The Builder Magazine 

January 1915 - Volume 1 - Number 1 


THE NATIONAL MASONIC RESEARCH SOCIETY 
A FOREWORD 

BY JOSEPH FORT NEWTON 

LINDER the sign of the Square and Compasses— emblems as eloquent as they are 
ancient —"The Builder" takes up its labors for the advancement of Freemasonry, with 
malice toward no man, no party, no church, but with a sincere and hearty good will 
toward all its fellow- workers in the search for truth and the service of humanity. 
Obviously it is fitting, in this initial issue, that a statement be made as to the Society 
of which this journal is a spokesman, its purpose, its spirit, its ideals, and the designs 
on its Trestle-Board. 

So enthusiastic, so remarkable indeed has been the response from all over the country 
to the suggested organization of a National Masonic Research Society, that there is no 
longer any doubt that such a movement is needed and that it has a fruitful and far- 
reaching service to render to the Order. Surely he is a poor prophet, and no poet at all, 
who does not see that this Society, as now organized and working, can easily be made 
a factor of moment in the life and progress of Masonry in all its rites and activities, 
and if we give ourselves to it with earnestness, the day of its founding will be looked 
back upon as one of the significant dates in the recent history of the Craft. 

Some things need to be set down plainly, by way of preface, in behalf of a frank and 
full understanding. Let it be said once for all that this movement has back of it no 
motive of personal aggrandizement, much less of pecuniary profit. Instead of trying to 
make money out of Masonry, the founders of this Society are putting time, money and 
energy into it, thinking little and caring less of any returns other than to find the truth 
and tell it. They have no axe to grind, no vanity to vent, no fad to air. Were it possible, 
they would prefer to remain unnamed, and be known only by their work— like the old 
cathedral builders, whose labors live but whose names are lost. Their solitary aim is to 
diffuse Masonic light and understanding, and thus to extend the influence and power 
of this the greatest order of men upon earth. 



That is to say, they refuse to think of Masonry as a mere collection of social and 
faintly beneficent clubs, and they regard such a view of it as a pitiful apostasy from 
the faith of our fathers. They believe that Masonry is a form of the Divine life upon 
earth, an order of men initiated, sworn and trained to make righteousness, sweet 
reasonableness and the will of God prevail. They see in it latent powers and 
possibilities as yet unguessed, still less realized— a great liberalizing and humanizing 
fraternity, whose mission it is to soften prejudice, to refine thought and sympathy and 
service, and so help to prepare the race for a nobler manhood and a juster and more 
merciful social order. Hence their honorable ambition for its service, not only by 
interpreting it to the world at large, but by broadening and deepening the interest of 
Masons themselves in the faith, philosophy, history and practical aims of the 
fraternity. Surely such a labor may well appeal to men who would fain serve their 
fellows, and do a little good before they die. 

Instead of being a private enterprise, this movement has the official sanction and 
blessing of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and is in fact an outgrowth of the labors of that 
Grand body in training its young men to be intelligent and capable Masons. What the 
endorsement of such a plan by the Grand Lodge of Iowa means in the Masonic world, 
is at once evident, as witness these words by Sir Chetwode Crawley, of whose 
distinguished services to Masonic scholarship in England no student needs to be told: 

"Let me begin by expressing my deep satisfaction that the Grand Lodge of Iowa has 
extended its sanction to Masonic Research by the appointment of so influential and 
capable a committee as that indicated in your letter. The adoption of such a plan by 
any Grand Lodge would have secured warm approval from all Brethren concerned for 
the welfare of the Craft, but there is a peculiar fitness in its adoption by the Grand 
Lodge of Iowa. For more than a generation, we have been accustomed to see the 
Grand Lodge of Iowa leading the van in the cultivation of the literature of 
Freemasonry." 

Those words speak a high and sincere tribute, but it is richly deserved and abundantly 
justified by the record. Seventy- five years ago the Fibrary of the Grand Fodge of 
Iowa— perhaps the greatest of its kind in the world— was founded by the late Theodore 
Sutton Parvin, whose long and busy life was devoted, with an industry only equalled 
by his great ability, to the cause of Masonic light and learning. Today that noble 
library stands as his monument and memorial, its doors open and its fabulous 
treasures accessible to all who seek further light in Masonry. Having so splendid a 
tradition and so inspiring an example, it is only natural that Iowa Masons should make 
their library the center of enthusiasm and activity for the education of the Craft, 
whereof detailed report may be read in the proceedings of their Grand Fodge. More 



recently, by force of necessity, new emphasis has been added to the study side of 
Masonry, and the reason is not far to seek. 


Time was, and not so long ago, when it required courage for a man to be a Mason. 
Feeling against the Order was intense, often fanatical, and its innocent secrets were 
imagined by the ignorant or malicious to hide some dark design. How different it is 
now, when the Order is everywhere held in honor, and justly so, for the benignity of 
its spirit and the nobility of its principles. No wonder its temple gates are thronged 
with elect young men, eager to enter its ancient fellowship. But those young men must 
know what Masonry is, whence it came, what it cost in the sacrifice of brave men, and 
what it is trying to do in the world. Otherwise they cannot realize in what a benign 
tradition they stand, much less be able to give a reason for their faith. Every argument 
in favor of any kind of education has equal force in behalf of the education of young 
Masons in the truths of Masonry. So and only so can they ever hope to know what the 
ritual really means, and what high and haunting beauties lie hidden in the of all 
emblems. 

Finding in this necessity an open door of opportunity, the Grand Lodge of Iowa set 
about, through its Committee on Masonic Research, to work out a well-planned 
practical program of method, testing it by facts and results. By natural logic, the fruits 
of that labor suggested a National movement toward the same end, which has now 
taken form in this Society. While it thus had its origin in Iowa, as the result of actual 
experience, it is no longer confined to Iowa, but invites the interest and aid of every 
Grand Lodge in the country, and of Masonic students of every rank and rite, offering 
them in this journal a medium for closer fellowship and a forum of frank, free and 
fraternal discussion of every possible aspect of Masonry. 

There is no need that any one make argument to prove that such a movement as this is 
Masonic; it is in accord with the oldest traditions of the Order we turn to the "Old 
Charges"— the title deeds of Masonry, and a part of its earliest ritual— we leam that the 
Craft-lodges of the olden time were in fact schools, in which young men studied not 
only the technical laws of building, but the Seven Sciences and the history and 
symbolism of the Order as well. Apprentices were selected as much for their mental 
capacity as for bodily agility, and such as betrayed no aptitude for the intellectual 
aims of the Craft were allowed to go back to the Guilds and work as "rough masons." 
No young man, during his term as an Apprentice, was permitted to keep late hours, 
unless he did so in study, "which shall be deemed a sufficient excuse," as an old 
Charge relates. 

Truth to tell, we have much yet to learn from the old Craft-masonry, and especially in 
the matter of training young Masons. For one thing, they recited a brief history of the 
Craft to the candidate at the time of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, not 



leaving him bewildered, as we too often do, knowing nothing of a truly great and 
heroic history. No doubt the history so recited— as we have it in the "Old Charges" was 
sometimes fantastic and far from the fact. None the less, the principle was right, and 
had that wise custom been continued there would have been less occasion for Gould 
to say, what is only too true, that Masons know less about the history of their own 
order than the men of any other fraternity. Harking back to that old and wise custom, 
the Grand Lodge of Iowa has had a brief story and interpretation of Masonry written, 
a copy of which is to be given to each of its initiates on the night of his raising. 

Masonic research, as we now use the phrase, may almost be said to have begun with 
Findel, albeit good work had been done before his day. Still, his "History of Masonry" 
was one of the very first books of the right kind, and it did much to put the Craft in the 
path of authentic learning. Others followed, both abroad and in this country— Pike, 
Fort, Mackey, Drummond, Parvin, to name but a few among us— and their work, 
which met with little response, was nobly prophetic. An example in point was the 
brief but brilliant career of the "American Review of Freemasonry," edited by 
Mackey. It began in 1858, ran two years, and died for lack of adequate support. In his 
valedictory, Dr. Mackey said: 

"It was an experiment, commenced with a view of ascertaining how far a Masonic 
magazine of a very elevated character would be sustained by the craft in this country. 
For two years this experiment has been made, and it is plain that the "Quarterly" was 
in advance of the Masonic age. Doubtless it was supported better than such a work 
would have been twenty years ago, but not so well as a similar one will be ten years 
hence, for the literary character of the order is improving. The editor feels some 
satisfaction in believing that that work, during its brief existence, has done no little in 
hastening that improvement." 

Truly that was a brave optimism, as befitted a pioneer, and its vision has been fulfilled 
by the facts. By the same token, we who live in a day made better by the labors of 
such men dare not be less courageous, lest we be found unworthy of our fathers. The 
men who wrote for the "Review" have now passed to where, beyond these voices, 
there is peace, but their work remains. One has only to open its yellow pages to read 
the articles of Pike on the Mysteries, and the essays of Mackey on Symbolism— which 
afterwards formed the chapters of his book in exposition of the "Symbolism of 
Freemasonry"— written in style which may well be a model of lucidity. Those men did 
not fail; they were sowers who did their work and trusted the far off harvest of years. 
Remembering their faith, their sacrifice, their high devotion, we would build on their 
foundations, linking the past with a greater tomorrow. 


We inherit the past; we create the future. Since the days of the "Review" much has 
been done, especially by the great Research Lodges of England, and most of all by the 



Quatuor Coronati Lodge of London, to whose labors we owe an incalculable debt. As 
in religious scholarship, so in Masonry, the Higher Criticism has come and done its 
much needed work, testing documents, sifting evidence, unearthing buried treasure, 
and applying to Masonry the approved methods of historical study. Of necessity, the 
voluminous processes of this long investigation are known only to the diligent student 
who has had the time and taste to follow its revealing labors— just as in the field of 
Biblical Criticism the real results achieved are locked up, for the most part, in huge 
volumes read by only a few. 

Here the National Research Society may render a vital service to the Order, not only 
by encouraging further original investigation, but also, and not one whit less 
important, by inteipreting to the Craft at large the net results of Masonic scholarship. 
What Renan called "the grand curiosity" must never be allowed to sleep, and this 
Society will do all within its power to extend the area of knowledge, bringing new 
facts to light wherever they are to be found. The field is rich. The labor is fascinating. 
What has been done only reveals how much remains to be done, while it shows us 
how to go about it. At the same time, the humblest member of the craft, toiling in 
office and shop, at the forge and on the farm, is entitled to know the best that has been 
thought and the latest fact discovered by the greatest Masonic scholar. Therefore, this 
Society seeks to unite the work of the investigator with that of the interpreter, and to 
that end it proposes: 

First, the publication of a journal devoted to the study and interpretation of the history, 
philosophy, symbolism and purposes of the various rites, orders and degrees of 
Freemasonry. 

Second, the publication, from time to time, of books, pamphlets and lectures on 
Masonic subjects, and the collection, preservation and indexing of all material of 
value to Masonic students. 

Third, the arrangement and publication of courses of Masonic study for lodges, or 
groups of students; the promotion and supervision, when it is desired, of meetings of 
Masons for Masonic study and discussion; and, ultimately, the foundation and 
maintenance of a bureau of Masonic lectures. 

Fourth, the compilation of lists of names of Masonic students interested in different 
lines of Masonic study or activity, for the stimulation and guidance of Masonic 
intercourse— and, it may be added, for the aid of Masonic journals when special 
articles are desired. 

Fifth, the collection and circulation of data bearing upon distinct Masonic activities, 
such as plans and specifications for different kinds of Masonic buildings; systems for 



financing of Masonic projects; the results of practical experience upon various phases 
of Masonic charity, and the like. 

Sixth, the foundation and management of funds for the financial aid of Masonic 
students in special fields of Masonic research; in the form of a Fellowship, it may be, 
whereby a young man - say, of the Acacia Fraternity— trained for such studies in a 
university, may be set at work on some period or problem in Masonic history, and 
thus render a permanent service to the Craft. By endowing a Fellowship in the 
Society, a man of wealth, who has long had it in mind to do something for Masonry, 
can leave a living legacy which will go on doing good after he has passed away. 

Having thus indicated in what ways the Society seeks to serve Freemasonry, it may 
not be amiss to point out how the Order can make the Society effective for the high 
end for which it was founded. First of all, every Mason who becomes a member of the 
Society adds, by so much, to its usefulness and power. The time has come when every 
Grand Lodge should have a Committee on Masonic Research— or Masonic Education, 
if they choose so to name it— and such committees, by co-operating with this Society, 
may have access to every resource at its command. Also, the various groups of 
Masonic students, of which there are many in different parts of the country, ought by 
all means to work with the Society, making use of its journal not only for mutual 
instruction and inspiration, but the better to share the results of their researches with 
all the Craft. 

Such is the spirit and ideal of this Society, and if to realize it all at once is denied us, 
surely it means much to set it before us, working the while to make it come true. 
Manifestly, here is a practical program which, if worked out, will mean a new era in 
the history of Freemasonry, opening avenues of opportunity and enterprise to which 
no one can set a limit. It differs from other undertakings of a like kind chiefly in that, 
instead of being confined to a few, it seeks to enlist the whole fraternity, uniting 
scattered efforts in behalf of Masonic education into a magnificent movement for the 
advance of the Order which has no other purpose than the present and future 
upbuilding of humanity. 

Finally, it only remains for ye editor to state, from his point of view, what the spirit 
and policy of "The Builder" should be. As its name indicates, this journal for the 
Masonic student— like the Society which it represents— is by its very genius 
constructive, and in no sense iconoclastic, its sole object being to build up, never to 
tear down. Anybody can destroy. Even a cow can trample a lily which the warm earth, 
the fertilizing sun, and the soft witchery of summer air have united to grow. Speaking 
for himself, the editor holds it to be self-evident that the only way to overthrow error 
and unreason is to tell the simple truth— tell it simply, vividly, without fear and 



without resting, in love of God and love of man. Other way to victory there is none, 
and there never will be. 


Masonry is Friendship, and if its benign influence is to prevail upon earth, it must 
labor in a spirit of will toward all men, seeking not to destroy its enemies, but to win 
them to the light and dignity of the truth. Nothing is gained by denunciation. 
Everything is mined by hate. Love is the one mighty Builder, and they toil in vain 
who build upon any other foundation. Our task is to let in the light, let in all the light, 
let the light all the way in, assured that when the light of Tmth shines darkness will 
disappear— and with it, all the vile and slimy things that hide within its shadows. There 
is no might like the might of Tmth, and once the temple of Masonry is made to stand 
in the sunlight where all men can see its beauty, it will command the homage of all 
who love their race. 

Therefore, "The Builder" will be positive, but not dogmatic; open minded, but never 
indifferent; considerate of all, but absolutely uncompromising in respect of the 
principles of Freemasonry— seeking the tmth, the whole tmth, and nothing but the 
tmth. Critical it must be, since criticism, as Arnold defined it, is appreciation, 
estimate, "co-operation in the search for tmth." Those who write for these pages may 
expect to have their theories put to the test of reason and fact in the open forum of 
debate, which is what the seeker after tmth most desires. Let the discussion be frank, 
free and thorough; all that the editor asks is that it be fraternal in spirit, each one 
keeping an open mind and a kind heart toward all his comrades in the great quest. 

For the rest, the editor asks pardon for having taken so much time and space, but it 
seemed appropriate to exhibit in some detail the designs of the Society, the faith in 
which it is founded, and the spirit in which it works. Hereafter, his duty will be much 
like that of a toastmaster— presiding over the feast, introducing the speakers, with 
occasional interludes of comment- his one desire being to encourage a spirit of 
fraternal fellowship and intellectual hospitality, of genial, joyous good will which, 
since the far off days of the old "Regius Poem," has been the reigning genius 
wherever Masons meet. 


TWO CATHEDRALS. 

St. John the Divine and Notre Dame de Rheims. 
BY MAY PRESTON SLOSSON. 



I watch the patient masons in the sun Building a House to God upon the hill That 
overhangs the city; just begun The toil of years— the care— the loving skill. 


Another minster lifted arch and spire By patient builders wrought in futile trust. The 
Iron Eagle dropt a plume of fire- And all its beauty is a heap of dust ! -The 
Independent. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF MASONRY 

Five Lectures Delivered under the Auspices of the Grand Master of Massachusetts, 
Masonic Temple, Boston 

By Brother Roscoe Pound, Professor of Jurisprudence in Harvard University 
WILLIAM PRESTON 

PHILOSOPHERS are by no means agreed with respect to the scope and subject 
matter of philosophy. Nor are Masonic scholars at one with respect to the scope and 
puipose of Freemasonry. Hence one may not expect to define and delimit Masonic 
philosophy according to the easy method of Dickens' editor who wrote upon Chinese 
metaphysics by reading in the Encyclopedia upon China and upon metaphysics and 
combining his information. It is enough to say at the outset that in the sense in which 
philosophers of Masonry have used the term, philosophy is the science of 
fundamentals. Possibly it would be more correct to think of the philosophy of 
Masonry as organized Masonic knowledge— as a system of Masonic knowledge. But 
there has come to be a well-defined branch of Masonic learning which has to do with 
certain fundamental questions; and these fundamental questions may be called the 
problems of Masonic philosophy, since that branch of Masonic learning which treats 
of them has been called commonly the philosophy of Masonry. These fundamental 
questions are three: 

1. What is the nature and puipose of Masonry as an institution? For what does it exist? 
What does it seek to do? Of course for the philosopher this involves also and chiefly 
the questions, what ought Masonry to be? For what ought it to exist? What ought it to 
seek as its end? 

2. What is- and this involves what should be-the relation of Masonry to other human 
institutions, especially to those directed toward similar ends? What is its place in a 
rational scheme of human activities? 



3. What are the fundamental principles by which Masonry is governed in attaining the 
end it seeks? This again, to the philosopher, involves the question what those 
principles ought to be. 

Four eminent Masonic scholars have essayed to answer these questions and in so 
doing have given us four systems of Masonic philosophy, namely, William Preston, 
Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, George Oliver and Albert Pike. Of these four systems 
of Masonic philosophy, two, if I may put it so, are intellectual systems. They appeal to 
and are based upon reason only. These two are the system of Preston and that of 
Krause. The other two are, if I may put it that way, spiritual systems. They do not 
flow from the rationalism of the eighteenth century but spring instead from a reaction 
toward the mystic ideas of the hermetic philosophers in the seventeenth century. As I 
shall try to show here-after, this is characteristic of each, though much more marked 
in one. 

Summarily, then, we have four systems of Masonic philosophy. Two are intellectual 
systems: First that of Preston, whose key word is Knowledge; second, that of Krause, 
whose key word is Morals. Two are spiritual systems: First that of Oliver, whose key 
word is Tradition; and second, that of Pike, whose key word is Symbolism. 

Comparing the two intellectual systems of Masonic philosophy, the intrinsic 
importance of Preston's is much less than that of Krause's. Krause's philosophy of 
Masonry has a very high value in and of itself. On the other hand the chief interest in 
Preston's philosophy of Masonry, apart from his historical position among Masonic 
philosophers, is to be found in the circumstance that his philosophy is the philosophy 
of our American lectures and hence is the only one with which the average American 
Mason acquires any familiarity. 

Preston was not, like Krause, a man in advance of his time who taught his own time 
and the future. He was thoroughly a child of his time. Hence to understand his 
writings we must know the man and the time. Accordingly I shall divide this 
discourse into three parts: (1) The man, (2) the time, (3) Preston's philosophy of 
Masonry as a product of the two. 

1. First, then, the man. William Preston was bom at Edinburgh on August 7,1742. His 
father was a writer to the signet or solicitor— the lower branch of the legal 
profession— and seems to have been a man of some education and ability. At any rate 
he sent William to the high school at Edinburgh, the caliber of which in those days 
may be judged from the circumstance that the boy entered it at six- -though he was 
thought very precocious. At school he made some progress in Latin and even began 
Greek. But all this was at an early age. His father died while William was a mere boy 
and he was taken out of school, apparently before he was twelve years old. His father 



had left him to the care of Thomas Ruddiman, a well-known linguist and he became 
the latter's clerk. Later Ruddiman apprenticed William to his brother who was a 
printer, so that Preston learned the printer's trade as a boy of fourteen or fifteen. On 
the death of his patron (apparently having nothing by inheritance from his father) 
Preston went into the printing shop as an apprentice and worked there as a 
journeyman until 1762. In that year, with the consent of the master to whom he had 
been apprenticed, he went to London. He was only eighteen years old, but carried a 
letter to the king's printer, and so found employment at once. He remained in the 
employ of the latter during substantially the whole remaining period of his life. 

Preston's abilities showed themselves in the printing shop from the beginning. He not 
merely set up the matter at which he worked but he contrived in some way to read it 
and to think about it. From setting up the great variety of matter which came to the 
king's printer he acquired a notable literary style and became known to the authors 
whose books and writings he helped to set up as a judge of style and as a critic. 
Accordingly he was made proof reader and corrector for the press and worked as such 
during the greater part of his career. He did work of this sort on the writings of 
Gibbon, Hume, Robertson and authors of that rank, and presentation copies of the 
works of these authors, which were found among Preston's effects at his death, attest 
the value which they put upon the labors of the printer. 

Preston had no more than come of age when he was made a Mason in a lodge of 
Scotchmen in London. This lodge had attempted to get a warrant from the Grand 
Lodge of Scotland, but that body very properly refused to invade London, and the 
Scotch petitioners turned to the Grand Lodge of Ancients, by whom they were 
chartered. Thus Preston was made in the system of his great rival, Dermott, just as the 
latter was at first affiliated with a regular or modem lodge. According to the English 
usage, which permits simultaneous membership in several lodges, Preston presently 
became a member of a lodge subordinate to the older Grand Lodge. Something here 
converted him, and he persuaded the lodge in which he had been raised to secede from 
the Ancients and to be reconstituted by the so-called Modems. Thus he cast his lot 
definitely with the latter and soon became their most redoubtal champion. Be it 
remembered that the Preston who did all this was a young man of twenty-three and a 
journeyman printer. 

At the age of twenty- five he became master of the newly constituted lodge, and as 
such conceived it his duty to make a thorough study of the Masonic institution. His 
own words are worth quoting: 

"When I first had the honor to be elected master of a lodge, I thought it proper to 
inform myself fully of the general mles of the society, that I might be able to fulfill 
my own duty and officially enforce obedience in others. The methods which I adopted 



with this view excited in some of superficial knowledge an absolute dislike of what 
they considered as innovations, and in others, who were better informed, a jealousy of 
preeminence which the principles of Masonry ought have checked. Notwithstanding 
these discouragements, however, I persevered in my intention." 

Indeed one cannot wonder that the pretenses of this journeyman printer of twenty- five 
were scouted by older Masons. But for the present Preston had to contend with 
nothing more than shakings of the head. Unlike the scholarly, philosophical, 
imperturbable, academic Krause, Preston was a fighter. Probably his confident 
dogmatism, which shows itself throughout his lectures, his aggressiveness and his 
ambition made more enemies than the supposed innovations involved in his Masonic 
research. Moreover we must not forget that he had to overcome three very serious 
obstacles namely, dependence for his daily bread upon a trade at which he worked 
twelve hours a day, youth, and recent connection with the fraternity. That Preston was 
not persecuted at this stage of his career and that he succeeded in taking the lead as he 
did is a complete testimony to his abilities. 

Preston had three great qualifications for the work he undertook: (1) Indefatigable 
diligence, whereby he found time and means to read everything that bore on Masonry 
after twelve hours of work at his trade daily, six days in the week; (2) a marvelous 
memory, which no detail of his reading ever escaped; and (3) a great power of making 
friends and of enlisting their enthusiastic co-operation. He utilized this last resource 
abundantly, corresponding diligently all with well-informed Masons abroad and 
taking advantage of every opportunity to interview Masons at home. The results of 
this communication with all the prominent Masons of his time are to be seen in his 
lectures. 

It was a bold but most timely step when this youthful master of a new lodge 
determined to rewrite or rather to write the lectures of Craft Masonry. The old charges 
had been read to the initiate originally, and from this there had grown up a practice of 
orally expounding their contents and commenting upon the important points. To turn 
this into a system of fixed lectures and give them a definite place in the ritual was a 
much-needed step in the development of the work. But it was so distinctly a step that 
the ease with which it was achieved is quite as striking as the result itself. 

When Preston began the composition of his lectures, he organized a sort of club, 
composed of his friends, for the purpose of listening to him and criticising him. This 
club was wont to meet twice a week in order to pass on, criticise and learn the lecture 
as Preston conceived it. Finally in 1772, after seven years, he interested the grand 
lodge officers in his work and delivered an oration, which appears in the first edition 
of his Illustrations of Masonry, before a meeting of eminent Masons including the 
principal grand officers. After delivery of the oration, he expounded his system to the 



meeting. His hearers approved the lectures, and, though official sanction was not 
given immediately, the result was to give them a standing which insured their ultimate 
success. His disciples began now to go about from lodge to lodge delivering his 
lectures and to come back to the weekly meetings with criticisms and suggestions. 
Thus by 1774 his system was complete. He then instituted a regular school of 
instruction, which obtained the sanction of the Grand Lodge and thus diffused his 
lectures throughout England. This made him the most prominent Mason of the time, 
so that he was elected to the famous Lodge of Antiquity, one of the four old lodges of 
1717, and the one which claimed Sir Christopher Wren for a past master. He was soon 
elected master of this lodge and continued such for many years, giving the lodge a 
pre-eminent place in English Masonry which it has kept ever since. 

Preston's Masonic career, however, was not one of unbroken triumph. In 1779 his 
views as to Masonic history and Masonic jurisprudence brought him into conflict with 
the Grand Lodge. It is hard to get at the exact facts in the mass of controversial 
writing which this dispute brought forth. Fairly stated, they seem to have been about 
as follows: 

The Grand Lodge had a rule against lodges going in public processions. The Lodge of 
Antiquity determined on St. John's Day, 1777, to go in a body to St. Dunstan's church, 
a few steps only from the lodge room. Some of the members protested against this as 
being in conflict with the rule of the Grand Lodge, and in consequence only ten 
attended. These ten clothed themselves in the vestry of the church, sat in the same 
pew during the service and sermon, and then walked across the street to the lodge 
room in their gloves and aprons. This action gave rise to a debate in the lodge at its 
next meeting, and in the debate Preston expressed the opinion that the Lodge of 
Antiquity, which was older than the Grand Lodge and had participated in its 
formation, had certain inherent privileges, and that it had never lost its right to go in 
procession as it had done in 1 694 before there was any Grand Lodge. Thus far the 
controversy may remind us of the recent differences between Bro. Pitts and the Grand 
Lodge authorities in Michigan. But the authority of Grand Lodges was too recent at 
that time to make it expedient to overlook such doctrine when announced by the first 
Masonic scholar of the day. Hence, for maintaining this opinion, Preston was expelled 
by the Grand Lodge, and in consequence the Lodge of Antiquity severed its 
connection with the Grand Lodge of Modems and entered into relations with the 
revived Grand Lodge at York. The breach was not healed till 1787. 

Upon settlement of the controversy with the Grand Lodge of Modems, Preston, 
restored to all his honors and dignities, at once resumed his Masonic activities. 

Among other things, he organized a society of Masonic scholars, the first of its kind. 

It was known as the Order of the Harodim and included the most distinguished 



Masons of the time. Preston taught his lectures in this society, and through it they 
came to America, where they are the foundation of our Craft lectures. Unhappily at 
the Union in England in 1813 his lectures were displaced by those of Hemming, 
which critics concur in pronouncing much inferior. But Preston was ill at the time and 
seems to have taken no part whatever in the negotiations that led to the Union nor in 
the Union itself. He died in 1818, at the age of 76, after a lingering illness. A diligent 
and frugal life had enabled him to lay by some money and he was able to leave 800 
pounds for Masonic uses, 500 pounds to the Freemason's charity for orphans— for 
which, left an orphan himself before the age of twelve, he had a natural sympathy— 
and 300 pounds to endow the so-called Prestonian lecture— an annual lecture in 
Preston's words verbatim by a lecturer appointed by the Grand Lodge. This lecture is 
still kept up and serves to remind us that Preston was the first to insist on the minute 
verbal accuracy which is now a feature of our lectures. It should be noted also that in 
addition to his lectures, Preston's book, Illustrations of Masonry, has had great 
influence. It went through some twenty editions in England, four or five in America, 
and two in Germany. 

So much for the man. 

Now as to the time. 

Three striking characteristics of the first three quarters of the eighteenth century in 
England are of importance for an understanding of Preston's philosophy of Masonry: 
(1) It was a period of mental quiescence; (2) both in England and elsewhere it was a 
period of formal over-refinement; (3) it was the so-called age of reason, when the 
intellect was taken to be self-sufficient and men were sure that knowledge was a 
panacea. 

1 . In contrast with the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century was a period of 
quiescence. Society had ceased to be in a state of furious ebullition, nor was there a 
conflict of manifestly irreconcilable ideas as in the time just gone by. On the surface 
there was harmony. True, as the events of the end of the century showed, it was a 
harmony of compromise rather than of reconciliation— a truce, not a peace. But men 
ceased for a time to quarrel over fundamentals and turned their attention to details and 
to form. A common theological philosophy was accepted by men who denounced 
each other heartily for comparatively trivial differences of opinion. In politics, Whig 
and Tory had become little more than names, and both parties agreed to accept, with 
little modification, the body of doctrine afterwards known as the principles of the 
English Revolution. Political ideas were fixed. Men conceived of a social compact 
from which every detail of social and political rights and duties might be deduced by 
abstract reasoning and believed that it was possible in this way to work out a model 
code for the legislator, a touchstone of sound law for the judge and an infallible guide 



to private conduct for the individual. In literature and in art there was a like 
acquiescence in accepted canons. A certain supposed classical style was assumed to 
be the final and the only permissible mode of expression. In other words acquiescence 
was the dominant tendency and finality was the dominant idea. For example, 
Blackstone, a true representative of the century, thought complacently of the legal 
system of his time, with its heavy load of archaisms, almost ripe for the legislative 
reform movement of the next generation, as substantially perfect. Nothing, so he 
thought, was left for the completion of five hundred years of legal development but to 
patch up a few trivial details. In the same spirit of finality the framers of our bills of 
rights undertook to lay out legal and political charts for all time. Indeed the absolute 
legal philosophy of our text books which has made so much trouble for the social 
reformers of yesterday and of today, speaks from the eighteenth century. In this spirit 
of finality, with this same confidence that his time had the key to reason and could 
pronounce once for all for every time, for every place and for every people, Preston 
framed the dogmatic discourses which we are content to take as the lectures of 
Freemasonry. 

2. For the modem world, the eighteenth century was par excellence the period of 
formalism. It was the period of formal over-refinement in every department of human 
activity. It was the age of formal verse and heroic diction, of a classical school in art 
which lost sight of the spirit in reproducing the forms of antiquity, of elaborate and 
involved court etiquette, of formal diplomacy, of the Red Tape and Circumlocution 
Office in every portion of administration, of formal military tactics in which 
efficiency in the field yielded to the exigencies of parade and soldiers went into the 
field dressed for the ball room. Our insistence upon letter perfect, phonographic 
reproduction of the ritual comes from this period, and Preston fastened that idea upon 
our lectures, perhaps for all time. 

3. The third circumstance, that the eighteenth century was the era of purely 
intellectualist philosophy naturally determined Preston's philosophy of Masonry. At 
that time reason was the central idea of all philosophical thought. Knowledge was 
regarded as the universal solvent. Hence when Preston found in his old lectures that 
among other things Masonry was a body of knowledge and discovered in the old 
charges a history of knowledge and of its transmission from antiquity, it was 
inevitable that he make knowledge the central point of his system. How thoroughly he 
did this is apparent today in our American Fellowcraft lecture, which, with all the 
abridgments to which it has been subjected, is still essentially Prestonian. Time does 
not suffice to read Preston in his original rhetorical prolixity. But a few examples 
from Webb's version, which at these points is only an abridgment, will serve to make 
the point. The quotations are from a Webb monitor, but have been compared in each 
case with an authentic version of Preston. 



"The Globes are two artificial spherical bodies, on the convex surface of which are 
represented the countries, seas, and various parts of the earth, the face of the heavens, 
the planetary revolutions, and other particulars. 

"The sphere, with the parts of the earth delineated on its surface, is called the 
Terrestrial Globe; and that with the constellations, and other heavenly bodies, the 
Celestial Globe. 

"The principal use of the Globes, besides serving as maps to distinguish the outward 
parts of the earth, and the situation of the fixed stars, is to illustrate and explain the 
phenomena arising from the annual revolution and the diurnal rotation of the earth 
around its own axis. They are the noblest instruments for improving the mind, and 
giving it the most distinct idea of any problem or proposition, as well as enabling it to 
solve the same." 

ft has often been pointed out that these globe on the pillars are pure anachronisms. 
They are due to Preston's desire to make the Masonic lectures teach astronomy, which 
just then was the dominant science. 

Note particularly the purpose, as the lecture sets it forth expressly: "for improving the 
mind and for giving it the most distinct idea of any problem or proposition as well as 
enabling it to solve the same." 

In other words, these globes are not symbolic, they are not designed for moral 
improvement. They rest upon the pillars, grotesquely out of place, simply and solely 
to teach the lodge the elements of geography and astronomy. 

We must remember that Preston, who worked twelve hours a day setting type or 
reading proof, would look on this very differently from the Mason of today. What are 
commonplaces of science now were by no means general property then. To him the 
teaching of the globes was a perfectly serious matter. 

Turn to the solemn disquisition on architecture in our Fellowcraft lecture. As we give 
it, it is unadulterated Preston, but happily it is often much abridged. You know how it 
runs, how it describes each order in detail, gives the proportions, tells what was the 
model, appends an artistic critique, and sets forth the legend of the invention of the 
Corinthian order by Callimachus. The foundation for all this is in the old charges. But 
in Preston's hands it has become simply a treatise on architecture. The Mason who 
listened to it repeatedly would become a learned man. He would know what an 
educated man ought to know about the orders of architecture. 


In the same way he gives us an abridgment of Euclid: 



"Geometry treats of the powers and properties of magnitudes in general, where length, 
breadth and thickness are considered, from a point to a line, from a line to a 
superficies, and from a superficies to a solid. A point is a dimensionless figure, or an 
indivisible part of space. A line is a point continued, and a figure of one capacity, 
namely, length. A superficies is a figure of two dimensions, namely, length and 
breadth. A solid is a figure of three dimensions, namely, length, breadth and 
thickness." 

But enough of this. You see the design. By making the lectures epitomes of all the 
great branches of learning, the Masonic Lodge may be made a school in which all 
men, before the days of public schools and wide-open universities, might acquire 
knowledge, by which alone they could achieve all things. If all men had knowledge, 
so Preston thought, all human, all social problems would be solved. With knowledge 
on which to proceed deductively, human reason would obviate the need of 
government and of force and an era of perfection would be at hand. But those were 
the days of endowed schools which were not for the many. The priceless solvent, 
knowledge, was out of reach of the common run of men who most needed it. Hence to 
Preston, first and above all else the Masonic order existed to propagate and diffuse 
knowledge. To this end, therefore, he seized upon the opportunity afforded by the 
lectures and sought by means of them to develop in an intelligent whole all the 
knowledge of his day. 

Now that knowledge has become too vast to be comprised in any one scheme and too 
protean to be formulated as to any of its details even for the brief life of a modem text, 
the defects of such a scheme are obvious enough. That this was Preston's conception, 
may be shown abundantly from his lectures. For instance: 

"Smelling is that sense by which we distinguish odors, the various kinds of which 
convey different opinions to the mind. Animal and vegetable bodies, and, indeed, 
most other bodies, while exposed to the air, continually send forth effluvia of vast 
subtilty, as well in the state of life and growth, as in the state of fermentation and 
putrefaction. These effluvia, being drawn into the nostrils along with the air, are the 
means by which all bodies are smelled." 

This bit of eighteenth-century physics, which makes us smile today, is still gravely 
recited in many of our lodges as if it had some real or some symbolic importance. It 
means simply that Preston was endeavoring to write a primer of physiology and of 
physics. 


He states his theory expressly in these words: 



"On the mind all our knowledge must depend; what, therefore, can be a more proper 
subject for the investigation of Masons ? By anatomical dissection and observation we 
become acquainted with the body; but it is by the anatomy of the mind alone we 
discover its powers and principles." 

That is: All knowledge depends upon the mind. Hence the Mason should study the 
mind as the instrument of acquiring knowledge, the one thing needful. 

Today this seems a narrow and inadequate conception. But the basis of such a 
philosophy of Masonry is perfectly clear if we remember the man and the time. We 
must think of these lectures as the work of a printer, the son of an educated father, but 
taken from school before he was twelve and condemned to pick up what he could 
from the manuscripts he set up in the shop or by tireless labor at night after a full day's 
work. We must think of them as the work of a laborer, chiefly self-educated, 
associated with the great literati of the time whom he came to know through preparing 
their manuscripts for the press and reading their proofs, and so filled with their 
enthusiasm for enlightenment in what men thought the age of reason. We must think 
of them as the work of one imbued with the cardinal notions of the time— 
intellectualism, the all-sufficiency of reason, the absolute need of knowledge as the 
basis on which reason proceeds, and finality. 

How, then, does Preston answer the three problems of Masonic philosophy ? 

1. For what does Masonry exist? What is the end and purpose of the order ? Preston 
would answer: To diffuse light, that is, to spread knowledge among men. This, he 
might say, is the proximate end. He might agree with Krause that the ultimate puipose 
is to perfect men— to make them better, wiser and consequently happier. But the 
means of achieving this perfection, he would say, is general diffusion of knowledge. 
Hence, he would say, above all things Masonry exists to promote knowledge; the 
Mason ought first of all to cultivate his mind, he ought to study the liberal arts and 
sciences; he ought to become a learned man. 

2. What is the relation of Masonry to other human activities ? Preston does not answer 
this question directly anywhere in his writings. But we may gather that he would have 
said something like this: The state seeks to make men better and happier by preserving 
order. The church seeks this end by cultivating the moral person and by holding in the 
background supernatural sanctions. Masonry endeavors to make men better and 
happier by teaching them and by diffusing knowledge among them. This, bear in 
mind, was before education of the masses had become a function of the state. 


3. How does Masonry seek to achieve its purposes? What are the principles by which 
it is governed in attaining its end ? 



Preston answers that both by symbols and by lectures the Mason is (first) admonished 
to study and to acquire learning and (second) actually taught a complete system of 
organized knowledge. We have his own words for both of these ideas. As to the first, 
in his system both lectures and charges reiterate it. For example: "The study of the 
liberal arts, that valuable branch of education which tends so effectually to polish and 
adorn the mind is earnestly recommended to your consideration." Again, notice how 
he dwells upon the advantages of each art as he expounds it: 

"Grammar teaches the proper arrangement of words according to the idiom or dialect 
of any particular people, and that excellency of pronunciation which enables us to 
speak or write a language with accuracy, agreeably to reason and correct usage. 
Rhetoric teaches us to speak copiously and fluently on any subject, not merely with 
propriety alone, but with all the advantages of force and elegance, wisely contriving to 
captivate the hearer by strength of argument and beauty of expression, whether it be to 
entreat and exhort, to admonish or applaud." 

As to the second proposition, one example will suffice: 

"Tools and implements of architecture are selected by the fraternity to imprint on the 
memory wise and serious truths." 

In other words the purpose even of the symbols is to teach wise and serious truths. 

The word serious here is significant. It is palpably a hit at those of his brethren who 
were inclined to be mystics and to dabble in what Preston regarded as the empty 
jargon of the hermetic philosophers. 

Finally, to show his estimate of what he was doing and hence what, in his view, 
Masonic lectures should be, he says himself of his Fellowcraft lecture: "This lecture 
contains a regular system of science [note that science then meant knowledge] 
demonstrated on the clearest principles and established on the firmest foundation." 

One need not say that we cannot accept the Prestonian philosophy of Masonry as 
sufficient for the Masons of today. Much less can we accept the details or even the 
general framework of his ambitious scheme to expound all knowledge and set forth a 
complete outline of a liberal education in three lectures. We need not wonder that 
Masonic philosophy has made so little headway in Anglo-American Masonry when 
we reflect that this is what we have been brought up on and that it is all that most 
Masons ever hear of. It comes with an official sanction that seems to preclude inquiry, 
and we forget the purpose of it in its obsolete details. But I suspect we do Preston a 
great injustice in thus preserving the literal terms of the lectures at the expense of their 
fundamental idea. In his day they did teach— today they do not. Suppose today a man 
of Preston's tireless diligence attempted a new set of lectures which should unify 



knowledge and present its essentials so that the ordinary man could comprehend them. 
To use Preston's words, suppose lectures were written, as a result of seven years of 
labor, and the co-operation of a society of critics, which set forth a regular system of 
modem knowledge demonstrated on the clearest principles and established on the 
firmest foundation. Suppose, if you will, that this were confined simply to knowledge 
of Masonry. Would not Preston's real idea (in an age of public schools) be more tmly 
carried than by our present lip service, and would not his central notion of the lodge as 
a center of light vindicate itself by its results? 

Let me give two examples. In Preston's day, there was a general need, from which 
Preston had suffered, of popular education— of providing the means whereby the 
common man could acquire knowledge in general. Today there is no less general need 
of a special kind of knowledge. Society is divided sharply into classes that understand 
each other none too well and hence are getting wholly out of sympathy. What nobler 
Masonic lecture could there be than one which took up the fundamenta of social 
science and undertook to spread a sound knowledge of it among all Masons ? Suppose 
such a lecture was composed, as Preston's lectures were, was tried on by delivery in 
lodge after lodge, as his were, and after criticism and recasting as a result of years of 
labor, was taught to all our masters. Would not our lodges diffuse a real light in the 
community and take a great step forward in their work of making for human 
perfection? 

Again, in spite of what is happening for the moment upon the Continent, this is an era 
of universality and intemationality. The thinking world is tending strongly to insist 
upon breaking over narrow local boundaries and upon looking at things from a world- 
wide point of view. Art, science, economics, labor and fraternal organizations, and 
even sport are tending to become international. The growing frequency of 
international congresses and conferences upon all manner of subjects emphasizes this 
breaking of local political bonds. The sociological movement, the world over, is 
causing men to take a broader and more humane view, is causing them to think more 
of society and hence more of the world-society, is causing them to focus their vision 
less upon the individual, and hence less upon the individual locality. 

In this world-wide movement toward universality Masons ought to take the lead. But 
how much does the busy Mason know, much less think, of the movement for 
intemationality or even the pacificist movement which has been going forward all 
about him ? Yet every Mason ought to know these things and ought to take them to 
heart. Every lodge ought to be a center of light from which men go forth filled with 
new ideas of social justice, cosmopolitan justice and intemationality. 


Preston of course was wrong— knowledge is not the sole end of Masonry. But in 
another way Preston was right. Knowledge is one end— at least one proximate end— 



and it is not the least of those by which human perfection shall be attained. Preston's 
mistakes were the mistakes of his century— the mistake of faith in the finality of what 
was known to that era, and the mistake of regarding correct formal presentation as the 
one sound method of instruction. But what shall be said of the greater mistake we 
make today, when we go on reciting his lectures— shorn and abridged till they mean 
nothing to the hearer— and gravely presenting them as a system of Masonic knowledge 
? Bear in mind, he thought of them as presenting a general scheme of knowledge, not 
as a system of purely Masonic information. If we were governed by his spirit, 
understood the root idea of his philosophy and had but half his zeal and diligence, 
surely we could make our lectures and through them our lodges a real force in society. 
Here indeed, we should encounter the precisians and formalists of whom lodges have 
always been full, and should be charged with innovation. But Preston was called an 
innovator. And he was one in the sense that he put new lectures in the place of the old 
reading of the Gothic constitutions. Preston encountered the same precisians and the 
same formalists and wrote our lectures in their despite. I hate to think that all initiative 
is gone from our order and that no new Preston will arise to take up his conception of 
Knowledge as an end of the fraternity and present to the Masons of today the 
knowledge which they ought to possess. 


By the author of "Poems of The Temple." 
When I was a king and a mason— 

A mason proved and skilled, 

I cleared me ground for a palace 
Such as a king should build. 

I decreed and dug down to my levels; 
Presently, under the silt, 

I came on the wreck of a palace 
Such as a king had built. -Kipling. 


A part of a builder's profession 



Is digging in mins of old, 

And his findings, in rapid succession, 
Equip him with merits untold, 

For the builder who never uncovers 
The work of the centuries past 
Is the builder who never discovers 
Construction most certain to last. 

Far back before history's pages 
Did ever their stories relate 
Or the sayings of eminent sages 
Their quota of learning donate, 

We find over lands without number 
Where human achievements were felt, 
Their mins profusely encumber 
The sites where the race had long dwelt. 

And the study of long hidden symbols 
Induces the mind to concede 
That their mystical system resembles 
Our own very closely indeed. 

And the builders of old, laid foundations 



Of ethical value so rare 


That their teaching of mystic creations 
With Masonry closely compare. 

And we find them in cities long buried 
When civilization's decay 
O'er the work of the builder fast hurried 
With ruthless demolishing sway. 

In the temples of Indian ages 
And far on the banks of the Nile 
Where the work and the study of sages 
Their wonderful stories compile. 

And remote from all eastern persuasions 
Of all known connection devoid, 

In old Mexico's ancient creations 
They find the same symbols employed. 
'Tis the soul of the Master revolving 
All lands in the universe through, 

With His children of nature evolving 
From light of the old to the new. 


—Lewis A. McConnell. 



THE ACACIA FRATERNITY AND MASONIC 
RESEARCH 

BY FRANCIS W. SHEPARDSON, FORMER GRAND PRESIDENT. 

THE Acacia Fraternity is a society of college men who are Master Masons. It is not a 
Masonic body in the ordinary acceptation of that expression. It is not a side degree. It 
claims no antiquity. It seeks no recognition to which its inherent worth does not entitle 
it. It is exactly like any one of the thirty odd Greek letter fraternities which flourish in 
American colleges, except for the fundamental requirement for membership that one 
who is considered must be a member in good standing in some regularly authorized 
lodge of Master Masons. Membership comes from within by invitation. Candidates do 
not petition. Those students who have the good fortune to be offered membership pride 
themselves on the triple selection thus indicated, the selection from the great mass of 
high school students for the privilege of college education, the selection from the 
citizenship of their home communities for the rights and benefits of Masonry, and the 
selection for the social and intellectual joys of Acacia fraternity life. 

The fraternity was founded at the University of Michigan, being incoiporated on May 
12, 1904. It was the outgrowth of a Masonic club at the University which had existed 
since 1894. It now has twenty- four Chapters, well distributed over the country. They 
are necessarily in the larger institutions where the number of Master Masons in 
attendance furnishes sufficient material for energetic existence. Most of these Chapters 
maintain Chapter houses in which the members make their home, several of these 
houses being owned by the local organization, but the majority being rented. The 
fraternity has an excellent standing among similar college societies. It is a recognized 
member of the national Inter-Fraternity Conference. It shares generally the privileges of 
local conferences of representatives of like organizations. During its ten years of life it 
has won much approval from college authorities because of its high average ranking in 
scholarship. As a member must be at least twenty-one years of age, and as, in many 
places, those who wear its badge are advanced students, there is a realization of the 
value of scholarship and right conduct which the younger members of other societies 
sometimes lack. The result has been that Acacia is highly regarded by the college 
administration wherever it has a Chapter. 

From the beginning much stress has been laid upon the social life in the Chapter home. 
Much has been done to cement college friendships, stronger than the ordinary, perhaps, 
because of the Masonic tie. The Chapter houses breathe the atmosphere of sentimental 
affection. Group pictures of the members are found on the walls. Pennants tell of the 
other institutions where the fraternity has its branches. Individual portraits proclaim 
some one of exceptional interest or influence. Through Acacia, then, many a college 



Mason has had his years of study made happier because of close fraternal ties. After ten 
years of life Acacia is marked by many of the sentimental characteristics which have 
made college fraternity Chapters powerful organizations. 

But there has never been a time when through the Acacia fraternity membership there 
was not a strong desire to be of some service to the mother institution out of which it 
sprung. A substantial periodical, the Journal of Acacia, has been a helpful influence. It 
has published many articles on Masonic history and philosophy for the enlightenment 
and instruction of members. It has printed bibliographies and suggestions for Masonic 
study. It has urged members constantly to maintain their lively interest in the lodges, 
notwithstanding the immediate and pressing demands of the class-room and tine 
allurements of library and laboratory. Two or three definite results of such a sustained 
campaign of Masonic education are apparent. 

There have been developed some splendid degree teams. The Acacia members 
comprising these have sought always to be letter perfect in the rendition of the ritual. In 
a good many lodges their aid in degree work has been received with enthusiastic praise. 
They have encouraged mass visitation of neighboring lodges and so the college boys 
have been brought into closer relationship with local craftsmen and have had their circle 
of acquaintanceship much enlarged Naturally they have been careful watchers of the 
ritualistic work and have profited by the errors made by less eager officers. If Acacia 
has done nothing more, it has greatly stimulated the Masonic interest of its own 
membership. 

A natural sequence of this feature of the fraternity's activity has been that Acacians 
generally have ranged themselves on the side of those reformers who desire to remove 
from the accepted work those errors in grammar and faulty constructions in English 
which always grate upon the ears of one who has had the benefit of a training of the 
schools. They have attempted nothing iconoclastic, but in quiet ways have given their 
influence in favor of revisions certain to bring improvement to a time-honored ritual. 
And in seeking for the reasons for familiar shortcomings in the accepted work, they 
have been led into the attractive field of Masonic research. 

A powerful influence in this direction has been exerted by Professor Roscoe Pound of 
Harvard Law School. He became a member of Acacia at the University of Nebraska. 

For a time he was a member of the faculty of law in the University of Chicago. He was 
one of the first to recognize the possibilities for Masonrv in this organization of eager 
and enthusiastic college men. He has devoted much time and attention to a series of 
lectures on Masonic history and philosophy which he has given freely, with great 
sacrifice of valuable hours, before Acacia Chapters and college Masonic clubs. His 
marvelous capacity for research and his exceptional ability in instruction has made of 
each of these lectures a wonderful stimulus to his hearers. He has planted the desire for 



Masonic research in many a student. He has guided the first readings of those who 
sought from him the way to the truth. His earnest pupils are found in more than one 
Acacia Chapter. 


In a narrower field similar work has been done by professors Chester N. Gould and 
Charles Chandler of the University of Chicago. Teachers in an institution which 
maintains a large summer session they have exerted a stimulating influence upon 
college Masons from many parts of the country. Each is a keen student and lover of 
deep research and they have given to the fraternity the full benefit of their rich resources 
of mind obtained by thorough investigation of the hidden things of Masonry. 

The Acacians in other parts of the country nave had the advantage of like 
encouragement from Masons of eminence who have been elected to honorary 
membership, or who, as faculty members, have been impressed with the opportunity of 
lecturing to such exceptional audiences as are furnished by college men, to whom the 
habit of research becomes almost a second nature. Without attempting to discriminate 
among members of this type, mention may be made especially perhaps of the late 
Lewis Cass Goodrich of Michigan, Joseph R. Wilson of Pennsylvania, William Homan 
of New York, and A. K. Wilson of Kansas. These mature men, well known Masonic 
workers, gave Acacia an impetus in the direction of Masonic research whose full effect 
cannot be realized for years to come. Perhaps it is enough to say that their helpful 
influence has been a powerful force in the first decade of the history of this college 
fraternity. 

I look to Acacia for some splendid Masonic workers in the higher ranks of the great 
mother order. I expect to see the history and philosophy of Masonry made far more 
familiar in the lodges because of the inspiration given by those who have shared the 
privileges of Acacia Chapter life. The fraternity is young as yet. It is now in its eleventh 
year. It has just elected as its Grand President an enthusiastic Mason, Mr. George E. 
Frazer, of the administrative staff of the University Illinois. He is deeply interested in 
Masonic research. He has done much to stimulate support of the movement represented 
by this journal. I firmly believe that the Masonic order is to be greatly helped by this 
fraternity, not only in the quickening of the life of local lodges throughout the United 
States, but, notably, in the years to come, through the development of men of fine 
educational training who will find delight in delving into the storied past that they may 
interpret to others the beauties and the strength of the Masonic institution. 


MASONIC ARCHAEOLOGY 

BY FRANK HIGGINS, F.R.N.S., PRESIDENT OF THE MAGIAN SOCIETY, ETC. 



WITH reference to all those things which come within the various provinces of the 
seven liberal arts and sciences, Masonry occupies an extremely anomalous position. 
The theory of the Craft we all know. From one degree to another, we have paraded 
before us, assumptions of all knowledge, human and Divine. We are supposed to be 
the custodians of a mysterious arcana descended to us from remote ages, which must 
be hedged about with safeguards and pledges, which could not be more exacting, if 
they constituted a system of defense for the fabled treasures of Golconda, actually 
materialized. 

Yet there is not a Masonic student, among those hold enough to proclaim that there is 
at least a substratum of truth at the bottom of these pretensions, who does not find 
himself continually in the minority, among a vast army of brethren, who refuse to 
contemplate anything in the ritual of Masonry, transcending an agreeable series of 
moral platitudes, collated within a comparatively modern period for the unmixed 
puipose of "making Masons." 

The degrees of the Craft are, in this respect, very much like those honorary titles 
conferred by Universities upon benefactors, who, had they actually elected to shine in 
the domains of Law, Arts, Letters or Sciences, suggested by their alphabetical 
dignities, instead of Coal, Iron or Commerce would never have figured in the history 
of pedagogics as patrons of learning. 

In consideration of the hugely preponderating part played by at least the presumption 
of Science in its construction, one might imagine that Masonry would have long since 
specially attracted to itself an unusual quota of scientific men, men of the schools, 
competent through plediliction and training to give extension to the manifold hints of 
our ritual. But with notable exceptions, this has not proven the case. 

The chief among Masonic students, whose reputations for more or less scientific 
research into the latent meanings of Masonic allusions, have become classic in the 
Craft, have been gifted amateurs, who have no reputation outside of our exclusive 
ranks. Such science as has been brought to the support of Masonry has been purely 
accidental. Owing to the nature of our institution, we are unable to turn for guidance 
to the very men who could most and best enlighten us. We may take no, however 
learned, scientist into Masonic confidence and invite him to diagnose a landmark, 
having a pointed scientific application, for the benefit of the craft, unless he is a 
member thereof and the conflict between Science and Religion has, since the 
organization of the modem speculative craft, given rise to a special reason which has 
closed its doors to many of the very men who could have been most depended on to 
enlighten it. 



For these and other reasons Masonic symbolism has remained for several centuries in 
the hands of brethren who, however lovable and amiable their personal characters, or 
however they have adorned the Craft by their personal virtues, have been the last men 
in the world to perceive either its origin or its tendencies on the purely intellectual 
plane. The progress of true Masonic enlightenment has therefore been slower than that 
of any branch of human contemplation open to examination, dissection and suggestion 
from unbiased scholars. 

Brilliant as have been the many scholarly Protestant Divines who have given lustre to 
Masonry by their high qualities as men and Masons, the majority of these have been 
content to regard the numerous scriptural allusions and parallels introduced to 
attention, from the literal and unquestioning attitude of sectarian orthodoxy. Thus it 
has remained for a future age to reveal many things, which might have been 
discovered and brought to light years ago, if there had been systematic search. The 
true story of humanity's struggle toward the light during the past twenty centuries of 
the Christian era has yet to be written. It involves elements which numerous historians 
have approached closely enough, but which they have never been able to grasp, 
because of fundamental error in view point. 

For nigh upon two thousand years, the true nature and meanings of the ancient 
mysteries upon which modem Masonry has erected her symbolic Temple, have 
remained in the grasp and custody of an institution, equally founded upon them, 
which has employed every artifice of sophistry to conceal and every instrument of 
physical repression to guard from the assaults of the curious. The history of this 
conflict is the history of "Heresy," concerning which we will sum the whole in one all 
embracing statement. 

The entire totality of the various historical heresies which are recorded as having been 
subdued at one and another age of the Church, have been simply outcroppings of one 
and the same original gnosis, under different names, until the translations of the Bible 
into vulgar tongues, produced a new variety of schism, shifting the controversial 
premises from the original ground, which dealt with the Mysteries alone, to questions 
of historicity and literal interpretations of an inassailable Scripture, all sense of the 
cabalistic character of which had been hopelessly lost. 

The battle of the last two centuries has raged altogether around questions affecting the 
total or partial authenticity of the Biblical narrative taken as a record of human history 
rendered infallible by Divine interference. Its uncompromising literal inteipretations, 
the strict Puritan sense, have given rise to a long line of splendidly intellectual, but 
less misguided than unguided materialists, whose violent attitudes, in opposition to so 
called "revealed" religion, were provoked by the stubborn and uncompromising 
defense of sticklers for the historical veracity of a thousand physically impossible and 



completely unnatural narratives. That these narratives might have a concealed sense 
and convey the spiritual lessons of the "ancient mysteries" of their derivation, no more 
flashed across the minds of men like Voltaire, Thomas Paine, or to come down to our 
own day, Robert G. Ingersoll, than over those of Martin Luther or John Calvin. 

To recapitulate the influences which have resulted in the gradual readjustment of the 
situation, rescuing us from the danger of a sullen and uncompromising conflict 
between the grossest and most blasphemous negation of Divinity and a blind 
Credence, in the exercise of which man must stand ready to surrender every 
prompting of reason or God-given common sense, would be to largely recapitulate the 
work which has been slowly and painfully accomplished within the ranks of the 
Masonic craft since the emergency of speculative Masonry from its underground 
crypt, under the liberal institutions of Protestant England, Germany, and later, of 
Republican France. 

Scholarly Masons, who are duly qualified, did fail to recognize likenesses between 
Masonic terminologies and traditions of the Ancient Mysteries preserved in the Greek 
classics and in the allusions of early alchemistic and "magical" writings. This led to an 
examination of innumerable hints contained in the homilies of the early fathers, 
concerning the mysteries, both Pagan and Christian, of the early days of the Church. 
Like putting together, bit by bit, the pieces of an enormous "cut out" puzzle, fragment 
after fragment has been brought together and joined to the main body 

The labors of the Abbe Constant, known best by his pen name of Eliphaz Levi, did 
more than anything else to acquaint the western mind with the precise nature of 
spiritual mysteries and ancient methods of concealment, in his exposition of the long, 
jealously guarded Jewish Kabbalah. Upon this imperfect beginning have been based 
the Masonic writings of the venerable Albert Pike and from the same inspiration and 
greatly amplified by independent research, the published works of Helena Petrovna 
Blavatsky, with whose theosophical conclusions we shall not, however, concern 
ourselves. They have, however, had great influence over subsequent Masonic writers- 
like Dr. Buck and the Rev. Charles H. Vail. 

The labor of Oriental Students has thrown open to the world the treasure houses of 
ancient Zend, Sanscrit and Arabic literature, which have supplied the connecting links 
in the great story of the inception of an age old scientific gnosis, materially set forth to 
the western world in the philosophies of the ancient students of Eastern lore, Aristotle, 
Plato and Pythagoras. The work of the Assyrologists and Egyptologists has furnished 
other links to the chain, extending our vision and broadening its range, until we are 
brought face to face with a wonderful, new and magnificently supported conclusion— 
that the significant symbolism of this great institution of ours, was indeed selected at 
some remote period of human history and handed down for the express puipose of 



discovering to us the origin of man's highest spiritual contemplations, and to enable us 
like the fathers of our race to climb otherwise inaccessable heights and view our 
Creator "face to face." 

The consensus of all that has been discovered in this respect develops the fact that, 
way back in the dawn of history, probably long before it, there originated at some 
point on earth's surface, (indications which point to Northern India are not lacking) a 
curiously interlocking geometrical, mathematical and astronomical gnosis. From 
purely natural experiments was derived a conception of the three hundred and sixty 
degrees of the circle, triangle and quadrangular equations, by means of squares (the 
Mosaic pavement) and the equilateral triangle, the Alphabet and the Decimal system. 
Adding the factors of the perceptible phenomena of the Universe, the mutual relations 
of divers geometrical figures of equal quantities and the elements of organic 
generation, mainly as phallicism, a great system, intended to account for the wonders 
of Nature, was devised, credited to the One; Absolute Mind ruling the Universe and 
placed under the government of the College of primitive scientists, to which later ages 
gave the name of the Magi. 

The only difference between elementary Masonry and Theosophy, is the assumption 
by the latter that the most spiritual of those men achieved successive reincarnations on 
increasing scales of Divine inspiration and possession, which led them, in the course 
of time, to become the founders of the world's greatest religions, and has perpetuated 
their conscious personalities, even to our own day, under the generic title of "the 
Masters." Both are children of the legendary "Secret Doctrine." 

As a point of departure for the assumption of a special science of Masonic 
Archaeology, we are, while prepared to allow the most complete liberty of thought 
with regard to historic cities and anthropomorphic conceptions, compelled to assume 
that wherever the knowledge and attributes of God have been demonstrated by means 
of the Square and Compasses, for the puipose of awakening the spiritual sense latent 
in all mankind, there existed Masonry. With this single proposition in view, there is 
not an acre of earth's surface, at one time or another trodden by the foot of intelligent 
man, which does not furnish its countless mute testimonies to the existence and 
cultivation of the primordial gnosis, of which we speak, passed from race to race and 
land to land. 

It does not consist in structural architectural remains alone, but in geometrical 
symbolisms and decorative ornaments, in which the proportions of edifices, the shape 
and dimensions of stones, the decorative features of Temples and supposed Idols, 
especially the Pyramidal forms of Egypt and America, are made, by the translations of 
their geometrical angles and proportions into mathematical quantities, to give the 
precise length of the Solar year, the period of the precession of the Equinoxes, the 



period of human gestation, important planetary cycles and other great natural facts. 
The expression of these same quantities and formulae in the letters of the ancient 
alphabets, represented by their numbers, compose the various sacred names of diverse 
scriptures of humanity, so that we rest stupefied before the astounding fact, that the 
greatest message of our own Great light has yet to be read through Masonic eyes, by 
the light of the Ages past. 

Masonic Archaeology is no chimera, nor product of an exalted imagination. It can be 
read, character by character, on countless objects in the Museums of every country in 
the world, possessing such, on the facades of and in the proportions of ancient 
Temples, from Delphi to Delhi, from Athens to Ang-Kor. The ancient monuments of 
Mexico are supercharged with it and the evidences that this gnosis was the faith and 
practice of the ancient, aboriginal inhabitants of these United States are 
incontrovertible. 

It stares the craft in the face from every corner of lodge and Chapter, and every word, 
letter, syllable and character thereof is stamped with God's own signature, the 
ineffable Tetragrammaton. 

The London times, in its issue of October 30th, has a most interesting sketch and 
appreciation of Genral Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief of the French armies - a 
simple man, quiet, efficient, who does his duty and does not talk about it. Incidentally, 
the writer tells us that General Joffree is an enthusiastic Freemason - a fact which will 
give an added interest to his achievements as a soldier of the republic 


ANCIENT EVIDENCES 

BY G. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

It was the good fortune of the writer to see the great obelisk called Cleopatra's needle, 
as it stood at Alexandria and also to witness the "opening of a house" in Pompeii. The 
two Monoliths known as Cleopatra's needles had been brought to Alexandria in the 
time of the Caesars. They were originally in front of the University at Heliopolis, that 
great school where Moses, the law giver, was once a student. How long they were in 
Heliopolis no one knows, nor it is known when they were carved or erected. 

One of these magnificent monuments was given to England, and the other to the 
United States. The latter was brought to this country by Brother Lieutenant 
Commander H. H. Gorringe, U. S. N., the entire expense of which was borne by the 
late Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, of New York. 



When Gorringe lifted the monument, for the purpose of shipping it, he was surprised 
to find, under its base, so many symbols which seemed clearly Masonic. The Grand 
Lodge of Masons in Egypt, among whom there was a number of Egyptologists and 
Archaeologists, sent a committee of its best men, at the request of Gorringe, to 
examine these emblems and give an opinion. They were unanimous in the opinion that 
the emblems were Masonic, and gave the following definitions. Gorringe had a 
drawing made, not only to show the emblems and their relative positions, but for use 
in replacing them when the shaft should be erected at New York. 

A. A polished cube, of syenite. B. Polished square, of syenite. C. Rough and irregular 
block of syenite. D. Hard lime stone with trowel cemented to its surface. E. Soft lime 
stone, very white and entirely from spots. F. Axis stone, with figures. G. A marked 
stone. H. Comer stone, found under east angle of lower steps. 

The block C was believed to be the rough ashler; A the perfect ashler; the square B is 
very distinct, and has been so identified with Masonry, in all ages, that its presence 
added great weight. 

The Committee thought the stone, with figures, resembling snakes, was emblematic of 
Wisdom. They thought the "axis stone" represented the trestle-board and the marked 
stone bore the mark of a Mark Master. The two implements, the trowel and the lead 
plummet, are emblematic of Freemasonry; the white stone is the symbol of purity, as 
we have always understood it. 

A French Archaeologist, in New York, was the only person to question the opinion of 
the Egyptologists, but as he was not a Mason, Gorringe thought he was not competent 
to be a judge. 

The Obelisk was brought to New York and erected in Central Park, where it now 
stands. The comer stone was laid with Masonic ceremonies on the 2d of October, 

1880, and the emblems were replaced exactly as they had been found at Alexandria. 

In the National Museum, at Naples, there is an equally remarkable evidence, which 
was discovered in the mins of Pompeii, in 1896. The writer is indebted to the late 
Brother S. G. Hilborn, then a member of Congress from California, for a picture of 
this "find" which is here reproduced in a photograph. 

It is a mosaic table top, or altar top, which was situated in the center of a rectangular 
room, exactly as Masonic Altars have ever been erected in lodge rooms. The 
workmanship is excellent, and the coloring, when the discovery was made, was bright 
and fresh, but has probably faded some, as all the Pompeii colors have done. Mural 



paintings, so many of which have been found in those mins, have all suffered the 
same fate. 


This beautiful mosaic, which is believed to be the top of the altar, shows a large 
square, above deaths head, with a plumb line from the angle of the square to the 
middle point of the crown of the head. From each arm of the square there is suspended 
a robe; one was scarlet, the other purple, which are distinctive colors used in the 
Royal Arch degree. Below the chin of the head is a butterfly, beautifully colored, and 
under the butterfly is a circle, that Masonic emblem of Diety, without beginning or 
end. 

In addition to this there were found, in the same room, several articles inherent in 
Blue and in Royal Arch Masonry, a little um, which is believed to be the pot of 
manna, a setting maul, a trowel, a spade, a small chest, thought to be an imitation of 
the ark of the covenant, and small staff, thought to be phallus. These evidences, potent 
as they are, are confirmed by the inscription over the door of the house, which is 
DIOGENE SEN, which means Diogenes the Mason. 

The writer gives these facts as to the Pompeii find, as he received them from Brother 
Hilbom. We have not been in Pompeii since 1878, when with General Grant, but the 
existence of the altar top may be verified by a visit to the museum at Naples. 

The evidence, to an enthusiast, is convincing; to the writer they seem every bit as 
good, maybe better, than the evidence which Rome has accepted and propagated as to 
the Apostolic succession. 

NOTE —(See Viberf s "Freemasonry before the existence of Grand Lodges" for a 
different viewpoint regarding the Pompeii Mosaic.) 


ERNST AND FALK 

Translated from the German of G.E. Lessing (1778) by Louis Block, 

Past Grand Master of Masons in Iowa 

[Gotthold Ephriam Lessing, the father of German literature— "the forerunner of the 
philosophers, and whose criticisms supplied the place of poetry"— was bom at 
Kamenz, in Upper Lusatia, in 1729, and died in 1781, at Woefenbutal, where he was 
librarian to the Duke of Brunswick. He was a great genius, and like so many of his 
kind suffered poverty and hardship, but held to his ideal to the end. He was initiated in 



a Lodge at Hamburg, and found in Masonry the breadth and beauty which his mind 
craved, as well as the consolation he needed after the death of his wife and child. Up 
to that time, 1777, he had given himself chiefly to drama and criticism, and his 
"Faokoon" remains to this day the classic protest against the confusion of the arts. 

(See "The New Laokoon," by Irving Babbitt) But his great sorrow remade the man, 
and turned his thoughts to the deeper problems of life and its meaning. While these 
questions were tugging at his soul, he wrote "Nathan the Wise"— a poem worthy of 
such a tragic birth, and probably impossible without it— in which much of his deepest 
thought is set to music. In "The Education of the Human Race" he stated his final 
faith, and the spiritual process by which he was led to it. It was during his last years 
that he wrote "Ernst and Falk: Five conversations for Freemasons"— a gem of purest 
ray, and a treasure forever to the Order which he loved. Fessing loved Masonry for its 
tolerance— not the easy tolerance which lets error be as good as truth, because it is 
indifferent; but such tolerance as he taught in "Nathan the Wise," which sees that truth 
is greater than all creeds, deeper than all dogmas, and that in its presence we are all 
one in our littleness. "Ernst and Falk" has been twice translated into English, but never 
with more insight and feeling than by Brother Block, whose version will give a new 
interest to one of the rarest and finest little classics of Freemasonry.— The Editor] 

First Discourse. 


Ernst— What are you thinking about, friend? 

Falk— About Nothing. 

E. — But you are so quiet. 

F. — For that reason, who thinks while he enjoys ? And I am enjoying 
this refreshing morning. 

E. — You are right, and you would have been justified in asking me 
my own question. 

F. — If I had been thinking about something I would have spoken 
about it. There is nothing about which one cannot think aloud with 


a friend. 



E. ~ Certainly. 

F. — Have you enjoyed enough this lovely morning— if anything occurs 
to you, speak. Nothing comes to me. 

E. — That's good! It occurs to me that I have long wanted to ask you 
about something. 

F. — Then ask. 

E. ~ Is it true, friend, that you are a Freemason! 

F. — The question is one that is none. 

E. — Truly! Yet give me a straighter answer. Are you a Freemason? 

F. ~ I believe I am. 

E. — The answer is one that is not quite sure of its subject. 

F. ~ O yes! I am fairly certain about my subject. 

E. — Then you must well know why and when and where and by whom you 
were accepted. 

F. — That I know above all, but that is not saying so much. 

E. ~ Is it not? 

F. — Who does not accept and who is not accepted ? 

E. — Explain yourself. 

F. ~ I believe I am a Freemason; not so much because I was accepted 
by older Masons in a lawful lodge, but because I see and know what 
and why Mason is, when and where it has been, how and by what it is 


furthered or hindered. 



E. — And yet you express yourself doubtfully— I believe I am one! 

F. ~ To this expression I am now accustomed. Not indeed because I 
lack personal conviction but because I do not care to place myself 
squarely in another's way. 

E. — You answer me like a stranger ! 

F. — Stranger or friend ! 

E. — You have been accepted, you know all — 

F. — Others have been also accepted, and believe they know. 

E. — Could you then have been accepted without knowing what you know 

F . —Unfortunately . 

E. — How's that? 

F. — Because many who accept do not know themselves and the few who 
know cannot tell it. 

E. — And could you then know what you know, without having been 
accepted ? 

F. — Why not ? Freemasonry is nothing arbitrary, nothing 
dispensable, but something necessary that is grounded in man's 
being and in human society. Consequently one would come to it as 
well by his own reflection as by being led to it by another. 

E.— Freemasonry is nothing arbitrary ? Has it not words and signs 
and customs which might all be otherwise and consequently are 
arbitrary ? 



F.— That it has. But these words and these signs and these customs 
are not Freemasonry. 

E. ~ Freemasonry is nothing dispensable. What then did men do before 
Freemasonry ever was? 

F. ~ Freemasonry always was. 

E. — Well, what is it then, this necessary, this indispensable 
Freemasonry? 

F. ~ As I have already given you to understand— something that even 
those who know it cannot tell. 

E. — Therefore a nothing. 

F. ~ Do not overstep yourself. 

E. — That of which I have an idea, that I can also express in words. 

F. — Not always and least often so that others get from my words the 
same idea that I have of it. 

E. — Well, if not wholly the same, then still one nearly like it. 

F. — The near idea would here be useless or dangerous. Useless if it 
did not hold enough, and dangerous if it held the least bit too 
much. 

E. — Extraordinary! Seeing that the Freemasons themselves who know 
the secret of their order cannot tell it in words, how then do they 
make the order grow ? 

F. ~ By deeds. They allow such youths and men as they deem worthy of 



their society to surmise and conjecture their deeds— to see them as 
far as they can be seen; these find a zest in them and do like 
deeds. 

E. — Deeds? Deeds of the Freemasons? I know none other than their 
speeches and songs which are usually better printed than thought or 
spoken. 

F. — That they have in common with many other speeches and songs. 

E. ~ Or shall I take as their deeds those of which they boast in 
these speeches and songs? 

F. — Suppose they do not alone boast of them? 

E. — And what do they then boast about? Only those things that one 
expects from every good man— from every upright citizen. They are 
so friendly, so benevolent, so obedient, so full of patriotism ! 

F. ~ Is that then nothing? 

E. — Nothing— to set them apart from other men ! Who ought not to be 
these ? 

F. — Ought ! 

E. — Who has not motive and opportunity enough aside from 
Freemasonry to be these ? 

F. — But who in it and through it has one motive more. 

E.— Talk not to me of the number of motives! 'Twere better to give 
one single motive all possible intensive power! The number of such 



motives is like the number of wheels in a machine. The more wheels 


the more unreliable. 

F.~ I cannot deny that. 

E. — And what kind of a one motive more ! One that disparages and 
makes suspicious all others in order to hold out itself as the 
strongest and best ! 

F. — Friend, be fair! Hyperbole the quid-pro-qua of those empty 
speeches and songs! Pattern-work! Apprentice work ! 

E. — That is to say: Brother Orator is a chatterer. 

F. — That is but to say: The things that Brother Orator prizes in 
Freemasonry are clearly not in deeds. For Brother Orator is at 
least no babbler, and deeds speak for themselves. 

E. ~ Now I see at what you're aiming. Why didn't they occur to me at 
once, these deeds, these eloquent deeds ? Almost I might call them 
screaming deeds. Not enough, that the Freemasons should support one 
another, support one another most powerfully, for that would be but 
the essential peculiarity of every band. What do they not do for 

the whole people of every state to which they belong? 

F. — For example? That I may know whether you are on the right 
track. 

E.~ For example, the Freemasons in Stockholm: Did they not erect a 
great foundling hospital ? 



F.~ So only the Freemasons in Stockholm have shown themselves 
active in another opportunity. 

E. — In what other? 

F. — In some other I mean. 

E. — And the Freemasons in Dresden who furnished poor young girls 
with work, gave them lace and embroidery to make, so that the 
foundling hospital might be smaller. 

F. — Earnest ! You know better when I remind you of your name. 

E. — In all seriousness then. And the Freemasons in Braunschweig, 
who gave poor, capable boys lessons in arithmetic. 

F. — Why not ? 

E. — And the Freemasons in Berlin who supported Basedow's 
Philanthropic Institute. 

F. — What's that you're saying? The Philanthropic Institute ! The 
Freemasons supported it ? Who foisted that on you ? 

E. — The newspapers trumpeted about it. 

F. — The newspapers ! For that I must have Basedow's own written 
statement, and I must be sure that such statement was not directed 
against the Freemasons in Berlin, but was directed against 
Freemasons in general. 

E. — What's that? Don't you approve of Basedow's institution ? 

F. ~ I not? Who can approve of it more ? 



E. — Then you would not begrudge him this support? 

F. — Begrudge ? Who could wish him more of all good than I ? 

E. — Now then, you are incomprehensible to me. 

F. ~ I well believe it. In that I am wrong. For even the Freemasons 
can do a thing, and yet not do it as Freemasons. 

E. — And is that true of all their other good deeds ? 

F. — Perhaps. Perhaps all of these good deeds you have recited to me 
are (to serve myself with a scholastic expression for brevity's 
sake) only their deeds ad extra. 

E. — What do you mean ? 

F. — Only their deeds that come before the eyes of the people— only 
deeds that are done so that they may come before the popular eye. 

E. — In order to enjoy attention and favor? 

F. ~ It might well be. 

E. — But what of their real deeds then ? You are silent ? 

F. ~ As tho' I had not already answered you? Their real deeds are 
their secret. 

E. — Aha ! Therefore also not to be told in words ? 

F. — Not so. Only this much can and dare I tell you: The real deeds 
of Freemasonry are so great, so far reaching, that many centuries 
may go by before one can say: That is what they did! At the same 
time they have done all the good that is in the world, mark well, 



in the world. And they go forth to work at all the good that will 
yet be in the world. 

E. — Go to ! You are hoaxing me. 

F. — Surely not. But see, there goes a butterfly I must have. It is 
from the wolf s-milk caterpillar— Briefly I will tell you yet this 
much: The real effort of Freemasonry is toward making unnecessary 
in a large measure, all that we are commonly accustomed to call 
good deeds. 

E. — And are still also good deeds ? 

F. — There are no better. Think over it for awhile will be back 
shortly. 

E.— Good deeds that aim to make good deeds unnecessary? That is a 
puzzle. And I'll not trouble self over a puzzle. Rather will I lie 
meanwhile under a tree and watch the ants. 


THE LIBRARY 

"IN A NOOK WITH A BOOK" 

BECAUSE Masonry touches life on many sides, and has journeyed so far adown the 
years - gathering stones from many fields go wherewith to build its House of Truth - it 
has an interest in many kinds of books. Therefore, from time to time we shall make note 
of such books as have to do directly or indirectly with the history and aims of the order, 
and occasionally with those great books which should be the concern of all who love 
mankind. 



World-shaping is the word to describe "The Golden Bough," by J.C. Frazer, begun 
some thirty years ago and now completed in ten large volumes. (Macmillan Co., New 
York.) Surely this is one of the great literary achievements of the race. There is nothing 
to compare with it, except, perhaps, the "Decline and Fall of Rome," by Gibbon, or the 
colossal output of Voltaire. It is a study of the origin of religion carried on over all the 
world, through the literature of all the centuries, through the traditions, customs, rites 
and folklore of the ages found in books or in aboriginal environments. It is hardly too 
much to say that these volumes contain the largest amount of widespread learning of 
any work produced in the English-speaking world, and it will be difficult to find in any 
language a study which can vie with it in thoroughness of research and skill of 
presentation. 

Strangely enough, this monumental work began with a study of what seems, at first 
sight, only a curiosity of custom-the custom, that is, whereby the ancient Priest of 
Aricia, near Lake Alba, held his office on condition that he would fight any competitor 
for it to the death who succeeded in plucking from a sacred oak in the Grove of Nemi a 
golden bough. Macaulay speaks of this custom in one of his "Lays of Rome," and the 
problems suggested by it to Dr. Frazer were: Why did the old priest have to be slain by 
the new one before he could be inducted into office; why was he called the King of the 
Grove; why need he be slain at all; and above all, why did his successor have to pluck 
the golden bough ? Such inquiries led the searcher far afield, and the result is a mass of 
facts which will have to be reckoned with in the future, and may upset theology quite as 
radically as "The Origin of Species" did biology fifty years ago. 


A wonderful book, this, which properly reviewed would easily make a volume. What a 
picture we have here of that strange, weird creature, man, terrible in his heights and 
depths, blend of dirt and deity; so absurd-and, oh, so pathetic-in his facing of the 
mystery of life and the world; yet sublime even in his superstitions. It takes us back into 
the old dim abysm of time to the very origin of thinking, and the birth of music, 
worship and art. We visit the cradle of the gods in the morning of time. Religion has its 
beginning, so this writer holds, in what we stall magic. Man found himself here, and he 
could only live by working, but things happened to make his efforts go awry. Animals 
escaped from his traps, waves swamped his boats, winds toppled trees on him, enemies 
ravaged his fields. Thinking that wind and wave and fire were manifestations of 
invisible powers, he set about to conciliate, to propitiate those powers-hence his religion 
of magic. 

There was nothing wrong with magic save that it reasoned wrongly from insufficient 
facts. Something happened, and then another thing good or evil followed, and man 
connected the two, trying the while to do the things which brought the good sequences 



and to avoid the things which brought the bad ones. There was a time, Frazer thinks, 
when man did not even trace the cause of birth to the relation between the sexes. 
Similarly, if a rabbit crossed his path when he went to hunt and he had no luck, he 
blamed it on the rabbit. If some one glared at him when he was cutting a tree and the 
tree fell and hurt him, he remembered the evil eye. After this manner there grew up 
customs arid superstitions now almost unintelligible-as, for example, cannibalism. 
None the less, cannibalism had a reason, if so it may be called, which was that, if one 
ate a powerful enemy he had slain, he absorbed the power and courage of his enemy 
and became, by so much, a stronger, braver man. Numberless glimpses of this kind we 
get of-the early, groping, timid, fearful life of man, halfbeast and half-child - stories 
beautiful in their horror, and horrible even in their beauty. 


Happily, one need not accept the theory of Frazer to enjoy this journey back into a time 
so far gone that only fragments of its thought and faith and fear remain, like fossils in a 
rock. He holds, what some of us do not believe, that man was ever a materialist. Far 
from it. Instead, we see even at the lowest much that is not of dead matter; much not of 
the brute. We see man looking out and up, as if called to do so by something not 
himself; something within seeking union with Another whose call he heard in the 
voices of the winds. Indeed, Frazer in his mighty labor has builded more wisely, more 
spiritually than he knew; and by showing the old backward and abysm of time out of 
which man has climbed, he reveals to what heights we have attained. Looking at his 
facts from a point of view other than his own, we the more appreciate the grave and 
haunting eloquence of his closing words: 

"The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no 
longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. But Nemi's woods are still green, and as 
the sunset fades above them in the west there comes to us, borne on the swell of the 
wind, the sound of the church bells of Aricia ringing the Angelus. Ave Maria ! Sweet 
and solemn the chime from out the distant town and die lingeringly away across the 
wide Campagnan marshes. Ave Maria !" 

* * * 

Truth to tell, even while Frazer was writing his wonderful book, his theory was being 
assailed - and, some of us think, successfully - by Lyall, Jevons, Andrew Lang and 
others. Its basic defect was that it found the origin of religion in the reasoning faculties, 
forgetting, apparently, the deeper region of the emotions. Most certainly the true order 
of things was and is, first, Reality, then Feeling, and finally an effort to rationalize the 
contents of reality as revealed in feeling. Magic was logic, albeit erroneous, yet logic 
trying to connect cause and result. No one faculty or set of faculties must be credited 



with the creation of religion; it is the response of the whole of man to the total appeal of 
life 


Such is the position of E. S. Hartland in his most delightful and valuable work, "Ritual 
and Belief' - a work of peculiar interest to Masons, if for no other reason, for its 
philosophy of the origin and uses of Ritual. (Scribner's Sons, New York.) According to 
this admirable scholar and psychologist, ritual had its origin in the craving for 
movement and dramatic excitement - perhaps in play, as when the Hottentots danced all 
night in the moonlight, invoking her aid with wild gesture and song. Bom of the 
impulse to action, it liberated emotion; the emotion, in its turn, was intensified by its 
collective expression; and so the action became a custom, and gathered meaning. Later, 
it would serve also for the expression of ideas, one of which was that just as dramatic 
action influenced human relations, so, somehow, it might influence external nature - 
hence magic. Long eras of evolution passed before belief became definite and cogent. 

Of course, there is much else in this brilliant book, but this point is indicated for the 
reason that it needs to be considered by the members of an order in which Ritual has so 
large a part. Lirst, it shows that ritual is native to man, and a necessity of his nature, 
liberating emotions unutterable in words. Second, that ritual comes, naturally, if not 
inevitably, to have magical meaning and power, and leads to the easy belief that when a 
sentiment has been expressed dramatically, that is enough. No one need be told that this 
has all along been the danger - aye, the curse - of organized religion, in that too many 
men think that when they have observed certain rites they have fulfilled their moral 
obligations, the religious emotion finding expression in ritual rather than in character 
and the doing of good, ft is hardly less a danger of Masonry, against which we must be 
always on guard, lest the very puipose of the order be made of no effect. Third, as 
thought deepens and broadens, ritual must receive the reconsecration of nobler ideas, 
and become the medium through which those ideas are expressed. Ritual, if not thus 
enriched by growing thought, is apt to become an empty routine bereft alike of beauty 
and power. 

* * * 

Sixteen years ago Archdeacon Cheetham published his Hulsean Lectures on "The 
Mysteries, Pagan and Christian," and they had a wide reading. Since that time - or, to be 
more accurate, very recently - the debate has become more acute as to how far, and 
what ways, St. Paul was influenced by the Mystery cults, and the results of the late 
course of research, led by Cumont and Reitzenstein, are summed up by Dr. A. A. 
Kennedy in his "St. Paul and the Mystery Religions." ft is a timely book and an able 
one, having a fine precision of scholarship, a conscience for facts, and a wholesome 
skepticism of theorizing. In a field where similarities of language and affinities of 
thought have been pushed too far, such a sane and critical work is welcome. St. Paul 



knew of the Mysteries; he uses some of their technical terms, but that he was greatly 
influenced by them in his thinking, is not true. Of late an attempt has been made to 
show that not only the theology of St. Paul, but the whole primitive Christian creed and 
cult, was simply the old Mystery religion revamped, but the effort fails. The value of 
this volume to Masons is that it states briefly and lucidly what is known of the 
Mysteries which our order perpetuates, in some fashion, today. 


LOOKING FOR WARD 

Without any boast, it is believed that this initial issue of "The Builder" will commend 
itself to the intelligent confidence of the Order, as showing the high level on which the 
Research Society begins its work. Nor will that level be lowered by one jot or tittle, its 
effort being to unite liberty of thought and scholarly accuracy with simplicity and 
lucidity of style, the better to serve the Craft for whom it labors. 

Surely the lectures by Prof. Pound on "The Philosophy of Masonry" are memorable in 
many ways, furnishing leadership and inspiration for those who seek to think things 
through in quest of the reason for Masonry, its faith, and its ideals. The remaining 
lectures in the series have to do with Krause, Oliver and Pike, with a final study of 
Masonry in the light of present-day philosophy, entitled "A Twentieth Century Masonic 
Philosophy." These lectures will be widely read, as they should be, alike for their own 
merit and for the distinction of their author; and we are happy to announce that they will 
be issued in permanent form as the first book put forth by the Society. 


Looking forward, we are soon to present a very valuable article on Masonry as 
interpreted by Goethe and Lessing, by Dr. Paul Cams, editor of "The Open Court" and 
the "Monist," which will serve as an admirable accompaniment to the translation of 
"Ernst and Falk," by Brother Block. Going farther back, we have in hand the 
"Regensburg Stonemasons' Regulations," bearing date of 1459, which will throw new 
light on certain aspects of ancient Craft-masonry in Germany. Among other articles of 
unusual interest will be an essay on the founding of Masonry in America, by Brother 
Melvin M. Johnson, Grand Master of Masons in Massachusetts, which will contain new 
material of great value. 

Also, ye editor hopes, in the not distant future, to begin a series of papers which he 
ventures to present as chapters of a possible biography and study of Albert Pike. It is 
indeed strange that there is no adequate account of that master genius of Masonry, who 
found the Scottish Rite in a log cabin and left it in a temple. Scholar, jurist, orator, 



thinker, citizen, he was a Mason to whom the world was a temple, a poet to whom the 
world was a song. These papers have been in mind for years, and not a little material 
has been gathered, but the editor will welcome reminiscences, letters, incidents, 
documents of any kind bearing on Pike; and, after using them, will carefully return 
them, when so desired, to those who send them. 

Speaking of Pike, recalls Mackey, Fort, Drummond, and other pioneers in the field of 
Masonic Research, sketches of whom, at once sympathetic and critical, will be 
welcomed by "The Builder." Gould rendered a real service to the Order with his series 
of essays on "Masonic Celebrities" years ago, and we need a similar record of great 
Masons in America, especially those who labored to advance Masonic learning. If some 
brother in South Carolina will recall Dr. Mackey, and show him to us in habit as he 
lived, with an estimate of his labors in behalf of the Order, the whole Fraternity will be 
grateful. So also George F. Fort whose "Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry" 
is one of the most brilliant books in our literature. 

Once more let it be said that the pages of "The Builder" are open to the Craft, of every 
rite and jurisdiction, inviting discussion of every aspect of Masonry - its history, 
philosophy, symbolism, ritual, and practical problems. Lectures, old documents, study 
programs, biographical sketches, any kind of information of value to the Craft in any of 
its activities, will be welcomed. No one need hesitate to offer any suggestion, for "The 
Builder" exists only to serve Freemasonry; and should there be any Brother who 
imagines that it has any other motive than that confessed in the Foreword, well, we 
have a sure way of dealing with him, guaranteed never to fail: 

"He drew a circle that shut me out- 

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 

But love and I had the wit to win; 

We drew a circle that took him in." 

Recently there was unveiled in New York City a statue of Edwin Booth, erected in 
Gramercy Park, near The Players, the famous club founded by Booth. It was designed 
by E. T. Quinn - who also wrought the bust of Edgar Allan Poe, in Poe Park - and 
shows the great actor in a characteristic attitude as Hamlet; the part which he was bom 
to play, and in which temperament, personality and art so blended that he did not 
merely act Hamlet, but was Hamlet. He revealed once more that great gentleman doing 
his gentlest, bravest and noblest with a sad smile and a gay humor in a world not simply 
complicated, wicked, absurd, and tiresome, but also ghostly. Booth was an ardent 
Mason, and he it was who said that of all great tragedies, the drama of the Third Degree 



of Masonry stood out in his mind as the simplest and most profound. His brethren 
everywhere will rejoice in this memorial, the more so for that the art of an actor dies 
with him.