The Builder Magazine 

September 1918 - Volume IV - Number 9 


THE WAGES OF A MASON 

BY BRO. J. GEORGE GIBSON, ENGLAND 

THERE is no disgrace in working for wages. In these days there are some who prefer 
the word "salary" or that of "stipend" as more "genteel." In reality neither of these 
words is even a wee bit more "genteel" than the old, old word "wages." Has the world 
fallen out of love with the idea of receiving just that which represents some work done 
and no more? If so is there anything more honorable in the taking of what is not only 
the due but carries with it also a profit of a trade nature? These may be days of 
contracts and of unequal profits; but that does not, and should not, make us forget that 
there is nothing more honorable or ancient than the receipt of our just wages, which 
are the cash equivalent of the work we have done. It may sometimes inconveniently 
suggest the "work of one's hands," and therefore to some the menial task. This is, 
however, no objection, for he who receives that which represents what he has done 
receives that which will make him hold up his head with the greatest. He who accepts 
a profit may be equally honest in intention but yet may have to wonder at times just 
what his profit costs his fellow man. It may be significant or not according to the point 
of view, but the fact remains that in the new country where men are face to face with 
facts, deep underlying facts of life, there is none of this squeamishness as to the use of 
the word "wages." There is after all a great deal of the absurd in this attempt to gloss 
over the fact that we labour for wages, as though it were a something to be ashamed of 
that we are engaged in manual toil, instead of being matter for joy and glory that we 
are able to contribute to the art and wealth of the world about us. 


All this talk of the "honorarium," the "fee," the "remuneration," and the like is the 
coinage of the "shabby genteel" who are ashamed of all that should give them the 
right to live and the right to a place in society. The sooner we get back to the place 
from which so many of us have fallen the better for the world and for our own 
manhood. There is no one so little of account among the respectable classes as the 
idler, who is not even an apprentice "working for his meat." And it is time that the 
world which can be taught by Masonry learned more the value of a regular occupation 
from the practice of which all received, not an allowance, but wages. Justice is not so 



blind as she is made out to be, and it is a fact that the rule in life is that we receive 
exactly the wage for the work we have done, and no more. 


A Mason is not only the temple he builds but he is much more— the Builder. His life is 
his masterpiece, and woe to him if he works not of his best. Where are his wages but 
in the work itself ? All labour that is in accordance with the teaching of the tracing 
board goes unpaid for. And in life there is no deferred payment either. It is not kept 
from him until he can no longer use it in this lodge below, but the Great Warden 
settles with each man every day after each task is performed. "And each man's reward 
shall be according as his work shall be." This is the Law of Life: it is also the Masonic 
Law. But the condition is Labour. No playing at the forms of toil will be sufficient. 
The recital of the ritual, and the statement that we are prepared to be liberal beyond 
the dreams of the reformer will not avail us when we stand before our Master each 
evening. If we give liberally of that which we shall never miss, of that the loss of 
which costs us nothing, we are no richer at the end of our Masonic career than we 
were at the beginning. But if the gift of our goodwill is also the gift of our real toil, 
that is if it has cost us something, then the reward comes to us in the increased 
muscularity of our soul, and in the greater power by which we yield to the claims of 
need in the future. "He who would be. greatest must be servant of all." That is to say 
"he must serve." It is service that passes a man from the lower work of the bench to 
the higher, and it is service that creates within us the spirit of the true artisan. 


It is no reason for shame that we are filled with the desire to covet earnestly the 
greater gifts. The Entered Apprentice need not hang his head at the thought that he 
would like, even he, to reach the seat of K. S. in his lodge. But if it be rank alone that 
draws him, then he is still in the outer courts of the Masonic Temple. A Master of his 
lodge who has never dreamed, and never executed the masterpiece is one who holds a 
high office unworthily. He holds rank without dignity. Office should come in the 
ordinary course of the development of a man's Masonic experience. To the best 
workman the best work. The king's scepter is a degradation to the throne if the king be 
too foolish to reign in equity. And a man's life capacity should be the surest 
nomination for office and for labour in the highest grades. To give the Craft its due it 
is only right to say that the weak Worshipful Master is the exception and the officers 
who are chosen are usually those who are best fitted for the duties of their office. But 
with the rapid augmentation of our numbers in these days of a favorably received 
Freemasonry there is just a danger that with the huge new membership there may 
creep in the profane standards, and then the weakening of the Masonic testimony. 



This is seen too often in the way in which brethren are hastened through the degrees to 
the exaltation in the Sublime Degree. 


We sometimes wonder how many of the workmen know how to handle the chisel of 
life, and how many are capable of spending the wages they receive out of all reason 
before their work is completed. We have also met with Worshipful Masters who were 
not even word perfect in the ceremonies, and who did not seem to consider it 
necessary that they should take much trouble to impress upon the initiate lessons they 
had perhaps never understood themselves. More than that we have often wondered 
upon what grounds of efficiency some of the appointments to positions in the higher 
walks of Freemasonry have been allocated. Men whose whole lives have been 
devoted to the explication of the meaning of true Masonry are ignored excepting in 
the paragraph of the Masonic Press, while others whose service to Masonry, and 
whose development in the direction of the templar erection has been to say the least 
obscure have been pushed to the front, much to their discomfort. We have seen the 
social position outside the lodge qualify for high position within, and the potentiality 
of the true workman lost sight of. We are glad to know that such incidents are rarer 
than they were, but they should be impossible. Some kind of account should be kept 
of the wages due to the Mason by the Craft he works for. The Great Warden has his 
account and the reward will surely come; but it would tend to the strengthening of the 
bond of Freemasonry did the brethren know that their labours were all entered in the 
human book of remembrance. 


And yet, when we come to think of the multitude who have in our own recollection 
been labouring at the bench to which they have been sent from the first, we cannot 
recall one of the real workmen who has become dissatisfied with his modicum of 
human recognition and left his tools before the great work of his life has been 
accomplished. Why is this? The answer is simple. They have received wages, though 
men paid them none. They who give receive, they who labour to give are enriched, 
they who sacrifice to give are yet more enriched. The neophyte on whose mind the 
profane impression is still evident may turn tired of the long period of toil to which he 
is called when he enters the lodge; but the veteran soon gives the call of profane 
ambition the goby since his Masonic ambition is to serve and enrich the world in 
which he is set apart to the ministry of service. He may have been robbed by the 
obtuseness of those who are in the front ranks of the army of those opportunities of 
usefulness which at one time he longed to win; but he has made the best use of those 
he won for himself, and looks back with satisfaction and forward with hope. His 
reward is in himself, and none can deprive him of the fruit of a long service. When we 



see the world about us moved by our spirit, when we know that as the result of our 
sacrifices a higher standard of benevolence is set up all over the world, and know that 
the angles that symmetry does not require are rubbed away, and that the anger that 
once spoiled many a good cause is now discredited, the mere pomp of place does not 
count with us, for these results are our wages, and we give the receipt for them with 
new resolutions that are even more ambitious than those that now are realized. 


— o- 


HARMONY 


From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony 
This universal frame began; 

When Nature underneath a heap 

Of jarring atoms lay 

And could not heave her head, 

The tuneful voice was heard from high, 
Arise, ye more than dead! 

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry 
In order to their stations leap, 

And Music's power obey. 

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony 
This universal frame began; 

From Harmony to Harmony 



Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in Man. 

— JohnDryden, 1631-1700. 




FURTHER NOTES ON THE COMACINE MASTERS 


BY BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, ENGLAND 


PART III 


PERHAPS the most distinguishing feature of Comacine work is the campanile, and of 
all parts of their churches their towers retain more than any their individual character. 
They abound in Italy, but not elsewhere, these campanili of the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries and earlier, for in these remarks are not included the large number of much 
diversified form built in later times. At first plain, without corbel tables, pilaster strips 
or strings, and having a single opening at the top, afterwards adorned with two, three, 
sometimes four, round-arched openings, supported on shafts, much as some of our 
Saxon belfry windows are treated, they soar in many cases to quite a considerable 
height, and form the landmarks for miles around as well as being real belfries and not 
merely places of refuge or defense, such as church towers are often found to be further 
east. 


They abound, as may be expected, around the Italian lakes, but also are plentiful in 
Rome and in fact are everywhere in Italy as has been already noticed. 



As a type of all the rest and remarkable for its beauty and situation, is the campanile 
of the ruined church of sta. Maria close to Bellagio (see frontispiece.) 


On the influence of Byzantine over Comacine art, one word may be allowed in 
connection with the sculptured and pictorial work of the two schools. While the 
former developed a spiritual side associated with mystery, the latter, where unaffected 
by this, manifested a grosser conception of the human body, and as in the eleventh 
century it came more under the influence of the Byzantine, so its pictorial and 
sculptured art became refined. This is well illustrated in the church of St. Pietro al 
Monte di civate, already referred to. (1) 


Thus far, as to the relation between the two schools we have had under consideration, 
and it only remains to remark how strangely in many instances Greek, Roman and 
Comacine details appear to be jumbled together. At the church of S. Prassede Rome 
there is a doorway consisting of a Byzantine cornice, Roman egg and dart enrichment, 
dentils, chevrons and interlaced knot-work, while the capitals of the columns are after 
a debased Ionic treatment. A similar conglomeration appears in the vestibule of S. 
Mark's at Venice but without the interlaced work. 


Merzario (I. Maestri Comacini) claims that the forerunners of the Comacines on 
leaving Rome took with them Roman art, but worked out their own style chiefly on 
basilican forms, and that it was only by degrees they came under Byzantine influence 
as they worked eastward. 


That the Comacines were everywhere in Italy we have already seen, and now have to 
consider point number six: "They spread their influence over all Western Europe and 
even to our own shores." 


Edgecumbe Staley, writing on the Gilds of Florence, states that the Comacines were 
consolidated by A. D. 590 and influenced the architecture of the whole of Italy but 
had no governing lodge, saying in the words of their motto that their Temple "was one 
made without hands." 



Merzario writes (2) (I. Maestri Comacini, vol. I, p. 78): 


"The Comacines remained still alive and went about scattered through many cities and 
provinces to exercise their art even after the fall of the Lombards, and that as the 
artists of Greece kept behind (followed) the long steps of Alexander in the countries 
captured by him in Asia and Egypt, and those of Rome behind the victorious Caesar 
upon the Rhone and the Rhine, so they followed closely upon the traces of the 
Conqueror of Desiderius, of the dominator of the Saxons and the Normans. 


"Thus became cast the first seeds of that art which was altogether unknown and there 
rose on the surface of the earth and elevated itself in Germany and Gaul, with the 
physiognomy of the fathers, named in common Comacines, or Lombards, who had 
given birth to it or taught it." 


Further on he continues (p. 80): 


"The Frenchman, Quatremere de Quincy, in his Historical Dictionary of Architecture 
writes thus: 


"'The Comacines, (as they called themselves in the Middle Ages,) that company of 
builders who, from the borders of the lakes of Como, of Lugano and Maggiore, with 
usage not yet interrupted scattered themselves through Europe to build edifices, some 
sacred, some profane, and in the Lombard laws with the name of Magistri Comacini, 
were honored by special privileges. 


"'To these artificers— architects, sculptors, mosaicists or workmen who idealized and 
executed, is attributed the resurrection of art and its propagation in the Northern 
countries where it was introduced and propagated with Christianity. Certainly we owe 



to them that the heredity of the ancient age was not altogether derelict, and that at 
least by tradition and by imitation the practice of the constructor remained alive and 
produced works which even at this time are admired and recognized as more 
surprising in contrast with the ignorance of science in those obscure centuries.'" 


One makes no apology for translating Merzario's quotations from other authorities, 
because they give a weight of added testimony not otherwise available. 


Thus he continues (vol. I, p. 81) after mentioning the German Kugler and the 
Frenchman Ramee as most competent men in the history of art, and as holding similar 
views: 


"We will add the opinion of other of our authoritative writers. The lamented Pietro 
Selvatico notes that the architecture which held sway from the eighth to the thirteenth 
century in Europe consisted of Byzantine and Roman elements conjoined, but in 800 
became mixed with another which, in part produced from those, had nevertheless in 
itself elements so original as to construct an independent art. This, he says, is the 
Lombard or Comacine architecture call it which you like, which is distinguished by 
the low pitched roofs, by the always semi-circular arches rising from the columns in 
the facade resembling the Greek and Roman; it was indeed not enlarged in Italy 
quickly after being born, but taking root little by little, resulted in a sure, systematic 
unity after the first half of the ninth century. 


"This, it cannot be denied, was the product of the union of the Masters of Como with 
the Romans and of their connection with Aquileja towards the Levant. 


"Caimi, in the first page of a valuable work of his, writes: 


"'Toward the beginning of the ninth century architecture, which in Italy presented a 
mixture of Roman and Byzantine elements, commenced to develop under a more 



original and characteristic form and, without repudiating the origin of its being, took 
normal and special rule, from which came to be constructed that manner or 
architectonic style which, from the country, was called Lombard. That style spread 
rapidly, not in the country of Italy alone, but in many regions of Northern Europe 
especially through the works of those associations or companies of Freemasons who 
were better known under the name of Comacine Masters. 


"Professor Camille Boito makes to stand out more clearly still the figure and merit of 
our Masters, 'The Comacine Masters.' He writes: 


"'Some have wished to demonstrate a secret society having the monopoly of the 
architectural arts for the space of several centuries while others have wished to make 
them out ignorant masons or but little more called here and there in Italy and in 
foreign countries to manual labour. It is certain that in every case they had great 
importance and that Como would not cede to other provinces the ancient merit of 
having been the cradle of a new art, wise and beautiful in its own time, from which art 
was bom after a series of transformations the pointed arch styles which found so much 
favour in Germany, France and England, and also the ways of our art of the thirteenth 
century, so rich in artistic variety, so free, so refined, of the art in fact which at length, 
renewed, beautified, civilized, was able to become perhaps the base of the Italian art 
of the future."' 


On page 91 Merzario writes: 


"From the declaration of an almost contemporary author it appears quite clearly that 
the Fombard artificers had, after the dispersion of the Fombards, a school in Rome— a 
quarter to themselves near that of the Franks and Saxons, who were protected by 
Charlemagne and his successors. From this school must have derived that community 
and brotherhood which we see extended between the Fombard and German artists 
with the faculty for the Fombards to go into Germany, where they found fellow- 
disciples and friends, and the name 'Tedeschi' given in successive periods to the 
Fombard artificers, who in great part were Comacines." 



Merzario traces the footsteps of the Comacines as following the Lombards in their 
descent upon Sicily where they came in contact with the Normans, also into Germany 
where their mark is seen in the Cathedral of Spires, Worms, Magdeburg and other 
cities but enough has been quoted from this author for our puipose here. Comacine 
influence on the Normans was in two directions, northward and southward, and in 
evidence of the former a few references may here be permitted. 


Paul the Deacon (De gestis Longobardomm, book 3, eh. 6) states that at the beginning 
of the seventh century Pope Gregory "the great" sent certain "religious" to England, 
who, following in the footsteps of the blessed Augustine, of Melitus, John and others, 
were directed to visit and bring under obedience the divided Britons of the world 
("divisos orbe Britannos") who had only once seen the face of the Romans. These 
brought with them certain artificers who were to raise up the temples of the faith and 
who, coming from Italy, most probably belonged to those Craftsmen, which had the 
use and privilege of such construction. 


The Venerable Bede tells us how S. Benedict Abbott of Wearmouth, in A. D. 674, 
wishing to build his church went into France to collect masons who could erect it after 
the manner of the Romans, and when these had completed their work in order to the 
furnishings of the church he had recourse to the country of the Romans for things he 
could not procure in France or England. 


Richard, Prior of Hagustald, narrates how S. Wilfred, about 674, made pilgrimage to 
Rome and became enamored of the beautiful churches and buildings there, and that 
having in mind to build a church in honour of S. Andrew of Hagustald near to York, 
he brought together in Italy and France and in other countries as many builders and 
industrious artificers as he could find and conducted them into England. 


It is said that in these writings of Bede and the Prior words and phrases are to be 
found which were in the edict of King Rothrares (A.D. 643) and in the "Memoratorio" 
of Fiutprand (A. D. 713) thus connecting the work of S. Benedict and S. Wilfred with 
the Comacines. 



W.S. Calverley, writing of Stephens, says ("Notes on the Early Scriptured crosses, 
etc., in the Diocese of Carlisle" 1899, p. 44): 


"According to his view the latter part of the seventh century was a period of great 
artistic energy under Wilfreth and other Romanizing leaders, and at that date these 
scrolls and interlacings were learnt from Lombardy and not from Ireland. For 
example, the tomb of the Irish Saint Columbanus at Bobbio, which one would expect 
to find ornamented with the so-called Irish art, is decorated merely with the patterns 
then in vogue in Rome, while in Lombardy— not in Ireland— interlaced scrolls were 
used early in the seventh century." 


Dr. Colley, F. S. A., in a paper read before the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian 
Field Club, published in 1913, says: 


"The three decorative interlacements (on a font at stone, near Aylesbury,) may 
indicate a Byzantine influence. Such designs had much vogue in Italy during the 
eighth century and were brought to the north of Europe by Italian monks. The 
intreccio that runs round the rim of the font is threefold and represents the Trinity in 
Unity, that on the (heraldic) right having neither beginning nor end means eternity, 
while the other, an endless band interlacing a circle, teaches that Infinity is controlled 
by a Unity." 


S. Ninian, it is known, was a great friend of S. Martin of Tours and from him obtained 
masons skilled to work in stone. 


A little book published by Talbot, London, entitled "Lives of the Saints" says (p. 216): 


"Both the churches of Ripon and Hexham were built after the Roman manner— that is 
the basilican type with the altar in a chord of a western apse by which the celebrant 
faced the east when saying mass." 



Mr. George Coffey, in his guide to Celtic antiquities in the Dublin National Museum, 
notes that while the intreeeia of Italy were almost universally three stranded, those of 
Greece and Central Syria, as well as Ireland, consisted mainly of two strands. 
Certainly those in England are rarely of three strands, but generally of two or one 
only. Mr. Coffey seems to think the Lombard pattern was derived from both Roman 
and Greek sources. Whatever the origin of the Comacine intreeeia may be, it would 
seem to be pretty clear that the three-stranded form was their particular one, and may 
be taken generally as indicative of their work. 


Interlaced patterns in these islands are chiefly found on crosses, fonts, and other such 
details and of these crosses especially there remain a great number. 


There is no doubt that intercourse between Italy and our Western shores in the early 
Middle Ages was fairly intimate, and since the pagan Saxon hold on England would 
prevent it being overland, especially in regard to church matters, such intercourse was 
necessarily by sea. Hence the association of the Irish Round Towers with those of 
Italy gets confirmation, and indeed seems to be increasingly held (see Arch. Review 
fol October, 1908, and following numbers). 


A comparison of other details found in Italy and England will give some interesting 
results. 


Some of the oldest Comacine capitals, side by side with richly carved ones, are 
massive cushion capitals, such as are to be found in the Crypt of S. Vincenzio at 
Gravedona. 


The illustration of the capital of a column in S. Giaeomo di Como (Fig. 11) should be 
compared with the Norman capital from Winchester (Fig. 12), and one from the Como 
Museum with that from Milford Hants, and another from Selham Sussex (Figs. 13, 14 
and 15). 



Outside the apse of S. Sisto Viterbo (a roundarched church) an arcade occurs in which 
the interlaced pattern is alternated with the dog-tooth of almost Early English type 
(Fig. 16) . At S. Pietro Ancona a similar arcade is notched with an early dogtooth 
ornament while at the same church another arcade is surmounted with a chevron and 
running ornament of what we should call Norman character (Figs. 17 and 18). 


On the west front of S. Paolo Pisa (a generally round- arched church) occur two 
pointed arches in the arcading having chevron treatment as at Wimbome Minster 
Dorset. 


The lion excavated at Corstopitum near Hexham, already mentioned, (3) is obviously 
of the same family as those of the Comacines in Italy and its proximity to Hexham 
gives added reason for regarding it in this light. 


The use of pilaster strips, common to the Italian campanile and the Saxon or early 
Norman Tower, suggests a relationship between the two and as regards plan there is 
not wanting good evidence of the Comacine influence on English work. 


Not long since discoveries were made in connection with Abbot Wulfric's round 
church at S. Augustines Canterbury and, writing thereon in the Times, Mr. G. McN. 
Rushforth, F. S. A., mentions several round churches as having existed in England, 
saying it was about 68 A. D. that Wilfrid built the round church of S. Mary at 
Hexham, while Riviora points out that all these circular plans are derived directly or 
indirectly from Roman models, and that in choosing this form for the church of the 
Holy Sepulchre, Constantine did but follow the pattern of a typical Roman 
Mausoleum on the grand scale. 


The plan of Canterbury Cathedral as it existed before 1076 carries out the Comacine 
idea, even to the two apses, one at each end and the campanili flanking the aisles, 
north and south. 



Comment on all this is surely superfluous. It speaks for itself, and indeed it would 
appear that most authorities are agreed that from North Italy English architecture 
received both its inspiration and realization in its earlier days. That it was through the 
Comacines rather than through the Milanese or Lombard school (if indeed there were 
two distinct schools) one would submit is practically demonstrated in the foregoing 
comparison of the chief peculiarities of the two schools. (4) 


That the Comacines merged into the great Masonic Gilds of the Middle Ages, and that 
as these declined, forms and ceremonies held and practiced by them were to a great 
extent preserved in the speculative Masonry of the present day, particularly that 
practiced under the English and American Constitutions, is still doubted by some and 
denied by one or two. 


Merzario would have us believe that the Comacines, from whom he appears to derive 
a large number of other schools of medieval architecture, could be traced down to 
1800 A. D., but such opinion would want a great deal of evidence to make it 
acceptable. 


Sig. Monneret de Villard, who takes the view that they were a school distinct from 
other contemporary ones, holds that as an organized body they ceased to exist after 
the twelfth century. 


A good illustration of the way in which symbols were transmitted even from the 
Temple of Solomon to the medieval Craftsmen and thence to our speculative 
Masonry, is to be found in the two pillars at Wurzburg Cathedral already mentioned, 
It has been pointed out that they were originally situated on either side of the porch 
but are now in the body of the Cathedral (their relative positions reversed), and that 
these shafts are interlaced in a manner already referred to in these pages. 



One has thought it worth while to make some careful inquiries with regard to these 
pillars and hence before the commencement of the present war I was able to ascertain, 
on what I have reason to believe to be competent authority, that these pillars originally 
supported three archways of a porchway or entrance just within the nave, having over 
them a gallery approached by a staircase. In this position they would correspond to the 
arrangement of the porch at S. Pietro al Monte di civate, and they are said to be of the 
same date (Fig. 3a). 


To get the knot effect they had to be clustered shafts, and like those at Arlezo (see Fig. 
9) one appears to have more of these shafts in number than the other. This is 

significant, but what is more so is the fact that one capital bears on it the word B 

and the other the word J If these words were added at some recent time there 

would be nothing much in the argument, but as one is told as the result of expert 
examination the writing is of the same date as the columns, viz., before the end of the 
twelfth century, then it would seem to be a fair and reasonable conclusion that the 
Medieval Gilds had traditions of King Solomon's Temple, and also that our 
speculative system did take over signs and symbols, etc., from the operative lodges. 
The position of the pillars and their inscriptions admit of no other conclusion. 


One wonders whether this particular form of knot rather than the intreccia of the 
Comacines is not that which is still named in Italy as Solomon's knot. If so, this would 
be yet another association worthy of notice. 


The carving of working tools in connection with the Gild work of the Middle Ages is 
not without significance. The representation of a square or a plumbrule in the 
Catacombs, such as may be seen in the Lateran Museum, probably merely indicated 
the trade of the person commemorated, but when as in the representation of the 
Quatuor Coronati at Or S. Michele at Florence, are found the compasses, the level, the 
plumb-rule and the square, and in addition to these one of the four masons describing 
on the reversed capital of a column, a circle, at the same time that he applies a square, 
the conclusion is obvious that they have a deeper signification. 


Again, at Assisi, on the Comacine Lodge, as well as on the Castle, the open 
compasses containing a rose are to be seen, and in the Castle work also a mason's 



square. Other working tools are also depicted in the well-known Isabella Missal in the 
British Museum. 


And as regards the Four Crowned Martyrs themselves, while not pressing too far from 
this connection any conclusion, it is well to call to mind a few, outstanding facts. 


Sarcophagi are claimed as theirs in their church in Rome, founded in their honour, and 
in connection with which a Gild of Marble Cutters to the present time celebrate mass 
on the last Sunday of the month. Over the door of their chapel (S. Sylvestro, A. D. 

1 198- 1215) there is a fresco of the four with the inscription "statuariorum et 
Lapicidamm Corpus Anno MDLXX." 


Edward Condor, in his paper contributed to "Ars Quatuor Coronatoram," (vol. 27, part 
2), not only shows the strong obligation placed upon the Craft generally in London to 
attend mass on the 8th November, the festival of the Quatuor Coronati, as set forth in 
the ordinances and regulations of the body, A. D. 1841, but adds: 


"The legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs (5) is purely Italian in its inception and 
spread with the Craft into Germany, Gaul and Britain. There is evidence of the legend 
in MSS of the seventh century A. D., and a church was built in their honour at 
Winchester, in the eighth 'century. (6) 


"The festival was fixed for November 8th in the Saram Missal of the eleventh century 
and from that date to the Reformation in the sixteenth century the day was regularly 
honoured in the English Church." 


To this, be added, that the Masonic Lodge having perhaps the widest association in 
the world, viz., the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, in London, significantly associates its 
name with these martyrs. 



The Masonic association with the two Saints, John the Baptist and John the 
Evangelist, finds some counteipart in the same association of these Saints with the 
Comacines illustrated in the frequent dedication of many of their churches to one or 
the other of these, as well as the dedication of the Island of Comacina to st. John the 
Baptist, whose annual festival, with much religious ceremony and high pageant, is 
still attended on the Island on Midsummer Day, by people from far and near. 


Once more, and finally, from Merzario (page 93): 


"It is at that time and to that movement of thought of studies and of persons 
particularly set on foot by the Comacines that certain writers make to rise the 
institution of Masonic unions or lodges, and of the primitive Masonry. Troya says that 
the curious or secret societies of the Comacines which under the Lombards had been 
circumscribed, although public, and lived without mysteries and without arrogance, 
began after Charlemagne to restrict themselves into more compact societies, to form 
their secret statutes, to have private rights and occult language, and to look forward to 
a proselytism international and almost European." 


Hope has written: 


"Lombardy was the cradle of the Association of Freemasons, and it is from these 
Societies or Gilds initiated by the Comacine Masters that he and various historians, 
Italian and not Italian, derive the Companies of Freemasons which diffused 
themselves from Italy to England, in Scotland, in Germany, in Switzerland, in 
Provence and Spain, and were the origin of the Freemasons lodges composed at first 
of architects, constructors and their colleagues only." 


Taking together all these items of evidence, what conclusion can be reached other 
than that link by link we have a chain extending from the Roman Collegia through the 



Comacines to the Medieval Gilds of the Middle Ages, and our speculative lodges of 
today, with traditions and associations clearly handed on unbroken. 


As a frontispiece to the July issue of THE BUILDER is reproduced an old print, now 
in the Como Museum, showing the Island of Como as it was supposed to be in the day 
of its strength. 


(1) See page 198, THE BUILDER, July. 

(2) Peculiarity of some of the expressions in the transcripts made in these pages from 
Merzario is probably due to the translation from Italian to English being somewhat 
literal. 

(3) See page 196, THE BUILDER, July. 

(4) Notwithstanding the two views of Merzario and Monneret it is not unreasonable to 
point the probability of the derivation of the Milanese from the Comacine school, 
seeing that in the early days of the Lombards when they required artificers they sent 
for the Comacines, having none of their own. 

(5) For an interesting article on the Church of the Quatuor Coronati, Rome, having 
special reference to its recently restored cloister, by Professor Forbes, see Ars Quatuor 
Coronatorum, vol. 27, part I. 

(6) There may be a little mistake here since a church was built to the honour of the 
Quatuor Coronati, in Canterbury, early in the seventh century. Possibly there was 
another at Winchester, but evidence is wanting. 




THE LYRIC ARGUMENT 


I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, 



Of April, May, of June, and July flowers; 

I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. 
I write of Youth, of Love, and have access 
By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness; 

I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece, 

Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris; 

I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write 
How roses first came red, and lilies white; 

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing 
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King. 

I write of Hell; I sing and ever shall 
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all. 

—Robert Herrick, 1591-1 674. 

— o — 

FLOWERS 


Spread golden flowers on my life, 
And do it very often; 

I'll need them in my daily strife 



But not upon my coffin. 
—John A. Joyce. 


-o- 


SYMBOLISM OF THE THREE DEGREES 


BY BRO. OLIVER DAY STREET, ALABAMA 


PART II— THE SYMBOLISM OF THE FELLOW CRAFT DEGREE 


THE ceremonies of initiation, passing, and raising, as well as the lectures explanatory 
of them, are necessarily brief; want of time and the danger of over-burdening the 
candidate require that they should be so. The Mason, therefore, who relies solely upon 
what he sees and hears in the lodge will obtain a very inadequate conception of 
Freemasonry. He may and doubtless will be more or less affected by our ceremonies; 
it could scarcely be otherwise, so solemn and impressive are they, but he will fail to 
discover and understand some of the greater truths which lie hidden beneath the 
surface, and can never become truly speaking a "bright Mason." 


Nearly every Masonic symbol or ceremony (like all true allegories) has two 
(sometimes more) significations, one literal, the other symbolical. The literal meaning, 
usually the more apparent, is often of great interest, frequently affording striking 
evidences as to the origin and antiquity of Freemasonry. But it is the symbolical or 
allegorical meaning, usually the more recondite, which appeals most to the thoughtful 
mind. 



Nor is it unfortunate that the more important lessons are somewhat veiled from 
observation. We do not prize what we obtain easily; it is that for which we have 
striven or paid a big price which we value. If, therefore, from beneath the surface of 
these familiar ceremonies any of us by our own studies and reflections are enabled to 
discover and bring to light truths which have lain somewhat hidden, the appreciation 
of them is keener and the impression produced deeper and more lasting than if they 
had been open to superficial observation. For this reason many of the greatest lessons 
of Freemasonry are wisely hidden away as prizes for the studious and the diligent 
only. The "mysteries" and the "secrets" of Freemasonry are not synonymous terms; 
the mysteries continue such forever even to the Mason who will not study and read. 
Do you feel that Masonry is an idle and frivolous thing, unworthy of the attention of 
serious men? If so, did you ever reflect whether the fault was yours or that of the 
institution? Unless you are sure that you know what Freemasonry is and what it 
teaches and what are its designs and that you thoroughly understand its methods of 
teaching withhold your condemnation till you have made it the subject of a little 
serious study, because, as observed by an eminent authority, the character of the 
institution is "elevated in everyone's opinion just in proportion to the amount of 
knowledge that he has acquired of its symbolism, philosophy and history." 


Freemasonry is a many sided subject. There is something in it which arrests and 
appeals to the shallowest mind or the most frivolous moral character. At the same 
time, there is much in it which has chained the thought and attention of the world's 
greatest intellects and wisest philosophers. It presents many aspects for study and 
investigation, either of which will amply repay the efforts of the intelligent mind and 
will lead to knowledge not merely curious, as some suppose, but of the utmost 
practical value. 


I am forced to refer again to one line of thought touched on in the preceding lecture 
because I regard it as fundamental to the study and understanding of any part of 
Freemasonry. This idea is that Freemasonry is an elaborate allegory of human life, 
both individually and collectively, in all its varied aspects, past, present, and future; 
that the lodge represents the world into which mortal man is introduced, lives, moves, 
has his being and eventually dies; that it also represents the place or state of the 
redeemed in the life which we believe follows this; that the lodge-member typifies the 
individual man; that its organized membership represents mankind united into human 
society; that the ideal lodge-member, ruled by love, wisdom, strength and beauty, 
typifies man raised from this state of imperfection to one of perfection. 



Of all the ceremonies of the lodge, the Fellow Craft degree, when viewed by itself is 
the most difficult and I believe the least generally understood. Preston, who wrote the 
first Monitor tells us that "such is the latitude of this degree that the most judicious 
may fail in an attempt to explain it." In Akin's Georgia Manual we read that the 
"splendid beauty of the Fellow Craft degree can be seen only by the studious eye and 
that the Master vho would impress it upon the candidate must store his mind with the 
history, traditions and ritualism of this degree." 


A flood of light, however, is at once shed upon the subject when we consider it a part 
of a human allegory, of which the Entered Apprentice and Master's degrees are 
respectively the beginning and the completion. 


Let us then briefly consider it in this manner and endeavor to reach a clearer 
understanding of its meaning. That we may the better perceive just where it falls into 
the complete scheme, it will be necessary first to consider for a moment the Entered 
Apprentice and Master's degrees. 


We are told in the Master's lecture that the Entered Apprentice represents youth; the 
Fellow Craft, manhood; and the Master Mason, old age. A little study will serve to 
show us how completely this simile is justified. 


The introduction or first admission of the Entered Apprentice candidate into the lodge, 
therefore, typifies the entrance of man upon the world's stage of action or in other 
words, the birth of the child into this life. The distinguished Masonic scholar, Dr. 
Mackey, says that the Entered Apprentice is a "child in Masonry" and we read in 
many Monitors that "the first or Entered Apprentice degree is intended symbolically 
to represent the entrance of man into the world in which he is afterwards to become a 
living and thinking actor. In English working the candidate is reminded that his 
admission into the Entered Apprentice lodge "in a state of helpless ignorance was an 
emblematical representation of the entrance of all men on this their mortal existence." 
( 1 ) 



The preparation of the candidate and the plight in which he is admitted an Entered 
Apprentice strikingly symbolizes the helpless, destitute, blind and ignorant condition 
of the newly bom babe. Yea, it is even certain that there are features preserved in 
Masonic symbolism which allude to that part of life preceding even birth and which 
hint at the phenomena of coition, generation, conception and gestation of the child in 
its mother's womb. These things rightly considered are as much a part and as pure and 
holy a part of a human life as birth or death, and could no more be omitted from any 
complete representation of it. Let no one, therefore, imagine that he has found 
anything impure in Freemasonry because he has discovered in it symbols and 
ceremonies which once undoubtedly bore phallic significations. 


We may, therefore, say that the Masonic system epitomizes allegorically the life of 
man from the moment he is begotten through every stage of existence, conception, 
gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, death, the resurrection 
and everlasting life. Did any greater theme ever engage the attention of any society? 
Anything that pertains to any of these great subjects and which tends to strengthen, to 
elevate or to ennoble the human mind and character is properly a part of Freemasonry. 


The first important lesson impressed upon the candidate after his entrance into the 
lodge is intended to signify to us that the very first idea that ought to be instilled into 
the mind of the child is a reverence and adoration for the Deity, the great and 
incomprehensible author of its existence. From beginning to the end, the Entered 
Apprentice degree is a series of moral lessons. This is a hint so broad that one need 
not be wise in order to understand that the moral training and education of the child 
should precede even the development and cultivation of its intellect. How many 
parents and teachers fail just at this point! They polish and adorn the minds of their 
children and pupils with great diligence at the same time neglecting their moral 
training, and when too late find that often they have made of them smart criminals. 


The placing of the young Entered Apprentice in the northeast comer of the lodge in 
imitation of the ancient custom of laying the corner stone of a building in the 
northeast corner, signifies that as an Entered Apprentice he has but laid the foundation 
whereon to build his future moral edifice, that of life and character. It aptly and fully 



symbolizes the end of the preparatory period and the beginning of the constructive 
period of human life. 


The admonition there given him is to the effect that, having laid the foundation true, 
he should take care that the superstructure is reared ill like manner; in other words, 
that his life, his moral temple be kept in harmony with the moral precepts which have 
been given him in the Entered Apprentice degree. 


This likening of the human body to a temple of God is an ancient metaphor. Jesus' 
employment of it in speaking of his own body was but in keeping with a common 
practice among Jewish writers and teachers of his time. It immensely dignifies the 
physical body of man and teaches that, when kept clean both in the literal and the 
moral sense, it is a fit place for even Diety himself to dwell. 


This body so powerfully and yet so delicately contrived that often apparently slight 
causes produce death, we have no right to defde or abuse with any kind of excess. No 
mechanism was ever so delicately adjusted and no careful engineer would ever think 
of putting even too much oil upon a fine piece of machinery. Yet excessive 
indulgence in food, drink, or other appetites works far greater injury to our bodies. 


The lesson is that we have no more right to defile or abuse our bodies than had the 
Jew to defile the Temple of God upon Mount Moriah. 


In the Third degree the matter pressed upon our attention are the closing years of life, 
death and the vast hereafter. The xii chapter of Ecclesiastes, the most beautiful and 
affecting description of old age in all literature, is introduced. We are also told that the 
events it celebrates occurred just before the completion of the Temple, which is but a 
figurative way of saying that the period of life symbolized by the Master's degree is 
that just preceding its close, just before the completion of the moral and spiritual 
temple. (2) It is, therefore, with the greatest propriety that the Master's degree is said 
to represent old age. 



If then the Entered Apprentice represents childhood and youth, and the Master Mason 
old age, the Fellow Craft degree should, in order to complete the allegory, represent 
middle life and its labors, and this is precisely what it does with the greatest beauty 
and consistency. 


Although the candidate for the Fellow Craft degree is to be regarded as a seeker after 
knowledge, yet the first section of this degree consists chiefly of a reiteration of the 
moral teachings of the First degree. This is to remind the young man as he is about to 
enter upon the serious labors and struggles of life that virtue is to be always the first 
consideration, that no knowledge, no success which is purchased at the sacrifice of 
morals, honor or integrity is to be prized. This lesson is repeated more than once in the 
course of this degree, admonishing us that, no matter how engrossed in the affairs of 
life we may become, we should never suffer the allurements of coveted gains to 
seduce us from the pathway of strict rectitude and justice. 


Although thus reiterating and emphasizing the moral precepts of the First degree, the 
Fellow Craft degree is as distinctly intellectual in its puipose and spirit as the Entered 
Apprentice is moral. The great theme of the Second degree is the attainment of 
knowledge, the cultivation of the mind and the acquisition of habits of industry. (3) 
This feature becomes prominent in the second section of this degree. Preston, who, as 
already observed, wrote what might he termed the first Monitor, says that while the 
First degree is intended "to enforce the duties of morality," the Second "comprehends 
a more diffusive system of knowledge." We read in Simon's Monitor that "the Entered 
Apprentice is to emerge from the darkness to light; the Fellow Craft is to come out of 
ignorance into knowledge." Dr. Mackey expresses it thus: "The lessons the Entered 
Apprentice receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient 
for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degree," and 
further he says, "The candidate in the Second degree represents a man starting forth 
on the journey of life with the great task before him of self-improvement," and that 
the result is to be the development of all his intellectual faculties and the acquisition 
of truth and knowledge. In England, the candidate is informed that while in the 
Entered Apprentice degree "he made himself acquainted with the principles of moral 
truth and virtue, he is in the Fellow Craft degree permitted to extend his researches 
into the hidden mysteries of nature and science," and that he is "led in the Second 
degree to contemplate the intellectual faculty and to trace it from its development, 
through the paths of heavenly science, even to the throne of God himself." Brother J. 



W. Horsely, Rector of St. Peter's Cathedral, London, thus expresses the idea: 
"Generally, therefore, we may say that the Third degree represents and enforces the 
blessedness of spiritual life and the duty of progress therein, as the Second degree 
performs the same office for the intellectual life, and the first for the moral life." (4) 


THE JEWELS OF A FELLOW CRAFT 


The very means of gaining admission into a Fellow Craft lodge* * *, alluding to the 
three jewels of Fellow Craft, are made to typify the processes of communicating, 
acquiring and preserving knowledge. "The attentive ear receives the sound from the 
instructive tongue and the mysteries of Freemasonry (as indeed all other knowledge) 
are safely lodged in the repository of faithful breasts." 


THE WORKING TOOLS 


The plumb, square, and level were the appropriate tools of the operative Fellow Craft 
Mason. To the Master or Overseer fell the duty of superintendence, to the Entered 
Apprentice that of gathering and rough hewing of the materials, but to the Fellow 
Craft fell the labor of actual construction. This involved the laying of level 
foundations and courses, the erection of perpendicular walls and the bringing of the 
stones to perfectly rectangular shape. These labors necessitated the constant use by the 
operative Fellow Craft Mason of the plumb, square and level. Their operative uses 
very appropriately symbolize the analogous processes in the building of human 
character. This symbolical application of these implements of the builder is by no 
means recent; it dates back even among the Chinese more than 700 years before 
Christ. Five hundred years before Christ what we call the Golden Rule was by the 
Chinese called "the principle of acting on the square." Mencius, the great Chinese 
philosopher, who lived in the third century before Christ, teaches that men should 
apply the square and level to their lives, and speaking figuratively says that he who 
would acquire wisdom must make use of the square and compasses. 


BOAZ AND JACHIN 



Solomon, in accordance with the common practice of his day, placed two immense 
and highly ornate pillars or columns at the entrance of his temple. It is well known 
that King Hiram did the like for the great temple to Melcarth erected by him at Tyre. 
Many other instances might be cited. Whence originated this custom has been a matter 
for much speculation. We have seen what was the ancient conception of the form of 
the earth. To their world the Strait of Gibraltar appeared to be a veritable door of 
entry. On either side of this entrance rose two enormous rock promotories, Abyla and 
Calpe, (now called Gibraltar and Ceuta) which completely commanded egress and 
ingress and are familiarly known as the Pillars of Hercules. They were believed by the 
ancients to mark the western boundary of the world, Many have seen in these two vast 
columns of stone, set by nature to the entrance of the then known world, the 
counteiparts of the pillars so often set by the ancients at the entrance to their temples, 
which were to them, as the lodge is to us, symbols of the world. 


The first objects that engage the attention of the Fellow Craft on his way to the Middle 
Chamber are the representatives of these pillars at the entrance to Solomon's Temple. 
In addition to the explanation given in the lodge, they undoubtedly have also an 
allusion to the two legendary pillars of Enoch upon which tradition tells us all the 
wisdom of the ancient world was inscribed in order to preserve it "against inundation 
and conflagrations." Standing at the very threshold of Solomon's Temple, as well as of 
the Fellow Craft lodge, they admonish us that after a proper moral training the 
acquisition of wisdom is the next necessary preparation for a useful and successful 
life. (5) Their names, Boaz and Jachin, possess also a moral signification, meaning 
together that "in strength God will establish His house." Symbolically applied to the 
candidate, they mean that God will firmly establish the moral and spiritual edifice of 
the just and upright man. 


THE GLOBES 


The idea that the globes upon the two brazen pillars represent the globes celestial and 
terrestrial is certainly modern. The globular form of the earth was unknown to the 
ancients. Except to a few profound thinkers like Plato, the conception of the earth as a 
sphere was utterly foreign. Not until about the time of the discovery of America did 
this fact become generally understood. 



Moreover, the Bible, at least in English translations, says nothing of any globes upon 
the pillars, but distinctly states that there were "made two chapiters of molten brass to 
set upon the tops of the pillars," and that "upon the tops of the pillars was lily-work." 

1 Kings vii, 16, 22. The more recent revisions of the Bible call the "chapiters" by their 
more familiar name of "capitals." The learned Jewish Rabbi, Solomon Jehudi, speaks 
of them as "pommels," a word signifying a globular ornament. It is well known that 
many of the architectural features and ornamental designs of Solomon's Temple were 
borrowed from the Egyptians. The so-called "lily-work" was unquestionably some 
form of water-lily or lotus pattern of ornamention so common in ancient architecture 
and which even now is employed in conventionalized forms nearly everywhere. It 
sometimes assumes the form of the lotus leaf, at others of the full blown blossom, and 
at others still of the bud. Our common "egg and dalt" pattern is a development 
therefrom. 


At the time of Solomon, one of the most frequent and at the same time one of the most 
beautiful of the lotus or water-lily designs was the lotus-bud capital, which often 
assumed an egglike or oval shape. It is accurately indicated by the word "pommel," 
and indeed this term is employed in some of our Masonic Monitors in lieu of the term 
"globes." There seems little reason to doubt that the two Brazen Pillars were columns 
of the Egyptian style with the lotus-bud capitals. Their great diameter as compared to 
their height (about six diameters) is another strong evidence of their Egyptian 
derivation. Furthermore, we know that winged globular ornaments, sometimes of 
immense size, were extensively employed by the Egyptians in adorning the entrances 
to their temples. 


The lotus or water-lily was the sacred plant of the Egyptians and among other things 
signified "Universality." The conclusion, therefore, seems reasonable that, if there was 
anything like globes on the two Brazen Pillars, they were not true globes of the earth 
and of the heavens, but representations of the lotus-bud. If so, though the symbol has 
not been accurately perpetuated, the symbolism has. 


There is another ancient conception to which the idea of globes upon the pillars may 
be related. From remotest times men must have observed that numerous forms of life 
proceeded from an egg. This observation gave rise to the belief which we know to 



have been widely disseminated in ancient times, and which modem science has 
almost completely confirmed, that life in every form proceeds from an egg. This 
supposed universal source of life became to the ancients the symbol of the source of 
things universal. In other words, the egg was the symbol of the Universal Mother. It is 
easily perceivable that to a people entertaining these ideas, globes or eggs mounted 
upon columns would convey the idea of universality. 


LILY-WORK 


In addition to the lotus capitals, no doubt the two pillars were, in keeping with the 
universal custom of the time, further ornamented with various forms of the lotus or 
water-lily design. The familiar token of peace with us is the palm branch, but to the 
Egyptian and the Jew this office was fulfilled by the lotus or water-lily. It is, therefore, 
with precise accuracy that we say that the lotus, or Egyptian water-lily, (an entirely 
different plant from our lily,) denotes peace. 


THE NET- WORK 


The net work which adorned the capitals or chapiters of the pillars might be more 
familiarly described as "lattice- work." Curious specimens of this ornamentation are 
found in ancient and medieval architecture, particularly in that of the Magistri 
Comacini, or Comacine Masters of Northern Italy. Many of these are of the most 
beautiful and intricate designs and without either beginning or end. A more 
appropriate emblem of unity than these could not be conceived. 


It is interesting to note in this connection, that recently a woman, and of course a non- 
Mason, Mrs. Baxter, writing under the nom de plume of Leader Scott, has in her 
splendid book, "The Cathedral Builders, adduced much evidence to prove that our 
modem Freemasonry is derived from these same Magistri Comacini, and through 
them from the Collegia Fabroram, or Colleges of Builders, of the pre-Christian 
Roman era. To my mind, one of the strongest of these evidences is the common 
possession and employment of this net-work ornamentation. 



This tracing of our society back to the Roman Building Societies of the eighth century 
before Christ, (if it can be sustained,) carries us back to the time when we know that 
building societies were common not only in Rome, but in Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, 
and Palestine. Indeed, it is impossible to explain the erection of such architectural 
wonders as the great pyramids and temples of Egypt, Asia, Greece and Rome, without 
supposing the existence at that time of building societies, or associations of architects, 
embracing within themselves the most brilliant intellects and skillful workmen, not 
only then living, but whose superior the world has never since seen; in other words, 
precisely such a society as our traditions teach built King Solomon's Temple. 
Evidences of ancient history point to the existence of such a brotherhood, known as 
the Dionysian Architects, at Tyre, the home of the two Hirams at the time of the 
building of the Temple and it was to this place, according to Scripture, that Solomon 
sent when he wanted artisans competent to carry out his great design. 


THE POMEGRANATE 


The pomegranate, which also adorned the capitals of the pillars, is a symbol of great 
antiquity, but its meaning seems to have been sacredly guarded. Pausanias, who wrote 
about 160 A. D., calls it aporreto teros logos,— i. e. a forbidden mystery. Ancient 
deities were often depicted holding this fruit in their hands and this, Achilles Statius, 
Bishop of Alexandria, says "had a mystical meaning." The Syrians at Damascus 
anciently worshipped a god whom they called "Rimmon," and this we know to be the 
Hebrew word for pomegranate. 


Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, a most learned antiquarian, guessed that on 
account of the great number of its seeds a pomegranate in the hand of a god denoted 
fruitfulness or fecundy. This corresponds closely enough with the meaning that we, as 
Masons attach to it,— that of plenty. 


OPERATIVE AND SPECULATIVE MASONRY 



The candidate is informed that there are two kinds of Masonry, operative and 
speculative; the one, the erection of material edifice to shelter us from the 
inclemencies of the seasons; the other, the building of that moral, religious and 
spiritual edifice, human life and character, that house not made with hands eternal in 
the heavens. He is reminded of the historical fact that our ancient brethren wrought in 
both kinds of Masonry, but we work in speculative only. With this distinction in mind, 
the candidate is expected to be able to grasp the allegorical meanings of the 
succeeding ceremonies. 


THE WINDING STAIRS 


In the Winding stairs an architectural feature of Solomon's Temple is seized upon to 
symbolize the journey of life. It is not a placid stream down which one may lazily 
float, it is not even a straight or level pathway along which one may travel with a 
minimum of exertion; it is a devious and tortuous way, requiring labor and effort for 
its accomplishment. This is appropriately symbolized by a winding stairway. It 
teaches us that our lives should be neither downward nor on a dead level, but, 
although difficult, progressive and upward. 


SCIENCE OF NUMBERS 


The Winding stairs consist of 3, 5 and 7 steps, numbers which among the ancients 
were deemed of a mysterious nature. This introduces us to what is to us one of the 
most curious bodies of learning of the ancient world, what is known as their Science 
of Numbers, many fragments of which are scattered throughout Masonry. It is 
exceedingly difficult for the modem mind to get any grasp whatever upon what is 
meant by this so called science, so highly speculative was it. It does not allude as its 
name might seem to indicate, to any of the mathematical sciences, or anything akin to 
them. It was a system of moral science or philosophy, wherein numbers were given 
symbolical meaning and the letters of the alphabet were given numerical values; 
whence words were supposed to have certain occult significations according to the 
sums or multiples of the numerical equivalents of its letters. The elaboration of this 
idea was productive of what is known as the Hebrew Kabala. Pythagoras is reputed to 
have introduced this school among the Greeks and according to Aristotle he taught 



that "Number is the principle of all things and that the organization of the Universe is 
an harmonic system of numerical ratios." (6) To illustrate, the soul was made to 
correspond to the number 6, and 7 was the counterpart of reason and health. 


The numbers 3, 5 and 7 had many meanings among the Jews which are not elucidated 
in the lodge. The preservation in our ritual of hints of this learning of a past age is 
now chiefly valuable to us as a proof of the antiquity of Masonic symbolism. (7) 


THE THREE STEPS 


Adopting the method of these ancient worthies but varying the meaning, we make the 
number 3 to allude to the organization of our Society with its three degrees and its 
three principal officers. Among the earliest realizations of every man is that no man 
lives to himself alone; that he is dependent upon his fellow creatures and they upon 
him; that he owes them and they owe him mutual aid, support and protection; that to 
secure these advantages some must rule and some must at least temporarily obey; that 
there must be classes and that progress from one class to another must depend upon 
proficiency in the former. This state of mutual obligation and mutual dependance of 
men upon one another we call Society. The Three steps, alluding to the three degrees 
and the division of our society into those who govern and those who obey, leads to the 
ideas of organization and subordination in the lodge. We have seen that the lodge 
symbolizes the world; so its organization symbolizes that of the world into society and 
governments. Dr. Mackey says "that the reference to the organization of the Masonic 
institution is intended to remind the aspirant of the union of men into society and the 
development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded in the 
very outset of his journey of the blessings which arise from civilization and of the 
fruits of virtue and the knowledge which are derived from that condition. In the 
allusion to the affairs of the lodge and the degree of Masonry as explanatory of the 
organization of our own society, we clothe in symbolic language," says Dr. Mackey, 
"the history of the organization of society" in general. (8) This feature is brought out 
prominently in many Monitors. 


No representation of the pathway to knowledge would of course be complete without 
some allusion to the means by which it is to he acquired. Thus are the allusions to the 



five senses of human nature to be understood. A moment's reflection will prove to us 
that through them we gain all our knowledge and that without them we could learn 
nothing. What wonderful and noble faculties and yet how seldom even thought of by 
us and how little appreciated and understood! No nobler or more interesting subjects 
for study exist in all the realms of nature than hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and 
tasting. What a truly marvelous organ is the eye, which can without contact make us 
sensible of the presence, the form and the color of objects at a distance and through 
which we obtain our knowledge and appreciation of all that is beautiful in nature. The 
senses of hearing and feeling are scarcely less wonderful and are equally important. A 
little reflection will also furnish us with additional reasons to those given in the lodge 
why hearing, seeing and feeling are most revered by Masons. They are in every way 
the most important. Consider for a moment the relatively small part of our knowledge 
that comes through tasting and smelling, and how utterly useless these two senses 
were to our ancient brethren in their operative labors. Then consider again how 
helpless a human creature would be who possessed neither hearing, seeing or feeling. 
Helen Keller is rightly considered a marvel, yet she is bereft of only two of these, 
hearing and seeing. Deprive her of her finely attenuated sense of feeling and it would 
have been impossible for her to have made any progress whatever in knowledge. 
Commenting on this part of the ritual, Thomas Smith Webb says, "To sum up the 
whole of this transcendant measure of God's bounty to man, we shall add that 
memory, imagination, taste, reasoning, moral perception and all the active powers of 
the soul present a vast and boundless field for philosophical disquisition which far 
exceeds human inquiry." We could have none of these without the five senses, and 
they are, therefore, introduced as symbols of intellectual cultivation. (9) 


The disquisition upon the five senses of human nature which appears in our American 
Monitors may be found in the English Monitors also which preceded the revision of 
Dr. Hemming in 1813. He eliminated all reference to them and they are still missing 
from authorized English "work." We feel that in some way Dr. Hemming must surely 
have failed to catch the meaning of this part of our symbolism. Dr. George Oliver, an 
eminent and learned English Mason, deplores the omission and says that it ought by 
all means to be restored. 


Having thus indicated to the candidate something of the importance and the means of 
acquiring knowledge, the proper fields of study and investigation are next pointed out. 



THE FIVE ORDERS IN ARCHITECTURE 


The five steps are said to allude further to the five orders in architecture, the Tuscan, 
the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian and the Composite. Their origins and their relative 
merits are pointed out, and we are told something of architecture in general. We 
would naturally expect something on this subject in a society derived from one of 
actual builders and architects, and here we have an internal evidence of the great age 
of Freemasonry. This is a flotsam which has been wafted to us down the stream of 
time from that remote period when Freemasonry w as an organization of operative 
Masons. To our speculative society it typifies all the other useful arts and serves to 
convey to the intelligent mind the truth that architecture considered as one of the fine 
arts is a subject well worthy of our study. It is through architecture that every great 
people have left the enduring records of their fame. Books perish and decay, but from 
their buildings, which still remain, we know for a certainty of the great nations of 
antiquity. George Moller, in his charming essay on Gothic Architecture, speaks of 
these architectural remains as "documents of stone" and declares that they "afford to 
those who can read them the most lively picture of centuries that have lapsed." (10) 


THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES 


Other fields of study are said to consist of the seven liberal arts and sciences and are 
enumerated as grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. 
In our Fellows Craft's charge we are recommended to study "the liberal arts and 
sciences which tend so effectually to polish and adorn the mind." In England 
("Emulation Working,") the candidate is informed that he "is expected to make the 
liberal arts and sciences his future study, that he may 'the better be enabled to 
discharge his duties as a Mason, and estimate the wonderful works of the Almighty." 

(ID 


It is, of course, obvious at a glance that these seven subjects enumerated above by no 
means exhaust the fields of knowledge now open to man, but the time once was when 
they did. And herein is another incontestible evidence of the great age of Freemasonry 
and its ceremonies. I cannot do better than quote Dr. Mackey again. He says that in 
the seventh century, that is to say 1300 years ago, "these seven heads were supposed 



to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no 
need of a precepter to explain any books or to solve any questions which lay within 
the compass of human reason; knowledge of the trivium (as grammar, rhetoric and 
logic were then denominated,) having furnished him with the key to all language, and 
that of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) having opened to 
him the secret laws of nature." At a period, says Dr. Mackey "when few were 
instructed in the trivium and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both 
was sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher." 


The term trivium means the three ways or paths, and quadrivium the four ways or 
paths to knowledge. Hence it is with the greatest propriety that it is said that we are 
taught in the Fellow Craft degree to explore the paths of heavenly science. (12) 


There is another interesting feature of the total number of steps of the Winding Stairs, 
fifteen in all. This was an important symbol among the Jews, because it was the sum 
of the numerical equivalents of the Hebrew letters composing the word J A H— one of 
the names of Deity. 


It will also be noted that the number of each series of steps, three, five and seven, as 
well as the total number of steps, fifteen, is odd. As we have seen, odd numbers were 
by the ancients regarded with greater veneration than were even numbers. Vitrivius, 
the great Roman architect, who flourished just before Christ, states that the ancient 
temples were always approached by an odd number of steps. The reason, he says, was 
that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the 
same foot in advance when he entered the temple, and that this was considered a 
favorable omen. The thoughtful Mason cannot fail to be struck with the coincidence 
here indicated. 


GEOMETRY 


Preeminence is given by our ritual to the science of Geometry. This now appears 
strange, but if we regard its history we will cease to be surprised. It and its allied 



branches, (trigonometry, architecture and astronomy), was the only exact science 
known to the ancients, but the perfection to which they had reduced it is even now 
constantly suiprising us. By it all mathematical calculations were made. Arithmetic 
and algebra were then unknown. The astonishing results obtained by them from an 
application of geometrical processes were well calculated to impress the mind. As the 
only exact science known to them, it was the most appropriate emblem of moral 
perfection, in an age when everything had its symbol. We accordingly read in our 
Masonic Monitors that of the seven liberal arts and sciences, "Geometry is the most 
revered by Masons"; that "it is the foundation of architecture and the root of 
mathematics"; that it is "the first and noblest of sciences"; that it is "the basis on 
which the superstructure of Masonry is erected"; that by it "we may curiously trace 
nature through her various windings to her most concealed recesses"; and "discover 
the power, the wisdom and the goodness of the Grand Artificer of the Universe"; that 
"Geometry or Masonry, originally synonymous terms, being of a divine and moral 
nature, is enriched with the most useful knowledge"; that "while it proves the 
wonderful properties of nature, it demonstrates the more important truths of morality." 


It cannot be denied that to the present generation and in our present state of learning, 
Geometry is nothing of the kind. To anyone except a Freemason, and to the great 
majority of them, the idea that Geometry inculcates moral truth is utterly foreign and 
incomprehensible. Those members of the craft who have ever thought of the matter at 
all, as a rule look upon these expressions as crude extravagances, as distorted attempts 
to attach a speculative meaning to a science or an art which had never properly borne 
any other than a practical signification. We are not surprised, it is true, to find still 
incoiporated in our system these inheritances of a past age and simply tolerate them as 
such without any serious attempt to ascertain their meaning or to measure their 
significance. 


While, as stated, Geometry does not at present enjoy any such an enviable distinction 
among the sciences as that claimed for it in our Masonic ritual, yet the time once was 
when it was precisely so regarded by the wisest of men on earth. (13) 


What then is the significance of these ideas of a past age in our Masonic system ? It 
seems to me to afford the strongest internal evidence of the great age of our Masonic 
ritual and symbolism. (14) 



The seven liberal arts and sciences, as thus enumerated in the lodge, are not now to be 
understood literally, but rather as a symbol of what they once were in fact, namely, the 
entire domain of human knowledge and research. No one man is, of course, expected 
to cultivate the whole of this vast field, but this part of the ceremony of passing urges 
upon us the importance and the duty of constantly applying our minds to the 
attainment of wisdom in some of its forms. We have no right to be idle. It is a sin 
against God, ourselves and society. 


Contemplate the despicable figure of the habitual loafer who sits on the curbstone or 
whittles away his days, telling anecdotes which could not be repeated in respectable 
society. Listen to the "loud laugh of his vacant mind," see what a large share of his 
time, that most priceless gift of God, he wastes in indolence or in the pursuits that are 
either unprofitable or positively hurtful. Is it any wonder that so many men fail in life 
and that the progress of the race as a whole is so exceedingly slow ? What a multitude 
of drones there are in the hive who are not only to be fed and clothed by the 
industrious, but who are positive hindrances and stumbling blocks in the way of those 
industrious ones who would progress. Note how almost invariably you find the idler 
on the wrong side of every question that arises in his community. See how he resents 
with bitterness the prosperity of his moral and industrious neighbor and falls into a 
habit of chronic antagonism to him. They will not work; fed and clothed they must be; 
if they cannot dead-beat a living, they turn to crime in order to get it. What a great 
lesson then is here taught by Masonry! Whatever others may be, Masons have no right 
to be idlers and loafers. It is our God given privilege and our solemn duty to work, 
work, work, not because a night is coming when man's work is done, but that we may 
be able to do better work and more work in that brighter day that all good Masons 
expect to see when this life has passed away. 


THE WAGES OF A FELLOW CRAFT 


In the Middle Chamber we are informed what the wages shall be to the faithful 
Craftsman who has observed the moral and the divine law and wasted not his time in 
idleness or vice. We are told that they shall be corn, wine and oil. Such was literally 
true to our ancient operative brethren, as our old documents abundantly prove. With 
us, of course, they are not received in the realistic sense, but emblematically. From a 



remoteness of time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, the spica, or 
ear of corn, has symbolized plenty; wine has symbolized health; and oil has 
symbolized peace. 


The faithful Fellow Craft is, therefore, assured that his wages, his reward, shall be 
plenty, not mere sufficiency but plentitude to supply all his physical, moral and 
spiritual wants; health of body, mind and soul; peace in this life, in the hour of death, 
and in the life to come. Are not these wages worthy of the laborer? Verily, do they not 
include all things that can in any wise contribute to our real comfort and happiness? 


Idleness and vice surely lead to their opposites, poverty, disease and despair. 


While I have by no means exhausted the subject this, my brethren, is briefly the 
meaning and puipose of the Fellow Craft degree, and, if you do not already, I am sure 
that a little study and reflection will lead you to agree with me that in beauty and 
purity and loftiness of conception this degree is worthy to keep company with those 
splendid degrees of Entered Apprentice and Master Mason. 


(1) Mackey's Symbolism, p. 307. 

(2) Idem. 

(3) Idem. 

(4) Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. XII. p. 2. 

(5) Mackey's Symbolism, p. 219. 

(6) Univ. Cyc., vol. 9, p. 560. 

(7) Mackey's Symbolism, pp. 219, 225. 

(8) Idem, p. 221. 

(9) Idem, p. 222. 



(10) Mas. Mag. vol. 6, p. 427; Mackey's Symbolism, pp. 222, 223. 

(1 1) Yarker's Arcane School, p. 118. 

(12) Mackey's Symbolism, pp. 223, 224. 

(13) Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. X, p. 82, Freeman, vol. XL VIII, p. 417. 

(14) Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. V, p. 168. 


— o — 


REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON MASONIC RESEARCH OF THE GRAND LODGE 
OF WISCONSIN 


To further the study side of Masonry to such an extent as possible, was the puipose for 
which this Committee was appointed. The idea was not new; many of our Past Grand 
Masters have earnestly desired to promote a more thorough knowledge of Masonry, and 
in 1915, Past Grand Master N. M. Littlejohn, offered the following resolution, which 
was adopted: "Resolved, That at the meetings of subordinate lodges when there is no 
degree work, the Worshipful Master shall have prepared and introduce exercises of an 
interesting and instructive character, such as an address, the reading of interesting 
articles, recitations, music or other proper entertainments calculated to keep the 
members interested in the work of the order." 


Many Masters of lodges endeavored to carry out the spirit of the resolution; but in too 
many cases the degree work was apparently so strenous that tirrle was not to be found 
at the regular communications for the lodge to improve itself in Masonic knowledge 
beyond the ritualistic work. The ritual is the foundation of all Masonic knowledge; it is 
the key to the secrets that are worth while; but we believe the Master Mason should not 
be permitted to infer that he has received the sum of Masonic knowledge, but should 
have the way to the beauties of its literature clearly pointed out to him. If the regular 
communications of the lodge are so far taken up with degree work as to make it 
impracticable we believe an occasional special communication for the puipose of 



helping the brethren and inducing others to become interested would be of great benefit 
to the lodge and to its membership. It has always been found that the Mason who has a 
broad conception of Masonry is the most helpful to his lodge and to the Craft and it will 
reflect credit on the lodge to have a high percentage of such Masons. 


Immediately after its appointment your Committee met and formulated plans. A 
circular letter was sent to every lodge asking for the names of those brethren who would 
be interested, and upon receiving replies, a communication, outlining plans of study, 
containing sugggestions for the formation of study clubs, giving a short list of the most 
available and reliable books for popular reading and a notification that the Committee 
would use the Masonic Tidings for supplying short outlines of topics of interest. We 
also invited the brethren to call upon us for any assistance we could give them. 


With the co-operation of Masonic Tidings, we have been able to furnish the brethren 
with seven of the outlines of Masonic study. 


A copy of "The Encyclopedia Handbook" has been sent to all brethren who have 
expressed an interest in the work of the Committee, and we believe this book will 
induce many of the brethren to use Mackey's Encyclopedia in their search for more 
light. The "Handbook" itself contains a fund of the most useful information to every 
Mason. 


A pamphlet entitled "What is Freemasonry ? Whence did it originate?" written for the 
purpose of arousing an interest in the study of Masonic history and philosophy has been 
issued by the Committee. 


Your Committee held a meeting at the Scottish Rite Cathedral on March 29th, at which 
time we invited representatives from Milwaukee lodges to be present, and plans were 
discussed for promoting the study side of Masonry in Milwaukee. Several earnest, 
zealous and well qualified brethren in Milwaukee are working hard to inculcate a love 
of Masonic literature among the brethren and one lodge has quite materially improved 
its library. 



Your Committee has received the co-operation of several talented and well informed 
brethren in the organization of a "Lecture Bureau"; and these brethren are now ready to 
respond to calls for lectures from study clubs or lodges who desire them. We feel that 
this is one of the best results we have accomplished. 


In response to inquiries, your Committee has assisted brethren in the selection of 
Masonic books and answered inquiries as to where they might be procured. 


A meeting of the Committee has been held every month and in several cases oftener 
and the appropriation of $300.00 which this Grand Lodge voted for its use has been 
used with economy. The expenditures have totaled $91.14, leaving an unexpended 
balance of $208.86. 


Our work is for your inspection, and should it meet with your approval we recommend 
that a Committee on Masonic Research be appointed for the coming Masonic year and 
that $300.00 be appropriated for their use. Fraternally submitted, 


Signed by entire committee. 


Report was adopted by Grand Lodge, June 1 1th, 1918. 




FOR THE MONTHLY LODGE MEETING 



CORRESPONDENCE CIRCLE BULLETIN - No. 20 


DEVOTED TO ORGANIZED MASONIC STUDY 


Edited by Bro. H.L. Haywood 


THE BULLETIN COURSE OF MASONIC STUDY 

FOR MONTHLY LODGE MEETINGS AND STUDY CLUBS 


FOUNDATION OF THE COURSE 


THE Course of Study has for its foundation two sources of Masonic information: 

THE BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia. In another paragraph is explained how 
the references to former issues of THE BUILDER and to Mackey's Encyclopedia may 
be worked up as supplemental papers to exactly fit into each installment of the Course 
with the papers by Brother Haywood. 


MAIN OUTLINE 


The Course is divided into five principal divisions which are in turn subdivided, as is 
shown below: 


Division I. Ceremonial Masonry. 
A. The Work of a Lodge. 



B. The Lodge and the Candidate. 

C. First steps. 

D. Second steps. 

E. Third steps. 

Division II. Symbolical Masonry. 

A. Clothing. 

B. Working Tools. 

C. Furniture. 

D. Architecture. 

E. Geometry. 

F. Signs. 

G. Words. 

H. Grips. 

Division III. Philosophical Masonry. 

A. Foundations. 

B. Virtues. 

C. Ethics. 

D. Religious Aspect. 

E. The Quest. 

F. Mysticism. 



G. The Secret Doctrine. 


Division IV. Legislative Masonry. 

A. The Grand Lodge. 

1. Ancient Constitutions. 

2. Codes of Law. 

3. Grand Lodge Practices. 

4. Relationship to Constituent Lodges. 

5. Official Duties and Prerogatives. 

B. The Constituent Lodge. 

1. Organization. 

2. Qualifications of Candidates. 

3. Initiation, Passing and Raising. 

4. Visitation. 

5. Change of Membership. 

Division V. Historical Masonry. 

A. The Mysteries— Earliest Masonic Light. 

B. Studies of Rites— Masonry in the Making. 

C. Contributions to Lodge Characteristics. 

D. National Masonry. 



E. Parallel Peculiarities in Lodge Study. 

F. Feminine Masonry. 

G. Masonic Alphabets. 

H. Historical Manuscripts of the Craft. 

I. Biographical Masonry. 

J. Philological Masonry— Study of Significant Words. 

THE MONTHLY INSTALLMENTS 


Each month we are presenting a paper written by Brother Haywood, who is following 
the foregoing outline. We are now in "First steps" of Ceremonial Masonry. There will 
be twelve monthly papers under this particular subdivision. On page two, preceding 
each installment, will be given a list of questions to be used by the chairman of the 
Committee during the study period which will bring out every point touched upon in 
the paper. 


Whenever possible we shall reprint in the Correspondence Circle Bulletin articles 
from other sources which have a direct bearing upon the particular subject covered by 
Brother Haywood in his monthly paper. These articles should be used as supplemental 
papers in addition to those prepared by the members from the monthly list of 
references. Much valuable material that would otherwise possibly never come to the 
attention of many of our members will thus be presented. 


The monthly installments of the Course appearing in the Correspondence Circle 
Bulletin should be used one month later than their appearance. If this is done the 
Committee will have opportunity to arrange their programs several weeks in advance 
of the meetings and the Brethren who are members of the National Masonic Research 
Society will be better enabled to enter into the discussions after they have read over 
and studied the installment in THE BUILDER. 



REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS 


Immediately preceding each of Brother Haywood's monthly papers in the 
Correspondence Circle Bulletin will be found a list of references to THE BUILDER 
and Mackey's Encyclopedia. These references are pertinent to the paper and will 
either enlarge upon many of the points touched upon or bring out new points for 
reading and discussion. They should be assigned by the Committee to different 
Brethren who may compile papers of their own from the material thus to be found, or 
in many instances the articles themselves or extracts therefrom may be read directly 
from the originals. The latter method may be followed when the members may not 
feel able to compile original papers, or when the original may be deemed appropriate 
without any alterations or additions. 


HOW TO ORGANIZE FOR AND CONDUCT THE STUDY MEETINGS 


The Lodge should select a "Research Committee" preferably of three "live" members. 
The study meetings should be held once a month, either at a special meeting of the 
Lodge called for the puipose, or at a regular meeting at which no business (except the 
Lodge routine) should be transacted-all possible time to be given to the study period. 


After the Lodge has been opened and all routine business disposed of, the Master 
should turn the Lodge over to the Chairman of the Research Committee. This 
Committee should be fully prepared in advance on the subject for the evening. All 
members to whom references for supplemental papers have been assigned should be 
prepared with their papers and should also have a comprehensive grasp of Brother 
Haywood's paper. 


PROGRAM FOR STUDY MEETINGS 



1 . Reading of the first section of Brother Haywood's paper and the supplemental 
papers thereto. (Suggestion: While these papers are being read the members of the 
Lodge should make notes of any points they may wish to discuss or inquire into when 
the discussion is opened. Tabs or slips of paper similar to those used in elections 
should be distributed among the members for this purpose at the opening of the study 
period.) 


2. Discussion of the above. 


3. The subsequent sections of Brother Haywood's paper and the supplemental papers 
should then be taken up, one at a time, and disposed of in the same manner. 


4. Question Box. 


MAKE THE "QUESTION BOX" THE FEATURE OF YOUR MEETINGS 


Invite questions from any and all Brethren present. Let them understand that these 
meetings are for their particular benefit and get them into the habit of asking all the 
questions they may think of. Every one of the papers read will suggest questions as to 
facts and meanings which may not perhaps be actually covered at all in the paper. If at 
the time these questions are propounded no one can answer them, SEND THEM IN 
TO US. All the reference material we have will be gone through in an endeavor to 
supply a satisfactory answer. In fact we are prepared to make special research when 
called upon, and will usually be able to give answers within a day or two. Please 
remember, too, that the great Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa is only a few miles 
away, and, by order of the Trustees of the Grand Lodge, the Grand Secretary places it 
at our disposal on any query raised by any member of the Society. 


FURTHER INFORMATION 



The foregoing information should enable local Committees to conduct their Lodge 
study meetings with success. However, we shall welcome all inquiries and 
communications from interested Brethren concerning any phase of the plan that is not 
entirely clear to them, and the services of our Study Club Department are at the 
command of our members, Lodge and Study Club Committees at all times. 


QUESTIONS ON "THE LIGHTS" 


I Why do you suppose that the old operative Masons made use of the "shock" in their 
ceremonies ? What is your theory as to why they used it at the time of the candidate's 
entrance ? Why should the "shock of enlightenment" be retained in our ritual ? Can 
you think of some analogous ceremony used in every day life? Is our custom of firing 
a volley over the grave of a soldier, or while raising or lowering the flag like the 
"shock" as used in our ritual ? How did the "shock" affect you during your initiation? 


II Of what is the hoodwink a symbol ? Was it used in ancient fraternities ? In the 
Ancient Mysteries, for example ? If so, why do you think they used it ? What does the 
removal of the hoodwink signify? Why is it removed just when it is? Why is it not left 
on until the end of the work in each degree? When is the school-boy's hoodwink of 
ignorance removed ? Are you wearing any mental hoodwinks? If so, how can you get 
them off? Do men wear political, religious, social hoodwinks? 


ITT What is the meaning of "Light" in Masonry ? Are there any other Lights in 
Masonry aside from the (Greater and the Lesser? What are the Great Lights in 
politics? In business? How does a man or a nation find "a place in the sun" ? 


IV Why is the Holy Bible called the V. S. L. ? To what extent are the materials in our 
ritual drawn from it? In what sense is the Bible true ? What constitutes its "unity" ? 
How many books in it? Can you tell how these books came to be gathered together ? 
Can you tell the difference between the canon (or "collection") of books used as the 



Bible by the Greek Catholics, the Roman Catholics, and the Protestants ? What is 
inspiration ? In what way is the Bible inspired ? 


What does "infallible" mean ? Is the Bible infallible as history ? As a book of 
science ? In what way is it infallible ? If it is infallible in any manner at all how can 
we prove it? How can its teachings be verified? How are scientific teachings verified ? 


Of what is the Bible a symbol ? What are the sacred hooks of other races ? When, and 
for what reason, can those books be substituted for the Bible on a Masonic altar ? In 
what manner can other sacred books serve as a symbol of that of which the V. S. L. is 
the symbol? 


V In how many ways is the Square used in our ritual ? Describe the Square as it is 
used Masonically. Why did early peoples think that the earth was cubical or square- 
shape ? How did the Square come to have its present significance ? What is the Great 
Light of which it is a symbol? Why do we say of an honest man "that he is square" ? 
What do we mean by "the square deal" ? Why do we say that a dishonest man is 
"crooked"? Is dishonesty ever justifiable? Is a dishonest man like one who walks in 
the dark? Why? 


VI Why did ancient peoples believe the heavens to be circular? What did the 
Compasses signify to them ? What do they signify to us ? Do you believe that there is 
a divine element in you ? Is there a divine element in a murderer ? How can we 
discover the divine in others and in ourselves ? How can we leam to let it rule us ? 
Explain the various positions of the Compasses with relationship to the Square, and 
explain the reason for this. 


VII Who were the Hermeticists ? How did their symbols come to be adopted by early 
Masons ? Are the Hermeticists still in existence ? Why is the sun an emblem of the 
male element in nature ? The moon an emblem of the female ? Can you name some 
noted modern man in whom the masculine predominates? In whom the feminine ? 
What is meant by "balance" in life ? Why do you call some men "unbalanced" ? What 



are the penalties of being unbalanced? Is a fanatic unbalanced? If so why? Who is the 
masterful man ? How does he become masterful ? In what way is he a more valuable 
member of society ? How does Masonry help us to become masterful ? Has it really 
helped you ? 


SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES 


The articles in this issue, "The Three Lesser Lights," by Brother Taylor, and "The 
Symbolic Lights," by Brother Atchison, should, if time will permit, be read at the 
September study meeting before Brother Haywood's paper is taken up. The reading of 
them will prepare the brethren present for a more intelligent discussion of the subject 
when the section in the study paper concerning the Lesser Lights is reached. 


THE BUILDER: 


Bible in Masonry, The, vol. 1, p. 254; Great Light Symbolism, (poem), vol. II, p. 273. 


Mackey's Encyclopedia. 


Bible, p. 104; Compasses, p. 173; Fixed Lights, p. 267; Lesser Lights, p. 442; Light, 
p. 446; Lights, Greater, p. 447; Square, p. 708; Square and Compasses, p. 709. 


FIRST STEPS 


BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA, 



PART VIII- THE LIGHTS 


THE Shock of Enlightenment. In very early Masonic initiations it seems that the 
shock, or battery, was employed twice during the initiatory ceremonies; once while 
the candidate made his entrance and again at the time that his hoodwink was removed. 
Why the use of the shock in the former instance has been dropped we do not know, 
but we may be glad that it has been retained in the latter connection because it most 
certainly adds to the impressiveness of the ceremony when the candidate is brought 
from darkness to light. Moreover it enables the brethren to participate as well as the 
Wardens, and it seems to emphasize the importance of the removal of the hoodwink: 
whether or not it had some symbolic meaning of its own among early Masons we 
have not learned. 


II Removal of Hoodwink. The hoodwink, all the way through, is a symbol: its purpose 
is not to hide from the candidate what is going on, but to remind him that until the 
lodge grants him light he still walks in Masonic darkness. It signifies the inner 
darkness of the uninitiated: not a darkness of bodily vision but an unillumined state of 
the mind: the candidate has not yet found the Masonic wisdom which lights the path 
of life. When the hoodwink is removed it is not merely that he may see the Great 
Lights but to symbolize the fact that his mind is now to be opened to that of which the 
Great Lights are the symbols. The removal is as if the lodge said to him, "Open now 
your mind, even as you have opened your eyes, and you will see that which will light 
your way through life henceforward." 


ITT The Great Lights. We must remember that when the Great Lights are disclosed to 
the candidate they are not to be considered as things in themselves but as symbols, 
and it is that which they symbolize that is the real illumination of the Masonic 
pathway. What are the mental, or spiritual realities, of which the V. S. L., the Square, 
and the Compasses are the symbols? 


IV The V. S. L. In American Masonry no lodge can receive or initiate candidates 
except while the Book lies upon its altar. So much of the material of our ritual is 
drawn from the Holy Bible that students have traced to it more than seventy-five 
references; almost every name used throughout the ceremonies are drawn from it, and 



the teachings of the Craft are built upon it as a house is built upon the ground: for this 
we may all be very grateful because, in spite of all that critics and skeptics have said, 
the volume remains the most remarkable book in existence. A library of sixty-six 
books of the most diverse character, and drawn from many peoples and conditions, 
there is all through it a marvelous unity, as if its hundreds of chapters had been strung, 
like pearls, on one golden wire. For two thousand years it has remained as fresh and 
new as when written, and today it is being printed in more than five hundred 
languages or dialects. To make such an appeal, to manifest such a life, it must, in 
some real sense, be inspired; and not only inspired but inspiring, fol there is no other 
writing which so stirs the depths of our souls. As Coleridge said, "It speaks to the 
deeps in us." 


Masonry does not attempt to define its inspiration, least of all to formulate any dogma 
as to its infallibility: but it may be noted, in this present connection, that for strictly 
Masonic puiposes it is really infallible, if we will carefully note the accurate meaning 
of that abused term. "Infallible" means "that which will not fall down, that which will 
not fail." The Bible makes no claim to be a text-book on history or on science but 
offers itself as a revelation to us of the Mind and Will of God and when so used it will 
never fail us, as millions could testify, millions, even, of Masons, for the Book has 
been one of our Great Lights these many centuries. 


Nevertheless, to Masons the Book is after all a symbol of something that lies behind 
the Book. It stands for the Mind of God as we have come to know that Mind, and it is 
this Mind which is our real guide. If Masons in other lands find that Mind revealed to 
them in some other book we are contented to permit them to substitute their own 
sacred book for ours, as when Jewish lodges use the Old Testament, Mohammedans 
use the Koran, Hindus the Bhagavad-Gita or the Vedas, or when Parsees use the 
Zend-Avesta. The point is that no lodge is properly furnished unless it have to its altar 
some book to symbolize the Faith which is the guide and rule of the life Masonic. 


In placing the V. S. L. upon its altar the lodge says, in effect, "In this dark world, 
where every pathway lies in shadow, your feeble human mind cannot guide you to 
your goal; you need the assistance of the Mind that made the world, and that Mind 
will be revealed to you if you seek to have it. While following that Kindly Light you 
will not go astray, even in your attempt to thread the labyrinth of this existence where 
the wisest is as a child that cries in the dark, and with no language but a cry." In sum, 



we may say that the Mind and Will of God, as we know it, is the first Great Light of 
Masonry, and that the V. S. L. is the symbol thereof. 


V The Square. In the Blue Lodge ritual the Square has three distinct and separate uses. 
It serves as an emblem of the Worshipful Master, as a working tool of the Fellow 
Craft, and as one of the Great Lights; it is important that its symbolism in the last 
named connection should not be confused with its other symbolical puiposes. 


Primitive people thought of the earth as being a kind of oblong square or cube: in 
consequence thereof all emblems of square shape were thought to have some 
reference to the earth, and since the try- square was used to measure angles it was held 
to be a symbol of that which is mundane or earthly, as opposed to the Divine. But as it 
was used to prove that angles were right it came to have the further significance of a 
true character, a character in conformity with righteousness. Such seems to be its 
meaning when used as one of our Great Lights: it symbolizes our right earthly 
relationships; in other words, our relationships with our fellows. 


Consequently, in placing the Square before the candidate it is as if the lodge said to 
him, "Here is another guide for you to use throughout your earthly pilgrimage: deal 
with your fellows squarely; do to them as you would that they should do to you. Any 
other conduct brings us into social and moral darkness." A perfected earthly nature, 
that is the thing of which the Square is the symbol. 


VI The Compasses. In this connection we must again remember that the present 
symbol is elsewhere used in the initiatory ceremony; much confusion will be avoided 
if this is kept in mind. The people of old days, as has already been said, thought of the 
earth as square shape: by token of the same reasoning they thought of the skies, or the 
heavens, as being circular. Was not the sky itself a dome? Did not the stars and 
planets move in curved tracks ? Was not an astronomical chart an assemblage of 
curves and spirals ? By an inevitable association of ideas the compasses, which were 
used to test or to draw circles and spirals, came to stand for the heavenly in man, the 
divine. Such has been the significance of the compasses in many forms of ceremonies, 
and such remains its meaning when used as one of our Great Lights. 



In other words, there is in each of us a spark, or echo, of the divine, one may call it 
what he will: at least there is a capacity for communing with the divine, else all 
religions are utterly vain. Accordingly, our symbolism says to us that the God-like 
elements in our nature constitute another guiding principle in life, and that if we will 
always yield ourselves to such Goodness, Truth and Beauty as is given us to know we 
will be safely led through life. 


It may be noted just here that in the First degree the compasses are placed in a certain 
position relative to the Square, that they are changed in the Second degree, and still 
again in the Third. A careful study of these three positions will disclose to us a 
beautiful symbolism of progress in the Masonic life. In the first degree the candidate's 
divine nature is supposed to lie entirely underneath his earthly self; in the Second, 
which stands midway in the Masonic life, the divine nature is partly disengaged from 
the earthly; in the last degree the divine nature is in the ascendant, and properly keeps 
the earthly beneath itself. 


VII The Lesser Lights. The Sun, Moon and Master compose a symbolism which we 
have received from the Hermeticists, a group of occultists very influential in Europe 
two or three hundred years ago. Some scholars have sought to trace this symbolism to 
another source but the balance of evidence is in favor of the Hermeticists. 


The Sun. According to the Hermeticists the Sun, which hurls out light and heat from 
itself, is the emblem of the active, or male element in nature: that this was not very 
far-fetched is proved by the fact that we still commonly speak of the sun as "he" or 
"him." 


The Moon. By virtue of a similar reasoning the Hermeticists made the moon to stand 
for the passive, or female, element in nature: and here again the interpretation is in 
harmony with our customary practices because we all speak of the moon as "she" or 
"her." This is appropriate because the moon emits no light of her own but merely 
reflects such light as she receives from the sun. 



The Master. In our Masonic usage we make this refer to the Master of the lodge, not 
as an actual officer, but in a symbolical sense: the Master is to us the type of the 
perfect, the masterful man, the complete man. Again, we may note that this is in 
consonance with the Hermeticists for their "Master" typified the same thing. Who is 
the masterful man? According to this symbolism he is the one in whom the male and 
the female are symmetrically blended. Nietzsche, to give an example, was all for 
masculinity: he taught that the more womanly virtues are weak signs of degeneration: 
if we were all like Nietzsche, or like Nietzsche's ideal of a man, the world would be 
peopled with blond beasts. John Woolman, on the other hand, was so feminine that he 
wept over the death of a robin which he killed as a boy; if the world were peopled 
with Woolmans it may be feared that the human race would become ill- fitted to 
wrestle with the hard gray realities of life. The ideal man, the Master, is one in whom 
the male and the female, the active and the passive, the gentle and the aggressive, are 
balanced. Such was Homs, in the old Egyptian mythology, who combined the 
masculinity of Osiris with the femininity of Isis: such was Jesus in real life, of whom 
Tennyson justly says that he was "man-woman." 


Thus it is that the Three Lesser Lights teach us the old doctrine of balance, while the 
Lesser and Greater Lights as a whole teach us the ideal of the symmetrical life: when, 
through our knowledge of the Mind and Will of the S.G.A.O.T.U., we leam to perfect 
our earthly nature by giving to the divine in us its proper sovereignty; and when, 
again, these elements of life are kept in poise, neither one over-riding the other, we 
have reached the Masonic ideal of life as disclosed to us in this wonderful symbolism 
of the Lights. 




THE SYMBOLIC LIGHTS BY BRO. WIDLEY E. ATCHISON, ASST 
SECRETARY 


"A lodge has three symbolic lights; one of these in the East, one in the West, and one 
in the South. There is no light in the North, because King Solomon's Temple, of 



which every lodge is a representation, was situated so far north of the ecliptic, that the 
sun and moon, at their meridian height, could dart no rays into the northern part 
thereof. The North, therefore, we Masonically term a place of darkness."— Monitor. 


THE WRITER must confess to preconceived ideas of his own in regard to the location 
in the lodge-room of the "representatives of the Three Lesser Lights"; ideas which to 
his mind, were well-founded. But the present investigation of the subject reveals a 
wide divergence of opinion, and has convinced him that a surprising number of other 
brethren are possessed of conceptions widely at variance with his. 


Nothing more or less than "custom" or "convenience" seems to govern the location of 
these symbolic lights in many varied positions in the different Grand Jurisdictions of 
America. In at least one jurisdiction the ritual does not specifically require that they 
shall be placed in a triangular form "about the altar" but "about the lodge." Hence in 
that particular jurisdiction it would be perfectly proper to place them singly or in a 
group north, south, east or west of the altar, or even in any part of the lodge-room 
distant from the altar. 


The custom of grouping the symbolic lights in triangular form about the altar does not 
prevail, so far as we are able to leam, in Great Britain and other European countries. 
In England and Scotland in particular they are placed at the stations of the Master and 
Wardens. One theory of this custom (1) is given as follows: 


The medieval lodge was a frame building, constructed of planks, and erected close to 
the spot where a church or other religious edifice was in process of building. It had 
three main windows— one in the East, one in the West, and one in the South. There 
was none in the North, because the lodge was always built on the southern side of the 
church and close to it on account of the advantages of light and warmth presented by a 
southern aspect. Hence a window in the North would have been useless. These 
windows were termed by the craft the "three great lights", the words lichter, light, and 
windows being synonymous. We find in Vetruvious and in cicero the word lumina, or 
lights, used to denote windows. 



These windows are always represented on the early tracing boards and are distinctly 
alluded to in our old rituals of 1725 and 1730. In the latter they are termed "fixed 
lights", their uses being to "light the men to, at and from their work"; and in a note it 
is expressly stated that these fixed lights "are three windows supposed to be in every 
room where a lodge is held." 


At these three windows were seated the Master and his two Wardens; the Fellowcrafts 
had their appropriate positions, and the Apprentices were placed in the North as they 
required less light than the more skillful and advanced Fellowcrafts. The ritual of 
1730 alludes to this fact and places the Junior Entered Apprentice in the North, his 
business being "to keep off all cowans and eavesdroppers." This is explained by the 
fact that the narrow space between the northern wall of the lodge and the southern 
wall of the church would form a convenient hiding place for cowans and 
eavesdroppers, and hence the duty of the Junior Entered Apprentice. On the Master's 
table at the east window were placed the Bible, Square and Compasses; the former as 
a token of devoutness and the latter, not merely as the peculiar implements of the 
Master, but also a sign or mark of the Fraternity. 


The Craftsmen while busied at their labors well knew that they received the light 
necessary for their work from the three great windows in the East, South and West; 
but they also knew that an inward, or mental light was even more necessary, and 
without it they could not properly complete their task. As expressive symbols of that 
mental light, they accepted the implements of the Master and the sacred Book which 
were displayed on the table; for the Bible was given to them as the rule and guide of 
their faith and practice; the Square was an ancient symbol of the law, hence among the 
Greeks and Romans the expression kanon or gnomon tuo nomon and norma legis; and 
the compasses was an appropriate emblem of that fraternal conduct which should 
characterize their dealings with all mankind, and more especially within their own 
circles. These three Great Lights thus inculcated a knowledge of God, of themselves 
and of mankind. 


The three lesser lights of Masonry are derived from the same source. The actual work 
of the Masons was performed during the hours of daylight. When, however, the 
brethren met for social enjoyment or business at night, artificial or candle light 
became necessary. The officers retained their usual positions and before each was 



placed a candle. These three candles were now termed "the lesser lights," and the idea 
of the sun, moon and Master was connected with them. 


In the ritual of 1736 the three lesser lights are described as "three large candles placed 
on high candlesticks; they represent the sun, moon, and Master Mason." When in the 
course of time the practice was introduced of holding lodges in taverns, or ordinary- 
houses, the three great windows disappeared but the three candles were retained. The 
oblong square formerly represented by the lodge itself could no longer be properly 
represented, either in form or situation, by the meeting- room of an ordinary-house, 
and its place was supplied by the "drawing upon the floor," consisting of an oblong 
square drawn with chalk and charcoal. The places of the officers were removed from 
the walls to the interior of the drawing, while the rest of the brethren stood around. 


Subsequently this custom was again changed and the places of the officers and 
candles were removed outside of the drawing. Again, in later times, for the purpose of 
convenience, the oblong square was painted upon a movable carpet or tapis and when 
this custom had once been adopted it soon led to the introduction of more and more 
emblems upon the caipet until the original symbolism of the latter was entirely lost. In 
America the use of the caipet has been totally discontinued, its place being taken by 
the altar which was formerly the Master's table, and which has been transferred from 
the East to the center of the lodge. 


Sun-worship played a prominent part in the religion of the ancients and was 
introduced into the mysteries, says Mackey, (2) not as a material idolatry, but as a 
means of expressing an idea of restoration to life from death, drawn from the daily 
reappearance in the East of the solar orb after its nightly disappearance in the West. 
The Gnostics derived many of their symbols from the Mithraic initiations, in which 
sun-worship played an important part. These again exercised their influence upon the 
medieval Freemasons. Thus it is that the Sun has become so prominent in the Masonic 
system; not as an object of worship, but purely as a symbol, the interpretation of 
which is presented in many different ways. As the source of material light the sun 
reminds the Mason of that intellectual light of which he is in constant search. But it is 
especially as the ruler of the day, giving to it a beginning and end, and a regular 
course of hours, that the sun is presented as a Masonic symbol. Hence, of the three 
lesser lights, we are told that one represents or symbolizes the sun, one the moon, and 
one the Master of the lodge, because as the sun rules the day and the moon governs 



the night, so should the Worshipful Master rule and govern his lodge with equal 
regularity. And this is in strict analogy with other Masonic symbolism. For if the 
lodge is a symbol of the world, which is thus governed in its changes of times and 
seasons by the sun, it is evident that the Master who governs the lodge, controlling its 
time of opening and closing, and the work which it should do, must be symbolized by 
the sun. 


"The sun is the symbol of sovereignty, the hieroglyphic of royalty; it doth signify 
absolute authority," says Gwillim. 


This representation of the sun as a symbol of authority, while it explains the reference 
to the Master, enables us to amplify its meaning and apply it to the three sources of 
authority in the lodge, and accounts for the respective positions of the officers 
wielding this authority. The Master, therefore, in the East is a symbol of the rising 
sun; the Junior Warden in the South, of the meridian sun; and the Senior Warden in 
the West, of the setting sun. 


In the ceremonies attendant upon the lighting and extinguishing of the three symbolic 
lights, why should we not carry out this reference to the sun's daily journey, as we do 
in our rite of circumambulation ? In fact, this is done in one Grand Jurisdiction, and 
possibly in others, by the officers of the lodge whose duty it is to attend to these 
matters. In lighting the lights the one in the East is attended to first, followed 
respectively by those in the South and West, thus symbolizing the opening of the day. 
In extinguishing the lights at the close of Masonic labors, the same detail is carried 
out, significant of the growing darkness first apparent in the East, thence in the South 
and West. 


Compare this practice with the custom obtaining in many jurisdictions of simply 
snapping a button to light or extinguish the electric lights all at the same instant. 



Manifestly this ceremonial cannot be carried out by the use of electrical substitutes, 
especially where the three "imitation" candles are all on one circuit, and therefore in 
lodges where such substitution is permitted, this symbolism would be lost. 


But why should we not abolish the substitutes? Our predecessors in the days before 
electric lights were available got along very well with their actual "burning tapers", or 
candles. 


The general excuse offered for the employment of the electric imitation is that the 
tallow or paraffine candle is "mussy"; that the drippings fall to the floor, and in warm 
weather the candles, after burning a short time, become softened and have a tendency 
to curve from an upright position. Such troubles may be easily overcome by the use of 
an ingenious contrivance consisting of a hollow metal tube, white enameled, in which 
the candle is inserted from the bottom leaving only the wick protruding at the top. The 
tube is longer than the candle, and after the candle has been inserted the tube is placed 
over the top of the candlestick. As the candle is consumed by the flame at the top, the 
weight of the tube is such that it slides down over the top of the candlestick and the 
candle is forced upward in the tube as it is consumed, leaving the wick always just 
above the top of the upper opening. There are no drippings to fall to the floor, and 
since the body of the candle is contained within the tube it cannot therefore become 
bent out of its upright position. 


In his report for 1916, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Correspondence of 
the Grand Lodge of Colorado, Brother Lawrence N. Greenleaf raised a question 
concerning the "Symbolism of the Burning Taper," with especial emphasis on the 
"burning". Another studious brother of the "Gild of Fraternal Correspondents" 
thereupon began an investigation the result of which gives us some pertinent facts 
relative to the matter. He says: (4) 


This correspondent has not thus far found the leisure to look up the symbolism of 
candles in religious worship, but the study of their use is quite a simple matter. They 
were so used prior to the Christian era, for the elder Pliny, who flourished in the first 
century of that era, tells us in his Natural History that the Romans employed them at 
funerals, making them out of different kinds of rushes. The rush formed the wick and 



was probably drawn through melted wax or grease, something after the manner of the 
old rush-lights. 


The extensive use of candles or tapers in the ritual of the Roman Catholic church is 
well known. The second of February is known as Candlemas Day (candle mass) and 
on that day, there is a blessing of candles by the clergy and a distribution of them to 
the people, by whom they are in some churches lighted and carried in procession. 
Candlemas Day is also observed by Catholics as the festival of the Purification of the 
virgin Mary, and hence some writers have supposed the candle bearing on that day to 
refer to simeon's words: "a light to lighten the Gentiles." 


It would be interesting, as Brother Greenleaf remarks, to know whether there is any 
symbolism in a burning taper with special emphasis on "burning". Years ago it was 
customary to mark divisions of time by the burning of certain makes of candles down 
to certain marks left on them. In England, prior to the Reformation, a meaning was 
attached to the size of candles and the manner in which they burned during the 
procession. The reserved portions of the candle were also supposed by the populace to 
possess a strong supernatural virture, Thus we find in Bamaby George's translation of 
Naogeorgus in the "Popish Kingdom," as printed in Ellis' edition of Brand's "Popular 
Antiquities," these lines: 


This done, each man his candles lights, Where chiefest seemeth he Whose taper 
greatest may be seen And fortunate to be Whose candle burneth clear and bright; A 
wondrous force and might Doth in these candles lie, which if At any time they light 
They sure believe that neither storm Nor tempest doth abide. Nor thunder in the skies 
be heard Nor any devils spied Nor fearful spirits that walk by night, Nor hurts or frost 
or hail, etc. 


It is, of course, possible to imagine a certain amount of symbology for burning 
candles in the lodge. They may represent the light of truth, the torch of knowledge or 
the light referred to in the second verse of the last chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. 
Though truth is unchanged and unchangeable, our knowledge of it here can only be 
"in part," and consequently "more light," both in Masonry and in every department of 
Knowledge should be our constant aim. The taper burning more or less slowly, but 



always surely towards its inevitable end and formerly employed, as we have seen, to 
mark the passage of time, may be considered as fitly representing the light referred to 
by the wise man in his injunction to "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy 
youth, while ... the light ... be not darkened." * * * 


In regard to the substitution of gas or electric light for candles, it may or may not be of 
interest to Brother Greenleaf and others, to know that the Roman Catholic church, 
which uses candles so much in its ritual, does not tolerate the substitution for them of 
more modem forms of artificial lights, either in the case of the essential lights on its 
altars or in that of the tapers employed around the catafalque at funerals. Extra 
illumination is now made by means of electricity in many churches, even about the 
altars, but never in the case of the essential altar lights. 


An interesting history of the use of candles in the Roman Catholic ritual, with an 
account of their symbolism to members of that church, has been kindly furnished to 
the writer, in answer to his inquiries, by a learned theologian who is both a Doctor and 
a Professor of Divinity, and is, therefore, an authority upon the subject whereof he 
speaks. May it not be that the original employment of candles in Freemasonry was 
necessitated, as in the case of the Roman Catholic church, by the darkness of the 
subterranean or other concealed quarters, in which its votaries found it necessary in 
the Dark Ages to hold their assemblies, and that the use of them has been peipetuated, 
not only as a symbol of human progress from the darkness of ignorance to the 
increasing Light that comes with the pursuit of Knowledge, and Freemasonry's 
constant aim to contribute to this upward progress of the race, but also— as in the case 
of the church in question— because of the early associations connected therewith. 


The information which has come to us from the source above referred to, reads as 
follows: 


"Lights have always been connected with sacrifice and the worship of God. We find 
that a light, of purest olive oil, was ever to bum in the Tabernacle of the Old 
Testament, vide Exod. xxvii., 20-21. This would suffice to explain the presence of 
lights in the sacrifice of the New Testament. But there is to be added the necessity of 
using them in the early church. Christianity was prescribed for centuries and in the 



great centres of the Roman Empire, chiefly in Rome, it had no right to existence, and 
had to take refuge in the catacombs. There the Christians met, in the bowels of the 
earth, for the celebration of mass, the reception of the sacraments, and instructions in 
the faith. Lights were consequently an absolute necessity in that subterranean refuge. 
This association of lights with mass and sacraments was too dear to the Church not to 
endure after she came to her place under the light of day, and was free to take it under 
God's open sky. Lights therefore, became a ritual obligation, and the faithful who had 
seen them used in the catacombs, expected to find them in the churches at mass and 
all the liturgical ceremonies. In these countries, olive oil was used— naturally— being 
the common oil that served for lighting purposes. And, of course, it was pure oil, as 
God's worship required the best, and forbade admixture of foreign and less worthy 
elements. Candles were not used on the altars for many centuries after. They were 
carried by the acolytes, etc., and placed about the altar steps, but not on the altar. 
Lamps were hung about and around the altar, filled with pure olive oil. But candles 
used at mass were of beeswax, and for the same reasons, viz., facility of obtaining the 
material, rejection of mixture with baser compounds, these candles were of pure wax. 
When later the candles were placed on the altars as today, these candles of pure 
beeswax were required. The mind of the church has always been that what is best and 
purest should be used in God's service. Hence, she prescribed pure beeswax for the 
candles. This is a matter of legislation. There are formal and clear rules on this point. 


" 1 . The candles must be beeswax, vide, for instance, Decision of Congregation of 
Rites, Sept. 4, 1875. 


"2. These candles are prescribed for mass and for the administration of the 
sacraments. The two candles lighted at low mass, and the six at high mass, must be of 
beeswax. As also, the Paschal candle. 


"3. Other candles used for ornament, for devotional puiposes, are not included in this 
mling. Lamps of oil may be used upon the altar, but when mass is said, there must be 
two candles of beeswax. 


"4. Owing to climatic and economic reasons, in countries far removed from the basin 
of the Mediterranean, allowances have been made, and an admixture is permitted. Lor 



candles used during mass on the altar, the beeswax must be in greatest proportion; as 
for the Paschal candle, too. The other candles, in greater part, or in notable part of 
beeswax. Vide Cong, of Rites, Dec. 14, 1904. These regulations were formal and 
binding. 


"As to the symbolism of candles, we must recall the use in the Old Testament, and its 
perpetuation in the New. 


"Sacrifice means the destruction of a victim in expiation of sin. Man substitutes a 
victim in his own stead, and offers it in his own place. These victims were not only 
animals, as in the Old Temple, but also other things, as lights (oil), incense, wine 
poured out, etc. 


"Just as the victims, animals, etc., should be without defect for God's worship 
demands what is best, so the other things offered should be unadultered. 
Consequently, its was pure olive oil that was prescribed in Exod. 20, and pure oil and 
pure beeswax should enter into the sacrificial worship of the New Testament. All the 
sacrifices of the Old Testament were merely the shadow of the Sacrifice of the Cross 
and of the mass, which is its continuation. So that the idea of purity of the material is 
inherent to the sacrificial use. 


"The use of electric lights is forbidden when they would replace the candles at mass or 
in the administration of the sacraments, or in benediction. They may be used about the 
altar, for illumination, or ornament. A recent ruling from Rome forbade their use upon 
the altar for these puiposes. All the bishops have not yet promulgated this ruling, and 
until a bishop of a diocese does so, it does not come into effect. Hence, some 
differences in the use of electric lights upon or about the altar." 


ft should not, we feel, be necessary to offer any apology to any of our brethren, 
whatever their religious faith, for printing the above exactly as we have received it. To 
those members of the Fraternity who are accustomed to the use of the lights so kindly 
and so interestingly described above in their own places of worship, and to many 



more of us who delight in the study of ancient symbology, there is much therein that 
is particularly striking and instructive. Others will understand, that for Masons in 
general, any of the symbolism of the last nineteen hundred years to which reference is 
made in the above contribution is mainly interesting as affording to students of our 
rituals the opportunity of judging to what extent, if any, our use of candles is 
connected with that employed in the Roman Catholic church, and what reasons exist, 
if any, against changing them for electrically lighted imitation candles, especially in 
view of the fact that such proposed change has met with strenuous adverse criticism in 
the United states. With this explanation, we believe ourselves justified in printing the 
above information just as it has reached us, and in thus contributing to cast upon this 
"burning" question, all the "light" at our disposal . 


ARRANGEMENT OF LIGHTS WITH REFERENCE TO ALTAR IN AMERICAN 
AND CANADIAN JURISDICTIONS 


In the following diagrams showing the manner of arranging the symbolic lights in the 
various Grand Jurisdictions, it will be noted that in every instance the arrangement is 
in triangular form- -some states adopting the right-angled triangle and others the 
equilateral — ; the triangle being universally recognized as a symbol of Deity. 


To the Mason who has never visited lodges outside of his own jurisdiction a 
comparison of the location of the symbolic lights in other jurisdictions should prove 
interesting. A letter sent out from the Secretary's office to every Grand Secretary in 
the United States and Canada resulted in the receipt of diagrams showing the 
arrangement of the lights in nearly every Grand Jurisdiction, and eleven different 
plans are here exhibited. 


Figure 1. Right angled triangle, apex at northwest. Lights at northeast, southwest and 
northwest comers of altar. 


Adopted in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. 



Figure 2. Right-angled triangle, apex at southeast. Lights at northeast, southeast and 
southwest comers of altar. 


Adopted in Connecticut, South Dakota and Virginia. 


Connecticut. Some lodges in this jurisdiction group them in triangular form directly 
south of altar, as in Figure 5. 


South Dakota. Several lodges use electric lights on a single-base standard having three 
branches for the lights, placing them at the northeast comer of the altar. 


Figure 3. Right angled triangle, apex at southwest. Lights at southeast, southwest and 
northwest comers of altar. 


Adopted in Georgia. 


Figure 4. Equilateral triangle, apex at south. Lights centered directly east, south and 
west of altar. 


Adopted in Arkansas. 


Figure 5. Equilateral triangle, apex at south. All lights grouped on south side of altar. 



Adopted in Arizona, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, 
Nebraska, Missouri, Nevada, Nova Scotia, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 


British Columbia. Canadian and American working lodges follow no fixed rule, some 
placing the lights in this position, and others in the form shown in Figure 7. English 
working lodges follow the English custom of placing them at the stations of the three 
principal officers. 


California. Placed in this form "for convenience." 


Idaho. This plan is general, but there is no fixed rule. 


Kentucky. No uniform rule, but the general practice is to place them in this form. 
Personal reasons of Grand Secretary Jackson given as "because there was no light in 
the North. In triangular shape so as to diffuse greater light to aid reading the Great 
Light." 


Louisiana. Prior to ten years ago the lights were arranged around the three sides of the 
altar farthest from the north side of the lodge room and the explanation was then given 
as "three burning tapers arranged in a triangular form around the altar." After that time 
the verbiage of the description was changed to "three burning tapers arranged in a 
triangular form about the altar," and the lights were then placed on the south side. 


Montana. This form was adopted by the Grand Lodge some twenty years ago on the 
ground that the majority of Grand Lodges so placed them. 


Missouri. Placed in this position because the south is "the place of the sun at its 
meridian height," and "a place of light." 



Nevada. This custom established "by precedent." 


Texas. This form is generally used because the lights are grouped on a standard 
having a single base, with three prongs for the lights. Some lodges use individual 
candlesticks and arrange them otherwise. 


Utah. The conclusion of Grand Secretary McCarty, who consulted several Past Grand 
Officers in the matter, is that when the first Utah lodges were established the brethren 
instrumental in organizing them followed the custom prevailing in their mother 
jurisdictions and that the practice eventually became an "unwritten law" or custom of 
the Grand Jurisdiction of Utah. 


Figure 6. Equilateral triangle, apex at north. All lights grouped on north side of altar. 


Adopted in Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota. 


Iowa. This form is the general custom in this jurisdiction, although the ritual simply 
says the lights are to be placed in a triangular form "about the lodge. Hence it would 
be perfectly proper to place them in a triangular form in any other part of the lodge, 
near or distant from the altar, or even at the stations of the three principal officers 
similar to the English practice. 


Minnesota. At the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge in October, 1867, a 
committee of five was appointed, of which E. P. Barnum was chairman, to formulate 
the "work" for this Grand Jurisdiction and report at the next Annual Communication, 
which they did and exemplified the work before Grand Lodge, which adopted it as 
exemplified. In arranging the lights at the altar they decided to place them on the 
north, instead of the south side, as some of the lodge rooms in those early days were 



so narrow that it was not practical for the Senior Deacon and candidate to pass 
between the lights and the station of the Junior Warden. 


Figure 7. Equilateral triangle, apex at south. East and West lights opposite northeast 
and northwest corners, South light centered directly south of altar. 


Adopted in Colorado, British Columbia, Michigan, Ohio and Manitoba. 


Colorado. Brother W. W. Cooper, Grand Lecturer, says: 


"This method of placing the lights is probably based on local custom. No doubt the 
influence of Dr. Albert G. Mackey had much to do with the establishment of the 
custom, as he specifically recommends this arrangement in his Monitor, which was 
the standard in this jurisdiction for many years. 


"Dr. Mackey also resided temporarily in Colorado, and on one occasion, when visiting 
the Grand Lodge, addressed the Grand Lodge on the subject of the lights. 


"The use of the lights to form an equilateral triangle was also advocated by Albert 
Pike. 


"One reason for placing them in this manner is that the equilateral triangle is a great 
and ancient symbol of the deity. We cannot read or understand the Great Light 
without assistance which is furnished by the reason or intelligence which comes to us 
from God, who is symbolized by the equilateral triangle." 


British Columbia. See reference under explanation of Figure 5. 



Michigan. This is considered the best plan to represent the East, South and West. 


Ohio. Thus located to interpret the ritual. 


Manitoba. American working lodges place the lights in this position. They are not 
lighted in the second and third degrees. 


Figure 8. Equilateral triangle, apex at south. East and West lights on a direct line with 
the north side of altar; South light centered directly south of altar. 


Adopted in District of Columbia. 


Figure 9. Equilateral triangle, apex at south. East and West lights on a direct line with 
the south side of altar; South light centered directly south of altar. 


Adopted in Indiana. 


Grand Secretary Prather says this arrangement was advocated by Brother Rob Morris 
and so taught in the Indiana Monitor. 


Figure 10. Equilateral triangle, apex at east. Grouped north and east of altar. 


Adopted in Massachusetts. 



Some lodges in this jurisdiction follow the English custom of placing the lights at the 
Master's and Wardens' stations. 


A cut of the lodge room in the Masonic Temple at Cristobal, Canal Zone, (under 
jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts,) shows the lights arranged as in 
Figure 7. 


Figure 11. Equilateral triangle, apex at west. Grouped directly east of altar. 


Adopted in Maryland. 


Grand Lecturer Seipp describes this triangular arrangement as symbolic of Deity and 
perfection, which is the moral, mental and spiritual aim of the candidate in the three 
degrees. 


(1) Freemasons Magazine, vol. XXIV, p. 340. 


While we cannot vouch for the authenticity of this explanation of the origin of the 
lesser lights, perhaps some of our English or Scotch brethren or other members of the 
Society who may have access to the rituals of 1725, 1730 and 1736, may be able to 
confirm the allusions. 


Fort, in his "Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry," p. 294, states that this 
theory of the windows was advanced by Krause, but he (Fort) discredits it, saying that 
the assumption is unquestionably incorrect, and lacks the essential elements, as 
usually elucidated, of symbolism. However, MacBride, in his "Speculative 
Freemasonry," p. 74, refers to the lights as "three windows." 



(2) Mackey's Encyclopedia, 1917 edition, p. 737. 

(3) Idem, p. 736. 

(4) Kentucky Masonic Home Journal, January 1, 1917. 


We regret our inability to give the name of the brother who made this investigation, 
since it was not appended to the article. If some member of the Society can enlighten 
us as to the authorship we shall be glad to make proper acknowledgment in a future 
issue of THE BUILDER. 




THE THREE LESSER LIGHTS 


BY BRO. WILLIAM H. TAYLOR, P.G.M., PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 


IN all ages and among all peoples there have ever been two fundamental beliefs which 
have permeated-the body politic. The first is, that nature itself is subject to a constant 
struggle between two contending forces which continually strive for the supremacy. 

As day and night, light and darkness, good and evil. The other belief was that the soul 
is immortal. On these two beliefs were founded the ceremony of initiation depicted by 
the Mysteries of the various nations. 


Masonry as the logical descendent of these Ancient Mysteries likewise seeks to 
impress upon its initiate of 'today, in' the strongest manner possible, its continued 
belief in these two great fundamental principles, which have come down to us from 
our forefathers of long ago. Therefore do we bring the initiate in Masonry from 
darkness to light and illustrate to him the Hiramic legend in the third degree. 



In all the Ancient Mysteries this struggle between light and darkness was typified by 
two deities, who in each case were a male and a female representing respectively the 
Sun and the Moon. 


In the Indian Mysteries these two deities were called Mahadeva and Bhavani; in the 
Persian, Mithras and Asis; in the Egyptian, Osiris and Isis. This same characteristic is 
also peculiar to the Phoenician, Phrygian, Grecian, Britain and Scandinavian systems 
of theology. 


In the Egyptian Mysteries Anubis shares in the honors which were paid to Osiris and 
Isis. He was the friend and counselor of Osiris and when Isis started out in her search 
for the body of Osiris she was accompanied and aided by Anubis, who took the shape 
of a dog and thus becomes sirius, The Dogstar, the brightest star in the heavens. 
Anubis is of peculiar interest to us, as Masons in that he was renowned among other 
characteristics as the inventor of astronomy and surveying and as the deity who first 
taught the worship of gods and the building of temples. 


In the Eleusian Mysteries, the temple in which the ceremonies were held was lighted 
by a hole or a window in the roof and the three great lights of nature, the Sun, the 
Moon and Mercury (the latter being the same as Anubis) played an exceedingly 
important part and were mystically represented by three images. 


It has ever been a custom on the rise of a new sect or institution for it to lay hold of 
that which was good in its predecessors and make it an integral part of itself, either on 
the one hand because it believed by so doing it would the more securely fasten its hold 
on its converts or on the other, because it desired to thus peipetuate its intimate 
connection with that which it had succeeded. From a study of the growth of the early 
Christian Church we know that to make the new religion more understandable to their 
new converts, the priests held their meetings in the same temples where the sacrifices 
had been made to the "pagan" divinities. They appropriated the statues of the 
"heathen" gods and sometimes by placing on them a new head and at other times even 
dispensing with this formality they transformed them into "Saints" of the Church. 



Among their new converts, especially, the priests continually found a tendency to 
revert to the worship of the gods. Particularly was this true in the case of Isis and her 
infant son Homs. After combating unsuccessfully with this tendency for several years 
the priests finally assimilated both the statue and the attributes which were associated 
with it. Thus Isis and her son Homs became the virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus 
whence comes the prominent place given to their worship in the Roman Catholic 
Church of today. 


As the church has thus unintentionally and unconsciously immortalized the mysteries 
no less has Masonry deliberately perpetuated the customs of our ancient brethren. The 
three great lights of nature, as we have said, which in the Ancient Mysteries were 
represented by images dedicated respectively to the Sun, the Moon and Mercury, have 
become the three lesser lights of a Masonic lodge, but how, when or where the 
substitution of the "Master of the Lodge" for "Mercury" crept in, it is impossible to 
trace. There seems to be about as much justification for it as there was for the addition 
by Jeremy Cross of the "Marble Monument" and its explanation as given in the lecture 
of the third degree. While the three lesser lights are to be found in all regular Masonic 
lodges there seems to be no fixed mle as to where they should be placed in the lodge. 


In some jurisdictions a light is placed at the station of the Master, one at that of the 
Senior Warden and one at that of the Junior Warden. 


There may be some justification for this arrangement but it would not be possible to 
adapt it to the "work" as it is now given in this and many other jurisdictions. 


In some lodges they are represented by a metal stand about three feet high with three 
arms branching out at the top. At the extremity of each arm is a light and these lights 
are in the form of an equilateral triangle. This metal stand is usually placed at the right 
of the altar as one faces the East. In other lodges the three lesser lights are grouped 
about the altar in the form of a right angle triangle; the base of the triangle parallel to 
the West, with the hypothenuse running from the South to the East to join up with the 
perpendicular in the East. 



The metal stand with its branching arms in the form of an equilateral triangle is 
emphatically incorrect. It is a product of an inventive age and a concession to 
cheapness and facility in installation which should never be tolerated save when a 
more expensive arrangement is inadvisable. 


The other grouping is the one used in this and many other jurisdictions. It is 
sanctioned by Albert Pike than whom there is no greater authority. He uses this 
arrangement in his liturgy for the first as well as in the thirty-second degree. 


This arrangement is justified too in that it is the natural position in which to place the 
triangle, could we but consider it as separate and apart from the necessity of avoiding 
the placing of a light in the North; in that the base, which here represents "Ignorance" 
is surpassed in potentiality by "Learning," represented by the perpendicular which is 
longer than the base as four is to three. This perpendicular runs from East to West 
which constantly reminds us of the belief of our ancient brethren that all learning has 
its origin in and proceeds from the East. 


This grouping, however, might be considered objectionable in that it places a light in 
the North directly opposite the one in the South. This is contrary both to the practices 
of the Ancient Mysteries as well as to teachings of modem Masonry. In the Ancient 
Mysteries the initiate in his circumambulations followed the course which our 
forefathers ascribed to the-sun in his daily travels. When the initiate reaches the East, 
it is here the Sun rises, at the South the Sun is at meridian height, while it is in the 
West that the Sun sets. From here until he reaches the East again the initiate is 
supposed to be traveling at night, or as we say in a place of darkness. For this reason 
modem Masonry has no light in the North and not for the stupid reason as given in 
our lecture in the first degree. 


The correct placing as depicted in all the ancient prints we have been able to find, 
fixes the lights about the altar in the form of a right-angled triangle but with the right 
angle at the South; the base runs from the East to the South, the hypothenuse mns 
from the East to the West with the perpendicular connecting the South with the West. 



Both methods represent the right angled triangle as we have it in the 47th Problem of 
Euclid. Its sides in the proportion of 3, 4 and 5 of which proportion 3 is the base, 4 the 
perpendicular, and 5 the hypothenuse. Its perpendicular represents the male, its base, 
the female, while the hypothenuse represents their progeny or the product of the two. 
Thus to the ancients did this right-angled triangle represent "Humanity." 


The light in the East is dedicated to the Master of the lodge, the one in the West to the 
sun and the one in the South to the moon. As the Master sits in the East the light 
dedicated to the Sun is on his right hand; the one to the Moon is on his left. Hence you 
will understand why the jewels of the Senior and Junior Deacons who likewise sit on 
his right and left bear respectively representations of the Sun and of the Moon. 


Therefore, in pointing out the lesser lights to the initiate, the Master should be careful 
to call his attention first to the light in the West as representing the Sun, next to the 
one in the South as representing the Moon and finally to the one in the East as 
representing the Master of the Lodge. When the three principal officers of the lodge 
group themselves about the altar each should be careful to take his stand directly in 
front of his respective station. They will thus form an equilateral triangle ever 
considered by our ancient brethren as an emblem of "Deity." 


With the Master, Senior and Junior Wardens thus grouped about the altar we have 
formed a living equilateral triangle symbol of Deity; with the three lesser lights about 
the altar forming the right-angled triangle of Euclid, symbol of Humanity. We, 
therefore, have at the conferring of each and every degree in Masonry a striking 
symbolism of the two great fundamental teachings of our order:— "The Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man." 


— o — 


EDITORIAL 



A CERTAIN POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE 


YOU are all familiar with what is crudely set forth by glaring colored stereopticon 
slides as to a "certain point within a circle." Two parallel lines of equal length are drawn 
tangent, or let us say, touching a circle containing at its center a prominent dot, or 
circular spot or mark. On the top of the circle and midway between the two vertical 
lines or tangents, is a representation of the Holy Bible. At either side of the parallels, or 
vertical lines, sometimes actually upon them, are the two robed and bearded men 
commonly designated as St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. 


The monitorial explanation is familiar to all Masons and is printed freely in many 
authorized publications of the Craft. Various other explanations of the symbolism are 
extant. Another suggestion is not so well known to the fraternity, and is here submitted. 


Two bearded figures standing by a sphere or circle surmounted by a dove is by no 
means a rare medieval representation of the Trinity; the Father, Son and the Holy 
Ghost. 


Let us refer to the work entitled "Christian Iconography, or History of Christian Art in 
the Middle Ages," and to volume I (and volume I is all that was issued of the series so 
far as can be discovered by the present commentator) bearing date of 1851, and being 
an English translation by E. J. Millington, from the French of M. Didron and published 
by Henry G. Bohn, of London, England. 


If you look at page 39 you will find there a reproduction of a miniature, taken it is so 
averred, from a manuscript having the name of Louis, Duke of Anjou, and the title 
"Heures du Due dAnjou (Hours of the Duke of Anjou), Bib. Roy. The date of the 
manuscript is ascribed to have been at the end of the thirteenth century, and the 
illustration in question is intended to be representative of the Trinity. Now please 
ploceed with the suggested comparison in mind. 



There are two bearded figures. Between them, and resting on their outstretched hands, 
is a circle or sphere, and surmounted on the latter - resting on and above the circle - is a 
dove with wings outstretched. The outstretched wings of the dove do, at but a very little 
distance, resemble an opened book. Both the robed figures wear the cruciform or cross 
type of nimbus, or radiance or glory circles, around the head usual in so many pictorial 
representations of saints or divinities. A nimbus or aureole is also worn by the dove. 


Preference is for the middle of the illustration being occupied by a sphere, rather than a 
circle, because there is a somewhat significant and unfinished curved line across the 
circular figure in center and just about where the equator might be depicted if the world 
were to be roughly shown. 


The similarity of this symbolical drawing to what is so well known to we Freemasons is 
not capable surely to explanation as being by mere accident. If indeed the one 
illustration is bom of the other, as seems not unlikely, then quite another and a very 
different, but obvious, symbolism to that ordinarily submitted to us is disclosed, of 
much interest to the reflective member of the Craft. 


Robert I. Clegg. 


* * * 


TO MASONIC STUDY COMMITTEES 


It is recommended that the articles in this issue headed "The Lesser Lights" and "The 
Symbolic Lights" be previously studied by those of our members belonging to lodges 
and study clubs interested in our "Bulletin Course of Masonic Study," and, if time will 



permit, that one or both of the articles be read at their meetings for the benefit of those 
present who may not yet be members of the N.M.R.S. 


It is quite probable that many new theories or facts will be brought out at these meetings 
which may throw additional light on the subject. We shall be very glad to receive such 
information from study club committees so that we may pass it on to other lodges and 
study clubs. 


— o- 


THE LIBRARY 


EDITED BY BRO. H. L. HAYWOOD 


The object of this Department is to acquaint our readers with time-tried Masonic books 
not always familiar; with the best Masonic literature now being published; and with 
such non-Masonic books as may especially appeal to Masons. The Library Editor wih 
be very glad to render any possible assistance to studious individuals or to Study Clubs 
and Lodges, either through this Department or by personal correspondence; if you wish 
to leam something concerning any book - what is its nature, what is its value, or how it 
may be obtained - be free to ask him. If you have read a book which you think is worth 
a review write us about it; if you desire to purchase a book - any book - we will help 
you get it, with no charge for the service. Make this your Department of Literary 
Consultation. 


"THE DRAMA OF SAVAGE PEOPLES” 


It has been a commonplace among us these many years that the roots of Masonry go 
afar into the remote past but it may be doubted if very many of the members of our 



Fraternity ever realize just how ancient are the instincts and impulses which lie behind 
such an institution as Masonry. Of late, however, many scholars have been presenting 
us with a wealth of facts concerning secret societies among primitive folk, so that now a 
Mason is without excuse who does not understand that some organization, similar to 
Masonry, and performing like functions, has existed among men from the very earliest 
times. Fortunately for the scholar, there still exist in the backwashes of the world a few 
tribes that still carry on the ancient practices; by investigating these folk the 
anthropologists are enabled to guess what were the customs of races long dead and 
forgotten. The most valuable of such works, probably, is Frazer's "Golden Bough," a 
veritable encyclopedia of primitive customs. Hutton Webster's "The Men's House" is 
another work which has thrown much light on the original roots of the secret society. 
Now comes a Yale anthropologist, Professor Loomis Havemeyer, with a book bearing 
the title that stands at the head of this article, to throw added light on the entire subject. 
Although it is not written with much literary grace it is a book which the Masonic 
student may welcome, especially since it sets forth so clearly the mental roots out of 
which secret societies grow. 


Professor Havemeyer's principal concern is with the evolution of the drama among 
savage peoples,, and his thesis is that among those who have no alphabet, no written 
language, and consequently no schools, the young, and often the old, are educated 
through acted representations of truths and facts. In his first chapter he deals with "The 
Early Development of the Drama": thereafter he studies the ceremonies having to do 
with animal food and then with plant food: after comparing the savage drama with the 
more finished ancient Greek drama he passes on to treat of the drama of initiation; war 
ceremonies; and, lastly, pleasure plays. 


It is the chapter on "Initiation Ceremonies" that will appeal most to Masons for therein 
will be found many striking points of resemblance between the quaint, and often 
terrible, rites of our ancestors, and our own ritual, resemblance, that is, in principle, not 
in detail. 


The author shows that nearly all savage tribes have a ceremony of initiation through 
which the youth passes into manhood and the full rights of the tribe: this is usually a 
rehearsal of a legend of the origins of the tribe presented in a series of symbolical 
ceremonies. The savage looks upon the coming to manhood as a new birth: 
consequently in the ceremony the youth is supposed to die and then to be raised to his 



new life; or some older person, representing the candidate, goes through the dramatic 
death and resurrection. As these ceremonies last many months, and often for several 
years, there is opportunity to instruct the young man in the history of his own people; in 
regard to his proper relationship with other members of the tribe, especially the women; 
in the virtue of obedience to elders; and in the other principles of the simple tribal code 
of morals. 


Those Masonic students who would understand the psychological roots and spirit of 
initiation ceremonies, who would learn how deeply imbedded in our nature is the 
necessity for such ceremonies, are recommended to read this richly rewarding book. It 
is published by The Yale University Press, of New Haven, and the price is $1.75. 


— o — 


THE FREEMAN 


He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain 
That hellish foes confederate for his harm 
Can wind around him, but he casts it off 
With as much ease as Samson his green withes. 
He looks abroad into the varied field 
Of Nature, and though poor perhaps, compared 
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, 
Calls the delightful scenery all his own. 

His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 



And the resplendent rivers; his to enjoy 
With a propriety that none can feel, 

But who, with filial confidence inspired, 

Can lift to heaven an unpresumptious eye 
And smiling say, "My Father made them all." 

- William Cowper. 

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, 
no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day. 

- Earl of Chesterfield 




THE QUESTION BOX 


THE BUILDER is an open forum for free and fraternal discussion. Each of its 
contributors writes under his own name, and is responsible for his own opinions. 
Believing that a unity of spirit is better than a uniformity of opinion, the Research 
Society, as such, does not champion any one school of Masonic thought as over against 
another; but offers to all alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each to 
stand or fall by its own merits. 



The Question Box and Correspondence Column are open to all members of the Society 
at all times. Questions of any nature on Masonic subjects are earnestly invited from our 
members, particularly those connected with Lodges or Study Clubs which are following 
our "Bulletin Course of Masonic Study." When requested, questions will be answered 
promptly by mail before publication in this department. 


SYMBOLIC MASONRY IN EUROPE 


It has been reported here by several Scottish Rite Masons that the only higher body 
recognized in France is the Scottish Rite, and that the York Rite is hardly known in 
Europe. While I am not a Scottish Rite Mason, I would like to get some authentic 
information on this subject. What is the approximate strength of the York Rite in 
France, England, Scotland, Ireland and other European countries? E.M J. Texas. 


We shall answer your questions on the assumption that by the "York Rite" you mean 
the symbolic degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason. 
Following is a list of the Grand Bodies of Europe having jurisdiction over lodges of 
these degrees: 


GRAND ORIENT OF FRANCE. 
Lodges, 471. Members, 33,000. 


INDEPENDENT AND REGULAR NATIONAL GRAND LODGE OF FRANCE 
AND THE FRENCH COLONIES. 


Lodges, 136. Members, 7,600. 



UNITED GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND. 
Lodges, 3,203. Members, 210,000. 


GRAND LODGE OF IRELAND. 
Lodges, 504. 


GRAND LODGE OF SCOTLAND. 
Lodges, 829. 


GRAND LODGE OF DENMARK. 
Lodges, 12. Members, 5,854. 


GRAND ORIENT OF GREECE. 
Lodges, 18. Members, 950. 


GRAND LODGE SYMBOLIC, HUNGARY. 
Lodges, 91. Members, 6,526 


GRAND ORIENT OF NETHERLANDS AT THE HAGUE. 
Lodges, 105. Members, 4,600. 

GRAND ORIENT LUSITANIA UNIDO SUPREME COUNCIL 


(PORTUGAL) 



Lodges, 135. Members, 4,278. 


GRAND LODGE OF NORWAY. 
Lodges, 16. Members, 4,299. 


GRAND LODGE OF ROUMANIA. 
Lodges, 12. 


GRAND SPANISH ORIENT. 
Lodges, 100. Members, 4,880. 


SUPREME COUNCIL OF SERBIA. 
Lodges, 4. Members, 96. 


GRAND LODGE OF SWEDEN. 
Lodges, 43. Members, 13,558 


GRAND LODGE ALPINA OF SWITZERLAND. 
Lodges, 34. Members 4,200 


GRAND ORIENT OF TURKEY. 


Lodges, 23. 



There are nine Grand Lodges in Germany, a list of which you will find on page 94 of 
the March, 1918, issue of THE BUILDER. 


Of the 3,203 lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of England, 
approximately 760 of these are located in London; 1425 in Great Britain, outside of 
London, and the remaining number in British possessions outside of Great Britain. This 
Grand Lodge has three Military Lodges not stationary. 


51 of the 504 Irish lodges are located in Dublin; 72 in Belfast, and 322 outside of these 
two cities. There are 1 1 Military lodges, not stationary, under this Grand Lodge, and 
some forty or more lodges are located in Africa, India, New Zealand, South Australia, 
Spain and the West Indies. 


Of the 829 Scotch lodges a little over one-half of this numbers are located in Scotland 
and the remainder in other countries. There are several lodges under the Scottish 
registry in Canada. The Supreme Councils recognized by the Supreme Council 
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States 
are as follows: 


Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States. 
Argentine Republic. 

Belgium. 

Brazil. 

Canada. 

Central America. 


Chile. 



Colon (Cuba). 

Denmark (Grand Lodge). 

Ecuador. 

Egypt. 

England and Wales, and the Dependencies of the British Crown. 
France and its Dependencies. 

Greece. 

Ireland. 

Italy. 

Mexico. 

The Netherlands. 

Norway (Grand Lodge). 

Paraguay. 

Peru. 

Portugal 

Republic Dominicana 
Scotland. 

Servia. 

Sweden. 

Switzerland. 

United States of Colombia. 


Uruguay 



Venezuela 


Some of the foregoing Supreme Councils of the Scottish Rite, especially those of 
some South American Countries, control the symbolic degrees in their respective 
countries since in many of these Republics independent Grand Lodges have not been 
established. In Denmark and Norway the Grand Lodge is the governing body of both 
the Scottish and the symbolic degrees. W.E.A. 


* * * 


EX-PRESIDENT TAFT MADE A MASON "AT SIGHT". 


Will you please inform me in the next issue of THE BUILDER how, when and where 
Ex-President Taft was made a Mason? 


I have heard several different accounts of the incident but have been unable to find 
anything on the subject in print. 


J.M.T.Jr., Texas 


Brother Taft was made a Mason "at sight," February 18th, 1909, at Cincinnati, Ohio, by 
Grand Master Charles S. Hoskinson. 


The entire ceremonies occupied only one hour. The Grand Master convened an 
"Occasional Lodge" for the puipose of conferring the degrees of Entered Apprentice, 
Fellow Craft and Master Mason on Mr. Taft. After this lodge was duly opened Mr. Taft 
was escorted into the lodge and presented at the altar by P.G.M. William B. Melish The 



Grand Master, after propounding the customary questions and receiving the required 
answers, obligated the candidate in the Entered Apprentice obligation and then 
instructed him fully in the unwritten work of that degree. The same procedure was 
carried out in the Fellow Craft and Master Mason degrees and after reading the charge 
of the Master's degree, the Grand Master declared Brother Taft a Master Mason, in 
good and regular standing. 


This ceremony did not make Brother Taft a member of any particular lodge and it was 
necessary for him to thereafter petition a lodge for affiliation in the regular manner and 
to be balloted upon for membership. 


An article on making Masons "at sight" may be found on page 47 of volume II (1916) 
of THE BUILDER. 


W.E.A. 


— o- 


CORRESPONDENCE 


NORTH DAKOTA MILITARY LODGE IN FRANCE 


In response to your request for information concerning the North Dakota Lodge now 
operating in France, I may say that it is known as "North Dakota Military Lodge No. 2, 
U. D., A. F. and A. M.," and operates under a dispensation from the Grand Lodge of 
the State of North Dakota, with original jurisdictions to confer the degrees on all 
members of the 164th Infantry resident in North Dakota, also with usual authority to 
confer degrees upon any one elected by a Blue Lodge in the United States at the 
request of such lodge. 



This lodge is known as North Dakota Military Lodge No. 2, because in 1898, at the 
time when the First North Dakota Infantry was on its way to the Philippine Islands, the 
then Grand Master of North Dakota, Hon. Robert Carothers, issued a dispensation for a 
military lodge for that regiment. 


I was named as Junior Warden of that lodge, and the operation of the lodge in the 
Philippines was so palpably beneficial to the Craft, and gave so much pleasure to the 
Masons sojourning there, that when the First North Dakota was called into service for 
France, the present Grand Master of North Dakota, W.J. Reynolds, issued a 
dispensation for a lodge for that regiment, which regiment became known under the 
new regimental description as the 164th Infantry. 


A few meetings of the lodge were held at Charlotte, N.C., and some degrees conferred. 
The work was done in the beautiful temple owned by the Masonic brethem of 
Charlotte, who very kindly tendered the use of the building and in large numbers 
attended our meetings, and expressed great pleasure at the thought that there would be 
going with the United States troops to France, facilities for meeting and working. 


Another meeting was held on the transport carrying troops over, the night before 
landing. No work was done at this meetilrg, but a pleasant evening was spent in 
Masonic converse. 


Since being settled in France weekly meetings have been held. The rules promulgated 
by the Secretary of War prevent any work being done in any Camp of the United States 
troops, so it is necessary to make arrangements for meeting places outside the Camp 
limits. This we are enabled to do through the kindness of the Y.M.C.A. 


Our meetings are largely attended, the register of attendance showing at every meeting 
brethren from various states. One meeting showed over one hundred brethren in 
attendance from thirty-seven states. Many meetings are attended by over a hundred. 



The work is well done and great care is taken to accept none but good material, the rule 
being that when a candidate submits to the original jurisdiction of this lodge, before he 
is balloted on his name is sent through the Grand Secretary of North Dakota to his local 
lodge to ascertain whether he is acceptable to them. 


If as great results Masonically follow the bringing to France of this lodge, as did in 
taking the lodge to the Philippines no man can tell what influence it may have on the 
future, for it is conceded that the North Dakota Military Lodge established Freemasonry 
in the Philippines with all the resultant good that Masonry brings to its devotees. 


Even if no such results should follow here, it none the less gives to hundreds of brethren 
sojourning in a strange land, far from home, the pleasure that only a Mason feels in the 
company of other Masons. 


There is in France another military lodge, known as "Montana Military Lodge U. D.," 
of which Major Foote is the Master. They are not located near us, so I have no 
opportunity of knowing just what they are doing, nor how actively they work, but I am 
certain from my knowledge of Brother Foote that whatever work his lodge hay do will 
be "good work, true work and square work." 


Colonel John H. Fraine, W.M., 

North Dakota Military Lodge No. 2, U.D., 
A.E.F., France. 


* * * 


THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT 



Freemasonry and Zionism are two distinct movements. Freemasonry is an institution to 
teach the grand lesson of the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man. Zionism 
is only an organization to improve the conditions materially and intellectually of the 
most abused and oppressed, and most intellectually suffering, of the homeless people of 
Israel. Freemasonry upholds all the universally recognized religions. Zionism tends to 
uphold only the religion of Judaism amongst the Jews. 


In order to understand Zionism properly, it is necessary to study Judaism and the Jewish 
history. By studying the Holy Bible you will find the origin of Zionism. 


David in his Psalm said, "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were 
like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with 
singing; then said they among the heathen. The Lord hath done great things for them; 
the Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn Again our captivity, 
O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that 
goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with 
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126:1-6). By the rivers of Babylon, 
there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our haips 
upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive 
required of us a song, and they that wasted us, required us mirth, saying, Sing us one of 
the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget not 
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem, 
above my chief joy." (Psalm 187:1-6). 


The origin of Zion started when God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the Holy 
Land to their descendants; then the prophets instilled in the minds of Israel the hope that 
the land will be restored to them; and at last the oppression of Israel in Spain, Portugal, 
throughout Europe during the Crusades when thousands and thousands of Jews were 
put to death, and at last the massacres in Russia, persecution in Roumania, and 
AntiSemitism in Germany and France were the greatest stimulants to the movement of 
Zionism. 



Zionism is not anti-Americanism. Justice Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court, 
is an enthusiastic Zionist, still I believe he is a patriotic American. Lord Reading, 
English Ambassador to the United States, is a good Zionist and loyal English 
Statesman. Above all, the Jewish people as a whole, are showing their patriotism to 
their countries wherever they live at the present time, with their lives, finance, and 
spirit. 


When an English Lord assailed Disraeli, because he was a Jew, Disraeli replied, "Yes, I 
am, and I am proud of it, because while your grandfathers were still savages and 
worshiped idols, my grandfathers were civilized and worshiped the One, true God. If it 
is really a crime for a Jew to tell the world that he is a Jew, the Gentiles are responsible 
for it." 


During the middle ages, the Gentile nations made the Jew wear on his clothing a yellow 
patch to remind everybody that he was a Jew. In Europe they have special laws enacted 
for the Jews only; and right here in this free country even among the educated 
American Gentiles, an American Jew is not admitted to their organizations, because he 
is a Jew. 


Zionism does not mean that if the holy land will be restored that all the Jewish people 
from the whole world will go back to Palestine. The main objects of Zionism are, first, 
to assist those Jewish people who are oppressed in Europe on account of their religion. 
Second, as Dr. Herzle, the leader of Zionism stated in his message at the second 
congress, that it is necessary for the Jewish people to return first to Judaism, in order to 
return to Zionism. But how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? It is our 
hope that the people who gave to the world a King Solomon and his temple upon which 
the super-structure of Masonry is built, the people who gave to the world the ten 
commandments and the Bible, the people who gave to the Christian world a Saviour, 
and to the Catholics, St. Mary, the Mother of God, the people who gave the world the 
prophets whose teachings are the moral guide of humanity, may receive justice and 
recognition. 


The people who gave such gifts to the world will in the future, when the Lord returns 
the captivity of Zion, produce again great, intellectual men. 



Jacob Goldman, Indiana. 


Scripture references: Zech. 8:23. Isa. 46:12-13: 49:16; 49:24; 51:3; 51:11; 52:2-3. 
Amos 9:13-15. Obadiah 1:17. Micah 4:2-6: 4:6-8. Zeph. 3:19-20. Zech. 1:16-17: 2:2: 
8:3. 


* * * 


THE UNCHANGING SPIRIT OF MASONRY 


In discussing Masonry in France, Masonry in South America, or Masonry anywhere or 
in any age, perhaps we lean too much to the physical side, to forms and ceremonies, to 
regularity, ritual and government. In many physical ways (and they are subject to more 
or less change as mankind changes) Masonry is a thoroughbred, has had the foundation 
stock, but has been evolved into its present status. This relates purely to the physical 
side. 


The spirit, the psychic, or soul side, has never changed, it is impossible of change, 
because it is the God part. The heart, or soul, or pyschic life must first be touched 
otherwise there is no foundation upon which to build Masonry. A Mason at heart is one 
who has a sincere desire to benefit mankind. Turn loose a body of men like that in any 
country, in any age, and they will leave a trail. In this way Masonry can be traced from 
the beginning of the world. By their fruits ye shall know them. 


This is universality of Masonry. Men cannot long remain united on physical things, but 
when guided by the heart, or spirit, or in the broader sense, the pyschic life, Masonry is 
absolutely the same the world over. 



The quest for the truth is the same in the heathen, the pagan or the Christian, regardless 
of his conception of Deity. Masonry unites the best men of all nations. This is possible 
only when the psychic life is wakened. It is the foundation of Masonry. We build the 
physical part of Masonry upon it. This is the eternal battle, to be temperate, and not 
allow excess in either. 


Mankind is prone to make laws to govern everything; when guided by the physical or 
animal side only, he depends upon compulsion to enforce law, both civil and religious, 
all of his own making. The German Empire personifies this idea. 


Masonry would seek to arouse and stimulate the better nature of man, of peace on earth, 
good will to man, which wil never obtain on a physical basis only. Masons wherever 
dispersed, who practice the virtues of Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice, 
should be judged tolerantly, and should no be held too strictly to arbitrary rules of 
regularity and ritual. 


A. K. Bradley, Texas. 


* * * 


AN OWNER WANTED 


The Rev. E. J. V. Huiginn of Beverly, Mass., was on a vacation in South Lyndeboro, 
New Hampshire, in October, 1917. There he met Mr. A. D. Cram, a member of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, formerly a Sergeant of the Eighth Regiment, New 
Hampshire Volunteers. On one occasion Mr. Cram said that he had been in charge of a 
burying squad after the battle of Fort Hudson, Louisiana, on the 27th of May, 1863, and 
that he buried the body of a young Confederate officer on which he found a peculiar 
badge composed of three interlaced triangles surmounted by a crown. Though in later 
years Mr. Cram had tried through some of the great dailies and in other ways to trace 



the owner of the badge he had never succeeded. He gave the badge to Mr. Huiginn to 
try if he could find any trace of the young officer. The accompanying picture is a copy 
of a photograph of the badge. 


Mr. Huiginn has turned the matter over to Brother Frederick W. Hamilton, Grand 
Secretary of Massachusetts, Masonic Temple, Boston, at whose request we are very 
glad to publish the circumstances surrounding the finding of the jewel. Brother 
Hamilton says that it might bring great happiness to some one to have this jewel 
restored and the present holder is anxious to place it in the hands of an heir of the 
original possessor. 


* * * 


BROTHER SHRYOCK SERVING HIS THIRTY-THIRD TERM AS GRAND 
MASTER OF MARYLAND AT TIME OF HIS DEATH 


I have just noticed that in my article on Brother Shryock which appeared in the April 
issue of THE BETLDER 1 made the error of stating that he was serving his thirty- 
second year as Grand Master. He had served thirty-two years and was elected for the 
thirty- third time last Fall. I think this ought to be corrected in an early issue in the 
interest of accuracy. 


John H. Cowles, District of Columbia. 


* * * 


THE DEGREES PROBLEM 



To my mind one strong argument in favor of the contention that at one time the degrees 
consisted of but two, namely the first and the combined second and third, is in the fact 
that in the second section of the second, the three mystic numbers, 3,5, and 7, are 
explained (or supposed to be). In the English lodges, the three numbers are associated 
respectively with the first, second and third degrees, the number 7 being associated with 
the third degree. This being so, why is it referred to in the second degree ? 


The natural influence is that at one time the second section of the second degree, at 
least, must hare part of the third degree. Ernest E. Murray, Montana. 


-o- 


There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism. - Robert C. 
Winthrop.