The Builder Magazine 

January 1916 - Volume II - Number 1 


THE RELIGION OF ROBERT BURNS 

BY BRO. GILBERT PATTEN BROWN, MASS. 

ALL men possess some real worth. Creed is an invention of man. Genius is a gift 
of God to man. The very name "genius" signifieth original, unacquired gifts, born 
gifts: from the Latin of Gignor, to be bom; or, older still, from the Greek of 
Gennao, to generate, to produce. A man may be a good historian, a grammarian, or 
a commentator: only a man of genius can be a painter, a statuary, or a poet. The 
poet is an original thinker. Whenever we find a man of rare intellect working out 
his own destiny, and showing himself mighty among his contemporaries, we are 
benefited by having come in contact with such a person. In one of that type is a 
fineness of nature. He is usually a seer. They have lived in all ages and have been 
found among all races of men. They belong to no particular class or creed and are 
usually deeply religious in their own way of reasoning. The gentleman of this 
monograph is without question Scotland's greatest son. He taught the world 
through his poems the difference between religion and creed. 


"The rank is but the guinea's stamp 
The man's the gowd for a' that." 


Possibly no poet ever lived who possessed that original style and uniqueness of 
composition as Robert Burns, whose eyes first saw the light of this world on the 
twenty-fifth day of the rough old warrior January, 1759, in the quaint little village 
of Alloway. The cottage, under whose historic roof he was born, is still standing. 
The old parish books of records, dimmed with age, show his ancestry to have been 
of the best blood of Ayr and Alloway. The following is a brief account of this old 
(Celt) family: "Lawful son of William Burns of Alloway and Agnes Brown, his 



spouse," and "baptized by Mr. William Dalrymple: witnesses, John Tement and 
James Young." 


MADE A MASON 


The youthful days of Bums were spent amid rural surroundings, thus giving his 
young brain an opportunity to read of the philosophy of life from the open pages of 
the book of nature. His playmate in school was his modest brother Gilbert. The 
poet's maternal grandfather, Gilbert Brown, was a farmer, and known for his 
upright living, also his deep religious convictions. He differed from the creed of his 
forefathers as did the poet. Before arriving at manhood Burns became firmly 
grounded in the faith of "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." 

While a youth he had witnessed a funeral as conducted by the institution of 
Masonry. That sight he had never forgot. In beauteous Tarbolton, Ayrshire, was St. 
David's Lodge, No. 174, whose membership consisted of the "substantial, upright, 
and honest gentlemen" of the neighborhood. An extract from the pages of records 
of that historic body, under the date of July 4, 1784, reads, - 


"Robert Bums in Lockly was entered an apprentice." Signed, "R. Norman." And, 
under the date of October 1, the record reads, "Robert Burns in Lockly was passed 
and raised, Henry Cowan being Worshipful Master, James Humphrey being Senior 
Warden, and Alex Smith, Junior; Robert Wadrown, Secretary, and John Manson, 
Treasurer; John Tammock, Tyler, and others of the brethren being present." 


MORE LIGHT IN MASONRY 


Robert Burns became extremely interested in his new and most fraternal home. 
The lessons he had learned therein had a very welcome place in his heart, and in a 
short time he wished for "more light in freemasonry," by being made a regular 
"Royal Arch Mason." In due season he made application for further advancement 
in the ancient mysteries of the Institution. It is by the aid of the minutes of the old 



"record book" of "St. Abb's Lodge" of Leymouth, and under the date of May 19, 
1787, that the author is able to give the following to his fraternal readers:- 


"At a general encampment of St. Abb's Lodge, the following brethren were made 
Royal Arch Masons: Robert Burns, from the Lodge of St. James, Tarbolton, 
Ayrshire; and Robert Ainslie, from the Lodge of St. Luke, Edinburgh. Robert 
Ainslie paid one guinea admission dues; but, on account of Robert Burns' 
remarkable poetical genius the encampment agreed to admit him gratis, and 
considered themselves honored by having a man of such shining abilities for one of 
their companions." 


Previous to Robert Bums being made a Master Mason, St. David's Lodge, No. 174, 
and St. James' Lodge were consolidated under the name, "St. David's Lodge, No. 
174, Ancient Freemasons," and later separated, each Lodge claiming their pride, 
"Bobbie" Bums, to hold membership therein. 


Throughout Scotland the 24th of June is generally observed by the Masonic 
fraternity. In 1786 and in the early part of June, Brother Burns, being somewhat 
anxious to have a large attendance on the 24th (St John's Day), sent to his brother 
Mason, the Dr. John Mackenzie, a beautiful notice in poem form. It pleased its 
readers. 


THE MASTER'S APRON 


The attendance on that "St. John's Day" was large at renowned St. David's Lodge, 
and a more proud Freemason never stood in Masonic cloth than Robert Burns as he 
extended the warm hand of friendship and brotherhood upon that occasion. He was 
a frequent and most welcome visitor to Masonic meetings in many places of 
"Bonnie" Scotland. The following is from his talented pen:- 



"There's many a badge that's unco braw 
Wi' ribbons, lace, and tape on: 

Let Kings and Princes wear them a' 

Gie me the Master's apron 
The honest craftsman's apron 
The jolly Freemason's apron, 

Bide he at hame, or roam afar 
Before his touch fa's bolt an' bar, 

The gates of fortune fly ajar, 

'Gin he wears the apron. 

For w'alth and honor, pride and power 
Are crumbling stanes to base on: 
Fraternity should rule the hour 
And ilka worthy Mason, 

Each free accepted Mason 
Each ancient crafted Mason. 

Then, brithers, let a halesome sang 
Arise your friendly ranks alang. 

Gude Wives and bairnes blithely sing 
Ti' the ancient badge wi' the apron string 
That is worn by the Maste Mason." 



Our own William Cullen Bryant in his address at the Burns birthday centennial 
festival, Astor House, Nevi York, Jan. 25, 1859, spoke at length on Bums. The 
following is but a brief extract from his well-timed remarks :- 


"Well has our great poet deserved this universal commemoration, for whohas 
written like him? What poem descriptive of mral manners and virtues, mral life in 
its simplicity and dignity,— yet without single false outline or touch of false 
coloring,— clings to our memories and lives in our bosoms like his 'Cotter's 
Saturday Night'? What humorous narrative in verse can be compared with his 'Tam 
O'Shanter'? From the fall of Adam to his time, I believe, there was nothing written 
in the vein of his 'Mountain Daisy': others have caught his spirit from that poem, 
but who among then, all excelled him? Of all the convivial songs I have ever seen 
in any language there is none so overflowing with the spirit of conviviality, so 
joyous, so contagious as his song of 'Willie brewed a Peck o' Maut.' What love 
songs are sweeter and tenderer than those of Bums? What song addresses itself so 
movingly to our love of old friends and our pleasant recollection of old days as his 
'Auld Lang Syne,' or to the domestic affections so powerfully as his 'John 
Anderson'"? 


The religion of Burns was tmly the religion of a poet. "An irreligious poet is a 
monster," he said. "I despise the religion of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a 
man." So advanced has become the age of reason that these words alone make 
Bums mighty among the world's greatest philosophers. A true poet is a religious 
man. He sees goodness in all things: the works of Deity are to him ever visible. 


SECTARIANISM 


Years ago Scotland alone celebrated the birthday of Bums; but to-day people of 
many races, creeds, and tongues hold services commemorating that eventful day. 
We find many preachers of to-day laying their sacrifice of praise on the sacred 
altar of his cherished memory. Even the creed egoist or the race despot cares not to 



make war upon the name of Robert Bums. Form to him was nothing, sect had no 
welcome in his heart. The peddling politicians of sectarianism played upon his 
tender feelings, and, while he was yet young, forced him into arguments upon 
theological lines. In later years he frequently declared to the effect that the 
theological brawlings of his early life were not to be counted against him as hostile 
to religion. For tme religion his respect was marked. See his philosophy in these 
lines, -- 


"In ploughman phrase, God send you speed, 
Still daily to grow wiser; 

And may ye better reck the rede 
Than ever did th' adviser." 


He wore no commercial smile, nor did he frown upon the riches of others. He was 
never known to speak disrespectfully of Jesus of Nazareth. 


The following four lines are but a fragment of his poem as paralleled by him to the 
eighth chapter of John:- 


"Then gently scan your brother man, 
Still gentler sister woman; 

Tho' they may gang a kennin' wrang, 
To step aside is human." 


For the sake of the songs of Bums the rational world has forgiven his sins. 



Robert Burns died July 21, 1796, and was buried five days later at Alloway Kirk, 
Ayr. No grave in all Scotland is more cherished by the visitor than that of Robert 
Bums, who had many faults and who like all men made many mistakes in life, but 
whose tender heart gave to humanity some of the sweetest messages since the 
Sermon on the Mount, and whose name will live as long as biography has a charm 
for the children of men. 


THE SWEET SINGER 


Thus do we find Robert Burns to have been a very religious man. Many of his 
poems are sermons worthy to be cherished by all lovers of literary worth. He 
frowned upon no man for his form of worship of the Deity. He despised the 
selfishness of man in commercial life: — 


"The poor, oppressed, honest man 
Had never sure been born 
Had there not been some recompense 
To comfort those that mourn." 


Again he says,— 


"Great Nature spoke, with benign 

'Go on, ye human race 

This lower world I you resign 



Be faithful and increase.' " 


To the memory of his daughter who died in 1795 he wrote two verses, one of 
which is as follows:— 

"To those who for her loss are grieved. 

This consolation's given: 

She's from a world of woe relieved 
And blooms a rose in heaven." 


One of his truest friends was John Bushby, who was known for his faith in God 
and his honesty of purpose in worldly affairs. At his grave Burns wrote:— 


"Here lies John Bushby, honest man! 

Cheat him, Devil, if you can." 

"Bums' Day," January 25th, is becoming a popular day of celebration, when, by 
those who love the tender side of humanity, race and creed are forgotten. 


— o — 


THYSELF IN CONTROL 



From the Katha-Upanishad. 


Know the Self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect 
the charioteer, and the mind the reins. 


The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads. When he (the 
Highest Self) is in union with the body, the senses, and the mind, then wise people 
call him the Enjoyer. 


He who has no understanding and whose mind (the reins) is never firmly held, his 
senses (horses) are unmanageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer. 


But he who has understanding and whose mind is always firmly held, his senses 
are under control, like good horses of a charioteer. 


He who has no understanding, who is unmindful and always impure, never reaches 
that place, but enters into the round of births. But he who has understanding, who 
is mindful and always pure, reaches indeed that place whence he is not bom again. 


But he who has understanding for his charioteer, and who holds the reins of the 
mind, he reaches the end of his journey, and that is the highest place. 


— o — 



"One of the first lessons taught a Mason is prayer, and what a mockery it is for a 
man to pray to the great God whose name he profanes. One reason why Masons 
lose interest is that they were not first made Masons in their hearts." 


IRISH FREEMASONRY 


BY BRO. J.L. CARSON, VIRGINIA 


Although Ireland cannot boast of having had a Mason's Guild of its own, many of 
the cathedrals, churches and monasteries established up and down through the 
country were built by bands or companies of skilled workmen belonging to such 
guilds who came into "The Kingdom of Ireland" from across "The Channel." 


The Cathedral of The Holy Trinity (now Christ's Church), Dublin, was built 1157- 
1230 by a company of such workmen from Somersetshire; Grey Abbey in the 
County Down was erected by a body of the brotherhood of operative builders from 
Whitby 1 190 to 1200; builders from Southwark erected St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
Dublin, about 1210; and Saint Mary's Church, Youghal; Saint Nicholas' Church, 
Carrickfergus; The Abbey Church, Bangor; County Down, and many others were 
"fitly framed together" by members of some of the skilled brotherhoods of 
operative Masons from across the Irish Sea, whose camps or lodges scattered over 
the face of the land, account for the large number of St. John's Lodges pre-existing 
the establishment of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. 


That Speculative Masonry existed in Ireland previous to the Grand Lodge era we 
have ample proof. Of course, the early St. John's Lodges were purely operative, 
gradually becoming speculative, but at what date this change occurred, or of the 
circumstances leading up to the change, we have no intimation or knowledge. This 
we do know: that as early as 1688 Speculative Masonry was known and 
understood in Ireland. In that year John Jones in his tripos delivered at the 
commencement exercises of The University of Dublin, delivered before a mixed 



assembly of University men and prominent Dublin citizens, referred to Free 
Masonry in such terms as to leave no doubt that a general and wide-spread 
knowledge of the principles of the speculative element of our society were fully 
understood. 


A LADY FREEMASON 


In 1712 at Doneraile House County Cork, where a Speculative Lodge was being 
held in the Mansion of Lord Doneraile, The Right Honourable Betty St. Ledger, 
afterwards Mrs. Aldworth (sister of his Lordship), was admitted a Freemason, (she 
being the only Lady Freemason ever regularly initiated into our society, her 
initiation is one of the romances of Freemasonry.) 


In 1717 at least four of these St. Johns or "Time Immemorial Lodges" met in the 
City of London with Antony Sawyer as Grand Master and inaugurated the first 
Speculative Grand Lodge of the World, The Grand Lodge of England. So in the 
year 1725 (or earlier) The St. Johns Lodges of Ireland united to form The Grand 
Lodge of Ireland, the oldest daughter of the Mother Grand Lodge. 


The Dublin papers of 1725 inform us, that on the 26th day of June, that year, the 
Grand Lodge of Ireland attended a public ceremony, parading the Streets of Dublin 
"on a most magnificent scale," from the same source we also learn that on the 28th 
of June "the Master and Wardens of the Ancient and Honourable Society of 
Freemasons were chosen, and the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Ross was 
elected Grand Master," after the installation "there was a splendid dinner consisting 
of one hundred and fifty dishes," "after dinner and music they went to the play 
where Mr. Griffith," (the Comedian, who was also the Grand Secretary) "and the 
Honourable Society sung a song in praise of Freemasonry." All this does not look 
as if it was "the first day out" for our ancient Irish Brethren, but as all the old 
records of the Grand Lodge have been "lost, strayed, or stolen," the exact date of 
the origin of this Grand Lodge cannot be definitely fixed, nor the number of 
Lodges assisting thereat. The "Munster Records," however, are the first authentic 
records of any Grand Lodge in Ireland, informing us that a Grand Lodge met at 



Cork on the 27th of December, 1726, The Honourable James O'Brien, third son of 
William 3rd Earl of Inchquin, being elected (3rand Master, and Springett Penn, 
Great Grandson of Admiral Penn and Grandson of the famous Pennsylvania 
Quaker, Deputy Grand Master. On August 9th, 1731, Lord Kingston, who had 
been elected Grand Master of England 1728 was elected Grand Master of the 
Grand Lodge in Dublin. He had also been elected in 1729 Grand Master of the 
Grand Lodge of Munster; his acceptance of both important Irish offices served to 
fuse together the two bodies in 1731, into the Grand Lodge of Ireland as it stands 
to this day, proving the connection and good feeling then existing between the 
Premier Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Lodges of Ireland. 


LIRST IRISH CONSTITUTIONS 


In 1730 John Pennell transcribed and rearranged Anderson's Constitutions for the 
Grand Lodge of Ireland, making them the first Irish Constitutions, thus showing 
the identity of the systems of the Mother Grand Lodge of the World, and her eldest 
daughter the Grand Lodge of Ireland, previous to the establishment of the Grand 
Lodge of the Ancients, which deriving its ceremonial work, and methods of 
organization from the Grand Lodge of Ireland, was rather an offshoot of that Grand 
Lodge than a seceder from the Premier Grand Lodge of England. 


In 1740 Laurence Dermott was initiated in Lodge No. 26, Dublin, and in 1746 was 
its Worshipful Master; he afterwards migrated to London and was practically the 
organizer of the Grand Lodge of the "Ancients." He was early appointed Grand 
Secretary and afterwards Deputy Grand Master, introducing the Irish working and 
all its methods of procedure, dubbing the followers of the premier Grand Lodge of 
England as "Modems." 


The Irish Craft and the Grand Lodge of the "Ancients" therefore worked pure 
ancient Masonry, holding fast to the "original intention" and the Ancient 
Landmarks, while the Modern Grand Lodge by its innovations, its errors of 
omission and commission, ran the risk of covering the landmarks with so much 
quasi-Masonic mbbish as almost to obliterate them altogether. 



In 1766 Grand Secretary Crocker when changing his residence in Dublin lost a 
"small hair trunk" full of Grand Lodge records, and in 1801 Alexander Seton the 
newly appointed Grand Secretary, took the full of a "Hackney Coach" of 
manuscripts, books, and records from the home of Brother Crocker, which have 
never since been traced or recovered. Any student of the history of Grand Bodies 
can realize this loss; all the history of the Grand Lodge of Ireland previous to this 
late has been laboriously gathered together from outside sources. Alexander Seton 
(a Dublin Barrister) who captured the old records, left himself by this and his many 
irregularities as Grand Secretary open to a Chancery Suit, that ever famous Irish 
Orator and Brother Mason, Dan O'Connell (The Liberator) being Junior Council 
for the Grand Lodge. The suit went against Seton who immediately set about 
fomenting trouble for the Grand Lodge of Ireland. 


FRILLS AND FEATHERS 


At this period all known and many now unknown degrees were being worked in 
the Irish Lodges under no other authority than the Blue Lodge warrants. In fact, the 
power to grant the higher degrees was only governed by the ability to confer them. 


The Grand Lodge of Ireland therefore set about cutting all the "frills and feathers" 
from the Blue Lodges confining them to the first three degrees. Seton seized this as 
a pretext to agitate the provincial Lodges, misrepresenting the attempts of the 
Grand Lodge to bring the High Grades under a central control, set about the 
establishment of a rival Grand Lodge in Dublin known variously as "The Grand 
East of Ireland," "The Grand Lodge of Ulster," and "The Grand East of Ulster." 

The central and main plank in their platform being "that it appears to us that the 
innovations lately proposed to be placed on the High Masonic orders are 
unnecessary, inasmuch as these orders have hitherto enjoyed uninterrupted 
tranquillity without any ostensible head or controlling power." In 1805 about 200 
Lodges revolted following Seton into the "Grand East of Ulster." Things for a time 
looked serious, but the Grand Lodge after a five years' struggle came out on top. 

By wise and liberal legislation speaking volumes for the good sense of the rulers of 
the Craft the effect of the schism died out with astonishing rapidity, and its’ very 



memory was speedily forgotten by all but the few students of Irish Masonic 
history. The History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland since this date has been the 
history of most other Grand Lodges. It had its ups and downs, its days of prosperity 
and adversity, but its Traditions, History and Ritual have been handed down pure 
and undefiled, and the glorious banner of the Craft still flies over a contented and 
prosperous jurisdiction. 


CHETWODE CRAWLEY 


The present Ritual was first adopted by the Grand Lodge in 1814. John Fowler 
"who had a master mind for ritual" exemplified the working before the Grand 
Lodge, and it was then and there decreed that "the work of John Fowler and no 
other" be the fixed standard for all future time. Fowler's exemplification introduced 
no novelties, omitted no essentials, simply put into concrete form the then existing 
but somewhat mixed ceremonies as they had been handed down from the 
beginning. Edward Thorp, a pupil of Fowler's, carried on the good work for many 
years. The late Judge Townsend and Harry Hodges, as well as our good Brother W. 
J. Chetwode Crawley, received their Masonic ritual from Brother Thorp, without 
"evasion or equivocation." R.W. Brothers Townsend, Hodges and Crawley have 
given of their best to the Grand Lodge of Instruction, so that the claim of the Grand 
Lodge of Ireland for the accuracy of its pure ancient Freemasonry is no vain boast. 
"Strict verbal accuracy" is demanded where there is neither a printed or written, 
recognized or unrecognized monitor or textbook, and this is the system by which 
this demand is attained. 


A Brother in a Subordinate Lodge who shows ability and inclination to master the 
ceremonies, is nominated by his Lodge to attend the Grand Lodge of Instruction in 
Dublin. If he obtains a certificate of proficiency he becomes instructor to his 
Lodge. Two of the ablest of these ritualists in each province are annually elected 
Provincial Grand Instructors, who make regular visits to the Grand Lodge of 
Instruction, also visiting the Lodges in their province where no brother holds an 
instructor's certificate, or to any Lodge as instructed by the Provincial Grand Lodge 
or requested by the Subordinate Lodge. If "strict verbal accuracy" is demanded, so 
also is "strict uniformity of Masonic Clothing," no apron, jewel, or decoration 
other than those appertaining to the first three and Past Master's degree being 



allowed to be worn in a Blue Lodge. This rule is insisted upon in the case of 
visiting Brethren as well as members of the Lodge. The Grand Lodge meets in 
Dublin annually, the Grand Master being a life appointment and the Grand Officers 
the appointment of the Grand Lodge and the Board of General Purposes. 


"THE JEWELS" 


The Board of General Purposes arranges and decides almost all business details for 
the Grand Lodge, so that its decisions are usually a cut and dry ratification of the 
rulings of the Board of General Purposes. Provincial Grand Lodges meet quarterly, 
the Provincial Grand Master, usually a life appointment, is the nomination of the 
Grand Master. The Provincial Deputy Grand Master being the nomination of the 
Provincial Grand Master, it thus transpires, that the office of Provincial Senior 
Grand Warden is the highest elective position in the gift of the Irish Brethren. 


"The Jewels" of Irish Masonry are the Masonic Orphan Boys School, the Masonic 
Female Orphan School, and the Victoria Jubilee Masonic Fund, all of which are 
supported with the generosity and good will characteristic of the Irish Freemason 
at home or abroad, for "Charity suffereth long and is kind." 


The first Military Warrant (No. 11) ever issued by any Constitution was granted 
on the 7th of November, 1732, to the First Battalion of the Royal Scots Regiment 
by the Grand Lodge of Ireland. Through the medium of these Military, Travelling, 
or Army Lodges, of which the Grand Lodge of Ireland and her Sister Grand Lodge 
the "Ancients" issued many hundreds, Freemasonry reached the limits of every 
British possession, and claim may be laid for the lion's share in the spread of 
Freemasonry through the length and breadth of the English Speaking world. 


In Ireland the Royal Arch was known as early as 1743, and the degree of Knight 
Templar in 1758. Tradition and generally accepted Lodge gossip leads us to 
believe both these degrees were worked in connection with Blue Lodges or as 



distinct organizations long previous to these dates. Many, if not all the Regiments 
stationed in Ireland having Military Warrants, adopted these degrees and worked 
them without let or hindrance under their ordinary Blue Lodge Warrants, thus s 
creating what were called "Black Warrants;" hence we account for the spread of 
the Royal Arch and Templa; degrees as well as those of Blue Masonry, wherever 
these regiments were drafted. 


LAURENCE DERMOTT 


The Grand Lodge of Ireland issued the first Grand Lodge Certificate ever handed a 
Mason by his Gran Lodge. The first of these certificates that ever crossed the sea 
was carried by Laurence Dermott and exhibited with pride by him in the Grand 
Lodge in London, thus proving his identity, and his ability to perform all the 
Masonic Ceremonies as worked in Ireland at that date. Warrant No. 1 of the Lodge 
meeting at Mitchellstown, Co. Cork, is the oldest existing document of its kind 
ever issued by any Grand Jurisdiction. Mitchellstown was on the estate of and near 
the Mansion of Lord Kingston, Grand Master; thus we account for its being 
warranted to that village. It is quite possible it first met in the Mansion itself. This 
Lodge claimed to have worked as a regularly constituted St. John's Lodge for fifty 
years previous to the issue of its Grand Lodge warrant, for many years these St. 
John Lodges held aloof from the Grand Lodge and did not apply for regular 
warrants of Constitution. In 1 840 we find the following advertisement in the public 
newspapers: "Such Lodges as have not already taken out warrants, are ordered to 
apply for them to John Baldwin, Esq., Grand Secretary to the Grand Lodge, or they 
will be proceeded against as rebels." Indeed it was a frequent cause of riot and 
disorder when the "Regulars" or members of Lodges having received Grand Lodge 
Warrants, and the "Bush," "Rebel" or "Hedge" Masons, as those belonging to 
unwarranted Lodges were called, met at fairs, markets and funerals, trailing their 
coats down the center of the street, each claiming their regularity and yelling "If 
you want to raise a row or a ruction just tread on the tail of me coat." And I say to 
the readers of "The Builder," if you want to raise either of the aforesaid ancient 
ceremonies, just say a bad word about the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and I'm with 
you. 


— o — 



ON THE FAIR DAY 


God went into the market-place of the world on a great fair-day. 
All the stalls were kept by priests, who kept crying - the crowd: 
"Which god will you buy?" 

"Mine is the only true god." 

"Hold to the god of your ancesters." 

"My god compromises with sin and sells you indugences." 

"My god is easy-going." 

"My god is profitable." 

"My god is fashionable." 

"Come buy with gold." 

"Come buy with observances." 

"Come buy with trumpetings." 

And God turned wearily away and said to the stars: 

"How long it takes mankind to grow up." 

--Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne. 


REFLECTIONS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALBERT PIKE 



BY BRO. FRANK W. ELLIS, IOWA 


FREEMASONRY has been defined as a science which includes all other sciences. 
The study of Morals and Dogma will lead to a keen appreciation of such a 
definition and that it is not only the most concise but one of the most 
comprehensive and furnishes an illustration of the immense scope of Morals and 
Dogma. 


Dogma, according to Pike himself, is to be construed as doctrine or teaching, and 
so we have in Morals and Dogma a book which comprehends Masonic morality 
and teachings; usually expressed in a more scholarly and dignified way as Pike's 
Philosophy of Masonry. 


The Philosophy of Masonry, or any particular Masonic writer's philosophy, means 
the unfolding of the wisdom of Masonry. That is, we as Masons use the term 
philosophy as a science which treats of our particular system of teaching. We 
gather this knowledge or wisdom as a science or a philosophy from numerous 
sources; one can safely say it flows from innumerable fountains. Symbols, 
allegories, legends, occurrences from the Bible and many dramas, dress this 
wisdom attractively. The meaning of the symbols, the pictures produced by its 
allegories and legends and Bible occurences make clear the lessons of Masonry 
which are called Masonic Philosophy. Why, certain symbols and allegories and 
occurences teach these lessons, carries us into a broader and more diversified 
domain of philosophy, yea, even into the storehouses of knowledge of all time, 
which means a research that only the sage or profound scholar can ordinarily 
undertake. It might be well to remark, however, in this connection, that, given a 
fairly calm judgment and good mind, such a research will produce a scholarly 
result in one not blessed with book knowledge attained in colleges or schools. If 
the ordinary mind of the ordinary Mason is not roused or stimulated to activity for 
deep learning, he can nevertheless acquire and absorb the Masonic meaning and 
come to a Masonic understanding of the all instructive, all fruitful and all 
entrancing beauties of the symbols, the pictures made by the allegories and 
occurences depicted in Masonry. And when he gazes into the limpid depths of the 
streams that flow from these fountains and interprets and construes their songs and 



harmonies, the note that strikes his responsive chord is not difficult of 
comprehension. 


THE PURPOSE OF MASONRY 


It is not the purpose of Masonry to supplant or supersede religion. Masonry is only 
a help to religion. It is to teach us to have a firm belief in God and the immortality 
of the soul. Masonic philosophy has this end in view, and works for that 
consummation. Belief in the unity of God and immortality of the Soul is its basic, 
fundamental law, its eternal lesson and foundation. Its morals follow necessarily as 
a postulate, inevitably as a sequence. It is not the purpose of this paper to endeavor 
to strike the keys in perfect harmony with all the conceptions of Pike, borrowed or 
original, in his moral teachings or his philosophy, but rather to find some of them 
as one would hold to his ear the shell listening for the faint refrain of the cadences 
of the sounding deep. It is an effort to pluck and inhale the perfume and observe 
the beauty of some only of the flowers which grow in the garden of the Philosophy 
of Morals and Dogma. 


Undoubtedly, as learned scholars have declared, the philosophy taught in Morals 
and Dogma is the reduction of all forces or impulses, spiritual and material, to 
dependency for their existence upon the Absolute. The Being who is Being, always 
was Being and always will be Being. The universe with all its ramifications, 
including life and inanimate matter, came from or emanated from God, the 
Absolute. Interpret our individual tenets as we may, nevertheless they lead to the 
final Unity, which is the Absolute. That as a necessary deduction from this doctrine 
of all springing from or owing existence to the Absolute or God, there is a doctrine 
of harmony arising from the action of contrary forces in everything, whether 
spiritual or material. 


DOCTRINE OF EMANATION 



The doctrine of the Absolute was taught by nearly all sages, philosophers, savants, 
oracles and learned men of all time. It was the doctrine of nearly all the esoteric 
institutions of all ages. And Pike skillfully deduces from the writings of nearly all 
learned men the theory of the operation of contrary forces producing harmony. 
Most commentators on Pike are content to state his philosophy in the most meager 
way or as a key to understand his Morals and Dogma and refer you to a study of 
his work, which is complimentary not only to his philosophy but also to the wealth 
of learning with which his pages glisten. 


A cold or unadorned statement of the Doctrine of Emanation of everything from 
God, or the Absolute, and that such emanations or manifestations operated by the 
combined action of contraries, is an arid and barren harvest of the poetry and 
beauty and wisdom of Pike's philosophy. Such is the doctrine of the philosophy of 
Pike, and bare mention of it may be a sufficient clew or hint or incentive for the 
learned and the scholarly or the philosopher. It does not suffice, however, if we are 
to stimulate the ordinary Mason to a study of Pike's philosophy of Masonry. His 
philosophy is set in many constellations each composed of many different stars, 
many of the first magnitude. 


The doctrine of the Absolute, if it may be called such for brevity, is not a new 
philosophy. It is older than written language and stretches away back to the first 
method of teaching by symbols and yet further into the dim recesses of remote and 
unknown antiquity when mortal thought first took form; if indeed it was not a part 
of the first mortal thought and there had its origin. Belief in God has been intuitive 
always. It is instinctive, a part and parcel of humanity, if perchance it is not more 
and came from communion with God by the patriarchs. 


Harmony as a product of spiritual action must be the law of creation of all things 
because it could not be otherwise. That sacred subject cannot be solved by the 
human mind for the reason that it deals with the infinite which is above and beyond 
the human mind. Just so, the blue sky is a name only because it is not there. We 
look into infinity which the human eye cannot see. Neither can the human mind 
comprehend the operations of the Infinite. The grace and loveliness of Infinite 
Creation producing exquisite harmony in every form and shape and mould 
stimulates the human mind to endeavor to penetrate its mysteries, and every force 



of the human brain is strained to comprehend. It is the far and futile hope of 
science. It has agitated the highest and best and brightest and most profound 
intellects of all time who have endeavored to explain it by every symbol that the 
ingenuity of man could invent. Language, which is itself a symbol of thought, has 
been exhausted and tortured, to give clearness to an explanation. But all in vain. 
Human reason has its limit in human understanding. Pristine Truth is not within the 
purview of man's comprehension. 


GOD AND IMMORTALITY 


For the ordinary man the philosophy of Masonry as taught by Pike can bring him 
belief in the Unity of God and Immortality of the Soul resting upon human reason 
and human faith. This Pike's philosophy teaches its student on nearly every page. 
One can read and. study Morals and Dogma and discard the particular doctrine of 
every philosopher mentioned therein or to whom reference is made, and even the 
philosophy of the Book itself, and still its pages fairly teem with and pour forth a 
radiance of morality, founded upon the logic of immutable laws, which light the 
way to the goal of human perfection, or the Utopia of human excellence, because 
they are based or founded upon our law;— the Unity of God and Immortality of the 
Soul. 


Why the morality of mankind, whether in an individual or nation, is founded upon 
these immutable principles is our philosophy. Pike warns us again and again that 
nature does not explain, that simple things only are explained. The revelation itself, 
while revealing, conceals because it cannot be otherwise. A real mystery is not a 
mystery because it is understood by only a few, the select. It is a mystery for the 
reason that it cannot be explained by language, for if it could be made plain or 
evidenced by words it never would have been a mystery, and would have been 
exposed when born. Hence, symbols convey a meaning which can exist only in the 
thought and in the mind or in the judgment of the intellect. Multiplying words does 
not reveal them. That process only covers or conceals them. For instance, in nature 
we know only the effect of fire, we do not know the cause. We know the effect of 
lightning or electricity, but not its cause. We may be able in such phenomena to 
discover the combination of the elements which compose them, but what acts upon 
these elements to produce the effects is a mystery yet unsolved. Likewise, another 



mystery, it does not seem that our comprehension, our wisdom, is intended to solve 
them. The more we use words to explain the insolvable, the unknown and the 
inscrutable the more we re-cover them with an opaque cloak or veil. 


FORCE OF ELECTRICITY 


God and the Immortality of the Soul are far more hidden and impenetrable to the 
human mind than movement of matter. Fire and electricity are matter because it 
takes time for them to act. The marvelous force of electricity which comes and 
goes, with its terrifying effects, almost instantaneously, a cataract of fire from the 
sky, nevertheless is visible and takes time. The shrouded and obscure ether which 
we call void or space, by its friction, or for some other cause, retards light because 
though light travels with inconceivable rapidity time is consumed before it reaches 
the earth from the distant stars. 


Our human reason is perhaps partially defined as meaning proof. Proof appeals to 
the judgment, to the intellect, in such manner as to be convincing. In other words, 
reason is, in our mind, the certainty of some existence or phenomena we can 
appreciate and understand. We all know there are such material things as dew, 
light, earth, plants, moon, stars, sun and buildings, trees or objects of any kind, or 
rainbows, or clouds or colors because we see them. Science explains many things 
indisputably. Many other effects we feel. We are certain that such things are true 
and that they exist. Our reason makes them known to us. 


When reason ceases we must rely on faith, whether faith precedes or follows 
reason or operates with it simultaneously. A faith that is blind, that is covered or a 
matter of habit or an inheritance, is not a real faith. We should have a faith founded 
upon reason, that is, the certainty of conviction that never fears or trembles at the 
approach of doubt. Otherwise we are groping in the dark or walking in the shadows 
or in a perennial mist or fog. 



STARS OF FAITH 


Faith in God and the immortality of the Soul is one of the stars of first magnitude 
in the constellations which form the entire Philosophy of the Morals and Dogma, 
as it is in any philosophy of Masonry. Can we acquire by any philosophy a real 
conviction based upon never yielding faith? Or must we abjure wisdom and always 
falter through the darkness? Or can we find a reason for the faith within us? Pike 
says, yes! Many other learned men say the same. Why? The Bible is a reason for 
faith and is entirely sufficient for many thousands. There can, however, be no harm 
in cumulating reasons for faith, if there can be any such piling up of proof outside 
the Bible. Likely, to all the proof for faith is there, if we would but find it. 


The most appealing foundation for a faith founded upon reason is nature. Nature 
teaches by symbols; it does not explain. By analogy, if not otherwise, the lessons 
of Nature will produce an unyielding and inevitable faith. Nature, the Universe, is 
the work of the Absolute, the evidence of the thought of the Cause of Causes, God. 
Matter is never destroyed. The soul or spirit of man is from the Supreme Light and 
is indestructible by every demonstration of the Infinite. 


The philosophy of Pike, aside from certain profound conclusions, aside from its 
beautiful lessons of morality, and aside from its innumberable excursions into the 
theory of every effort at government and social problems and their effect, and aside 
from the worked over and quoted philosophy of the sages and scholars, reveals a 
lesson to the ordinary mind of the ordinary Mason so bright, so resplendent and so 
lovely as to be fascinating, even though he does not pretend to be metaphysical. 
And this is so whether or not Pike uses that lesson as an illustration or argument 
for his final consummation and whether original or borrowed or moulded in the 
crucible of his astounding mind. 


FAITH AND REASON 



Faith standing parallel with reason are certainly two of the great columns which 
Pike's philosophy constructs. Exercise your reason or judgment to make your faith 
strong. If your faith in God and immortality is proved to you, it is immutable and 
unchangeable! The strongest winter winds of doubt will never make it cold or 
frosty, the hottest tropic blasts of vacillation will never make it shrivel or shrink, 
and no atmosphere of hesitation can ever warp or change its melodious cogency. 
The fixed certainty of faith must be acquired by yourself. It is yours instinctively 
and it needs only its refinement and education to make it manifest to you. All the 
accumulated knowledge of all the libraries of the world are powerless to transfer 
faith from their pages to your mind, but only one book may create in you that 
inestimable human gift; but without even one book you may gather the harvest of 
faith from one seed of wisdom planted by nature. 


The great, so called, concealed mystery of Masonic philosophy is revealed by faith. 
The meanings of its symbols are made obvious by faith. When once acquired the 
conqueror may see the seven steps of the ladder, and as he climbs, looking upward, 
the clouds break, the horizon broadens and the light shines more and more clearly 
until it becomes the refulgence of certain immortality. Such a faith will reconcile 
existing evil with God's absolute wisdom and goodness. Faith with reason are not 
alone for the profound scholar sitting perched upon a pinnacle of inaccessible 
seclusion, but they are also for him who toils in the valley or works upon the 
mountainside, if his thoughts scale the heights along the way that nature has blazed 
with perpetual tokens. So reads the philosophy of Pike. Read, and reflect. 

Stimulate your mind by reading and exercise it by reflection. 


THE SPAN OF LIFE 


The span of life is so brief, that the wonderful mechanism of man seems hardly 
worth while, but when we come to consider the wonders of nature; that the most 
minute forms of life like the infusoria or the animalcula, some of which live for an 
hour or a day only, and on the other hand the unspeakable and stupendous duration 
of the solar systems, we can gather some idea or conception by comparison of the 
microscopical and infinitesimal importance of man. It is largely this appreciation 
of the insignificance of self that leads to a real appreciation of the marvelous 
magnitude and prodigious phenomena of nature. Time blots out material life as we 



crush an ant with our heel or as a blotter takes up the ink. The brevity of life has 
been the theme of the bard and the inspiration of the philosopher. Every lesson of 
morality and truth and the virtues have been painted and sung and prosed from the 
inspiration of the shortness of life and the insignificance of man. However, because 
life is short and self is nothing is not a reason to decline to make the most of life. 

To improve our moral nature and find the means of multiplying our beneficence 
and to use our best effort for the improvement of our spiritual nature by the 
worship of the Grand Architect of the Universe, the interpretation of God's writing 
on the great pages of the Book of Nature and the amelioration of the evils of 
mankind are the great work of Masonry through its Philosophy. The pages of Pike 
shine with this philosophy and faith and reason, and apparently contraries working 
coordinately, are its beacon light. True there are many coruscations rising and 
falling, from and to the great central radiance or light of faith in God and the 
immortal Soul founded upon reason. For illustration let us take two quotations 
from Pike. 


THE MIRACLE OF LIFE 


"Here are two minute seeds, not much unlike in appearance, and two of larger size. 
Hand them to the learned Pundit, Chemistry, who tells us how combustion goes on 
in the lungs, and plants are fed with phosphorus and carbon, and the alkalies and 
silex. Let her decompose them, analyze them, torture them in all the ways she 
knows. The net result of each is a little sugar, a little fibrin, a little water— carbon, 
potassium, sodium, and the like one cares not to know what. 


"We hide them in the ground; and the slight rains moisten them, and the Sun shines 
upon them, and little slender shoots spring up and grow;— and what a miracle is the 
mere growth ! — the force, the power, the capacity by which the little feeble shoot, 
that a small worm can nip off with a single snap of its mandibles, extracts from the 
earth and air and water the different elements, so learnedly catalogued, with which 
it increases in stature, and rises imperceptibly toward the sky. 



"One grows to be a slender, fragile, feeble stalk, soft of texture, like an ordinary 
weed; another a strong bush, of woody fibre armed with thorns, and sturdy enough 
to bid defiance to the winds; the third a tender tree, subject to be blighted by the 
frost, and looked down upon by all the forest; while another spreads its rugged 
arms abroad, and cares for neither frost nor ice, nor the snows that for months lie 
around its roots. 


"But lo! out of the brown foul earth, and colorless invisible air, and limpid rain- 
water, the chemistry of the seeds has extracted colors— four different shades of 
green, that paint the leaves which put forth in the spring upon our plants, our 
shrubs and our trees. Later still come the flowers— the vivid colors of the rose, the 
beautiful brilliance of the carnation, the modest blush of the apple, and the splendid 
white of the orange. Whence come the colors of the leaves and flowers? By what 
process of chemistry are they extracted from the carbon, the phosphorus, and the 
lime? Is it any greater miracle to make something out of nothing? 


ACID AND ALKALIES 


"Pluck the flowers. Inhale the delicious perfumes; each perfect, and all delicious. 
Whence have they come? By what combination of acids and alkalies could the 
chemist's laboratory produce them? 


"And now on two comes the fruit— the ruddy apple and the golden orange. Pluck 
them— open them! The texture and fabric how totally different! The taste how 
entirely dissimilar - the perfume of each distinct from its flower and from the other. 
Whence the taste and this new perfume? The same earth and air and water have 
been made to furnish a different taste to each fruit, a different perfume not only to 
each fruit, but to each fruit and its own flower." 


"We are all naturally seekers of wonders. We travel far to see the majesty of old 
ruins, the venerable forms of the hoary mountains, great water- falls, and galleries 



of art. And yet the world-wonder is all around us; the wonder of setting suns, and 
evening stars, of the magic springtime, the blossoming of the trees, the strange 
transformations of the moth; the wonder of the Infinite Divinity and of His 
boundless revelation. There is no splendor beyond that which sets its morning 
throne in the golden East; no dome sublime as that of Heaven; no beauty so fair as 
that of the verdant, blossoming earth." 


One of these paints with language colored as highly as the foliage and flowers and 
with an aroma as beguiling as the perfume of his flowers, the force of material 
agencies like air, earth, water and light. Another comprehends the wonders of the 
sky, like the countless lamps of heaven hung out at night, or the wondrous beauty 
of the chromatic sunset which could only be painted with colorings from the 
angels' studio. 


THE ETERNAL LAW 


The fact that the earth is spherical, which we should never forget, and therefore has 
no beginning and no end in our minds, is symbolical of its Author; furthermore, its 
most material part, its dirt, is part even of the great celestial plan of the Universe 
and in combination with other agencies is obeying the same law of harmony as the 
solar systems or the same impulse or cause which agitates the human mind to think 
or the muscles to move or the worm to live. 


Here again the lesson, the same eternal immutable law governs the growth of the 
blade of grass or the trembling leaf as it does the overarching heavens in which is 
displayed the refulgence of the midday sun or the calm glow of the moon or the 
patient reflections from the planets or the peaceful scintillations from the distant 
stars. 


Faith is founded upon the sphere which our reason tells us has no end and no 
beginning; the highest and most perfect symbol and expression of harmony. The 



Soul, a manifestation of the infinite, indefinable, insolvable, the great mysterious 
gift from God— we cannot understand without solving the impossible and drawing 
aside the dark veil which covers immortality. If we cannot have demonstrated to us 
by indubitable proof one manifestation of the Infinite, the absurdity of any finite 
comprehension of the Infinite or Absolute is apparent. Faith is a human necessity, 
without it there is only a combination of fortuitous circumstances which we blindly 
call chance. Faith is the result of the reason and works with it hand in hand, as 
"light and darkness are the eternal ways of the Universe," now unfolding the 
morning dawn, or the brilliant day, now painting the heavens with beautiful colors 
and now shrouding the earth like the realms of Erebus, as a never ending panorama 
of eternal harmony. Faith is the companion and friend of reason and each are 
different but dependable one upon the other as the hemispheres of the brain. The 
arc of one is the arc of the other. They are both a part of the same circle which 
comprehends everything. The blade of grass is a part of the circle and so is the 
Milky Way, vast in extent and distance, yet only a pathway in the heavens. Space 
above is equal to space below. Space is balanced whether you stand upon the earth 
or upon the sphere so far away that its light has not yet reached us. The zenith and 
the nadir, the most remote points in the imagination, are also centers of circles so 
far away that space or distance become immeasurable as the immeasurable 
becomes the illimitable. The same unchangeable laws govern and control the throb 
of your heart as guide the destinies of the heavenly bodies whirling along on their 
voyage through space. Appreciate this and faith springs spontaneously from the 
reason! Science has demonstrated the unchangeableness of these laws. Nature 
reiterates again and again in the noiseless revolutions of the spheres or in the silent 
continuous growth of trees the immutability of these laws in thousands of years of 
never changing perfection. Faith is bom from the reason that sees and appreciates 
the logical never ending panorama of nature's calm and peaceful and serene 
operation through the law of harmony in all cycles of infinite time. 


— o — 


"Do not consider the principle business of the Lodge to procure fun and 
entertainment for its members; but to neglect to provide for entertainment at all is 
still worse." 



“FATHER” TAYLOR: MAN AND MASON 


BY THE EDITOR 


(In its issue of last April the New England Craftsman published an interesting sketch 
of "Father" Taylor, one of the Chaplains of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in the 
last generation. Taylor was early interested in Freemasonry, having joined the 
Comer Stone Lodge at Duxbury, as the records reveal, March 6th, 1 820, and he 
loved the Order to the day of his death. In the days of the anti-Masonic fanaticism, 
when many withdrew from the Fraternity, and its members sometimes slunk into 
meeting hastily, with caps pulled down over their faces, Taylor used to stmt into the 
entrance with his hat tilted back on what he called his "organ of obstinancy." Good 
Bishop Heddin - under whose obedience, as a Methodist, he labored - tried to stop 
Taylor from marching in Masonic processions, to avoid occasion for stumbling, but 
to no avail. Taylor marched all the more boldly, and the Bishop said, "Well, Eddy 
will wear his apron in spite of us." Taylor was afterwards a member of the 
Columbian Lodge, Boston, constant in his attendance, and his prayer at the opening 
of the Lodge when the anti-Masonic excitement was at its height, was never 
forgotten: "Bless this glorious Order; bless its friends; yes, bless its enemies, and 
make their hearts as soft as their heads." He was also a Knight Templar of the 
Boston Commandery. We believe the Brethren will enjoy a further account of Father 
Taylor, who was not only a great Mason, but one of the most remarkable men of his 
day - perhaps the greatest natural orator America has known. - The Editor) 


ROBERT Collyer tells of attending a prayer meeting one bright May morning in the 
old Hollis Street church, Boston. Cyms Bartol - author of that remarkable book 
called "Radical Problems" - was the leader, and after a brief pause in the meeting he 
spoke to a man well on in years who was sitting on a front seat who rose to his feet. 
There was a mstle in the meeting, and a light of expectation in all faces, like the 
breath which touches the leaves in a garden. Collyer bent forward and heard a 
strangely sweet voice speaking about Doves. He had seen them that morning on his 
way to the meeting, crowding to a window to be fed by some friendly hand, and the 



sight reminded him of the words of the prophet: "Who are these that fly as doves to 
the window?" 


As the speaker warmed to his theme, the old church seemed to be full of doves - one 
could hear the soft whirr of their wings. They came crowding in from the New 
England woods and the dove cotes at the North End - doves of the prophet's time, 
white and purple, out of the heavens and into the heavens. Then somehow those who 
listened were doves, come at the Father's call that morning to be fed from his hand, 
or longing to plume their wings and fly away and be at rest. It was the enchantment 
of pure genius - a pentecost of flying doves - and Collyer wist not who had wrought 
the wonder. So he asked a man who sat near him who it was, and the man answered, 
astonished that any one in Boston should ask such a question, "Why, that is Father 
Taylor!" 


Collyer was a young man, and after the meeting Bartol introduced him to Father 
Taylor. The lad held out his hand shyly, and the old man did not offer his in return. 
Instead, he opened his great arms, caught the boy in a warm embrace, and kissed 
him. Thereafter they were friends to the end. That was Father Taylor - "Jeremy 
Talyor in butternut," as Harriet Marteneau called him - and the only man on this side 
of the sea Charles Dickens went to hear on his first visit; the man who charmed 
Jenny Find, the elder Booth, Webster, Emerson, Everett, and all who heard him; and 
whose smile was so bright that his little daughter made up her mind that this was 
what made the flowers open in their living room. 


FION AND FAMB 


Edward Taylor was born on Christmas day in Richmond, Virginia, 1793 - into a 
forlorn world, because his mother, a Scotch governess, passed out of life as he came 
in. The little "bundle of a baby" fell into the care of a black mammy, whose love and 
gentleness ever after haunted his heart. Tike Moses, drawn out of the bulrush ark, he 
was a foundling of providence, dowered with the mysterious power we call genius. 
He was a ruddy child, as of red earth the first Adam was made - a sort of lion, if one 
looked at him through the glasses of Darwin, but a lamb also, having the subtility of 



the serpent in his intellect and the sweet foolishness of the dove in his heart. Like the 
elder Booth who wanted prayers over some dead pigeons, so Taylor held funeral 
services over chickens and kittens who departed this life, and used not only 
persuasion, but a whip to gather his audience of pickinninies and put them in proper 
frame of mind - though the lash was doubtless as gentle as the oratory was 
wonderful. When he was seven he was one day picking up chips for the good 
woman to whom the charge of him had fallen, when a sea-captain passing by asked 
him if he did not want to be a sailor. Instantly he left the chips, ran to the house and 
shouted, "Good-bye mother," and was off sea as cabin boy. 


In the biography of Taylor - by Gilbert Haven and Thomas Russell - the next ten 
years are called “a blank," and they were no doubt a hard experience, to which he 
rarely referred. Years later when he was taken by a friend to visit Dr. W. E. 
Channing, on leaving the house he observed to the friend, "Channing has splendid 
talents; what a pity he has not been educated!" By which he meant, no doubt, that 
there is a kind of education not to be obtained from books - such as he had acquired 
in the university of winds and waves, through whose long and trying curriculum, 
with many sharp examinations, he had passed. For ten years he endured hardness as 
a good sailor, and we next see him wandering on a Sunday morning into the Park 
street church, Boston, and leaving it with a hunger in his heart to be able some day 
to appeal to men like the great preacher he heard there. 


STRANGE WARMING OF HEART 


Another Sabbath found him in a Methodist chapel, and his heart was strangely 
moved by one who probed to the depths of that latent conscience and remorse which 
probably lie somewhere in the background of every soul. As he was going out a 
good man grasped his hand - as Methodists have a way of doing - and asked him 
about his soul. This was a double surprise, for the boy wanted human sympathy and 
here it was, and he was not aware until then that he had such a thing as a soul. And 
the upshot of it was that he was converted in the good old Methodist way - that is, 
converted all over, set on fire, all icicles melted and all sins burned up. It was the 
memory of this high and sunny hour that led him to tell his Unitarian friends that 
they were trying to raise wheat in the Arctic Circle, and that they might as well try to 
heat a furnace with snow balls as to save souls in their way. 



In the war of 1812 Taylor went to sea on the Black Hawk, a privateer. She was soon 
captured by our friends the enemy, and her crew were sent as prisoners to Halifax, 
Nova Scotia. There was a rebellion among the boys when the chaplain read the 
prayers to them for King George, so they would not hear him. Taylor was known to 
be "a praying man" and he was asked to take the chaplain's place. He was quick and 
ready to do this, and after a time it dawned upon the boys that one who could pray so 
well might also preach, because, as they argued, it was only the difference between 
talking on your knees and on your feet. But Taylor could not read and he was 
puzzled about finding a text. The problem was easily solved. They found a Bible and 
one of the boys would read at haphazard until some text struck fire. So, reading one 
day, they came upon the words, "A good child is better than a foolish old king," and 
Taylor said, "That will do for a text," and he launched out into a story of our 
glorious Revolution, set them all afire, and came down heavily on foolish old King 
George to the vast delight of his audience. From that time he was chaplain on a 
prisoner's ration while the other man drew the pay. 


YE ARE SPIES 


Released from prison, the young apostle could not hide his light under a bushel - for 
that would have burnt the bushel, so he became an exhorter at the meetings on 
Methodist Alley. And the good Methodists - wise in this as in many things - were 
for giving him a license as a local preacher, despite the fact that he could not read; 
and two church officers were sent to hear him. Taylor was not supposed to know of 
their presence, but a kind friend told him, and he took for his text, "By the life of 
Pharoh ye are spies." All the same he was licensed to preach on a salary of nothing a 
year and board himself - the conditions on which I preached the first year of my 
ministry, and I am sure now that I got the best of the bargain ! To make his board 
Taylor hired out to a peddler in Ann Street, who sent him down the coast with a load 
of tin notions. He came to Saugus in his journey, disposed of his wares, and then 
was moved to preach - sold his tins first, mark you, and preached afterward, not 
before - and won the heart of a dear old lady, who took him to her home, taught him 
how to read, and gave him the love of a mother. Later Amos Binney tried to send 
him to a theological school, but he stayed only six weeks and could stand it no 
longer. 



EDWARD AND DEBORAH 


So a full license was given him, and he was sent to Marblehead to take charge of an 
infant church there. And there he met Deborah, a maid to win the love of any man, 
and soon the young prophet was vastly in love. Shortly after he was moved to 
Hingham - four miles away - and one day he went up on the hill to gaze toward 
Marblehead, with a telescope to assist his heart, when in a flash the thought struck 
him and he leaped to his feet with the cry, "Bless my heart, this is our wedding day 
and I forgot all about it!" It was long after the hour set, but Deborah knew that if 
Edward ran he would run only one way. Still, one wishes that we had a report of 
their meeting next morning, to see how genius rose to the high demand when he told 
her how it was. They were married, and there was no need for the minister to say tor 
better or worse," for there was no worse - it was all and always for the better. 


At Duxbury, where he and Deborah lived, he disturbed the long-enduring slumber of 
that fine old town, and some of the ministers were jealous of him. One of the 
ministers - the Unitarian pastor, meeting Taylor on the street, said, "So young man, 
ye have come to preach in Duxbury, have ye?" "Yes," replied the young man, "the 
Lord bid us preach the gospel to every creature." "To be sure," snorted the old man, 
"but he never said every critter should preach the gospel, sir," and went away in 
wrath. And next Sunday Taylor prayed that every white hair on that old man's head 
might be hung with a jewel of the Lord. He also prayed, specifically, that the Lord 
might "bless meek Burr, and proud Pratt, and save wicked old Alden, if you can ! " 


About this time, 1828, the good Methodists began to feel concern for those "who go 
down to the sea in ships," and it was surely the good God who guided them in 
selecting Edward Taylor for this ministry. He began in a dingy chapel on Methodist 
Alley, but the room was soon too small - many people from fashionable churches 
going to hear a man with a golden voice and a heart of fire. Nathaniel Barret; a 
Unitarian layman, wrote notes to a hundred of his friends, mainly of that faith, 
calling them together. He laid the matter before them, and it was decided to build a 
new meeting house for Taylor. So the Unitarians built a chapel for the Methodist 
evangelist, and that was in accord with the eternal fitness of things. They asked 



Taylor what he wanted, and he said they might leave out the Corinthian columns and 
give him the shavings. But they gave him, instead, of their best, and that was none 
too flood. 


A WALKING BETHEL 


The chapel was built in the shape of a ship, in dark finish, with low ceiling, ample 
and inviting. Behind the pulpit an artist hung a painting of a ship in distress, stormed 
tossed and driven. Taylor called this temple "Bethel," remembering the ladder of 
Jacob whereon angels ascended and descended in a dream that was also a prayer. 
And Edward Everett called Taylor himself "a walking Bethel." Two sailor boys 
stood in front of the chapel one day, and one who could spell proceeded to make out 
the name over the door: "B-e-t, that's beat; H-e-1, that's hell, here's where the old 
man beats hell, let's go in." And they came in numbers, a wilderness of wild human 
souls, and the genius of Taylor shone like a beacon in the night. But so many others 
came that he had to make a rule that the sailor boys should be seated first, and if they 
filled the seats the rest must stand. Sailor Jack saw the point, and sat on his dignity. 


To the sailor boys he was a friend and father, and so it came about that he was called 
"Father" Taylor - and a higher tribute was never paid to a Christian minister. Taylor 
had the freedom of the city. He knocked at every door, Orthodox, Episcopal, 
Catholic or Radical, and everywhere he was welcome, and everywhere he was at 
home, being large enough, and wise enough, to see the good in every faith. By the 
same token, he would have no doors to his pulpit, and one day when a minister 
refused to enter because Henry Ware, a Unitarian, was to sit there - a way some men 
had in those days of proving that they were Christians, by failing to be gentlemen - 
Taylor prayed fervently: "Lord, there are two things we need to be delivered from in 
Boston - bad rum and bigotry. Which is the worst Thou knowest, I don't, Amen." 
When someone said in his hearing that Emerson would surely go to hell, he cried 
out: "Go there ! Why, if he went there he would change the climate and the tide of 
emigration would set in that way.” 


THE GREAT ORATOR 



Of all American orators he was the most original and inimitable in his genius and 
style. If you would know by what spell he swayed men, the cultured equally with the 
unlearned, read the little essay on Father Taylor by Walt Whitman, in "November 
Boughs." There you will see, as far as such things can be put into words, why it was 
that great actors when they came to see "how he did it," forgot what they came for 
and retreated behind their pocket-handkerchiefs to hide their sobs. There were great 
orators in Boston - Everett with his studious grace, Webster with his majesty, and 
Choate with his oriental fancy - but no one carried men away in a chariot of fire as 
Taylor did; and this power in him surprised no one more than it did himself. He was 
a possessed man, and in his rapt moods he became a live transparency in which men 
saw those things of which it is not lawful to speak. And, joined with this, was that 
winged wit, that fine and sure sanity, that common sense which his heavenly genius 
glorified. Here are some of his sayings: 


"A man should not preach like he had killed somebody," he said when a brother was 
too solemn. 


He compared getting ready to preach to fermentation: "When the liquor begins to 
swell and strain and hum and fizz; then pull the bung ! " 


"When a man is preaching at me I want him to take something hot out of his own 
heart, and shove it into mine - that is what I call preaching." 


One day, preaching on amusements, he paid eulogy to Jenny Lind as "the sweetest 
song-bird that ever alighted on our shores." A man sitting on the pulpit steps asked if 
a person dying at one of her concerts would go to heaven. Taylor's eyes became two 
points of green fire, and he said: "A good man will go to heaven, sir, die where he 
may, and a fool will be a fool wherever he lives, though he sits on my pulpit stairs." 



A man caught in the Millerite craze insisted on telling the sailor boys to get their 
ascension robes ready, as the world was coming to an end, and Taylor cried out, 
"Cut his boot-straps and let him go up, so the meeting can go on!" 


"Emerson, I think, is the sweetest soul God ever made, but he knows no more about 
theology than Balaam's ass knew about Hebrew grammar. There seems to be a 
screw loose in him somewhere, but I never could find it, and listen as I may, I can 
find no jar in the machinery." 


WIT AND WISDOM 


To a minister who had taught the dogma of infant damnation, he said: "It's no use, 
brother, preaching sermons like that, because if what you say could be true, your 
God would be my devil." 


"Webster is too bad to trust with anything good now, and too good to throw away; 
he is the best bad man I ever knew." 


"Niagara is like the love of God; it never freezes up in winter, never dries up in dog 
days, and you never come to it for water and go away with an empty bucket." 


And so, like a Niagara, the stream of his wit and wisdom flowed on, leaping, 
sparkling, and seemingly inexhaustible, until it emptied into the great sea. In April, 
1871, he passed on - or over, as the French say - going out with the ebbing tide, as 
"an old salt" should. Just before he died someone said: "There is rest in heaven, and 
you will soon be there." 


"Go there yourself," he said, "I want to stay here." 



"But think of the angels, all waiting to welcome you," he was told. 


"1 don't want angels, I want folks." And then in an instant the old radiance returned 
and he said: "Angels are folks, too, and ours are among them." 


So passed the waif, sailor, privateersman, prisoner, and preacher - a big, fiery, 
fatherly, joyous man whose heart God had touched - and Boston paid honor to one 
of her first citizens, if not to the greatest natural orator that ever lived. And there was 
sorrow on the sea, for many a sailor boy felt a lump climb into his throat and a 
strange tightening about the heart, when he learned that Father Taylor was no more. 


— o — 


MASONRY AND RACE PATRIOTISM 


One of the lessons of the past year is the inadequacy of nationalism as a humanizing 
and civilizing force. Men are killing each other in Europe for no other reason than 
that they are living under flags of different colors and on opposite sides of imaginary 
boundary lines. There is no ground in nature or reason for their flying at each others' 
throats. Patriotism is no virtue when it dwarfs the sympathies and narrows the soul's 
horizon; it is simply bigotry and selfishness, and becomes a menace to the world. 
John Paul Jones, America's first naval hero, called himself a citizen of the world, and 
though a Scotchman by birth fought for the Colonies because he thought they stood 
for a wider patriotism than had obtained before. He stood for America because he 
regarded America as standing for man as man. His enthusiasm was for the human 
race rather than for a nation. Love of country is a noble passion, but not as noble as 
the love of man. The Christ looked beyond the boundaries of land and race and 
threw the cords of his sympathy and affection around the world. 



Masonry has a distinct interest in this, and has played a big part in its promotion in 
the past. It has an opportunity for the assertion of world-patriotism so unique and 
inviting that it amounts to a mission. Brotherhood is among our fundamentals; the 
ties that bind us are fraternal and natural and are embarrassed by no consideration of 
flag or clime. There is no such thing as an alien Mason; we are all brethren wherever 
we live and by whatever national name we may call ourselves. We can put fresh 
emphasis on this in these days of strife and hate. The American Mason has the 
opportunity of a millenium to teach and live the brotherhood the order stands for. 
Whatever barriers may separate Masons of the countries at war the American is on 
terms of fraternity with them all and can help them back to the same fellowship with 
each other. 


Brother John A. Marquis, President of Coe College 


— o — 


"The world judges Masonry by the public walk of those who compose its 
membership. If that walk is crooked, the institution is not held blameless." 


— o — 


BUILDING AND BUILT UPON 


"I am afraid you may not consider it an altogether substantial concern. It has to be 
seen in a certain way, under certain conditions. Some people never see it at all. You 
must understand, this is no dead pile of stones and unmeaning timber. It is a living 
thing. When you enter it you hear a sound - a sound as of some mighty poem 



chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that it is made up of the beating of 
human hearts, of the nameless music of men's souls - that is, if you have ears to hear. 
If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself - a looming mystery of 
many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no 
ordinary builder ! 


"The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet flesh of men and 
women is moulded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little 
children laugh out from every comer stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the 
joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces are inscribed the 
numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building - building and 
built upon. Sometimes the work goes on in deep darkness; sometimes in blinding 
light; now under the burden of unutterable anguish; now to the tune of great laughter 
and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night- 
time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome - 
the comrades that have climbed ahead." 


Bro. Charles Rann Kennedy. 


— o — 


FREEDOM'S GOD'S DESTINY FOR MAN 


If there did not exist a God, the protector of innocence and liberty, I would prefer the 
condition of the lion, ranging uncontrolled the desert and the forest, to that of a 
captive at the mercy of a mean tyrant, who, an accomplice of his crimes, will 
provoke the anger of Heaven: but no; God has destined man for freedom. He 
protects him, that he may exercise the heavenly gift of free will. - Simon Bolivar 



THE PERFECT YOUTH 


BY BRO. GEO. W. WARVELLE, ILL. 


Our action of last year, confirming the decision of the year preceding relative to the 
eligibility of maimed candidates, has attracted much attention and produced widely 
varying opinions. In the main, however, the opinions are favorable and it is certain 
that the precedent we have set will be followed in many jurisdictions. I use the 
word "precedent" advisedly, for no jurisdiction had before then taken so radical a 
position with respect to physical requirements. Rut, all that was needed was a 
leader. Illinois, to its honor, assumed the office, and many will follow. 


In Pennsylvania candidates must be physically faultless. In Washington, it would 
seem, much the sanle rule prevails, but in most of the jurisdictions an imperfection 
of the body or loss of a member will not debar a candidate if by artificial aid he is 
able to "conform to the requirements of the ritual." Last year the Grand Chapter of 
Washington approved a decision to the effect that "a brother with one foot off at 
the ankle, otherwise a sound man, although he has an artificial foot" is not eligible 
for the Chapter degrees. 


Where this rigid rule of exclusion prevails the palpably unfraternal character 
thereof is usually defended by a recourse to the "ancient landmarks." It seems 
almost unnecessary to say that there are no ancient landmarks of Royal Arch 
Masonry and about the only ancient requirement for exaltation is, that the 
candidate must "have regularly passed the chair." In fact, the present rule of 
physical perfection, as applied in the Lodge, is mainly due to the strict 
interpretation by American ritualists of the old laws of the operative society. In 
England physical defects or deformities create no bar to the admission of 
candidates whose moral character is sound. And this is in consonance not only 
with fraternal spirit but with reason. To deny admission to a maimed candidate, 
however worthy he may otherwise be, is an act utterly at variance with the 
principles of Freemasonry as a speculative institution. 



NEW AGE, NEW TESTS 


Commenting upon this subject, Comp. J. L. Seward, of New Hampshire, makes the 
following pertinent remarks: 


"Capitular Masonry has no landmark aside from its dependence upon symbolic 
Masonry. It simply requires that an applicant shall be a Master Mason. It leaves the 
requirements for symbolic Masonry in the hands of that branch of Freemasonry. 


"At the same time, we believe that the landmarks with respect to physical 
qualifications in symbolic Masonry should be interpreted with regard to the age in 
which they were originated, and with respect to the original purpose. The purpose 
was to initiate men who were most fit for the work in hand. At that time it was 
operative stone work, requiring strength, muscle and excellent bodily development. 
How is it today? What do we require of a modern Mason ? We should still require 
that he be qualified for our work. But what is our work ? It is wholly of a moral, 
charitable and intellectual character. Physical perfection, as it is called, develops 
good athletes, pugilists, ball players and circus performers. Even our modern 
colleges and universities are greatly overvaluing men of this stamp. Do 
Freemasons wish to be understood as placing the emphasis of the qualifications 
upon a standard so low and so grossly coarse? Doubtless a certain regard should be 
had for the physical condition of an applicant, but that should be minimi z ed in 
comparison with the emphasis which we ought to place upon the moral and 
intellectual qualifications." 


UNFRATERNAL REQUIREMENTS 



About the best argument for the abolition of this useless and unfraternal 
requirement, that has come to my notice, is made by Comp. Arthur E. Stevens, G. 
H. P. of Michigan. Commenting thereon he says: 


"What is this law of physical perfection and from whence did it derive its origin ? 


"The law of the old charges which declares that a candidate must be a perfect 
youth, 'having no maim or defect in his body,' was a practical rule adopted by 
operative Masons, not for any symbolic reason, I take it, but merely for utilitarian 
reasons. 


"The medieval guild of Catholic builders for whom the old charges were made was 
a body of superior workmen jealous of its position. It considered itself better than 
any local guild or ordinary masons, as it was, for its members constructed works of 
stone which the average mason of this day could not undertake. It did not want any 
apprentice who, when he had learned his trade and arrived at manhood, was not the 
equal in skill and physical ability of his fellows. From their viewpoint physical 
perfection was as important or more so than moral perfection. This was practical 
and operative, not symbolical or mystical. 


"The working tools of the operative mason have become to us symbolic of spiritual 
truths and the physical perfection required of the ancient apprentice should become 
to us but a symbol of that moral and spiritual perfection which we demand in our 
candidates, with due allowance for the essential imperfection of human nature. But 
even this view need not be considered in Royal Arch Masonry. Those who apply to 
us for further light are of necessity Master Masons, and if they have proven 
themselves to be morally such as we are authorized to receive what right have we 
to debar them from Capitular Masonry? 


"The argument has often been made that a man should be able to prove himself a 
Mason in all the ways provided. 



"Presuming a brother maimed has become a Royal Arch Masonr and granting that 
he could not in all the ways provided prove himself one, does Capitular Masonry 
suffer. Is the brother forced from the companionship of his own Chapter, where he 
undoubtedly will find the most pleasure to be derived from his membership? Or 
will he not be incited by the fact of his physical disability to so perfect himself in 
Masonic knowledge that if necessary he can make himself known as a Royal Arch 
Mason to the satisfaction of the most critical examiners? Or if he can not, will not 
the loss be his and his alone ? 


"Companions, can we think that we are bound to deprive our unfortunate brother of 
the privilege of such additional light in Masonry as we are able to furnish, because 
in ancient times operative masons chose only those who were sound and capable of 
handling and setting stones? Or even, if in our conscience we believe that Master 
Mason Lodges are bound to take physical disability into consideration, are we also 
bound to believe that Chapters should do the same ? 1 do not believe that you so 
think and I therefore recommend that Article 10 of the Constitution be amended by 
striking out Section 4, and that Sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 be renumbered as 4, 5, 6 and 
7 respectively." 


THE OLD CHARGES 


I am pleased to report that Grand Chapter rose to the occasion and effected the 
reform the G. H. P. recommended. 


The foundation for the modem theory of faultless physical condition of candidates, 
is based on that part of Anderson's compilation of the Ancient Charges which reads 
as follows: 



"No Master should take an Apprentice unless he be a perfect youth, having no 
maim or defect in his body, that may render him incapable of learning the art, of 
serving his Master's lord and of being a brother." 


The development of the theory into what we may call the "American rule," is 
largely due to the comments and interpretations of the late Cornelius Moore. His 
edition of the Old Charges was for years received by American Lodges with the 
reverence paid to Holy Writings and his commentary was regarded as almost 
inspired. 


To be consistent, however, the advocates of th perfect youth doctrine should 
exclude from the congregation of the faithful all old, infirm and maimed 
Craftsmen. That is, the same rule that debars the admission of the "imperfect" 
youth, should work the exclusion of the worn-out, disabled or maimed within the 
fold. The reasons which apply in the former case are equally cogent in the latter. 
There are many aged brethren who, by reason of physical infirmity, are utterly 
unable to give the signs, or even to see them, or, perhaps, to hear the word. They 
are quite as incapable of "proving themselves" as the candidate without hands or 
feet or who has lost "the end of the little finger of the left hand." How can they 
practice the "art" or "serve their Master's lord." Out upon them for a parcel of 
imposters. 


— o — 


THE GIFTS OF GOD 


When God at first made Man, 

Having a glass of blessings standing by; 
Fet us (said he) pour on him all we can. 



Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, 

Contract into a span. 

So Strength first made a way; 

Then Beauty flow'd, then Wisdom, honour, pleasure 

When almost all was out, God made a stay 

Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. 

For if I should (said he) 

Bestow this jewel also on my creature, 

He would adore my gifts instead of me, 

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature, 

So both should losers be. 

Yet let him keep the Rest, 

But keep them with repining restlessness; 

Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 
May toss him to my breast. 

—George Herbert. 



The-one great lesson taught in Masonry is to do something, and in doing that 
something, bless somebody else. 

— T. S. Parvin. 


MASONRY AND THE MYSTERIES 


BY BRO. GEO. F. GREENE, MICHIGAN 


It may seem strange to many Freemasons, and some may ask Why? The operative 
masons, architects, and builders, should have ever been considered as special 
guardians of the Mysteries of Freemasonry, as it is claimed they were during the 
middle ages. 


To understand this clearly, it must be remembered that the ancient mysteries were 
generally celebrated in peculiarly constructed Temples, or else in artificial caverns 
constructed for the purpose; consequently, in order to present the drama of 
initiation impressively, many secret chambers, passages, doors and other secret 
devices, had to be constructed within the interiors, in order that the impressive and 
spectacular effect desired in the initiation might be produced. 


It was an absolute necessity that the priests should employ skilled labor for this 
purpose, and, it was also an absolute necessity that it should be that of the initiated, 
in order that the secret preparatory work should not be revealed, and for this work 
only cunning workmen were chosen. 



It is said that in Pompeii there is a rediscovered Temple of Isis, showing a secret 
stairway by which the priests could climb unseen, to an opening inside of the 
"veiled statue of the goddess," and there talk through her marble lips to her 
followers, giving them warnings, and uttering oracles of wisdom. The researchers 
also came to a place where the floor, or ground, had been made in such a manner 
that it would rise up and down like a wave, caused by some mechanical device that 
had been contrived by the skill of the ancient and trusted initiated workmen. 


What was known as the "Cave of Trophonius," was noted for its interior 
mechanism, resembling the female generative organs as the womb of Mother 
Earth. Those who came to consult the oracle, placed themselves before a small 
aperture, which was made in such a manner that it symbolized their being "born 
again ;" as soon as they were seated, the aperture opened noiselessly, and their 
whole body was drawn inward by some invisible power, to what was supposed to 
represent another world. 


There, after learning certain lessons in the new life, they were supposed to die, and 
to be returned to the place from whence they came. What actually transpired inside 
was never revealed by the person on his return, but he was pale and exhausted, as 
though some great and severe ordeal had been passed through. 


The architect of this wonderful cave, who was Trophonius, after whom the cave 
was named, was, with his brother Agemides, the architect of the Temple of Apollo 
at Delphi. 


Together they designed all the mechanism, and the secret arts, parts, and points, 
which related to the Material Mysteries that were intended to be practiced within 
its walls. Secrecy was imperative, therefore the priests, fearing that the secret 
construction might be revealed, and their duplicity discovered, told them to wait 
eight days for their money. During that time they were poisoned, and were found 
dead in their beds. 



When the Mysteries were discontinued by the religion of the Roman Empire, and 
the priests were no longer allowed to practice their arts, it was these skilled 
operative builders alone that were still held together by their initiation, and were 
not bothered, because they never practiced priestcraft. 


Finding that Temples, and other structures, still had to be built and repaired, they 
naturally kept up their associations, and their secret arts among themselves, and, as 
they had a monopoly of Temple building, they assumed an independence and 
consequence, upon which followed the favor of princes, and others high in 
authority, who desired their expert services to build complicated structures. Thus, 
having use for their secret organization, they naturally kept up and preserved the 
occult ties which united them formerly so closely in the Mysteries, and whose 
emblems, signs, and legends they became the last custodians of, after they had 
ceased to be celebrated by the priests; and, never having had the higher secrets 
communicated to them, it becomes doubtful if the real meaning of the secrets are 
known today even by the priests of the Orthodox Church; or, are claimed by 
anyone, in their entirety, outside of the Adepts of India. 


Thus originated, without doubt, the traveling free masons of the middle ages who 
have left so many traces of their wonderful skill in the building art. 


They surely had, and used, in their initiation, the rudiments of the ancient 
Eleusinian Mysteries after they were abolished by Valentinian. 


No doubt they became corrupt, and the secret meaning of the symbols was lost; 
but, that the present initiation of Free Masonry is derived from this source is almost 
certain, because none of the Pass Words are in French, English, or German, or any 
other modern language, as would have been the case had they been originated in 
modem times; instead they are all Egyptian, Chaldean, Hebrew, or Hindoo. 



From their wording they prove that they were used when the Sign Leo was in the 
Summer Solstice, and that was 4500 years ago. But the Verbal Form of our Ritual 
is another matter; there is no question but what that is a modern invention. 


If we would learn to view modern Freemasonry from a rational standpoint, and 
study to understand its mystic legends and allegories in their substance, without 
any regard to the modem language in which they are clothed, and investigate the 
meaning of its ancient ceremonies, its signs, symbols, and emblems, paying no 
regard to the erroneous modem explanation, we might be able to learn something 
to our advantage. 


Beyond doubt the bases of all the ancient mysteries were identical, and had a 
common origin; which was known as the "Secret Doctrine," and which is still 
claimed to exist in India among the Hindoo Adepts. 


The claim that this religious base is from the actual history of events, as they really 
took place in the world, must, and will be abandoned by the few really intelligent 
people who still cling to it. 


Free Masonry especially, cannot afford to be placed in a false light by religious 
fanatics, or longer allow them to foister upon its members, false doctrines, or 
creeds of any kind. Our Light added to the coming Light will make the way plain. 
So plain in fact "that he who mns may read." 


— o — 


WHAT WASHINGTON SAID 



Contemplating the internal situation as well as the external relations of the United 
States, we discover equal cause for contentment and satisfaction. While many of 
the nations of Europe . . . have been involved in a contest unusually bloody, 
exhausting, and calamitous, . in which many of the arts most useful to society 
have been exposed to discouragement and decay; in which scarcity of subsistence 
has embittered other sufferings; while even the anticipations of a return of the 
blessings of peace and repose are alloyed by the sense of heavy and accumulating 
burdens, which press upon all the departments of industry, and threaten to clog the 
future springs of government, our favored country, happy in a striking contrast, has 
enjoyed general tranquillity - a tranquillity the more satisfactory because 
maintained at the expense of no duty. Faithful to ourselves, we have violated no 
obligation to others. - President Washington, in his Address to Congress, 

December 8,1795. 


— o — 


FLAKES OF OUR FATHERS 


Flag of our fathers, out of our heritage woven, 

Flag for a city of hope, forever young, 

Fling to the winds of earth our ageless challenge, 

Skyward in you man's faith once more is flung - 
Still may the ships come riding home, thronged with alien faces 
That yearn with light disguised, that glow with unsuspected powers; 
Till our fortunate eyes, grown old, look up and see you waving 
Welcome to younger days and newer dreams than ours. 



- John Hr skin e. 


— o — 


SALVATION 


“So to the calmly gathered thought, 
The innermost of life is taught; 

The mystery dimly understood, 
That love of God is love of good; 
That to be saved is only this - 
Salvation from our selfishness.” 

- J.G. Whittier. 


— o — 


LIFE'S LITTLE DAY 


Life's little day is fading fast; upon the mountain's brow the sinking sun is 
gleaming red; the shadows lengthen now; the twilight hush comes on apace, and 
soon the evening star will light us to those chambers dim where dreamless sleepers 
are. And when the curfew bell is rung, that calls us all to rest, and we have left all 



worldly things, at Azrael's behest, O may some truthful mourner rise, and say of 
you or me: “Gee whizz ! I'm sorry that he's dead ! He was a honey bee ! Whate'er 
his job he did his best; he put on all his steam, in every stunt he had to do he was a 
four-horse team. He thought that man was placed on earth to help his fellow guys; 
he never wore a frosty face, and balked at weeping eyes; the hard luck pilgrim 
always got a handout at his door, and any friend could help himself to all he had in 
store; he tried to make his humble home the gayest sort of camp, till Death, the 
king of bogies, came and slugged him in the lamp. I don't believe a squarer guy 
existed in the land, and Death was surely o ff his base when this galoot was canned 
!” - Walt Mason. 


— o — 


THE DEMOCRATIC CHRIST 


The times are gone when only few were fit 
To view with open vision the sublime, 

When for the rest an altar-rail sufficed 
To obscure the democratic Christ. * * * 

Perceiving now his gift, demanding it, 

The benison of common benefit, 

Men, women, all, 

Interpreters of time, 

Have found that lordly Christ apocryphal, 

While Christ the comrade comes again - no wraith 


Of virtue in a far-off faith 



But a companion hearty, natural, 

Who sorrows with indomitable eyes 

For his mistreated plan 

To share with all men the upspringing sod, 

The unfolding skies - 

Not God who made Himself the Man, 

But a man who proved man's unused worth - 
And made himself the God. 

- Witter Bynner. 

MEMORIALS TO GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS 

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

BARON VON STEUBEN 


THIS beautiful group is situated at the northwest comer of LaFayette Square, in 
Washington. It was modeled by the famous sculptor Albert Jaegers, at a cost of 
$50,000, which Congress appropriated in 1903. It was unveiled in 1910 with 
official ceremonies, on which occasion the President of the United States (Brother 
W. H. Taft) and the German Ambassador made the principal addresses. 



General Von Steuben was held in high esteem by Washington, the whole Army, 
and by Patriots generally. He so endeared himself to the people, as well as the 
Army, that he was almost worshiped. He gave up his German title of Nobility, to 
become an American citizen and was of us as well as with us, which distinguishes 
him from the hyphenated class, or from the adventurers. 


Many pronounced this group of statuary as the finest in the Capital City; it shows 
the General heavily cloaked, as at Valley Forge, where he drilled and whipped raw 
troops of the Continental Army into shape. The sash thrown over his shoulder is 
reminiscent of his service on the staff of Frederick the Great: his hand rests lightly 
on the hilt of his sword: he is shown as if following the unfolding movements of 
the troops. 


On the base in high relief is a group called “Military Instruction,” which represents 
Von Steuben's life work; the work for which the American Nation remembers and 
honors him, drilling the Continental Army. An experienced soldier is instructing a 
Youth in the use of the sword. 


The second group - also in high relief - is “Commemoration” in which “America is 
teaching Youth to honor the memories of her heroes: a foreign branch is grafted 
onto the tree of her National Life: She welds to her heart the foreigner who has cast 
his life into the weal and the woe of her people, employing the idea of unity and 
fraternity of all Nationalities under the guidance of the Great Republic.” 


Von Steuben was picked out by the French Minister of War (St. Germain) as the 
man best suited to introduce into the untrained American Army the discipline and 
training so much needed: For this purpose he was introduced to Dr. Franklin in 
1777, and he consented to come to America and aid in the American Cause. To 
Von Steuben is due the credit of training the Continental Army. 



Von Steuben remained in the United States and became a citizen in good faith; 
relinquishing his German rank and title to Nobility. He brought with him his 
Masonic Affiliation, with the rank of Past Master, to Holland Lodge in New York 
City, and attended the communications frequently, entering into the joys of the 
lodge. He became a member of a church, in New York City and identified himself 
with the people, in a democratic way. 


— o — 


To new Members: Announcements regarding the Society's activities will usually 
be found on the inside back cover of The Builder. Old members will please note 
that those who desire to bind their volumes may have title pages on application. 
Apply to Secretary. 


Of course, if you ask and insist, in the words of Hiawatha, “I will answer, I will tell 
you”; but perhaps the lines explain themselves - 


“These few lines, which look so solemn, 
Were just put in to fill the column.” 


MASONIC COURTESY 


(The following bit of reminiscence, taken from an article entitled “The Mason as a 
Citizen,” by Brother Silas W. Power, of Kansas, in the London Freemason, 
illustrates those truly Masonic virtues, Silence and Circumspection.) 



There was another religious sect at Wheaton, a village in northern Illinois, which 
conducted a college, and taught that Masonry and all secret societies emanated 
directly from Satan himself. They differed from the other church people in this 
respect, that they worked at the anti-Masonic idea all the time. About thirty-five 
years ago they called an anti-Masonic convention in the town where I lived. 

Several hundred delegates attended, arid the citizens were asked to provide 
accommodation in their homes for the delegates. My parents were asked and 
consented to entertain a couple of the delegates, and for a week we had with us a 
minister and a farmer, and we gave them the best we had in the house. My father 
never wore any Masonic charms or emblems; there were no charts or diagrams 
hanging on the walls giving his Masonic history, or anything to indicate that the 
family believed in Masonry. The delegates, especially the minister, were filled 
with the spirit, and at every meal the minister turned the conversation to a 
discussion of the evils and sinfulness of Masonry. It vexed and worried my mother 
that she could not induce my father to reply to their denunciations of Masons, or to 
say anything on the subject. Every night he accompanied his guests to the meetings 
in the public hall and listened to the speeches and addresses. In one of them 
President Blanchard, of Wheaton College, declared with great emphasis that it was 
impossible for a Christian and a Mason to exist in the same skin. Although my 
father was an elder in the Presbyterian church, this did not seem to ruffle him in the 
slightest. 


On the last day that the delegates were there the minister remarked to my father at 
the table that, as the latter was somewhat prominent as a lawyer, and had served on 
the bench and in public life, it was odd that he had never been approached and 
asked to join some secret society. My father turned to him and said: “My dear Sir, I 
have been an Odd-Fellow for thirty-five years and a Mason almost as long.” The 
farmer dropped his knife and fork with a scared look, as if it had just occurred to 
him that he had been in great danger of his life during the past week. The minister, 
though somewhat disconcerted, was able to “come back” with a profuse apology 
for having discussed the subject during his entertainment, but was told that he need 
not apologize, because nothing he had said had given offense. The minister then 
inquired why my father had never controverted his arguments or stood up for 
Masonry. The reply gave great satisfaction to the members of the family, if not to 
the guests. It was this: “My dear Sir, I paid not the slightest attention to anything 
you said on the subject for the simple reason that I knew you were talking about 
something concerning which you were as ignorant as an unborn babe.” 



IF WE ONLY UNDERSTOOD 


If we knew the cares and trials, 

Knew the efforts all in vain, 

And the bitter disappointment, 
Understood the loss and gain - 
Would the grim, eternal roughness 
Seem - 1 wonder - just the same? 
Should we help where now we hinder? 
Should we pity where we blame? 

Ah! We judge each other harshly, 
Knowing not Life's hidden force - 
Knowing not the fount of action 
Is less turbid at its source! 

Seeing not amid the evil 
All the golden grains of good; 

And we'd love each other better 


If we only understood. 



Could we judge all deeds by motives 
That surround each other's lives, 

See the naked heart and spirit, 

Know what spur the action gives - 
Often we would find it better 
Just to judge all actions good; 

We should love each other better 
If we only understood. 

- Rudyard Kipling. 

— o — 

SOUL BUILDERS 


“Souls are built as temples are; 
Sunken deep, unseen, unknown, 
Lies the sure foundation stone. 
Then the courses framed to bear, 
Lift the cloistered pillars fair, 
Last of all the airy spire, 



Soaring heavenward higher and higher. 
“Souls are built as temples are, 

Here a carving rich and quaint, 

There the image of a saint; 

Here a deep hued pane to tell, 

Sacred touch or miracle, 

Every careful, careless touch, 

Adds to the little, mars the much. 

“Souls are built as temples are, 

Inch by inch in gradual rise, 

Mounts the layered masonry; 

Warring questions have their day, 

Kings arise and pass away 
Still the temple is undone, 

Still completion seems afar. 

“Souls are built as temples are, 

Based on truth's eternal law; 

Sure and steadfast, without flaw, 

Through the sunshine, through the snows, 
Up and on the temple goes, 

Every fair thing finds a place, 



Every hard thing lends a grace, 
Every hand can make or mar, 

For souls are built as temples are.” 


- Susan Coolidge. 


EDITORIAL 


THE BIRD OF TIME 


WHAT is more familiar than Time, and yet what is more elusive and obscure? 
Who knows what it is, save as we may say that it is a measured portion of that 
Eternity in which we live now and always? It ticks in the clock, it shrieks in the 
factory whistle. Busy men tell us it is money, and lazy men try to kill it. Poets 
picture it as a tyrant, a robber, an old man with a scythe, who, were we never so 
fast, will overtake us and finish us. And yet, if Time catches us, we never catch it. 
So fleeting it is that we neither see it nor hear it, and while one writes and another 
reads it is gone into that unreturning past, leaving no echo of its footstep. 


At any rate, the Bird of Time is ever on the wing, and its flight, always noiseless, 
has brought us once more to a New Year, with its anniversary of the Beginning and 
the End. Few of us are willing to have the past back and live life over again, 
unless, indeed, we could start wiser than we were and so avoid the old mistakes. 
No, ours is the glory of going on and still to be, leaving the low- vaulted past for 
wider and sunnier mansions of the soul. Evermore our faces are set toward the 
future, with its wonder and surprise, or, perhaps, its sorrow and defeat. Yet we well 
may pause betimes, as one year goes and another year comes, while Father Time 
changes the reel in the greatest of all moving picture shows. 



And so, looking back down the Road to Yesterday, we hope that in the New Year 
no one of our Brethren will suffer any ill that money cannot heal. For the rest, the 
law and the prophets contain no word of better rule for the health of the inner life 
than the famous adjuration: “Hope thou a little; fear not at all, and love as much as 
you can.” After all, it is a wise wish, when you think of it, since the things which 
money cannot cure are the ills of the spirit, the sickness of the heart, and the 
dreary, dull pain of waiting for those who return no more. Men do their work, act 
out their little parts in the great drama, and vanish. Only the eternal things remain, 
like the earth beneath and the sky above, and God lives and reigns, albeit His 
Providence leaves room for human improvidence, else we were not men but 
puppets in a phantom farce. He only is wise who lives for the things that abide, 
seeking the truth in love, serving his fellow men. 


Thus I stand in the Great Forever 
With Thee as Eternities roll; 

Thy Spirit forsakes me never, 

Thy Love is the Home of my Soul. 

* * * 


LOOKING FORWARD 


New Year is a time not only to make resolutions, but also to lay plans with hope 
and forward-looking thoughts, and in this spirit The Builder would lay before the 
Members of the Society a few of its plans for the year. Only two of its plans for the 
old year went awry: the article on German Masonry by Brother Cams, owing to his 
severe illness; and the most recent researches of Brother Ravenscroft in the history 
of the Comacines, due to the distractions of war, taking so many of his business 



associates away to the army. His article will, however, appear during the New 
Year, and will be of unusual value and importance in making clear the descent of 
modem Masonry from the greatest order of builders the world has ever known. 


Among the studies planned for the incoming year, is a series of papers by Brother 
John Pickard, of the University of Missouri, tracing the evolution of architecture, 
showing, by the mute witness of buildings from earliest time, and the signs and 
tokens which they reveal, the fact of an order of builders through the ages. These 
papers will be illustrated, and will give our Members a vivid picture of the origin 
and growth of the great art of building, as well as a story of the builders. Also, 
Prof. Hiram Bingham, director of the Pemvian expedition of 1914-15 under the 
auspices of Yale University and the National Geographic Society, will tell our 
Members what he found in Pem of interest to the Craft. Thus we break ground in 
new fields of original research, and the findings of two of our Members will be 
eagerly awaited. 


Furthermore, we are to have three lectures on the symbolism of the first three 
degrees of Masonry, by Prof. Roscoe Pound, of Harvard University, whose lectures 
on the Philosophy of Masonry so delighted our Members in the early months of 
last year. Our Members know what to expect from Prof. Pound, and we predict that 
his lectures will do much to redeem the field of Masonic symbolism from the 
confusion which has so long hovered over it. Along with these lectures, Brother 
C.C. Hunt, one of the finest students of Masonry in Iowa, will begin at the 
beginning, take the novice from the time he enters the Lodge, and lead him through 
the first three degrees, pointing out and explaining the things he meets - so far as 
this may be done in print - preparing our younger Members for the great lecture by 
Brother Arthur Edward Waite, which will be one of the treasures of the year. 


There will be a discussion of the question of Physical Qualifications of candidates 
by Grand Master Johnson, of Massachusetts, who is an authority on Masonic 
Jurisprudence, and whose forthright way of writing has such a wide appeal. 

Brother O.D. Street, of Alabama, will give a critical study and appreciation of 
George F. Fort as a Masonic historian, accompanying the sketch of Brother Fort by 
his brother. Brother Shepherd, of Wisconsin, has made a study of Masonic Homes 
in the United States, after the manner of his study of the Landmarks, which will 



bring together information and suggestion of great practical value to the Craft 
everywhere. Ye editor hopes to begin his essays in study of Albert Pike betimes, 
and also a little series of studies of the deeper meaning of Masonry both in its 
symbolism and its service to men in the culture of character and gracious living. 


Finally, to name no other features, the Society proposes to issue during the year a 
photographic reproduction of the rarest and most unique Masonic book in the 
world, the only copy of which known to be in existence being in the Library of the 
Grand Lodge of Iowa, entitled, “The Old Constitutions Belonging to the Ancient 
and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, Taken from a Manuscript 
Wrote about Five Hundred Years Since; Printed in London, and Sold by J. Roberts, 
in Warwick Lane, 1722.” This document antedates, as will be seen, the 
Constitutions of 1723, and its reproduction will be a work of art prized by all who 
love and value the old title deeds of the Order. 


* * * 


ROBERT BURNS 


“The memory of Bums!” cried Emerson, “I am afraid heaven and earth have taken 
too good care of it to leave anything to say. The west winds are murmuring it. 
Open the windows behind you, and harken to the incoming tide, what the waves 
say of it. His songs are the property and the solace of mankind.” It is given to but 
few men thus to live in the hearts of their fellows; but today, from Ayr to Sidney, 
from Chicago to Calcutta, the memory of Bums is a sweet perfume. It is more than 
a fragrance; it is a living force, uniting men, by a kind of Freemasonry, into a 
league of liberty, justice, and pity. His feet may have walked in a furrow, but the 
nobility of manhood was in his heart, the genius of melody in his voice, and on his 
face the light of the morning star. 



If ever of any one, it can be said ot Robert Burns, that his soul of sweet song goes 
marching on, striding over continents and years, trampling kingdoms down. He 
was the harbinger of the nineteenth century, the poet of the rights and reign of the 
common people. The earth was fresh upon the tomb of Washington when that 
century was bom; it discovered Lincoln and buried him with infinite regret. But its 
victorious melody first found voice in the songs of a Scotch peasant. It is by all 
agreed that Bums was a lyric poet of the first order, if not the greatest song- writer 
of the world. Draw a line from Shakespeare to Browning, and he is one of the few 
tall enough to touch it. His qualities were fire; tenderness, vividness, rollicking 
humor, sweet-toned pathos, simplicity, naturalness - qualities rare enough and still 
more rarely blended. But he was first a man - often sinful, but always utterly 
honest - whom we love as much for his weakness as for his strength, for that he 
was such an unveneered human being; and his fame rests upon verses written 
swiftly, as men write letters; songs as spontaneous, as artless and as lovely as the 
songs of birds. He touched with delicate and joyous hand the deep and noble 
feelings of old Scotland, and somewhere upon the variegated robe of his song will 
be found embroidered the life, the faith, the genius and the hope of his native land. 


More than all, his passion for liberty, his affirmation of the nobility of man, his 
sense of the dignity of labor, his pictures of the beauties of nature, of the pathos of 
the hard lot of the lowly, of the joys and woes and pieties of his people, find 
response in every breast where beats the heart of a man. It is thus that all men love 
Robert Burns, for he it was who taught us, as no one has taught since Jesus walked 
in Galilee, the brotherhood of man and the kinship of all breathing things. That 
which lives in his songs, and always will live while human nature is the same, is 
the touch of pity, of pathos, of melting sympathy, of love of liberty, of justice, of 
faith in man, in nature, and in God Call uttered with simple speech and a golden 
voice of music. His poems were little jets of love and pity finding their way up and 
out through fissures in the granite-like theology of his day and land. 


Here are songs that came fresh from the heart of a man whom the death of a little 
bird set dreaming of the meaning of a world wherein life is woven of beauty, 
mystery and sorrow; a man who had the strength of a man and more than the 
mercy of woman. A flower crushed in the budding, a field-mouse turned out of its 
home by a ploughshare, a wounded hare limping along the road to dusty death, or 
the memory of a tiny bird that sang for him in days agone, touched him to tears. 



His poems did not grow; they awoke complete. He saw nature with the swift 
glances of a child - saw beauty in the fold of hills, in the slant of trees, in the lilt 
and glint of flowing waters, in the faces of wayside flowers, and in the mists 
trailing over the heather. The sigh of the wind filled him with a wild, sad joy, and 
the lovely grace of a daisy moved him like the memory of one much loved and 
long dead. So the throb of his heart is warm in his words, and it was a heart that 
carried in it an alabaster box of pity. 


Such was Robert Bums - a man passionate and piteous, compact of light and flame 
and beauty, and his song flows out on this crusty old world with the joy and 
wonder of springtime. Long live the Spirit of Burns! If it could have its way with 
us, every injustice, every cmelty, every despotism would fall, and every man 
would have room to stretch his arms and his soul. Would God that by some art we 
could carry his song of pity and of liberty into all the dark places of the world, till 
life is holy everywhere, and pity and laughter return to the common ways of man. 
Dark as the world is, hideous with the woe of war, black with injustice and greed 
and lust, we yet have hope of the fulfillment of the prophetic vision of Robert 
Bums - the Poet Laureate of Masonry: 


Then let us pray, that come what may - 
As come it will, for a' that - 
That man to man, the world o'er 
Shall brothers be, for a' that. 


* * * 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF MASONRY 



Our Society has a right to be proud of its first published book, “Lectures on the 
Philosophy of Masonry,” by Brother Roscoe Pound, Carter Professor of 
Jurisprudence in Harvard University, and Deputy Grand Master of Masons in 
Massachusetts. These lectures, which appeared in the first five issues of The 
Builder, are now gathered into a volume neatly printed and bound, with pictures of 
the men studied, to which the author has added a preface, a bibliography, and an 
index. Prof. Pound dedicates his little book, which will be a classic among Masons, 
to Brother Henry H. Wilson, Past Grand Master of Masons in Nebraska, with these 
lines from Manu:- ”Let not the student who knows his duty aright give anything to 
his teacher before he return home; but when he is about to perform the sacrifice on 
his return, let him give to the venerable man according to his ability.” Just so many 
a young Mason in times to come will feel with regard to Prof. Pound himself, 
offering a sacrifice of gratitude for a great Masonic teacher. The lectures will be 
reviewed for our pages by Brother Francis W. Shepardson, of the University of 
Chicago, after which ye editor will have his say in appreciation of both the book 
and its author. Alike in matter and form this volume is worthy of any University, 
and the Society reckons it a great honor to issue it as the first of its published 
volumes. 


* * * 


BRIEFER NOTES 


We rejoice to report a great response to the idea of a Correspondence Circle among 
our Members, as revealed by piles of letters full of enthusiasm and suggestion. 
There is manifest a disposition of the Brethren to take up and thrash out some very 
vital practical problems now before the Fraternity and the age; such as sectarian 
influences in the public schools, the question of a national Grand Lodge, the need 
of uniform legislation as to the qualification of candidates, Masonry and occult 
philosophy, comparative Masonic jurisprudence, and the like; and we believe that 
in such a circle we can discuss these questions and really get someway toward a 
solution of them. 



The next issue of The Builder will be a Washington number, devoted, in large part, 
to the life and Masonic character and service of our first President, with special 
reference to the proposed Washington Masonic Memorial Temple to be erected at 
Alexandria, Virginia. It will carry a magnificent picture of Washington, in four 
colors, being a reproduction of the William Williams painting which hangs in the 
halls of the Alexandria- Washington Lodge. 


* * * 


Answering many inquiries, we are glad to be able to say that Edwin Markham, the 
great poet of Brotherhood in America, is a Mason, and will be one of our 
contributors in the near future. He was our guest only the other day, and is deeply 
interested in the spirit and purpose and aspiration of this Society. Ye editor will 
soon present a little study and appreciation of Brother Markham, the better to 
tempt our Members make friends with the man who has set the goodly, gracious 
gospel of Brotherly Love to music as no other has done in our day. 


— o — 


CONTINUATION OF QUESTIONS ON “THE BUILDERS” 


Compiled by “The Cincinnati Masonic Study School 


401. Why is it that everything must not be told to everybody and why and how did 
Jesus practice this? Page 57. 



402. Why does God and Nature hold back secrets while it is so easy to receive 
them if one in truth investigates? Page 57. 

403. When does nature reveal her secrets to man? Why? Page 57. 

404. Why should the highest truth be withheld from the multitude ? Page 57. 

405. What method did Jesus pursue in transmitting his knowledge ? How did he 
explain his methods? Page 57. 

406. What does tradition affirm throughout the ages, relative to secret teaching? 
Page 58. 

407. What is the Secret Doctrine or the Hidden Wisdom ? Page 58. 

408. Does the objection to secrecy in regard to spiritual truths hold good? Why? 
Page 58. 

409. What was “the right to admission” to the Secret Teachings in the ancient 
times ? Page 59. 

410. How reconcile “the kinship of mankind and the unity of mind” as the clue to 
understanding the resemblances between the teachings of widely separated peoples 
and the secret teaching of Jesus ? Page 21, 58. 

41 1. If, “Without development, the teachings of the sages are enigmas that seem 
unintelligible, if not contradictory, requiring insight and fineness of mind to 
appreciate and assimilate them,” (63) would it not be plausible to infer, that, the 
hidden fraternity of initiates, withhold the teaching of the higher truths which they 
possess, from those only who are not duly and truly prepared ? Page 59. 

412. Did the high moral secret teachings of the Secret Doctrine belong to those 
“duly and truly prepared” or were they the property of the public at large? Page 59. 

413. If the hidden teaching is an open secret to the world, why call it a hidden 
teaching? Page 61, 63. 

414. Why was a Secret Teaching necessary in ancient times? Page 62. 

415. What is the Secret Doctrine as taught by the ancient mysteries or by modern 
Masonry ? Page 63 . 



416. How may the hidden teaching be described? Why? For what reason is it kept 
hidden even to this day ? Page 63. 

417. When does man know the Secret Doctrine? Page 69. 

418. Which secrets were known only to the few in ancient times ? Page 73. 

419. What is said of secret orders, existing in Constantinople, Greece and Rome 
similar to modern Freemasonry centuries prior to Christ? Page 79. 

420. Why did they have different secrets for each degree in the days of operative 
Masonry ? Page 145. 

421. What do the signs and grips of Freemasonry serve ? Page 244. 

422. Is Freemasonry a secret order? Page 243, 244. 

422a. What is the Oath of Secrecy in the Harleain mss? Page 126. 

423. When will the innocent secrets of Freemasonry be laid bare, its missions 
accomplished and its labor done ? Page 244. 

424. What is the great and what the real Masonic secret? Page 293, 298. 

425. What Discoveries did Socrates make, relative to human nature and the unity 
of mind? Is this confirmed and to what conclusions does it lead? Page 20,21. 

426. What is the Spirit of Masonry? Page 283. 

427. What will be the result when the Spirit of Masonry has its way on earth? 
Page 290. 

428. What is said of man's thoughts as compared to flowers and fruits? Page 19. 

429. What became of Typhon, slayer of Osiris? Page 45. 

430. How have the greatest teachers of the race regarded the highest truth? Why? 
Page 57. 

431. What makes one ready to receive the truth ? Page 57. 



432. The pupil being ready and the teacher found waiting, what will result ? Page 
58. 


433. Can fitness for the finer truths be conferred ? Why not ? Page 63. 

434. On what does all our human thinking rest? Page 70, 269, 270. 

435. In the beginning why was it that all the arts had their home in the Temple? 
Page 74. 

436. What did the simple tools of the “Builders” teach in regard to life and hope in 
death ? Page 83. 

437. What opportunities contributed to the Masons becoming more tolerant than 
other people ? Page 100. 

438. Who did Sir Albert Pike ascribe the authorship of the Third Degree in 
Freemasonry? Page 193. 

439. What grounds have we to believe that truth will triumph, Justice will reign 
and Love will rule the race ? Page 234. 

440. When Masonry is victorious upon earth what will become of every tyrant and 
bastile ? Page 290. 

441. Why is it that man really is what he thinketh ? Page 294. 

442. As a man thinketh so is he? Page 295. 

443. How long have the working tools of a Mason been used as emblems of 
truths? Page 29. 

444. When, where and how were the working tools of the Mason used, prior to our 
era? Page 29. 

445. In the pursuit of wisdom what must one make use of ? Page 30. 

446. What kind of an army invaded England in the year 1066 and what did they 
do? Page 120. 

447. Name some of the Generals of the Revolutionary War who with Washington 
were Freemasons. Page 225. 



448. Who swore in Geo. Washington as President of the United States and on 
what Bible did he take the oath ? Page 226. 

449. What was the loyalty of Masons, North and South, to the cause of Masonry 
during the Civil War? Page 229. 

450. Why is Freemasonry worth more than our combined army and navy for 
protection of the United States of America? Page 230. 

451. What has time proved that “The House of Wisdom” must be founded upon? 
Page 247. 

452. What is the real cause of War? Page 287, 288. 

453. What strange contradiction does history show as to the meaning and purpose 
of war and strife ? Page 287. 

454. What will become of women and the children when the Masonic teaching is 
understood and lived up to by all? Page 290, 291. 

455. What is the status of Freemasonry in the United States today? Page 230. 

456. What dangers threaten the United States today ? Page 231. 

457. What part did Masonry have in establishing the greatest of all republics, the 
United States? Page 208, 222 to 226. 

458. Who was the first to utter the name “The United States” and what is said of 
him? Page 225 note. 

459. How were the United States conceived and dedicated ? Page 224. 

460. Why do we speak of the United States as “the last great hope of man?” Page 
226. 

461. What is the status of Freemasonry in the world today? Page 231-232. 


— o — 



ABOVE THE BATTLE'S FRONT 


St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John - 
Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand, 
Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare, 

And walked upon the water and the land. 

If you, with words celestial, stopped these kings 
For sober conclave, ere their battle great, 

Would they for one deep instant then discern 
Their crime, their heart-rot, and their fiend's estate? 

If you should float above the battle's front, 

Pillars of cloud, of fire that does not slay, 

Bearing a fifth within your regal train, 

The Son of David in his strange array - 
If, in his majesty, he towered toward Heaven, 
Would they have hearts to see or understand? 

Nay, for he hovers there tonight we know, 

Thom-crowned above the water and the land. 


- Vachel Lindsay. 



THE LIBRARY 


(George Eliot said that with a New Year, as with a new friend, one can begin new 
things; and that is true even in The Library. Hereafter, in response to a multitude of 
requests, the prices of books received or reviewed will be noted, along with the 
names of the publishers. By this means we wish to save our members the double 
labor of writing to ask us the prices of books, and ourselves the labor of furnishing 
information that may as well be furnished once for all. We take occasion to say 
once more, for the benefit of new Members, that the Torch Press Book Shop, 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will secure any book mentioned in our pages, especially old 
Masonic books, and those published abroad - such as the first book reviewed in 
this issue. As said before, our only interest in the Torch Press Book Shop, is to 
bring good men and good books together, and that is not always easy to do, 
because so many of our Masonic classics are out of print. At the request of the 
Society, the Torch Press is making search for the best Masonic works, old and 
new, and will assist our Members in securing them as fast as they can be found. 
Happily, the Society will soon be in a position to handle this part of the work itself, 
not for profit, but for the benefit of its members, as will shortly be announced). 


SPECULATIVE MASONRY 


HERE is a Masonic book of the right sort, one of the best we have met in many a 
long day, entitled “Speculative Masonry: its Evolution, and its Landmarks,” by 
Brother A. S. Macbride; being a series of lectures delivered at the Lodge of 
Instruction in connection with Progress Lodge, Glasgow, Scotland, revised and 
condensed by a Committee appointed by the Lodge. Think of having a Lodge of 
Instruction to inquire what Masonry is, whence it came, and how it may be used for 
the culture of character and the service of humanity! fortunate the Lodge which 
listened to lectures so scholarly yet so simple, so accurate in their digest of the best 
Panasonic research, and, better still, so aglow with that noble and clear-seeing 
idealism without which Masonry is nil and life itself is as bare as a winter 
landscape. Alike in matter and form the lectures are an inspiration and a delight, 



and we do not hesitate to recommend them most earnestly, and without 
qualification, to the Members of this Society. 


Idealism, not occultism, is the great note of these lectures, and the author makes 
clear how world-far those two things are apart both in spirit and method. Masonry, 
as the author interprets it, has its roots, spiritually, in the ancient, high, heroic Quest 
of the Ideal, which is the chief fact with regard to man, at once the wonder and the 
glory of his life upon earth. That quest, as persistent as it is revealing, has always 
taken the form of searching for that which is lost, as Isis searched for the body of 
Osiris, as Venus cried for her slain Adonis on Mount Libanus, as the Knights of the 
Round Table went in quest of the Holy Grail. Thus, in every age and land, the 
pursuit of the Moral Ideal has called into existence innumerable societies, and of 
these the Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons is one of the greatest, if not the 
greatest, the World has seen. Therefore age cannot wither it, nor custom make stale 
its infinite variety of suggestion, inspiration, and appeal, while human nature is yet 
haunted by lovely shapes of what it ought to be. 


“Masonry does not exist to combat any particular evil, to solve any special 
problem, to advance any particular cult, or to propagate any precise dogma in the 
outer world. It does not claim to possess any patent pill for the evils of humanity 
nor does it propose to build an Utopian State of political freedom and economic 
happiness. It is not for social fellowship, although that forms, and in many quarters 
forms too prominent, a part of it. It is not constituted for the exercise of 
benevolence only, although that occupies no insignificant place, both in its 
precepts and its practice. It teaches no science, yet science holds an important 
position in it. It favors no philosophic school, yet a profound philosophy permeates 
its system of symbolism. It instructs in no special art, yet in it all arts are honored. 
It has no religious creed, yet religion forms its foundation and crowns its pinnacles. 
It is not the product of any age, nor the work of any nation. It is the evolution and 
growth of centuries and has received contributions from many diverse races and 
peoples. 


“The Mission of a gunshot is death and destruction; of a rocket-line, life and 
preservation, of the University, knowledge; of the Church, salvation; of Masonry, 
the building of the Ideal Temple. The Quest of the Ideal we find in Masonry at 



every turn. The travel from West to East, like the Earth to receive the life-giving 
light of the Sun; the working of the rough Ashlar, into the form of the perfect 
Ashlar, the mystic Ladder, reaching up to the cloudy Canopy; the sacred Stair, 
leading to the mysteries of the Middle Chamber; the lost key-stone perfecting the 
secret Arch; the lost Word, that will make a true Master; the destroyed temple, that 
is to be restored; all symbolize the throbbing, yearning, seeking of the human heart 
for something better and happier than the actual world around us. But the grand 
ideal in Masonry, to which all the rest is subsidiary and contributory, is that which 
represents the soul of man as a Holy Temple and dwelling place of the Most High. 
This ideal has, no doubt, been expressed by poets, prophets and philosophers, but 
in Masonry alone has it been made the basis of an organization, having a system of 
instruction, as unique in form as it is rare in history.” 


Such a book tempts to quotation, as much for the beauty of its phrase as for its 
deep-seeing insight; and if we emphasize its radiant idealism it is because, as we 
have said, the quest of the Moral Ideal is the great secret of Masonry, its sovereign 
mission, and the soul of its symbolism. Is Masonry today true to its ideal? The 
author answers with a sad No, because so many Masons, while glorifying their 
order in terms bordering on the bombastic, do not enough consider that Masonry is 
a life to be lived, an opportunity to serve, an instrument for the culture of faith and 
fineness of soul; and because too many mistake the quest for office for the quest for 
the ideal. What is the remedy? It lies in the ballot box, by which we ought to keep 
out of the Fraternity men who regard it as a kind of secret club, a game of horse- 
play, who care nothing for its higher aims and ideals, and who have no time to 
study its meaning and give themselves to the service of its purpose. 


As has been said, these lectures give a lucid and simple digest of the conclusions of 
the best Masonic scholars as to the origin and evolution of the Order, following 
closely the findings of the great Research Lodges of England. They are very 
fruitful, also, in studies of symbolism, the best chapter, perhaps, being that 
discussing the Law of the Square, a synopsis of one section of which will appear in 
these pages, the better to tempt our Members to read further. Very interesting, too, 
is the essay on the Landmarks of Masonry, which the author defines as “certain 
established usages and customs that mark out the boundary lines of the Masonic 
world, in its internal divisions and in its relation to the external world.” Respect for 
usages which give form to our Fraternity is vitally important, and so must move 



midway between a radicalism which invites destructive innovation, and a 
superstitious worship which prevents progress. So our author argues in his essay on 
Landmarks and Progress, the while he reminds us that the Temple of brotherhood 
and peace is the great landmark of Masonry, to build which we must use every art 
at our command and all the powers with which we have been endowed. In one of 
the poems added to the volume, we read these lines: 


What is a Mason? It is he 
Who builds upon the Square, 

Whose heart beats true to God and you 
And all that's good and fair, 

Who builds, as can, to Heaven's plan 
The Temple of Humanity. 

O! That's the heart of his great Art, 
And this alone, we proudly own 
To be the noblest Masonry. 


* * * 


BISHOP POTTER 


The biography of Bishop Henry Codman Potter, by George Hodges, shows us the 
growth, maturity and ripe fruitfulness of a really great American, who was also a 
noble Freemason. He united sturdiness of nature with fineness of spirit, practical 
capacity with deep religious passion, and the fullness of his activity in many fields 
is an inspiring record. Bishop Potter was made a Mason while in Troy, in 1866, 



joining Mt. Zion Lodge, No. 3 1 1 . He was a Chapter Mason and a Knight Templar, 
as well as a member of all the Scottish Rite bodies of New York. He served as 
Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of New York in 1895,1896, and 1897, and in 
the last named year was crowned an honorary 33rd degree Mason in Boston. He 
held that Masonry has a much greater mission than even its most devoted adherents 
dream of today. Looking back into the past, he saw how much has been 
accomplished by Masonry; but he foresaw the development of a still greater 
Masonry in the future, more useful to man, wider in its scope, and more fruitful in 
its good to society. 


“I am bound to own,” he said, “that if originally I had not been attracted to 
Masonry by its value as what may be called a universal social solvent, I might 
never have sought its fellowship. I was, at an early period, about to travel in 
foreign countries, and I was assured that as a Freemason, I should be recognized 
and considered, when otherwise I might not be. Well, 1 found, by happy 
experience, that that assurance was true. Once, and again, when the emergency 
seemed to disclose no other way out of a dilemma, I have solved it by revealing 
myself as a Mason: and it is a noteworthy fact that never anywhere did I make that 
disclosure without finding other Masons to recognize and respond to it “ 


* * * 


THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT 


No doubt many of our members have read the story called “The Research 
Magnificent,” by Herbert Wells, a story typical of our time and of the sparkling 
brilliancy of the man who wrote it. It reveals a young man starting out in quest of 
the kingly life, and if his quest often leads him into situations that border on the 
fantastic, it comes near making him sublime. Despite his aurora of invisible 
visions, the hero meets with dragons in the way - three ruffians, we might call them 
- the first of which is Fear, which he conquers, not without difficulty, by facing it 
at any cost. After fear came Passion, and he did not come off well in his encounter 
with it, making a mess of his marriage and concluding that the kingly life is 



incompatible with domestic ties. Fleeing from one ruffian, he meets another - 
Jealousy - which gives him the fight of his life. The story is rich in ideas, vivid, 
varied, depictive, running the whole gamut of thought and suggestive wonder, but 
somehow it is all very sad; for a research which begins without God must needs 
end in futility. Indeed, the man goes all over the world, from China to Russia, but 
never finds himself, and having no faith in an Infinite Idealist his idealism seems 
the vainest of all vain things. 


* * * 


THE WORLD AND HIS WIFE 


One of the most unforgetable plays of recent times - recent, at least, in its 
translation into English - is “The Great Galeoto,” by Jose Echegaray; a tragedy of 
idle, unmalicious gossip, perhaps the only one of its kind ever written. There are 
three characters in the drama, a husband, his wife, and one of their friends, a young 
man to whom both are sincerely attached. Outsiders, looking on, make remarks, 
not intended to be evil, but evil in their suggestion. After a little one can see the 
serpents crawling into that garden of friendship, and hear them hiss. At the end the 
husband lies mortally wounded in a duel, while his wife and friend are driven to 
evil by the clatter of idle tongues. The villian of the play is that many-headed 
monster, “They say,” everybody, and so subtle is the power of mind over mind that 
the infection spreads, and all are stained. William Winter, in writing of the play, 
recalled the rhyme which Edwin Booth made a law of his life: 


If a tranquil mind you seek, 

These things observe with care: 

Of whom, and to whom, you speak, 
And how, and when, and where. 



O 


“A man's life is laid in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God 
does; and his heart is the shuttle.” 


— o — 


“You must be a sovereign over yourself, king over your own passions, a to us 
Mason, neither intoxicated by success nor depressed by defeat.” 


THE QUESTION BOX 


RELIGIOUS WORK 


Dear Brother Newton: - 1 am much interested in Masonry and in the work of the 
Research Society, and wish I could do more to help, but my religious work 
interferes. . Be assured that you have my goodwill and God's speed. 

- J.H.F. 


For which many thanks. By all means be loyal to your church and its labors, but 
have a care lest you take too narrow a view of what religious work is. It is 
wonderful what vitality there is in old errors, and in what forms they reassert 
themselves from age to age. Any work done in the right spirit is religious work, 



whether it be ploughing com or preaching a sermon. Never forget the great passage 
in “The Cloister and the Hearth,” in which Margaret tells Gerard of the atheism of 
regarding one part of life as sacred and another as secular. Remember, also, these 
words from our noble Masonic poet, Edwin Markham: 

For each tme deed is worship; it is a prayer, 

And carries its own answer unaware. 

Yes, they whose feet upon good errands mn 
Are friends of God, with Michael of the sun; 

He is more pleased by some sweet human use 
Than by the learned book of the recluse; 

More than white incense circling to the dome 
Is a field well furrowed or a nail sent home. 

More than the hallelujahs of the choirs 
Or hushed adorings at the altar fires 
Is a loaf well kneaded, or a room swept clean 
With light-heart love that finds no labor mean. 

* * * 


THE WORST THING 



Brother Editor: - Having told us what the greatest thing in the world is, perhaps 
you will also tell us what is the worst thing in the world. Let us have it. - O.J.S. 


It is unnecessary. Whoso has not read “The Four Men: A Farrago,” by Hilaire 
Belloc, has missed one of the most delightful books of its kind ever written, full of 
wit, humor, vagarious fancy and far-flung philosophy. It tells of the travel in 
Sussex of a Poet, a Sailor, a Grizzlebeard, and the Author, from Oct. 29th to Nov. 
2nd, 1902. These travelers talk, and one of the themes they discuss is the question 
as to “The Worst Thing in the World.” They decide that the death of love, the 
fading of friendship, the breaking of the ties that bind human hearts, is the worst 
thing in the world. With this our Brother may not agree; but if we were right in our 
analysis of the greatest thing in the world, then its opposite, its negation, is the 
worst of all calamities. 


* * * 


JOHN A. JOYCE 


Dear Brother: - In the July issue of The Builder you mentioned, among Articles of 
Interest, an article regarding Col. John A. Joyce, a Poet and Freemason, which 
appeared in the London Freemason. I am interested and would like to see what it 
had to say. Col. Joyce was a personal friend of mine, and resided in my father's 
family for about two years before he passed away. He was a devoted Mason, raised 
a Roman Catholic, a cousin of Cardinal Gibbons, and the first of his family to 
leave the church for generations. He was a Mason some forty odd years. You can 
see my interest in the matter. - F.E.H. 


The article appeared in the London Freemason, April 17th, 1915, unsigned, and is 
very brief. It confirms what Brother Hodge says about Col. Joyce having been 
raised in the Roman church, stating that he was born in Shraugh, Ireland, in 1842, 
but was raised in Kentucky; that he was trained for the priesthood, but abandoned 



it for the army. One of his best known poems was, “There Is No Pocket in a 
Shroud,” suggested by the funeral procession of Commodore Vanderbilt. The 
article makes no mention of his long discussion with Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox as 
to which one wrote the famous lines, “Laugh and the world laughs with you”, but 
he had the opening words of the poem carved on his tombstone as his own. As 
Brother Hodge lives in Washington, he might refer to the files of the London 
freemason in the library of the House of the Temple. 


* * * 


TWICE IN TWENTY-POUR HOURS 


Dear Brother Newton: - In the December Builder I notice that some Brother wants 
to know “in what part of the world tides ebb and flow twice in twenty-four hours.” 
If the Brother is really in earnest, you may assure him that right here in 
Washington, D.C., the tide ebbs and flows practically twice in twenty-four hours. 
In the Tide Table published by the United States for December 2nd, 1915, 1 find 
the following record: - A.M. tides, High water 3:25, Low water 9:38; P.M. tides, 
High water 4:00 Low water, 10:49. There are a few places on the earth where, 
owing to local conditions, such as strong prevailing winds and peculiar coast 
configuration, the tides do not ebb and flow twice in twenty-four hours; for 
instance, in the Mediterranean, there are no perceptible tides; and in the Gulf of 
Mexico, there is but one perceptible tide in twenty-four hours. But in nearly every 
other place on earth, the tides do ebb and flow twice in twenty- four hours. - 
H.P.M., Washington, D. C. 


* * * 


MASONIC SERMONS 



I am a minister and have preached several sermons to Masons, and I would 
appreciate your suggestion as to the best books to help me in the preparation of 
such sermons. It may be that you know of some especially good books that are in 
point. - J.H.H. 


There are many such books; such as The Spirit of Masonry, by Hutchinson; The 
Masonic Sermons of Dr. Oliver; The Religion of Freemasonry, by H. J. Whymper, 
with an introduction by W. J. Hughan; Speculative Masonry, by A. S. Macbride; 
The Church and the Lodge, by Brother Coil, Marietta, Ohio, The Mission of 
Masonry, by Madison C. Peters, and so forth. Subscribe for the Monday edition of 
the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and you will find, occasionally, a magnificent Masonic 
sermon from Brother S. Parkes Cadman, one of the Grand Chaplains of the Grand 
Lodge of New York. 


* * * 


MASONRY UNIVERSAL 


Dear Brother: - In my humble opinion the great danger menacing symbolic 
Masonry in our country is the growing desire to Christianize it, in order to 
accommodate it to our religious desires. Symbolic Masonry must preserve its 
universality to survive. We have our Christian orders appended to Masonry, in 
which we may enjoy to the fullest extent our religious opinions; but any attempt to 
graft Christianity upon Lodges destroys an important Landmark and breaks a link 
in the fraternal chain encircling the world and embracing every creed. - A.H.G., 
Hardwicke, New York. 


With this we fully agree, albeit we doubt if there is any strong tendency in the 
direction indicated by Brother Hardwicke; at least, we have not observed it. That 
question was settled at the time of the union of Grand Lodges, in 1813. Up to that 
time there had been a decided tendency to graft Christianity upon Masonry. 



Nevertheless, if a Brother wishes to interpret Masonry, and particularly the Third 
Degree, in Christian terms, that is his right; as it is the right of another to interpret 
it differently. Only, he should not insist that his interpretation is the standard of 
Masonic fellowship. 


* * * 


THE LOST WORD 


Dear Brother: - In your September issue you make reference to the Lost Word. 
May I add that Prof. Y.G. Warren, a teacher of the Hebrew language, says: - The 
first spoken word means, “Who causest the son to live.” I also add this little poem 
on the Lost Word. Scottish Rite Masons cannot fail to read between the lines: 


There is a word unknown to lost tradition, 
A sacred word freemasonry reveres; 

There is a word whose syllables are spoken 
Only in bated breath to list'ning ears. 

It is a word awakening true devotion, 
Though shadowed by the mystery of years; 
A word whose unutterable translation 
Lies hidden till the Cubic Stone appears. 


- O.B. Slane Illinois. 



SOUL AND BODY 


I would like that Brother Silas Shepherd, of Wisconsin, would answer the 
following question: - Has the soul anything to do with the improper action of living 
bodies ? Fraternally, S. Simone California. 


Dear Brother Newton: - 1 do not know that I comprehend fully the question which 
Brother Simone asks, but venture the answer that a lack of development of the 
Soul, or spirituality, is responsible for most, if not all, of our improper actions as 
living bodies. With best wishes and fraternal greetings. Silas H. Shepherd, Wis. 


* * * 


THOMAS PAINE 


Brother Editor: - In the correspondence column of The Builder appears another 
reference to Thomas Paine. Perhaps Brother G. P. Brown can give his authority for 
the statement he makes that Thomas Paine was entered, passed, and raised in St 
John's Regimental Lodge, the first Masonic body to be constituted among the 
revolutionary troops. He made the statement in the Masonic Observer, Jan. 31st, 
1914, in an article entitled “The Patriotism of Thomas Paine.” I have often 
wondered if Brother Brown had authority for many of his statements. Cordially 
and fraternally, Silas H. Shepherd, Wis. 



THE MOTHER GRAND LODGE 


Referring to the article by Past Grand Master j. W. Eggleston on the grand Lodge 
of Virginia, published in the June issue of The Builder, and the reply thereto by 
Grand Master Johnson, of Massachusetts, Brother J. G. Hankins, editor of the 
Virginia Masonic Journal, says in a letter: 


“Past Grand Master Eggleston has never said that Virginia had the first Grand 
Lodge, nor does he claim that we are 'The Mother Grand Lodge.' - this being my 
own doing in writing the title of the article. He only says that we are the oldest, and 
by reference to Dove's History of the Grand Lodge of Virginia given by Brother 
Johnson as an authority, it appears that “the St. John's Grand Lodge remonstrated 
against the encroachments of its rival, the 'Massachusetts Grand Lodge,' and both 
these against the Ancient York Lodge. It was not until the 5th of March, 1792, that 
these difficulties were settled, when the two Grand Lodges met for the last time, 
and formed a union,” etc.: and so it appears clearly to me, at least, that this latter 
date is the beginning of the present Grand Lodge of Massachusetts; though we 
have to admit that it may have had a Sovereign Grand Lodge earlier - March 8th, 
1777 - as stated by Brother Johnson and published in Dr. Dove's History of Grand 
Lodges.” 


* * * 


PHYSICAL QUALILIC ATION S 


My dear Brother: - 1 was much interested in the note in the October issue of The 
Builder from a Brother who stated that he believed he had found in Leviticus a 



reason why Masonry has for so long refused to admit men who were physically 
imperfect; as well as in your reply thereto. May I say that the Grand Lodge of 
Michigan, some three years ago, gave the subordinate Lodges in its jurisdiction 
authority to accept such men if they so desired, and that to my knowledge our Blue 
Lodges have exercised that privilege - some of the men so admitted being among 
our most able and useful Masons. Undoubtedly the Lodge which believes that the 
internal and not the external qualifications are what recommend a man for 
Masonry, finds that a man with a wooden leg is of infinitely more value to the 
Fraternity than a man with a wooden head. Yours fraternally, C. O. Fords 
Michigan. 


* * * 


THE RITE OF MEMPHIS 


What is the legal standing in this country of the Rite of Memphis ? If it is of good 
standing in this country, from where does it derive its authority ? 

- F.A. B. 


The Rite of Memphis - Consisting, at first, of ninety-one degrees to which one 
other was subsequently added, and claiming to be the sole depository of pure and 
primitive Masonry - has no legal standing at all in this country, if by that is meant 
the recognition of American Grand Lodges. There is no specific legislation on the 
subject, so far as we are aware; the Rite is simply ignored. It is, however, 
recognized by the Grand Orient of France, as one of the eight systems of Rites 
working under the obedience of that body; but it is not allowed to confer any 
degrees beyond the first three. 



JACQUES DE MOLAI 


1 am a member of DeMolai Commandery and have carried on a search for several 
years trying to find a record of DeMolai's coat of arms. One source of information 
says that he belonged to a noble family, while another gives him from common 
birth. Can you help me in the matter? - O.F.S. 


The authorities in the Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa seem to agree that 
DeMolai was of noble birth, of the family of the lords of Longvic and Raon, in 
Burgundy, born in 1237. However, strict search in and about the several 
appartments of the Houses of Longvic and Raon has revealed no facts about their 
coat of arms perhaps because very little was written about heraldry prior to 1400. If 
the fact of the noble birth of DeMolai, and the family with which he was 
connected, put our Brother on the track of discovery, we shall be glad - and 
perhaps he will give us the result of his further research. 


* * * 


ROYAL ORDER OF SCOTLAND 


I understand that the Royal Order of Scotland is a legitimate branch of Masonry in 
the British Islands. Is there anybody of this Order working in this country which 
derives its authoritv from the British body? - O.F.S. 


Yes; there is a Provincial Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland working in 
this country, of which the late Brother James D. Richardson was commander, 
succeeded, we believe, by Brother Leon Abbott. Brethren admitted to this Order 



have their patents signed by the Earl of Kintore, Edinburgh. It is affiliated, not with 
the Scottish Rite, but with what is popularly called the “York” Rite, and only 
Royal Arch Masons are eligible to its fellowship. 


* * * 


MASONIC WORDS 


(1) What is the meaning of the word “free” in Freemasonry? (2) What is the 
significance of the word “Worshipful” as applied to the Master of the Lodge? (3) 
Why does the Master wear a hat? ( 4 ) Is a man a Mason who has taken only the 
Entered Apprentice degree? (5) Why was the Blue Lodge dedicated to the holy 
Saints John? - J.H.H. 


(1) Freemasons in the olden time were free to go to and fro where their work called 
them, instead of being bound by law to live and work in one town, as Guild 
Masons were. They were also free from any obligations of taxation, and other 
restrictions, because of the importance of their art. It ought to mean for us, many 
things much deeper. (2) Merely a title of respect and in nowise implying the object 
reverence which some silly critics of the order want to imagine. The French 
Lodges use the word “venerable” instead. (3) As a symbol of the authority granted 
him by his Brethren. (See The Builder, Vol. 1, p. 120.) (4) A man is not really a 
Mason, qualified to work as such, until he has received the third degree. ( 5 ) 
Perhaps because they were two mighty teachers of Righteousness and Love which 
are the foundations of the Lodge. (The Builder, Vol. i, pp. 166, 309.) 


* * * 


THE THREE GRIPS 



What is the symbolism of the grips of our three degrees? It has seemed to me that 
this is a matter passed over with little thought. - J.L.B. 


Certainly the raising of a man was not intended merely to inform him that Masonry 
cherishes a belief in immortality. No man needs to be briefly told that by anybody 
what he wants is to learn how he may become assured that his soul is not an 
evanescent breath. Perhaps the symbolism of the grips may be stated in this 
manner: 


Science, assuming that the seat of the soul is the brain proceeds to lay bare the 
brain, dissects its hemispheres, traces its convolutions and nerves. Then it subjects 
the brain of a dog to the same tests, and finds that it and the brain of man are alike. 
Chemistry takes up the task, dissolves analyzes, and by all means at its command 
reduces both brains to their essential elements. From both it obtains the same 
elements, found everywhere else. Science, so far from proving the immortality of 
the soul, lays down its instruments, its acids, confessing that it cannot even prove 
that there is a soul. Not by that grip can man be raised from a dead level to a living 
perpendicular. Logic then tries to demonstrate that the soul, in its nature is 
indivisible, and indestructible, and so must be immortal. Piato, Cicero and the rest 
formulated this argument but if they convinced others, they did not convince 
themselves. Doubts returned. Always, at the most critical point upon which the 
conclusion depended, there was a juggling of words. Not by that grip can man be 
raised to walk a newness of life. There is left the mighty grasp of faith - the 
profound, fixed, ineffaceable conviction of the soul itself; the very voice of God 
speaking within; the Divine Word abiding in the heart. How else has God ever 
revealed truth to man? How else could he? Since we know that there is a God, we 
as surely know that we are not the butts of a cynical and sarcastic omnipotence, but 
akin to Him - the soul a little brother to Him whom it seeks; and that our 
convictions, coming from Him, are true and trustworthy. And by this reach and 
grasp and power of faith we are quickened into eternal life. 



CORRESPONDENCE 


HISTORY AND CHARITY 


It is said by some that our Free Masonry came from the Mason's Guilds of London. 
For the benefit of the young Mason, I will give a few of the earliest records of 
Speculative Masonry and a glimpse of Masonic Charity. 


I believe that Masonry, from what I have read of it, has existed from time 
immemorial, and that some of the most intelligent men of all ages have been 
associated with it. The true Masonry of our ancient brethren was the knowledge of 
the worship of the true God. This piety was the cause of so many churches and 
monasteries being erected for the worship of God. Gould says the time that church 
building was at its zenith, was during the first part of the Fourteenth Century, when 
in England alone twelve great buildings were under construction. 


To say that Free Masons were at one time all of the mason's trade is a gross error, 
because it is said that all of the Kings of Scotland, and most of the Noblemen, were 
Free Masons. In our present system of Speculative Masonry, the earliest authentic 
record of a non-operative being a member of a Masonic lodge, occurs in a minute 
of the Lodge of Edinburgh, under the date of June 8, 1600. John Boswell, the Laird 
of Auchindeck, was present and attested the minute by his mark. Of 49 members in 
the Lodge at Aberdeen, date 1670, less than one-fourth were of the mason's trade. 
The members were clergymen, surgeons, merchants, and three were noblemen. In 
the records of a Presbyterian Synod, in 1652, it is declared that ministers of that 
church had been Free Masons in the purest times of the Kirke. 


To Scotland is the honor due for our present system of degrees in Freemasonry. 
The legend of the Third Degree was not known in England, until it was given to 
the Masons of London by Anderson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, who also 
compiled the first constitution for the Grand Lodge of England. The Scotch system 



was known in Ireland before the landing of William of Orange, at Carrickfergus, in 
1690. William said he liked the Freemasons because their aim was always to build 
up, never to tear down. For that reason he ordered that their aprons be bordered 
with blue, in imitation of the blue sky of Heaven. This is said to be the origin of the 
blue border often seen on Mason's aprons. 


In our own beloved land, where there are more Freemasons than in any other 
country in the world, some of the best men in days gone by, as well as now, have 
been members of our fraternity, viz: Gen. Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Gen. 
Warren, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay. The last three named were all Grand 
Masters. 


We are proud of the record of Masonry handed down to us. It comes without a 
stain on its fair name. We are making Masonic History; let us see to it that the 
record that we make will stand the test of the Overseer's Square, so that those that 
come after us, may read of the good deeds that we performed and be thus 
encouraged to better things, so that the good name of Masonry may be known in 
every household throughout the civilized world, and the spirit of Masonic Charity 
be imbued in the hearts of the people. 


Hutchinson, in his “Spirit of Freemasonry,” published in 1814, has this to say of 
Masonic Charity: “In order to exercise this virtue, both in the character of Masons 
and in common life, with propriety, and agreeable to good principle, we must 
forget every obligation but affection, for otherwise it were to confound charity with 
duty. The feelings of the heart ought to direct the hand of charity. To this purpose 
we should be divested of every idea of superiority and estimate ourselves as being 
of equality; the same rank and race of men. In this disposition of mind, we may be 
susceptible of those sentiments which Charity delighteth in; to feel the woes and 
miseries of others with a genuine and true sympathy of soul. Compassion is of 
heavenly birth; it is one of the first characteristics of humanity. He whose bosom is 
locked up against compassion, is a barbarian; his manners are brutal; his passions 
as savage as the beasts of the forest. If we give only to receive, we lose the fairest 
objects for our charity; the sick, the captive and the needy. The rule is, we are to 
give as we would receive; cheerfully, quickly and without hesitation; for there is 
no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. The objects of true charity are merit 



and virtue in distress; persons who are incapable of extricating themselves from 
misfortunes which have overtaken them in old age; industrious men, from 
inevitable accidents, rushed into ruin; widows left in distress, and orphans in tender 
years left naked to the world. There is another kind of charity, which we as Masons 
should practice. We should shroud the imperfections of our brothers; even the truth 
should not be told at all times, for where we cannot approve we should pity in 
silence. What pleasure or profit can there arise by exposing a brother's weakness? 
To exhort him, is virtuous! To revile him is inhuman! ! To set him out as an object 
of ridicule, is INFERNAL! ! ! 


True Charity is the Key-stone of Speculative Masonry. We should be charitable to 
all men, whether Masons or not. The whole world has a claim upon our kind 
offices. Every Mason should be a good man, and practice the divine precepts of 
Truth and Justice. It should never be possible for it to be truthfully said by any one, 
that they had been defrauded or wronged by a Free Mason. 


Let us all remember, and at all times, that each one of us is a pillar of this great 
institution, and that when we allow ourselves to go into a state of moral decay, we 
are damaging the Structure, and thus weakening its usefulness. 


- W. C. Willox, Washington. 


* * * 


THE BODY OF MASONRY 


Dear Brother Newton: - As you invite opinion on the question asked by Bro. W.G. 
Coapman in the December Builder as to the meaning of an affirmative answer to 
the question, “You admit that it is not in the power of any man, or body of men, to 



make innovations in the Body of Masonry?” I submit my opinion that it means the 
Spirit of Masonry, so well illustrated in the article on Symbolism by Bro. J. Otis 
Ball in the same issue. As far as I have been able to learn, the first printed 
regulation to this effect appears in Preston's “Illustrations of Masonry,” a copy of 
which (14th Edition, 1829) lies before me; and the wording is the same as in the 
Code of Wisconsin with the exception of the word innovation used by Preston 
which is used in the plural - innovations - in the Wisconsin Code. “Innovations in 
Masonry” can hardly mean its forms, ceremonies of the wording of its ritual, 
because all these have been changed to a greater or less extent in the period of 
which we have definite knowledge. The “revival of 1717” was a change in one 
sense. Wm. Preston, if the author of the phrase in question, was in this and also in 
other ways changing the lectures and work. To be consistent, he could not have 
regarded them “innovations in Masonry.” Thomas Smith Webb, who is generally 
considered the founder of the American Rite and a teacher of the Preston “work,” 
abridged and “changed the arrangement of the lectures,” and has the plaudits of 
thousands of Masons who are opposed to “innovations in Masonry.” Jeremy Cross 
even went so far as to call a beautiful word-picture of his own, “Masonic 
tradition,” and a recent revision of the ritual in one of our sister Jurisdictions gives 
changes made in a ceremony the antiquity of tradition, when we know the year and 
month the change was made. The word “Power,” if used in the sense of “ability to 
do a thing,” would make it certain that the meaning of the regulation referred to 
something more vital than words and forms. If used in the sense of “authority to do 
a thing,” it also meant something more than the ritual, because it is generally 
conceded that the Grand Lodge is a body of men who have power to say what 
forms, ceremonies and ritual shall be used. If changes in form and ritual are 
innovations, many of the talented Brethren of the past have been great offenders 
for many of the changes since this regulation was adopted. 


Yours fraternally, 


Silas H. Shepherd, Wisconsin. 



AN OLD CHARTER 


Dear Brother: - The discovery has been recently made by members of Hiram 
Lodge, No. 1, of this city, that the much cherished original charter of the old Hiram 
Lodge issued through Provincial Grand Master Thomas Oxnard in 1750, is perhaps 
the oldest extant Masonic Lodge charter in the United States. Hiram Lodge, 
although dating back to 1750, is not the oldest Lodge in the country, but charters 
antedating it have become lost or destroyed. This charter was issued at the request 
of David Wooster, first master of Hiram Lodge, and regarded as the father of 
Masonry in Connecticut, and under the charter the old Lodge was registered under 
the Grand Lodge of England. The original charter reads as follows: 


T. OXNARD, G. M. 


To all and every the Rt. Worshipful Brothers and fellows of the Ancient and 
Honorable Society of Tree and Accepted Masons, now residing at or about New 
Haven, in the Colony of Connecticut, in New England, or that may hereafter reside 
there, THOMAS OXNARD, Esquire, of Boston, Provincial Grand Master of North 
America, sendeth greeting. 


Whereas, Application hath been made to us, by our truly worthy and well-beloved 
brother, Captain David Wooster, and divers other worthy brothers now residing in 
or about the said New Haven, praying that we would empower them to congregate 
and form themselves into a regular lodge of Masons: 


Now, Know Ye That in consideration thereof, and by virtue of the power 
committed to us by the Rt. Honorable and Rt. Worshipful Grand Master of 
England, we do hereby appoint and empower our true and faithful brother, Captain 
David Wooster to be the first master of the first lodge in New Haven aforesaid, and 
do hereby order that he summon (as soon as may be) all the free and Accepted 
Masons in or about said Colony of Connecticut (taking special care that they have 



been or shall be all regularly made) to meet, and together make choice of two 
wardens, that to them may seem meet; and that the said lodge shall meet in a 
convenient place in New Haven aforesaid on such days as shall be most 
convenient; and that the said lodge do annually, on the lodge night immediately 
preceding the Festival of St. John the Evangelist, choose from among their 
members, one master and two wardens, to rule the said lodge, with other officers 
necessary to the good order thereof; and further, that they strictly keep and observe 
all and every the rules and regulations contained in the printed Book of 
Constitutions, (except so far as they may have been altered by the grand lodge, at 
their regular communications), with such orders as they may receive from us, or 
our deputy, or from the grand master and his deputy for the time being; and that the 
master and wardens of said lodge do transmit to us, in writing, a list of the 
members of said lodge, with the places of their abode, and the stated days and 
place of meeting. 


Given under our hands and seal, at Boston, this 12th day of November. A.D. 1750, 
A. L. 5750. By the grand master's command. 


HUGH M'DANIEL, D. G. M., 
BENJ. HALLOWELL, S. G. W„ 
JOHN BOX, J. G. W., 

CHAS PELHAM, G. S. 


I thought that this old charter might be of interest to you, and perhaps worthy of a 
place in The Builder. Wishing you every success, I am 


Yours very truly, 



W. E. Mumford, Brardon, Conn. 


* * * 


NO MORE REMEMBRANCE 


Dear Brother: - Certain allusions in well-known obligations, and particularly in the 
penalties thereof, have occasioned me no little thought, and after long 
consideration of the matter I have come to this conclusion - that a deeper reason 
underlies it. From time immemorial there has been a belief in a life hereafter and 
our entry into it through a resurrection. The ancient belief in resurrection was 
based on several items essential to it - first and chiefly, that the body should be 
kept intact, hence the sorrow of Isis over the mutilated body of Osiris. Hence the 
embalming of the body by the Egyptians, and the use of the coffin and shroud in 
our day. Any dismemberment of the body, even after death, would preclude such 
resurrection, and therefore the attainment of the life hereafter. Death itself, 
inevitable to all, was a fate all had to meet. It would come sooner or later, and to be 
brave and fearless was not such a punishment as it was to be excluded from the 
possibility of resurrection, and thereby entry into the life beyond. Reminiscences of 
this old belief remain to this day. The allusion, that no more remembrance may be 
had, is significant of this same feeling or belief. I have been unable to find 
anything along this line in any book available, but offer it as my conclusion or 
suggestion. 


Sincerely and fraternally, 


Adolph H. Weber, California. 



SWORD AND TROWEL 


The Trowel is mightier than the Sword, for although the sword may be endowed 
with all the strength and cruelty of the great god of war, and though it may level 
proud cities and lay waste great empires, murdering the fathers, ravishing the 
mothers and daughters, and starving the babies, yet its strength is only temporary; 
it is an implement of destruction and as such can have no permanent place in the 
great scheme of the universe. 


But the Trowel, the humble tool of the builder, replaces all the material edifices 
destroyed by the sword; it rebuilds homes and cities, and spreads prosperity over 
the face of the land. But more than this, it carries a message of Brotherly Love and 
affection to all peoples, and there will come a time when, by its influence, all 
animosity and hate will pass away and wars will be no more. Love will rule the 
universe, and liberty and justice will walk hand in hand with might; tyranny and 
oppression will disappear from the face of the earth, and all men will know 
themselves as Brothers. Then the Mason's Trowel will have fulfilled its destiny. 
Almon S. Reed, Iowa. 


* * * 


ARTICLES OL INTEREST 


Physical Qualifications of Candidates, by M. M. Johnson. New England 
Craftsman. 


German Freemasonry in the War, by Gustav Diereks. American Freemason. 



The Grand Orient of France, by G. W. Baird. The New Age. 


The Origin of Templary. The Freemason, Toronto. 


Freemasonry and the War, Albert Churchward. London Freemason. 


Relation of the Masonic Orders of Christian Knighthood to Ancient Craft 
Masonry, by W. F. Kuhn. American Tyler-Key stone. 


England and its Allies as Freemasons, by Fred Armstrong. American Freemason. 


* * * 


BOOKS RECEIVED 


Speculative Masonry, by A. S. Macbride. D. Gilfillan & Co., Glasgow. $1.50. 


The Philosophy of Masonry, by Roseoe Pound. National Masonic Research 
Society, Anamosa, Iowa. 75 cents 


The First Degree, by A. W. Gage. National Masonic Research Society. 15 cents. 



The Lord of Misrule, by Alfred Noyes. F. A. Stokes Co., New York. $1.60. 


Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry, by C. H. Vail. Macoy Co., New York. 
$ 1 . 00 . 


Ancient Constitution. Macoy Co., New York. $1.00. 


Antiquities of Freemasonry, by George Oliver. Macoy Co., New York. $1.00. 


Making of an Americana Library, by A. E. Bostick. Little, Brown Co., Boston. 
$ 1 . 00 . 


Browning, How to Know Him, by W. L. Phelps. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis. 
$1.50. 


Still Water Pastorals, by Paul Shivell. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 75 cents. 


— o — 


DESIRE 


With Thee a moment! Then what dreams have play! 



Traditions of eternal toil arise, 

Search for the high, austere, and lonely way 
The Spirit moves in through eternities. 

Ah, in the soul what memories arise! 

And with what yearning inexpressible, 
Rising from long forgetfulness I turn 
To Thee, invisible, unrumored, still: 

White for Thy whiteness all desires bum. 
Ah, with what longing once again I turn! 

-A. E. 


— o — 


TRUTH DEEPER THAN DEATH 


God has tormented me all my life. He will not let me alone. He is necessary to me, 
if only because He is the only Being whom I can love eternally. 


Brother, a new man has risen in me. He was hidden in me, but would never have 
come to the surface if it had not been for this blow from heaven. I have only one 
fear now - that that New Man may leave me. 



We are all responsible for all. I go for all, because someone must go for all. Out of 
our great sorrow we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God 
exist, for God is joy. 


- Feodor Dostoevsky.