphis that they
burned him in effigy. His home was assaulted, his slaves confiscated, his sick
wife and the children driven into the streets, and his house turned into a
hospital for Confederate soldiers. But this ended on the entry of the Union
Army, in 1862.
Johnson was elected
Vice-President in 1864, and inaugurated in March, 1865. President Lincoln was
assassinated in April, 1865, when Johnson became President. The Civil War had
ended. It was known that Mr. Lincoln was a lenient, peace loving man, and it was
believed his feelings toward the southern states were of the kindliest. This, we
believe, went very far toward softening Mr. Johnson towards the men of Memphis
who had burned him in effigy. His subsequent acts were so lenient, so patriotic,
and so free from sectionalism that it excited his political opponents, who
accused him of disloyalty. But when we consider who were prominent among those
opponents, we may suspect a motive. Among them were Thurlow Weed and Thaddeus
Stevens who were so prominent in the anti-Masonic propaganda at the time of the
Morgan excitement. Not the least of his accusers was Charles Sumner, of
Massachusetts, who had been so long a power in the Senate, and who seemed to
feel that the southern states had forfeited all rights - an idea repellant to
President Johnson.
When we laid the
cornerstone for the Masonic Temple in Washington, D. C., at the corner of Ninth
and F streets, a procession was formed and marched up F street, the Grand
Officers being in carriages. A gentleman drove up in the Presidential carriage,
and alighted. It was Andrew Johnson. He took a white apron from his pocket and
looked for a place in the line. The Grand Master invited him to a seat in his
carriage, but the President replied that his rank was that of a Master, and that
he would walk with the Masters.
After Johnson's term
of office expired he returned to his Tennessee home, but was soon elected to the
Senate, where he took his seat on March 5, 1875, but he fell ill while on a
visit to his daughter in Tennessee, where he died in July of the same year.
----o----
WHEN DID THE CRAFT
RECEIVE THE LEGEND?
BY BRO. D.E.W.
WILLIAMSON, NEVADA
INSTEAD of worrying
about how many Hirams there may have been at the building of the Temple or
wearying the brain with calculations as to the dimensions of the Temple itself,
the student of Masonic lore should be shown that, from the point of view of
research, the main question is how and when the legend of the Third degree
became known to the Craft.
It is wrong to
perpetuate the mistaken statement that we have any record of more than one
artificer named Hiram, although only recently the Rev. Morris Rosenbaum, past
master of a London lodge, Past Grand Chaplain of the Provincial Grand Lodge of
Northumberland, and sometime contributor to the Transactions of the Quatuor
Coronate Lodge of Research, has been quoted as reiterating the assertion that
there were two Hirams, father and son. Bro. Rosenbaum is a distinguished Jewish
rabbi in London and therefore is quoted as an authority, but a Freemason may be
an orator and an adept in Hebrew language and literature, yet be without
standing as a Scriptural interpreter. The simple truth, as the youngest
graduate of a theological seminary of today could inform him if so disposed, is
that all we know about Hiram is what we find in I Kings, vii. It is true that
in II Chronicles, ii and iv, there is more written about him, but it has no
historical value, for, as Luther pointed out four centuries ago, the credibility
of Chronicles is doubtful. It could not be otherwise, for Chronicles is a book
written at least 623 years after the death of Solomon and is merely an
amplification, so far as its account of the Temple is concerned, of Kings; and
Kings, itself, which was written in 622 or 621 B. C., is itself not first-hand
but is based upon the book of the acts of Solomon ("And the rest of the acts of
Solomon and all that he did and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of
the acts of Solomon?" - I Kings, xi:41). Chronicles, therefore, is a third-hand
report and written after the Exile, at that. In the Hebrew canon its weight is
so slight that it is placed at the very end of the Bible and no competent Hebrew
scholar, Jew or Christian, will presume to challenge a statement in Kings on the
authority of anything in Chronicles.
While on the subject
of "authority," there is absolutely none in ancient Hebrew or any other tongue
for "Huram" as the name of the king of Tyre or of that of the artificer. The
Greek version of the Scriptures, of which probably the greater part was
translated within thirty or forty years after the completion of Chronicles,
transliterates the name "Chiram" (in which the "Ch" should be sounded as in the
Scotch word "loch"). The Hebrew text of Chronicles gives the name with "i" (yod),
but in the margin of the Hebrew of Chronicles, in what is called a q'ri, the
reason is directed to pronounce it as "Huram," notwithstanding. This Masoretic
instruction may be given the date of 700 A. D. as the earliest possible, fully
sixteen centuries after Hiram's time. In other words, it is as if some Biblical
editor sixteen centuries after Christ should direct us to say "Joshua" every
time we came across the name of Jesus.
But, without being
thought dogmatic, may a student say that it seems to be a waste of time to
speculate on the real Hiram and the material Temple, when it is more important
to know how they came into the Craft?
First, we shall have
to get rid of the idea, so widely entertained fifty years ago when Hughan, Speth,
Gould and the new school of Masonic historians were making their first
researches, that the Legend of the Third degree was written or imported about
1723. Gould entirely abandoned it himself in the last fifteen years of his life
as shown by his "Collected Essays." What is the accepted view of investigators
today seems to be well expressed by three eminent Masonic authorities in the
discussion on the Royal Arch published in the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum of
November, 1916.
"The time immemorial
lodges did not begin to come in (under the English Grand Lodge) until after
1723," says Brother J. Littleton, author of "Freemasonry in Bristol." "And there
could not have been any great difference in the ritual or they could not have
come?'
"In Ancient Craft
Masonry," says Brother W. Redfern Kelly, "there would appear to have existed
from time immemorial a certain essential and well-recognized archaic legend."
And Brother William
Watson says: "I have held the opinion for many years as others have done that a
legend of the Builder may have been handed down from Master to Master, finally
materializing in a dramatic form as a degree."
In Brother Kelley's
adjective "archaic," and in Brother Watson's expression "dramatic form," the
writer believes lies the key to the inquiry of how the legend found its way into
the work. Students of the modern drama's beginnings as seen in the miracle
plays and mysteries of the Middle Ages cannot fail to recognize in the legend as
we have it today the archaic dramatic form of the display at the old guild
pageantries. But what has become of the original play? The writer has searched
through all the published plays of the Middle Ages, from the Latin comedies of
the nun Hrotswitha of Gandersheim, and the plays of Hilarius, through the York,
Chester and Townsley plays, and has found not one that will fit the case, thus
repeating the exponence of investigators for the Quatuor Coronate Lodge of
London. But the period during which the play might have appeared is necessarily
limited and it may be that an examination of the records of guild productions
from 1535 to 1545 in England will yet reveal the missing drama.
If the tradition
existed in England before 1535, the name of the hero was Abdemon, as in
Josephus, which may account for the "Aynon." "Agnon," "Dyon," and other forms
that have puzzled the readers of the old charges. But, if it became a part of
the Craft's work with the name of Hiram Abif, then it could not have been taken
up by the Craft before 1535, when Tyndale's translation of the Bible from the
original Hebrew first gave that name in English. The Coverdale Bible is also
said to have Hiram Abif in it, but the writer has not been able to investigate
this. The tradition is not likely to have come in after 1546 for in that year
the Coverdale Bible was prohibited from being read by act of Parliament just as
Tyndale's had been placed under the ban three years previously. While thus the
tradition is restricted to ten years during which we may hope to find its
entrance into the Craft, this was a crucial period for Freemasonry on other
grounds that make it important to look deeply into the happenings of the time.
In 1543, one of the final acts of Henry VIII, whose career was then drawing to a
close, was to cause Parliament to pass a law confiscating the property of the
guilds. In London they were strong enough to defy him, but elsewhere it was not
so and what escaped Henry was taken over by the realm under his son Edward three
years later. In 1537 Henry had already confiscated the lands and property of
the larger monasteries, patrons of the guilds and the miracle plays at the
pageants. Thus the great guilds all over the country were severely hit and it
is significant that the last miracle play of England was written by Bishop Bayle
of Ossory in 1538. It is of record that at the last York pageant the Masons'
Guild was unable to support its own play and it was taken over by the glaziers.
The concentration of Masonic research upon this decade of English history ought
to repay with something tangible the time and study involved. The writer at
present believes that the secret tradition as we have it today was handed down
within the monasteries of the Middle Ages and that it passed with the breaking
up of these institutions in 1537 into the custody of the secret circles into
which the persecuted guilds were forced to resolve themselves. Eventually in
1717 it came from these secret associations into the possession of the first
Grand Lodge, but only because the four lodges which formed that Grand Lodge were
themselves in full possession of it. That is one hypothesis of the way in which
the legend entered the "work" and was carried on. But it is not to be
overlooked that the New Learning appeared in Europe in the latter half of the
fifteenth century and that Hebrew learning and philosophy, the Talmud and the
Kabbala, first became accessible to western scholars. Eramus visited Europe for
a few years before 1509 and was professor of Greek at Cambridge. Sir Thomas
More, executed by Henry VIII in 1536, was a fount of learning. Even if the
theory that the tradition was fostered in the monasteries should fall to the
ground, therefore, it is possible that the investigator may make a discovery of
as great importance should he find that the legend had been brought down from
the misty past within the bosom Kabbalist students.
In the United States
we have small opportunity examine ancient manuscripts or to read the origin
records of the period spoken of, but our English brothers, who already have done
much, may yet find reward for their labours in the study of these particular
years. In France the treasuries of the monks of St. Maur scattered, but a mass
of material can be found by the French Masonic student. In Germany there must
an immense mass of manuscripts and early printed books dealing with the time
immediately before Reformation. These ought to produce rich pickings. And there
is the great collection at the Vatican. All these possible sources of light may
reveal truths with ten years that will set at rest forever the hypothes and
guesses with which in many instances we still have to be satisfied.
----o----
WAITING.
(This poem was
written by John Burroughs, who passed on in March, 1921)
Serene I fold my arms
and wait;
Nor care for wind, or
tide, or sea;
I rave nor more 'gainst
time or fate,
For lo! my own shall
come to me.
I stay my haste, I
make delays,
For what avails this
eager pace ?
I stand amid eternal
ways,
And what is mine
shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by
night or day,
The friends I seek
are seeking me;
No wind can drive my
bark astray,
Nor change the tide
of destiny.
What matter if I
stand alone ?
I wait with joy the
coming years;
My heart shall reap
where it has sown,
And garner up its
fruit of tears.
The waters know their
own, and draw
The brook that
springs in yonder height;
So flows the good
with equal law
Unto the soul of pure
delight.
The stars come
nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto
the sea;
Nor time, nor space,
nor deep, nor high
Can keep my own awav
from me.
----o----
IN GOD'S HANDS
BY BRO. H. L.
HAYWOOD. IOWA
My spirit lies within
Thy hands:
About my heart Thy
fingers close
As clasping petals of
the rose
Shut round the dew
that in them stands:
My being lieth low
and still
Within the shadow of
Thy palm:
Within that shadow
where the calm
Of peace first stole
along my will:
There ever let me
live and lie
In that secure and
silent tent
Of quiet love's own
banishment
While worlds and ages
wander by:
There ever let me lie
and feel
Thy clasp, O God,
about me steal.
----o----
THE TEACHINGS OF
MASONRY
The following paper is
one of a series of articles on "Philosophical Masonry," or "The Teachings of
Masonry," by Brother Haywood, to be used for reading and discussion in lodges
and study clubs. From the questions following each section of the paper the
study club leader should select such as he may desire to use in bringing out
particular points for discussion. To go into a lengthy discussion on each
individual question presented might possibly consume more time than the lodge or
study club may be able to devote to the study club meeting.
In conducting the
study club meetings the leader should endeavor to hold the discussions closely
to the text of the paper and not permit the members to speak too long at one
time or to stray onto another subject. Whenever it becomes evident that the
discussion is turning from the original subject the leader should request the
members to make notes of the particular points or phases of the matter they may
wish to discuss or inquire into and bring them up after the last section of the
paper is disposed of.
The meetings should be
closed with a "Question Box" period, when such questions as may have come up
during the meeting and laid over until this time should be entered into and
discussed. Should any questions arise that cannot be answered by the study club
leader or some other brother present, these questions may be submitted to us and
we will endeavor to answer them for you in time for your next meeting.
Supplemental
references on the subjects treated in this paper will be found at the end of the
article.
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD,
IOWA
PART XI - MASONRY AND
INDUSTRY
OUR MODERN industrial
system dates back to 1789 in which year James Watt successfully, demonstrated
the feasibility of the power machine for industrial purposes. Prior to that
time almost all work, as the name "manufacture" (which means "make by hand")
itself indicates, was carried on by hand. Tools were simple and inexpensive,
and there was little necessity for great factory buildings and no possibility of
manufacturing cities such as are now so familiar to us. The worker was closer to
his work, and felt more interest in it, and had more at stake in it, and often
he himself purchased the raw materials in which he worked, and owned the tools
whereby he transformed raw products into articles of commerce.
The introduction of
the steam engine, and other power machines, changed all that. The machine was
too expensive for the workman to own; it had to be housed in special buildings
(factories) designed for it; using such large quantities of stuff and turning
out such immense quantities of finished products it was necessary to devise the
railroad in order to tend it. The dependence of one kind of manufacturing upon
another led manufacturers to herd together at convenient centres and thus the
industrial city came into existence. Things could be made that were never made
before, and a hitherto undreamed of quantity of new wealth came into existence.
Under this regime workmen could no longer own their own tools but became
employees, selling their labour in the market as a commodity. The machinery of
production passed into the hands of wealthy men, and as a consequence we have
the present divisions of society so familiar to us all: the group owning and
controlling the raw materials of production and the machinery of manufacture and
distribution; the group made up of industrial labourers; and the large class of
small merchants and professional men who cater to the needs of these two groups.
It would be easy for
any economist (the writer makes no claim to any such dignity) to quarrel with
this picture, but the picture may stand for all that as a not inaccurate
description of the way things are, and of how they came so to be. At any rate,
it will serve to introduce us to the points worthy of discussion in the present
study.
How, would you
describe the industrial system that existed before 1789? Who was James Watt?
What great invention did he make? How
has the power changed
the whole face of the earth, and brought about a complete reconstruction of
human society? Name the ten basic industries. What is meant by an "industrial
system"? How did our large cities arise? What is the importance of
transportation systems in modern life? What is meant by "economist"? Have you
ever fashioned for yourself a theory of Freemasonry's attitude toward industrial
problems?
Inasmuch as this
great industrial system produces such an immense quantity of wealth we very
naturally find a great deal of rather earnest rivalry among the various
industrial groups who, each one, strive to capture as large a share of it as
possible. Accordingly, we find capitalists, proprietors, merchants, etc.,
forming corporations, associations, and so forth, as a means of securing their
stake in the system; and at the same time labouring men form unions, farmers
have their granges, and professional and mercantile groups build up all manner
of systems, and all this in nearly every case in order to secure or to protect a
certain interest in the values being produced daily by the industrial system.
This conflict of
groups due to their often conflicting group interests has come to be familiarly
known to us in these days as "the class struggle." Oftentimes men talk of the
class struggle as if it were a new invention, something only recently come into
existence, but as a matter of fact, as Professor Franklin H. Giddings has been
pointing out in a recent series of lectures, the class struggle is as old as
war, and has played in all history quite as conspicuous a part as it does now
though it was never quite so much to the front in discussion as it is now.
The various ways of
describing and explaining and interpreting this class struggle, and the forces
that have brought it about and of the manner in which its problems may be
solved, have caused men to fall into a variety of different groups of thought or
theory. The Anarchist believes that the industrial system is all as it now
exists because it has so powerfully strengthened the hands of government, and
therefore multiplied the opportunities of political tyranny, a thing he dreads
more than he dreads the plague. The Communist, such as is now found so
frequently in Russia, would like to see the ownership of the raw materials, the
machinery of production, and of the systems of distributions vested in the hands
of the masses of the common people, without distinction of intellectual ability,
wealth, or any such thing. The Socialist would like to see the industrial
system owned and managed by the people at large in such wise that workers would
produce only for use and not for profit, and each worker would receive just what
he produces, no more and no less. The Guild Socialist would welcome a return of
the old guilds whereby a given industry would be managed jointly by all the
members engaged in it, with more emphasis on the social and artistic side of
labour, and less emphasis on the money side of it. The Syndicalist, of whom our
own I.W.W.'s may be taken as a type, would like to see all the members of each
of the great industries own that industry in such wise that all the industries
could be associated together in a general system, which general industrial
system would fulfil all the functions now filled by our political governments.
The Capitalist, or the man who takes the position which may be thus described,
believes that the present system is the only fair and possible method of making
the goods needed by the world. The Christian Socialist believes that if the
teachings of Christianity were consistently applied to the industrial system it
would result in a Socialist state, but that the ordinary Socialistic methods of
arriving at such an end are quite wrong; in other words, it trusts in moral
suasion rather than in industrial war or the class struggle.
From another point of
view all these groups fall into only two groups, which may be described as
Revolutionary or Reformist. In the latter case a man believes that the
industrial system as it now exists is sane and sound but that there are details
and conditions in it here and there that badly need changing, and he is in
favour of making these reforms but refuses to touch the system as a whole. On
the other hand the revolutionary is now concerned in mere local abuses or
failures in the system: he is convinced that the system as a whole is wrong, and
he works to uproot the system entirely in order utterly to destroy it so as to
replace it by something entirely different. Revolutionaries again could be
divided into classes, were there any need in the present instance, because some
of them desire one kind of a system and some another, and some believe that the
change could be made in one manner while others believe that it can only be made
in other ways.
To illustrate.. If a
man believes that coal miners do not receive adequate wages he may work to
increase their pay and would accordingly be classed as a reformer. If he
believed that it is utterly wrong for coal mines to be owned and managed by
individuals and for coal miners to be wage workers selling their labour as a
commodity, and if he strives to bring about a regime wherein coal mines will be
owned in some social way, he is a revolutionary. If he resorts to guns in order
to bring this change about he is in favour of violence: if he thinks he can
bring it about by peaceable means he will not believe in violence but will be a
revolutionary nevertheless. In that instance the Communist would say, Let us
all, without distinction, own and run the coal mines together. The Syndicalist
would say, Let the coal miners own and run the mines for their own sakes. The
Political Socialist would say, Let the people own the mines, and let them
through some kind of popularly controlled government own and manage these mines,
and let coal be produced as we need it, and nobody make a profit out of it.
One might name a
score of other groups, such as the Single Taxers, the Land Nationalists, the
Cooperationists, etc., but there is no need to multiply instances, especially
since this is not an essay in economics but in Masonry. Masonry as such does
not take sides with any of these groups. Its members may be doubtless found
among them all, for in Europe there are many Masons who may belong to some one
of the various Socialist or other radical groups, and in this country there are
trade unionists, capitalists, etc., etc., everywhere in our lodges. But that
makes no difference to these men as Masons, because as Masons they thrust these
differences aside: also, as it is laid down in Masonic law, politics and kindred
subjects are not discussed in lodge. Therefore it is perfectly plain that
Masonry has nothing to do with these conflicting industrial and political groups
as such. But - and here is the whole point of the present study - the
Fraternity nevertheless has very much at stake in the present industrial
conflicts, for industry occupies so large a place in the foreground of
individual and social life, and exercises so potent an influence over everything
we are or do, that the fortunes of a great national fraternity like ours are
very much bound up with the fortunes and issues of the industrial system.
Can you give an
example of the class struggle drawn from ancient history? From medieval history?
What is meant by "class struggle"? Give evidences of its existence drawn from
your own observations. Has Anarchy ever had control of a people? Name a few of
the more famous Anarchists. What is the difference between Communism and
Socialism? What can you tell about Karl Marx and his theories? Did you ever read
"The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engles? What did Marx teach in his
"Capital"? Are there any guilds now in existence? What would the Syndicalists do
with our own government if they could get hold of it? Can you name any prominent
Syndicalists? Do the Capitalists have organizations similar to trade unions ? If
so, what are they, and what do you think of them? What should be the attitude of
Freemasonry toward trade unionism? What can you tell about Christian Socialism?
Can you describe and define the Cooperative movement, not mentioned in the
paper? Do you believe we need a new industrial system? Or do you think the
present system is sound? What is meant by Land Nationalization? How would that
affect an industrial system? Would you admit an Anarchist to membership in the
Fraternity? Do you know any Masons who are Socialists? Just what, according to
your own views, does Freemasonry have at stake in the present industrial system?
What is the attitude of French Masonry toward the industrial crisis? Of English
Masonry?
Freemasonry strives
to make all men brethren, living amicably and happily together; if an industrial
system is such as to divide men into quarrelling factions, sometimes making
actual war on each other, it is manifest that the aims of the Fraternity are
defeated by the evils in the industrial system. Freemasonry looks toward
universal peace said international cooperation: if industrial methods and
interests, as exemplified in tariffs and large foreign investments, drive
nations apart and into some form of war, then Freemasonry, is thwarted.
Freemasonry strives for equality but if an industrial regime is of such a nature
as to divide society into castes and cliques, the members of which look with
jealousy and suspicion upon each other, then it is clear that Freemasonry must
suffer defeat. Whatever makes impossible the realization of the ideals of the
Craft is in reality the enemy of Masonry, and will be opposed by genuine and
living Masonry just insofar: whatever makes it possible for Masonic ideals to be
realized, will be supported and strengthened by Masonry. The shortest path
perhaps to a very clear comprehension of this whole position may be to express
in one simple sentence the gist of the whole matter:
In any discussion of
the philosophy of industry, Freemasonry, if it remain true to its own
philosophy, must take the position that industry exists for the sake of man, and
must be so managed as to make for the welfare of man. What man is, and what man
needs, and what will make it possible for man to live a normal and happy life,
that is the criterion by which an industrial system is to be judged.
If we men and women
are to remain alive, and if we are to live lives of reasonable happiness, then
certain things are necessary to us, such as food, clothing, fuel, houses,
education, amusement, and all that. Industry is the method which we have devised
whereby these wants and needs may be satisfied. If at any point, or in any
moment, the industrial system is failing to satisfy these needs then that
industrial system is a failure and must be reorganized. I have to work in order
to live but if no work is to be had, something is radically and dangerously
wrong. I need clothing, but if, whatever be my efforts, I cannot get clothing, I
am forced to rebel against the way things are. I have to find food in order to
remain alive, but if there is no food to be had, it is manifest that there is a
breakdown somewhere. To say that an industrial system is a thing that has come
about through some mechanical process of mature, like the fall of rain, and that
therefore we must passively endure its evils as well as enjoy its goods, is a
very foolish way of thinking, because an industrial system is a very human
thing, a thing we have brought into existence, a thing over which we always
have, if we will but exercise it, a great deal of control. This, however, is
not to imply that the present system is wrong; far from it; the point I make is
that the one possible criterion whereby to test a system is the question, How
successfully does it minister to human needs? The question as to the success or
shortcomings of the system now at work is quite irrelevant in the present
connection, and must be left to the economists and the industrial experts.
What effect does the
present industrial system have on brotherhood, international relations, peace,
equality? What does an industrial system exist to do? Is our present system
fulfilling the functions which we have a right to ask of it? Are you able,
through honest effort, to secure sufficient work, food, clothing, fuel, etc.?
What effects do the possession of great private fortunes have upon a nation?
What is meant by industrial democracy ?
In connection with
the above it must also be noted that one should not make impossible demands of
an industrial system, as is too often the fashion of zealous but inexperienced
reformers. There are many things in nature that cannot be changed, and we must
adjust our industrial systems to those things. I may not like to mine coal in
the damp galleries underground, but that is where coal is to be found, so I must
make the best of it. I may not enjoy living in the far north where the winters
are so long and cold, but if I am to have pine lumber that is where I must go to
get it. The sea is too often a damp and cheerless place in which to live, but if
I need fish I must go to sea to get them. Many of the conditions under which we
have to work may be uncomfortable and even dangerous, but such conditions must
not be charged up against the industrial system if these things cannot be
changed. Also, it should be remembered that there is no magic in industry: if a
given quantity of goods are to be produced, then a certain amount of work is
required to produce it, and that means that man will be compelled to work so
many hours, so that it may sometimes happen that a work day will have to be
long. And there is a limit to the possibilities of tools, instruments, and
inventions, so that often it will necessarily be a hard and dangerous thing to
do certain kinds of work, no matter how much improvement there may be by way of
inventive genius. This is only another way of saying that while we insist that
a given industrial system must satisfy the needs of human beings in a
satisfactory manner we must take care not to frame that requirement in such wise
as to make it impossible of realization: the fixed conditions of nature must be
taken into consideration, the limitations of devices and tools, and the
limitations in human power and human wisdom.
Give examples of
impossible demands made on our industrial system by reformers. How do you judge
of the worth and desirability of any proffered reform? By what standards do you
judge industrial practices? How can you prove, for example, whether or not the
eight-hour day should be put everywhere into practice ?
Freemasonry is wedded
to high ideals, and insistent on lofty demands, but even so it is unwise on the
of Masons to suppose that therefore it has any right to expect any sudden
millennium. It does have a right, however, to ask that this world be made and
kept a human world in which men can live together as brothers: and it should
insist that the manner in which we make and distribute the goods of life should
be of such a character as will make possible the realization of those fine and
human goals toward which makes its way. For Masonry is itself a living organism
and cannot live in a hostile environment.
In American
Freemasonry we cannot discuss such things in our lodges, and it is probable that
Masons will very seldomly as Masons care to discuss such matters outside of
lodges. Be that as it may, if we are going to take our task seriously, and if
we are sincerely in earnest to make right relations and brotherhood prevail we
should all as individuals think out our industrial problems from the point of
view of the Craft's own purposes and ideals. Nothing presses more closely upon
us in these days, nothing is more fraught with the potentialities of great
change and nothing will do more to reshape the world in which Freemasonry, like
every other institution, must abide, than our industrial system and the burning
problems which now beat about it. The Craft must find its own way through all
this, and adjust itself to it, and do its own right part in it: how that can be,
and when, and where, and to what results, all that is the problem of the Masonic
philosophy of industry, a thing not yet born, but which must be born sooner or
later.
What has Masonry a
light to demand of an industrial system? Is Masonry actually making such
demands? If so, how? How can such questions as these be studied by Masons as
Masons? Should Masonic magazines discuss industrial problems? How is it possible
to work out a Masonic Philosophy of Industry ?
SUPPLEMENTAL
REFERENCES
Mackey's
Encyclopedia-(Revised Edition):
Bee Hive, p. 101;
Brother, p. 120; Brotherhood, p. 120; Brotherly Love, p. 121; Charges of 1722,
p. 143; Charges, Old, p. 143; Comacine Masters, p. 161; Craft, p. 184;
Craftsman, p. 184; Freemason, p. 282; Freemasons of the Church, p. 284;
Freemasonry, Early British, p. 283; Labour, p. 419; Laborare est orare (Work is
worship), p. 419; Labourers, Statutes of, p. 419; Records, Old, p. 612;
Travelling Masons, p. 792; Trestle Board, p. 797; Wages of a Master Mason,
Symbolic, p. 834; Wages of Operative Masons, p. 834; Wages of the Workmen at the
Temple, p. 834; Work, Master of the, p. 857; Working Tools, p. 856; Workmen at
the Temple, p. 857.
These and many other
similar references in the revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry deal with the
various angles of the main question considered in the present Study Club paper.
A careful examination of the information furnished under these heads will give a
close intimacy with the attitude of Freemasons now and of old to industry, from
the era of the Operative Craft to that of the present day Speculative
Institution. What we Freemasons may be has its sure foothold in the past. What
we should be rests upon our enlightened understanding of what has gone before
and of the heritage committed to our keeping.
----o----
OUR STUDY CLUB PLAN
"The Bulletin Course of Masonic Study," of which the
foregoing paper by Brother Haywood is a part, was begun in THE BUILDER early in
1917. Previous to the beginning of the present series on "Philosophical
Masonry," or "The Teachings of Masonry," as we have titled it, were published
some forty-three papers covering in detail "Ceremonial Masonry" and "Symbolical
Masonry" under the following several divisions: "The Work of a Lodge," "The
Lodge and the Candidate," "First Steps," "Second Steps," and "Third Steps." A
complete set of these papers up to January 1st, 1921, are obtainable in the
bound volumes of THE BUILDER for 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1920 and 1921.
Following is an outline of the subjects covered by the
current series of study club papers by Brother Haywood:
THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY
1. - General Introduction.
2. - The Masonic Conception of Human Nature.
3. - The Idea of Truth in Freemasonry.
4. - The Masonic Conception of Education.
5. - Ritualism and Symbolism.
6. - Initiation and Secrecy.
7. - Masonic Ethics.
8. - Equality.
9. - Liberty.
10. - Democracy.
11. - Masonry and Industry.
12. - The Brotherhood of Man.
13. - The Fatherhood of God.
14. - Endless Life.
15. - Brotherly Aid.
16. - Schools of Masonic Philosophy.
This systematic course of Masonic study has been taken up
and carried out in monthly and semi-monthly meetings of lodges and study clubs
all over the United States and Canada, and in several instances in lodges
overseas.
The course of study has for its foundation two sources of
Masonic information, THE BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia.
HOW TO ORGANIZE AND CONDUCT STUDY CLUB MEETINGS
Study clubs may be organized separate from the lodge, or as
a part of the work of the lodge. In the latter case the lodge should select a
committee, preferably of three "live" members who shall have charge of the study
club meetings. The study club meetings should be held at least once a month
(excepting during July and August, when the study club papers are discontinued
in THE BUILDER), either at a special communication of the lodge called for the
purpose, or at a regular communication at which no business (except the lodge
routine) should be transacted - all possible time to be devoted to study club
purposes.
After the lodge has been opened and all routine business
disposed of, the Master should turn the lodge over to the chairman of the study
club committee. The committee should be fully prepared in advance on the subject
to be discussed at the meeting. All members to whom references for supplemental
papers have been assigned should be prepared with their material, and should
also have a comprehensive grasp of Brother Haywood's paper by a previous reading
and study of it.
PROGRAM FOR STUDY CLUB MEETINGS
1. Reading of any supplemental papers on the subject for
the evening which may have been prepared by brethren assigned such duties by the
chairman of the study club committee.
2. Reading of the first section of Brother Haywood's paper.
3. Discussion of this section, using the questions
following this section to bring out points for discussion.
4. The subsequent sections of the paper should then be
taken up and disposed of in the same manner.
5. Question Box. Invite questions on any subject in
Masonry, from any and all brethren present. Let the brethren understand that
these meetings are for their particular benefit and enlightenment and get them
into the habit of asking all the questions they may be able to think of. If at
the time these questions are propounded no one can answer them, send them in to
us and we will endeavor to supply answers to them in time for your next study
club meeting.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The foregoing information should enable study club
committees to conduct their meetings without difficulty. However, if we can be
of assistance to such committees, or any individual member of lodges and study
clubs at any time such brethren are invited to feel free to communicate with us.
----o----
EDITORIAL
TOLERATION AND
FREEMASONRY
SELDOMLY will one
encounter a nobler paper than Brother Bingay's essay on Masonic Toleration which
appears elsewhere in this issue. It is a high-minded statement of a great and
eternal truth with which no true man can disagree, least of all a Mason, to whom
Toleration is a principle sacred and binding. Ever since it incorporated into
its constitutions the famous paragraph "Concerning God and Religion" the Craft
has worked in the world as a champion of the right of every man to think, speak,
and worship as his own soul would order, and sad would be the day should Masonry
descend to backbiting, harshness, and to the folly of fighting fire with fire.
Toleration is in
itself a positive and fruitful principle, for it alone can establish those
conditions under which it is possible for mien to think, work, and worship
together. The evil genius of intolerance is in its refusal to permit the spirit
of man freedom to act and grow, and thus it hampers, thwarts, and deadens all
the more generous and creative faculties. Not to abuse those who differ from
you, not to set upon them with bludgeons and tortures, but to grant to them the
same "liberty of difference" that you ask for yourself is something as
practicable as it is beautiful, for only thus can great constructive work be
done.
However it is also
wise to remember with Socrates that a virtue carried too far becomes a vice. It
is possible so to interpret Toleration as to make of it a mere mush of
concession in which one creed, one idea, one teaching is as true (or as untrue)
as any other, and thus all distinctions are lost, and the mind falls back into a
sterile pyrrhonism in which truth is impossible. If THE BUILDER would find any
fault at all with Brother Bingay's paper it would be on this score. It appears
that he would almost ask men not to oppose what they know to be error, and that,
surely, is asking too much. The bigoted, the fanatical, the superstitious, the
tyrannical, what do they care about Toleration! they would not be what they are
if they cared anything at all for it! consequently, if one ties the hands and
gags the mouth of those who seek the light and who try manfully to make sweet
reason and the will of God prevail, he is virtually surrendering the case to the
Philistines.
No, such a lofty
indifferentism cannot be Toleration, and we do not believe that Brother Bingay
intends it so to be. If Toleration means anything it cannot mean that, for such
a procedure would asphyxiate all science, knowledge, truth, and whatever light
there be. What true Toleration is, it would seem, is in the last analysis what
true gentlemanliness is: a courteous respect of the personality of others, and a
genuine willingness that they should in their own way seek their own truths, and
live their own lives, remembering all the while that always and everywhere every
man's truths and conduct must be constantly justified before the bar of the
common reason of mankind.
* * *
THE MENACE OF BIGNESS
THE BUILDER has more
than once joined with its contemporaries in raising a warning against the dizzy
gyrations of the degree mill, for there is good reason to fear evil consequences
from the flood of initiations that continues to pour over us. In order to
envisage the rapid increase now upon the Craft turn to the experience of
Illinois, in which great and prosperous commonwealth Freemasonry is growing far
more rapidly than the traditional green bay tree. In 1890 there were 42,369
Masons in Illinois. By 1900 this had grown to 57,325, a net gain of only 14,966,
or a few more than 1,400 members a year! By 1910 the figure reached 101,692,
which was a very considerable army of Masons. But see what happened during the
next decade! In 1920, a little over one year ago, Illinois Masonry numbered
203,447! This was a gain of 101,755, or more than 10,000 per year. But note what
happened during the one year between 1920 and 1921: the number leaped to
230,588, which means a gain of 27,141. If the reader is good at mathematics he
can work out the percentages for himself, though the figures are dizzy enough as
they are.
Is such growth as
this - it is quite representative - to be considered a good thing or an evil? It
would appear - and this, as the diplomats would say, is the whole point of the
present "convention" - that it may be either, and that it will become one or the
other according to the effectualness of the initiation machinery, and all
appertaining thereto. If lodge officials are so enamored of the lure of mere
bigness as to open the gates to anything and everything that may chance along in
the guise of petitioners, it is most certainly an evil, for the day in which
Freemasonry becomes a huge, slovenly, member-chasing society will be the death
day of all those qualities that have made it worth the time of genuine men.
But why may we not
ask of ourselves that we become equal to the rapidity of this growth ? The thing
is not impossible. If the facilities are at hand, and if they be used by
qualified men, it should be as easy to make good Masons out of one thousand
candidates as it would be out of one hundred. Can this be gainsaid? If not, why
not focus our attention upon making the organization safe for Masonry? that is,
upon holding up the level of institutional efficiency to the demands made upon
it. The Craft needs large numbers and great resources, because it has become one
of our national institutions. In the days that are before it it will need
greater resources still, for the mightiest of all its battles is rapidly
preparing.
----o----
THE LIBRARY
A FURTHER REVIEW OF
"FREEMASONRY AND THE ANCIENT GODS”
"Freemasonry and the
Ancient Gods," by Brother J.S.M. Ward, F.R. Econ. Soc., F.S.S., with an
Introduction by The Hon. Sir John A. Cockburn, K.C.M.G., M.D. Published by
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., 4 Stationer's Hall Court, London,
E.C. 4, England. Demy 8vo, Cloth, 30s. net, or post free anywhere in the world,
31s. 6d. An import duty of one dollar is charged on the book. Copies may be had
through the National Masonic Research Society at $7.50, postpaid.
WHEN ON page 88 of
the March issue we published a review of this work by Brother Silas H. Shepherd,
it was announced that "an examination of the work by the editor will follow
shortly." Happily, in now redeeming that promise, it becomes possible to publish
along with the editor's review, two other reviews by competent brethren, one of
which chances to be strongly "contra," the other strongly "pro." In this wise it
turns out that, including the able summary by Brother Shepherd, readers of THE
BUILDER will have four independent reports of this interesting volume.
A "Pro" View.
"Freemasonry and the
Ancient Gods" is the latest evidence of the swing of the pendulum away from that
schools of Masonic writers, like Gould, who are imbued with the spirit of
Thomas, and can only be convinced by sticking their hands in the wounds.
It was, perhaps,
necessary that the materialistic school, of which Gould was such a striking
example, should arise as a protest against the extravagant statements of men
like Oliver and Preston, but now there appears to be a reaction, an inevitable
turn of the tide.
This new work is by
J.S.M. Ward of England and is bound to create a great deal of discussion in
Masonic circles as he is the forerunner of what he, himself, terms the
"Anthropological School" as against the so-called "Authentic School" of Gould
and his circle. "But," as he says, "after all, we must remember that Freemasonry
is still and has always been, a secret society. In its very essence, written
documents are anathema. To this day our oath proves this and it is only during
the last two hundred years that any deviation from this rule has been winked at.
Even now there are lodges in England whose ritual varies considerably from that
in use in London, and in certain cases the sole repository of it is the
preceptor and members of the lodge. Such lodges absolutely forbid their members
to write down one word of it. If this were the original policy of Freemasonry,
how can we reasonably expect to find documentary evidence for the antiquity of
our Order? For all practical purposes no documents, except the Ancient Charges,
can be found of a date prior to the foundation of the Grand Lodge in 1717."
Yet he shows the lack
of research of such men of the documentary school as Gould and Findel who
depended on Thory and Clavel, particularly in the case of the Knight Templar
charter of John Mark Larmenius, and showed that they had never seen the original
document in cipher which he reproduces in facsimile and demonstrates to be
genuine; and he shows the legend of the Baldwin encampment of Knights Templar to
be based on fact, which in itself is an important contribution to Masonic
history.
Many hold the view
that while the Crusades checked the incursion of Eastern races into the Western
world, on the other hand they brought about the impregnation of the Western
world with the germs of Eastern thought. From thence was derived (in the opinion
of Sir Christopher Wren as well as Prof. T. Hayter Lewis, Past Master of Quatuor
Coronati lodge,) that style of architecture which we now term "Gothic."
Brother Ward traces
the descent of Freemasonry through symbolism and its common use in Egypt, India,
among the Mayas of Central America, China, etc., and prints many pictures
showing these races using Masonic signs. The Knights of the Temple imbibed from
the East the spirit of Gnosticism which was pre-Christian, he says, and this was
afterwards called a heresy and it was for this that the Order was suppressed.
They appeared to have held an esoteric view of Christianity which would permit
the Jews of the Kabbala and those of other religions to join, instead of being
strictly confined to Trinitarian Christians as at present.
In 1915, the author
saw Mohammedan Pathans in an alley at Colombo, Ceylon, meeting one another for
the first time, go through one by one, all the signs of Craft Masonry. He gives
many authentic stories of English Masons who in India, China and elsewhere have
come in contact with non-Grand Lodge Masonry and have worked their way into the
inner sanctuaries of Temples; and of natives who have visited English lodges,
all of which must be read to be appreciated.
The book is a
distinct advance over the usual materialistic Masonic history and the author is
evidently one who has touched and become acquainted with the Great School which
has ever contacted Freemasonry. He shows that in Masonry as in the older
religions there is an esoteric meaning which must not be given to the multitude.
He performs a most difficult task most acceptably, since he is giving an
explanation of symbolisms based on symbols whose very names he must not mention.
He can not give the secret to any one; for the secret is an experience which
must be gone through - the Secret of the Beatific Vision.
It is amusing to see
how some froth and fume against the mystic and occult interpretation of the
Masonic symbols, for it is evident that "they do not belong." They have not
joined that great and really secret organization which has existed throughout
the ages and which exists today and whose members recognize each other almost
without words. Those who have joined the School know their fellow scholars. They
can travel in foreign countries and receive Master's wages, as Pythagoras taught
his disciples. The others hear their speech and think it as foolish as the talk
of the alchemists was once considered, or as the gibberish of Giberol. Osiris is
raised by Horus at the entreaty of Isis, or the Soul is raised by the spirit
consciously and wilfully, at the entreaty of Matter. This book marks the
beginning of the New Revelation to Masons, or rather those Masons who seek to
raise the Veil of Isis, even but a trifle.
Cyrus Field Willard.
A "Contra" View.
Quite the most
pretentious publication dubbed Masonic that has appeared in England for some
time is "Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods," offered by James S.M. Ward as the
fruit of fourteen years of study and research and published in attractive form,
with a copious bibliography and index. Patient industry the author certainly
reveals in chapter after chapter, yet one cannot but regret that his energy has
not been applied to matters of his own knowledge rather than wasted on subjects
far better covered by others. A person who is not especially trained to traverse
the paths of ancient or modern non-Christian religious beliefs is very likely
frequently to stumble. For example, is it not rash to write of points of contact
of ancient Egypt and Babylonian worship with the oldest Aryan beliefs without
knowing what Sayce, Cheyne, Maspero, Jastrow or Haupt may have to say? And
should a man discuss symbolism without, evidently, knowing of Goblet d'Alviella,
or speak of Mithraism with but a superficial acquaintance with Cumont?
The title of the book
does not describe its contents and a happier choice might have been made because
the ancient gods are quite subordinate to the main theme, which, in the first
part, is the universality of the signs of Masonry. The author sets out to prove
that Masonic signs are used all over the world and are recognized and answered
by remote peoples and by the most unexpected savage tribes. The second part is a
discussion of the higher degrees; and in the third part he scolds his English
brethren for the manner in which he insists they are altering the "work." An
American Craftsman who is not familiar with English customs might be able to
obtain some very interesting information about the English attitude toward the
Templar and Scottish Rites from the second part of the book. In this section,
too, Brother Ward gives a condensation of the article on the Knights Templar
which appeared in the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum in 1911, written by F.J.W. Crowe,
with a summary of the Chapter of Larmenius and some excerpts from
Bothwell-Gosse's "The Templars." Perhaps, as there is no original research in
Parts Two or Three of this book, Brother Ward would have done better to have
omitted them and to have confined his efforts to Part One. It would have made a
more compact volume of 178 pages and would have then contained all that Brother
Ward really has to say. He opens with a description of an initiation ceremony
among Bektashi Dervishes, but he should know that such a description is of no
value as evidence unless time and place and the names of the witnesses are
given. Nothing else will do. The Masonic world is eagerly awaiting on this point
evidence such as would be accepted, not necessarily in a court of law, but to
the satisfaction of the average man accustomed to weigh ordinary probabilities.
If our ceremonies and ritual, signs and symbols, are in use, as has been stated,
among the Druses, Hindu sects, natives of West Africa, American Indians, let us
have the sworn testimony if possible, but let us have the testimony, anyhow, in
such form that we can judge its credibility. It was hoped that it was just this
that Brother Ward had done in this book, but it turns out to be as indefinite
and credulous as those that have gone before. He tells us that two British
officers worked their way into the inner shrine of a temple of Shiva by giving
the signs of the Royal Arch, but clearly this is hearsay on his part and we are
without the names of the officers and their statements. And who can help being
skeptical when these important features of the testimony are withheld?
Frankly, skepticism
is justified. It is no longer possible for anybody to make bald statements and
call them proof and this new spirit of investigation in Freemasonry is what has
brought us to some real knowledge of the Craft and its history. The Mason
demands proof. So one has little patience in following Brother Ward through his
statement of Mexican revelations. Aztec and Maya remains do not sustain any
pretension to Masonic knowledge on the part of the natives whom Cortez
conquered. Let any Mason read the Smithsonian Institute summary of Mexican
antiquities, to be obtained in most large public libraries, and it will be
obvious that Brother Ward's contention is incapable of belief. Nor can an
American Mason be induced to believe that anybody ever saw two Pathans in an
Indian alley go through all the Masonic signs, as Brother Ward accepts as true.
There are very strong arguments to be made in favor of an Aryan origin for
certain Masonic conceptions but such arguments gain no help from puerile
phantasies, as Brother Ward, a B.A. of Cambridge, surely must be aware.
"Ah," says Brother
Ward, getting down to more argument, "Masonry had its secret signs in the days
of Ashmole, long before any scientific study had been made of Egyptian
antiquities." As a statement of fact that is precisely true, but nothing is
further from the truth than the inference one would draw from it and which
Brother Ward evidently believes. The knowledge of the meaning of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics was never really absolutely lost, for Horapollon's two volumes of
"Hieroglyphica" were certainly in existence in Ashmole's day. Whether Horapollon
wrote them or not, they are in very late Greek and some students place them as
late as the fifteenth century. Some of the meanings given by Horapollon Dr.
Adolf Hermann calls eccentrically (Tollheiten), but there are the lists for
anyone to see and the traditional interpretations, for anyone to read. Whether
Horapollon of Phaenebythes wrote the two volumes, or whether they were written
by Horapollon who lived a century later, between 474 and 491, or whether they
were written by somebody else about 1450, the fact remains that the books were
in existence and anybody who possessed them could make a fair attempt at
translation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. And they were used by the magic school
that debased, or pretendedly so, the Hermetic school of philosophy with which
the student of the origins of Masonry finds himself constantly in contact. So
Brother Ward, if he were an Egyptologist as well as a Mason, might have traced
the pedigree of some of our work more directly to the Egyptian priesthood than
he has succeeded in doing.
"Will anyone contend
that the sign of F.C. is a natural sign ?" asks the author. Certainly, anyone
will. It is the most natural sign in the world. He says it is found in India,
Egypt and Palestine, as well as elsewhere, and he might have added that it is an
old American Indian sign, too, for it is - one of the oldest of the Indian
symbols. Its naturalness explains its universal use. And here it is that Brother
Ward, somehow, has wholly failed to do what the reader in taking up the book
expects to find done. Brother Ward has traveled, he has had his eyes open, he
has made notes; but - he has really described nothing. In is not necessary to
tell a Mason what a Masonic sign is, so the author could have told what a savage
did, or what a tribe did, giving date and place, and then the Masonic reader
would have known, just as well as Brother Ward knew, whether or not the matter
described had any counterpart in Masonry. As he has failed to do this, he has
produced a work of great length containing much curious information but it is
really of no value to the student. D.E.W. Williamson.
A Third View.
Of the many admirable
qualities exhibited by "Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods" the thing that has
most favorably impressed myself is the fervor, the kindling enthusiasm, with
which its author, Brother J.S.M. Ward, deals with Freemasonry. To him it is not
an antiquarian puzzle, or a corpse on the dissecting table, but a breathing and
living thing - almost a being - to be known, loved, and served. If at times this
zeal seems to carry him away, after the manner of enthusiasm since the world
began, and he does not always employ as ripe a judgment as a man should in
pursuing such a task as he has assumed, one is more than willing to be lenient
with one who is always alive, even if he is not always accurate, because
enthusiasm covers a multitude of sins.
Brother Ward's sins
are not to be counted by the multitude but there are a certain number of them
which must be fairly admitted by even the most partisan friends of the book. To
a sophisticated reader accustomed to the meticulous carefulness of scholars the
many slips of grammar, spelling, and of matters of fact in the volume are very
painful. The word "Collegia" is three times (perhaps oftener) used as a singular
noun. Our old friend J. Yarker appears repeatedly as "Yarkar," a thing that must
irritate his learned ghost. Laurence Dermott makes his advent as "Dermot." In
themselves of slight importance these slips convey the impression of haste, and
make a reader suspicious about more important matters. At the bottom of page 8
the author says "that in the Middle Ages an apprentice was bound for seven
years." In the majority of cases yes, but not always, as in France, where it was
quite common to hold an apprentice by an indenture of only five years. On page
145 is this sentence: "When Christianity was converting the rank and file of
ancient Rome it did not fail to attract the members of the various colleges,
among which were included many of the Masonic fraternity." But there was no
"Masonic fraternity" among those Colleges; there was no fraternity of any kind.
In the very next paragraph is this bewildering sentence: "Strange to say,
Diocletian, when he set out to destroy Christianity, dealt very leniently with
the Collegia of Architects," etc. If this means anything at all it means that
the Collegia had become part of the Christian institution, or at least,
Christian, which is not true to the facts. There never was such a thing as a
great unified institution in the empire known as "the Collegia"; all those
bodies were independent, deriving their unity of form from the imperial statutes
according to which they were governed. As for their symbols, emblems, and ritual
little or nothing is known, as one can discover for himself from that which is
the principal source of information, the Corpus Latinarum Inscriptionem.
Brother Ward has a
habit of making rapid and loose statements about matters that call very loudly
for caution and many modifications. The case of the Roman Collegia, just
referred to, is an example of this. The case of the Comacini may be offered as
another example. The history of the Comacini is as yet so much of a terra
incognita that many of the most careful historians of architecture omit the
subject altogether, while others refer to them incidentally, and in passing, and
usually with the remark that the Comacine theory is as yet in the making. Leader
Scott herself, and Brother W. Ravenscroft after her, have both been careful to
keep before their readers the tenative character of many of the "proofs" offered
by them. In the preface to his now familiar little book, "The Comacines," the
latter writes thus:
"Part of what I have
written is theoretical and and part historical, and, in order to avoid
destroying the value of the latter, I have endeavored to keep the two things
quite distinct."
My quarrel with
Brother Ward is that he has not "endeavored to keep the two things quite
distinct." The apprentices in Masonic lore who chance to read his pages on that
theme and may there be many such to read his pages - will carry away the
impression that what he has stated is so much matter-of-fact history. This is
unfortunate because the Comacine Theory is still just that - a theory, and it
should be frankly presented as such, and given that value.
Brother Ward finds it
easier than most to cut the Gordian knot. After describing at some length, and
in an interesting fashion, "the Hindoo Yogi system" he brings his reader up
suddenly with this statement: "For convenience, we may regard the first three
degrees as corresponding roughly to our Craft degrees." If Brother Ward can
discern such an identity he possesses a pair of X-ray eyes not vouchsafed to
myself, and an agility of reason that I very much covet. Of like nature with
this is that other example of theological reasoning, the crux of which is stated
on page 38: "There is a marked similarity between the three principal officers
in a Craft lodge and the three principles of the Deity"! (Quotation marks are my
own.) On the following page is a similar sentence: "Therefore, Brother S.W.,
when your final duty is performed tonight, pause for an instant and recall to
your mind that side of the Deity which closes the life of every man, and which
some day will close the work of this planet when Time shall be no more." I
imagine that if ever an S.W. sees a side of Deity approaching him in order to
perform that function he will quite forget that he has ever been an S.W.!
It is easy for one to
throw out a theory here, another there, and another further on, until at last,
like the spider with her web, a system of theories has been formed. It is easy
in the process to forget gradually, as one advances, how he has advanced, so
that at last, when the conclusions are reached, the mind has forgotten that it
has passed from theory to theory rather than from fact to fact. In this wise it
is perilously easy to build up an illusion of proof out of the most tenuous
materials. After reading the whole of "Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods," having
in mind the while its principal thesis, I came to a stop with the feeling that
what I had in my hands was not proof, but only the illusion thereof.
What the book's
thesis is may be succinctly stated in the author's own words, as found on page
viii of his Preface:
"Briefly, the theory
that I venture to propound is that Freemasonry originated in the primitive
initatory rites of prehistoric man, and from these rites have been built up all
the ancient mysteries, and thence all the modern religious systems. It is for
this reason that men of all religious beliefs can enter Freemasonry; and,
further, the reason we admit no women is that these rites were originally the
initiatory rites of men; the women had their own. These for sociological reasons
perished, while those of the men survived, and developed into the mysteries."
Brother Ward has
mEade a splendid undertaking even if, as some of us may believe, he has failed
in accomplishing his purpose. Gradually, and by virtue of a prodigious amount of
labor, carried on now for more than half a century, Masons have accumulated a
great mass of data belonging to many countries, periods, and peoples. These
facts, half-facts, and theories now lie in heaps in our modern books, just as,
before the days of the archeologists fragments of buildings lay scattered about
the sites of cities anciently passed away without any historian being able to
link up these pathetic monuments to the story of the peoples they once served.
To a certain type of mind nothing is more uncomfortable than such a situation;
such men are eager to throw out great generalizations, like nets, in order to
draw all the facts into some kind of dramatic unity, such as has been at last
attained in some of the more familiar tracts of secular history, as in the story
of Rome or of Greece. They generalize, they build up grandiose systems, in order
to save themselves from the feeling of suspense and uncertainty. These
generalizers have often gone astray and will continue so to do in the nature of
the case, but, after all, they have their own high place and their own exceeding
great reward. The present state of affaits with regard to Masonic "history" is
one that calls out loudly to such men. Sooner or later there may appear a great
generalizer to furnish us with the clue to it all, and thereby bring us out of
our uncertainty, but he has not yet appeared.
The most exciting
thing about Brother Ward's book is his forthright challenge to what he describes
as "the Authentic School." On page vii of his Preface he has this to say about
these same Authentists:
"Yet, despite these
self-evident facts, the Authentic School, for all practical purposes,
concentrates its research on documentary evidence, and naturally is unable to
adduce any real evidence for Masonry, previous to Grand Lodge, save as an
operative guild. Let the Authentic School still concentrate on documents - there
is still enough work to be done to occupy it fully for many years - but let
others follow the anthropological line of research, and the sum total of our
knowledge will be vastly increased."
Does Brother Ward
expect to be taken seriously in this? Where is this Authentic School located? of
whom is it composed? how are we to recognize it when we encounter it? Does
Brother Ward (such is the interpretation evidently placed on his words by
Brother Willard) mean the eminent scholars who have composed the Quatuor
Coronati Lodge of Research? If so, and such is my own guess, then this Authentic
School can be easily located and its voice heard: it has carefully and
voluminously expressed itself in the thirtyodd volumes of the Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum.
The Ars is a library
with which I have long lived on rather intimate terms, and I have enjoyed in the
past, as in the present, some personal intercourse with the men who have
contributed to its pages. But not by any stretching of words or imagination can
I make Brother Ward's adjective "Authentic" fit this group; nor can I understand
how that group may be described as concentrating on "documents."
For one thing, the
men of the Quatuor Coronati do not form a "school" in the sense that they have
certain theories in common; far from it, as all will know who have found delight
in the discussions that almost always have followed each paper contributed. For
another thing, they have never united behind any set of formal acts, or any
program whatsoever; they have from the first jealously protected the right of
every member to go his own way. Having neither acts nor theories in common,
these men have had but one bond in common, and that has been loyalty throughout
to the commonly accepted canons of scientific thought. Their plea has ever been,
Let us investigate Masonry, its nature and its history, as we would investigate
the history of Rome, or Greece, or England.
If the term
"Authentic School" has any other meaning than this, Brother Ward should out with
it! But if the term means this - and I believe that most of us would so
interpret it - then a question stands ready to hand: Does Brother Ward ask us to
throw aside scientific methods ? If he does he is asking the impossible. And as
for his "anthropological researches," he will find as much of that in the A.Q.C.
as anywhere. The notion that the members of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati have been
obsessed by concern for the minutiae of Masonic documents is dispelled by the
most hasty reading of their Transactions. Everything has been grist that has
come to their mill, and their mill has been operated according to the most
careful scientific methods.
For all that I
disagree with him in these fundamental matters Brother Ward's book is one that I
shall gladly recommend to my friends whenever occasion permits. Like Browning's
David he has taken for his province "the whole round of creation." To read the
book through from beginning to end is in itself almost a liberal education. A
student, and this should especially weigh with the new student, will find here
laid before him, in orderly and seemly array, all the larger problems with which
our best minds have been wrestling. And he will encounter here, in overflowing
measure, a great accumulation of the facts that every Mason should know.
The thing I like best
of all in the book as a book is its amplitude, its sweep, its glow, and its
recognition of the romance and human appeal of our Fraternity, which is not, and
never has been, a static organization carved out of the rock for aged men to
lean on. Few are they that have discovered the height, and the depth, and the
length, and the breadth of it; nor has it entered into the imagination of many
men to know what are its unsearchable riches. Never yet, save in the great
scriptures of stone wrought out by our cathedral building brethren of long ago,
has it been celebrated by one competent to express that which it has put into
the heart and life of the world; not once, save in a few stray pages of Morals
and Dogma. But it will not be always so! There will some day come a man endowed
by nature with the incomparable gifts of the great poet, and equipped by his own
labor with a complete panoply of knowledge, who, out of his balanced powers of
learning, speech, and imagination will write The Book of Freemasonry. When that
book has been written Masons themselves will then discover how that though
Masonry has been with them for a long time, yet have they hardly known it at
all! H.L.H
* * *
Since writing the
above a Masonic brother has called my attention to the fact that Brother Ward is
already at least twice an author. He is credited with two volumes on
spiritualism, the former of them being "Gone West," and the latter "A Subaltern
in Spirit Land." These two books, as an examination has shown, are composed of
materials alleged to have been "revealed" from the "spirit world" to the author.
It appears that Brother Ward is a "trance medium" and also that he practices
"automatic writing." I add this codicil to my review because it will enable our
readers more quickly to "place" Brother Ward.
"The Subaltern in
Spirit Land" is published by William Rider & Sons, 8 Paternoster Row, London,
E.C. 4, England. The other volume (it is not at hand just now) is, as I recall,
from the same publishing house. H.L.H.
----o----
PUBLICATIONS WANTED,
FOR SALE, AND EXCHANGE
We are constantly
receiving inquiries from members of the Society and others as to where they
might obtain books on Masonry and kindred subjects, other than those listed each
month on the inside back cover of THE BUILDER. Most of the publications wanted
have been out of print for years. Believing that many such books might be in the
hands of other members of the Society willing to dispose of them we are setting
apart this column each month for the use of our members. Communications from
those having old Masonic publications will also be welcomed.
Postoffice addresses
are here given that those interested may communicate direct with each other, no
responsibility of any nature to be attached to the Society.
It is requested that
all brethren whose wants may be filled through this medium communicate with the
Secretary so that the notices may then be discontinued.
WANTED
By Bro. D. D.
Berolzheimer, 1 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y.: "Realities of Masonry," Blake,
1879; "Records of the Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons," Condor, 1894;
"Masonic Bibliography," Carson, 1873; "Origin of Freemasonry," Paine, 1811.
By Bro. G. Alfred
Lawrence, 142 West 86th St., New York, N. Y.: Proceedings of the Scottish Rite
Body founded by Joseph Cerneau in New York City in 1808, of which De Witt
Clinton was the first Grand Commander, and which body became united, in 1867,
with the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, A. & A. S. R.
Also Proceedings of the Supreme Council Founded in New York by De La Motta, in
1813, by authority of the Southern Supreme Council, of which he was Grand
Treasurer-General, these Proceedings from 1813 to 1860.
By Bro. Frank R.
Johnson, 310 Dwight Building, Kansas City, Mo.: "The Year Book," published by
the Masonic Constellations, containing the History of the Grand Council, R. & S.
M., of Missouri.
By Bro. Ernest E.
Ford, 305 South Wilson Avenue, Alhambra, California: Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
volumes 3, 6 and 7, with St. John's Cards, also St. John's Cards for volumes 4
and 5; "Masonic Review," early volumes; "Voice of Masonry," early volumes;
Transactions Supreme Council Southern Jurisdiction for the years 1882 and 1886;
Original Proceedings of The General Grand Eneampment Knights Templar for the
years 1826 and 1835.
By Brother N. W. J.
Haydon, 664 Pape Ave., Toronto, Ont., Canada: - A set of Gould's History, six
volume edition preferred.
By Brother Silas H.
Shepherd, Hartland, Wisconsin: "Catalogue of the Masonic Library of Samuel
Lawrence"; "Second Edition of Preston's Illustrations of Masonry"; "The Source
of Measures," by J. Ralston Skinner 1875, or second edition 1894; "Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum," volumes I to XI, inclusive; "Masonic Facts and Fictions," by Henry
Sadler; "The Kabbalah Unveiled," by S. L. MacGregor Mathers.
By Brother A. A.
Burnand, 690 South Bronson Ave., Los Angeles, California: Various Masonic
publications including such as a complete set of "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum";
"History of Freemasonry in Scotland," by D. Murray Lyon, (original edition);
Thomas Dunkerly, Laurence Dermott, etc.
By Brother Geo. A.
Lanzarotti, Casilla 126, Rancagua, Chile: All kinds of Masonic literature in
Spanish. Write first quoting prices.
----o----
If a man empties his
purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in
knowledge always pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin.
----o----
SIDE DEGREES FIFTY
YEARS AGO
In the good old days
Masonic editors did not handle their competitors or their opponents with gloves
on, but lit into them like bobcats (it was the custom in journalism everywhere),
as will be noted. from the following excerpt from the WESTERN FREEMASON of 1859,
at which time that journal boasted as its editor no less a giant than T.S.
Parvin. Brother Parvin had a tussle with Brother J. R. Hartsock, Grand Master of
Iowa, and as usual came off an top. In one of the "replies" that Brother Parvin
wrote to Brother Hartsock occurs a paragraph of peculiar interest in that it
reveals how at that early day the Order of the Secret Monitor - now so seldomly
heard from - and the degrees of the Knight of Constantine were commonplaces of
Masonic life; and also how that in 1859 the old bitter warfare over the rival
types of Blue Lodge "work" was as yet as its height. We of this day, who have
become so familiar with a uniform ritual (within the State), sustained with
great care by the Grand Lodge down to the last detail, find it difficult to
transport ourselves to a time when there was no such authoritative "work" but in
many cases local lodges were permitted to devise the work as they saw fit. In
the main, however, a half dozen types came to the front to contend for mastery
through a period of years. It may be said that the so-called "Webb Work," as
modified and promulgated by Jeremy Cross, gradually forged to the front and won
out. The whole subject is worth careful examination by those who erroneously
assume that our present "work" in all its details has descended to us from
ancient times.
"If Brother Hartsock
obtained the true Webb work in 1842 or 1844 from Brother Nye of Vermont, as he
says in statement seven, why did he 'lay aside that work and the many
innovations connected with it,' and in 1846 secure the services of Stephenson of
Virginia, to obtain from him, word for word, another and a different work?
Ambition sometimes overleaps itself.
"Brother Hartsock
came to my lodge one evening while he was Deputy Grand Master, and I gave him
the East, when he commenced repeating that 'Cousin Sally Dillard' story - 'as I
was saying, I went down to Virginny,' etc.; and after repeating this a while, he
called from labor with the remark, 'All those brethren who have not received the
degrees of Knight of Constantine and Secret Monitor will remain and I will
confer them.' I at once replied that such doings could not be enacted in the
hall of my lodge, and if that was the business his Master sent him to do, he
could go to the hotel and use the barroom as a more befitting place. At this he
got into a passion, and threatened, but to no purpose. I ordered the tyler to
close the hall, and he obeyed, and Brother H. went to the hotel, and in its
parlor conferred upon the younger brethren these degrees. Whether they have any
connection with the story of 'Cousin Sally Dillard' or not, we have never
learned, for we abominate such fungi upon the body of Masonry."
There is much more of
equal interest to those who may care to go back to the old files for it. Can
anybody tell us what was this famous (or infamous) "Cousin Sally Dillard" story?
----o----
LOOK TO THE EAST
BY BRO. GERALD
NANCARROW,INDLiNA
If thou wouldst see
the Majesty of God
Rise o'er the
jewelled portal of the dawn;
If thou wouldst taste
the wine of morning's feast,
Awake thy Soul, and
look thee to the East.
And wouldst thou have
the mantle of the Lord
Spread o’er thy
restless longings for a while?
Gone be thy fears,
thy tumult ceased -
If thou wilt hold thy
gaze upon the East.
When thou hast
wrought the labors of thy day,
And night shall fall
to compass thee about,
Then morn shall
break, thy Spirit be released
The Master's hand
shall seat thee in the East.
----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.
OUTLINES AND
SUGGESTIONS FOR SIX TALKS ON FREEMASONRY
Please send me
outlines for about six talks on Masonic subjects, as follows: 1. Brotherly Love,
Relief, and Truth; 2. Freemasonry Unites Men of Every Country, Sect, and
Opinion; 3. The Great Lights; 4. Fraternity; 5. Masonry and the Needs of the
Present Time; 6. Masonic Working Tools and What they Teach. Will be very much
obliged. G.H.L., Ohio.
Whew! you have given
us a rather large order! But here goes! Wherever possible you are being referred
to material that has already appeared in THE BUILDER. This is done in order to
economize space, which has come to be at a premium.
1. Brotherly Love,
Relief, and Truth.
A. Brotherly Love. It
is something less than private friendship but more than neighboriliness; it is
that mutual regard that is born from relations in a fraternity. It is the
practice of good will towards men because of the mystic tie, and often in cases
where otherwise there would be no friendly relations at all. It is the kind of
good will that such a society as Freemasonry can create, and is therefore
something unique in itself, and not exactly like anything in the profane world.
B. Relief. This is
not charity in the ordinary sense of the word. It means that when a brother
Mason is in any sort of trouble, his brethren should fly to his aid and give him
such relief as possible. In accordance with the obligation and with the Five
Points of Fellowship it must be secret, tactful, and kindly. It is not given
because the man is destitute; it is given because the man is a brother. The fact
of his destitution is accidental; the fact of his being a brother is essential.
C. Truth. In this
connection Truth has not to do with speculative matters, such as questions of
creed, philosophy, and all that, but with conduct as between one Mason and
another. In this relation there must be candor, honor, and always fair play and
accurate loyalty to the facts in the case. The Mason who carries gossip and
false tales is not living in truth, but in falsehood. In other connections
Masonry emphasizes true thinking; in this connection it emphasizes true doing.
II. Freemasonry
Unites Men of Every Country, Sect, and Opinion.
It does as a plain
matter of fact. It is found in nearly all countries, and in its vast membership
will be found Turks, Hindus, Chinese (Dr. Sun Yat Sen is a Mason) Japanese, etc.
Its adherents profess all manner of different creeds: in some Latin countries
Roman Catholics belong to it; members of nearly all the Protestant sects will be
found on its rosters; so also Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists,
Behaists, Free Thinkers (Benjamin Franklin, Thos Jefferson, and others), etc.
Inside the Masonic world live men who adhere to all manner of political
governments: there are monarchists, as in England; those who believe in
representative government, as in this land, etc., and among its members have
been leaders in all manner of opposed political camps; as Andrew Jackson, a
radical Democrat; and Wm. McKinley, a conservative Republican. All social
classes are represented: when Theodore Roosevelt attended lodge in Washington,
so he tells us, he sat under a Master who was a gardener. Freemasonry has come
from many sources and incorporates within itself that which appeals to all, Jews
and Gentiles, Christians and non-Christians, etc. It uses the level as a symbol
of itself, not because it planes everything down to a flat monotony, but because
it is a platform on which men of all minds - except the man of evil mind - may
meet in mutual respect, harmony, and good will.
III. The Great
Lights.
A. The Holy Bible.
See the Correspondence Circle Bulletin section of THE BUILDER for September,
1918. It is a symbol of that which is to us the revealed will and mind of God.
B. The Square. See
ditto. A call to us to perfect our moral and physical natures.
C. The Compasses. See
the same. A call to us to perfect our mental, moral, and spiritual selves
IV. Fraternity. In
the very nature of things, and owing to fixed conditions under which he lives,
man needs brotherhood. On this see the Pike quotation, page 317 of THE BUILDER
for last November. Savages have their fraternities and secret societies; this
proves that fraternity has its roots in man's very nature and is not something
artificially trumped up. Fraternity, like everything else human, needs favorable
conditions in which to grow. The Masonic lodge seeks to furnish these
conditions. It gathers together (a) like-minded men; (b) it binds them together
by solemn obligations; (c) they meet in the same room and always under the same
conditions; (d) they see much of each other; (e) they enjoy the same social life
and often eat at the same table; (f) they are set to do the same tasks; (g) they
live in the light of the same rich traditions; (h) they are all governed
according to the same laws. The Fraternity which it thus creates within itself,
Freemasonry would like to see established in the great world outside.
V. Masonry and the
Needs of the Present Time.
A. The world has need
of peace as between nations. Freemasonry is an international organization. Its
power to influence various peoples is growing rapidly. It should mobilize that
influence in behalf of international good will, and a future comity of nations.
To illustrate: Ireland cannot always go on rent in twain by north and south, for
that condition is intolerable, like a sliver of wood in one's flesh; why cannot
the Irish Masonic lodges dedicate themselves to heal this wound ?
B. The Labor Problem.
This is at present the problem. This problem has never been solved. What can our
Craft do to help solve it? It is a challenge to us.
C. The Problem of
Moral Order. It is evident that in this land we are passing through a kind of
moral revolution. Many forces are at work that are subversive of all moral
order. Freemasonry is a great cohesive influence, and holds men fast to the very
highest moral ideals and obligations, as is witnessed by the ritual.
D. Masonry and
Relief. By "relief" here is meant assistance in great catastrophes such as war,
fire, floods, earthquake, and the like. The Masonic Service Association was
called into existence to serve as an engine of such relief.
E. Immigration. The
immigrant it not to be denuded of his own proper personality, and cannot be; but
he must be so built into our social and political life that he can function
normally in all the activities of citizenship.
F. Radical and
Revolutionary Movements. Such as Bolshevism, and all that. The Order is not at
all opposed to reforms -it works for many of them - but is opposed to anything
that would tear the American system up by its roots.
G. Problems of
Education. You can talk ad lib about this. Materials lie about everywhere. The
Towner-Sterling Bill is still a live issue and needs all the ventilating and
discussing it can get.
VI. The Masonic
Working Tools and What They Teach. Space is exhausted, so Brother Editor informs
me. See THE BUILDER for January 1919, page three of the Correspondence Circle
Bulletin section for the Working Tools of an Entered Apprentice; for June 1919,
page three of the Correspondence Circle Bulletin section for the Working Tools
of a Fellow Craft; and for the Trowel see page three of the Correspondence
Circle Bulletin of June, 1920.
* * *
INFORMATION WANTED
Can any reader
furnish me with a copy of the poem of three or four verses entitled "I Will,"
the first lines of which are as follows:
"I will start anew
this morning, with a higher, fairer creed.
I will cease to stand
repining of my ruthless neighbor's greedy.”
and the last lines
"I will cease to
preach your duties,
And be more concerned
with mine."
A.E.B., Iowa.
* * *
THE NATIONAL LEAGUE
OF MASONIC CLUBS
Can you give me some
information about an organization known as The National League of Masonic Clubs?
I am the secretary of a local Masonic club, and we have been thinking somewhat
of seeking to ally ourselves with the League. Who is the secretary? D.S.A.,
Missouri.
The secretary of the
National League of Masonic Clubs is Brother Edward A. MacKinnon, 507 Broome
Street, Wilmington, Delaware. At present more than 375 clubs are affiliated from
31 states and from Toronto, Ontario, and Haiti, West Indies, and the membership
represented is about 300,000 Master Masons. The first annual convention was held
at Syracuse, New York, April 19th, 1906; the last convened at Atlantic City, New
Jersey, May 22nd, 1922. The League has furnished a brief outline sketch of the
history and inception of the organization, some paragraphs of which will furnish
you all the information you need:
THE CAUSE OR SOURCE
The impulse of an
innate feeling in the brethren of the Masonic fraternity to be free to enter any
Masonic Club on the basis of associate membership, where one may go and enjoy
the same rights and privileges as in his home club, and not be dependent on the
courtesy of some member of it.
ITS ESSENTLAL
A brotherhood of
clubs which consists exclusively of Master Masons in good and regular standing
in lodges under the jurisdiction of regular Grand Lodges.
ASSOCIATED WITH
A high standing for
the development of the highest sense and fact of brotherhood among Masons,
especially upon the social side of our great profession, with a due restraint
upon our affections and passions, which renders the body tame and governable,
and frees the mind from the allurements of vice.
INCIDENTS
In March, 1905, S. R.
Clute, Secretary of the Masonic Club of Syracuse, N.Y., with the consent and
co-operation of his club, decided to send out a call to the Masonic Clubs then
in existence in New York State asking them to send representatives to a meeting
in Syracuse to consider the advisability of working out a plan to provide for
the interchange of courtesies to visiting members of Masonic Clubs in the State.
Pursuant to this call there assembled at Syracuse, N.Y., April 20, 1905, in the
rooms of the Masonic Temple Club, representatives from several clubs as follows:
Brothers E. M. Brown,
President, and S. R. Clute, Masonic Temple Club, Syracuse, N. Y.
Worshipful Brother
George W. Arnold, Secretary, Masonic Club, New York, N. Y.
Worshipful Master
Judson Bridenbecker and Brother A. T. Smith of Herkimer Lodge No. 423, Herkimer,
N. Y.
Brother Andrew
Ludolph, Secretary, Masonic Club of Auburn, N. Y.
Right Worshipful,
Fred M. Hart, President, and Brother F. D. Clark, Secretary of the Oswego
Masonic Club, Oswego, N. Y.
Brother Clute called
the meeting to order and stated the object of the meeting, namely: To discuss
and agree upon general measures for increasing good fellowship among the various
Masonic Clubs of the State and particularly to adopt a traveling card to enable
its possessor to secure Masonic Club privileges not only in his own Club, but
throughout the State. Brother Clute was chosen temporary President and Brother
Clark, temporary Secretary. The following resolutions were adopted:
Resolved, That we,
the representatives of the Masonic Clubs of Syracuse, New York City, Rochester,
Oswego, Herkimer and Auburn, do hereby constitute an organization to be known as
"The League of Masonic Clubs," with headquarters at Syracuse, and that we meet
annually on the third Thursday in April, with the Masonic Temple Club of
Syracuse.
Resolved, That the
purpose of this League shall be the promotion of fraternal relations between the
Masonic Clubs comprising it and to facilitate the interchange of courtesies to
visiting members.
Resolved, That it is
the sense of this organization that the several clubs forming this League may
issue, to members in good standing, traveling cards signed by the Secretaries of
the Clubs and countersigned by the members to whom they are issued, and
entitling said members to the courtesies of the Clubs comprising the League for
a period not to exceed six months from the date of issue - the foregoing,
however, subject to ratification by the Clubs forming the League.
Brother S. R. Clute
was elected President and Brother F. D. Clark. Secretary and Treasurer.
* * *
A COIN MINTED BY
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS
I have in my
possession a silver dollar dated 1617. On one side of the coin (in Swedish) are
the words: Gustavus Adolphus, King of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals. The
highest glory to his kingdom. On the other side is the following inscription:
Savior of the world, save us. On the face side and just above the King's own
picture, is an inscription composed of the four Jewish letters J H W H. Was
Gustavus a Mason ? If so, was he a 14th degree man, or perhaps a 32nd ?
L. S., Illinois.
The coin is not a
particularly uncommon one, being one of a series coined in Sweden during the
years from 1615 to 1632, all of practically the same type. The Hebrew
inscription above the head of the king is simply the Tetragrammaton - the
letters JHVH in Hebrew characters; and this word, as you are doubtless aware, is
the so-called unpronounceable or ineffable name of God, translated "Jehovah" in
our bible. Religious emblems are to be found upon a great many issues of coins,
not only of Sweden, but of other countries as well, and this applies to all
ages, from the old Greeks and Romans down to the "In God We Trust" upon our own
coins.
Gustavus Adolphus was
certainly not a Mason, in the sense in which we employ the appellation, for
there is not the slightest evidence that anything like our Freemasonry was
knower in Sweden in those days. Assuredly he could not have been in possession
of the 14th or 32nd degrees, for these degrees were not formulated until the
second half of the next century after his death.
It is not
particularly astonishing that a king, especially one so imbued with religious
fervor as Gustavus Adolphus, should have displayed the Tetragrammaton upon his
coins. Such antisemitic sentiment as prevailed applied to the Jews of the time,
because they rejected the Christian religion. It did not attach to the ancient
race or the ancient religion or the ancient language; for it must be remembered
that Christ himself was a Jew. And the placing of the Tetragrammaton above the
kingly crown was an entirely logical bit of symbolism for the times, indicating
that the ruler's power was derived from God. R.J.L.
* * *
LORENZO DOW
Will you tell me if
Lorenzo Dow was a Mason, and also a little about his life that is authentic. I
used to hear my grandfather talk about him, and I got the impression that he
must leave been a crack-brained old fellow, but my grandfather also solid he had
been a Mason, so my curiosity was aroused.
A.W.R., Minnesota.
Lorenzo was a Mason,
and a good one too. He was initiated at Bristol Connecticut, in 1824, and became
at last a Knight Templar, which was uncommon in those days. During the
disgraceful Anti-Masonic affair (disgraceful to the country, I mean) he stood to
his guns, and never failed to tell the antis what he thought of them. Dow was
eccentric, in manner, dress, and speech, but I do not believe one should
describe him as "crackbrained." Our friends the Jesuits will admit that he knew
a thing or two, and how to tell it, for they were constantly being dented by
Dow's furious onslaughts. After emerging from a youth full of religious
upheavals the young Dow at last found his haven with the Methodists. But in 1805
he went to England where he created much excitement, organized camp meetings,
and paved the way for the new sect of Primitive Methodists, which is still, I
believe, a vigorous body. I should have said that in 1799 he had gone to Ireland
to preach Protestantism to the Roman Catholics. The last years of his life were
spent in the United States - he died in 1834 - and for the most part were
devoted to a tireless crusade against the Roman Catholics. In 1814 he published
a curious autobiography gotten up in the form of a Journal; the 1854 edition of
this work was entitled "The Dealings of God, Man, and the Devil as exemplified
in the Life, Experience and Travels of Lorenzo Dow." Your grandfather very
probably read that book with great delight.
----o----
CORRESPONDENCE
CHIEF SHABBONEE A
MASON
Brother Slane, of
Illinois, in THE BUILDER for January, 1922, asks if Blackhawk, Shabbonee, Logan,
and other Indian notables were members of the Masonic fraternity. It might be
interesting to readers of THE BUILDER to know that in a discussion some few
years ago with Brother Charles H. Spencer, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, now deceased,
Brother Spencer said he was a personal friend of Shabbonee, and that the latter
was a Mason.
F.M. Enders, Iowa.
* * *
CONGRESSMAN LANGLEY,
OF KENTUCKY, MEMBER OF A WASHINGTON. D.C., LODGE
Several lists of
members of Congress who are Masons have been published recently. These lists
have apparently been made up from data furnished by the Grand Secretaries of the
respective States. Of course, in most instances, Congressmen are members of
lodges in States from which they are elected to Congress. It happens, however,
that Hon. John W. Langley, of Kentucky, is a member of Washington Centennial
Lodge No. 14, F.A.A.M., of Washington, D. C. He joined this lodge while living
in Washington before he became a member of Congress. He is now in good standing
on our rolls.
Jason Waterman,
Secretary, Washington Centennial
Lodge No. 14;
F.A.A.M., Washington, D. C.
* * *
OFFICERS OF THE AMEX
MASONIC CLUB, CAMP DE SOUGE, A.P.0. 705, FRANCE
On page 5 of THE
BUILDER for January, 1922, is given the name of Brother W. Boas as President of
Amex Masonic Club which was located at Camp de Souge, A.P.O. 705, France.
The original
President was Captain W. H. Meek (or Mick), and Sergeant John Nesbitt was the
original Secretary. Captain Meek hailed from Nebraska Lodge No. 1, of Omaha,
Nebraska. The name of Sergeant Nesbitt's lodge was "El Paso Lodge."
William Boaz was
subsequently elected President, succeeding Captain Meck. W. H. Freeman, Ohio.
* * *
GOVERNOR TAYLOR, OF
TENNESSEE, A MASON
The present Governor
of Tennessee, Alf A. Taylor, is a member of Johnson City Lodge No. 486, F. & A.
M. He witnessed the raising of two of his sons several weeks ago.
J. R. Zimmerman,
Tennessee.
* * *
BROTHER JOHN Q.
TILSON, CONNECTICUT CONGRESSMAN
The list of Masons in
Congress, which appears in the December, 1921, issue of THE BUILDER, omits the
name of Congressman John Q. Tilson, of Connecticut. Brother Tilson is a member
of one of the New Haven lodges, and I have personal knowledge of his being a
Mason from having sat in lodge with him. Julius H. McCollum, Connecticut.
* * *
GENERAL HUGH
MERCER-BORN IN 1720 - A CORRECTION
In Brother G. W.
Baird's article on "Great Men Who Were Masons - General Hugh Mercer" which
appeared in the February, 1922, issue of THE BUILDER the date of General
Mercer's birth, through an error, reads "1870." This should have read "1720."
* * *
CONGRESSMAN RIDDICK,
OF MONTANA, A MASON
The name of
Congressman Carl W. Riddick, of Montana, should be added to the list of Masons
in Congress which appeared in the December, 1921, number of THE BUILDER. Brother
Riddick was raised in Lewistown Lodge No. 37, A. F. & A. M., Lewistown, Montana,
on December 30th, 1921.
F. P. Hillgren,
Montana.
* * *
A MYSTERIOUS RING
I have in my
possession a small plain silver ring given me by A.S. Maynard who says it was
given him by his father just before his death. This gentleman's father was L.A.
Maynard, who for several years was in the wholesale clothing business in Boston,
Mass., New York, N. Y., and Chicago, Ill., and from what I can gather from his
son, was a very prominent Mason. Upon his death, about 1906, he was buried at
Shrewsbury, Mass., his funeral being held in Boston.
The following letter
concerning the ring was written by Mrs. L. A. Maynard to her son:
"My Dear Son:
I am leaving this
letter in my diary for you to find after I have gone on. Your father brought the
ring back when he returned from his trip abroad in 1858. I don't know how long
he had it, but I never saw it before he went across. Your Uncle Daniel told me
privately that it was given father in return for healing a sick girl, daughter
of Shiek Ben Useph Ali, of Arabia. I asked your father and he laughed and said
she only had a touch of fever and that was all I could ever get out of him.
"He always wore it,
and in 1884 a tall dark man came home with him and stayed over night; he had
most peculiar ways. Your father said he was a native chief of Arabia who was
here on some lodge business. I noticed particularly that he nearly worshipped
your father. Your father took the ring off his hand and let the dark man hold it
and he got down on his knees and prayed over it and said he could have no higher
honor bestowed upon him than to have the privilege of holding the ring. I don't
see how any ring could be so valuable. Your father said it would bring luck to
the wearer, and if you ever give it away give it to a Mason. Your Loving
Mother."
A. S. Maynard, who
gave me the ring, is not a Mason, but his older brother was, and on one occasion
when attending a banquet with his brother in San Francisco given by the Masons,
the ring was noticed by one of the officers and he made the statement that there
were only five of the rings in this country and he would give anything if he
possessed one.
I will appreciate any
information any reader of THE BUILDER can give me in reference to this ring and
also relative to L.A. Maynard, i.e. what lodge he was a member of and what
offices he might have held. C. Ray Clark, South Carolina.
* * *
ON ALCHEMY
Alchemy equivalent to
Black Art! If that is sound, why then Chemistry must also be Black Art, for the
root of both is "Khem," as you state. Murray's Dictionary says there is an old
decree of Diocletian against "the old writings of the Egyptians, which treat of
the 'chemia' (transmutation) of gold and silver."
"The land of Khem,"
was exactly synonymous with "the land of Egypt." While originally derived from a
word meaning "black," the word "Khem" had lost its original signification, just
as the Spanish meaning of the word "Colorado" (colored, and by exclusion,
"reddish") is rarely thought of when we use the name of that state. "Colorado"
means to English-speaking and -thinking persons a definite geographical
division. "Khem" meant to the Greeks a definite geographical division. Murray
says that "chemia" was confused with the Greek word of similar sound, "chymeia,"
(pouring, infusion), and doesn't mean the same thing at all.
"Chemia" meant, I am
sure, something like "derived from Egypt," and the Arabic "al-kimia" meant "the
Egyptian thing," or more narrowly, "the art of Egypt." In Diocletian's time, as
Murray shows, "chemia" had come definitely to mean "transmutation."
But there was never
any connection with the Black Art. The latter is so called, not because of any
fancied connection with Egypt, but because it is devoted to the cult of the
shadow principle of nature - the black god, as some of the Kabbalists called it
- the negative of God - the devil. Black, the color of despair, of deprivation
of the light, of diabolism, of existence without the circle of the influence of
God.
Some necromancers
attempted to practice transmutations in the middle ages; but in all the vast
literature of alchemy one never hears of one of them succeeding in his efforts.
The true Alchemists were most devout, in the best sense of the word. They were
never diabolists.
Your inquirer should
read first, "Alchemy Ancient and Modern," by H. Stanley Redgrove. This will give
him a historical basis upon which to work. Then let him read "The Occult Arts,"
by J.W. Frings, for a linking up with modern materialistic science. And if he
really wants the deep, spiritualized aspect of the whole thing, let him read
carefully Mrs. Atwood's "Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery." "Blue"
Masonry teems with alchemical jargon. R. J. Lemert, Montana.
* * *
The entire reply to
G.L.R. - see THE BUILDER for February, page 63 - was a quotation from "A History
of Chemistry," by Dr. James Campbell Brown. Dr. Brown did not intend to identify
alchemy with Black Art except in an etymological sense, and then only
tentatively. In his treatment of the evolution of alchemy he takes pains to
differentiate between the two.
Skeats defines
alchemy as the "science of the transmutation of metals." "Alkenamye" and
"alconomy" were used during the Middle Ages; Chaucer spells it "alkamistre." The
Arabic is "al-kimia," which is the Arabic prefix "al" added to the Greek root
"kamaia," which word meant "chemistry," and was a late form of "kumaia," or
"mingling." This was derived from the Greek "keein," "to pour"; and "keein" was
in turn derived from the original root "ku," "to pour." Alchemy was also
generally spelled "alchymy." Our word "chemist" derives therefrom. So far
Skeats.
Murray's English
Dictionary gives both theories as to the etymological derivation, and leaves the
choice to the reader.
A. - After giving
seventeen forms of the word, the dictionary says it is "apparently" derived from
the Greek "kemaia," but goes on to say: "The word is explained by most as
'Egyptian Art' and identified with 'kemia,' the Greek form of the native name of
Egypt (land of Khem or Ehame, 'black earth,' in contrast to the desert sand.)"
"If so, it was afterwards etymologically confused with the like-sounding Greek
"kumaia," equivalent to 'infusion, pouring.' Hence the Renaissance spelling
'alchymia,' 'chymistry'."
B. - On the contrary
side the dictionary quotes Mahn to the effect that the word was originally
derived from "kumaia," which is "pouring, infusion," and was first applied to
pharmaceutical chemistry, which was chiefly concerned with juices or infusions
of plants. Afterwards, Alexandrian alchemists developed chemistry in new
directions and it was their notoriety that subsequently led men to associate the
word with the popular name of Egypt. "From the Alexandrians the art and name
were adopted by the Arabs, whence they returned to Europe by way of Spain."
Of the definitions
given in The English Dictionary two are here in point:
"The chemistry of the
Middle Ages and 16th century; now applied distinctively to the pursuit of the
transmutation of baser metals into gold, which (with the search for the alkahest
or universal solvent, and the panacea or universal remedy) constituted the
chief, practical object of early chemistry." Examples are given of such a use
from 1362 down.
"Magic or miraculous
power of transmutation or extraction." (Figurative.)
An example of this
last use is furnished in Shakespeare's great sonnet, No. 33: "Gilding pale
streams with heavenly alchemy."
The excellent work by
Stanley Redgrove, referred to in Brother Lemert's letter, is published by
William Rider & Sons, 164 Aldersgate Street, London, E.C., under date of 1911.
The book contains a very comprehensive and fair description of alchemy:
"Alchemy is generally
understood to have been that art whose end was the transmutation of the
so-called base metals into gold by means of an ill-defined something called the
Philosopher's Stone; but even from a purely physical standpoint, this is a
somewhat superficial view. Alchemy was both a philosophy and an experimental
science, and the transmutation of the metals was its end only in that this would
give the final proof of the alchemist's hypothesis; in other words, Alchemy,
considered from the physical standpoint, was the attempt to demonstrate
experimentally on the material plane the validity of a certain philosophical
view of the Cosmos.... Unfortunately, however, not many alchemists came up to
this ideal; and for the majority of them, Alchemy did mean merely the
possibility of making gold cheaply and gaining untold wealth." (Page 1.)
"There is not the
slightest doubt that chemistry owes its origin to the direct labor of the
alchemists themselves." (Page 3.)
It is interesting to
note that when Diocletian issued his famous edict (referred to in Brother
Lemert's letter) he believed that in burning the manuscripts of the alchemists
he was destroying the source of the Egyptian gold supply. On this see
"Demonology and Devil-Lore" in two volumes, by Moncure Conway, Vol. II, page
303.
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