MS. ILLUSTRATIONS
The original of the hundred or so copies of the Old Charges (Old MSS, Old Constitutions, etc.) must have been written in the Fourteenth Century, perhaps about 1350 A.D. Each and every Masonic student would desire above almost anything else to have a detailed knowledge of Freemasonry as it then was; who and what men the Masons were; how they dressed; their manner of work; in what houses they lived, and how much they earned; and so on forth. To arrive at even an approximation of that picture he must collect small bits of fact from here and there, a short reference, a line in a book, a history of the building art, a study of contemporary laws, etc.
Among these sources is one which as yet has not been utilized by any Masonic scholar, at least if it has his book has not reached America: it consists of those small pictures which the writers of the MSS., Masonic and otherwise, often used to draw or paint into some small space in their parchment (or vellum) left by the text vignettes often of cunning workmanship and masterly composition. The large number of these MSS. are in Britain or Europe; a number of them however can be seen in American private collections, such as Morgan's in New York City, and Huntington~s in California, or in any one of the large universities; also, they may be found reproduced in books or photographs in any of the better metropolitan Libraries. A Masonic student looking out for a path of his own in research, and if he have access to the materials, can be promised that he will find out something new, and in time may be able to publish a Masonic book of a novel kind.
A small specimen list is not interesting to read; it may, however, serve as an illustration of what is said above, and at the same time give a beginning student sufficient guidance for making a start:
The earliest Speculative Lodges at the time of the first Grand Lodge met in public rooms in taverns, and each tavern was named after its sign, which hung in front in the form of a picture. Operative Masons four centuries before doubtless gathered in the evenings for ale or beer and for talk in taverns of the same type. Two of them are pictured in the Bodleian Library (Oxford) MSS., No.264, which like each title in the list, is of the Fourteenth Century Among five pictures in Brit. Mus. 2 B. VII are: a suit of everyday clothes worn by craftsmen; a straw bee-skelp (or bee-hive).
Brit. Mus. Roy. 20. C. VII contains detailed picture of a burning at the stake, the method being the same as that of the Pps; another of a beheading; and in Brit. Mus. Roy. E. IV is a scene showing a criminal being drawn.
Brit. Mus. Fasc. 175; Masons building a tower, using a windlass. B. M. Roy. 15. D. III- Mason using stone axle shows how ramp was used to carry stones up to top of high walls. In another MS. not named, the King—or some other crowned noble or prince—looks on while a Mason uses a plumb-line; in this operation a wooden inclined plane with cleats is used instead of a ladder.
A MS. in Brit. Nat., Paris; a building scene,
showing use of ladder.
B. M. MS, Roy. 10 E. IV; sawmills were run by man powers and sawyers
did not belong to same gild as carpenters
B. M. MS. Harl. 6563: a smith wears leather apron
B. M. MS. Roy. 2. B. VII; stone carver, sitting on bench ("bank"),
using gavel.
B. M. Addl. MS. 10292; stone carving by method of incising.
B. M. MS. Roy. 2. B. VII; four stone-cutters- one is Master of
Masons; shape of gavel is very clearly shown (In very few instances
are Masons shown wearing Aprons Smiths always wear leather aprons.)
B. M. MS. Egeston 1894- Mason on back, inside altar canopy, while
carving above his head.
B. M. My. Luttrell Psalter. Building walls was a specialty.
Such Masons were "wailers" and had own gild. This is
a picture of their work; a city wall, towers gates, etc.
*
MARKHAM, EDWIN
Edwin Markham was born in Oregon but went soon to California. He was made a Mason in Acacia Lodge, No. 92, Coloma, Calif. When he published his "Man With a Hoe," President Theodore Roosevelt's acclaim of it made Markham's name familiar throughout America almost overnight Another Masonic poet, Rudyard Kipling, also had in his poem "Recessional" ("Lest we forget") an equally universal, immediate reception, and each poem was an answer to the other; Kipling's theme was "We must have rulership"; Markham's was, "Yes, but the rulership must be by ourselves."
The body of Markham's poetry as a whole has been very slow in winning a way into popular use, perhaps because two World Wars turned the attention of men away from poetry, but the Masonic Fraternity need not wait upon the general public; for Markham is America's laureate of Masonry, as Burns was Scotland's; and as he said when he presented a holograph copy of his "Man With a Hoe" to the Grand Lodge of New York, everything of his was in the Spirit of Masonry. (Like a number of other world-famous poems, that poem was never completed; Markham kept experimenting with small revisions of it as long as he lived.)
*
MARTINISM
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin was born in Amboise, France, January 18, 1743; he was therefore fifty-six years of age in the Revolution year of 1799; and since he was in ill health much of the time he was unable to take any active part in the French Revolution during the four years he continued to live (he died in 1803) except in private circles; and it is certain that he did not have any part in planning or preparing for it. He was sensitive, aristocratic, a warm friend to a chosen few, a mystic. (See page 901.)
It is probable that Martin would have played no part in Freemasonry had it not been for Martines de Pasqually, his early teacher and for many years his friend and colleague. Pasqually was a Rosicrucian, though it is impossible to use that adjective as in any sense a descriptive one because it was so loosely employed in France, and often had no connection with Rosicrucianism properly so called—indeed Rosicrucianism properly so called was little understood at any time and ever will be because there is in the Pama Fraternitatu, its bible, no clear, consistent system of teachings but only a congeries of visions, legends, cloudy pictures which can easily accept what meanings an occultist chooses to attribute to them. In his capacity as a Rosicrucian, Pasqually compiled a Degree, or Rite, which he called Elect Cohens ("cohen" meaning priest); and it is believed that Pasqually had some connection with the founding of the Rite of Swedenborg but not that he was in any sense its creator.
In Martin's eyes, and after Pasqually had died, his old teacher's Pite had been conceived as a ritualistic mystery of a mystical Christianity but being such it had, he felt, certain defects and lacks; therefore he contrived a Rite of his own, which he called the Rectified Rite.
Both St. Martin and Pasqually, as well as the author (or authors) of the Swedenborgian Rite, are typical of the Frenchmen, of whom over a century there may have been a hundred or so, who were Masons in their own special sense only; which was a sense the true and ancient Fraternity could not have recognized as even remotely like itself;
they swept six or seven centuries of Masonic history aside, cutting their own "Masonry" off from its roots, acknowledged no Ancient Landmarks, concocted private "Rites" out of their private theories, used them as a vehicle for teachings which often regular Freemasonry would have wholly repudiated, constructing them eclectically out of scraps of text, or symbolism, or legend to which they had taken a fancy in various obscure works of occultism, metaphysics, and theology. Pasqually's Rite and Martin's Rectified Rite are interesting for themselves, as a book by either of them might be interesting (they were in essence little more than books in the form of ceremonies), but they have no discoverable connection with Freemasonry, which never was a cult of aristocracy, or of occultism, or of mysticism.
Martin signed a few of his small books by the pseudonym Philosophe Inconnu, the Unknown Philosopher. Because of this, because his Rite has in it certain references to or traces of Kabbalism and other little-known sources, and because no biography was written in English, he was for American Masons a vague, mysterious figure, and a number of American writers have placed him somewhere back in the late Middle Ages, along with Raymund Lully.
Martin was on the contrary a modern man; younger than Benjamin Franklin, whom he could have known; and moved in a circle about whom whole libraries of memoirs have been written. The achievement by which he is better known is not his Rite (in which he himself took little interest) but a number of slender books or treatises in which he set forth his own difficult and private version of religious mysticism, and which was, though such a generalization is hazardous, an attempt to describe the universe from within; seen, as it were, through the eyes of God. An account of this work, and a portrait of the man, by an author who admired him much and who, in part and at a distance, was his disciple, is The Life of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin: The Unknown Philospher, by Arthur Edward Waite; William Rider 45c Sons; London.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY
sixth president and son of John Adams. second president; born July 11, 1767; president, 1825; died February ('3. 1848. A native of Massachusetts, his name has often been mistaken for that of another resident of Boston. Brother John C. Hurll, Acting Secretary, Saint John's Lodge, Boston, August 25, 1919. answering an inquiry of ours, copied the Lodge record of December 5, 1826, thus: " 'Brother John Quincy Adams, a regular candidate for membership, was inquired for and being well recommended, was voted to be balloted for, and on balloting was unanimously admitted a member of Saint John's Lodge.' It would seem from this that he did not receive the Degrees in this Lodge, but what Lodge he says raised in is not stated. There is no reference to the presidency and I think he was another Adams." Certainly the president was not then at Boston- The Second Session of the Nineteenth Congress opened at Washington the previous day and President Adams himself records that from December 4 to 6, from early morn to late afternoon he had no leisure for reflection or writing However, there is on record his own emphatic denial of membership (page 345, volume vii, Memoirs, Lippincott), on October 25, 1825, in reply to the plain question, he writes: "I told Watkins he might answer Tracy that I am not, and never was, a Freemason."
BUCHANAN, JAMES
fifteenth president; born April 23, 1791; president, 1857; died, June 1, 1868; received Masonic burial from his Brethren of Lodge No. 43, in his native state, Pennsylvania, on June 4, 1868. Brother J. Fred Fisher, Secretary of Lodge No. 43, furnished on August 16, 1919, the following Masonic record of Brother James Buchanan: "He was made a Mason in Lodge No. 43 on December 11, 1816. Entered by W. M. Brother John Reynolds, and was Passed and Raised by W. M. Brother George Whitaker, January 24, 1817. He was elected Junior Warden, December 13, 1820, and Worshipful Master, December 23, 1822. At the expiration of his term of office, he was appointed the first District Deputy Grand Master of this District. He was elected an honorary member of Lodge No. 43, March 10, 1858. He died on June 1, 1868. He was also a member of Royal Arch Chapter No. 43, F. and A. M., but the only record we have is that he was Exalted on May 90, 1826."
FILLMORE, MILLARD
thirteenth president; born February 7, 1800; elected vice-president, 1848, and on death of President Taylor succeeded him July 9, 1850, and died March 8, 1874. Said to have received the Degrees but afterwards recanted during the Anti-Masonic era in which he was active against the Craft (see page 548, Annual Report American Historical Association, volume i, 1902). No evidence of his Masonic affiliation obtained. In his official capacity as president he attended the laying of the eorner-stone of the Capitol extension by the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, July 4, 1851 (see History, Federal Lodge No. 1, Washington).
GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM
twentieth president; born November 19, 1831; president, 1881; died September 19, 1881. Masonic Eclectic, September, 1881 (pages 430-1), published the following: "Initlated, Novernber 19, 1861; Passed, December 3, 1861, in Magnolia Lodge No. 20, Columbus, Ohio, and Raised in Columbus Lodge No. 30, by request of Magnolia Lodge, November 11, 1864. Affiliated vith Garrettsnille Lodge No. 24G, October 10, 1865; 1 remaining a member until 1870, and was Chaplain in the years 1868-9. United with Pentalpha Lodge No. 23, Washington, District of Columbia, as a charter member, May 4, 1869, and so remained until death. By special dispensation was admitted to Columbia Royal Arch Chapter No. 1, in Washington, District of Columbia, April 4, 1866, and exalted to the Royal Arcl1 Degree, April 18, 1866; received the Red Cross and Templar Order in Columbia Commanderv No. 9 at Washington, WIav 18, 1866 rthis Commander) acting as escort from Washington to Cleveland faith the remains after Brother Gaffield's death). Received the Select and Most Excellent Architect's Degrees, February 9, 1871; received the bourth and Fifth Degrees, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, in Mithras Lodge of Perfection No. 9, at Washington, May 9, 1871, and the intermediate Degrees to the Thirteenth included during the year (Brother W. L. Bowden, Librarian of the Supreme Couneil records these were communicated by General Albert Pike) and the Fourteenth Degree, January Id 1822, with four other Brethren, three of whom died before him, named: Francello G. Daniels, Robert NI. Johnson, ex-,Senator from Arkansas. and Henry Harrison Bradly, the only survivor of the five being Wm. Pieree Bell, Eso.. lawyer, Washington City." Under date of September 2, 1919, Brother NV. S. Lanfersiel;, Secretary, Magnolia Lodge No. 90, by letter, confirmed the above Lodge references and Past Grand Master Campbell M. Voorhees of Ohio, November 11, 1921, also wrote explaining the division of the Degrees between the two Craft Bodies in his city, "During the Civil War times Columbus Lodge and Magnolia Lodge frequently exchanged courtesies in the conferring of Degrees upon soldiers in the service, and this was done in the conferring of the Degrees upon General Garfield. He received his First and Second Degrees in Magnolia dodge and his Third Degree was conferred by Columbus Lodge for Magnolia."
GRANT, ULYSSES SIMPSON
eighteenth prescient; born April 27, 1822; president, 1869; died July 93, 1885. A letter in the Blue and Gray, from Major Bryant S. Parker of South Carolina, was freely copied in other journals and convened the impression that General Grant was a Freemason. Major Parker told of being taken to headquarters as a prisoner of war that General Grant asked him if he was a Freemason and that the prisoner soon convinced him of it and thereupon was promptly freed. General John Corson Smith attacked this story in the Rough Ashlar, a Masonic journal of Richmond, Virginia, and his essay was reprinted, November, 1895, in the Masonic Tidings, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and other magazines. Briefly, Brother Smith's finding, as in Proceedings, Grand Commandery of Illinois, 1908 (page 165) is that the General was too much of a soldier and not at all a Freemason for any such affair. Jesse R. Grant, Simpson S. Grant, and Orville S. Grant, father and brothers of the General, were all three Freemasons.
Simpson a member of Galena Lodge No. 17, with Brother John Corson Smith, where the father, Jesse, visited on his trips from Covington, Kentucky; and Orville was imitated in Miners' Lodge No. 273, Galena, Illinois. General, or Captain Grant as he was then known, came to Galena in 1859 and moved his family there in 1860. The father told General Smith that he knew his son would like to be a Freemason and the subject was discussed between them on an excursion to Dubuque, Iowa, and on other occasions. General Grant was at home when Galena Commandery No. 40, Knights Templar, was instituted in 1871, with Brother Smith as Eminent Commander. In the evening President Grant received the Brethren for a pleasant hour of conversation and then the visitors returned to the Asylum.
At that reception the president's favorable opinion of Freemasonry was expressed and it was agreed that at the first opportunity he would sign a petition to Miner's Lodge No. 273 of which Brother Smith was then Master. During the political campaign of 1872-3 General Grant was again home and Grand Master James A. Hawley agreed to make the president a Freemason "at sight" but affairs of state recalled him unexpectedly to Washington and the subsequent ill-health and removal from Galena of Brother Smith brought the plans unsuccessfully to an end. The matter does not appear to have ever been received.
HARDING, WARREN GAMALIEL
twenty-ninth president; born November 9, 1865; president 1921; died August 9, 1923. From a letter written by the late Grand Secretary, J. H. Bromwell, and from the announcement sent out by the Grand Master, Harry S. Johnson, of Ohio, on August 8, 1923, these details are obtained: Brother Harding, was initiated in Marion Lodge No. 70 at Marion, Ohio, on June 2S, 1901; Passed, August 13,1990; Raised, August 27, 1990. In Clarion Chapter No. 6 , Royal Arch Masons; at Wiariol1, Ohio. he received the Mark Master, Past and Most excellent Master's Degrees on January 11, 1921, and the Exaltation of the Royal Arch Degree on January 13, 1921. In Marion Commandery No. 36, Knights Templar, at Marion, Ohio, he received the Order of the Re(l Cross, and the Orders of Knight of Malta and Knight Templar, March 1, 1921.
In Scioto Consistory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, he (the only candidate at that time) received all the grades from Fourth to Thirty-second inclusive, on January 5,19 1. He became a member of Aladdin Temple, S9obles of the Mystic Shrine, at Columbus, Ohio, on January as, 1921. By special dispensation the Order of Veiled Prophet was conferred upon him at the White House, Washington, May 11, 1921, by E. W. Libbey, E. S. Schmid, C. P. Boss, and W. W. Jermane, of Rallipolis Grotto. Brother Harding had been elected to receive the Degrees in Marion Council tso. 29, Royal and Select Masters, at Marion, Ohio. as well as the Thirty-third Degree of the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, but death intervened (see Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Ohio, 1923, pages 10, 75,87).
JACKSON, ANDREW
seventh president; born March 15, 1707; president, 18 9; died
June 8, 1845. He was elected Grand Master of Tennessee on October
, 1829, and re-elected on October 6, 1823, but his Lodge was not
named and in the Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Tennessee. 184o,
when his Masonic services were affectionately acknowledged (pages
559-3, 570-1, 57a-80 of Reprint) there is no more information
than in the obituary notice prepared by Grand Chaplain Philip
P. Neeley, who says (page 578), "We have not received information
as to the Lodge where he was made a Mason, but learn that he was
for some time, during the early part of his life, in connection
with one that met at Clover Bot, tom, held under the jurisdiction
of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky." Philanthropic Lodge No.
12 was granted a Charter from Kentucky on September 18, 1805 (see
Dozngs of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, 1800-1900, page 25, by
H. B. Grant, Grand Secretary). However, the practice prevailed
of Lodges reporting their members in full to the Grand Lodge of
Kentucky and careful search made for us by the late Grand Secretary
Dave Jackson failed to find the name of Andrew Jackson.
Philanthropic Lodge No. 12 ceased to be on the Kentucky roll in 1812. But Jackson was present as a Freemason at the opening of the Lodge at Greenville September 5, 1801, under a Dispensation from the Grand Lodge of North Carolina which possesses the original transcript of the Minutes showing that the Senior Warden named in the Dispensation being absent Andrew Jackson served as "S. W."Pro Tem" of this first meeting of Greenville Lodge No. 43, afterwards No. 3 of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. Brother Jackson made the motion for the appointment of a Committee on By-laws at this meeting under Dispensation but two others were assigned to that duty and the probability is that he was only a visitor on that occasion.
Another Lodge, at Nashville, chartered on December 17, 1796, No. 29 of North Carolina, Saint Tammany, afterwards Harmony Lodge No. 1 of Tennessee, following the division into the two Grand Lodges, shows that Jackson was a member but the records being incomplete do not determine the date of his initiation but he became a resident of Nashville in 1788 and Brother William L. Boyden, Librarian of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, finds Andrew Jackson a member as early as 1800 because he was present on March 24 of that year at the first meeting of Tennessee Lodge No. 2, formerly No. 41 under North Carolina, held in Knoxville and was then credited as a member of Harmony Lodge No. 1. Past Grand Master Charles Comstock of Tennessee believed him to have received the Royal Arch Degree under authority of a Craft Lodge Warrant and probably did not affiliate with any Chapter though he officiated as Deputy General Grand High Priest at the institution of the Grand Chapter of Tennessee on April 4, 1826, and is recorded later as present in Cumberland Chapter No. 1 at Nashville, assisting at installation of officers.
Andrew Jackson took part in several Masonic functions and at Nashville on May 4, 1825, introduced General Lafayette to the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. The Charter of Harmony Lodge No. 1 was arrested on December 9, 1808, and this would leave General Jackson a non-affiliate which may account for the appearance of his name in the records as a Past Master without mention of any Lodge connection. For much interesting information here summarized we are indebted to Past Grand Master A. B. Andrews, North Carolina; Past Grand High Priest C. H. Smart, and Past Grand Master Charles Comstock, Tennessee; W. L. Boyden, Librarian, Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; Dave Jackson, late Grand Secretary, Kentucky. An article by Brother Andrews on Andrew Jackson the Freemason appeared in the New Age, Washington, January, 1921.
*
JEFFERSON, THOMAS
third president; born April 13, 1743; president, 1801; died July
4, 1829, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of independence
of which he was the author. While the assertion has frequently
been made that Jefferson was a Freemason and that he attended
the Lodge of the Nine Sisters (the Muses) at Paris no further
details are given and a letter from the Grand Orient of France
under date of September 9, l919, assures us that there is no evidence
in existence of any visit to that Lodge by Jefferson, nor does
our own search through the history of that Lodge—one Lodge
Maf onnique d'.Avant 1X89, by Louis Amiable discover any such
allusion. Examination by Brother Julius F. Sachse and W. J. Paterson
of the "Tableaux" of this Lodge, the "Regalements"
of 1779 and 1806, and the "nnuaire" of 1838, preserved
in the Library of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, disclose no
mention of Thomas Jefferson as a member.
His letter to Madison on secret societies makes no allusion suggesting any personal acquaintance of Freemasonry. Dr. Joseph W. Eggleston, Past Grand Master of Virginia, was most positive that Jefferson was not a Freemason. From correspondence between Charles H. Callahan, also a Past Grand Master of Virginia, and Brother E. E. Dinwiddie, Secretary, Widow's Son's Lodge No. 60, Charlottesville, we find the latter examined carefully the records of his Lodge, but found no evidence of Jefferson's membership. He also ascertained that when General Lafayette visited Jefferson at Monticello in 1824, the Freemasons of Charlottesville, only four miles away, entertained him at an elaborate social function and banquet. At the Lodge meeting held before the banquet, the Marquis was elected an honorary member. Jefferson was then at home but was not present among the Freemasons with his guest but he did attend and participate in the public function of the citizens. Grand Secretary Charles A. Nesbitt of Virginia nrrote us, October 4, 1919, "To the best of my knowledge Thomas Jefferson was not a Mason. According to the records of our Grand Lodge he was not connected with the Craft in this State."
JOHNSON, ANDREW
seventeenth president; born December 29, 1808; as vice-president
he became president on the death of Lincoln in 1865; died July
31, 1875. Initiated, Passed and Raised in Greeneville Lodge No.
119, now No. 3, Greeneville, Tennessee, sometime in May, 1851.
The records of Greeneville Lodge were destroyed during the Civil
War. The Grand Lodge files were also partly burned up when the
Masonic Temple was gutted by fire in 1856. Past Grand Master Charles
Comstock who saw the name on the Lodge roster in the sixties,
also added: "I am not sure about the Chapter membership but
think he (Johnson) may have been exalted in Washington Chapter
No. 21 at Jonesboro. In that event he was probably a charter member
of Greeneville Chapter No. 82, chartered October 1, 1868."
We note his name on the roster of Nashville Commandery No. 1,
the "Date of Knighting" being July 26, 1859 (see Proceedings,
first State Conclave, Nashville, 1859, page 27). This book contains
a list with Andrew Johnson's name as of Nashville Commandery No.
l and among the names of those present at the formation of the
Grand Commandery of Tennessee is recorded Andrew J. Johnston.
Each name is not I in both lists and one might assume that these two names refer to the same Brother, the names being slightly misspelled. However, Brother Comstock quotes Knight Templar Registr7y by Brother James D. Richardson, 1883. to show that Johnston was a farmer from Franklin. Scottish Rite Degrees including Prince of the Royal Secret were communicated to the president, June '0, 1S67, at White House, Washington, by Brothers B. B. French and A. T. C. Pierson of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction. Johnson took part publicly in several Masonic functions, laving of corner-stones, etc., and at his funeral Deputy Grand Master G. C. Conner officiated. Coeur de Lion Commandery No. 9, Knoxville, also giving Templar ceremony.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM
sixteenth president; born February 1 , 1809; president, 1861;
died April 15, 1865. Brother Edouard Quartier-la-Tente, Past Grand
Masters SNviss Grand Lodge "Alpina," in the Annuaire,
International Masonic Association, listed Lincoln among illustrious
Freemasons (see, for example, page 44, 1913, and page 59, 1923).
William H. Grimshaw of the Library of Congress also in History
of Freemasonry, 1903 (page 365), lists Lincoln as a Freemason.
In a letter to us, April 5, 1917, this author says: "So far
as my book is concerned I quoted M. Edouard Quartier-la-Tente,
P. G. M., Grand Lodge 'Alpina.' I will further state that Mr.
J. H. Brooks, who was Mr. Lincoln's messenger. informed me that
Mr. Lincoln was a Mason. The degrees were conferred in an Army
Lodge attached to Gen. Grant's army in front of Richmond. I wrote
Robert T. Lincoln as to the matter, and he informed me that so
far as he could find, there were no papers or other record among
his father's papers to indicate that he was a Mason."
Nothing further to support the claim credited to Brooks has been discovered by us. In the memorial volume published by the Government at Washington 1866, there are found the tributes of forty-four foreign Masonic Bodies, most of these plainly referring to Lincoln as a Brother. An inquiry made by R. NV. Robert D. Holmes, Deputy Grand Master, New York; was answered by Brother B. B. French from the Washington office of the Grand Master, Knights Templar, April 91, 1865, "Yours of the 19th is just received. President Lincoln was not a Mason. He once told me in the presence of Most Worshipful Brother J. W. Simons that he had at one time made up his mind to apply for admission to our Fraternity but that he feared he was too lazy to attend to his duty as a Mason, 3S he should like to do, and that he had not carried out his intentions. I told him it was not too late now. 'Well,' said he, 'as likely as not I shall apply to nou some day to let me in' " (see the Masonic Monthly, May, 1865, page 351; Builder, volume 3, page 93; volume 10, pages 31, 286, 361). A published address by Dr. L. D. Carman, Past Master, before his Lodge, Harmony No. 17, Washington, District of Columbia, January 28, 1914, contains the B. B. French letter with much other data, including some peculiarly significant allusions made by Lincoln in Masonic style, a circumstance perhaps due to his early intimacy with Past Master Bowling Green at whose funeral Lincoln was asked by the Fraternity to make an address, which he was unable to complete owing to emotion, His great antagonist, Stephen Douglas was a Freemason whose framed petition, written in his own hand entirely, hangs on the wall of the Masonic Temple at Springfield, Illinois. For this information and other particulars we are indebted to Brother Hal C. McLoud of Springfield.
MADISON, JAMES
fourth president; born March 16, 1751; president, 1809; died June
28, 1836. Mentioned in connection with the Craft but no proof
offered. Brother Bovden found in the history of Richmond Lodge
No. 10, Richmond, Virginia, where Brother Walthall records that
on July 25, 1836, this Lodge with Nos. 14 and 19 took part in
a general tribute of respect to the memory of the ex-president.
But this offers no evidence of Masonic affiliation. A letter,
not indicative of Masonic membership, purporting to be from Madison
to a friend on January 24, 1832, is given in the Anti-Masonic
Publications (page 22, volume ii, 1834-79), by Joseph Ritner,
Governor of Pennsylvania, but the authenticity of the communication
is not fully established any more than is Madison's connection
with the Craft. Both are doubtful.
McKINLEY, WILLIAM
twenty-fifth president; born January 29, 1843; president, 1897;
died September 14, 1901. A native of Niles, Ohio, he took his
first Degrees at Winchester, Virginia, in Winchester Hiram Lodge
No. 21, Secretary C. Vernon Edd! kindly supplying us the dates,
as Entered Apprentice, May 1, 1865; Fellow Craft, May 2, 1865;
Master Mason, May 3, 1865. This occurred during the Civil War
while Major McKinley was stationed there nith the Northern Army.
Observing the Masonic brotherhood prominent under the afflictions
of war a number of northern soldiers petitioned the local Lodge
and received the Degrees. McKinley affiliated with Canton (Ohio)
Lodge No. 60, August 21, 1867; then became a Charter Member of
Eagle Lodge No. 43, also at Canton, a Lodge afterwards named after
him. He received the Marl;, Past and Most Excellent Master Degrees
in Canton Chapter No. 84, December 27, 1883, and the Royal Arch
Degree, December 28, that year. The Red Cross was conferred upon
him December 18, 1884, in Canton Commandery No. 38, and the Malta
and the Order of the Temple, December 23, 1884. A gold card presented
to him by California Commandery No. 1 of San Francisco for his
reception there on May 22, 1901, came by gift after McKinley's
death into the possession of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania through
the kindness of Brother John Wannamaker, formerly Postmaster General.
MONROE, JAMES
fifth president; born April 28, 1758; president, 1817; died July
4, 1831. Brother W. L. Bovden finds from the original records
that Monroe was on November G. 1775, recommended to be admitted
a member of Williamsburg Lodge No. 6, at Williamsburg, Virginia,
and that on November 9, 1775, Monroe was "preferred, received
and balloted for, passed, accepted and entered an apprentice."
Where his other Degrees were given is not clear but as there is
an old tradition oft repeated of him taking Degrees in an Army
Lodge that may account for them. Brother J. G. Hankins. Richmond,
Virginia, mentioned in a letter his correspondence with the president
of Williams and Mary College at Williams burg, Virginia, that
Dr. Lyon G. Tyler wrote a history of the Lodge from the records,
that this was published in the William and Mary Quarterly, 1892,
volume I, number 1, lists the name of James Monroe, afterwards
President of the United States. Dalcho Consistory Bulletin at
Richmond, Virginia, March April, 1915, tells of Richmond Randolph
Lodge No. 19, taking part in a memorial meeting in honor of James
Monroe. A much more conclusive instance is the one given by Brother
Boyden that the records of Cumberland Lodge No. 8, of Tennessee,
June 8, 1819, show a reception to Monroe as "a Brother of
the Craft," that the Worshipful Master W. Tannehill, afterwards
Grand Master, headed the procession meeting the president, and
that he was given a "Private Reception by the Masons."
Admiral George W. Baird, Past Grand Master, Credits Monroe, on
page 125, Masonry in the formation of Our Government, by Philip
A. Roth, with also being a member of Kilwinning Cross Lodge No.
2 at Port Royal, Virginia (see also Quarterly Bulletin, Iowa Masonic
Library. October, 1923, pages 121-3).
PIERCE, FRANKLIN
fourteenth president; born November 23, 1804; president, 1853;
died October 8, 1869. Has been claimed as a Freemason, but Brother
lV. L. Boyden in View jlyc, August, 1920, asserted there was no
record of it, nor has any since come to our notice.
POLK, JAMES KSTON
eleventh President; born November 9, l795; president, 1845; died
June 15, 1849. Initiated, June 5, 1820; passed, August 7, 1820;
Raised, September 4, 1820; chosen Junior Deacon October 20, Junior
Warden December 3, 1821, all in Columbia Lodge No. 31, Columbia,
Tennessee. Lafayette Chapter No. 4, Columbia, Tennessee, gave
him the Royal Arch April 14, 1825.
ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELAN O.
thirty second president; born January 30, 1882; died April 12,
1945. Initiated October 10, 1911; Passed, November 14, 1911 Raised,
November 28, 1911, Holland Lodge No. 8, New York, N.Y. Received
the 32 A. A. Scottish Rite in Albally Consistory February 28,
1929. Cyprus Temple A.A.O.M.S. Albany, A. Y., March 25, 1930.
Tri-Po-Bed Grotto M.O.V.P.E. R. Poughkeepsie, N. "at sight"
October 30, 1931. Greenwood Court No. 81, Tall Cedars of Lebanon,
Warwick, A. Y., "at sight' April 25, 1930.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
twenty-sixth president; born October 27, 1858; as vice-president
he succeeded the assassinated President McKinley 1901; died January
6, 1919. A member of Matinecock Lodge No. 806, Oyster Bay, New
York, he was initiated January as, 1901; Passed, March "7,
1901, and Raised, April 24, 1901. His Masonic interests were keen,
loyal, and constant, and his intercourse vsith Brethren abroad
and at home most enjoyable. He participated w hole-heartedly in
a number of public Masonic functions
TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD
twenty-seventh president; born September 15, 1857; president,
1909. Brother F. Wm. Harte, Secretary, Kilwinning Lodge No. 356,
Cincinnati, Ohio, wrote us as follows: "William Howard Taft
was made a Mason at sight on the afternoon of February 18, 1909,
by Worships ful Brother Charles S. Hoskinson, Grand Master of
the Grand Lodge of Ohio. In the evening of the same day Brother
Taft witnessed the conferring of the Master Mason Degree in full
form on one candidate, the work being done by Kilwinning Lodge
No. 356. All of the above took place in the Scottish Rite Cathedral
417 Broadway, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was given a demit from the
Grand Lodge of Ohio and presented same to Kilwinning Lodge No.
356, F. & it. LI., on February 18, 1909, and he was elected
a member of said Lodge on April 14, 1909." "At sight"
in this case meant that the Grand Master convened a Lodge of such
assisting Brethren as he deemed necessary and the three Degrees
were given concisely on the one occasion.
TAYLOR, ZACHARY
twelfth president; born September 24, 1784; president, 184t9;
died July 9, 18a0. Brother Boyden suggests that the story of Taylor
being a Freemason arose from resolutions passed by Santa Rosa
Lodge No. 16, Milton, Florida, on the death of "Brother Taylor,"
and from his presence when the Grand Lodge of Virginia laid a
cornerstone at Riellmond, February 22, 1850. But nothing conclusive
has arisen to establish his Masonic affiliation.
TRUMAN, HARRY S
President and Bro. Harry S. Truman was initiated in Belton Lodge,
No. 450, Missouri, Feb. 9, 1909; raised March 18, 1909, and became
Junior Warden in 1910. In 1911 he became Charter Master of Grandview
Lodge, No. 618; was District Deputy Grand Master of the 59th Masonic
District from 1925 to 1930, and was an expert ritualist. He entered
the Grand Lodge line in 1930; became Grand Master of Masons in
Missouri, in 1940. He presided over the Grand Communication, held
in St. Louis, beginning September 30, 1941. His address was memorable.
He was a United States Senator at the time, with temporary residence
in Washington, D. C.
Harry S. Truman was born at Lamar, Barton Co., Rio., May 8, 1884. He attended the grades and high school in Independence Hall, and studied law for two years in Kansas City. He served as Captain of Artillery in World War I, and was demobilized with the rank of Major in 1913. After many years as County Judge, and in the Senate he was elected Vice-President in 1944. On April 12, 1945, at 7:08 P.M. he was Sworn in as President, four hours after President and Bro. Franklin D. Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, Ga.
In his address as Grand Master he called the attention of his Grand Lodge to the martyrdom of tl1ousands of Masons in Europe and Asia at the hands of Faseists, Nazis, and Japanese. They were executed, he said, because they stood for freedom in polities, religion, thought and Speech, which are principles of Freemasonry, and he expressed the hope that American Masons would hold their martyrdom in sacred memory. He also warned that the fraternity should not admit new members with insufficient examination.
TYLER, JOHN
tenth president; born Marsh 99, 17'D0; president, 1841, as vice-president
succeeding President Harrison on the latter's death; died January
18, 1862. No support of consequence has appeared for the claim
that he was a Freemason. The Virginia Masonic Journal, September,
1919, published the following: "In a public address before
a body of Masons at a corner-stone laying a few years before his
death, John Tyler used these words 'It is not my good fortune
to belong to your (Masonic) society, or to any of a kindred character'
" (see also Bulletin, Dalcho Consistory, Richmond, Virginia,
March-April, 1915, quoted in above).
WASHINGTON, GEORGE
first president; born February 11, 1731/2 (Old Style, owing to
reform of the calendar date now celebrated is February 2 , 1732);
president, 1789; died December 14, 1799. Initiated, November 4,
1752; Passed, Marsh 3, 1753; Raised, August 4, 1753, in Fredericksburg
Lodge No. 4, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Charter Master of Alexandria
Lodge No. 22, Alexandria, Virginia, April 98, 17S8, and re-elected
December 20, 1788. This Lodge formerly N o. 39 under Grand Lodge
of Pennsylvania, became N o. 22 under the Grand Lodge of Virginia,
and after the death of Washington v as in 180o named Alexandria-Washington
Lodge (see article on Washington for additional details?.
A thorough-going treatise on Masonic Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Signers (of the Declaration of Independence), Washington, is published by Brother William L. Boyden, Librarian of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, arid in the Stew Age, August, 1920, Brother Boyden also deals with the subject. His list of Masonic Vice Presidents includes John C. Breckinridge, Aaron Burr, Schuyler Colfax, George LI. Dallas, Charles W. Fairballks, Garret A. Hobart, Andrew Johnson, Richard LI. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas R. Marshall, Theodore Roosevelt, Adlai E. Stevenson, Daniel D. Tompkins, all of u horn are given the obtainable details of their respective memberships. Lists have also appeared in Masonic journals, notably the Quarferly Bulletin, Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, January, 1917, and October, 1923.
*
MARTYRS, MASONIC
If Freemasonry had a Foxe to write for it its own Book of Martyrs the larger number of Brethren would be horrified to find that men had been tortured, blinded, mutilated, hanged & burned, sent to the galleys, put into dungeons to starve dragged through streets, beaten by mobs, and in each instance for no other crime than that they were Free masons; they would next be astounded by the number of these martyrs, for if the latter were to be gathered together out of the past 200 years, and from each of almost fifty countries, and were to meet in a single throng, it would not number hundreds; it would not number thousands; it would number hundreds of thousands.
Thus:
In 1735 a Scotsman named George Gordon fathered a Lodge in Portugal
under a Charter granted by the Duke of Montage, London. For ten
years the work of this and of other Lodges, purely cultural and
strictly Masonic, was unmolested. Then, almost unannounced, and
on representations (greatly falsified) of a Dominican monk named
Bonnet de Meantry, the French Ambassador's confessor, the Lodge
Virtud at Lisbon was raided; three of its members, Damiao de Andrade
and Manoel de Revelhos, aristocrats, and a Brother named Christoph
Diego were hanged, March 8, 1743. Thomas Brasle and Jacques Mouton,
Frenchmen, and John Coustos, a Swiss by birth, but a British subject,
were tortured again and again by the Inquisition; the French Brothers
died, Coustos was sent to the galleys. This was the beginning
of a long red chapter, first in Portugal, later in Spain; in Spain
it came to a fiery end when Franco had hundreds of men hanged,
shot, mobbed, mutilated, and burned for being Masons.
And thus:
General Luigi Capello commanded an Italian army corps at Gorz
in World War I. When Mussolini ordered Italy to destroy Freemasonry
he gave every Italian Mason of whatever station, rank, or dignity
in the country an either-or: renounce Freemasonry and embrace
Fascism; renounce Fascism and remain loyal to Freemasonry on peril
of life. General Capello remained loyal to Freemasonry, was accused
of having given 500,000 lira to conspirators to assassinate Mussolini;
after a trial which dragged on month after month to give Fascist
newspapers time to scream insults and threats against the Order,
was found guilty and sentenced to "thirty years imprisonment,
with solitary confinement for the first six years"—a
death sentence at has age. Almost at once the secret police arrested
Grand Master Torrigiani, and in two hours the Confinement Commission
banished him without charge, hearing, or trial to the Lepari Islands
to starve to death. How many hundreds of other Italian Brothers
were dispossessed of their property, beaten and mobbed, sent to
concentration camps, thrown into prison, or killed there is no
way of knowing. It was however only the beginning of the slaughter
of men for being Masons from 1925 until the Allied Armies liberated
European countries; and from the Russian border to Ireland only
Switzerland, Sweden, and Britain were exempt—and even in
England it was in Mosley's plans for his Fascist party to destroy
the Fraternity and to assassinate its leaders. Between the two
extremes of 1925 and 1944 there was a long succession of men,
in thousands which have never been counted, who suffered martyrdom
for their loyalty to Freemasonry; and outside of Europe in every
Latin country from Mexico south, and in Japan, China, and the
Philippine Islands.
NOTE:
The almost complete lack of knowledge of these martyrdoms by three
millions or so of American Masons is one of the most extraordinary
phenomena in the whole history of the Craft. One explanation is
found in "the sabotage of history." This also is almost
unknown among American Masons and among American citizens at large
though professional historians are familiar with it to excess.
and must everlastingly battle with it.
This "sabotage of history" consists of destroying documents, altering documents. forging documents creating false legends, the assassination of character of men long dead—as was done with Cromwell—, and the writing of books consisting of open and brazen lies. It was the discovery that monuments to heroes of the Revolutionary and Civil War were being systematically defaced or destroyed in order to erase the only existing proofs of their having been Masons which started Admiral George W. Baird on his years Of research and produced Great Men Who Were Masons. Two recent attempts at obligate were made in the eases Of Edit Carson and William E. Cody [' Buffalo Bill"], the former in the year 1943. Another explanation is the fact that American Masonry has almost no national journalism. and in consequence possesses no means to publish general information.
*
MASONIC PURPOSES
It is in each and every Grand Jurisdiction an unwritten law, and in a number of them is a written law, that Lodge or other Masonic funds are to be expended for Masonic purposes" only. This is a Landmark which Mackey did not include in his list (see page 560) though it indubitably is a Landmark and is as Ancient as the Craft itself. Masonic Jurisprudence continues in an inchoate, or uncompleted, condition; neither Grand Lodges nor authorities on jurisprudence have ever codified either the Statutes or the Constitutional regulations concerning money; it is for that reason impossible to define "Masonic purposes" accurately, though in practice it is almost never difficult to draw a line between Masonic and non-Masonic (or un-Masonic) purposes.
In general, statements as to what Masonic purposes are may be found in the lists of Landmarks officially adopted or approved by Grand Lodges; here and there in Codes; in established rules and practices; in the Lodge Charter, and in the Old Charges. There is to be a Lodge; it is to have a room; it is to make Masons; at stated times it is to assemble them; it is to extend relief; and it is to be expected that among themselves they will enjoy feasts and other entertainment which belong to good fellowship. For these purposes, money must be expended; the total cost per year is divided among members and among petitioners and candidates, who pay proportionate shares in ache form of fees, dues, and assessments. The funds which come into the Lodges are therefore, and as it were, already earmarked; it is unlawful to use them in expenditure for anything other than the purposes for which they were paid or given.
*
MASONIC SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Bro. Robert I. Clegg's paragraph on the formation of the Masonic Service Association on page 648 had to go to press before the full facts had become available to him, therefore his account calls for some amplification. It also must be revised at one point, because he leaves the impression that the Association was a continuation of the Overseas Mission of which Judge Townsend Scudder, P. G. M., of New York, had been chairman.
The account given herewith can be recommended ax completely reliable to future historians because its writer was with Grand Master George L. Schoonover, Grand Lodge of Iowa, then living at Anamosa, la., on the day when he was first inspired with the idea; discussed it with him at length a number of times during some three months before the Grand Masters' Conference convened at Cedar Rapids, la., November 26, 1918, worked with him and Bro. Scudder to lay out the blue-print for the form of organization which was adopted the next day; was author of the educational plank which was incorporated in the plan; for some four or five weeks after the formation of the Association gave his full time to working out details for the Association's educational work; and co-operated with Prof. William Russell, then of the University of Iowa, afterwards Dean of the School of Education in Columbia University, in writing the first Short Talk Bulletins.
Grand Master Schoonover's idea was not to perpetuate the Overseas Mission of the Grand Lodge of New York. It was almost the opposite of that. He believed that the Grand Lodges had not supported the Conference which had been held at New York in April, 1917, partly because the Grand Lodges had not received notice sufficiently in advance, partly because he did not believe that the forty-nine Grand Lodges would ever work through a Committee, and more largely because he believed that the War Relief plan carried out by the Committee (to which he gave his whole-hearted support) was too narrow a basis on which to build a concerted national Masonic activity
He believed that just as the Government of the United States sets up independent, staffed organizations arr special governmental purposes which are self-managed and yet are owned and controlled by the Government, so should the American Grand Lodges set up a permanent and continuously active association which though staffed by salaried men and directed by an Executive Secretary, would be owned, controlled, and used by the Grand Lodges, and used by them both individually and collectively, at any time and for any good purpose. At a period of emergency the whole of American Masonry could act as a unit, employing such an Association as its instrument. How would a salaried staff be kept busy? The writer's contribution to the theory of the proposed Association was to recommend that they be given a program of nation-wide Masonic educational services to carry on.
The Masonic Service Association came into existence when the Grand Masters, Conference adopted the Constitution, of which a copy is included in a booklet published by the Association entitled "The Masonic Service Association of the United States: Origin, Purpose, Activity." The Grand Lodges were divided into ten geographical Divisions; the Association was to meet annually, and each year was to elect an Executive Commission consisting of a Chairman and a member from each Division. This Committee was to administer activities; and salaried staff members were to be under its directions. Membership was by Grand Lodges, each acting to join or not join at one of its regular Grand Communications; and finances were to be pro-rated among member Grand Lodges according to their membership. In the Session held immediately after adoption of the Association, Bro. Schoonover was elected the first Executive Secretary.
During its formative period the Association encountered two difficulties. One was the ever-lurking fear of a National Grand Lodge; this was overcome by patient correspondence and personal visits to Grand Communications The other was a prejudiced and unwarranted rumor teethe effect that the Association was created to "support" the National Masonic Research Society which Bro. Schoonover had founded in January, 1915, which published a journal called The Builder, and for which he had erected a headquarters building at Anamosa, Iowa (later he erected a second and larger one at Cedar --Rapids, Iowa, to which the Society moved its offices). The facts were the opposite of the rumor. The Research Society was in no need of support. During the first months it supported the new Association, furnished it with office space, gave it the use of its mailing room and its library, gave wide publicity to it in The Builder, and its own Executive Secretary, already over-burdened, gave his time as Executive Secretary to the Association without salary.
But the rumor persisted, and to free both the Research Society and the Association from it, headquarters of the latter were set up in an office building in downtown Cedar Rapids. Bro. Schoonover resigned as Executive Secretary, and Bro. A. L. Randell, P.G.M., Texas, was employed at an adequate salary to take his place. From then on the two organizations went their own ways independently, the M.S.A. moving to Washington, D.C., which Btill is its headquarters city. M.-. W. . Carl H. Claudy succeeded Bro. Randell after the latter's death. A complete dossier of minutes, reports, and other original documents are in the vault of the Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.—H.L.H.
*
MASONS' MARKS
What are now called Masons' Marks were in the centuries of Operative Masonry most often called Bench, or Banker Marks, because after a stone or some other piece of work was completed and signed, or "marked," it was placed on the "bench," or "bank," where bookkeepers could make a record of it, thereby giving each workman credit for no more and no less than he had done. (The word "bench" as then used still survives as a philological relic among the terms used in commercial green-houses, where the raised plant beds are called "benches.") Each Mason had his own mark; he was not permitted to use one like, or too much like another's; after he had completed a stone he carved, scratched, or painted his Mark on it.
The custom has Sways and everywhere been in use among builders, in China and India and the Near East as much as in Europe, in ancient times as much as in Medieval. (When the foundation stones of Solomon's Temple were excavated the painted marks on them were as unworn and as unfaded as ever.) A Mark had to be easy to chisel; it also had to be simple enough for clerks to write into their records without too much trouble. A Mason kept the same Mark throughout his career, so that it became identified with him like his name. As late as 1670 the members of Aberdeen Lodge, Operatives and non-Operatives alike, put down their Marks along with their names. (See page 626.)
Marks themselves were not symbols or emblems, and every attempt to find in them some esoteric system of teachings has failed; and though one or another type of them might have been favored in one period or country the fact has no more significance than that of any similar custom. But while the Marks failed the hopes of those who sought in them a key to symbolism and thereby ceased to be as important to Masonic symbology as was once expected, they have on the other hand become of ever-increasing importance to researchers in the history of both architecture and Freemasonry. In one instance a Mark found in a building and on the Fabric Rolls was identified with the name of a workman and a date; when the same Mark was found in fifteen or sixteen other buildings over a large area it proved conclusively that the work men had been free to move about to work in different parishes; and it also proved the dates of a number of buildings.
But while the designs of the Marks were not symbolic the general use and purpose of Marks in general was so surcharged with meaning and rich in suggestions that the development of a general symbolism of Masons' Marks was inevitable sooner or later—if the Mark Degree had not been organized in the Eighteenth Century it would have been in the Nineteenth, and out of the Royal Arch Degree itself as it in turn had been developed out of the old Master Degree. A Masons' Mark was like his name, or like his thumb print, both a proof and an expression of his identity, his individuality. That same idea had always been marked out and stressed by every people in history.
Even before history (as is still true of our Indians) a man had a public or general name, also a secret name belonging solely to himself. In countries where each tribe had a god and yet where through wars, consolidations, or alliances one tribe became mixed with another, a tribe gave its god a secret name known only to its own members lest the god of one tribe be confused with the god of another. The story of "shibboleth" and "sibboleth" was but one of thousands of similar stories in ancient times.
There is throughout history a never-ending see-saw between the social, and the individual A man is both individual and social, and it is fatal to him when he cannot be both.
The insanities of "the ego and his own," of "rugged individualism," of "all-out competition," of the "lone-wolf philosophy," of egoism, Nietscheanism, and ultra-individualism together, are as deadly as totalitarianism, communism, equalitarianism, and other insanities of the sort which seek to wipe out the man as an individual. A working man, solely as such, can never be a hired hand, a mere employer, a number in a list, a "member" in an organization, and be thus reduced to a cypher, a drop of water lost in the ocean of a so-called "class"; on the other hand he cannot himself evade his responsibility by hiding out in the anonymousness of a crowed in order to do scotched work or no work—the Masons would have said that each and every workman stands separately in the All-seeing Bye of the Grand Architect. In the symbolism of the Mark the many truths of individuality and of society both are present, or are suggested, for the Mark meant that at one and the same time each Craftsman had an indefeasible identity of his own yet at the same time was a member of a Brotherhood of Craftsmen.
See chapters on Masons' Marks in English Monasteries in the Middle Apes, by R. Liddesdale Palmer; page 200; in the Histories by R. F. Gould and by Albert G. Mackey; in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum; and in Art and the Reformation, by G. G. Coulton. In a period when the whole world is shaken with wars and debates between totalitarianism and democracy, communism and individualism, the state and the citizen, the Mark Degree is no longer an interesting piece of Masonic antiquarianism, or of a symbolism more or less inert and academic, but is worth careful study by thinking men because in it are clues and ideas overlooked by the majority of arguments, and they are rich, and suggestive, and unbelievably wise.
*
MASTERS' LODGES
The Minutes of the oldest Speculative Lodges consist of very brief memoranda, often of little more than a note to the effect that the Lodge had met on 3 certain date, and with the names of the Master and officers. There are three general reasons for these sketchy brevities: first, the Lodge made little use of its records; second, Secretaries were always afraid of violating the rule of secrecy; third, the Secretaries who took their Minutes hon. we were afraid lest outsiders might see them; and if they left them in the Lodge Room (records were kept in a bag in the base of a pedestal;) they were afraid that employees of the tavern might get at them. It is only by a great amount of auxiliary research in tow n histories, local papers, and biographies that an historian can make the dry bones live.
This meagerness of records is always tantalizing; it is tantalizing in the extreme on the subject of Masters' Lodges, for while such Lodges are often mentioned in Minutes almost nothing is ever told about them; the paradoxical result is that we know with certainty that Masters' Lodges were at work, and yet know very little about them—not even from their own Minutes, of which a scant amount are in existence.
It appears that after about 1725 there were a number of them, in and around London at least. They were separately organized, had their on n warrant, and their own officers, at least as a general rule, for in some cases the Masters' Lodge appears to have been an adjunct to some Lodge on the Grand Lodge List.
A typical Masters' Lodge would meet on Sunday; to it would go a few members of each of a number of Lodges. For the rest, the data are confusing. In some instances they appear to have had no function except to confer the Master Mason Degree. In others they appear to have been composed of Past Masters only (in days when a Master served only six months, ten Lodges would have 200 Past Masters in ten years). In still others it appears that any Lodge member (a Fellowcraft) was eligible, but that he had "to pass the chair"—in the Minutes are such titles as Pass Master, Passed Master, Past Master. Also, there are hints that what became the Royal Arch Degree may leave been a portion of the ceremonies used in a Masters' Lodge.
It is certain that in the majority of Lodges members were made Apprentice and Fellowcraft only; that a Worshipful Master was usually a Fellowcraft (in at least one Lodge he was an Apprentice); and that very often the two "Degrees" were conferred in one evening (called "emergency"); it may be, though at present it is impossible to be sure, that the tri-gradal system was set up when these Masters' Lodges were discontinued, "raising" was turned back to the Lodges, and the Royal Arch was separately organized to confer some of the ceremonies which before had been conferred in Masters' Lodges. It is almost certain that the Royal Arch (at least as old as 1744) and the Mark Degrees always were considered to belong to Ancient Craft Masonry; even as late as 1813 at the time of the Union, Ancient Craft Masonry was proclaimed to consist of the Degrees of Apprentice, Fellowcraft, Master Mason and the Holy Royal Arch.
See An Old Masters' Lodge, by William James Hughan; Kenning; London; 1897; it incorporates Minutes from 1720 to 1734. Some light on Masters' Lodges is in Antiquity of the Holy Royal Arch; Lewis; London; 1927; Historical Analysis of the Holy R. A. Ritual; Lewis; London; 1929; and Organization of the Royal Arch Chapters Two Centuries Ago; Lewis; London; 1930; the three books are by the Rev. F. de. P. Castells. See also, and especially for documents, History of the Origin and Development of the Royal Arch Degrees, by Charles A. Conover; Coldwater, Mich.; 1923.
In a paper on "Masters' Lodges" read by John Lane at a meeting of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, N o. 2076, June 25, 1888, he gives a brief sketch of each of 36 Masters' Lodges which appeared on the Grand Lodge Engraved List from 1723 to 0813.
One of the most valuable sources of information is Chapter VIII, Olel Dundee Lodges by Arthur Heiron. Between 1754 and 1769 the Masters' Lodge which was connected with Old Dundee held about 400 meetings. Bro. Heiron describes it in terms of seven "chief characteristics":
1. The meetings were held in six winter
months only, at first on Sunday, then on Monday, and finally on
alternate Thursdays. but never on a stated Lodge night.
2. "An Express Vote" or "Indulgence" had to
be passed by the Lodge before a Masters' Lodge could be held;
Brethren attending paid one shilling for each meeting.
3. .A second "Indulgence" was needed to grant them privilege
of using jewels and furniture.
4. The purpose was to "Raise Masters," but in occasional
emergencies the Lodge itself conferred three Degrees in one night,
though Old Dundee did not approve such practices.
5. Only members of the Masters' Lodges were permitted to attend.
The Work was conferred by Past Masters in a "Uniform with
Purple Colored Ribbons"—a suggestion of the colors of
the Royal Arch.
6. The Masters' Lodges' funds were kept by the Lodge Treasurer
in a separate account.
7. In 1769 the Grand Chapter R.A.M. for the first time granted
Warrants to 'private Chapters"—i.e., bodies separate
from a Lodge.
In that same year the Lodge discontinued its Masters' Lodge, and voted that "They should have a Master's Lecture on the Public Nights from Micas to Ladyday."
Bro. Heiron was of the opinion that the Masters' Lodge performed the ceremony of "Passing the Chair." To "Raise a Master," the ceremony being more elaborate than one used in "Modern" Lodges at the time. During the period of the "Masters' Lodge" the regular Old Dundee continued to confer the Third Degree on any "ordinary Lodge Night." Why then a Masters' Lodge? It conferred a dram4ttzed, or acted out, fond, Bro. Eeiron believed, whereas the Lodge itself used only a Floor Cloth and a Lecture; also, the Masters' Lodge ceremony probably contained the Royal Arch ceremonies, for which reason the "Passing the Chair" ceremony was required. Lodges under the Ancient Grand Lodge had no Masters' Lodges; they did have a separate Royal Arch Degree; the fact suggests that conferring the Royal Arch was one of the principal purposes of the Moderns' Masters' Lodges. (The whole of Bro. Heiron's Chapter VIII is worth careful study.)
*
MAYAS, THE, AND MASONRY
At a time when little or nothing was known about the Mayas, and to take advantage of that general ignorance while he could, LePlongeon wrote a book to prove that the Mayas (or Quiches) had invented Freemasonry "20,000.years ago." Now that the veil has been lifted from that great and fine people, LePlongeon's book is exposed as either a hoax or as one of the most exquisite masterpieces of ignorance ever penned. A curator of the Maya Museum at San Diego made a special study of two or three details in the replicas of Maya monuments exhibited there from which the dreamful Le Plongeon had woven his fantasy; not one had even a remote connection with Freemasonry.
Thus, to mention only one of them, the bas-relief figure of a Maya chieftain of ceremony is wearing a garment faintly resembling an apron; even if it were an apron the fact would signify nothing because liturgists in thousands of cults and religions have worn aprons; none of the emblems on it was Masonic.
The Mayas were an American Indian people, who centered in what is now Yucatan and Guatemala. They built large cities, had schools, hospitals, doctors, the arts and sciences (very little engineering), mathematics, astronomy; a few of their descendants continue to speak the Maya tongue. They reached their heyday about the same century as Charlemagne. From their center went out waves of civilizations, the Aztecs, Peruvians, Mexicans, and, finally, the Pueblo Indians who still live in Arizona and New Mexico.
It is believed that each and every North American Indian tribe or people descended from the Mayas; the symbol of the plumed serpent which had so prominent a place among Maya emblems and symbols (representing a river, clouds, rain) is still in use, though altered almost out of recognition, among Indians in America and in Northern Canada. (See History of Mayas, by Gann and Thompson. People of the Serpent, by Thompson. The largest and safest source of materials for a student are in the reports of archaeologists and of the special societies, bureaus, and institutions devoted to Indian history. Except for what they obtained from American Lodges, no trace of Speculative Freemasonry has ever been found among Indians in general; still less, among the Mayas.)
See Kukulcan; The Bearded Conqueror (New Mayan discoveries), by T. A. Willard; Murray and Lee; Hollywood; 1941. This book by a Maya enthusiast who quit the manufacture of electric storage batteries to live in Yucatan and join Moler and Thompson in the recovery of Maya ruins admittedly is by an amateur of archeology who writes for laymen; for all that, he writes no dreams of his own like Le Plongeon but relates for the non-technical what the specialists have found. What the specialists have found is that the Maya sculptures, so mysterious in appearance, are no more mysterious than a daily paper.
The Mayas are not vanished but live still in Yucatan, talking Maya; until 619 A.D. there were two peoples in Yucatan, the Itzaes and the Chicans—hence Chichen-Itza—vixen they were conquered; in 1027 A.D. they founded their capital of Mayapan—hence "Maya"; in that gear a Toltec named Eukulcan came down out of Mexico and conquered them—"a white man with a beard"- the Spaniards first arrived in 1520, and conquered the Mayas in 1541, whereupon—in 1549—a Franciscan friar named Landa, afterwards bishop, began to destroy their books, religion, science, schools, art. The famous quetzal bird is not extinct, but flourishing; the sculptures and writings are little more than a chronicle of Mayan history. Of "secrets," and esoteric knowledge, and above all of Freemasonry, there is nowhere a trace. They got the great stones up to the top of their temples and pyramids by pulling them on rollers up temporary dirt ramps. The earliest authentic, recorded Maya date is 1779 A.D.
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MEDALS, MASONIC, IN U. S. MINT
Among the medals preserved in the old United States mint in Philadelphia are six of Masonic subjects, or struck to commemorate Masonic events. Two of these are of George Washington. For data about these, and for other medals with Masonic connections of one sort or another, see Catalogue of Coins, Tokens, and Medais in the Numismatic collection of the Mint of the United States at Philadelphia, Pa.; Government Printing Office; Washington, D. C.; 1914.
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MEEKEREN AND BRESS.
Bro. R. J. Meekren, Stanstead, Quebec, and A. L. Kress, McKeesport, Pa., contributed to The Builder, of which Bro. Meekren was editor at the time, a series of articles between May, 1928 and October, 1929 in which they developed sith skill and thoroughness a theory of the Ritual which they have a right to call their own, and which has been receiving a sympathetic consideration by Masonic scholars.
The theory cannot be bracketed or labeled because it stands in a unique position. It is concerned largely with the Third Degree, and more particularly with the Legend of HA.-. On the one side they refuse to agree with the more timid investigators that the Third Degree was concocted out of nothing, or next to nothing ("the Mason Word," etc.), after 1725, by the "new men" who had come into the Craft, and who, as old Minutes so abundantly show, knew very little about Freema60nry's past; and they refuse partly because they do not believe that the old Lodges in control of the Grand Lodge would have accepted any artificially constructed novelty into the structure of the Ritual, and partly because the internal evidence of the Third Degree indicates that it is at least in substance far older than the Eighteenth Century.
On the other side, they refuse to agree with the extremists of the so-called "anthropologic school" (Ward, Cock burn, etc.) that our ceremonies ever were handed over to us by African savages, or any other savages. They believe however, and in so believing have the backing of the whole science of anthropology, that there are in modern civilization some "culture survivals"; that these originated, many of them, in ancient times, and that they have persisted because for generation after generation men have found in them something worth preserving.
In their articles they carry out a series of studies of such rites and symbols as Form of the Lodge, the Precious Jewels, HA.-. etc., in the light of their being possible culture survivals, and in 60 doing bring to them a fresh interpretation, and extract from them new meanings, and as always, when that is done, receiving grateful thanks from other students. Their interpretation is being criticized at two points. First, have they not narrowed too much the scope of Medieval architecture, ignoring the fact that it was a world in itself in which the construction and engineering of buildings was only a part, and in which there was in every period a rich, interior culture? If they have, they have weakened their argument for carrying back the origin of the (admittedly) oldest stratum of Masonic rites and symbols to ages preceding Medieval architecture.
Second, and on the contrary, they could in part strengthen their theory if it could be shown, as is possible, that the whole use of the ideas of Degrees, or separately organized ceremonies, has no meaning prior to about 1600. It is reasonable to think that Operative Masons had not fewer ceremonies (rites, symbols) than Speculative, but had more; but that they used them here and there, now and then, for many purposes, and were never concerned to organize them into independent Degrees. If this is true the problem of HA.-. can be detached from any problem about the Third Degree (as a Degree) for it is possible that it is one of many ceremonies, or rites, or symbolic actions of which there were probably a large number in the earliest Medieval Masonry.
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MEMBERSHIP, IN MASONIC JURISPRUDENCE
Ancient Craft Masonry ("Blue Lodge"), the Royal Arch, Cryptic Rite, Knight Templarism, and the Scottish Rite have each one its own laws, rules, and regulations,|written and unwritten; the whole of these, taken as a single subject, comprise Masonic Jurisprudence. As in civil jurisprudence where Federal laws are not the same as State laws, where the laws of one State are not the same as the laws of another, and the municipal law of cities inside the same State differ from one to another, so in Freemasonry each Rite has its own jurisprudence, and inside each Rite its local or constituent bodies have their by-laws. Nevertheless, and as in civil law, Masonic jurisprudence is in substance the same throughout; the differences are differences of wording, of construction, of "place" (i.e., what is a Grand Lodge statute in one Grand Jurisdiction is a by-law in another), of application, and of the amount of written law (the Grand Lodge of Connecticut has a minimum of written rules, California has a maximum), but these are differences in the same set of fundamental laws.
It is needed that these facts be remembered when the rules and regulations governing the individual Lodge member are in consideration. In the jurisprudence of a Master Mason what is his capacity as member of a Lodge? On few other subjects do Grand Lodges and Lodges (and Bodies of the other Rites) appear to differ more, nevertheless their laws are everywhere the same in purpose and intent. Individual membership is a Lodge office; the member has his own place to sit, his own time to act or speak, his own duties to perform, his own rights and privileges, his own regalia, his own responsibility; he even has his own title of "Brother" which is as much a title as "Secretary," "Senior Warden," or "Worshipful Master."
Unlike the member of a club or a society there is nothing fluid or uncertain in his activities; he is not foot-loose, cannot go or come or act as his whim might lead him to, but belongs to an Order, and in his capacity as member of a Masonic Lodge he is ordered— hang his own place, time, etiquette, rank, title, In Book III, Chapter 3, The Jurisprudence of Freemasonry, by Albert G. Mackey, the office of membership is described under the heads of nine uprights."
The Master Mason as member of a Lodge has the Right of Membership, the Right of Affiliation, of Visit, of Avouchment, of Relief, of Demission, of Appeal, of Burial, of Trial. But if he has Rights he also has Duties, for if there be no Duties there is no means to satisfy Rights; as, in example, if A has the Right to ask for Relief it is the Duty of B. or W. or Z to give it to him else the Right is useless. It is a member's Duty to attend Lodge, to pay dues, to vote, to take part in Lodge discussion, to obey when instructed or ordered by the Master, to give relief, to visit the sick, to answer the Sign of Distress, and to hold office if in his Brethrens' judgment he ought to do so; unless he has the qualification and willingness to perform these Duties he does not possess the qualifications for membership.
During the first century of Speculative Freemasonry Lodges in every country took the ground that this is what was meant by the Doctrine of Qualification and they "excluded" a man who lacked them, and fined members for non-attendance, or for not responding to the Master's summons, or for refusing to vote or to accept office. Also, a member has Prerogatives: the prerogative of seeking to visit, of making himself known to other Masons, of the privilege of the floor, of introducing resolutions, of entering and retiring, of being addressed by his title of "Brother," etc.
A member, and solely in his capacity as member, also has his own designated right of power which once was described as his rights to sovereignty, and which in a literal sense is sovereignty within its own limits. The laws, rules, and regulations by which he is governed and ordered appear on the surface to be little more than restrictions and restraints, as if in the eyes of the Fraternity he were "merely a member," and as such has little voice in things; but if those rules and regulations are analyzed, and if they are observed in action, it will be found that one of their grand purposes is to guarantee that no officer, custom, or set of circumstances shall interfere with a member's freedom—his freedom to act, his rights, or duties, or his power.
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MEN'S HOUSE, THE
Anthropologists have been impressed with the similarity between a Lodge, composed of men only, admitting members by initiation and as apprentices, with ceremonies of their own, and the Men's House of a number of uncivilized peoples. In their campaigns in World War II among island peoples in the South Pacific and the Southwest Pacific American soldiers reported the finding of these Men's Houses in a number of islands—among the Marianas they were called All Men's House. A Men's House is the largest building of a community, stands well apart and by itself; in it unmarried men have their quarters; to it boys of twelve are taken when they are initiated into the tribe and are to live apart from women until marriage.
The analogy between the House and a Lodge is interesting; both are instances, or forms, of free associations; but it is impossible to push the analogy beyond that point without turning it into an absurdity. (Studies of the Men's House and its ceremonies are common in general anthropological and ethnological literature; and there are special, detailed studies in the works of Hutton Webster, J. G. Fraser, and Margaret Mead. See also The Mends House, by Joseph Fort Newton, a collection of Masonic essays of which the first gives its title to the booked
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MEMPHIS, RITE OF
In 1839, two French Freemasons, named respectively Marconis and Moullet, of whom the former was undoubtedly the leader, instituted, first at Paris, then at Marseilles, and afterward at Brussels, a new Rite which they called the Rite of Memphis, and which consisted of ninety-one Degrees. Subsequently, another Degree was added to this already too long list. The Rite, however, has repeatedly undergone modifications. The Rite of Memphis was undoubtedly founded on the extinct Rite of Mizraim; for, as Ragon says, the Egyptian Rite seems to have inspired Marconis and Moullet in the organization of their new Rite. It is said by Ragon, who has written copiously on the Rite, that the first series of Degrees, extending to the Thirty-fifth Degree, is an assumption of the thirty three Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, with scarcely a change of name. The remaining Degrees of the Rite are borrowed, according to the same authority, from other well-known systems, and some, perhaps, the invention'.of their founders. The Rite of Memphis was not at first recognized by the Grand Orient of France, and consequently formed no part of legal French Freemasonry. So about 1852 its Lodges were closed by the civil authority, and the Rite, tousea French Masonic phrase, "went to sleep."
A Lodge was operating in 1859 as of the Reformed Masonic Order of Memphis, or Rite of the Grand Lodge of-Philadelphes, in England, and issuing certificates of membership. The Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of England therefore sent out a circular warning members of the English Lodges against spurious Lodges claiming to be Masonic.
In the year 1869, Marconis, still faithful to the system which he had invented, applied to the Grand Master of France to give to it a new life. The Grand college of Rites was consulted on the subject, and the Council of the Order having made a favorable degree, the Rite of Memphis was admitted, in November, 1869, among those Masonic systems which acknowledge obedience to the Grand Orient of France, and perform their functions within its bosom. To obtain this position! however, the only one which, in France, preserves a Masonic system from the reputation of being clandestine, it was necessary that Marconis, who was then the Grand Hierophant, should, as a step preliminary to any favorable action on the part of the Grand Orient, take an obligation by which he forever after divested himself of all authority, of any kind whatsoever, over the Rite. It passed entirely out of his hands, and, going into obedience to the Grand Orient, that Body has taken complete and undivided possession of it, and laid its advanced Degrees upon the shelf, as Masonic curiosities, since the Grand Orient only recognizes, in practice, the thirty-three degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
This, then, became the position of the Rite of Memphis in France. Its original possessors have disclaimed all further control or direction of it. It has been admitted by the Grand Orient among the eight systems of Rites which are placed under its obedience; that is to say, it admits its existence, but it does not suffer it to be worked. Like all Masonic Rites that have ever been invented the organization of the Rite of Memphis is founded on the first three Degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry. These three Degrees, of course, are given in Symbolic Lodges. In 1862, when Marconis surrendered the Rite into the hands of the ruling powers of French Freemasonry, many of these Lodges existed in various parts of France, although in a dormant condition, because, as we have already seen, ten years before they had been closed by the civil authority Had they been in active operation, they would not have been recognized by the French Freemasons; they would have been looked upon as clandestine, and there would have been no affiliation with them because the Grand Orient recognizes no Masonic Bodies as legal which do not in return recognize it as the head of French Freemasonry.
But when Marconis surrendered his powers as Grand Hierophant of the Rite of Memphis to the Grand Orient, that Body permitted these Lodges to be resuscitated and reopened only on the conditions that they would acknowledge their subordination to the Grand Orient; that they would work only in the first three Degrees and never confer any Degree higher than that of Master Mason; the members of these Lodges, however high might be their dignities in the Rite of Memphis, were to be recognized only as Master Masons; every Freemason of the Rite of Memphis was to deposit his Masonic titles with the Grand Secretary of the Grand Orient; these titles were then to be visé or approved and regularized, but only as far as the Degree of Master Mason; no Freemason of the Rite of Memphis was to be permitted to claim any higher Degree, and if he attempted to assume any such title of a higher Degree which was not approved by the Grand Master, he was to be considered as irregular, and was not to be affiliated with by the members of any of the regular Lodges.
Such became the condition of the Rite of Memphis in France. It was absorbed into the Grand Orient; Marconis, its founder and head, surrendered all claim to any jurisdiction over it; there are Lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient which originally belonged to the Rite of Memphis, and they practice its Ritual, but only so far as to give the Degrees of Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. Its "Sages of the Pyramids" its "Grand Architects of the Mysterious City," its "Sovereign Princes of the Magi of the Sanctuary of Memphis," with its "Sanctuary," its "Mystical Temple," its "Liturgical College," its "Grand Consistory ," and its "Supreme Tribunal," existed no longer except in the Diplomas and Charters which were quietly laid away on the shelves of the Secretariat of the Grand Orient. To attempt to propagate the Rite became in France a high Masonic offense. The Grand Orient had the power, but there seemed no likelihood that it would ever exercise it.
Some circumstances which occurred in the Grand Orient of France very clearly show the true condition of the Rite of Memphis. A meeting was held in Paris by the Council of the Order, a Body which something like the Committee of General Purposes of the Grand Lodge of England, does all the preliminary business for the Grand Orient, but which is possessed of rather extensive legislative and administrative powers, as it directs the Order during the recess of the Grand Orient. At that meeting, a communication was received from a Lodge in Moldavia, called The Disciples of Truth, which Lodge is under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of France, having been chartered by that Body. This communication stated that certain Brethren of that Lodge had been invested by one Cadence with the Degree of Rose Croix in the Rite of Memphis, and that the diplomas had been dated at the Grand Orient of Egypt, and signed by Brother Marconis as Grand Hierophant.
The Commission of the Council of the Order, to whom the subject was referred, reported that the conferring of these Degrees was null and void; that neither Carence nor Marconis had any commission. authority, or power to confer Degrees of the Memphis Rite or to organize Bodies; and that Marconis had, by oath, solemnly divested himself of all right to claim the title of Grand Hierophant of the Rite; which oath, originally taken in May, 1862, had at several subsequent times, namely, in September 1863, March, 1864 September, 1865, and March. 1566, been renewed. it's a matter of clemency, the Council determined not, for the present at least, to prefer charges against Marconis and Cadence before the Grand Orients but to warn them of the error they committed in malting a traffic of Masonic Degrees. It also ordered the report to be published and widely diffused, so that the Fraternity might be appraised that there was no power outside of the Grand Orient which could confer the high Degrees of any Rite.
An attempt having been made, in 1872, to establish the Rite in England, Brother Montague, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council, wrote to Brother They've not, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Orient of France, for information as to its validity. From him he received a letter containing the following statements. from which official authority we gather the fact that the Rite of Memphis is a dead Rite, and that no one has authority in any country to propagate it: "Neither in 1866, nor at any other period, has the Grand Orient of France recognized "the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry," concerning which you inquire. and which has been recently introduced in Lancashire. At a particular time, and with the intention of causing the plurality of Rites to disappear, the Grand Orient of France annexed and absorbed the Rite of Memphis, under the express condition that the Lodges of that Rite, which were received under its jurisdiction, should confer only the three Symbolic Degrees of Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master, according to its Special rituals, and refused to recognize any other Degree, or any other title, belonging to such Rite.
At the period when this treaty was negotiated with the Supreme Chief of this Rite by Brother Marconis de Stegre, Brother H. J. Seymour was at Paris! and seen by us but no power was conferred on him by the Grand Orient of France concerning this Rite; and, what is more, the Grand Orient of France does not give, and has never given, to any single person the right to make Freemasons or to create Lodges. Afterwards, and in consequence of the bad faith of Brother Marconis de Négre, who pretended he had ceded his Rite to the Grand Orient of France for France alone, Brother Harry J. Seymour assumed the title of Grand Master of the Rite of Memphis in America, and founded in New York a Sovereign Sanctuary of this Rite. A correspondence ensued between this new power and the Grand Orient of France, and even the name of this Sovereign Sanctuary appeared in our Calendar for 1867. But when the Grand Orient of France learned that this power went beyond the three symbolic Degrees, and that its confidence had been deceived, the Grand Orient broke off all connection with this power, and personally with Brother Harry J. Seymour; and, in fact, since that period, neither the name of Brother Harry J. Seymour, as Grand Masters nor the Masonic power which he fondled, have any longer appeared in the Masonic Calendar of the Grand Orient.
" Your letter leads me to believe that Brother Harry J. Seymour is endeavoring, I do not know with what object, to introduce a new Rite into England. in that country of the primitive and only true Freemasonry, one of the most respectable that I know of. I consider this event as a misfortune. The Grand Orient of France has made the strongest efforts to destroy the Rite of Memphis; it has succeeded. The Lodges of the Rite, which it at first received within its jurisdiction, have all abandoned the Rite of Memphis to work according to the French Rite. I sincerely desire that it may be the same in the United Kingdom, and you will ever find me ready to second your efforts.
"Referring to this letter, I have, Very Illustrious Brother, but one word to add, and that is, that the Constitution of the Grand Orient of France interdicts its founding Lodges in countries where a regular Masonic power already exists; and if it cannot found Lodges a fortiori, it cannot grant Charters to establish Grand Masonic Powers: in other terms, the Grand Orient of France never has given to Brother Harry J. Seymour, nor to any other person, powers to constitute a Lodge, or to create a Rite, or to make Masons. Brother Harry J. Seymour may perfectly well have the signatures of the Grand Master and of the Chief of the Secretary's office of the Grand Orient of France on a Diploma, as a fraternal vise; but certainly lie has neither a Charter nor a Power. I also beg you to make every effort to obtain the textual copy of the documents of which Brother Harry J. Seymour takes advantage. It is by the inspection of this document it will be necessary to judge the question, and I await new communications on this subject from your fraternal kindness" (see Marconis, also Yarker and Seymour).
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MENATZCHIM
In Second Chronicles in, 18, it is said that at the building of the Temple there were "three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people work." The word translated "overseers" is, in the original, Ohmic, Menatzchim. Doctor Anderson, in his catalogue of workmen at the Temple. calls these Menatzchim "expert Master Masons, " saying they were "overseers and Comforters of the People in Working, that were expert Master Masons"; and so they have been considered in all subsequent lectures.
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MENTAL QUALIFICATIONS
see Qualifications
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MENTAL RESERVATION
When the secret intention wilfully disagrees with the spoken promise, we call that sort of dishonesty, an equivocation, or mental reservation. To purposely mislead by one's deceitful statement is to equivocate; to withhold one's inner consent from what he outwardly says is a mental reservation, a disagreement between a person's purpose and pledge. Such a difference between the will and the word, an unspoken qualification partially or wholly altering a statement so as to lead the hearer astray is mental reservation.
For the causes and reasons behind such deceptive actions there is much scope for speculation. A doctor may temper an explanation of the facts according to his knowledge of the hearer's ability to listen helpfully. In the face of danger, fear suggests dodging. The historian James A. Froude tells in the Divorce of Catherine (page 326), that:
The Abbots and Priors had sworn to the Supremacy (of King over Pope), but had sworn reluctantly, with secret reservations to save their consciences.
Here is the report, as Froude gas it, of a case where allegiance to a foreign power was mentally approved but openly denied. The moral danger of the practice is evident and Blaise Pascal in his Provincial Letters has exposed its possibilities with wit and vigor in discussing the Jesuits within his Church. In the ninth letter, July 3, 1656, we find the following dialogue beginning with the explanation by a monk of the Jesuitical use of equivocations, words and sentences of intentional deceitfulness and then passing to the use of mental reservations:
"I would now say a little about the facilities we have invented for avoiding sin in worldly conversations and intrigues. One of the most embarrassing of these cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularly when one is anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In such cases, our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirable service, according to which, as Sanchez has it, ' it is permitted to use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in another sense from that in which we understand them ourselves."'
"I know that already father," said I.
" We have published it so often," continued he, " that at length, it seems, everybody knows of it. But do you know what is to be done when no equivocal words can be got? "
"No, father."
"I thought as much," said the Jesuit; "this is some thing new, sir: I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. 'it man may swear.' as Sanchez says in the same place. ' that he never did such a thing (though he actually did it). cleaning within himself that he did not do so on a certain dale or before he was born, or understanding any other such circumstance, While the words which he employs have no such sense as would discover his meaning. And this is very convenient in many cases, and quite innocent, when necessary or conducive to one's health, honor, or advantage.' "
" Indeed, father! is that not a lie, and perjury to boot?"
"No," said the father; "Sanchez and Filiutius prove that it is not: for, says the latter, 'it is the intention that determines the quality of the action.' And he suggests a still surer method for avoiding falsehood, which is this:
After saving aloud I swear that I hare not done that, to add, in a low voice today; or after saying aloud, I swear, to interpose in a whisper, that I say, and then continue aloud, that I have done that. This, thou perceive, is telling the truth."
"I grant it," said I, "it might possibly, however, he found to be telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a loud one, besides, I should be afraid that many people might not have sufficient presence of mind to avail themselves of these methods.'
' Our doctors," replied the Jesuit, "have taught, in the same passage, for the benefit of such as might not be expert in the use of these reservations, that no more is required of them, to avoid lying. than simply to say that they have not done what these have done, provided 'they have, in general, the intention of giving to their language the sense which an able man would give to it.' Be candid. now, and confess if you have not often felt yourself embarrassed, in consequence of not knowing this""
' Sometimes," said l.
"And will you not also acknowledge," continued he, "that it would often prove very convenient to be absolved in conscience from keeping certain engagements one may have made? "
"The most convenient thing in the world!"
I replied
" Listen, then, to the general rule laid down by Escobar:
'Promises are not binding, when the person in making them had no intention to bind himself. Now, it seldom happens that any have such an intention, unless when they confirm their promises by an oath or contract; so that when one simply says, I will do it, he means that he will do it if he does not change his mind: for he does not mish. by saving that. to deprive himself of his liberty He gives other rules in the same strain, which you may consult for yourself, and tells us, in conclusion, 'that all this is taken from Molina and our other authors, and is therefore settled beyond all doubt ""
"My dear father," I observed, "I had no idea that the direction of the intention possessed the power of rendering promises null and void."
' You must perceive," returned he, " what facility this affords for prosecuting the business of life." Needless to say that the attempt to involve the subject in a fog of difficulties by supposing extreme cases where equivocation and mental reservation may be believed necessary, as to save life, for example, is not to deal with the matter squarely. As the Scriptures say, "Let your yea be yea; and your nay nay" (James v, 12), remembering an example of such sincerity as that of Paul who wrote in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (I, 18), "But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay," not two mutually destroying statements meaning naught in truth, but a straightforward affirmation, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (see Equivocation).
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MENU
In the Indian mythology, Menu is the son of Brahma, and the founder of the Hindu religion. Thirteen other Menus are said to exist, seven of whom have already reigned on earth. But it is the first one whose instructions constitute the whole civil and religious polity of the Hindus. The code attributed to him by the Brahmans has been translated by Sir William Jones, with the title of The Institutes of Menu.
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MERCY
The point of a Knight Templar's sword is said to be characterized by the quality of "mercy unrestrained" which reminds us of the Shakespearian expression—"the quality of mercy is not strained." In the days of chivalry, mercy to the conquered foe was an indispensable quality of a knight. An act of cruelty in battle was considered infamous, for what ever was contrary to the laws of generous warfare was also contrary to the laws of chivalry (see Magnimous)
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MERCY, PRINCE OF
See Prince of Mercy
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MERCY-SEAT
The lid or cover of the Ark of the Covenant was called the Mercy-seat or the Propitiatory, because on the day of the atonement the High Priest poured on it the blood of the sacrifice for the sins of the people.
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MERIDIAN SUN
The sun in the South is represented in Freemasonry by the Junior Warden, for this reason: when the sun has arrived at the zenith, at which time he is in the South, the splendor of his beams entitles him to the appellation which he receives in the instructions as "the beauty and glory of the day." Hence, as the Pillar of Beauty which supports the Lodge is referred to the Junior Wardens that officer is said to represent "the sun in the South at High Twelve," at which hour the Craft are called by him to refreshment, and therefore is he also placed in the South that he may the better observe the time and mark the progress of the shadow over the dialplate as it crosses the meridian line.
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MERIT
The Old Charges say, "all preferment among Masons is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only; that so the Lords Man be well served, the Brethren not put to shame, nor the Royal Craft despised. Therefore no Master or Warden is chosen by seniority, but for his merit" (see Preferments
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MER-SKER
The space in which the sun moves, as an Egyptian personification, signifying, the habitation of Horus.
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MERZDORF, J. L. T.
A learned German Freemason, born in 1812. Initiated in Apollo Lodge, at Leipsic ad in 1834. He resuscitated the Lodge Zum goldenen Hirsch (Golden Stag), Oldenburg, and was for years Deputy Master. He published Die Symbole, die Gesetze. die Geschichte, der Zweck: der Masonei schliessen keine Religion von derselben aus, Leipsic, 1836; Die Denkmunzen der Freimaurer Brüderschaft, Oldenburg, 1852; Lessing's Ernst und Fallc, historisch kritisch beleuchtet, Hanover, 1855; Geschichte der Freimaurer Brüderschaft im Scotland, 1861, and several other works.
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MESHIA, MESHIANE
Corresponding to Adam and Eve, in accordance with Persian cosmogony.
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MESMER, FRIEDERICH ANTON
A German physician who was born in Suabia, in 1734, and, after a long life, a part of which was passed in notoriety and the closing years in obscurity, died in 1815. He was the founder of the doctrine of animal magnetism, called after him Mesmerism. He visited Paris, and became there in some degree intermixed with the Masonic activities of Cagliostro, who used the magnetic operations of Mesmer's new science in his initiations (see Mesmeric Freemasonry).
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MESMERIC FREEMASONRY
In the year 1782 Mesmer established in Paris a Society which he called the Order of Universal Harmony. It was based on the principles of animal magnetism or mesmerism, and had a form of initiation by which the founder claimed that its adepts were purified and rendered more fit to propagate the doctrines of his science. French writers have dignified this Order by the title of Mesmeric Freemasonry.
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MESOPOLYTE
The Fourth Degree of the German Union of XXII.
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MESOURANEO
A Greek word, signifying, I am in the center of heaven. Hutchinson fancifully derives from it the word Masonry, which he says is a corruption of the Greek and refers to the constellation Magaroth mentioned by Job; but he fails to give a satisfactory reason for his etymology. Nevertheless, Oliver favors it.
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METALS
In the divestiture of metals as a preliminary to initiation, we are symbolically taught that Freemasonry regards no man on account of his wealth. The Talmudical treatise Beracorh, with a like spirit of symbolism, directs in the Temple service that no man shall go into the Mountain of the House, that is, into the Holy Temple, "with money tied up in his purse."
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METAL TOOLS
We are told in Scripture that the Temple was "built of stone made ready before it was brought thither, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in the buildings (First Kings vi, 7). Freemasonry has adopted this as a symbol of the peace and harmony which should reign in a Lodge, itself a type of the world. But Clarke, in his commentary on the place, suggests that it was intended to teach us that the Temple was a type of the kingdom of God, and that the souls of men are to be prepared here for that place of blessedness. There is no repentance, tears, nor prayers: the stones must be all squared, and fitted here for their place in the New Jerusalem; and, being liteing stoners must be built up a holy temple for the habitation of God.
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METROPOLITAN CHAPTER OF FRANCE
There existed in France, toward the end of the last century, a Body calling itself the Grand Chapter General of France. It was formed out of the débris of the Council of Emperors of the East and latest, and the Council of Knights of the East, which had been founded by Pirlet. In l786, it united with the schismatic Grand Orient, anal then received the title of the Metropolitan Chapter of France. It possessed in its archives a large collection of manuscript cashiers of Degrees, most of them being mere Masonic curiosities.
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METUSAEL
The name given to the Hebrew Quarryman, who is represented in some legends as one of the assassins, Fanor and Amru being the other two.
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MEXICO
The first recorded Masonic Lodge in Mexico was probably Architecture Moral which met in Mexico City as early as 1806. The Scottish Rite was introduced about four years later and in l813 a Grand Lodge was established with Don Felipe Martinez Aragon as Grand Master.
About 1824 the York Rite was brought into the territory by the American Ambassador, Brother Joel R. Poinsett, who procured a Charter for a Lodge through the Grand Lodge of New York. Brother Mackey states that three Lodges were opened in the year 1825 and that they established a Grand Lodge of the York Rite. The two systems existing side by side were the cause of much bitterness and political strife and in 1830 some of the leading Brethren of both Rites planned to bring about more peaceful conditions by forming a third Rite, consisting of nine Degrees and composed of both York and Scottish Rite Freemasons. A Grand Orient was formed with a National Grand Lodge attached. From 1833 to 1863 Freemasonry, at any rate as far as the activities of the Grand Bodies were concerned, was dormant. In 1859 Brother Lafon de Ladebat had been sent by authority of Brother Albert Pike to organize Freemasonry in Mexico but instead of opening a Grand Lodge of Symbolic Freemasonry as expected he constituted a Supreme Council.
In 1858 the Supreme Councils were fused with the National Grand Lodge. In 1872 dissension again arose. Grand Lodges were probably organized at the time by Lodges under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Council. A Central Grand Lodge was formed at Vera Cruz but the Supreme Council did not give up its authority.
There were seven Grand Lodges in Mexico
when the Grand Lodge of Colon, regarding Mexico as unoccupied
territory, proceeded to form three Lodges which in January, 1883,
established at Vera Cruz the Mexican Grand Lodge.
On June 25, the same year, twelve Lodges met and established a
Grand Lodge of the Federal District of Mexico.
According to Brother Oliver Day Street's Report on Correspondence made in 1922 to the Grand Lodge of Alabama, in 1882 "all Masonry of the Craft, Symbolic or Blue degrees except possibly a few Lodges of the old Mexican National Rite had fallen under the control of Scottish Rite bodies of which there were at least three contending with each other for supremacy."
In February, 1890, was established the Gran Dieta Simbolica which was to be a central governing Body for the entire republic. It started well and had at one time seventeen of the State Grand Lodges under its control. In April, 1901, it was disbanded and with the Grand Lodges became independent. Brother Street remarks: "Our information is that at present there cares or recently were, four Grand Lodges in the Federal District, each claiming to be sovereign and independent, and each exercising jurisdiction not only in the district but in several states."
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MEZUZA
The third fundamental principle of Judaism, or the Sign upon the Door-post. The precept is founded upon the command, "And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates" (Deuteronomy vi, 4-9; xi, 13-21). The doorposts must be those of a dwelling; synagogues are excluded. The Karaite Jews affix Mezuzas to synagogues, and not to private houses. The Mezuza is constructed as follows: the two above-mentioned portions of Scripture are written on ruled vellum prepared according to Rabbinical rules, then rolled and fitted into a metallic tube. The word Shaddai, meaning the Almighty, is written on the outside of the roll, and can be read, when in the tube, through a got. The Mezuza is then nailed at each end on the right-hand door-post, while the following prayer is being said: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God! King of the Universe, who hath sanctified us with His laws, and commanded us to fix the Mezuza." Under the word Shaddai some Jews write the three angelic names Coozu, Bemuchsaz, Coozu. To these some pray for success in business. The Talmud esti mates the virtue of the Talith, the Phylacteries, and the Mezuza in the following terms: "Whosoever has the phylacteries bound to his head and arm, and the fringes thrown over his garments, and the Mezuza fixed on his door-post, is safe from sin; for these are excellent memorials, and the angels secure him from sin; as it is written, 'The angel of the Lord encamped round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them " (Psalm xxxiv, 7).
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MICHAEL
The Hebrew word, meaning Who is like unto God. The chief of the seven archangels. He is the leader of the celestial host, as Lucifer is of the infernal spirits, and the especial protector of Israel. He is prominently referred to in the Twenty eighth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or Iinight of the Sun.
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MICHIGAN
Zion Lodge was established by Warrant, dated April 27, 1764, from Provincial Grand Master George Harrison of New York. It was numbered 448 on the Register of England and No. 1 of Detroit. On September 3, 1806, this Lodge was reorganized and the original Warrant of 1764 was surrendered to the Grand Lodge of New York. The Installation took place on July 6, 1807. Having forfeited its Charter during the War with England, it was granted a new one as No. 62 on March 14, 1816, but by a rearrangement of numbers in 1819 it became Lodge No. 3. A Convention met on June 24, 1826, to organize a Grand Lodge. Representatives of Zion, No. 3; Detroit, No. 337; Minomanie, Nu. 374, and Monroe, No. 375, were present and Oakland, No. 343, joined later. On June 28 a Constitution was adopted and on July 31 Grand Officers were elected and installed. During the Anti-Masonic agitation the Craft in this district almost died out. In 1837, however, Michigan became a State and the increase of population caused a revival of Freemasonry. The Grand Lodge of Michigan was again constituted on September 17, 1844, and Grand Officers were duly elected.
The members of Zion Lodge formed a Chapter called Monroe Chapter, No. 1, at Detroit which was granted a Dispensation by the General Grand High Priest, DeWitt Clinton, on December 3, 1818. The Chapters in Michigan were authorize in January, 1848, by the General Grand Scribe to meet and organize a Grand Chapter for the State. Representatives of Monroe Chapter, No. 1; St. Joseph Valley, No. 2, and Jackson Chapter, No. 3, were present at a Convention held on March 9, 1848, and Grand Officers were elected and installed.
Monroe Council was formed by the members of Monroe Chapter, No. 1, at Detroit. On May 13, 1856, at the annual assembly of the Grand Council of Connecticut, it was reported that a Dispensation had been granted to Monroe Council, No. 23, at Detroit. A meeting of the Council was held on May 19, 1856, to receive the Dispensation and a Code of By-Laws was adopted. Representatives from Monroe, St. Clair and Pontiac Councils, all of which possessed Charters dated May 12, 1857, met on January 13, 1858, at Detroit and formed a Grand Council. Detroit, No. 1, at Detroit was the first Commandery to be organized in Michigan. Its Dispensation was issued November 1,1850, and its Charter, September 19, 1853. Six Commanderies sent representatives to Detroit on January 15, 1857, and, by Warrant issued February 12, 1857, instituted the Grand Commandery of Michigan. The Grand Master of the General Grand Encampment was present and installed the Grand Officers on January 11, 1858 The beginning of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in Michigan was at Detroit. On May 26, 1861, the Carson Council of Princes of Jerusalem was chartered. On May 22, 1862, the Detroit-Carson Lodge of Perfection, the Mount Olivet Chapter of Rose Croix, and the Michigan Consistory were established.
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MICROCOSM
See Man
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MIDDLE AGES
These are supposed by the best historians to extend from the time Theodoric liberated Rome, 493, to the end of the fifteenth century, the important events being the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the discovery of America in 1492, and the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. This period of ten centuries is one of great importance to the MaBoniC student, because it embraces within its scope events intimately connected with the history of the Order such as the diffusion throughout Europe of the Roman Colleges of Artificer, the establishment of the architectural school of Como, the rise of the Gilds, the organization of the Building Corporations of Germany, and the Company of Freemasons of England, as well as many customs and usages which have descended with more or less modification to the modern Institution.
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MIDDLE CHAMBER
There were three stories of side chambers built around the Temple on three sixths; what, therefore, is called in the authorized aversion a middle Clamber was really the middle story of those three. The Hebrew word is yatsang. They are thus described in First Kings vi, 5, 6, 03: And against the wall of the house he built chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the oracle: and he made chambers round about. The nethermost chamber was five cubits broad and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad: for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed rests round about, that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house. The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house: and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third.
These chambers, after the Temple was completed, served for the accommodation of the priests when upon duty; in them they deposited their vestments and the sacred vessels- But the knowledge of the purpose to which the middle chamber was appropriated while the Temple was in the course of construction, is only preserved in Masonic tradition. This tradition is, however, altogether mythical and symbolical in its character, and belongs to the symbolism of the Winding Stairs, which see.
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MIDDLE CHAMBER LECTURE
Preston's Illustrations of Freemasonry refers with an excellent choice of language to the beauties of nature and the more important truths of morality. The second section of this Monitor provides employment for leisure hours, traces science from its original source and by drawing attention to the sum of perfection we may, as Brother Preston tells us, contemplate with admiration the wonderful worlds of the Creator. This composition (found on pages al to 60 of the 1812 edition) has been restated in a most practical form by Brother Charles C. Hunt, Grand Secretary, Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His essay runs as follows:
This journey to the Middle Chamber, like many of the ceremonies of Freemasonry, is based upon one of the legends connected with the building of King Solomon's Temple. It is said that there were 80,000 Fellow Crafts who labored in the mountains and the quarries. Here it vas their duty to prepare materials to be used in the erection of the Temple. At this task they worked six days and then received their wages. On the evening of the sixth day those who had proved themselves worthy by a strict attention to their duties, were entrusted with certain mysterious words, signs, and grips, by means of which they were enabled to work their way to the Middle Chamber of the Temple to receive their wages. At the same time King Solomon, accompanied by his confidential officers, repaired to the Middle Chamber to meet them. His secretary he placed near his person, the Junior Warden at the outer door, and the Senior Warden at the inner door, with strict instructions to suffer none to enter who were not in possession of the words, signs and grips previously established, so that when they gained admission he knew they had been faithful workmen and ordered their names enrolled as such entitling them to wages.
He then admonished them of the reverence due the great and sacred name of Deity, and suffered them to depart for rest and refreshment until the time should come for them to resume their labors on the first day of the following week. They did not work upon the seventh day, because in sis days God created the heaven and the earth and rested upon the seventh. The seventh day, therefore, our ancient Brethren confederated as a day of rest from their labors, thereby enjoying frequent opportunities to contemplate the glorious works of creation and adore their great Creator. We, also, my Brother, follow our usual vocations six days of the week and rest upon the seventh. We have now symbolically been working for six days. have been found faithful and are in possession of the same mysterious words signs and grips us were our ancient Brethren. We are therefore about to endeavor to work our way to the place representing the Unriddle (Chamber of King Solomon's Temple where. if we succeed in gaining admission, I have no doubt we will alike be received and rewarded, as were they.
This. my Brother. is a symbol of our life on earth. As Fellow Crafts. we are laboring in the quarries of the world. preparing ourselves as living stones for that Spiritual Temple, that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. The signs. words, and grips with which we are entrusted symbolize the means by which we are known as faithful workmen. They are tokens of that noble character which can only be acquired by faithful service.
The reward of such service is a constant acquisition of knowledge and continual growth in character represented by the weekly payment of wages in the Middle Chamber. Before we can enter the Middle Chamber we must pass through an outer and an inner door. At the outer door the Junior Warden will demand of you the pass and token of the pass of a Fellow Craft which symbolize the characteristics by which we are judged by our fellow men. They are the signs which give us our reputation with our Brethren. At the inner door the Senior Warden will demand the grip and word of a Fellow Craft, the symbols of those deep seated characteristics called characters The pass and token can be assumed. They are outward manifestations only- but the grip and word, are the inner secret of the soul and cannot be imitated or assumed by those who do not actually have them.
The token represents the opinion of men, the word is the knowledge of God. In the legend of King Solomon's Temple, the unfaithful workman sometimes ascended to the inner door, but as he did not have the mystic signs and tokens entrusted only to the faithful craftsmen, he could not enter the place of wages So you, though you have entered our mystic circle and may mount to all the grades of honor we can bestow may not acquire those celestial signs and tokens by which alone you can pass the inner door of the Spiritual Temple where the wages of the soul are received by the worthy craftsmen. In this journey to the Middle Chamber we will impart to you a fund of valuable information and in your continued progress through the ceremonies of our Order we will instruct you in many Masonic secrets which will enable you to pass our outer door, the door of the material lodge; but the signs and tokens which will take you through the inner door of the spiritual lodge to the Middle Chamber of nourishment, refreshment and joy can only be acquired by daily putting into practice the principles which we here teach. If you fail to so acquire them, on you and you alone will rest the responsibility for your failure. You come here to learn the secrets of Masonry, which when properly applied, lead to the inner secrets of the soul. There are two kinds of Masonry, Operative and Speculative.
By Operative Masonry we allude to a proper application of the useful rules of architectures whence a structure derives figure strength and beauty. By it we learn to apply the materials and forces of Nature to the construction of material edifices and to maintain a due proportion and a just correspondence between all the parts of the structure.
By Speculative Masonry we allude to a proper application of the useful rules of the Temple Builder whence our souls will derive a spiritual strength and beauty. By it we learn to subdue our passions, act upon the square, keep a tongue of good report, maintain secrecy and practice charity. It is so far interwoven with religion as to lay us under obligations to pay that rational homage to the Deity, which at once constitutes our duty and our happiness.
We work as Speculative Masons only, but our ancient Brethren worked in Operative as well as in Speculative Masonry. The difference between the Operative and the Speculative Mason is not determined by the tools with which he works, but by the difference in the materials with which he builds. We use the same tools and implements as did our ancient Brethren, but to us the gauge, gavel, square, level and plumb are not merely the working tools of an Operative Mason's art, but visible, tangible emblems of great moral truths and duties. The Operative Mason's work, being constructed of perishable materials must sooner or later crumble into dust, but the Speculative Mason is a moral builder for eternity, fitting immortal nature for that spiritual building which shall endure when earth's proudest monumental piles shall have crumbled, and its glory and greatness shall have been forgotten.
When the vast sun shall veil his golden
light,
Deep into the gloom of everlasting night,
When wild destructive flames shall wrap the skies,
When ruin triumphs and when nature dies,
Man shall alone the wreck of worlds survive, Unhurt amidst the
war of elements.
As Speculative Masons, therefore, let us imitate our ancient Brethren and proceed on our way to the Middle Chamber. At the very beginning of our journey we must pass through an aisle between two pillars which respectively represent the porch of the Temple and the two brazen pillars which King Solomon placed at its entrance. The pillar on the left hand is called Boaz and denotes strength; the one on the right hand is called Jachin and denotes establishment. Together they allude to the promise of God to David that he would establish his kingdom in strength. King Solomon is said to have erected these pillars in commemoration of the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire which guided the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness. The right hand or south pillar represents the pillar of cloud and the left hand or north pillar that of fire. Thus they were memorials of God's repeated promises to His people, and bus the Children of Israel passed through the porch to the Temple, they were continually reminded of the abundant promises of their God and inspired with confidence in His continued protection and support. So to us as Masons, they represent the ever sustaining power of our God supporting and directing us in the great work we have to do. As they were placed at the entrance of the Temple so are they placed at the beginning of our journey to the Middle Chamber to remind us that we are passing from the world of the seen and temporal, the material world, to the realm of the unseen and eternal, the spiritual realities.
The Temple pillars are said to have been
east by the architect of the Temple, H. A. on the banks of the
Jordan, in the clay-ground between Succoth and Zarthan. In this
respect they are representatives of Space and Time, which were
east by the great Architect of the Universe in the clay ground
of the brain and placed in the porchway of human consciousness,
where they constitute the border between material and spiritual
sciences We
All are architects of fate
Working in these walls of time,
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
And the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
The pillars of the Temple are said to have been east hollow, the better to serve as safe repositories for the archives of Masonry against all conflagrations and inundations. Space and time are hollow. We are dwelling within their wails, and though floods may overwhelm and fire consume the material work of our hands yet will the record of a noble character be forever safe in the repository of God's infinite love and care. The Temple pillars were each I8 cubits in height and over adorned with chapiters of five cubits. The chapiters were adorned with lily-work. net-work and pomegranate, denoting Peace. Unity and Plenty. The lily from its extreme whiteness and purity deriotes Peace; the net-work from the intimate connection of its parts, Unity; and the pomegranate from the exuberance of its seeds, Plenty. To us the chapiters speak of the unity which should ever distinguish our fraternity, encouraging us to live in peace and harmony with each other and with all men.
The chapiters were further adorned with globes on their tops, representing the terrestrial and celestial spheres, and teach us to so regulate our lives that when we pass from earth, the terrestrial, it male be to that other and better world the celestial. Thus the globes are two artificial spherical bodies and denote the universality of Masonry.
Between the pillars we see a path, representing the path of life. This path is paved with checkered blocks of alternate white and Black to indicate the nature of this life, checkered with light and darkness. prosperity and adversity calm and storms good and evil. Taking this path me come to a flight of winding stairs which represent tile means by which we climb from the depths of our earthly nature to that higher life in the temple of our God. As you stand here, my Brother, you represent a man just starting out on the journey of life. with a great task before him, that of self-development. If you are faithful in this task you will receive the reward of the noble upright character, as designed by the great Architect of the Universe Upon your moral, spiritual and Masonic trestle-board. You will notice that this flight of winding stairs has three divisions of respectively three five and seven steps representing life under three aspects each higher noble and greater than the preceding.
The first division, consisting of three steps, alludes to the three symbolic Degrees of Masonry, L. A. F. C. and M. M. and also the three principal Stages of human life, infancy, manhood, and age, the period assigned to us for the completion of our spiritual Temple. As such it is a constant reminder that we should employs our time wisely and well. " so teach us to number our days that we man apply our hearts unto wisdom as the prayer of a distinguished Mason of the olden time. and it should be the daily prayer of each one of us. Let us take the three steps.
This brings us to the second division consisting of five steps and alludes to the five senses and to the five orders of architecture. The five senses may be defined as man's faculty of receiving impressions and are the means by which he receives his knowledge of the material world. They are hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting. Their proper use enables us to form just and accurate notions of the operations of nature, to provide sustenance for our bodies, to ward off danger to enjoy the blessings which God has given us, and contribute to the happiness and comfort of others. Their improper use, tends to impair our faculties and weakens our power to grow and accomplish. Masonry urges us to make proper use of these senses and thereby to attain to the fullness of true manhood. Of these senses the three most revered by Seasons are hearing, seeing and feeling, for by hearing we hear the word, by seeing we see the sign and by feeling we recognize the grip whereby one Mason may K A I T D A W A IT L. These three are most closely allied to spiritual truths, for by hearing we hear the voices of duty; by seeing we see the truth. and by feeling we recognize the grip of brotherly lover and affection whereby one Mason may know another in the darkness of adversity as well as in the light of prosperity. By order in architecture, is meant a system of all the members, proportions and ornaments of columns and pilasters, or, it is a regular arrangement of the projecting parts of a building, which, united with those of a column, form a beautiful, perfect and complete whole.
The five orders of architecture are Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. Each is distinguished from the others by the shape of its column and the variety and richness of its ornamentation. To us as Speculative Seasons these orders in connection with the five senses teach the important, lesson that we should so develop our faculties that each, according to the needs of his own character, may plan, support and adorn his spiritual Temple with the columns of Divine knowledge, power and love. The three orders most revered by Masons are the lonic, Doric and Corinthian, since they represent Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. The Doric order on amount of its robust solidity and massive grandeur.
combined with harmonious simplicity, represents the pillar of Strength. The Corinthian, the richest of the five orders. is deemed a masterpiece of art and represents the pillar of Beauty. The Ionic, requiring great judgment and skill in its construction. and combining the strength of the Doric with the beauty of the Corinthian. represents the pillar of Wisdom. Let us take the five steps. This brings us to the third division of the stairway consisting of sex en steps. It alludes to the seven liberal arts and sciences, (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry. Music and Astronomy. These sciences are representative of universal knowledge and the symbol of the foundations Logic of the superstructure, and Rhetoric the ornament of the temple of language. Arithmetic represents the foundation, (geometric the superstructure and Astronomy the sublime ornamentation of our intellectual temple. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic furnish the soul with the key to all language, while Arithmetic Geometry and Astronomy open to him the secret laws of nature. Music is the connecting link between them, the medium giving the natural world communication with the spiritual. Let us take the seven steps.
And now, my Brother, having reached the summit of our symbolic stairway, let us pause a moment to consider the lesson of life which Masonry would teach you. Thee three steps represent the period of our life on earth, divided into three stages of infancy, manhood and age. The five steps our human faculties applied to the construction of material edifices symbolized by the five orders of architecture, while the seven steps symbolize the complete circle of human learning and the full development of man's soul. the winding stairway as a whole is a symbol of progress and instruction, teaching you that as a Mason you must not remain in the ignorance of irrational childhood, if you would be worthy of your vocation, but that your destiny as an immortal being requires you to ascend step by step, until you reach the summit, where the completed treasures of truth await you. The stairs are winding to represent the circuitous way by which we must go to investigate the many sides of truth. Masonry points the way, but you must travel the road yourself. Our symbolic stairway was easy for you to ascend, but the heights which you must climb in actual life will be hard to reach and the task is great; yet remember the reward will be magnificent; your wages will well repay the effort.
See also Dew Drop Lecture and Liberal Arts and Sciences.
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MILES
This word has two references of interest
to us.
1. In pure Latin, miles means a soldier; but in Medieval Latin
the word was used to designate the military knights whose institution
began at that period. Thus a Knight Templar was called Miles Templarius,
and a Knight Banneret, Miles Bannerettus. The pure Latin word
eques, which Signifies a knight in Rome, was never used in that
sense in the Middle ages (see Knighthood).
2. The Seventh Degree of the Rite of African Architects.
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MILITARY LODGES
Lodges established in an army. They are of an early date, having long existed in the British army. The earliest Warrant creating a Traveling or Movable Lodge was issued in 1732 by the Grand Lodge of Ireland to the then First Foot, now the Royal Scots. The Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1743 established a Military Lodge in the Fifty-fifty Foot and the first English Military Lodge was set up or erected in 1750 and attached to the Thirty first Foot. The Grand Lodge of the Ancient was particularly active in such work and at the close of 1789 this Body had granted forty-nine army Warrants. The Grand Lodge of Ireland has always had more such Lodges than the English or Scotch. In 1813 there were one hundred and twenty-three under the Irish Jurisdiction. At that time the moderns had fifteen, the Ancient sixty-two and Scotland eighteen. These numbers have been greatly reduced and Brother Hawkins in 1908 pointed out there were then only two on the Register of the United Grand Lodge of England, seven under the Grand Lodge of Ireland and none under Scotland.
In the United States of America, the first Lodge of this kind of which we have any record was one the Warrant for which was granted by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in 1738, to Abraham Savage, to be used in the expedition against Canada. A similar one was granted by the same authority, in 1756, to Richard Gridley, for the expedition against Crown Point. In both of these instances the Warrants were of a general character, and might rather be considered as Deputations, as they authorized Savage and Gridley to congregate Freemasons into one or more Lodges. In i779, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania granted a Warrant to Colonel Proctor, of the artillery, to open a Military Lodge, which in the Warrant is called a Movable Lodge. In the Civil War in the United States between 1861 and 1865, many Military Lodges were established on both sides; but it is questionable whether they had a good effect. They met, certainly with much opposition in many Jurisdictions. In the Spanish War and in the World War, Lodges were empowered to work the armies.
In England, the system of Military Lodges is regulated by special provisions of the Grand Lodge Constitution. They are strictly limited to the purposes for which the Warrants were granted, and no new Lodge can be established in a regiment without the concurrence of the commanding officer.. If the military Body to which a Lodge is attached be disbanded or reduced, the Warrant must be given up, or exchanged for a Warrant for a Civil Lodge. They cannot make Freemasons of any civilian nor any military person below the rank of Corporal, except as Serving Brethren, or by Dispensation; and they are strictly enjoined not to interfere with the Masonic Jurisdiction of any country in which they may be stationed.
Military Lodges also exist on the Continent of Europe. We find one at Berlin, in Prussia, as far back as 1775, under the name of the Military Lodge of the Blazing Star, of which Wadzeck, the Masonic writer, was the orator.
J. H. Manners Howe contributed to the Graphic (December 11, 1909, see also Transactions, Leeds Installed Masters Association, volume vi, page ''29) the following paper on Fighting Freemasons, the Influence of the Brotherhood in War:
The annals of Military Freemasonry may be described as a veritable romance of "goodwill upon earth." This is not to deny to the civil records of the Craft the possession of an abundant fund of varied interest on the same excellent lines both in their archaeological and historical aspects. But, after all, the warrior members of the Brotherhood are those who have always carried its influence into what are still the most strenuous paths of romance-those of military adventure.
The earliest recorded names of English Freemasons, which date from the first half of the seventeenth century, are those of two soldiers. One of these was Captain Elias Ashmole, of Warrington, in Lancashire, who belonged to Lord Ashley's Regiment in the King's Service; the other being Colonel Henry Mainwaring, a soldier of the Parliament, whose name frequently appears in the annals of the Civil War. In Scotland, where Masonic records go back to an older time, there are many earlier names of warrior members among chief and clansman alike. Moreover, on the rolls of the Lodge of Edinburgh, there is an interesting record curiously testifying to the diligence with which Freemasons have pursued their craft even amidst the stress of warlike operations.
In 1641, the Scottish Army, having crossed the Tweed, defeated the Royalist forces at Newburn and seized Newcastle. The minutes of the Edinburgh Lodge record that while in occupation of this town the admission took place of " Mr. the Right Honorable Mr. Robert Moray, General Quartermaster to the Armie off Scotland." This is additionally interesting from its being the first initiation in Freemasonry on English soil. It is equally pleasing to note, also, that General Alexander Hamilton, who was present on the above occasion, and afterwards commanded Cromwell's Artillery at Marston Moor, is mentioned in the records of the same Lodge as assisting at the initiation of an officer of the Royalist forces in 1647. Similarly in England, during the height of the struggle between King and Parliament, the Masonic craft continued its mission of good-fellowship, and in spite of the fierce heat of partisan feeling, many additions to the brotherhood were made among the members of each of the contending forces.
Coming, however, to the nearer times of George II, we find a more systematic extension of Military Masonry taking place. The Grand Lodges of England, Scotland and Ireland began to issue warrants establishing traveling Lodges in British regiments, and these ultimately became the means of a remarkable extension of the Brotherhood in our oversea possessions wherever our soldiers were stationed. The first of these Regimental Lodges was established by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in a Scottish Regiment, appropriately enough the 1st Foot, or the Royal Regiment, now known as the Royal Scots. The date of this extent is 1732, and by the close of 1734 Lodges were founded in four other regiments. These, which at the time bore the names of their colonels, were subsequently known as the 33rd, the 27th, the 21st and 28th.
The record of their names is interesting inasmuch as they are those of the first British corps in which Masonic Lodges were created and maintained for many years. The example once set was soon followed, and ere long these traveling Lodges began to increase and multiply throughout the British Army. They counted among their members numbers of the most distinguished soldiers of the time, and it is worth noting, that from them, as the pioneers of Freemasonry in every- part of the world garrisoned by British soldiers, has largely sprung and developed the great and important cult of Freemasonry in the United States.
The history of these Regimental Lodges seems to have been a very conquered one, most of them expiring, with occasional renewals, after more or less prolonged existence. This, however regrettable, was the inevitable outcome of the military life, the constant migrations from station to station. war, and the death or retirement of members. From a grand total of some four hundred they had dwindled nine years ago to about eight, and now the general practice of soldier Freemasons is to become members of stationary Lodges.
At the battle of Mars-la-Tour, between the French and Germans in 1870, thirteen French soldiers of the 64th Regiment, though opposed to a whole German battalion, refused to surrender, and, getting behind a fallen tree, fought on till all were shot down except three. The position was then rushed. and the survivors were about to be bayoneted when the French corporal gave the Masonic "sign of distress." The German leader, also a Freemason, at one cheeked his men, carving, "Don't harm him, he is my brother," and parried the blow aimed at hum The Frenchmen were made prisoners. but their lives were spared.
During the same war some Prussians, after looting a French chateau and destroying everything they could not carry away, seized a box containing a large sum of money. They were about to maltreat the owner, who endeavored to prevent them, when, as a last thought, he made the same sign. The Prussian officer was a Freemason, and instantly recognized the appeal. He expressed regret for what had been done, and placed a guard over the chateau to prevent further outrages. It is in accordance with the highest and best in human nature, therefore. that so many of our leading soldiers should all have been Freemasons. Referring to recent times we may mention Lord Chelmsford, of Ulundi fame, Sir Charles Warren, Lord Wolseley, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, each of the last three being a Past Grand Warden of England.
The lively interest taken by the Craft from of old in the Brethren whose welfare may be involved in the fortunes of war is clearly shown in a few paragraphs mentioned by the Book of Constitutions, 1767, page 282, referring to the Seven Years War, 1756 to 1763. These particulars are as follows:
Grand Lodge, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, was held on the 24th of Jan. 1760. A Motion was made and seconded, that the Sum of Fifty Pounds be sent to Germany, to be distributed amongst the Soldiers that are Masons in Prince Ferdinand's Army, whether English, Hanoverian, or Hessian. The Depute Grand Master acquainted the Brethren that Major-General Kingsley now in Prince Ferdinard's Army, was a Mason, and that if it was agreeable he would write to him, and desire he would distribute the aforesaid Sum amongst the Masons; which passed unanimously.
Ordered, that the Treasurer do par the Sum of Fifty Pounds into the Hand of the Deputy Grand Master, to remit to General Kingsley for the aforesaid Purpose.
Grand Lodge, at the Deril Tavern, Temple
Bar, 14th of May 1760 in due Fornw....
The Deputy Grand Master produced a Letter from Major General Kingsley,
with a List of the Masons in Prince Ferdinand's Armn also a Receipt
for the Bill of Exchange, for the Fifty Pounds ordered to be sent
to Germany at the last Quarterly Communication.
*
MILITARY LODGES
R. F. Gould's Military Lodges, published in 1899, was the first full size book on the subject of Lodges warranted expressly for the uses of soldiers and for men in the navy. It was not an interesting book to read, for on many pages it was little more than a directory of names and dates, but it opened up afield for Masonic students. (See p. 667). Unfortunately not many have passed through that opening, except to write a few articles and essays, and the "great history" of Freemasonry among soldiers is yet to be written; and until it is written a long chapter will remain missing out of the general history of the Craft, because Military Lodges have had a larger place in the development and diffusion of the Fraternity than could have been believed in Gould's day; in America they were one of the principal means by which Lodges were introduced into the Colonies, and they left a long and deeply-felt influence on Lodge practice.
It is when it is read in this context of facts that Freemasonry in the Royal Scots by T. R. Henderson (Gale & Polden; London; 1934) becomes so valuable and so illuminating, and in spite of its author's having narrowed himself to one regiment, and in a book of only 100 pages. It is one of the finest Masonic books ever written; manly, sane, straightforward, friendly, has a living and moving style, and written with courage —courage, because he had to say hard things here and there against the officer caste to which he himself belonged, and age one or two Grand Lodges.
Bro. Henderson gives a number of interesting "firsts" in his opening chapter. The Lodge of Edinburgh was admitting both Operatives and Speculatives as early as 1599, and it is impossible to guess how much earlier (there are some reasons to believe that in Scotland Lodges had always admitted a small number of non Operatives); doubtless among the Sixteenth Century members at Edinburgh there were military men, because at least one branch of the army always had been in contact with Masonry, the military engineers, and to a iesser extent men specializing in artillery. But the first recorded instance is that of David Ramsey, made a Mason in August, 1637; the second was Alexander Hamilton, who was admitted "Fellow and Master of the Craft," May 20, 1640. It may be that either or both of these Brothers belonged to the Royal Scots, then called The Royal Regiment.
From 1713 to 1748 "the civil government feared and disliked the Army.... The soldier generally was enlisted for life, and was often impressed against his will. More often than not he had to serve along with thieves, pirates and other criminals brought in by press gangs. . ." Colonial service usually "ended in the majority of cases in a miserable death from disease." In contrast Freemasonry "offered the soldier a sphere of action where he could regain his self-respect .... It is not surprising that ... the Craft spread rapidly among the military forces of the Crown."
The first military (or ambulatory) Warrant ever issued was No. 11, granted in 1732 by the Grand Lodge of Ireland, to the regiment which is now the Royal Scots.
By 1734 four others were at work. There were eight before Scotland issued its first military Warrant 29 or more before any were issued by either of the two Grand Lodges in England. By 1813, and not counting "remote pentacles under Provincial Grand Lodges in foreign parts" (as in the West Indies) there are known to have been 190 under Grand Lodge of Ireland; 116 under Ancient Grand Lodge of England; 25 under Modern Grand Lodge of England; 21 under Grand Lodge of Scotland; a total of 352. This was the total number of Warrants from 1732 to 1813; mortality is high among military Lodges, but 219 were still working after 1813. Since 1813, the year of the Union of the Ancient and Modern Grand Lodges, England has issued 25 Warrants; Ireland, 40; Scotland, 2; a grand total of 419 British military Lodges. Of this total 224 were in Infantry; 68 in Militia; 49 in Cavalry; 28 in Artillery; 7 in Royal Marines; 3 in the Royal Engineers; and one in the Foot-Guards.
The majority of Military Lodges on both sides in the Revolutionary War were chartered by Ireland, England, and Scotland. How many may have been chartered by American Provincial Grand Lodges is not known. Masonry in the Formation of Our Government: 1761-1799, by Bro. Philip A. Roth; Milwaukee, Wis.; 1927, lists ten: St. John's Regimental Lodge, July 24, 1775; American Union, February 15, 1776, Washington No. 10, October 6, 1779; these were constituted by Massachusetts. Pennsylvania (Philadelphia was then the National Capital) chartered: Lodge No. 19, May 18, 1779; Lodge No. 20, in 1779; Lodge No. 27, April 4, 1780; No. 28, in 1780; No. 29, on July 27, 1780; No. 31, March 26, 1781; No. 36, September 2, 1782. No. 20 was for the North Carolina line; No. 27 for Maryland; Nos. 31 and 36 for New Jersey.
*
MINOAN CIVILIZATION
The most epoch making of archeologic finds since the discovery of the site of Troy was the wholly unexpected uncovering of the ruins of a great and very advanced civilization which had its center in the Island of Crete, and which was at its height at about 1400 B.C. It was superior to the Egyptian civilization contemporaneous with it, and it was in a number of its achievements the equal of the Greek civilization which followed it; it is even believed that Homer, (or if there never was a man by that name, then the Homeridae) was a descendant of the Minoans, and that the Homeric gods and goddesses were mythic recollections of old kings and heroes of Crete. This means that a wide-spread culture including mathematics, art, music, architecture, skilled crafts, medicine, merchants, and argosies of ships had its center only a short (geographic) distance from Palestine a half millennium before David established the Jews as a nation with a capital, and Solomon built his Temple.
The Minoan discoveries have not contained any data of direct interest to Freemasons, but the discovery as a whole has a very large indirect importance. A number of Masonic writers have endeavored to persuade their readers that Freemasonry originated among the Hermetists of the Middle Ages; the Hermetists, as the name implies, originated in turn in Egypt; Egypt thus became the ultimate cradle of Freemasonry—one writer (Palmer) professed to see in the Book of the Dead the first faint outlines of the Masonic Ritual. The strongest argument they had, the only one to which non-Masonic historians could give their assent at the time, was that the fraternities and arts of builders must have originated in Egypt because in it alone, in ancient times, were those arts known. Now that the Minoan civilization has been discovered, and a detailed knowledge of it is being increased almost day by day, that can no longer be said. Any argument sound for the Egyptian is equally sound for the Minoan; and if any argument were required the scales would tilt toward the Minoan because it, unlike Egypt, was in the line of those civilizations which led to Europe. The most eminent authority on the Minoans was the man who made the first and the largest of the discoveries about them, the late Sir Arthur Evans. Those discoveries with a factual description of them in detail as written by him are found in the volumes of The Palace of Minos in Knossos; Macmillan; New York; 1921.
*
MITCHELL, JOHN
In what Charles Sumner Lobingier described as "the first direct step toward the formation of the Mother Supreme Council" of the Scottish Rite, John Mitchell received a patent from Barend Moses Spitzer vw hich raised him to 'sthe degree of K. H. and further to the highest degree in Masonry," and granted him authority to establish a Lodge of Perfection and the several Councils and Chapters where there are no such Lodges or Councils.' This was dated April 2, 1795, seven years before the new (to be) Supreme Council's Manifesto.
Little is known about Mitchell's early life except that he was born in Ireland about 1741, came to Pennsylvania, and must have early shown himself possessed of great native ability as well as patriotism because in 1776 he was appointed Muster-Master of the Pennsylvania Navy; the following year was appointed its Acting Commissary (one of the most thankless and difficult positions in the Colonial forces); and then was appointed Deputy Quartermaster-General of the Continental Army, and continued to be such until 1780. In 1791 he moved to Charleston, S. C.,where, seven years later, he became active in the Society of the Cincinnati, and continued active in it until 1816. He became Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 8, in Charleston; was Junior Grand Warden of the (Ancient) Grand Lodge of South Carolina; and in 1799 and in M 1800 was its Deputy Grand Master. On June 24, 175)9, he, with two others, issued a circular to the Lodges urging them to support the proposal for a General (or National) Grand Lodge.
NOTE:
Little or nothing is known about Spitzer, except that he possessed
authority from a French Council. His name is Jewish but very little
reliance ean be placed on names of that period especially in the
West Indies, because many Gentiles had Jewish names—descendants
of some Gentile of Franee or Spain adopted into a Jewish family—and
many Jews had Gentile names.
French, Italian, and German Fascist .anti-Masons between the two
World Wars published everywhere and many times statements that
the Scottish Rite was made" by Jews. It would make no difference
if it had been, but as a matter of record the Rite was remade"
by Frenchmen and only a few Jews were active in it during the
formative period of the Mother Supreme Couneil. Frederick Dalcho
said that he believed Spitzer to have been a Prussian but wasn't
sure Mitehell himself was one of the outstanding men of the Colonies;
and the more that is learned about them the more of the founders
of the American Rites are found to have been men of his calibre.
It once was the fashion to believe that the Craft had begun obscurely,
in out-ofthe-way corners, in tents or log cabins, and by "uncouth
pioneers" • it is knownthatonthecontraryitsfounderawere
the founders of Colonies, and of high office in their administrations
or in trade or in the armies, and that Lodges were far more conspicuous
in their activities then than now).
*
MITCHELL'S HISTORY
The short biographical sketch of Bro. J. W. S. Mitchell on page 671 was inadvertently so worded as to convey a misleading impression of Bro. Mitchell both as a man and as a scholar, a fact which is regretted. In 1858 he published A History of Freemasonry and Masonic Digest, which had a content so diversified that the descriptive title to the two volumes occupies the whole of the titlepage. By 1869 it had gone to its seventh edition, and second only to Preston and to Oliver was the most widely-read Masonic book in America. Vol. I of that edition contains 720 pages; Vol. II contains 719 pages. The two together covered the histories of Operative Masonry, of Speculative Masonry, the High Grades, the Egyptian Mysteries, and they contained many pages about Solomon, for Mitchell followed Oliver in believing that Solomon had been the first Grand Master.
Bro. Mitchell began the composition of his history only ten years after Mackey (in 1845) had published his Lexicon; the Lexicon was a slender volume of very brief articles, most of them only a short paragraph in length, and in the book certain of Mackey's theories are scarcely less quaint than were some of Mitchell's. and yet Mackey was a highly-educated and widely read man. The two men both suffered from the almost complete lack of any available literature; there were no Masonic libraries; it was almost a case of reading Oliver or nothing. If this fact be taken into consideration, then Bro. Mitchell was entitled to great credit, and was, relative to the handicaps under which he worked, both a learned and an intelligent man, and ought still to possess the same gratitude from Masons that was accorded to him by his contemporaries who bought up seven editions of a large and expensive work.
Also, the work has positive values for Masonic students now: it shows what was known and thought and practiced in Freemasonry in the United States a decade before the Civil War, and explains much that otherwise remains obscure; and though Bro. Mitchell's theories of the history of the Craft are obsolete, his two volumes were not confined to theories; on almost every page are facts about the Craft in his own and in the preceding period which do not cease to be facts when divorced from the theories. These facts are of great worth, just as are the facts in Oliver's books. And again, the chapters on jurisprudence as it was thought and practiced in the 1850's is invaluable for comparison with jurisprudence now.
*
MITHRAISM
When the article on Mithras, page 671, was first composed no sources of information w ere available except passages here and there in Greek and Roman writings and in the polemical writings of early Church Fathers; and these last hated Mithraism so bitterly that they cannot be trusted. Since that time the full, detailed history of Mithraism has been put together, piece by piece, by archeologists, who have discovered tens of thousands of inscriptions and manuscripts. On the whole, the collected writings of Franz Cumont, though among the first in the scientific period, still are the best introduction to the subject In the most skeletonal outline, Mithraism was: an Ancient Mystery Cult; the germ of it was in the old Iranian and Babylonian sun cults; it became a separate cult in Phrygia; planted in Greece it was cleansed of its old ugly imagery, often very brutal and even savage, by artists and sculptors; after being introduced into Italy in the First Century, it soon became popular, especially in the army, and some Emperors belonged to it; soldiers carried it as far west as Ireland, as far north as the Baltic, as far east as the Danube, and as far south as Egypt. For some two centuries it was Christianity's most powerful rival. Once it was overthrown, Churchmen destroyed every trace of it they could find, and in consequence a once great religion was forgotten for nearly a thousand years.
A local building and center was called a mithreum; it had a priesthood, sacred writings, baptism, doctrines of God, Satan, heaven, hell, judgment day, end of world, missionaries, admitted candidates by initiation, divided its membership into grades or degrees, etc. Much of Mithraism became embodied in Manicheism, the cult in which Augustine had been a member before his conversion; Manicheism in turn became reembodied in Patraism, etc., and thence very distinct traces of it are found in the Waldensians, the Albigensians, the Huguenots, the Anabaptists, and on into Puritanism. The root idea which persisted through its transformations w as the doctrine of dualism; that evil is as real as the good, and that man's life is a struggle between the two. (See Chapter in Gould's History of Freemasonry; and [more modern] in A History of Freemasonry, by Haywood and Craig.)
*
MONTESQUIEU, A MASON
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Breda et de Montesquieu, was born near Bordeaux, France, in 1689; died 1755. He published his Lettres persanes in 1721; in 1748 he published his L'Esprit des Lois, "greatest book of French Eighteenth Century," translated into English as Spirit of Laws. It was one of the very few of the supreme masterpieces in the world to win fame almost as soon as it was printed—it was in fact famous before its publication because Montesquieu already was known as the first political thinker in Europe and Britain before his book went to the printer.
It was a fashion among the older historians of the United States to say that the Fathers and Founders of the nation had found their first ideas of democracy and a republican state in French literature, but this is now known not to have been true. Washington was in the war against the French when a young man, and did not alter a deeply-rooted dislike of them until the second or third year of the Revolutionary War. John Adams was a student of Greek and Latin political writings. Franklin formed his own ideas years before he went to France. Alexander Hamilton was opposed to "French theories." Jefferson knew and loved French literature, but as he stated over and over he had found his first inspirations for his own conception of democracy in an early, exhaustive study of the Angles and Saxons (he taught Anglo-Saxon). The one outstanding exception was Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws; it was studied like a Bible by the American Revolutionary thinkers.
In 1735 the Duke of Richmond and Dr. Desaguliers constituted a new Lodge in Paris in the Rue de Bussy, which met in the home of the Duchess of Portsmouth and was mainly composed of English peers. Ambassador Waldegrave was a founder, and his son Lord Chewton was initiated at the time. In an item published in the St. James Evening Post, London, September 20, 1735, Montesquieu is mentioned as having been one of the founders.
The Lodge's first French Candidate, Count Saint-Florentin, Secretary of State for France, was sponsored by him. In his article on Freemasonry in the French Encyclopedia Lalande (Master of the Lodge of the Nine Muses), the as tronomer and mathematician, sketched this period of French Masonry and gave Montesquieu credit for being one of the founders of the French Craft. Montesquieu (like Voltaire) was at the time working to introduce the "English philosophy" of Newton and Locke ("philosophy" was used in the sense of science) into France, and it is not unlikely that he was able to discuss it with friends in the Lodges without danger of antagonizing French political and religious prey judice; moreover in London as well as in Paris Masons of that decade were keenly interested in Newton, Locke, Halley, etc., and were among the founders of the Royal Society. The Lodges were also the first audience to welcome The Spirit of Laws. When Schwartz and Novikov established their famous Lodge in Moscow, which was a Russian "Nine Muses," they translated The Spirit of Lasts into Russian. The present writer has found no mention of Masonry in Montesquieu's books (he had no occasion to mention it) but the Lettres persanes, or The Persian Letters, is, like Locke's work on Toleration (Locke probably was a Mason), in thought and spirit a Masonic classic.
It is certain that Montesquieu had been a Mason before he helped to found the Lodge in Rue de Bussy in 1735. He had struck up a life-long friendship with Lord Chesterfield while in Italy, and was by Chesterfield introduced in London; since Chesterfield was an indefatigable missionary for Freemasonry wherever he went it is reasonable to believe that it was he who interested Montesquieu in the Craft during the latter's first stay in London. The St. James Evening Post for September 7, 1734 (almost exactly one year before the founding of the Lodge in Paris) mentions him as having been an attendant in a Lodge held in the home of Charles Lennox, the Duke of Richmond, who had been Grand Master in 1724. The Duke had been a member of No. 4, of the four old Lodges which had formed the first Grand Lodge of the world in London in 1717. The records show that he was attending Grand Lodge as late as 1738. Desaguliers, James Anderson, Lord Paisley, the Count Le Lippe, Lord Waldegrave also were members; and it is probable that Montesquieu was made a Mason in this Lodge.
The Minutes of Horn Lodge show that about 1738 Montesquieu was a visitor. The old Lodge No. 4 had met at the Rummer and Grapes in 1717, then moved to the Horn Tavern in New Palace Yard, Westminster. (The Black Death had begun in that spot.) The Duke of Richmond was Master in 1737-8, with George Payne as Deputy Master. In 1772 it met at the King's Arms in the same neighborhood. After the Union of the Modern and Ancient Grand Lodges in 1813 it continued as Somerset Lodge, then in 1828 it absorbed the Royal Inverness Lodge. (For history see No. 4, by A. W. Oxford; Quaritch; London; 1928). In the Horn Lodge the Duke of Richmond initiated Lord Chesterfield, the Duke of Tuscany, the Emperor Francis I, etc. The Duke later became sponsor of Lodges in Tuscany, the first in Italy, and it was against these that Clement XII addressed his denunciations in 1738 in the first of the Papal Bulls against Masonry. Richmond had been one of the generals who had put down the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. In one way or another Lodge No. 4 was at the center of more history, Masonic and civil, than any other Lodge in the world.
*
MORALS & DOGMA
During a number of private conversations, the late Mrs. Lillian Pike Roome, of Boston, a daughter of Albert Pike (her home was a Pike Museum), described her father as she had seen him day by day until her marriage, as above all a man who had a passion for reading. An attendant of the Public Library of Washington reported that "the General came in almost every morning"; and he went on to say that he "read old religions and old philosophers." This is borne out by Pike's own letters to his friends, especially to Parvin and to Mackey, of which there are very many, and which students of Pike hope to see collected and published.
This preoccupation and passion with "old religions and old philosophies" is manifest in Morals and Dogma the book given to each Candidate by the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, S.J., and called, though Pike would have resented the description, "the Bible of the Scottish Rite." This famous book is not so much a commentary on the Scottish Rite Degrees—has no such relevancy or connection with them that Preston's Illustrations has with the Craft Degrees—as it is a series of soliloquies, or meditations, or expositions of the high themes of metaphysics, and theology, and cosmology; and their author keeps his eyes fixed not on modern works of Freemasonry but on the epics and bibles of religion, and more especially those of the Iranian and Indian sages, on the Zend-Avesta, the Vedas, the Tripitaka, etc.; and the image of the book as it must have been in his own mind could be best illustrated by a picture of the Seven Sages of Greece in a circle, discussing God, Cosmos, and Man. It is therefore almost a book for students of metaphysics and theology rather than for Masons. To such students the central idea in Pike's thought is clear: Pike refused to admit that God is Divinity only, that is, a God for theology and churches: he insisted that God is Deity, that is, the Ground and Source of matter, life, the heavens, space, time, and he therefore believes that God must be thought out by the mind as well as worshiped by the heart.
In his last years Pike was drawn once again back to Ancient Craft Masonry, the original source and foundation of the Freemasonry of every Rite, and wrote in an unpublished treatise a newer, and more humble, commentary on its deceptively simple ceremonies and symbols, but did not live long enough to write a Morals and Dogma for the Three Degrees. Toward the end he tried to make his friends realize that his Morals and Dogma itself had never been finished; was indeed as he said, not a book but a mountainous mass of materials waiting to be milled and smelted down into a book. This explains why there are whole pages in it taken word for word from other writers, and other pages from other writers re-written in his own words.
Moreover, as he said, he had not been able to bring his studies of the Zend-Avesta, Vedas, etc., down to date, and to make use of the works of modern scholars; this in turn is why Bro. A. V. W. Jackson, the world famous authority on Zoroaster and the Zend-Avesta, of Columbia University, found in his critical analysis of the pages in Morals and Dogma that Pike had used authorities now discarded, and lacked the mass of knowledge acquired by archeology and Oriental language researches, and that Pike's picture of Zoroastrianism is not now acceptable to authorities. This win not disturb Masons who read Morals and Dogma; they have never read it for sake of what of philosophy and of Zoroastrianism and metaphysics there is in it; they have read it for the sake of what they find of Pike in it; he is the object of their studies. Pike's vision of Freemasonry was a sound one, even though his Orientalism was that of an amateur; he saw that there is a Masonry of the MIND, and that if Masonry were not sound and true in its philosophy it could not be sound and true anywhere else.
*
MORAY, SIR ROBERT
The paragraph on page 680 is of especial interest because Moray was made a Mason in 1641, which was five years before the Initiation of Ashmole at Warrington. Bro. William J. Hughan very properly called attention to the fact that Moray was not the first known non-Operative on English soil because, as Bro. Edward Conder had shown in his Hole Craft, non-Operatives belonged to the "accepcion," a division of the Masons Company of London, "as early as 1620." But the "accepcion" was not a Lodge; its records were not regular Lodge Minutes; and the fact therefore does not derogate from the importance of the record which proves that Moray had been regularly made a Mason, on English soil, and the event recorded in the still-existing Minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh.
The Minutes record that R. Moray, described as Quartermaster to the Army of Scotland, then on English soil, had been made a Mason at Newcastle, May 20, 1641, and the Minute thus made was for the purpose of authenticating and registering his membership in the Lodge. The Initiation also is notable for the reason that Robert Moray (afterwards Sir Robert) was believed to have been one "of the great and good men of his day," a founder and first president of the Royal Society, and had been buried in Westminster Abbey. For both of these reasons much has been written about him in Masonic books and periodicals.
But it happens that a biography of Sir Robert which was published in 1922 raises a disturbing question. In The Life of Sir Robert Moray, by Alexander Robertson (Longmans, Green & Co.), page 10, the author writes that, "On the 5th of November, 1641, indeed, there is mention in the Acts of Parliament of Scotland of a Robert Murray who was General Quartermaster, and this may have been the Moray with whom we are concerned" (italics ours).
This raises the question as to whether the Robert Moray who was recorded in the book of the Lodge at Edinburgh was the Sir Robert of the Royal Society. Bro. A. Murray Lyon himself, in his history of the Lodge, raises another question when he says that he "died June 1673, and was buried in the Cannongate Churchyard"; but in a book about Westminster Abbey published in 1753 it is stated that "Sir Robert Murray" was buried there, near D'Avenant, and makes it clear that this Sir Robert was the president of the Royal Society. The author of that book says, "he was a great admirer of the Rosy Crucians" and this has been taken to mean Freemasonry, but the context rather suggests it was chemistry that was meant, for it goes on to say that how as "well versed in Chemistry . . ." and chemistry in that period often was called Rosicrucianism by non-scientific men. These data mean that until proof is found that the Robert Moray of the Edinburgh Lodge was the Sir Robert Moray buried in Westminster Abbey that which has been written about the question must be held in suspense.
NOTE. "Murray" and "Moray" were often used interchangeably.
*
MORMONISM AND MASONRY
In 1839 the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, the author of their Book of Mormon, purchased land in Illinois at the village of Commerce, and re-christened it Diauvoo. The Saints came in large numbers. Among them were a number of Masons under the leadership of Dr. John C. Bennett, Heber C. Kimball, and Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith's brother. On October 15, 1841, Grand Master Jonas, Illinois, issued a dispensation for a Lodge October 15, 1842, and personally constituted it March 15, 1842. This was less than one year after Joseph Smith married his first plural s if e, "the first instance of the practice of polygamy" in the United States. (Bennett later became a violent opponent of the Mormons.)
When—so we learn from Smith's own journal—the new Lodge installed its officers in an open grove, before a large crowd, Joseph Smith acted as Grand Chaplain, though not a Mason. He and one Sidney Rigdon were that day "made Masons at Sight." Upon this, Bodley Lodge, No. 1, of nearby Quincy, Ill., sent a resolution to Grand Lodge asking for an investigation. On August 11, less than six months after he had issued the Dispensation, Grand Master Jonas suspended it; between the two dates Nauvoo Lodge had Initiated 286 Candidates, and "Raised" 256. After it had reformed itself the Lodge was on November 2, 1842, permitted to resume labor.
The Saints took in new members in such droves, that by October 3, 1843, there were five Mormon Lodges: Nauvoo, Nye and Helen, in Nauvoo; Keokuk, U. D.; and Rising Sun, No. 12, at Nontrose. Keokuk and Montrose were in Iowa Territory. Grand Lodge OD that date listened to complaints about the scandalous irregularities in the practices of these Lodges, no one of which had made reports to Grand Lodge or appeared in it to answer questions; Grand Lodge suspended the five, and ordered them to return their Dispensations, Charters, and Records. But the Lodges continued to work in defiance of the Grand Lodge and "made" Masons by the thousands. A detailed record may be found in the Grand Lodge Proceedings of Illinois for 1843,1844, 1845, and 1846. On June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith and his Brother Hyrum were murdered by a mob at Carthage, Ill. After Brigham Young had taken the place of Joseph Smith, and had moved the Church to Utah, the Latter Day Saints renounced and denounced Masonry, forbade Mormons to be Masons, and have been actively Anti-Masonic ever since.
See Mormoism and Masonry, by S. H. Goodwin; Salt Lake City; 1921. In 1935 a Mormon wrote a "reply" to it (How can a man "reply" to a set of written records?): Mormonism and Masonry by E Cecil McGavin; The Deseret News; Salt Lake City Another reply, and "as full of 'whoppers' as the yarns about Paul Bunyan," is The Relationship of Mormonism and Freemasonry; Deseret News Press; 1934. The Story of the Mormons, by William Alexander Linn: Macmillan, New York; 1923, contains a section on Nauvoo.
NOTE:
Mormon theologians have had a task unique in the history of Biblical
criticism and exegesis, and which has been more than once smiled
at by other theologians familiar with the secrets of their own
craft: the Mormons has had to prove that Joseph Smith did write
The Bool; of Mormon, else he was not the Prophet of their Revelation
or the head of their Church; they also have had to prove that
he did not write it, because he himself declared that he had found
the Book already written! In a brochure on Mormonism and Anti-Masonry
written as a sequel to his ,Mormonism and Masonry, Bro. S. H.
Goodwin (Grand Secretary, Utah) proved that the Book of Mormon
contained a sizeable number of words and phrases coined by Anti-Masonic
stump-speakers and writers which were current in Joseph Smith's
early years in New York, these findings added another problem
to the Mormon theologians' already too onerous task: if the Book
of Mormon had been written in heaven by an angel how had this
Anti-Masonic jargon gotten into the sacred Book?
*
MORIAH, MOUNT
An eminence situated in the southeastern part of Jerusalem. In the time of David it must have been cultivated, for it is called "the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite," from whom that monarch purchased it for the purpose of placing there an altar. Solomon subsequently erected there his magnificent Temple. Mount Moriah was always profoundly venerated by the Jews, among whom there is an early tradition that on it Abraham was directed to offer up his son. The truth of this tradition has, it is true, been denied by some Biblical writers, but it has been as strenuously maintained by others. The Freemasons, however, have always accepted it and to them, as the site of the Temple, it is especially sacred, and combining with this the Abrahamic legend, they have given to Mount Moriah the appellation of the ground floor of the Lodge, and assign it as the place where what are called the three grand offerings were made.
*
MORIN, J. P. H. VON
Grand Master of Haiti, 1863
*
MORIN, STEPHEN
The founder of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in America. On the 27th of August, 1761, the "Deputies General of the Royal Art, Grand Wardens, and officers of the Grand Severin Lodge of Saint John of Jerusalem established at Paris," so reads the document itself, granted a Patent to Stephen Morin, by which he was empowered "to multiply the Sublime Degrees of High Perfection, and to create Inspectors in all places where the Sublime Degrees are not established." This Patent was granted, Thory, Ragon, Clavel, and Lenning say, by the Grand Council of Emperors of the East and West. Others say by the Grand Lodge. Dalcho says by the Grand Consistory of Princes of the Royal Secret at Paris. Brother Albert Pike, who has very elaborately investigated the question, says that the authority of Morin was "a joint authority" of the two then contending Grand Lodges of France and the Grand Council, which is, Brother Mackey supposed, what Dalcho and the Supreme Council of Charleston called the Grand Consistory. From the Grand Lodge he received the power to establish a Symbolic Lodge, and from the Grand Council or Consistory the power to confer the advanced Degrees.
Not long after receiving these powers, Morin sailed for America, and established Bodies of the Scottish Rite in Santo Domingo and Jamaica. He also appointed M. M. Hayes a Deputy Inspector-General for North America. Hayes, subsequently, appointed Isaac da Costa a Deputy for South carolina, and through him the Sublime Degrees were disseminated among the Freemasons of the United states (see Scottish Rite). After appointing several Deputies and establishing some Bodies in the West India Islands, Morin is lost sight of. We know not anything of his subsequent history, or of the time or place of his death. Ragon, Thory, and Clavel say that Morin was a Jew; but as these writers have Judaized all the founders of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in America, we have no right to place any confidence in their statements. The name of Morin has been borne by many French Christians of literary reputation, from Peter Morin, a learned ecclesiastical writer of the sixteenth century, to Stephen Morin, an antiquary and Protestant clergyman, who died in 1700, and his son Henry, who became a Catholic, and died in 1728. The above surmise by Doctor Mackey has more recently had the support of Brother Cyrus Field Willard who, in the Builder, September, 1925, and in correspondence with us, gave his reasons for believing Morin to have been of a French Huguenot family in New Stork, the name Stephen also occurring in eighteenth-century church records in that city at a date favorable to the known movements of the noted Freemason. Brother Willard notes the boyhood of Morin coincides in the same city with that of Brother Moses M. Hayes, another pioneer of prominence in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Another claim unearthed by Brother Willard is that Morin was a sea captain captured by the British in 1777 but an attempt by us to have this verified By Government records at London has been unsuccessful.
*
MORISON, CHARLES
Soldier and surgeon, born in 1780, at Greenfield, Scotland. He was the owner of a valuable Masonic library which, after his death in 1848, was given by his widow to the Grand Lodge of Scotland.
*
MORITZ, CARL PHILIPP
A Privy Councillor, Professor, and Member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, was born at Hameln on the 15th of September, 1757, and died the 26th of June, 1793. Gadicke says that he was one of the most celebrated authors of his age, and distinguished by his works on the German language. He was the author of several Masonic works, among which are his Contributions to the Philosophy of Life and the Diary of a Freemason (Berlin, 1793) and a Book of Masonic Songs.
*
MORMON FAITH
See Book of Mormons
*
MOROCCO
This country is at the northwest extremity of Africa with an area of about 300,000 square miles and since the World War has been under a protectorate of the French Republic. Five Lodges have been put at work in Morocco under the Grand Orient of France. These were warranted as follows: Nouvelle Volubilis (this latter being the French name for a plant, the New Convolvulus. or Bindweed), Tangier, June 8, 1891; Le Phare (the Beacon) de la Chaouia, Casablanca, May 4, 1910; Le Reveil du Moghreb (The Awakening of the Extreme West), Rabat, February 7, 1918; E1 Bridja Dial Douk Rala, Mazagen, June 10, 1990; La Nouvelle Tagmusiga, Mogador, August 18, 1921. hinder the Grand Lodge of France there are five Lodges as follows: Woodrow Wilson, No. 479, Mogador; Aula Lumiere, I90. 480, Casablanca; Tit, No. 490, Mazagan; Les deux Soeurs (Thc Tuxo Sisters), No. 497, Rabat-Sali; Asfy, So. 498, Safi. The Grand Orient of Italy warranted Concordia Lodge at Tangiers, and the Grand Orient of Spain chartered the following: Morayta, Tangier; Abel-el-Aziz, Tangier; Casablanca, No. 247, Casablanca; Felicidad, Lavache.
*
MORPHEY
The name of one of the twelve Inspectors in the Eleventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This name, like the others in the same catalogue, bids defiance to any Hebraic derivation. They are all either French corruptions, worse even than Jakinai for Shekinah, or they have some allusion to names or events connected with the political intrigues of the exiled house of Stuart which had, it is known, a connection with some of the advanced Degrees which sprang up at Array, and other places where Freemasonry is said to have been patronized by the Pretender. This word Morphey may, for instance, be a corruption of Murray. James Murray, the second son of Lord Stormont, escaped to the Court of the Stuarts in 1715. He was a devoted adherent of the exiled family, and became the governor of the young prince and the chief minister of his father, who conferred upon him the empty title of Earl of Dunbar. He died at Avignon in 1770. But almost every etymology of this kind must be entirely conjectural.
*
MORRIS, ROB
Born August 31, 1818. Was first brought to Masonic light March 5, 1846, in Oxford Lodge, at a place of the same name in Mississippi. The life of Brother Morris was so active and untiring for the benefit of the Institution of Freemasonry, that he had the opportunity of filling very many positions in all the departments of Freemasonry, and was Grand Master of Freemasons of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky in 1858-9. His service to the Order of the Eastern Star was devoted and valuable. He was also an organizer of the Conservators,'Brethren who aroused much interest and some resentment over proposed changes and standardization of Masonic ceremonies. His writings cover Masonic jurisprudence, rituals and handbooks, Masonic belles-lettres, history and biography, travels and contributions to the Review, Freystone, Advocate, New York Dispatch, and other papers and periodicals. His Masonic songs and poetic effusions stand out prominently. He was the author of Te Meet upon the Level, which is sufficient to render his name immortal. A complete biography of Brother Rob Morris would fill volumes. He died in 1888.
*
THE LEVEL, PLUMB AND SQUARE
We meet upon the Level, and we part upon
the Square:
What words sublimely beautiful those words Masonic are!
They fall like strains of melody upon the listening ears,
As they've sounded hallelujahs to the world, three thousand years.
We meet upon the Level, though from every station brought,
The Monarch from his palace and the Laborer from his cot
For the King must drop his dignity when knocking at our door
And the Laborer is his equal as he walks the cheekered floor.
We act upon the Plumb,—'tis our Master's great command
We stand upright in virtue's way and lean to neither hand
The All-Seeing Eye that reads the heart will bear us witness true,
That we do always honor God and give each man his due.
We part upon the Square,—for the world must have its due,
We mingle in the ranks of men, but keep the Secret true,
And the influence of our gatherings in memory is green,
And we long, upon the Level, to renew the happy scene.
There's a world where all are equal,—we are hurrying toward
it fast
We shall meet upon the Level there when the gates of death are
past
We shall stand before the Orient and our Master will be there,
Our works to try, our lives to prove by His unerring Square.
We shall meet upon the Level there, but never thence depart.
There's a mansion bright and glorious, set for the pure in heart
Sand an everlasting welcome from the Zost rejoicing there,
Who in this world of sloth and sin, did part upon the Square.
Let us meet upon the Level, then, while laboring patient here
Let us meet and let us labor, tho' the labor be severe;
already in the Western Sky the signs bid us prepare,
To gather up our Working Tools and part upon the Square.
Hands round, ye royal Craftsmen in the bright, fraternal chain
!
We part upon the Square below to meet in Heaven again;
Each tie that has been broken here shall be cemented there,
And none be lost around the Throne who parted on the Square.
—ROB MORRIS.
*
MORRIS, ROBERT
A signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Freemason who devoted his entire personal fortune to the furthering of the cause of the Colonists, as well as borrowing large sums from France which were also turned over to the Colonists. He was born in Liverpool, England, January 20, 1734, and died May 8, 1806. He patriotically sacrificed all his worldly possessions. Said to have been a member of an old Pennsylvania Masonic Lodge (see New Age, May, 1925, and Brother Peters' Masons as Makers of Amenia, page 58, but not so asserted by Brother Boyden, Masonic Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Signers; and Brother Roth, Masonry in the Formation of Our Government, page 83, says no definite proofs have been found of Morris as a Freemason).
*
MORTALITY, SYMBOL OF
The ancient Egyptians introduced a skeleton at their feasts, to impress the idea of the evanescence of all earthly enjoyments; but the skeletons or deaths' heads did not make their appearance in Grecian art, as symbols of mortality, until later times, and on monuments of no artistic importance. In the earliest periods of ancient art, the Greeks and Romans employed more pleasing representations, such as the flower plucked from its stem, or the inverted torch. The moderns have, however, had recourse to more offensive symbolization. In their hatchments or funeral achievements the heralds employ a death's head and crossed bones, to denote that the deceased person is the last of his family. The Freemasons have adopted the same symbol, and in all the Degrees where it is necessary to impress the idea of mortality, a skull, or a skull and crossed hones, are used for that purpose.
*
MORTAR, UNTEMPERED
See Untempered Mortar
*
MOSAIC PAVEMENT
Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Italians get their musaico, the French their mosaique, and we our mosaics The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists. The Masonic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement. The Masonic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of Saint John xix, 13, "When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha." The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton, the very word used by Pliny to denote a mosaic pavement.
The Greek word, as well as its Latin equivalent is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones of various colors, precisely what is meant by a Mosaic Pavement. There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions. By a little torsion of historical accuracy, the Freemasons have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern. The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order. It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.
*
MOSAIC SYMBOLISM
In the religion of Moses, more than in any other which preceded or followed it, is symbolism the predominating idea. From the tabernacle, which may be considered as the central point of the whole system, down to the vestments which clothed the servants at the altar, there will be found an underlying principle of symbolism. Long before the days of Pythagoras the mystical nature of numbers had been inculcated by the Jewish lawgiver, and the very name of God was constructed in a symbolical form, to indicate His eternal nature. Much of the Jewish ritual of worship, delineated in the Pentateuch with so much precision as to its minutest details would almost seem puerile were it not for the symbolic idea that is conveyed. So the fringes of the garments are patiently described, not as decorations, but that by them the people, in looking upon the fringe, might "remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them." Well, therefore, has a modern writer remarked, that in the symbolism of the Mosaic worship it is only ignorance, that can find the details trifling or the prescriptions minute; for if we recognize the worth and beauty of symbolism, we shall in vain seek in the Mosaic symbols for one superfluous enactment or one superstitious idea.
To the Freemason the Mosaic symbolism is very significant, because from it Freemasonry has derived and transmitted for its own uses many of the most precious treasures of its own symbolical art. Indeed, except in some of the higher, and therefore more modern Degrees, the symbolism of Freemasonry is almost entirely deduced from the symbolism of Mosaism. Thus the symbol of the Temple, which persistently pervades the whole of the ancient Masonic system, comes to us directly from the symbolism of the Jewish tabernacle. If Solomon is revered by the Freemasons as their traditional Grand Master, it is because the Temple constructed by him was the symbol of the Divine life to be cultivated in every heart.
And this symbol was borrowed from the Mosaic tabernacle; and the Jewish thought, that every Hebrew was to be a tabernacle of the Lord, has been transmitted to the Masonic system, which teaches that every Freemason is to be a temple of the Grand Architect. The Papal Church, from which we get all ecclesiastical Symbolism borrowed its symbology from the ancient Romans. Hence most of the advanced Degrees of Freemasonry which partake of a Christian character are marked by Roman symbolism transmuted into Christian. But Craft Masonry, more ancient and more universal, finds its symbolic teachings almost exclusively in the Mosaic symbolism instituted in the wilderness.
If we inquire whence the Jewish lawgiver derived the symbolic system which he introduced into his religion, the history of his life will readily answer the question. Philo-Judaeus says that "Moses was instructed by the Egyptian priests in the philosophy of symbols and hieroglyphics as well as in the mysteries of the sacred animals." The sacred historian tells us that he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" and Manetho and other traditionary writers tell us that he was educated at Heliopolis as a priest, under his Egyptian name of Osarsiph, and that there he was taught the whole range of literature and science, which it was customary to impart to the priesthood of Egypt. When, then, at the head of his people, he passed away from the servitude of Egyptian taskmasters, and began in the wilderness to establish his new religion, it is not strange that he should have given a holy use to the symbols whose meaning he had learned in his ecclesiastical education on the banks of the Nile.
Thus is it that we find in the Mosaic symbolism so many identities with the Egyptian Ritual. Thus the Ark of the Covenant, the Breastplate of the High Priest, the Miter, and many other of the Jewish symbols, will find their analogies in the ritualistic ceremonies of the Egyptians. Reghellini, who has written an elaborate work on Masonry considered as the result of the Egyptian, Jewish, and Christian Religions, says on the subject: "Moses, in his mysteries, and after him Solomon, adopted a great part of the Egyptian symbols, which, after them, we Masons have preserved in our own" (see Doctor Mackey's revised Symbolism of Freemasonry).
*
MOSES
The Hebrew word Urn, which means drawn out; but the true derivation is from two Egyptian words, po, me, and ouxe, oushes, signifying saved from the water. The lawgiver of the Jews, and referred to in some of the higher Degrees, especially in the Twenty-fifth Degree, or Knight of the Brazen Serpent in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, where he is represented as the presiding officer. He plays also an important part in the Royal Arch of the York and American Rites, all of whose Ritual is framed on the Mosaic symbolism.
*
MOSSDORF, FRIEDRICH
An eminent German Freemason, who was born March 2, 1757, at Eckartsberge, and died about 1830. He resided in Dresden, and took an active part in the affairs of Freemasonry. He was a warm supporter of Fessler-s Masonic reforms, and made several contributions to the Freyberg Freimaurenischen Taschenbuche in defense of Fessler's system. He became intimately connected with the learned Krause, the author of The Three Most Ancient Records of the Masonic Fraternity, and wrote and published in 1809 a critical review of the work, in consequence of which the Grand Lodge commanded him to absent himself for an indefinite period from the Lodges. Mossdorf then withdrew from any further connection with the Fraternity. His most valuable contributions to Masonic literature are his additions and emendations to Lenning's Encyclopadie der Freimaurerei. He is the author also of several other works of great value.
*
MOST EXCELLENT
The title given to a Royal Arch Chapter, and to its presiding officer, the High Priest; also to the presiding officer of a Lodge of Most Excellent Masters.
*
MOST EXCELLENT MASTER
The Sixth Degree in the York or American Rite. Its history refers to the dedication of the Temple by King Solomon, who is represented by its presiding officer under the title of Most Excellent. Its officers are the same as those in a Symbolic Lodge. There are, however, some Rituals in which the Junior Warden is omitted. This Degree is peculiarly American, it being practiced in no other country. It was the invention of Webb, who organized the Capitular System of Freemasonry as it exists in the United States of America, and established the system of lectures which is the foundation of all subsequent systems taught there.
*
MOST PUISSANT
The title of the presiding officer of a Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters.
*
MOST WORSHIPFUL
The title usually given to a Grand Lodge and to its presiding officer, the Grand Master. However, the title of Grand Master of Pennsylvania is Right Worshipful.
*
MOT DE SEMESTRE
A French expression, meaning Half yearly word. Every six months the Grand Orient of France sends to each of the Lodges of its obedience a password, to be used by its members as an additional means of gaining admission into a Lodge. Each Freemason obtains this word only from the Venerable or Worshipful Master of his own Lodge. It was instituted October 28, 1773, when the Duke of Chartres was elected Grand Master.
*
MOTE
From an old Anglo-Saxon word motan meaning "to be allowed," as in the phrase so mote if be, meaning so may it be.
*
MOTHER COUNCIL OF THE WORLD
The Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, which was organized in 1801, at Charleston, is called the Mother Council of the World, because from it have issued directly or indirectly all the other Supreme Councils of the Rite which are nose in existence, or have existed since its organization
*
MOTHER LODGE
In the eighteenth century certain Lodges in France and Germany assumed an independent position, and issued Charters for the constitution of Daughter Lodges, claiming the prerogatives of Grand Lodges. Thus we find the Mother Lodge of Marseilles, in France, which constituted many Lodges. In Scotland the Lodge of Kilwinning took the title of Mother lodge, and issued Charters until it was merged in the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The system is altogether irregular, and has no sanction in the laws of the Fraternity
Perfect Sincerity Lodge, of Marseilles, France, was of English descent organized in 1767 as a Subordinate Lodge of the Grand Lodge of France and was a subordinate of the Grand Orient of France since the consolidation in 1806- Perfect Sincerity Lodge granted a Charter to Polar Star Lodge of New Orleans in 1796 and reported this action to the Grand Orient of France, which latter Body approved the course that had been taken and healed the work of Polar Star Lodge from the time they commenced working up to 1804, at which time the Grand Orient granted them a Charter. As Polar Star Lodge No. 4263, working under the Grand Orient of France, they continued to so operate until the organization of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.
These facts were obtained through a search caused by Post Office Inspector M. G. Price and given on page 248, Thomson Masonic Fraud. This Lodge and the one usually called the Mother Lodge of Marseilles or Mother Scotch Lodge of France, are sometimes confused. They are distinctly independent Bodies (see also Thory, Acta Latomerum, page 63; Ragon, Orthodoxie Maconnique, page 120, and Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana, James B. Seot. The particulars are to be found in the aceount of the Craft in Louisiana, Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry, pages 1554-9).
*
MOTION
A motion when made by a member cannot be brought before the Lodge for deliberation unless it is seconded by another member. Motions are of two kinds, principal and subsidiary; a principal motion is one that presents an independent proposition for discussion. Subsidiary motions are those which are intended to affect the principal motion—such as to amend it, to lay it on the table, to postpone it definitely or indefinitely, or to reconsider it, all of which are governed by the parliamentary law under certain modifications to suit the spirit and genius of the Masonic organization (see Doctor Mackey's Treatise on Parliamentary Law as Applied to Masonic Bodies, also his revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).
*
MOTTO
In imitation of the sentences appended to the Coats of Arms and seals of the Gilds and other societies, the Freemasons have for the different branches of their Order mottoes, which are placed on their banners or put at the head of their documents, which are expressive of the character and design, either of the whole Order or of the particular branch to which the motto belongs. Thus, in Ancient Craft Masonry, we have as mottoes the sentences, Ordo ab Chao, and Lug e tenebris; in Capitular Masonry, Holiness to the Lord; in Templar Masonry, In hoc signo winces; in Scottish Masonry, Ne plus ultra is the motto of the Thirtieth Degree, and Spesmea in Deoest of the Thirty-second; while the Thirty-third has for its motto Deus meumaue Jus. All of these will be found with their signification and origin in their appropriate places in this work.
*
MOUND BUILDERS
Early inhabitants in the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers who seem to have had a civilization more enlightened than that of the aborigines first met by the white settlers. The mounds built by these people are scattered over the territory extending from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Many of these are in Ohio—some circular, others four and six-sided. Sometimes there are combinations of these and certain structures are known as altar mounds, small rounded heaps of earth having at the center a hollowed mass of hard clay showing the effects of fire and containing ashes and charcoal. The hollowed parts are from three to four feet in diameter. In Adams County, Ohio, between two branches of the Licking River, is a remarkable mound lying upon a narrow ridge and is in the form of a serpent, the jaws being wide open and measuring across some seventy-five feet. The body is about five feet high and behind the head about thirty feet across.
The whole length is 1,348 feet and it covers an area of about four square miles and, following the curves of the body, the tail is arranged in a triple coil. In front of the head is an egg-shaped enclosure with a pile of stones at the center, and beyond this a somewhat indistinct form thought to represent an animal. There are other mounds representing birds, reptiles, and so on in Wisconsin, and the suggestion has been offered that these were of a totemic character and served as objects of worship and perhaps were regarded as the guardians of the villages. The conclusion of various authorities is that the Mound-Builders lived in the stone-age and had no knowledge of smelting, though they made many articles in beaten metals and from other materials. A study of the skulls indicates that they were not of one race.
*
MOUNT CAF
In the Mohammedan mythology, a fabulous mountain which encircles the earth. The home of the giants and fairies, and rests upon the sacred stone Sakhral, of which a single grain gives miraculous powers. It is of an emerald color, and its resected light is the cause of the tints of the sky.
*
MOUNT CALVARY
See Calvary
*
MOUNT MORIAH
See Morzah
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MOUNT SINAI
See Sinai
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MOURNING
The mourning color has been various in different times and countries. Thus, the Chinese mourn in white; the Turks in blue or in violet; the Egyptians in yellow; the Ethiopians in gray. In all the Degrees and Rites of Freemasonry, with a single exception black is the symbol of grief, and therefore the mourning color. But in the highest Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite the mourning color, like that used by the former kings of France, is violet.
*
MOUTH TO EAR
The Freemason is taught by an expressive symbol, to whisper good counsel in his Brother's ear, and to warn him of approaching danger. "It is a rare thing," says Bacon, "except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given that is not bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it." And hence it is an admirable lesson, which Freemasonry here teaches us, to use the lips and the tongue only in the service of a Brother.
*
MOVABLE JEWELS
See Petrels of a Lodge
*
M. O. V. P. E. R.
See Grotto
*
MOZART, JOHANN CARYSOSTOMUS WOLFGANG AMADEUS
A celebrated German composer and musician, born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, and died December 5, 1791, in Vienna. Mozart's father, Leopold, was a violinist of repute and gave his son early and splendid trainings so much so, in fact, that at the age of five the young Mozart wrote an extremely difficult concerto for the harpsichord.
At six he made his musical debut in Vienna; published his first sonatas for the harpsichord at seven years of age in Paris and at eight performed before the Court of England difficult compositions of Bach and Handel. In 1767 he received his first commission from the Emperor Joseph II at Vienna to write the music of a comic opera. This-was written, but unfortunately was suppressed and never performed owing to the opposition of the court musicians. In 1769 Mozart went to Milan—then fourteen Years of age—with the idea of finishing his education. Here he heard the Miserere (usually meaning Psalm 51, but sometimes any penitential chant) once at Sistine Chapel and then wrote it down from memory, note for note. At that time even the singers were forbidden to transcribe the music of the Miserere on pain of excommunication by the Pope, so this feat created a sensation and was so mighty an accomplishment that the Pope, cl on the return of Mozart to Rome, invested him with the Order of the Golden Spur, which honor had also been conferred upon Gluck not many years before. Mozart's first opera was written during his twentieth year, called Mithridates, and performed more than twenty times in succession. Following this he was appointed Composer to the Court. At the age of twenty-five he married Constance Weber.
All through Mozart's life he was harassed and handicapped by extreme poverty and his hardships and difficulties were greatly increased by Hieronymus, Count of Colloredo, a Roman Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg, to which office he was appointed at the death of a previous Archbishop who had rendered the young Mozart much assistance in the way of interest and help to Mozart's father during the earlier years of his training of his son. When Mozart was sixteen vears old, Hieronvmus summoned him and kept him in Salzburg without funds, refusing him permission to leave on a concert tour for the purpose of gaining some income to relieve the extreme financial stress which Mozart was suffering. This in spite of the fact that the position he held with Hieronymus was a purely honorary one without income.
At twenty-one Mozart again sued for permission to resign this appointment and after much vituperation Hieronymus finally permitted him to leave. Mozart's art naturally gave him immediate success when performing independently but unfortunately, as soon as Hieronymus found that he had successfully established himself, he was prompted by his petty vanity and a desire to retain a celebrated artist in his service to summon poor Mozart back into his domain and provided a small salary, although he did not permit Mozart to add to this by performing anywhere except at the archiepiscopal palace. Here he used every opportunity of mistreating Mozart, who stood for these indignities as long as was humanly possible and then sent in his formal resignation, for which action he was insulted by the Archbishop "in terms too vulgar for translation." Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave. Xan Swieten, Sussmayer and only three other friends planned to accompany him to the cemetery but even these turned back "because it rained." Sussmayer it was who finished the last composition written in part while on Mozart's death-bed, the Requiem, it being probable that he did so at Mozart's specific request
Brother Herbert Bradley, Transactions, of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume Levi, 1913, states that Mozart is said to have been initiated in Lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit, meaning Charity, in the autumn of 1784 and that other authorities state that he was initiated in the Lodge Zur Hoffnung or a Lodge Zur Gekronten Hoffnung, meaning Crowned Hope. As a matter of fact all these statements are in a measure true. Under the decree of the Emperor, of December 1, 1785, these Lodges were united into one Lodge. The words of Mozart's opening ode for the Lodge clearly illustrate these changes.
Opening Ode, Opus 483
Sing vestal lays to heav'n ascending
Fraternal voices blending
sing our Protector's praise.
For in our brethren's hearts a triple fire he found,
And all our hope aIlew is crown'd
Chorus:
Then loud let our chorus be swelling
his praises forever forthtelling
Who knitted more closely our band,
Who finding our zeal warmly glowing
For merit this honor bestowed
Has crown'd us with generous hand.
These, two, we praise, who watching o'er us,
Held virtues torch before us
So walk we in their ways
For flowing from their path, where'er their steps have stood
Our brother finds a souree of good.
Chorus:
Far better than mere acclamation
To heed them by bold emulation
And honor like theirs to attain.
Threefold is the labor before us
So hush'd be the strains of our chorus till called to
refreshment again.
Closing Ode, Opus 484
Our thanks are yours for ever,
Who are the badge of Office wearing
Let virtue be your sole endeavor;
So everyone will joy in bearing
The chains that bind such brothers true
Sweetening the cup of life anew.
Chorus:
And this obligation
We swear to fulfill
Upon your foundation
To build with a will.
Then raise us ever higher
Upon the wings of truth ascending
To wisdom's throne we may aspire.
That so our wearv labors ending
We may be worthy of her crown,
And rest where envy is unknown.
Chorus:
And this obligation
We swear to fulfill,
Upon your foundation
To build with a will.
The above translation is by Brother Orton Bradle. Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (page 241 al;;i page 263, volume xxvi, 1913).
Richard Koch in his treatise on Brother Mozart Freimaurer und Illuminaten, 1911, says that Mozart s Mother Lodge had a library of 1,900 volumes, that it was a legally constituted Lodge, and that it had a laboratory in which lectures were given. The list of 1788 shows that the members of the united Lodge Zur Neugekronten Hoffnung consisted of one Ruling Prince, thirty-six Counts, one Marquis, fourteen Barons and forty-two Nobles, officers, Ambassadors Chamberlains Prebendaries, Officials, etc.
Brother Bradley gives the following as the principal blasomc compositions of Brother Mozart: Die Gesellenreise. Opus 468, a Masonic song, composed March 26, 1785.
The Opening and Closing of the Lodge. Opus 483 and 484. These were probably composed for the first meetings of the Lodge Neugekronten Hoffnung.
A short Cantata. Maurerfreude, Opus 471, for tenor and chorus, dated April 20, 1785, performed on the 24th of April, in honor of the metallurgist Von Born, at a special Lodge held on that day to celebrate his discovery of the method of working ores by amalgamation.
The success of this discovery was celebrated by a Lodge Zur wahren Eintracht, meaning True Harmony , by a banquet, at Which the Cantata was performed.
A short Masonic Cantata, words said to have been written by Schikaneder, for two tenors and a bass, with orchestral accompaniment, Opus 623. This was written for the consecration of a Masonic Temple on November 15. 1791. It was the last finished composition of which Mozart conducted the performance. This contains as an appendix, a Hymn for closing of the Lodge, which was probably Mozart's farewell to the Craft. The words of the Cantata, and this Hymn, clearly refer to the consecration ceremony: "Today we consecrate this habitation for our temple, for the first time we gather within this new seat of knowledge and of virtue, and look, the consecration is completed, O ! that the work were finished also that consecrates our hearts. " This Cantata was published about 1902 under the title Praize of Friendship, with English words by Brother George C. Dusart, describing the Three Degrees, Davis & Co., London and Brighton, England.
A Cantata, Die ihr des unernesslichen Weltalls
Schopfer ehrt, Opus 619, words by Ziegenhagen. Maurerisehe Trauernmusik,
an orchestral piece, an elegy on the death of the Duke Georg August
of WIeeklenhurg Strelitz, and Prince Franz Esterhazy, Opus 4v
,. Composed July, 1785. The Magie Flute. Brother Hubert W. Hunt
on pages 265 and 266 of the above volume of the Transactions of
Quatuor Coronati Lodge says " It is impossible to describe
the numbers of Mozart's works as Opus numbers." Like Bach,
Mozart did not number his compositors, the numbers refer to the
catalog compiled by Kochel and should he indicated K, KY, or Koehel,
thus Die Zauberflote, KV 620. Kochel endeavored to enumerate the
works in chronological order, and the list of Masonic music should
follow this plan, and run one, four, seven, two and three, six,
eight, five. Three other works are supposed to have been intended
for Masonic use: they are, an adagio, in Canon form, for wind
instruments, KV 411, and Adagio, also for wind instruments KV
412, and a short Cantata, a hymn to the sun
Die Seele des Weltalls, KV 429. Libretto was by Schikaneder.
Brother Herbert Bradley on page 252 of the above Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge says "The plot of the Magic Flute is now generally believed to be a book published in 1731 by the Abbe Terrasson named Sethos, described as a history of life drawn from the monuments of ancient Egypt. It contains a description of the initiation of Sethos, an Egyptian priest, into the mysteries of Egypt."
Brother Hubert W. Hunt on page 267 says in part, "A Masonic friend of Mozart of whom more might brave been said is Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732 to 1809 the composer of the Creation, and of over one hundred and fifty Symphonies and the father of the stringed quartet." The setting of the words "And there was light" in the opening chorus is worthy of remark. The Creation was composed 1796 to 1798.
Brother Bradley quotes the following translation from the oration made at the Lodge of Mourning held by the Freemasons in honor of Mozart. This oration was published in 1792 and sold for the benefit of Mozart's family—
It has pleased the everlasting Master Builder to tear our beloved Brother from the chain of our brotherhood. Who did not know him? Who did not value him? Who did not love him, our worthy Brother, Mozart? Only a few weeks ago he stood in our midst and with the magic tones added such beauty to the dedication of our Masonic Temple. Mozart's death brings irreparable loss to his art; his talents which were apparent in his earliest youth made him even then the greatest marvel of his time. Half Europe valued him. The creat called him their favorite, Liebling, and we caned him Brother. But while we must of necessity recall his powers in Art we must not forget the praise due to his great heart. He was a most enthusiastic follower of our Order. Love for his Brethren, sociability, enthusiasm for the good cause, charity, the true and deep feeling of pleasure when he was able by means of his talents to help one of his Brethren, these were the chief features of his charater. He was husband, father, friend to his friends, Brother to his Brethren. Only the wherewithal was wanted to hinder him from making hundreds happy, as his heart bade him." What more could be said of any Freemason? See also Mozart and his Masonic Circle, Brother Dudley Wright, New England Craftsman, July, 1922, and Mozart and Masonry, Brother Sir John A. Cockburn, Masonic Record, December, 1922.
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MUDGE, R. C.
Wrote Masonic poems and songs, 1819
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MUELLER, FRIEDERICH VON
German poet; friend of Brother Goethe; and member of Lodge Amalia, at Weimar, where he was initiated in 1809, becoming its Orator and Deputy Master. He composed some poetry and delivered the oration in honor of Wieland in 1813, and when the Lodge held its festival for the fifty years, Jubilee of the Grand Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe Weimar, 1825, he delivered the address. To the memory of Goethe shortly after, he made another address. Several of the selections are by him in the song book of the Lodge Amalia.
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MUENTER, FRIEDERICH
Born in 1761, and died in 1830. He was Professor of Theology in the University of Copenhagen, and afterward Bishop of Seeland. He was the author of a treatise on the Symbols and Art Representations of thel3arly Christians In 1794 he published his Statute Book of the Order of Knights Templar, the German title being Statutenbuch des Ordens der Tempelherren; a work which is one of the most valuable contributions that we have to the history of Templarism.
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MULTA PAUCIS
Latin for much but Veto, a concise history of Freemasonry brought
down to 1763 and published in England, probably in 1764, but without
date or author's name with the title of The Complete Freemason
or MulJa Paucis for Lovers of Secrets. This book differs slightly
from Doctor Anderson's history, one point of Interest being the
assertion that the Grand Lodge of England was organized in 1717
by sis Lodges, not four.
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MUNKHOUSE, D. D., REV. RICHARD
The author of A Discourse in Praise of Freemasonny, London, 1805; An Exhortation to the Practice of those Specific Virtues which ought to prevail in the Masonic Character, with Historical Notes, octavo, London, 1805; and Occasional Discourses on Various Subjects, with Copious Annotations, three volumes, octavo, London, 1805. This last work contains many discourses on Masonic subjects. Doctor Munkhouse was an ardent admirer and defender of Freemasonry, into which he was initiated in the Phoenix Lodge of Sunderland. On his removal to Wakefield, where he was Rector of Saint John the Baptist's Church, he united with the Lodge of Unanimity, under the Mastership of Richard Linnecar, to whose virtues and Masonic knowledge he has paid a high tribute. Doctor Munkhouse died in the early part of the nineteenth century.
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MURAT, JOACHIM
Born in 1771, executed in 1815. The great cavalry general of Napoleon, and titular King of Naples. In 1803, he was appointed Senior Grand Warden in the Grand Orient of France. When the fifth Supreme Council of the World was established at Naples, on June 11, 1809, by the Supreme Council at Milan, a Concordat became necessary, and was executed May 3, 1811, between the Grand Orient, which was created June 24, 1809, and the Supreme Council of Naples, whereby the latter should have sole control over the Degrees beyond the eighteenth, in like manner as signified in the Concordat of France. King Joachim Murat accepted the supreme command of both Bodies. The change in his political surroundings allowed him no permanent rest.
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MURAT, JOACHIM, PRINCE
Son of the King of Naples. Was appointed Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, and initiated February 26, 1825. He resigned the office in 1861.
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MURR, CHRISTOPH GOTTLIEB VON
A distingtushed historical and archeological writer, who was born
at Nuremberg, in 1733, and died April 8, 1811. In 1760 he published
an Essay on the History of the Greek Tragic Poets, in 1777-82,
six volumes of Antiquities of Herculaum, and several other historical
works. In 1803 he published an essay on the True Origin of the
Orders of Rosicrucianism anal Freemasonry, zeith an Appandi: on
the History of the Order of Templars. In this work, Murr attempts
to traee Freemasonry to the times of Oliver Cromwell, and maintains
that it and Rosicrucianism had an identical origin, and the same
history until the year 1633, when they separated.
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MUSCUS DOMUS.
In the early lectures of the eighteenth century, the tradition is given, that certain Fellow Crafts, while pursuing their search, discovered a grave covered with green moss and turf, when they exclaimed, Muscus Domus, Deo- gratias, which Latin expression was interpreted, Thanks be to God, our Master in a mossy house. Whence a Freemason's grave came to be called Muscus Domus. But both the tradition and its application have become obsolete in the modern instructions.
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MUSIC
One of the seven liberal arts and sciences, whose beauties are inculcated in the Fellow Craft's Degree. Music is recommended to the attention of Freemasons, because as the "concord of sweet sounds" elevates the generous sentiments of the soul, so should the concord of flood feeling reign among the Brethren, that by the union of friendship and brotherly love the boisterous pardons may be lulled and harmony exist throughout the Craft
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MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, ANCIENT
As in the Fellow Craft's Degree, music is dilated upon as one of the liberal arts, the sweet and harmonious sounds being the representative of that harmony which should ever exist among the Brethren, we are apt to inquire what were the instruments used by the ancients in their mystical service. The oldest ever discovered, we believe, is a small clay pipe not over three inches in length, found by Captain Willock among the presumed ruins of Babylon; if so it must be 2,600 years old.
By the use of the two finger holes, the intervals of the Common Chord, C, E, and G. are produced, or the Harmonic Triad. From the ruins of Nineveh we have countless representations of the harp, with strings varying from ten to twenty-six; the lyre. identical in structure with that of the Greeks; a harp-shaped instrument held horizontally, and the six to ten strings struck with a plectrum, which has been termed the Asor, from its resemblance to the Hebrew instrument of that name. There is also the guitar-shaped instrument, and a double pipe with a single mouthpiece and finger-holes on each pipe. The Assyrians used musical bells, trumpets, flutes, drums cymbals, and tambourines. The Abyssinians call their lyre the Kissar the Greek name being, kithara. There is also the flute, called Monaulos, which is of great antiquity, and named by the Egyptians Photins, or curved flute. The crooked horn or trumpet, called Buccina, and the Cithara, held sacred in consequence of its shape being that of the Greek letter delta.
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MUSTARD SEED, ORDER OF
The Gerrnan title is Der Orden vom Senfkorn. This Association, whose members also called themselves "The Fraternity of Moravian Brothers of the Order of Religious Freemasons," was one of the first innovations introduced into German Freemasonry. It was instituted in the year 1739. Its mysteries were founded on that passage in the fourth chapter of Saint Mark's Gospel in which Christ compares the kingdom of heaven to a mustard-seed. The Brethren wore a ring, on which was inscribed Keiner son uns lebt ihm selber, meaning in English, No one of us lives for himself. The jewel of the Order was a cross of gold surmounted by a mustard plant in full bloom, with the motto, Quod Suit ante nihil, this Latin meaning What was before nothing. It was suspended from a green ribbon. The professed object of the Association was, through the instrumentality of Freemasonry, to extend the kingdom of Christ over the world. It has long been obsolete (see Zinzendorf, Count son, Nicolaus Ludwig).
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MUTA
The Roman goddess of silence.
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MUTTRA or MATHURA
The birthplace of the Hindu Redeemer, Erishna The capital of a district in the Northwest Provinces of British India.
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MY HOPE IS IN GOD
In Latin, Spes Mea in Deo est. Motto of the Thirty-second Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
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MYRRH
A resinous gum of a tree growing in Arabia, valued from the most ancient times (Genesis xxxvii, 25). It was among the presents Jacob sent to Egypt, and those brought to the infant Jesus bv the wise men of the East.
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MYRTLE
The sacred plant of the Eleusinian mysteries, and analogous in its symbolism to the Acacia of the Freemasons.
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MYSTAGOGUE
The one who presided at the Ancient Mysteries, and explained the sacred things to the candidate. He was also called the hierophant. The word, which is Greek, signifies literally one who makes or conducts an initiate.
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MYSTERIES, ANCIENT
Each of the Pagan gods, says Warburton (Divine Legation I, u, 4), had, besides the public and open, a secret worship paid to him, to which none were admitted but those who had been selected by preparatory ceremonies called Initiation. This secret worship was termed the Mysteries. And this is supported by Strabo (book x, chapter 3) who says that it was common, both to the Greeks and the Barbarians, to perform their religious ceremonies with the observance of a festival, and that they are sometimes celebrated publicly, and sometimes in mysterious privacy. Noel (Dictionnaire de la Fable) thus defines them: Secret ceremonies which were practiced in honor of certain gods, and whose secret was known to the initiates alone, who were admitted only after long and painful trials, which it was more than their life was worth to reveal.
As to their origin, Warburton is probably not wrong in his statement that the first of which we have any account are those of Isis and Osiris in Egypt; for although those of Mithras came into Europe from Persia, they were, it is supposed, carried from Egypt by Zoroaster. The most important of these Mysteries were the Osiris in Egypt, the Mithraic in Persia, the Cabiric in Thrace, the Adonisian in Syria, the Dionysiac and Eleusinian in Greece, the Scandinavian among the Gothic nations, and the Druidical among the Celts.
In all these Mysteries we find a singular lusty of design, clearly indicating a common origin, and a purity of doctrine as evidently proving that this common origin was not to be sought for in the popular theology of the Pagan world. The ceremonies of initiation were all funereal in their character. They celebrated the death and the resurrection of some cherished being, either the object of esteem as a hero, or of devotion as a god. Subordination of Degrees was instituted, and the candidate was subjected to probations varying in their character and severity; the rites were practiced in the darkness of night, and often amid the gloom of impenetrable forests or subterranean caverns; and the full fruition of knowledge, for which so much labor was endured, and so much danger incurred was not attained until the aspirant, well tried and thoroughly purified, had reached the place of wisdom and of light.
These Mysteries undoubtedly owed their origin to the desire to establish esoteric philosophy, in which should be withheld from popular approach those sublime truths which it was supposed could only be entrusted to those who had been previously prepared for their reception. Whence these doctrines were originally derived it would be impossible to say; but Doctor Mackey was disposed to accept Creuzer's hypothesis of an ancient and highly instructed body of priests having their origin either in Egypt or in the East, from whom was derived religious, physical, and historical knowledge, under the veil of symbols.
By this confinement of these doctrines to a system of secret knowledge, guarded by the most rigid rites, could they may only expect to preserve them from the superstitions, innovations, and corruptions of the world as it then existed. "The distinguished few," says Brother Oliver (History of Initiation, page 2), "who retained their fidelity, uncontaminated by the contagion of evil example, would soon be able to estimate the superior benefits of an isolated institution, which afforded the advantage of a select society, and kept at an unapproachable distance the profane scoffer, whose presence might pollute their pure devotions and social converse, by contumelious language or unholy mirth." And doubtless the prevention of this intrusion, and the preservation of these sublime truths, was the original object of the institution of the ceremonies of initiation, and the adoption of other means by which the initiated could be recognized, and the uninitiated excluded. Such was the opinion of Warburton, who says that "the Mysteries were at first the retreats of sense and virtue, till time corrupted them."
The Abbe Robin in a learned work on this subject entitled Recherches sur Yes Initiations Anciennes et Modernes (Paris, 1870), places the origin of the initiations at that remote period when crimes first began to appear upon earth. The vicious, he remarks, were urged by the terror of guilt to seek among the virtuous for intercessors with the Deity. The latter, retiring into solitude to avoid the contagion of growing corrupttion, devoted themselves to a life of contemplation and the cultivation of several of the useful sciences. The periodical return of the seasons, the revolution of the stars, the productions of the earth, and the various phenomena of nature, studied with attention, rendered them useful guides to men, both in their pursuits of industry and in their social duties.
These recluse students invented certain signs to recall to the remembrance of the people the times of their festivals and of their rural labors, and hence the origin of the symbols and hieroglyphics that were in use among the priests of all nations. Having now become grudes and leaders of the people, these sages, in order to select as associates of their learned labors and sacred functions only such as had sufficient merit and capacity, appointed strict courses of trial and examination, and this, our author thinks, must have been the source of the initiations of antiquity. The Magi, Brahmans, Gymnosophists, Druids, and priests of Egypt, lived thus in sequestered habitations and subterranean eaves, and obtained great reputation by their discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, and mechanics, by their purity of morals, and by their knowledge of the science of legislation. It was in these schools, says M. Robin, that the first sages and legislators of antiquity were formed, and in them he supposes the doctrines taught to have been the unity of God and the immortality of the soul; and it was from these Mysteries, and their symbols and hieroglyphics, that the exuberant fancy of the Greeks drew much of their mythology.
Warburton deduces from the ancient writers from Cicero and Porphyry, from Origen and Celsus, and from others—what was the true object of the Mysteries. They taught the dogma of the unity of God in opposition to the polytheistic notions of the people, and in connection with this the doctrine of a future life, and that the initiated should be happier in that state than all other mortals; that while the souls of the profane, at their leaving the body, stuck fast in mire and filth and remained in darkness, the souls of the initiated winged their flight directly to the happy islands and the habitations of the gods.
"Thrice happy they," says Sophocles, "who descended to the shades below after having beheld these Rites; for they alone have life in Hades, while all others suffer there every kind of evil." And Isocrates de clares that "those who have been initiated in the Mysteries, entertain better hopes both as to the end of life and the whole of futurist.
Others of the ancients have given us the same testimony as to their esoteric character. "All the Mysteries," says Plutarch, "refer to a future life and to the state of the soul after death." In another place, addressing his wife! he says, "We have been instructed in the religious Rites of Dionvsius, that the soul is immortal, and that there is a future state of existence."
Cicero tells us that, in the Mysteries of Ceres at Eleusis, the initiated mere taught to live happily and to die in the hope of a blessed futurity. And, finally, Plato informs us that the hymns of Musaeus, which were sung in the Mysteries, celebrated the rewards and pleasures of the virtuous in another life, and the punishments which awaited the wicked. These sentiments, so different from the debased polytheism which prevailed among the uninitiated, are the most certain evidence that the mysteries arose from a purer source than that which gave birth to the religion of the vulgar.
We must not pass unnoticed Faber's notion of their arkite origin. Finding, as he did, a prototype for every ancient cultus in the ark of Noah, it is not surprising that he should apply his theory to the Mysteries. Faber says (begin of Pagan Idolatry II, iv, 5)
The initiations into the mysteries scenically represented the mystic descent into Hades and the return from thence to the light of dan, by which was meant the entrance into the ark and the subsequent liberation from its dark enclosure. They all equally related to the allegorical disappearance, or death, or descent of the great father, at their commencement; and his invention, or revival, or return from Hades, at their conclusion.
Dollinger (Gentile and Jew, 126) says, speaking of the Mysteries:The whole was a drama, the prelude to which consisted in purifications, sacrifices, and injunctions with regard to the behavior to be observed. The adventures of certain deities, the sufferings and joys, their appearance on earth, and relations to mankind, their death, or descent to the nether world, their return, or their rising again—all these, as symbolizing the life of nature, were represented in a connected series of theatrical scenes.
These representations, tacked on to a nocturnal solemnity, brilliantly got up particularly at Athens, with all the resources of art and sensual beauty. and accompanied with dancing and song, were eminently calculated to take a powerful hold on the imagination and the heart, and to excite in the spectators alternately conflicting sentiments of terror, and calm, sorrow and fear, and hope. They worked upon them, now by agitating, now by soothing, and meanwhile had a strong bearing upon susceptibilities and capacities of individuals, according as their several dispositions inclined them more to reflection and observation, or to a resigned credulity.
Bunsen (God in History II, book iv, chapter 6), gives the most recent and the most philosophic idea or the character of the Mysteries:
They did indeed exhibit to the initiated coarse physical symbols of the generative powers of Nature, and of the universal Nature herself, eternally, self-sustaining through all transformations; but the religious element of the Mysteries consisted in the relations of the universe to the soul, more especially after death. Thus, even without philosophic proof, we are justified in assuming that the Nature symbolism referring to the Zodiac formed a mere framework for the doctrines relating to the soul and to the ethical theory of the universe. So likewise, in the Samothracian worship of the Kabiri, the contest waged by the orb of day was represented by the story of the three brothers, the seasons of the year, one of whom is continually slain by the other two, but ever and anon arises to life again. But here, too, the beginning and end of the worship were ethical. A sort of confession was demanded of the candidates before admission and at the close of the service the victorious God. Dionysius was displayed as the Lord of the spirit. Still less, however, did theorems of natural philosophy form the subject-matter of the Eleusinian Mysteries, of which, on the contrary, physical conceptions were the beginnings and the end. The predominating idea of these conceptions was that of the soul as a divine, vital force. held captive here on earth and sorely tried, but the initiated were further taught to look forward to a final redemption and blessedness for the good and pious, and eternal torment after death for the wicked and unjust.
The esoteric character of the Mysteries was preserved by the most powerful sanctions. An oath of secrecy was administered in the most solemn form to the initiate, and to violate it was considered a sacrilegious crime, the prescribed punishment for which was immediate death, and we have at least one instance in Livy of the infliction of the penalty. The ancient writers were, therefore, extremely reluctant to approach the subject, and Lobeck gives, in his Aglaophamus (volume i, appendix 131, 151; 11, 12, 87), several examples of the cautious manner in which they shrunk from divulging or discussing any explanation of a symbol which had been interpreted to them in the course of initiation. I would forbid, says Horace (Epistles iii, Ocles 2, 26), that man who would divulge the sacred Rites of mysterious Ceres from being under the same roof with me, or from setting sail with me in the same precarious bark.
On the subject of their relation to the Rites of Freemasonry, to which they bear in many respects so remarkable a resemblance, that some connection seems necessarily implied, there are five principal theories.
The first is that embraced and taught by Doctor Oliver, namely, that they are but deviations from that common source, both of them and of Freemasonry, the patriarchal mode of worship established by God himself. With this pure system of truth, he supposes the science of Freemasonry to have been coeval and identified. But the truths thus revealed by divinity came at length to be doubted or rejected through the imperfection of human reason, and though the visible symbols were retained in the Mysteries of the Pagan world, their true interpretation was lost.
There is a second theory which, leaving the origin of the Mysteries to be sought in the patriarchal doctrines, where Brother Oliver has placed it, finds the connection between them and Freemasonry commencing at the building of King Solomon's Temple. Over the construction of this building, Hiram, the Architect of Tyre, presided. At Tyre the Mysteries of Bacchus had been introduced by the Dionysian Artificers, and into their fraternity Hiram, in all probability, had, it is necessarily suggested, been admitted. Freemasonry whose tenets had always existed in purity among the immediate descendants of the patriarchs, added now to its doctrines the guard of secrecy, which, as Doctor Oliver himself remarks, was necessary to preserve them from perversion or pollution.
A third theory has been advanced by the Abbe Robin, in which he connects Freemasonry indirectly with the Mysteries, through the intervention of the Crusaders. In the work already eited, he attempts to deduce, from the ancient initiations, the orders of chivalry, whose branches, he says, produced the Institution of Freemasonry.
A fourth theory, and this has been advanced by the Rev. C. W. King in his treatise on the Gnostics, is that as some of them, especially those of Mithras, were extended beyond the advent of Christianity, and even to the very commencement of the Middle Ages, they were seized upon by the secret societies of that period as a model for their organization, and that through these latter they are to be traced to Freemasonry.
But perhaps, after all, the truest theory is that which would discard all successive links in a supposed chain of descent from the Mysteries to Freemasonry, and would attribute their close resemblance to a natural coincidence of human thought. The legend of the Third Degree, and the legends of the Eleusinian, the Cabiric, the Dionysian, the Adonic, and all the other Mysteries, are identical in their object to teach the reality of a future life; and this lesson is taught in all by the use of the same symbolism, and, substantially, the same scenic representation.
And this is not because the Masonic Rites are a lineal succession from the Ancient Mysteries, but because there has been at all times an aptness of the human heart to nourish this belief in a future life, and the proneness of the human mind to clothe this belief in a symbolic dress. find if there is any other more direct connection between them it must be sought for in the Roman Colleges of Artificers, who did, most probably, exercise some influence over the rising Freemasons of the early ages, and who, as the contemporaries of the Mysteries, were, we may well suppose, imbued with something of their organization. We conclude with a notice of their ultimate fate. They continued to flourish until long after the Christian era; but they at length degenerated. In the fourth century, Christianity had begun to triumph. The Pagans, desirous of making converts, threw open the hitherto inaccessible portals of their mysterious rites. The strict scrutiny of the candidate's past life, and the demand for proofs of irreproachable conduct, were no longer deemed indispensable.
The vile and the vicious were indiscriminately, and even with avidity, admitted to participate in privileges which were once granted only to the noble and the virtuous. The sun of Paganism was setting, and its rites had become contemptible and corrupt. Their character was entirely changed, and the initiations were indiscriminately sold by peddling priests, who wandered through the country, to every applicant who was willing to pay a trifling fee for that which had once been refused to the entreatie9 of a monarch. At length these abominations attracted the attention of the emperors, and Constantine and Gratian forbade their celebration by night, excepting, however, from these edicts, the initiations at Eleusis. But finally Theodosius, by a general edict of proscription, ordered the whole of the Pagan Mysteries to be abolished, in the four hundred and thirty-eighth year of the Christian era, and eighteen hundred years after their first establishment in Greece.
Clavel, however, says that they did not entirely cease until the era of the restoration of learning, and that during a part of the Middle Ages the Mysteries of Diana, under the name of the Courses of Diana, and those of Pan under that of the Sabbats, were practiced in country places. But these were really only certain superstitious rites connected with the belief in witchcraft. The Mysteries of Mithras, which, continually attacked by the Fathers of the Church, lived until the beginning of the fifth century, were the last of the old mysteries which had once exercised so much influence over the Pagan world and the Pagan religions.
Doctor Mackey's conclusions in the preceding article have not been materially weakened by later writers. Some additions may be made to support his position and briefly increase the amount of information he has submitted. The word Mystery must here be strictly reserved for these ancient religious rites of the Greeks and Romans, the name coming from two Greek words, the one meaning an initiate, and the other to close the mouth. There is another word Of ystery, or Mistery, meaning a trade and in the opinion of Professor Skeat applied to the medieval plays because they were performed by the Craftsmen (see Mystery).
So far as the Mysteries of antiquity have especial interest to us in the relation of their ceremonies to those of Freemasonry, we are compelled to obtain our knowledge rather by inference, more or less remote, than otherwise. What we know of the initiations and of the ritualistic instructions is limited by the very same concealment that in these modern times reserves such information from the profane, those without the fold. yet here and there we catch a glint and a glow of the inner light that radiated from these centers of such wisdom as in that day and era was at the service of the candidates. There were peculiar resemblances to prove anew to us that profound initiation moves on parallel lines in all the ages. Only those specially prepared might join in the solemn rites, only then after probation and purification, in charge of a guide and instructor who led the candidate on to further light. There was more than prayer and sacrifice. there was communication, some explanation, a revelation, an investiture probably as spiritual as it was a material one, and at least something stronger than a suggestion appears to us that the whole ceremonial included a dramatic conception of a sacred play.
We readily see from the writers of the time how glowing was the poetic ritual. From certain hints we can get an inkling of the ceremonies, in fact there is a trace of two Degrees, one preliminary to the other. There is also an intimation of a rebirth, holy objects and scenes were shown, the brotherhood breaking of bread together, a common partaking of food, the illuminating use of symbolism here and there, the instruction to be remembered for a life of contentment and a hereafter of happiness, these were in all probability impressed as we can reasonably infer by splendor of stagecraft, regal raiment, stately action, the solemn solace of holy sacraments. That there were Mysteries less creditable than others from our modern stand point is doubtless true, just as all secret societies are not the same today in merit. Secrecy then and now does not always mean sufficiency.
Nevertheless, we may well glean and study such fragments of worth as are thus available from the scanty records of these our forerunners of Freemasonry. For further information consult Brother Goblet d'Alviella's Eleusinia, Andrew Lang's Myth, Ritual and Religion, Doctor Jevons' Introduction to the Study of Religion, Franz Cumont's Mysteries of Mithra, Dudley Wright's Eleusinian Mysteries, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Passages from classical literature relative to the Mysteries are found in C. A. Lobeek's Aglaophamus, and L. R. Farnell's Cults of the Greed States.
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MYSTERIES, MEXICAN
Instituted among the Mexicans, Aztecs, and mere of a sacred nature. The adherents adopted the worship of some special deity Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Savior, under secret rites, and rendered themselves seclusive. A similar Order was that called Tlamacazajotl, also the Order known as Telpochtliztli. It is understood that under the sway of the Aztecs, the Mexican Mysteries had some Masonic affinities (see Aztec Writings).
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MYSTERY
From the Greek compound word meaning an initiate and a secret, something to be concealed. The Gilds or Companies of the Middle Ages, out of which we trace the Masonic organization, were called mystenes, because they had trade-secrets, the preservation of which was a primary ordination of these fraternities. "Mystery" and "Craft" came thus to be synonymous words. In this secondary sense we speak of the "Mystery of the Stone-Masons" as equivalent to the "Craft of the Stone-Masons."
Adam Smith, Wealth of Cations (volume i, page 126), refers to the old stipulation that unless he had served an apprenticeship to it of seven years, "it was enacted, that no person should for the future exercise any trade, craft, or mystery." But the Mystery of Freemasonry refers rather to the primary meaning of the word as immediately derived from the Greek (see Mysteries).
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MYSTES
From the Greek to shut the eyes. One who had been initiated into the Lesser Mysteries of Paganism. He was now blind; but when he was initiated into the Greater Mysteries, he was called an Epopt, or one who saw. The Mystes was permitted to proceed no farther than the vestibule or porch of the temple. To the Epopts only was accorded the privilege of admission to the advtum or sanctuary. A female initiate was called a Mystis.
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MYSTICAL
A word applied to any language, symbol, or ritual which is understood only by the initiated. The word was first used by the priests to describe their mysterious rites, and then borrowed by the philosophers to be applied to the inner, esoteric doctrines of their schools. In this sense we speak of the mystical doctrines of Speculative Freemasonry. Suidas derives the word from the Greek aim, to close, and especially to close the lips. Hence the mystical is that about which the mouth should be closed.
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MYSTIC CROWN, KNIGHTS AND COMPANIONS OF THE
A Society formed by the ad herents of Mesmer, in August, 1787, of a beneficent, nonpolitical. and nonsectarian nature, to which Master Masons only were admitted.
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MYSTICISM
A word applied in religious phraseology to any views or tendencies which aspire to more direct communication between God and man by the inward perception of the mind than can be obtained through revelation. "Mysticism," says Vaughan (Hours with the Mystics i, 19), "presents itself in all its phases as more or less the religion of internal as opposed to external revelation—of heated feeling, sickly sentiment, or lawless imagination, as opposed to that reasonable belief in which the intellect and the heart, the inward witness and the outward, are alike engaged." The Pantheism of some of the ancient philosophers and of the modern Spinozaists, the Speeulations of the Neoplatonists, the Anabaptism of Munster, the system of Jacob Behmen, the Quietism of Madame Guyon, the doctrines of the Bavarian Illuminati, and the reveries of Swedenborg, all partake more or less of the spirit of mysticism.
The Germans have two words, mystik and mysticismus— the former of which they use in a favorable, the latter in an unfavorable sense. Mysticism is with them only another word for Pantheism, between which and Atheism there is but little difference. Hence a belief in mysticism is with the German Freemasons a disqualification for initiation into the Masonic rites. Thus the second article of the Statutes of the Grand Lodge of Hanover prescribes that "ein Freimaurer muss vom Mysticismus und Atheismus gleich weit entfernt stehen," that is, "a Freemason must be equally distant from Mysticism and Atheism." Gadicke, Freimaurer-Lencon, thus expresses the German sentiment: "Etwas mystisch sollte wohl jeder Mensch seyn, aber man hute sich vor grobem Mysticismus," that is, "Every man ought to be somewhat mystical, but should guard against coarse mysticism."
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MYSTIC ORDER VEILED PROPHETS OF THE ENCHANTED
REALM
See Grotto
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MYSTIC TIE
That sacred and inviolable bond which unites men of the most discordant opinions into one band of brothers, which gives but one language to men of all nations and one altar to men of all religions, is properly, from the mysterious influence it exerts, denominated the mystic tie; and Freemasons, because they alone are under its influence, or enjoy its benefits, are called "Brethren of the Mystic Tie."
The expression was used by Brother Robert
Burns in his farewell to the Brethren of Saint James Lodge, Tarbolton,
Scotland,
Adieu! a heart-warm, fond adieu!
Dear Brothers of the mystic tie!
Ye favored, ye enlightened few,
Companions of my social joy!
Brother A. Glass, Ayr Operative Lodge, No.
138, has also in the Freemason (August 5, 1871), later used the
expression effectively thus in allusion to Brother Burns himself:
His was the keen prophetie eye,
Could see afar the glorious birth
Of that great power, whose mystic tie,
Shall make "One Lodge" of all the earth.
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MYTH
The word myth, from the Greek a story, in its original acceptation, signified simply a statement or narrative of an event, without any necessary implication of truth or falsehood; but, as the word is now used, it conveys the idea of a personal narrative of remote date, which, although not necessarily untrue, is certified only by the internal evidence of the tradition itself. This definition, which is substantially derived from George Grote ( History of Greece, volume I, page 295), may be applied without modification to the myths of Freemasonry, although intended by the author only for the myths of the ancient Greek religion.
The myth, then, is a narrative of remote date, not necessarily true or false, but whose truth can only be certified by internal evidence. The word was first applied to those fables of the Pagan gods which have descended from the remotest antiquity, and in all of which there prevails a symbolic idea, not always, however, capable of a positive interpretation. As applied to Freemasonry, the words myth and legend are synonymous. From this definition it will appear that the myth is really only the interpretation of an idea. But how we are to read these myths will best appear from these noble words of Max Muller (Science of Language, second series, page 578), "Everything is true, natural, significant, if we enter with a reverent spirit into the meaning of ancient art and ancient language. Everything becomes false, miraculous, and unmeaning, if we interpret the deep and mighty words of the seers of old in the shallow and feeble sense of modern chroniclers."
A fertile source of instruction in Freemasonry is to be found in its traditions and mythical legends; not only those which are incorporated into its ritual and are exemplified in its ceremonies, but those also which, although forming no part of the Lodge Lectures, have been orally transmitted as portions of its history, and which, only within a comparatively recent period, have been committed to writing. But for the proper appreciation of these traditions some preparatory knowledge of the general character of Masonic myths is necessary. If all the details of these traditions be considered as asserted historical facts, seeking to convey nothing more nor less than historical information, then the improbabilities and anachronisms, and other violations of historical truth which distinguish many of them, must cause them to be rejected by the scholar as absurd impostures. But there is another and a more advantageous view in which these traditions are to be considered. Freemasonry is a symbolic institution—everything in and about it is symbolic— and nothing more eminently so than its traditions.
Although some of them—as, for instance, the Legend of the Third Degree—have in all probability a deep substratum of truth lying beneath, over this there is superposed a beautiful structure of symbolism. History has, perhaps, first suggested the tradition; but then the legend, like the myths of the ancient poets, becomes a symbol, which is to enunciate some sublime philosophical or religious truth. Read in this way, and in this way only, the myths or legends and traditions of Freemasonry will become interesting and instructive (see Legend ).
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MYTH, HISTORICAL
A historical myth is a myth that has a known and recognized foundation in historical truth, but with the admixture of a preponderating amount of fiction in the introduction of personages and circumstances. Between the historical myth and the mythical history, the distinction cannot always be preserved, because we are not always able to determine whether there is a preponderance of truth or of fiction in the legend or narrative under examination.
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MYTHICAL HISTORY
A myth or legend, in which the historical and truthful greatly preponderate over the inventions of fiction, may be called a mythical history. Certain portions of the Legend of the Third Degree have such a foundation in fact that they constitute a mythical history, while other portions, added evidently for the purposes of symbolism, are simply a historical myth.
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MYTHOLOGY
Literally, this word means the science of myths; and this is a very appropriate definition, for mythology is the science which treats of the religion of the ancient Pagans, which was almost altogether founded on myths or popular traditions and legendary tales; and hence Knightly (Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, page 2), says that "mythology may be regarded as the repository of the early religion of the people." Its interest to a Masonic student arises from the constant antagonism that existed between its doctrines and those of the Primitive Freemasonry of antiquity and the light that the mythological mysteries throw upon the ancient organization of Speculative Freemasonry.
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MYTH, PHILOSOPHICAL
This is a myth or legend that is almost wholly unhistorical, and which has been invented only for the purpose of enunciating and illustrating a particular thought or dogma. The Legend of Euclid in the manuscripts of our ancient Craft is clearly a philosophical myth.
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