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<h1 id="title-index">Politics-Conspiracies-Project</h1>
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<h2>if_felcr</h2>
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<p>INTRODUCTION TO FREEMASONRY
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II
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FELLOWCRAFT
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BY CARL H. CLAUDY</p>
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<p>Music</p>
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<p>As battle-weary men long for the sea
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Like tired children, seeking Mother's breast,
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And in its restless endlessness find rest,
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Its crashing surf a soothing systole;
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As seeks the stormtossed ship the harbor's lee,
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So mariners upon life's deep, hard-pressed
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To weather boiling trough and mounting crest,
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Steer for the shelter of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>.
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Her ancient waves of sound lap on the strand,
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A melody more God's than man's. We hear,
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Like gentle murmurs in a curved sea shell
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Which whispers of some far off wonderland
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Where lightning flashes from blue skies and clear,
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The rolling thunder of the ritual.</p>
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<p>FELLOWCRAFT</p>
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<p>As the Entered Apprentice Degree as a whole is symbolic of
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infancy and youth, a period of learning fundamentals, a
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beginning, so the Fellowcraft Degree is emblematic of manhood.</p>
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<p>But it is a manhood of continued schooling; of renewed research;
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of further instruction. The Fellowcraft has passed his early
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<span class="NORP">Masonic</span> youth, but he lacks the wisdom of age which he can attain
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only by use of the teachings of his first degree, broadened,
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strengthened, added to, by those experiences which come to men as
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distinguished from children.</p>
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<p>Of the many symbols of this degree three stand out beyond all
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others as most beautiful and most important. They are the brazen
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Pillars; the Flight of Winding Stairs as a means of reaching the
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Middle Chamber by the teachings of the three, the five, and the
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seven steps; and the Letter "G" and all that it means to the
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<span class="NORP">Freemason</span>.</p>
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<p>Very obviously the Fellowcraft Degree is a call to learning, an
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urge to study, a glorification of education. Preston, (1) to whom
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we are indebted for much of the present form of this degree,
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evidently intended it as a foundation for that liberal education
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which in its classic form was so esteemed by the educated of
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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England. The explanations of
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the Five Orders of Architecture, the Five Senses and the Seven
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Liberal Arts and Sciences no longer embrace the essentials of a
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first-class education, but think not less of the degree on that
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account, since it is to be understood symbolically, not
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literally, as the great <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> scbolar may have intended.</p>
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<p>While the degree contains moral teaching and a spiritual content
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only surpassed by that of the Sublime Degree, as a whole it is a
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call to books and study. If the Fellowcraft takes that to mean
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<span class="NORP">Masonic</span> books and <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> study he will find in this degree the
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touchstone which will make all three degrees a never-ending
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happiness for their fortunate possessor.</p>
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<p>(1) William Preston, born 1742, died 1818. A most eminent
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<span class="NORP">Freemason</span> of England who lived and labored during the formative
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Grand Lodge period. He was initiated in 1762. Later he became
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the Master of several lodges and was so interested in <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>
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that he studied it deeply and wrote Illustralions of Masonry, a
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book to which historians and <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> antiquarians are deeply
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indebted. After careful investigation he wrote the lectures of
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the several degrees, encouraged by the Grand Lodge, and later
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became its Deputy Grand Secretary. The Prestonian work used in
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the United States was modified and changed by Thomas Smith Webb,
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born 1771, died 1819. He was elected Grand Master in Rhode
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Island in 1813, but is best known for his <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s Monitor, or
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Illustrations of Masonry. Much of the printed ritual in United
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States jurisdictions is the same, or but little changed, from
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that first printed by Webb in 1797.</p>
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<p>Certain differences between this and the preceding degree are at
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once apparent. The Entered Apprentice about to be passed is no
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longer a candidate - he is a brother. In the first degree the
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candidate is received with a warning; in the second, the brother
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to be passed is received with an instruction. In the first
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degree the cable tow was for a physical purpose; here it is an
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aid, an urge to action, a girding up, a strengthening for the
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<span class="NORP">Masonic</span> life to come. The circumambulation of the Fellowcraft is
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longer than that of the Apprentice: journey through manhood is
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longer than through youth. The obligation in the Entered
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Apprentice Degree stresses almost entirely the necessity for
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secrecy; in the Fellowcraft Degree secrecy is indeed enjoined
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upon the brother who kneels at the altar, but be also assumes
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duties toward his fellows and takes upon himself sacred
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obligations not intrusted to an Entered Apprentice. He learns of
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the pass, and he is poor in spirit indeed who is not thrilled to
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observe the slowly opening door which eventually will let in the
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whole effulgent Light of the East, typified by the position of
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the Square and Compasses upon the Volume of the Sacred Law.</p>
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<p>A degree to muse upon and to study; one to see many, many times
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and still not come to the end of the great teachings here
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exemplified. Alas, too many brethren regard it as but a
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necessary stepping-stone between the solemnities of the Entered
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Apprentice's Degree and the glories of the Sublime Degree of
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Master Mason. Stepping-stone it is, indeed, but he uses it with
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difficulty and is assisted by it but little who cannot see behind
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its Pillars a rule of conduct for life; who cannot visualize
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climbing the Winding Stairs as the pilgrimage we all must make;
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to whom the Middle Chamber is only a chamber in the middle and
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for whom the Letter "G" is but a letter.</p>
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<p>CABLE TOW</p>
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<p>The Fellowcraft wears it so that it may be an aid to his journey;
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by it a brother may assist him on his way. He also learns in
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this degree that a cable tow is more than a rope; it is at once a
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tie and a measurement.</p>
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<p>How long is a cable tow? Thousands have asked and but a few have
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attempted to reply. In much older days it was generally
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considered to be three miles; that was when a brother was
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expected to attend lodge whether he wanted to or not if within
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the length of his cable tow.</p>
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<p>Now we have learned that there is no merit in attendance which
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comes from fear of fines or other compulsion. The very rare but
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occasionally necessary summons may come to any Fellowcraft. When
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it comes, he must attend. But <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is not unreasonable.
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She does not demand the impossible, and she knows that what is
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easy for one is hard for another. To one brother ten miles away
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a summons may mean a call which he can answer only with great
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difficulty. To another several hundred miles away who has an
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airplane at his command it may mean no inconvenience.</p>
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<p>Long before airplanes were thought of or railroad trains were
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anything but curiosities, it was determined (<span class="GPE">Baltimore</span>
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<span class="NORP">Masonic</span>
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Convention, 1843) that the length of a cable tow is "the scope of
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a brother's reasonable ability."</p>
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<p>Such a length the Fellowcraft may take to heart. Our gentle
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Fraternity compels no man against his will, leaving to each to
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determine for himself what is just and right and reasonable - and
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brotherly!</p>
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<p>SPURIOUS</p>
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<p>The use of two words in the Fellowcraft's Degree is a relic of
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antiquity and not a modern test to determine whether or not a
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Mason heles (1) the true word of a Fellowcraft. We have more
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accurate ways of knowing whether or not a would-be visitor comes
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from a legitimate or clandestine lodge (2) than his knowledge of
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ritual.</p>
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<p>There are clandestine or spurious Masons, but they are not
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difficult to guard against. What all Fellowcrafts must be on
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watch to detect is any quality of spuriousness in their own
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<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>. For there is no real <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> of the lips only.
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A man may have a pocket full of dues cards showing that he is in
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good standing in a dozen different <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> organizations; may be
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(although this is rare) a Past Master, and still, if he has not
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<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> in his heart, be actually a spurious Mason.</p>
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<p>(1) Hele: <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>ally, rhymes with "fail." Often confused with
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"hail," a greeting or recognition. Hele (pronounced "hail") is
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to cover, to conceal. Is cognate with "cell," "hull," "hollow,"
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"hell" (the covered place). In old provincial English, a "heler"
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was one who covered roofs with tiles or slates. Compare "tiler."</p>
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<p>(2) Clandestine: other than recognized, not legitimate. A few
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clandestine Grand Lodges and subordinate bodies still exist in
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this country, organizations calling themselves <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> but
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without descent from regular lodges or Grand Lodges, and without
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recognition by the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> world.</p>
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<p>
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<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is neither a thing nor a ritual. It is not a lodge
|
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nor an organization. Rather is it a manner of thought, a way of
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living, a guide to the City on a Hill. To make any less of it is
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to act as a spurious Mason. If the lesson of the pass as
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communicated in the degree means this to the Fellowcraft, then
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indeed has he the lesson of this part of the ceremony by heart.</p>
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<p>GRAND LODGE</p>
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<p>Every initiate should know something of the Grand Lodg, that
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august body which controls the Craft.</p>
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<p>Before a Craft lodge can come into existence now there must be a
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Grand Lodge, the governing body of all the particular lodges, to
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give a warrant of constitution to at least seven brethren,
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empowering them to work and to be a <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> lodge.</p>
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<p>The age-old question which has plagued philosophers: did the
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first hen lay the first egg, or did the first egg batch into the
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first hen, may seem to apply here, since before there can be a
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Grand Lodge there must be three or more private lodges to form
|
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it! But this is written of conditions in the United States today,
|
|
not of those which obtained in 1717, when four individual lodges
|
|
in London formed the first Grand Lodge.</p>
|
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<p>Today no regularly constituted lodge can come into being without
|
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the consent of an existing Grand Lodge. Most civilized countries
|
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now have Grand Lodges; the great formative period of Grand Lodges
|
|
- the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries - is practically over.
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The vast majority of new lodges which will grow up as children of
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the mother will not form other Grand Lodges for themselves. It
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is not contended that no new Grand Lodges will ever be formed but
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only that less will come into being in the future than have in
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the past. (1)</p>
|
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<p>The Grand Lodge, consisting of the particular lodges represented
|
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by their Masters, Senior and Junior Wardens, and sometimes Past
|
|
Masters, as well as the officers, Past Grand Masters and Past
|
|
Grand Officers of the Grand Lodge, is the governing body in its
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jurisdiction. In the United States jurisdictional lines are
|
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coincident with state lines. Each Grand Jurisdiction is supreme
|
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unto itself; its word on any <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> subject is <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> law
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within its own borders.</p>
|
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<p>A Grand Lodge adopts a constitution and by-laws for its
|
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government which is the body of the law of the Grand
|
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Judisdiction, which, however, rests upon the Old Charges and the
|
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Constitutions which have descended to us from the Mother Grand
|
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Lodge. The legal body is supplemented by the decisions made by
|
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Grand Masters, or the Grand Lodge, or both, general regulations,
|
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laws, resolutions and edicts of the Grand Lodge, all in accord
|
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with the "ancient usages and customs of the Fraternity."</p>
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<p>In the interim between meetings of a Grand Lodge the Grand Master
|
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is the Grand Lodge. His powers are arbitrary and great but not
|
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unlimited. Most Grand Lodges provide that certain acts of the
|
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Grand Master may be revised, confirmed or rejected by the Grand
|
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Lodge as a check upon any too radical</p>
|
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<p>(1) When and if a forty-ninth State is admitted to the Union,
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doubtless it will have its own Grand Lodge,</p>
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<p>moves. But a brother rarely becomes a Grand Master without
|
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serving a long and arduous apprenticeship. Almost invariably he
|
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has been Master of his own lodge and by years of service and
|
|
interest demonstrated his ability and his fitness to preside over
|
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the Grand Lodge. The real check against arbitrary actions of a
|
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Grand Master is more in his Masonry than the law, more in his
|
|
desire to do right than in the legal power compelling him to do
|
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so.</p>
|
|
<p>Most Grand Lodges meet once a year for business, election, and
|
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installation of officers. Some Grand Lodges (Massachusetts and
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<span class="GPE">Pennsylvania</span>, for instance) meet in quarterly communications.
|
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All Grand Lodges meet in special communications at the call of
|
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the Grand Master.</p>
|
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<p>The Grand Lodge receives and disburses certain funds; these come
|
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as dues from the constituent lodges, from gifts and bequests,
|
|
from special assessments, etc. The funds are spent as the Grand
|
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Lodge orders; upon charity, the maintenance of the Home, the
|
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expenses of the Grand Lodge, maintaining a Grand Secretary and
|
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his office and staff, publication of Proceedings, educational
|
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work, etc.</p>
|
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<p>Most Grand Lodges also publish a manual or monitor of the
|
|
non-secret work of the degrees which may or may not also contain
|
|
the forms for various <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> ceremonies such as dedication of
|
|
lodge halls, cornerstone laying, funeral service, etc. Most
|
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Grand Lodges also publish a Digest or Code, which contains the
|
|
constitution, by-laws, and regulations of the Grand Lodge, and
|
|
the resolutions, edicts, and decisions under which the Craft
|
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works. The interested Mason will procure these at his earliest
|
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convenience that he may be well informed regarding the laws and
|
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customs of his own jurisdiction.</p>
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<p>WORKING TOOLS</p>
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<p>The working tools of a Fellowcraft are the Plumb, the Square, and
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the Level. The Entered Apprentice has learned of them as the
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Immovable Jewels, but in the Fellowcraft's Degree they have a
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double significance. They are still the Jewels of the three
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principal officers, still immovably fixed in the East, the West,
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and the South, but they are also given into the hands of the
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Fellowcraft with instructions the more impressive for their
|
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brevity.</p>
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<p>The tools represent an advance in knowledge. The Entered
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Apprentice received a Twenty-four Inch Gauge and a Common Gavel
|
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with which to measure and lay out a rough ashlar and chip off its
|
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edges to fit a stone ready for the builders' use. But that is
|
|
all he may do. Not with gauge or gavel may be build; only
|
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prepare material for another. He is still but a beginner, a
|
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student; to his hands are intrusted only such tasks as if ill
|
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done will not materially affect the whole.</p>
|
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<p>The Fellowcraft uses the Plumb, the Square, and the Level. With
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the Square he tests the work of the Apprentice; with the Level he
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lays the courses of the wall he builds; with the Plumb he raises
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perpendicular columns. If he use his tools aright he
|
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demonstrates that he is worthy to be a Fellow of the Craft and no
|
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Apprentice; that he can lay a wall and build a tower which will
|
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stand.</p>
|
|
<p>Hence the symbolism of the three tools as taught in the
|
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monitorial work. The Plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly; that
|
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is, not leaning over, not awry with the world or ourselves, but
|
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straight and square with the base of life on which we tread. We
|
|
are to square our actions by the Square of Virtue. Every man has
|
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a conscience, be it ever so dead; every <span class="NORP">Freemason</span> is expected to
|
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carry the conscience of a Fellowcraft's Square of Virtue in his
|
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breast and build no act, no matter bow small, which does not fit
|
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within its right angle.</p>
|
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<p>The operative Fellow of the Craft builds his wall course by
|
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course, each level and straight. We build upon the level of
|
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time, a fearsome level indeed. The Fellow of the Craft whose
|
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wall stands not true on a physical level may take down his
|
|
stones, retemper his mortar and try again. But the <span class="NORP">Freemason</span> can
|
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never unbuild that which is erected on the level of time; once
|
|
gone, the opportunity is gone forever. Omar said, "The moving
|
|
finger writes, and having writ, moves on." The poet Oxenham
|
|
phrased it ... "No man travels twice the great highway which
|
|
winds through darkness up to light, through night, to day."</p>
|
|
<p>Therefore does it behoove the Fellowcraft to build on his level
|
|
of time with a true Plumb and a right Square.</p>
|
|
<p>In its interweaving of emblem with emblem, teaching with
|
|
teaching, symbol with symbol, <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is like the latticework
|
|
atop the Pillars in the Porch of King Solomon's Temple, the
|
|
several parts of which are so intimately connected as to denote
|
|
unity. Here the Plumb as a Jewel, the Plumb as a working tool of
|
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the Fellowcraft, and the Heavenly Plumb in the hand of Jehovah,
|
|
as told in Amos vii, are so inextricably mingled that while
|
|
references to them occur in different parts of the degree,
|
|
symbolically they must be considered together.</p>
|
|
<p>"AMOS, WHAT SEEST THOU?"</p>
|
|
<p>Thus he shewed me; and behold the Lord stood upon a wall made by
|
|
a plumb line, with a plumb line in his liand. And the Lord said
|
|
unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumb line. Then
|
|
said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my
|
|
people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.</p>
|
|
<p>This passage from the Great Light is as much a part of the ritual
|
|
of the Fellowcraft's Degree as the 133rd Psalm is of the Entered
|
|
Apprentice's Degree, and has the same intimate connection with
|
|
the teachings of this ceremony.</p>
|
|
<p>The vital and important part is this: the Lord set a plumb line
|
|
in the midst of his people Israel. He did not propose to judge
|
|
them by a plumb line afar off in another land, in high heaven,
|
|
but here - here in the midst of them.</p>
|
|
<p>This is of intense interest to the <span class="NORP">Felloweraft</span> Mason, since it
|
|
teaches him how he should judge his own work - and, more
|
|
important, how he should judge the work of others.</p>
|
|
<p>Presumably plumb lines hang alike. Presumably all plumbs, like
|
|
all squares and all levels, are equally accurate. Yet a man may
|
|
use a tool thinking it accurate which to another is not true. If
|
|
the tool of building and the tool of judging be not alike either
|
|
the judgment must be inaccurate or the judge must take into
|
|
consideration the tool by which the work was done.</p>
|
|
<p>By the touch system, a blind man may learn to write upon a
|
|
typewriter. If a loosened type drops from the type bar when the
|
|
blind man strikes the letter "e" he will make but a little black
|
|
smudge upon the paper. It is perfectly legible; in this sentence
|
|
every "e" but one has been smudged. Would you criticize the
|
|
blind man for imperfect work? He has no means of knowing that his
|
|
tool is faulty. If you found the smudges which stand for the
|
|
letter "e" in the right places, showing that he had used his
|
|
imperfect machine perfectly, would you not consider that he had
|
|
done perfect work? Aye, because you would judge by a plumb line
|
|
"in the midst" of the man and his work. If, however, the paper
|
|
with the smudged letters "e" were judged by one who knew nothing
|
|
of the workman's blindness, nothing of his typewriter, one who
|
|
saw only a poor piece of typing, doubtless he would judge it as
|
|
imperfect.</p>
|
|
<p>The builders of the Washington monument and the Eiffel Tower in
|
|
Paris both used plumb lines accurate to the level of the latitude
|
|
and longitude of these structures. Both are at right angles with
|
|
sea level. Yet to some observer on the moon equipped with a
|
|
strong telescope these towers would not appear parallel. As they
|
|
are in different latitudes they rise from the surface of the
|
|
earth at an angle to each other.</p>
|
|
<p>Doubtless he who engineered the monument would protest that the
|
|
monument to Washington was right and the French engineer's tower
|
|
wrong. The Frenchman, knowing his plumb was accurate, would
|
|
believe the monument crooked. But the Great Architect, we may
|
|
hope, would think both right knowing each was perfect by the
|
|
plumb by which it was erected.</p>
|
|
<p>The Fellowcraft learns to judge his work by his own plumb line,
|
|
not by another's; if he erects that which is good work, true
|
|
work, square work by his own working tools - in other words, by
|
|
his own standards - he does well. Only when a Fellowcraft is
|
|
false to his own conscience is he building other than fair and
|
|
straight.</p>
|
|
<p>CORN, WINE, AND OIL</p>
|
|
<p>The wages which our ancient brethren received for their labors in
|
|
the building of King Solomon's Temple are paid no more. We use
|
|
them only as symbols, save in the dedication, constitution, and
|
|
consecration of a new lodge and in the laying of cornerstones,
|
|
when once again the fruit of the land, the brew of the grape and
|
|
the essence of the olive are poured to launch a new unit of
|
|
brotherhood into the fellowship of lodges; to begin a new
|
|
structure dedicated to public or <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> use.</p>
|
|
<p>In the Great Light are many references to these particular forms
|
|
of wealth. In ancient days the grapes in the vineyard, the
|
|
olives in the grove and the grain of the field were not only
|
|
wealth but the measure of trade; so many skins of wine, so many
|
|
cruses of oil, so many bushels of corn were then as are dollars
|
|
and cents to-day. Thus when our ancient brethren received wages
|
|
in corn, wine, and oil they were paid for their labors in coin of
|
|
the realm.</p>
|
|
<p>The oil pressed from the olive was as important to the Jews in
|
|
Palestine as butter and other fats are among Occidentals.
|
|
Because it was so necessary and hence so valuable it became an
|
|
important part of sacrificial rites.</p>
|
|
<p>Oil was also used not only as a food but for lighting purposes
|
|
within the house, not in the open air where the torch was more
|
|
effective. Oil was also an article of the toilet; mixed with
|
|
perfume it was used in the ceremonies of anointment and in
|
|
preparation for ceremonial appearances. The "precious ointment
|
|
which ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard" was doubtless
|
|
made of olive oil suitably mixed with such perfumes and spices as
|
|
myrrh, cinnamon, galbanum and frankincense. Probably oil was
|
|
also used as a surgical dressing; nomadic peoples, subject to
|
|
injuries, could bardly avoid knowledge of the value of soothing
|
|
oil.</p>
|
|
<p>The corn of the Old Testament is not the corn we know. In the
|
|
majority of the uses of the word a more understandable
|
|
translation would be "grain." The principal grains of the Old
|
|
Testament days were barley and wheat and "corn" represents not
|
|
only both of these but all the grains which the Jews cultivated.</p>
|
|
<p>An ear of grain has been an emblem of plenty since the mists of
|
|
antiquity shrouded the beginnings of mythology. Ceres, goddess
|
|
of abundance, survives to-day in our cereals. The Greeks called
|
|
her Demeter, a corruption of Gemeter, our mother earth. She wore
|
|
a garland of grain and carried ears of grain in her hand.</p>
|
|
<p>The Hebrew Shibboleth means both an ear of corn and a flood of
|
|
water. Both are symbols of abundance, plenty, wealth.</p>
|
|
<p>Scarcely less important to our ancient brethren than their corn
|
|
and oil was wine. Vineyards were highly esteemed both as wealth
|
|
and as comfort - the pleasant shade of the vine and fig tree was
|
|
a part of ancient hospitality. Vineyards on mountain sides or
|
|
hills were most carefully tended and protected against washing by
|
|
terraces and walls, as even to-day one may see on the hillsides
|
|
of the Rhine. Thorn hedges kept cattle from the grapes. The
|
|
vineyardist frequently lived in a watchtower or hut on an
|
|
elevation to keep sharp look out that neither predatory man nor
|
|
beast took his ripening wealth.</p>
|
|
<p>Thus corn, wine, and oil were the wages of a Fellowcraft in the
|
|
days of King Solomon. <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s receive no material wages for
|
|
their labors, but if the work done in a lodge is paid for only in
|
|
coin of the heart such wages are no less real. They may sustain
|
|
as does the grain, refresh as does the wine, give joy and
|
|
gladness as does the oil. How much we receive, what we do with
|
|
our wages, depends entirely on our <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> work. Our ancient
|
|
brethren were paid for their physical labors. Whether their
|
|
wages were paid for work performed upon the mountains and in the
|
|
quarries, or whether they received corn, wine, and oil because
|
|
they labored in the fields and vineyards, it was true then and it
|
|
is true now that only "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
|
|
bread." To receive the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> equivalent of the ancient corn,
|
|
wine, and oil, a brother must labor. He must till the fields of
|
|
his own heart or build the temple of his own house not made with
|
|
hands. He must give labor to his neighbor or carry stones for
|
|
his brother's temple.</p>
|
|
<p>If he stand and wait and watch and wonder, he will not be able to
|
|
ascend into the Middle Chamber where our ancient brethren
|
|
received their wages. If he works for the joy of working, does
|
|
his part in his lodge work, takes his place among the laborers of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>, he will receive corn, wine, and oil in measures
|
|
pressed down and running over and know a fraternal joy as
|
|
substantial in fact as it is ethereal in quality; as real in his
|
|
heart as it is intangible to the profane world.</p>
|
|
<p>For all Fellowcrafts - aye, for all <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s - corn, wine, and
|
|
oil are symbols of sacrifice, of the fruits of labor, of wages
|
|
earned.</p>
|
|
<p>THE TWO PILLARS</p>
|
|
<p>And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was a
|
|
widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali, (1) and his father was a
|
|
man of Tyre, a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom,
|
|
and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass. And
|
|
he came to King Solomon, and wrought all his work. For he cast
|
|
two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits (2) high apiece; and a
|
|
line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about....</p>
|
|
<p>And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple; and he set
|
|
up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin; and he
|
|
set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz. And
|
|
upon the top </p>
|
|
<p>(1) Pronounced Naf'tal-i.
|
|
(2) A cubit is approximately 18 inches.</p>
|
|
<p>of the pillars was lily work; so was the work of the pillars
|
|
finished. (I Kings vii, 13-22.)</p>
|
|
<p>Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five
|
|
cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them
|
|
was five cubits. And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put
|
|
them on the heads of the pillars and made an hundred pomegranates
|
|
and put them on the chains. (II Chronicles iii, 15-16.)</p>
|
|
<p>From the dawn of religion the pillar, monolith or built-up, has
|
|
played an important part in the worship of the Unseen. From the
|
|
huge boulders of Stonehenge, among which the Druids are supposed
|
|
to have, performed their rites, through East <span class="NORP">Indian</span> temples to
|
|
the religion of ancient Egypt, scholars trace the use of pillars
|
|
as an essential part of religious worship; indeed, in Egypt the
|
|
obelisk stood for the very presence of the <span class="LOC">Sun</span> God himself.</p>
|
|
<p>It is not strange, then, that Hiram of Tyre should erect pillars
|
|
for Solomon's Temple. What has seemed strange is the variation in
|
|
the dimensions given in Kings and Chronicles; a discrepancy which
|
|
is explained by the theory that Kings gives the height of one and
|
|
Chronicles of both pillars together.</p>
|
|
<p>Of the ritualistic explanation of the two brazen pillars it is
|
|
not necessary to speak at length, since the Middle Chamber
|
|
lecture is quite satisfyingly explicit regarding their ancient
|
|
use and purpose. But their inner symbolic significance is not
|
|
touched upon in the ritual; it is one of the hidden beauties of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> left for each brother to hunt down for himself.</p>
|
|
<p>It is a poor symbol that has but one meaning. Of the many
|
|
interpretations of the Brazen Pillars, two are here selected as
|
|
vivid and important.</p>
|
|
<p>The ancients believed the earth to be flat and that it was
|
|
supported by two Pillars of God, placed at the western entrance
|
|
of the world as then known. These are now called Gibraltar, on
|
|
one side of the Strait, and Ceuta on the other. This may account
|
|
for the origin of the twin pillars. However this may be the
|
|
practice of erecting columns at the entrance of an edifice
|
|
dedicated to worship prevailed in Egypt and Phoenicia, and at the
|
|
erection of King Solomon's Temple the Brazen Pillars were placed
|
|
in the porch thereof.</p>
|
|
<p>Some writers have suggested that they represent the masculine and
|
|
feminine elements in nature; others, that they stand for the
|
|
authority of Church and State, because on stated occasions the
|
|
high priest stood before one pillar and the king before the
|
|
other. Some students think that they allude to the two legendary
|
|
pillars of Enoch, upon which, tradition informs us, all the
|
|
wisdom of the ancient world was inscribed in order to preserve it
|
|
from inundations and conflagrations. William Preston supposed
|
|
that, by them, Solomon had reference to the pillars of cloud and
|
|
fire which guided the Children of Israel out of bondage and up to
|
|
the Promised Land. One authority says a literal translation of
|
|
their names is: "In Thee is strength," and, "It shall be
|
|
established," and by a natural transposition may be thus
|
|
expressed: "Oh, Lord, Thou art almighty and Thy power is
|
|
established from everlasting to everlasting."</p>
|
|
<p>It is impossible to escape the conviction that in meaning they
|
|
are related to religion, and represent the strength and
|
|
stability, the perpetuity and providence of God, and in
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> are symbols of a living faith.</p>
|
|
<p>Faith cannot be defined. The factors of mightiest import cannot
|
|
be caught up in speech. Life is the primary fact of which we are
|
|
conscious, and yet there is no language by which it can be fenced
|
|
in. No chart can be made of a mother's love; it is deeper than
|
|
words and reads in little, common things a wealth that is more
|
|
than golden.</p>
|
|
<p>While we cannot define, we can recognize the power of faith. It
|
|
generates energy. It is the dynamics of elevated characters and
|
|
noble spirits, the source of all that bears the impress of
|
|
greatness.</p>
|
|
<p>And we can realize its necessity. Without faith it would be
|
|
impossible to transact business. "It spans the earth with
|
|
railroads, and cleaves the sea with ships. It gives man wings to
|
|
fly the air, and fins to swim the deep. It creates the harmony
|
|
of music and the whir of factory wheels. It draws man up toward
|
|
the angels and brings heaven down to earth." By it all human
|
|
relationship is conditioned. We must have faith in institutions
|
|
and ideals, faith in friendship, family and fireside, faith in
|
|
self, faith in man, and faith in God.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is the oldest, the largest, and the most widely
|
|
distributed fraternal Order on the face of the earth to-day by
|
|
reason of its faith in God. At one end of the Second Section of
|
|
the Fellowcraft Degree are the Two Brazen Pillars - a symbol of
|
|
that faith; at its other end is the Letter "G", a livig sign of
|
|
the same belief.</p>
|
|
<p>But there is another interpretation of the symbolism. The
|
|
Entered Apprentice in process of being passed to the degree of
|
|
Fellowcraft passes between the pillars. No hint is given that
|
|
he should pass nearer to one than to the other; no suggestion is
|
|
made that either may work a greater influence than the other. He
|
|
merely passes between.</p>
|
|
<p>A deep significance is in this very omission. Masons refer to
|
|
the promise of God unto David; the interested may read Chapter
|
|
vii of II Samuel for themselves, and gather that the
|
|
establishment promised by the Lord was that of a house, a family,
|
|
a descent of blood from David unto his children and his
|
|
children's children.</p>
|
|
<p>The pillars were named by Hiram Abif; those names have many
|
|
translations. Strength and establishment are but two; power, and
|
|
wisdom or control, fit the meaning of the words as well.</p>
|
|
<p>Used to blast stumps from fields dynamite is an aid to the
|
|
farmer. Used in war it kills and maims. Fire cooks our food and
|
|
makes steam for our engines; fire also burns up our houses and
|
|
destroys our forests. But it is not the power but the use of
|
|
power which is good or bad. The truth applies to any power;
|
|
spiritual, legal, monarchial, political, personal. Power is
|
|
without either virtue or vice; the user may use it well or ill,
|
|
as he pleases.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> passes the brother in process of becoming a
|
|
Fellowcraft between the pillar of strength - power; and the
|
|
pillar of establishment - choice or control. He is a man now and
|
|
no minor or infant. He has grown up <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>ally. Before him are
|
|
spread the two great essentials to all success, all greatness,
|
|
all happiness.</p>
|
|
<p>Like any other power - temporal or physical, religious or
|
|
spiritual - <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> can be used well or ill. Here is the
|
|
lesson set before the Fellowcraft; if he like David would have
|
|
his kingdom of <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> manhood established in strength he must
|
|
pass between the pillars with understanding that power without
|
|
control is useless, and control without power, futile. Each is a
|
|
complement of the other; in the passage between the pillars the
|
|
Fellowcraft not only has his feet set upon the Winding Stairs but
|
|
is given - so he has eyes to see and ears to hear - secret
|
|
instructions as to how he shall climb those stairs that he may,
|
|
indeed, reach the Middle Chamber. He shall climb by strength,
|
|
but directed by wisdom; he shall progress by power, but guided by
|
|
control; he shall rise by the might that is in him, but arrive by
|
|
the wisdom of his heart.</p>
|
|
<p>So seen the pillars become symbols of high value; the initiate of
|
|
old saw in the obelisk the very spirit of the God he worshiped.
|
|
The modern <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> initiate may see in them both the faith and
|
|
the means by which be may travel a little further, a little
|
|
higher toward the secret Middle Chamber of life in which dwells
|
|
the Unseen Presence.</p>
|
|
<p>THE GLOBES</p>
|
|
<p>The "world celestial and the world terrestrial" on the brazen
|
|
pillars were added by comparatively modern ritual makers.
|
|
Solomon knew them not, although contemporaries of Solomon
|
|
believed the earth stood still while a hollow sphere with its
|
|
inner surface dotted with stars revolved about the earth. The
|
|
slowly turning celestial sphere is as old as mankind's
|
|
observations of the starry decked heavens.</p>
|
|
<p>It is to be noted that both terrestrial and celestial spheres are
|
|
used as emblems of universality. This is not mere duplication
|
|
for emphasis; each teaches an individual part of universality.
|
|
What is called universal on the earth - as for instance the
|
|
necessity of mankind to breathe, drink water and eat in order to
|
|
live - is not necessarily universal in all the universe. We have
|
|
no knowledge that any other planet in our solar system is
|
|
inhabited - what evidence there is is rather to the contrary. We
|
|
are ignorant of any other sun which has any inhabited planets in
|
|
its system. If life does exist in some world to us unknown, it
|
|
may be entirely different from life on this planet. A symbol of
|
|
universality which applied only to the earth would be a
|
|
self-contradiction.</p>
|
|
<p>Real universality means what it says. It appertains to the whole
|
|
universe. A Mason's charity of relief to the poor and distressed
|
|
must obviously be confined to this particular planet, but his
|
|
charity of thought may, so we are taught, extend "through the
|
|
boundless realms of eternity."</p>
|
|
<p>The world terrestrial and the world celestial on our
|
|
representations of the pillars, in denoting universality, mean
|
|
that the principles of our Order are not founded upon mere
|
|
earthly conditions and transient truths, but rest upon divine and
|
|
limitless foundations, coexistent with the cosmos and its
|
|
Creator.</p>
|
|
<p>THE WINDING STAIRS</p>
|
|
<p>Like so much else in <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> the Middle Chamber is wholly
|
|
symbolic. It seems obvious that Solomon the Wise would not have
|
|
permitted any practice so time wasting and uneconomic as sending
|
|
many thousand workmen up a flight of stairs to a small Middle
|
|
Chamber to receive corn, wine, and oil which had to be brought up
|
|
in advance, only to be carried down in small lots by each workman
|
|
as he received his wages.</p>
|
|
<p>If we are to accept the Scriptural account of the Temple as
|
|
accurate, there actually were winding stairs. "And they went up
|
|
with winding stairs into the middle chamber" is stated in I
|
|
Kings. That the stairs had the three, five, and seven steps by
|
|
which we rise is not stated in the Scriptures. Only in this
|
|
country have the Winding Stairs fifteen steps. In older days the
|
|
stairs had but five, sometimes seven steps. Preston had
|
|
thirty-six steps in his Winding Stairs in a series of one, three,
|
|
five, seven, nine, and eleven. But this violated a Pythagorean
|
|
principle - and <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> has adopted much in its system from
|
|
the science of numbers as exemplified by Pythagoras as the
|
|
Fellowcraft will discover when - if - he receives the Sublime
|
|
Degree.</p>
|
|
<p>The great philosopher Pythagoras taught that odd numbers were
|
|
more perfect than even; indeed, the temple builders who wrought
|
|
long before Pythagoras always built their stairs with an odd
|
|
number of steps, so that, starting with the right foot at the
|
|
bottom the climber might enter the sacred place at the top with
|
|
the same foot in advance. <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> uses only odd numbers,
|
|
with particular reliance on three: three degrees, three principal
|
|
officers, three steps, three Lesser Lights, and so on.</p>
|
|
<p>Hence the English system later eliminated the number eleven from
|
|
Preston's thirty-six, making twenty-five steps in all.</p>
|
|
<p>The stairs as a whole are a representation of life; not the
|
|
physical life of eating, drinking, sleeping and working, but the
|
|
mental and spiritual life, of both the lodge and the world
|
|
without; of learning, studying, enlarging mental horizons,
|
|
increasing the spiritual outlook. <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s divide the fifteen
|
|
steps into three, referring to the officers of a lodge; five,
|
|
concerned with the orders of architecture and the human senses;
|
|
and seven, the Liberal Arts and Sciences.</p>
|
|
<p>THE NUMBER THREE</p>
|
|
<p>The first three steps represent the three principal officers of a
|
|
lodge, and - though not stated in the ritual - must always refer
|
|
to Deity, of which three, the triangle, is the most ancient
|
|
symbol.</p>
|
|
<p>Their principal implication here is to assure the Fellowcraft
|
|
just starting his ascent that he does not climb alone. The
|
|
Worshipful Master, Senior, and Junior Wardens are themselves
|
|
symbolic of the lodge as a whole, and thus (as a lodge is a
|
|
symbol of the world) of the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> world - the Fraternity. The
|
|
Fellowcraft is surrounded by the Craft. The brethern are present
|
|
to help him climb. In his search for truth, in his quest of his
|
|
wages in the Middle Chamber, the Fellowcraft is to receive the
|
|
support and assistance of all in the Mystic Circle; surely an
|
|
impressive symbol.</p>
|
|
<p>If we examine a little into the powers and duties of the
|
|
Worshipful Master and his Wardens, we may see how they rule and
|
|
govern the lodge and so by what means they may aid the
|
|
Fellowcraft in his ascent.</p>
|
|
<p>WORSHIPFUL (1) MASTER</p>
|
|
<p>The incumbent of the Oriental Chair has powers peculiar to his
|
|
station which are far greater than those of the president of a
|
|
society or the chairman of a meeting of any kind. President and
|
|
chairman are elected by the body over which they preside and may
|
|
be removed by that body. A Master is elected by his lodge but
|
|
can be removed only by the Grand Master (or his Deputy acting for
|
|
him) or Grand Lodge. The presiding officer is bound by the rules
|
|
of order adopted by the body and by its by-laws. A lodge cannot
|
|
pass by-laws to alter, amend, or curtail the inherent powers of a
|
|
Master.</p>
|
|
<p>Grand Lodges so differ in their interpretation of some of the
|
|
"ancient usages and customs" of the Fraternity that what applies
|
|
in one jurisdiction does not necessarily apply in another. But
|
|
certain powers of a Master are so well recognized that they may
|
|
be considered universal.</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Worshipful: greatly respected. The Wycliffe Bible (Matthew
|
|
xix, 19) reads: "Worschip thi fadir and thi modir." The
|
|
Authorized Version translates "worschip" to "honor" - "honor thy
|
|
father and thy mother." In parts of England to-day one hears the
|
|
Mayor spoken of as Worshipful, the word used in its ancient
|
|
sense, meaning one worthy, honorable, to be respected.
|
|
"Worshipful" as applied to the Master of a lodge does not mean
|
|
that we should bow down to him in adoration as when used in its
|
|
ecclesiastical sense. We "worship" God, but not men. Our
|
|
Masters in being called "Worshipful" are but paid a tribute of
|
|
respect in the language of two or more centuries ago.</p>
|
|
<p>The Master may congregate his lodge when he pleases and for what
|
|
purpose he wishes, provided it does not interfere with the laws
|
|
of the Grand Lodge. For instance, he may assemble his lodge at a
|
|
special communication to confer degrees, at his pleasure; but he
|
|
must not disobey that requirement of the Grand Lodge which calls
|
|
for proper notice to the brethren, nor may a Master confer a
|
|
degree in less than the statutory time following a preceding
|
|
degree without a dispensation from the Grand Master.</p>
|
|
<p>The Master has the right of presiding over and governing his
|
|
lodge, and only the Grand Master or his Deputy may suspend him.
|
|
He may put any brother in the East to preside or to confer a
|
|
degree; he may then resume the gavel at his pleasure - even in
|
|
the middle of a sentence! But when he has delegated authority
|
|
temporarily the Master is not relieved from responsibility for
|
|
what occurs in his lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>It is the Master's right to control lodge business and work. It
|
|
is in a very real sense his lodge. He decides all points of
|
|
order and no appeal from his decision may be taken to the lodge.
|
|
He can initiate and terminate debate at his pleasure and can
|
|
propose or second any motion. He may open and close the lodge at
|
|
his pleasure, except that he may not open a stated communication
|
|
earlier than the hour stated in the by-laws. He is responsible
|
|
only to the Grand Master and the Grand Lodge, the obligations he
|
|
assumed when he was installed, (1) his conscience, and his God.</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Officers are seated in their chairs and assume the powers of
|
|
their offices by a ceremony of installation, following election
|
|
or appointment.</p>
|
|
<p>The Master has the right to say who may enter and who may leave
|
|
the lodge room. He may deny a visitor entrance; but he must have
|
|
a good and sufficient reason, otherwise his Grand Lodge will
|
|
unquestionably rule such a drastic step arbitrary and punish
|
|
accordingly. Per contra, if he permits the entry of a visitor to
|
|
whom some member has objected, he may also subject himself to
|
|
Grand Lodge discipline. In other words his power to admit or
|
|
exclude a visitor is absolute; his right to admit or exclude a
|
|
visitor is hedged about by the pledges he takes at his
|
|
installation and the rules of his Grand Lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>A very important power of a Master is that of appointing
|
|
committees. No lodge may appoint a committee. The lodge may
|
|
pass a resolution that a committee be appointed, but the
|
|
selection of that committee is an inherent right of the Master.
|
|
He is ex officio a member of all committees be appoints. The
|
|
reason is obvious; he is responsible to the Grand Master and the
|
|
Grand Lodge for the conduct of his lodge. If the lodge could
|
|
appoint committees and act upon their recommendations, the Master
|
|
would be in the anomalous position of having great
|
|
responsibilities, but no power to carry out their performance.</p>
|
|
<p>Only the Master may order a committee to examine a visiting
|
|
brother. It is his responsibility to see that no cowan or
|
|
eavesdropper comes within the tiled door. Therefore it is for
|
|
him to pick a committee in which he has confidence. So, also,
|
|
with the committees which report upon petitioners. He is
|
|
responsible for the accuracy, the fair-mindedness, the speed and
|
|
the intelligence of such investigations. It is, therefore, for
|
|
him to say to whom shall be delegated this necessary and
|
|
important work.</p>
|
|
<p>It is generally, not exclusively, held that only a Master can
|
|
issue a summons. In a few jurisdictions the lodge members
|
|
present at a stated communication may summons the whole
|
|
membership.</p>
|
|
<p>If he keeps within the laws, resolutions, and edicts of his Grand
|
|
Lodge on the one hand, and the Landmarks, Old Charges,
|
|
Constitutions and ancient usages and customs on the other, the
|
|
power of the Worshipfill Master is that of an absolute monarch.
|
|
His responsibilities and his duties are those of an apostle of
|
|
Light!</p>
|
|
<p>THE WARDENS</p>
|
|
<p>Wardens are found in all bodies of Masonry, in all rites, in all
|
|
countries.</p>
|
|
<p>Its derivation gives the meaning of the word. It comes from the
|
|
Saxon weardian, to guard, to watch. In France the second and
|
|
third officers are premier and second Surveillant; in Germany
|
|
erste and zwite Aufseher; in Spain primer and segundo Vigilante;
|
|
in Italy primo and secondo Sorvegliante, all the words meaning
|
|
one who overlooks, watches, keeps ward, observes.</p>
|
|
<p>Whether the title came from the provision of the old rituals that
|
|
the Wardens sit beside the two pillars in the porch of the temple
|
|
to oversee or watch, the Senior Warden the Fellowcrafts and the
|
|
Junior Warden the Apprentices, or whether the old rituals were
|
|
developed from the custom of the Middle Ages Guilds having
|
|
Wardens (watchers) is a moot question.</p>
|
|
<p>In the French Rite and the Scottish Rite both Wardens sit in the
|
|
West near the columns. In the Blue Lodge the symbolism is
|
|
somewhat impaired by the Junior Warden sitting in the South, but
|
|
is strengthened by giving each Warden, as an emblem of authority,
|
|
a replica of the column beneath the shade of which he once sat.
|
|
The column of the Senior Warden is erect, that of the Junior
|
|
Warden on its side, while the lodge is at labor. During
|
|
refreshment the Senior Warden's column is laid prostrate while
|
|
that of the Junior Warden is erected, so that by a glance at
|
|
either South or West the Craft may know at all times whether the
|
|
lodge is at labor or refreshment.</p>
|
|
<p>The government of the Craft by a Master and two Wardens cannot be
|
|
too strongly emphasized. It is not only the right but the duty
|
|
of the Senior Warden to assist the Worshipful Master in opening
|
|
and governing his lodge. When he uses it to enforce orders, his
|
|
setting maul or gavel is to be respected; he has a proper officer
|
|
to carry his messages to the Junior Warden or elsewhere; under
|
|
the Master he is responsible for the conduct of the lodge while
|
|
at labor.</p>
|
|
<p>The Junior Warden's duties are less important; he observes the
|
|
time and calls the lodge from labor to refreshment and
|
|
refreshment to labor in due season at the orders of the Master.
|
|
It is his duty to see that "none of the Craft convert the
|
|
purposes of refreshment into intemperance and excess" which
|
|
doubtless has a bibulous derivation, coming from days when
|
|
refreshment meant wine. If we no longer drink wine at lodge, we
|
|
still have reason for this charge upon the Junior Warden, since
|
|
it is his unpleasant duty, when ordered by the Master or Grand
|
|
Master, because he supervises the conduct of the Craft at
|
|
refreshment, to prefer charges against those suspected of <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>
|
|
misconduct.</p>
|
|
<p>Only Wardens (or Past Masters) may be elected Master. This
|
|
requirement (which has certain exceptions, as in the formation of
|
|
a new lodge) is very old. The fourth of the Old Charges reads:</p>
|
|
<p>No brother can be a Warden until he has passed the part of a
|
|
Fellowcraft; (1) nor a Master, until he has acted as Warden; nor
|
|
Grand Warden, until he has been Master of a Lodge; nor Grand
|
|
Master, unless he bas been a Fellowcraft before his election.</p>
|
|
<p>The Warden's is a high and exalted office; his duties are many,
|
|
his responsibilities great; his powers only exceeded by those of
|
|
the Master.</p>
|
|
<p>THE NUMBER FIVE</p>
|
|
<p>Five has always been a sacred and mystical number; Pythagoras
|
|
made of it a symbol of life, since it rejected unity by the
|
|
addition of the first even and the first odd number. It was
|
|
therefore symbolic of happiness and misery, birth and death,
|
|
order and disorder - in other words, life as it was lived. Egypt
|
|
knew five minor planets, five elements, five elementary powers.
|
|
The Greeks had four elements and added ether, the unknown, making
|
|
a cosmos of five.</p>
|
|
<p>(1) At the time of the formation of the Mother Grand Lodge in
|
|
London (1717) the <span class="NORP">Felloweraft</span>s formed the body of Masonry, as
|
|
Master Masons do to-day.</p>
|
|
<p>Five is peculiarly the number of the Fellowcraft's Degree; it
|
|
represents the central group of the three which form the stairs;
|
|
it refers to the five orders of architecture; five are required
|
|
to hold a Fellowcraft's Lodge; there are five human senses;
|
|
geometry is the fifth science, and so on.</p>
|
|
<p>In the Winding Stairs the number five represents first the five
|
|
orders of architecture.</p>
|
|
<p>ARCHITECTURE</p>
|
|
<p>Here for the first time the initiate is introduced to the science
|
|
of building as a whole. He has been presented with working
|
|
tools; he has had explained the rough and perfect ashlars, he has
|
|
heard of the house not made with hands; he knows something of the
|
|
building of the Temple. Now he is taught of architecture as a
|
|
science; its beginnings are laid before him; he is shown how the
|
|
Greeks commenced and the Romans added to the kinds of
|
|
architecture; he learns of the beautiful, perfect and complete
|
|
whole which is a well-designed, well-constructed building.</p>
|
|
<p>Here is symbolism in quantity! And here indeed the Fellowcraft
|
|
gets a glimpse of all that <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> may mean to a man, for
|
|
just as the <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s of old were the builders of the cathedrals
|
|
and the temples for the worship of the Most High, so is the
|
|
Speculative <span class="NORP">Freemason</span> pledged to the building of his spiritual
|
|
temple.</p>
|
|
<p>Temples are built stone by stone, a little at a time. Each stone
|
|
must be hewn from the solid rock of the quarry. Then it must be
|
|
laid out and chipped with the gavel until it is a perfect ashlar.
|
|
Finally it must be set in place with the tempered mortar which
|
|
will bind. But before any stone may be placed, a plan must come
|
|
into existence; the architect must plan his part. As the
|
|
Fellowcraft hears in the degree:</p>
|
|
<p>A survey of nature, and the observation of her beautiful
|
|
proportions, first induced man to imitate the divine plan, and to
|
|
study symmetry and order. This gave rise to society, and birth
|
|
to every useful art. The architect began to design, and the
|
|
plans which he laid down, improved by time and experience, have
|
|
led to the production of works which are the admiration of every
|
|
age.</p>
|
|
<p>So must the Fellowcraft, studying the orders of architecture by
|
|
which he will erect bis spiritual temple, design the structure
|
|
before he commences to build.</p>
|
|
<p>There are five orders of architecture, not one. There are many
|
|
plans on which a man may build a life, not one only. <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>
|
|
does not attempt to distinguish as between the Doric, Ionic, and
|
|
Corinthian as to beauty or desirability. She does suggest that
|
|
the Tuscan, plainer than the Doric, and the Composite, more
|
|
ornamental though not more beautiful than the Corinthian, are
|
|
less reverenced than the ancient and original orders.
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> makes no attempt to influence the Fellowcraft as to
|
|
which order of life building he shall choose. He may elect the
|
|
physical, the mental, the spiritual. Or be may choose the
|
|
sacrificial - "plainer than the Doric" or the ornamental, which
|
|
is "not more beautiful than the Corinthian." <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is
|
|
concerned less with what order of spiritual architecture a
|
|
Fellowcraft chooses by which to build than that he does choose
|
|
one; that he build not aimlessly. He is bidden to study symmetry
|
|
and order.</p>
|
|
<p>Architecture is perhaps the most beautiful and expressive of all
|
|
the arts. Painting and sculpture, noble though they are, lack
|
|
the utility of architecture and strive to interpret nature rather
|
|
than to originate. Architecture is not hampered by the necessity
|
|
of reproducing something already in existence. It may raise its
|
|
spires untrammeled by any nature model; it may fling its arches
|
|
gloriously across a nave and transept with no similitude in
|
|
nature to hamper by suggestion. If his genius be great enough,
|
|
the architect may tell in his structure truths which may not be
|
|
put in words, inspire by glories not sung in the divinest
|
|
harmonies.</p>
|
|
<p>So may the builder of his own house not made with hands, if he
|
|
choose aright his plan of life and hew to the line of his plan.
|
|
So, indeed, have done all those great men who have led the world;
|
|
the prophets of old, Pythagoras, Confucius, Buddha, Shakespeare,
|
|
Milton, Goethe, Washington, Lincoln ...</p>
|
|
<p>THE FIVE SENSES</p>
|
|
<p>If the Fellowcraft, climbing his three, five, and seven steps to
|
|
a Middle Chamber of unknown proportions, containing an unknown
|
|
wage, is overweighted with the emphasis put upon the spiritual
|
|
side of life, he may here be comforted.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is not an ascetic organization. It recognizes that
|
|
the physical is as much a part of normal life as the mental and
|
|
spiritual upon which so much emphasis is put.</p>
|
|
<p>The Fellowcraft Degree is a glorification of education, the
|
|
gaining of knowledge, the study of the Seven Liberal Arts and
|
|
Sciences and all that they connote. Therefore it is wholly
|
|
logical that the degree should make special reference to the five
|
|
means by which man has acquired all his knowledge; aye, by which
|
|
he will ever acquire any knowledge.</p>
|
|
<p>All learning is sense-bound. Inspiring examples have been given
|
|
the world by unfortunates deprived of one or more senses. Blind
|
|
men often make as great a success as those who see; deaf men
|
|
often overcome the handicap until it appears nonexistent. Helen
|
|
Keller is blind, deaf, and was dumb as well; all that she has
|
|
accomplished - and it would be a great accomplishment with all
|
|
five senses - has been done through feeling and tasting and
|
|
smelling.</p>
|
|
<p>But take away all five senses and a man is no more a man; perhaps
|
|
his mind is no more a mind. With no contact whatever with the
|
|
material world he can learn nothing of it. As man reaches up
|
|
through the material to the spiritual, he could learn nothing of
|
|
ethics without contact with the physical.</p>
|
|
<p>If there are limits beyond which human investigations and
|
|
explorations into the unknown may not go, it is because of the
|
|
limitations of the five senses. Not even the extension of those
|
|
senses by the marvelously sensitive instruments of science may
|
|
overcome, in the last analysis, their limits.</p>
|
|
<p>Some objects are smaller than any rays we know except X-rays. If
|
|
it were possible to construct a microscope powerful enough to see
|
|
an atom, the only light by which it could be seen would be
|
|
X-rays. But the very X-rays which would be necessary to see it
|
|
would destroy the atom as soon as they struck it. In our present
|
|
knowledge, then, to see the atom is beyond the power of human
|
|
senses. If anything is beyond the power of eyes, even if aided
|
|
by the greatest magnification, then there must be truths beyond
|
|
the power of touch and taste and smell and hearing, regardless of
|
|
the magnification science may provide.</p>
|
|
<p>Except for one factor! Brute beasts hear, see, feel, smell, and
|
|
taste, as do we. But they garner no facts of science, win no
|
|
truths, formulate no laws of nature through these senses. More
|
|
than the five senses are necessary to perceive the relation
|
|
between thing and thing, and life and life. That factor is the
|
|
perception, the mind, the soul or spirit, if you will, which
|
|
differentiates man from all other living beings.</p>
|
|
<p>If the Fellowcraft's five steps, then, seem to glorify the five
|
|
senses of human nature, it is because <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is a
|
|
well-rounded scheme of life and living which recognizes the
|
|
physical as well as the mental life of men and knows that only
|
|
through the physical do we perceive the spiritual. It is in this
|
|
sense, not as a simple lesson in physiology, that we are to
|
|
receive the teachings of the five steps by which we rise above
|
|
the ground floor of the Temple to that last flight of seven steps
|
|
which are typical of knowledge.</p>
|
|
<p>THE NUMBER SEVEN</p>
|
|
<p>Most potent of numbers in the ancient religions, the number seven
|
|
has deep significance. The Pythagoreans called it the perfect
|
|
number, as made up of three and four, the two perfect figures,
|
|
triangle and square. It was the virgin number because it cannot
|
|
be multiplied to produce any number within ten, as can two and
|
|
two, two and three, and two and four, three and three. Nor can
|
|
it be produced by the multiplication of any whole numbers.</p>
|
|
<p>Our ancient ancestors knew seven planets, seven Pleiades, seven
|
|
Hyades, and seven lights burned before the Altar of Mithras. The
|
|
Goths had seven deities: <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, <span class="LOC">Moon</span>, Tuisco, Woden, Thor, Friga,
|
|
and Seatur or Saturn, from which we derive the names of the seven
|
|
days of our week. In the Gothic mysteries the candidate met with
|
|
seven obstructions. The ancient Jews swore by seven, because
|
|
seven witnesses were used to confirm, and seven sacrifices
|
|
offered to attest truth. The Sabbath is the seventh day; Noah
|
|
had seven days' notice of the flood; God created the heaven and
|
|
the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day; the walls of
|
|
Jericho were encompassed seven times by seven priests bearing
|
|
seven rams' horns; the Temple was seven years in building, and so
|
|
on through a thousand references.</p>
|
|
<p>It is only necessary to refer to the seven necessary to open an
|
|
Entered Apprentice's lodge, the seven original officers of a
|
|
lodge (some now have nine or ten or even more) and the seven
|
|
steps which complete the Winding Stairs to show that seven is an
|
|
important number in the Fraternity.</p>
|
|
<p>THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES</p>
|
|
<p>In William Preston's day a liberal education was comprised in the
|
|
study of grammar, rhetoric and logic, called the trivium, and
|
|
arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, called the
|
|
quadrivium. Preston endeavored to compress into his Middle
|
|
Chamber lecture enough of these to make at least an outline
|
|
available to men who might otherwise know nothing of them.</p>
|
|
<p>In our day and times grammar and rhetoric are considered of
|
|
importance, but in a secondary way; logic is more or less
|
|
swallowed up as a study in the reasoning appropriate to any
|
|
particular subject; arithmetic, of course, continues its primary
|
|
importance; but from the standpoint of science, geometry and its
|
|
offshoots are still the vital sciences of measurement. Music has
|
|
fallen into the discard as part of a liberal education; it is now
|
|
one of the arts, not the sciences, and astronomy is so
|
|
interrelated with physics that it is hard to say where one leaves
|
|
off and the other begins. As for electricity, chemistry,
|
|
biology, civics, government, and the physical sciences, they were
|
|
barely dreamed of in Preston's day.</p>
|
|
<p>So it is not actually but symbolically that we are to climb the
|
|
seven steps. If the author may venture to quote himself: (1)</p>
|
|
<p>William Preston, who put so practical an interpretation upon
|
|
these steps, lived in an age when these did indeed represent all
|
|
knowledge. But we must not refuse to grow because the ritual has
|
|
not grown with modern discovery. When we rise by <span class="PERSON">Grammar</span> and
|
|
Rhetoric, we must consider that they mean not only language, but
|
|
all methods of communication. The step of Logic means a
|
|
knowledge not only of a method of</p>
|
|
<p>(1) "Foreign Countries," 1925.</p>
|
|
<p>reasoning, but of all reasoning which logicians have
|
|
accomplished. When we ascend by Arithmetic and Geometry, we must
|
|
visualize all science; since science is but measurement, in the
|
|
true mathematical sense, it requires no great stretch of the
|
|
imagination to read into these two steps all that science may
|
|
teach. The step denominated Music means not only sweet and
|
|
harmonious sounds, but all beauty - poetry, art, nature,
|
|
loveliness of whatever kind. Not to be familiar with the beauty
|
|
which nature provides is to be, by so much, less a man; to stunt,
|
|
by so much, a starving soul. As for the seventh step of
|
|
Astronomy, surely it means not only a study of the solar system
|
|
and the stars as it did in William Preston's day, but also a
|
|
study of all that is beyond the earth; of spirit and the world of
|
|
spirit, of ethics, philosophy, the abstract - of Deity. Preston
|
|
builded better than he knew; his seven steps are both logical in
|
|
arrangement and suggestive in their order. The true Fellowcraft
|
|
will see in them a guide to the making of a man rich in mind and
|
|
spirit, by which riches only can true brotherhood be practiced.</p>
|
|
<p>THE STAIRS WIND</p>
|
|
<p>Finally consider the implications of the winding stairs, as
|
|
opposed to those which are straight.</p>
|
|
<p>The one virtue which most distinguishes man is courage. It
|
|
requires more courage to face the unknown than the known. A
|
|
straight stair, a ladder, hides neither secret nor mystery at its
|
|
top. But the stairs which wind hide each step from the climber;
|
|
what is just around the corner is unknown. The winding stairs of
|
|
life lead us to we know not what; for some of us a Middle Chamber
|
|
of fame and fortune; for others, one of pain and frustration.
|
|
The Angel of Death may stand with drawn sword on the very next
|
|
step for any of us. </p>
|
|
<p>Yet man climbs.</p>
|
|
<p>Man has always climbed; he climbed from a cave man savagery to
|
|
the dawn of civilization; Lowell's</p>
|
|
<p>...brute despair of trampled centuries,
|
|
Leapt up with one hoarse yell and snapped its bands;
|
|
Groped for its right with horny, callous hands
|
|
And stared around for God with bloodshot eyes,</p>
|
|
<p>was a climbing from slavery to independence, from the brutish to
|
|
the spiritual. Through ignorance, darkness, misery, cruelty,
|
|
wrong, oppression, danger, and despair, man has climbed to
|
|
enlightenment. Each individual man must climb his little winding
|
|
stairs through much the same experience as that of the race.</p>
|
|
<p>Aye, man climbs because he has courage; because he has faith;
|
|
because he is a man. So must the <span class="NORP">Freemason</span> climb. The winding
|
|
stairs do lead somewhere. There is a Middle Chamber. There are
|
|
wages of the Fellowcraft to be earned.</p>
|
|
<p>So believing, so, unafraid, climbing, the Fellowcraft may hope at
|
|
the top of his winding stairs to reach a Middle Chamber, and see
|
|
a new sign in the East ...</p>
|
|
<p>LETTER "G"</p>
|
|
<p>Its first reference is to the first and noblest of the sciences,
|
|
geometry. Geometry, the fifth of the Seven Liberal Arts and
|
|
Sciences, and astronomy, the seventh science, are so much a part
|
|
of each other that it is difficult to consider them separately;
|
|
indeed, the ritual of the letter "G" is as much concerned with
|
|
the study of the heavens as of the science of measurement alone.
|
|
We hear:</p>
|
|
<p>By it we discover the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of the
|
|
Grand Artificer of the Universe and view with delight the
|
|
wonderful proportions of this vast machine. By it we discover
|
|
how the planets move in their respective orbits and demonstrate
|
|
their various revolutions.... Numberless worlds are around us,
|
|
all framed by the same Divine Artist, which roll through the vast
|
|
expanse, controlled by the same unerring law.</p>
|
|
<p>It is difficult to visualize the vital importance of the heavens
|
|
to early men. We can hardly conceive of their terror of the
|
|
eclipse and the comet or sense their veneration for the <span class="LOC">Sun</span> and
|
|
his bride, the <span class="LOC">Moon</span>. We are too well educated. We know too much
|
|
about "the proportions which connect this vast machine." The
|
|
astronomer has pushed back the frontiers of his science beyond
|
|
the comprehension of most of us; the questions which occur as a
|
|
result of unaided visual observations have all been answered. We
|
|
have substituted facts for fancies regarding the sun, the moon,
|
|
the solar system, the comet, and the eclipse.</p>
|
|
<p>Pike (1) says:</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Albert Pike: born 1809, died 1891. One of the greatest
|
|
geniuses <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> has ever known. It is said of him that "he
|
|
found Scottish Rite Masonry in a hovel and left it in a palace."
|
|
He was a mystic, a symbolist, a teacher of the hidden truths of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>. To him the world of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> owes a debt of
|
|
incalculable size. Poet, <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>, philosopher, his genius had a
|
|
profound effect upon the Craft in general, and the Ancient
|
|
Accepted Scottish Rite of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> in particular.</p>
|
|
<p>We cannot, even in the remotest degree, feel, though we may
|
|
partially and imperfectly imagine, how those great, primitive,
|
|
simple-hearted children of Nature felt in regard to the Starry
|
|
Hosts, there upon the slopes of the Himalayas, on the Chaldean
|
|
plains, in the Persian and Median deserts, and upon the banks of
|
|
the great, strange river, the Nile. To them the Universe was
|
|
alive - instinct with forces and powers, mysterious and beyond
|
|
their comprebension. To them it was no machine, no great system
|
|
of clockwork; but a great live creature, in sympathy with or
|
|
inimical to man. To them, all was mystery and a miracle, and the
|
|
stars flashing overhead spoke to their hearts almost in an
|
|
audible language. Jupiter, with its kingly splendors, was the
|
|
emperor of the starry legions. Venus looked lovingly on the
|
|
earth and blessed it; Mars with his crimson fires threatened war
|
|
and misfortune; and Saturn, cold and grave, chilled and repelled
|
|
them. The ever-changing <span class="LOC">Moon</span>, faithful companion of the <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, was
|
|
a constant miracle and wonder; the <span class="LOC">Sun</span> himself the visible emblem
|
|
of the creative and generative power. To them the earth was a
|
|
great plain, over which the sun, the moon and the planets
|
|
revolved, its servants, framed to give it light. Of the stars,
|
|
some were beneficent existences that brought with them springtime
|
|
and fruits and flowers - some, faithful sentinels, advising them
|
|
of coming inundation, of the season of storm and of deadly winds;
|
|
some heralds of evil, which, steadily foretelling, they seemed to
|
|
cause. To them the eclipses were portents of evil, and their
|
|
causes hidden in mystery, and supernatural. The regular returns
|
|
of the stars, the comings of Arcturus, Orion, Sirius, the
|
|
Pleiades, and Aldebaran, and the journeyings of the <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, were
|
|
voluntary and not mechanical to them. What wonder that astronomy
|
|
became to them the most important of sciences; that those who
|
|
learned it became rulers; and that vast edifices, the Pyramids,
|
|
the tower or temple of Bel, and other like erections elsewhere in
|
|
the East, were builded for astronomical purposes? - and what
|
|
wonder that, in their great childlike simplicity, they worshiped
|
|
Light, the <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, the Planets, and the Stars, and personified them,
|
|
and eagerly believed in the histories invented for them; in that
|
|
age when the capacity for belief was infinite; as indeed, if we
|
|
but reflect, it still is and ever will be?</p>
|
|
<p>Anglo-Saxons usually consider history as their history; science
|
|
as their science; religion as their religion. This somewhat
|
|
naive viewpoint is hardly substantiated by a less egoistic survey
|
|
of knowledge. Columbus' sailors believed they would fall off the
|
|
edge of a flat world, yet Pythagoras knew the earth to be a ball.
|
|
The ecliptic was known before Solomon's Temple was built; the
|
|
Chinese predicted eclipses long, long before the Europeans of the
|
|
Middle Ages regarded them as portents of doom!
|
|
|
|
Astronomical lore in <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is very old. The foundations of
|
|
our degrees are far more ancient than we can prove by documentary
|
|
evidence. It is surely not stretching credulity to believe that
|
|
the study which antedates geometry must have been impressed on
|
|
our Order, its ceremonies and its symbols, long before Preston
|
|
and Webb worked their ingenious revolutions in our rituals and
|
|
gave us the system of degrees we use to-day in one form or
|
|
another.</p>
|
|
<p>The astronomical references in our degrees begin with the points
|
|
of the compass; East, West, and South, and the place of darkness,
|
|
the <span class="PERSON">North</span>. We are taught why the <span class="PERSON">North</span> is a place of darkness by
|
|
the position of Solomon's Temple with reference to the ecliptic,
|
|
a most important astronomical conception. The sun is the Past
|
|
Master's own symbol; our Masters rule their lodges - or are
|
|
supposed to! - with the same regularity with which the sun rules
|
|
the day and the moon governs the night. Our explanation of our
|
|
Lesser Lights is obviously an adaptation of a concept which dates
|
|
back to the earliest of religions; specifically to the <span class="NORP">Egyptian</span>
|
|
Isis, Osiris, and Horus, represented by the sun, moon, and
|
|
Mercury.</p>
|
|
<p>In circumambulation about the altar we traverse our lodges from
|
|
East to West by way of the South as did the sun worshipers who
|
|
thus imitated the daily passage of their deity through the
|
|
heavens.</p>
|
|
<p>Measures of time are astronomical. Days and nights were before
|
|
man and consequently before astronomy but hours and minutes are
|
|
inventions of the mind, depending upon the astronomical
|
|
observation of the sun at meridian to determine noon and
|
|
consequently all other periods of time. The Middle Chamber work
|
|
gives to geometry the premier place as a means by which the
|
|
astronomer may fix the duration of time and seasons, years and
|
|
cycles.</p>
|
|
<p>Observing that the sun rose and set our ancient brethren easily
|
|
determined East and West, although as the sun rises and sets
|
|
through a variation of 47 degrees north and south during a six
|
|
months' period the determination was not exact.</p>
|
|
<p>The earliest Chaldean star gazers, progenitors of the astronomers
|
|
of later ages, saw that the apparently revolving heavens pivoted
|
|
on a point nearly coincident with a certain star. We know that
|
|
the true north diverges from the <span class="PERSON">North</span> Star one and a half
|
|
degrees, but their observations were sufficiently accurate to
|
|
determine a <span class="PERSON">North</span> - and consequently East, West, and South.</p>
|
|
<p>A curious derivation of a <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> symbol from the heavens is that
|
|
universally associated with the Stewards, the cornucopia.</p>
|
|
<p>According to the mythology of the Greeks which goes back to the
|
|
very dawn of civilization, the god Zeus was nourished in infancy
|
|
from the milk of the goat, Amalthea. In gratitude the god placed
|
|
Amalthea forever in the heavens as a constellation, but first he
|
|
gave one of Amalthea's horns to his nurses with the assurance
|
|
that it would forever pour for them whatever they desired,</p>
|
|
<p>The horn of plenty, or the cornucopia, is thus a symbol of
|
|
abundance. The goat from which it came may be found by the
|
|
curious among the constellations under the name of Capricorn.
|
|
The Tropic of Capricorn of our school days is the southern limit
|
|
of the swing of the sun on the path which marks the ecliptic, on
|
|
which the earth dips first its north, then its south pole toward
|
|
our luminary. Hence there is a connection, not the less direct
|
|
for being tenuous, between our Stewards, their symbol, the lights
|
|
in the lodge, the place of darkness, and Solomon's Temple.</p>
|
|
<p>Of such curious links and interesting bypaths is the connection
|
|
of astronomy with geometry and the letter "G," the more beautiful
|
|
when we see eye to eye with the Psalmist: "The heavens declare
|
|
the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork."</p>
|
|
<p>"GOD IS ALWAYS GEOMETRIZING"</p>
|
|
<p>So said Plato twenty-three centuries ago. It is merely an
|
|
accident of the English language that geometry and God begin with
|
|
the same letter; no matter what the language or the ritual, the
|
|
initial of the Ineffable Name and that of the first and noblest
|
|
of sciences are <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>ally the same.</p>
|
|
<p>"But that is secret!" cries some newly-initiated brother who has
|
|
examined his printed monitor and finds that the ritual concerning
|
|
the further significance of the letter "G" is represented only by
|
|
stars. Aye, the ritual is secret, but the fact is the most
|
|
gloriously public that <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> may herald to the world. One
|
|
can no more keep secret the idea that God is the very warp and
|
|
woof of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> than that He is the essence of all life.
|
|
Take God out of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> and there is, literally, nothing
|
|
left; it is a pricked balloon, an empty vessel, a bubble which
|
|
has burst.</p>
|
|
<p>The petitioner knows it before he signs his application. He must
|
|
answer "Do you believe in God?" before his petition can be
|
|
accepted. He must declare his faith in a Supreme Being before he
|
|
may be initiated. But note that he is not required to say, then
|
|
or ever, what God. He may name Him as he will, think of Him as he
|
|
pleases; make Him impersonal law or personal and anthropomorphic;
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> cares not.</p>
|
|
<p>Freemasonry's own especial name for Deity is Great Architect of
|
|
the Universe. She speaks of God rarely as if she felt the
|
|
sacredness of the simple Jewish symbol - the Yod - which stood
|
|
for JHVH, that unpronouncable name we think may have been
|
|
Jehovah. But God, Great Architect of the Universe, Grand
|
|
Artificer, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Above, Jehovah, Allah,
|
|
Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, or Great Geometer, a symbol of the
|
|
conception shines in the East of every American <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> lodge, as
|
|
in the center of the canopy of every English lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>Secret? Aye, secret as those matters of the heart which may not
|
|
be told are secret. Let him who loves his wife or his child more
|
|
than he loves aught else upon the earth try to explain in words
|
|
just how he loves, and he will understand just what sort of a
|
|
secret this is. All the world may know that he loves; how he
|
|
loves, how much he loves, there are no words to tell.</p>
|
|
<p>All the world may know that the symbol of Deity shines in the
|
|
East of a <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> lodge; only the true <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>, who is actually
|
|
a Mason in his heart, as well as in his mind, may know just how
|
|
and in what way the Great Architect is the very essence and
|
|
substance of the Ancient Craft.</p>
|
|
<p>The symbol of Deity bas always been a part of all houses of
|
|
initiation. In the <span class="NORP">Egyptian</span> mysteries it was the <span class="LOC">Sun</span> God's
|
|
symbol, Ra. The Greeks considered the number five to be the
|
|
symbol of man's dependence upon the Unseen; from five also came
|
|
the Pentalpha or five-pointed star. The imaginative will easily
|
|
see here a connection with the Fellowcraft's Degree in which five
|
|
is especially the symbolic number. Plutarch tells us that in the
|
|
Greek mysteries the symbol of God was made of wood in the first,
|
|
of bronze in the second, and of gold in the third degree, or
|
|
step, to symbolize the refinement of man's conception of Deity as
|
|
he progressed from the darkness of ignorance to the light of
|
|
faith in some one of many forms of belief in God.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> uses a much more tender and beautiful symbolism. In
|
|
modern and costly temples the letter "G" may be of crystal,
|
|
lighted behind with electric light. In some country lodge it may
|
|
be cut from cardboard and painted blue, illuminated if at all
|
|
with a tallow dip. A Western lodge meets yearly on the top of a
|
|
hill in a forest, and nails to a tree cut branches in the form of
|
|
a rough letter "G." Freemasonry's symbolism is not of the
|
|
material substance of the letter, but its connection with
|
|
geometry, the science by which the universe exists and moves and
|
|
by which the proportions which connect this vast machine are
|
|
measured.</p>
|
|
<p>Aye, God is always geometrizing. Geometry is particularly His
|
|
science. <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> makes it especially the science of the
|
|
Fellowcraft's Degree and couples it with the symbol of the Great
|
|
Architect of the Universe. No teaching of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> is
|
|
greater; none is simpler than this. The Fellowcraft who sees it
|
|
as the very crux and climax of the degree, the reality behind the
|
|
form, has learned as no words may teach him for what he climbed
|
|
the Winding Stairs, and the true wages of a Fellowcraft which he
|
|
found within the Middle Chamber.</p>
|
|
<p>HISTORY - THE GRAND LODGE PERIOD</p>
|
|
<p>The formation of the Mother Grand Lodge in London, in 1717, which
|
|
profoundly affected <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>, is shrouded in mystery, clouded
|
|
in the mists of time, and as extraordinary as it was important.</p>
|
|
<p>The <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s of those far-off days could have had no idea of
|
|
the tremendous issues which hung upon their actions nor dreamed
|
|
of the effect of their union. Had they even imagined it,
|
|
doubtless they would have left us more records, and we would not
|
|
now have to speculate on matters of history the very causes of
|
|
which are - in all probability - never fully to be kmown to us.</p>
|
|
<p>One of the causes which led to the sudden coming to life of the
|
|
old and diminishing Fraternity was the Reformation. During its
|
|
operative period <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> had been if not a child of the
|
|
Church at least its servant, working hand in hand with it. Our
|
|
oldest document - the Halliwell Manuscript or Regius Poem, dated
|
|
1390 - invokes the Virgin Mary, speaks of the Trinity and gives
|
|
instructions for observing Mass! But the same influences which
|
|
produced the Reformation worked in <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> and by 1600,
|
|
according to the Harleian Manuscript, (1) the Order had </p>
|
|
<p>(1) Harleian Manuscript: dated about the middle of the
|
|
Seventeenth Century and originally the property of Robert Harley,
|
|
Earl of Oxford.</p>
|
|
<p>largely severed is dependence upon the Church and become a refuge
|
|
for those who wished to be free in thought as well as for
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s. It was still Christian - almost aggressively
|
|
Christian - in its teachings. Not for another hundred years or
|
|
more and then only partially did it rid itself of any sectarian
|
|
character whatever and become what it is to-day, a meeting ground
|
|
for "men of every country, sect and opinion," united in a common
|
|
belief in the Fatherhood of God, the brotherbood of man, and the
|
|
hope of immortality.</p>
|
|
<p>Seventeen hundred and seventeen is the dividing line between
|
|
before and after; between the old <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> and the new;
|
|
between a Craft which was slowly expiring and one which began to
|
|
grow with a new vitality; between the last lingering remains of
|
|
operative Masonry and a Craft wholly Speculative.</p>
|
|
<p>Just what were the causes of the events which led up to the
|
|
formation of the first Grand Lodge we do not know. We can only
|
|
guess. No minutes of the Mother Grand Lodge were kept during its
|
|
first six years. The Constitutions and Old Charges, first
|
|
published in 1723, were republished fifteen years after. In this
|
|
second edition of 1738 is a meager record of the first meetings
|
|
of the Grand Lodge, so brief and so skeletonized that there is
|
|
space for it in such a link book as this. In the yellowed pages
|
|
of this old and precious book of which a few copies still remain
|
|
we read (letters modernized)</p>
|
|
<p>King George I entered London most magnificently on 20 Sept.,
|
|
1714, and after the Rebellion was over 1716 A.D., the few Lodges
|
|
at London finding themselves neglected by Sir Christopher Wren,
|
|
thought fit to cement under a Grand Master as the Center of Union
|
|
and Harmony, viz., the Lodges that met,</p>
|
|
<p>1. At the Goose and Gridiron Alchouse at St. Pauls Church-yard.
|
|
2. At the Crown Alehouse in Parker's-Lane, near Drury-Lane.
|
|
3. At the Apple-Tree Tavern in Charles-street Covent Garden.
|
|
4. At the Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Channel-Row, <span class="GPE">Westminster</span>.</p>
|
|
<p>They and some old Brothers met at the said Apple-Tree, and having
|
|
put in the chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a
|
|
Lodge) they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge pro Tempore in
|
|
due form, and forthwith revived the Quarterly Communication of
|
|
the Officers of Lodges (called the Grand lodge) resolved to hold
|
|
the Annual Assembly and Feast and then to chuse a Grand Master
|
|
from among themselves, till they should have the Honor of a Noble
|
|
Brother at their Head.</p>
|
|
<p>Accordingly on St. John Baptist's Day, in the 3d year of King
|
|
George I. A.D. 1717 the Assembly and Feast of the Free and
|
|
accepted Masons was held at the foresaid Goose and Gridiron
|
|
Ale-house.</p>
|
|
<p>Before Dinner, the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a
|
|
Lodge) in the Chair, proposed a List of proper Candidates; and
|
|
the Brethren by a Majority of Hands elected Mr. Anthony Sayer
|
|
Gentleman, Grand Master of Masons - Capt. Joseph Elliot, Mr.
|
|
Jacob Lamball, Carpenter, Grand Wardens - who being forthwith
|
|
invested with the Badges of Office and power by the said oldest
|
|
Master, and installed, was duly congratulated by the Assembly who
|
|
paid him the Homage.</p>
|
|
<p>Sayer Grand Master commanded the Masters and Wardens of Lodges to
|
|
meet the Grand Officers every Quarter in Communication at the
|
|
place he should appoint in his Summons sent by the Tyler.</p>
|
|
<p>N.B. It is called the Quarterly Communication, because it should
|
|
meet Quarterly according to ancient Usage. And when the Grand
|
|
Master is present it is a Lodge in Ample Form; otherwise, only in
|
|
Due Form, yet having the same authority with Ample Form.</p>
|
|
<p>Probably other lodges existed in London at the time; whether they
|
|
refused to join the historic four or were not invited we do not
|
|
know. We know little about these original four lodges. The
|
|
Engraved list of Lodges was published in 1729 in which the Goose
|
|
and Gridiron Number 1 (afterwards the Lodge of Antiquity) is said
|
|
to have dated from 1691. When William Preston became its Master
|
|
the lodge was involved in a controversy with the Grand Lodge -
|
|
but that is too special an event to consider in so broad a sketch
|
|
as this.</p>
|
|
<p>Lodge number two of the original four lodges, which met at the
|
|
Crown, Parker's-Lane, was struck from the roll in 1740. The
|
|
first Grand Master of this Mother Grand Lodge, Anthony Sayer,
|
|
Gentleman, came from lodge number three - the Apple-Tree Tavern
|
|
Lodge; we know little more of it. These three lodges were small,
|
|
and at least as much operative as Speculative. But the fourth
|
|
lodge, which met at the Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Channel Row,
|
|
<span class="GPE">Westminster</span>, was not only the largest (seventy members) but the
|
|
most Speculative and with the highest type of membership. It
|
|
mothered not only men of high social rank, lords, counts and
|
|
knights, but also Dr. Desaguliers (1) and James Anderson, (2) two
|
|
brethren who had a great deal to do with the revival, especially
|
|
Anderson, to whom we are indebted for much.</p>
|
|
<p>In our perspective a Grand Lodge is as much a necessary part of
|
|
the existing order of things as a State or Federal Government.
|
|
In 1717 it was a new idea, accompanied by many other new ideas.
|
|
Some brother or brethren saw that if the ancient Order were not
|
|
to die, it must be given new life through a new organization.
|
|
Doubtless they were influenced by Mother Kilwinning Lodge (3) of
|
|
Scotland which had </p>
|
|
<p>(1) John Theophilus Desaguliers, LL.D. F.R.S., born 1683, died
|
|
1744, sometimes called the Father of Modern Speculative Masonry.
|
|
He was the third Grand Master of the first Grand Lodge and thrice
|
|
afterwards Deputy Grand Master. He is credited with having been
|
|
the inspiration of Anderson, and to have supplied much of the
|
|
material from which Anderson wrote his "Constitution."
|
|
(2) James Anderson, Father of the first printed Constitutions,
|
|
1723, which contains the Old Charges, the General Regulations,
|
|
and a fanciful, fascinating, but wholly erroneous history of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>.
|
|
(3) Kilwinning: a small town in Scotland which tradition states
|
|
is the birthplace of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> in the land of heather, as is
|
|
York the seat of the first General Assembly of <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s in
|
|
England. Kilwinning Lodge - Mother Kilwinning by affection and
|
|
common consent - at one time seceded from the Mother Grand Lodge,
|
|
during which period she chartered various lodges as of "inherent
|
|
right," including; one in Virginia in 1785.</p>
|
|
<p>assumed and exercised certain motherly functions in regard to her
|
|
daughter lodges, all of which had Kilwinning as a part of their
|
|
name and, apparently, of their obedience.</p>
|
|
<p>The newly formed Grand Lodge went the whole way. It proposed to,
|
|
and did, take command of its lodges. It branched out beyond the
|
|
jurisdiction originally proposed "within ten miles of London" and
|
|
invaded the provinces. It gave enormous powers to the Grand
|
|
Master. It prohibited the working of the "Master's Part" in
|
|
private lodges, thus throwing back to the ancient annual
|
|
assemblies." It divided the Craft into Entered Apprentices and
|
|
Fellowcrafts. It resolved "against all politics as what never
|
|
yet conduced to the welfare of the lodge nor ever will." This was
|
|
a highly important declaration at a time when every organization
|
|
in England was taking part in politics, especially in the
|
|
Jacobite struggle against the House of Hanover. Indeed, a Grand
|
|
Master, the Duke of Wharton (1722) turned against the Grand Lodge
|
|
and the Fraternity when it refused to lend itself to his
|
|
political aspirations and sponsored the Gormogons, a caricature
|
|
organization which tried to destroy <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> by</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Assembly: sometimes called General Assembly, or Yearly
|
|
Assembly. The word seems to denote a meeting of Masons in the
|
|
ancient operative days equivalent to a modern lodge. The York
|
|
Manuscript No. 1, dated approximately 1600, says: "Edwin
|
|
procured of ye King his father a charter and commission to holde
|
|
every yeare an assembly wheresoever they would within ye realm of
|
|
England." In the Harleian Manuscript, 1660, it is set forth that:
|
|
"... every Master and Fellow come to the Assembly, if it be
|
|
within five miles shout him, if he have any warning."</p>
|
|
<p>ridicule. Luckily for us all, ridicule, powerful weapon though
|
|
it is, never in the long run prevails against reality. The
|
|
Gormogons, like other and later organizations, such as the Scald
|
|
Miserable Masons, (1) had its brief day and died - and
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> throve and grew.</p>
|
|
<p>Finally the Grand Lodge erased the ancient Charge "to be true to
|
|
God and Holy Church" and substituted the Charge already quoted.</p>
|
|
<p>This was of unparalleled importance; it was one of the factors
|
|
which led to the formation of other Grand Lodges and dissension
|
|
in <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>, but as it was distinctly right and founded modern
|
|
speculative <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> on the rock of non-sectarianism and the
|
|
brotherhood of all men who believe in a common Father regardless
|
|
of His name, His church, or the way in which He is worshiped, it
|
|
won out in the end and became what it is to-day, a fundamental of
|
|
the Craft.</p>
|
|
<p>Between 1717 and 1751 the Craft spread rapidly, not only in
|
|
England, but on the Continent, and in the Colonies, especially
|
|
Colonial America, where time and people, conditions and social
|
|
life provided fallow ground for the seeds of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>. But in
|
|
spite of a new life, and wise counsels of brethren</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Scald Miserables: mock Masons wbo paraded in London in 1741.
|
|
Many such mock <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> processions were formed by enemies of the
|
|
Order - often men who had been denied acceptance. Of little
|
|
importance then, and none now, except that the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>
|
|
disinclination to take part in public processions - dedications,
|
|
cornerstone layings and funerals excepted - comes from the mock
|
|
<span class="NORP">Masonic</span> processions which imitated the ancient "March of
|
|
Procession" of Masons in London in the early years of the Grand
|
|
Lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>who restricted the acts if not the power of the new Grand Lodge,
|
|
all was not plain sailing. Dissensions appeared. Causes of
|
|
friction, if not numerous, were important and went deep. The
|
|
religious issue was vital; doubtless it seemed to the older
|
|
Masons then as radical a step as it seemed to us when the Grand
|
|
Orient of France (1) took the V.S.L. from the altar. In the 1738
|
|
edition of the Constitutions we find the article "Concerning God
|
|
and religion" altered to read, "In ancient times the Christian
|
|
Masons were charged to comply with the Christian usages of each
|
|
country where they traveled and worked."</p>
|
|
<p>Another cause for dissension was the Grand Lodge's strong hand
|
|
regarding the making of Masons. Too many lodges were careless;
|
|
too many private groups of Masons assumed the right to assemble
|
|
as a lodge and make Masons of their friends; too much laxity
|
|
existed as to fees and dues and the payment of charity to the
|
|
Grand Lodge. To check these practices the Grand Lodge changed
|
|
some words in the degrees - doubtless our "spurious Mason"
|
|
clauses come from this - and this caused the same reaction then
|
|
as an attempt by modern brethren to change or rearrange our
|
|
present ritual would produce.</p>
|
|
<p>Probably the religious issue did not cause a major</p>
|
|
<p>(1) Grand Orient of France: a body once <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> which is without
|
|
recognition by the Grand Lodges of England, the United States,
|
|
and most of the other nations. It removed from its Constitutions
|
|
a paragraph affirming the existence of the Great Architect of the
|
|
Universe. Withdrawal of recognition by the United Grand Lodge of
|
|
England followed immediately (1878) and ever since the Grand
|
|
Orient bas been clandestine to practically all the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> world.</p>
|
|
<p>part of the trouble, but it provided a constant source of
|
|
irritation. Then as now many clergymen were Speculative Masons.
|
|
To-day enlightened clergymen do not see in the absence of mention
|
|
of the Carpenter of <span class="GPE">Nazareth</span> in a lodge any denial of Him, any
|
|
more than a Jewish Rabbi sees in the absence of mention of
|
|
Jehovah, or a Buddhist sees in the absence of mention of Buddha,
|
|
a denial of those deities. Then, however, many clergymen
|
|
insisted upon a Christian tinge to the <span class="NORP">Masonic</span> ceremonies, and
|
|
while the quarrel would hardly have come from this alone, it was
|
|
a contributing cause.</p>
|
|
<p>In 1738 the Grand Lodge sanctioned the making of the "Master's
|
|
Part" into what we know as the Third Degree. This had been going
|
|
on for years - no one knows how many - but not by permission of
|
|
Grand Lodge. Sanctioning it was to many brethren an "alteration
|
|
of established usage" and the customs of "time immemorial." It
|
|
proved another blow struck at unity.</p>
|
|
<p>All these and other matters fomented dissension which came to a
|
|
head in 1751 when a rival Grand Lodge was formed. It came into
|
|
being with a brilliant stroke, for it chose the name "The Most
|
|
Antient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons."</p>
|
|
<p>Calling itself "Antient" and the older body "Modern" at once
|
|
enlisted the support of hundreds of brethren who did not look
|
|
beneath the surface to learn which was really which. So we have
|
|
this peculiar and confusing terminology; the original, the older,
|
|
the more ancient Grand Lodge was called the "Modern" Grand Lodge,
|
|
and the newer and rebellious body was called "Antient." (1)</p>
|
|
<p>The curious story of the rise of this Antient Grand Lodge should
|
|
be read by every <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>, for it has had a tremendous effect
|
|
upon the Craft. We can afford to be charitable to those who
|
|
believed they were engaged in a revolution, not a rebellion. This
|
|
country was born out of what we call the Revolution, which to the
|
|
Royalists of 1776 was the Rebellion.</p>
|
|
<p>The Antients were extremely fortunate in having one Laurence
|
|
Dermott secede from the Moderns with them. Dermott was a
|
|
fighting Irishman, a brother heart and soul in the Fraternity,
|
|
and if some of his actions seem a little questionable to us, he
|
|
has to his credit the success of the movement. In 1771 when the
|
|
Duke of Atholl became Grand Master the Antients had almost two
|
|
hundred lodges on the roll.</p>
|
|
<p>Dermott kept the religious issue alive; by implication he made
|
|
the Moderns seem anti-religious. He </p>
|
|
<p>(1) United States Grand Lodges style themselves under several
|
|
different abbreviations: F. and A.M.; A.F. and A.M., and
|
|
variations using the Ampersand (&) in place of the word "and."
|
|
The District of <span class="GPE">Columbia</span> still uses F.A.A.M., meaning Free and
|
|
Accepted Masons, in spite of the possible confusion as to whether
|
|
the first A stands for "and" or "ancient." The variations are
|
|
accounted for by differences in origins, some Grand Lodges coming
|
|
into being with lodges which held under the "Ancients," and some
|
|
from the "Moderns," and by variations due to the errors which are
|
|
seemingly ineradicable in "mouth-to-ear" instruction. Whether
|
|
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Free, Ancient and Accepted
|
|
Masons; Ancient Free Masons, or any other combination of the
|
|
words, all United States Grand Lodges are "regular," tracing
|
|
descent either mediately or immediately to the United Grand Lodge
|
|
of England and recognized by her.</p>
|
|
<p>kept the Antients a Christian body and wrote distinctively
|
|
Christian sentiments and references into its Constitutions and
|
|
its documents whenever be could get them adopted.</p>
|
|
<p>Meanwhile other Grand Lodges arose; they were not very important
|
|
and never grew very large, but they belong in the story of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>; the "Grand Lodge of All England," "The Grand Lodge
|
|
of England South of the River Trent," "The Supreme Grand Lodge"
|
|
all made their bids for recognition, lived their little day and
|
|
passed on, each leaving its trace, its influence, but unable to
|
|
contend against the Antients and the Moderns.</p>
|
|
<p>The benefits which came from the clash seem to-day to be greater
|
|
than the evils. Then <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s saw only harm in the rivalry
|
|
which split the Fraternity. Now we can see that where one Grand
|
|
lodge established lodges on war-ships, the other retaliated with
|
|
Army lodges which carried <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> to far places; where one
|
|
body started a school for girls, the other retorted with a school
|
|
for boys - both still in existence, by the way - where one Grand
|
|
Lodge reached out to the provinces, the other cultivated Scotland
|
|
and Ireland. Both worked indefatigably in the American Colonies.</p>
|
|
<p>The heart burnings, the jealousies, the sorrows and the contests
|
|
between Antients and Moderns, if they exhibited less of brotherly
|
|
love than the Fraternity taught, were actually spurs to action.
|
|
Without some such urge <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> could hardly have spread so
|
|
fast or so far. As the United States became a much stronger and
|
|
more closely welded union after the cleavage of 1361-65, so
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> was to unite at last in a far greater, stronger and
|
|
more harmonious body when the two rival Grand Lodges came
|
|
together, composed their differences, forgot their rivalries, and
|
|
clasped hands across the altar of the United Grand Lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>The reconciliation is as astonishing and mysterious as the
|
|
discord. We can see that the death of Dermott, who was gathered
|
|
to his fathers in 1791, fighting for the Antients to the last,
|
|
removed one cause of difference between the two Grand Lodges; we
|
|
can understand that as the Antients had grown in power and
|
|
prestige not only in England but in the Colonies until they
|
|
outnumbered the Moderns in both lodges and brethren, the Moderns
|
|
might well have thought that union would be a life saver; we can
|
|
comprehend that time heals all differences and that what had
|
|
seemed important in 1751 in fifty years had dwindled in vitality.</p>
|
|
<p>But what is amazing to this day is that after the difficult
|
|
period, when overtures were made, refusals recorded, committees
|
|
appointed and differences finally composed, the Antient Grand
|
|
Lodge, in accepting the idea of reconciliation, receded from
|
|
almost all the positions for which it had fought so long! It was
|
|
as if the spirit of combat, so alien to the gentle genius of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span>, had worn itself out and brethren became as eager to
|
|
forgive and forget and compromise as they had previously been
|
|
strong to resist and to struggle.</p>
|
|
<p>Whatever the spirit which caused it, the final reconciliation
|
|
took place in <span class="NORP">Freemason</span>s' Hall in London, on St. John's Day,
|
|
December 27, 1813. The two Grand Lodges filed together into the
|
|
Hall; the Articles of Union were read; the Duke of Kent retired
|
|
as Grand Master in favor of the Duke of Sussex, who was elected
|
|
Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge.</p>
|
|
<p>Two matters must be stressed: the second of the, Articles of
|
|
Union reads: "It is declared and pronounced that pure ancient
|
|
Masonry consists of three degrees and no more; viz., those of the
|
|
Entered Apprentice, the Fellowcraft and the Master Mason
|
|
(including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch)."</p>
|
|
<p>In 1815 a new Book of Constitutions proclaimed to all the world
|
|
forever the non-sectarian character of <span class="NORP">Freemasonry</span> in this Charge
|
|
concerning God and religion:</p>
|
|
<p>"Let a man's religion or mode of worship be what it may, he is
|
|
not excluded from the Order, provided be believes in the glorious
|
|
Architect of heaven and earth, and practice the sacred duties of
|
|
morality."</p>
|
|
<p>Newton says of this:</p>
|
|
<p>Surely that is broad enough, bigh enough; and we ought to join
|
|
with it the famous proclamation issued by the Grand Master, the
|
|
Duke of Sussex, from Kensington Palace, in 1842, declaring that
|
|
Masonry is not identified with any one religion to the exclusion
|
|
of others, and men in India who were otherwise eligible and could
|
|
make a sincere profession of faith in one living God, be they
|
|
Hindus or Mohammedans, might petition for membership in the
|
|
Craft. Such in our own day is the spirit and practice of <span class="NORP">Masonic</span>
|
|
universality, and from that position, we may be very sure, the
|
|
Craft will never recede.
|
|
|
|
</p>
|
|
</body>
|
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