The Builder Magazine 

August 1925 - Volume XI - Number 8 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 

The Society of Operative Stone Masons; Its Links With Operative and Speculative 
Masonry of the Present Day - BY BRO. BERNARD H. SPRINGETT, L. R., England 

How St. Alban's Abbey Came to Be Built - BY BRO. N.W.J. HAYDON, Associate 
Editor 

Daniel Coxe and St. John's Lodge, Philadelphia - By BRO. DAVID MCGREGOR, 
New Jersey (Concluded from last month) 

A Spanish American Masonic Lecture - Translated by BRO. J.W. CHAPMAN, New 
Mexico 

A Brief Application of the York Rite to Daily Life - BY THE GRAND HIGH 
PRIEST, Texas 

Great Men Who Were Masons - Jabez Bowen - By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, 
P.G.M., District of Columbia 

ONE - Gerald Nancarrow 

Joseph Robbins' Famous Masonic Oration - WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 
EDITOR 


EDITORIAL 

PRESENT DAY GILD MASONRY 
WHY HISTORY? 

THE QUESTION OF REFRESHMENT 



The Late Thomas R. Marshall 


An Appeal to the Masonic Fraternity 


THE POLITICAL IDEAL IN FREEMASONRY 


GEMS FROM "MORALS AND DOGMA" - Selected by Charles Henry Smart, 32nd 
degree, Sec. of the Scottish Rite bodies, Nashville, Tenn. 


A ROYAL ARCH PROBLEM 

THE LIBRARY 

THE MASTER BUILDER 

THE CENTRE 

WORLD REVOLUTION, THE PLOT AGAINST CIVILIZATION 
HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY IN WYOMING 
A GROUP OF BOOKS ABOUT MASONRY IN SCOTLAND 
OM, THE SECRET OF ABHOR VALLEY 


What to Read in Masonry - Jurisprudence, Constitutions, Monitors, Etc. 


THE SECRETS OF ARCHITECTURE 



THE QUESTION BOX and CORRESPONDENCE 

THE ROYAL ORDER 

NEGRO FREEMASONRY 

THE MORGAN EPISODE 

ANDREW JACKSON'S MEMBERSHIP 

THE AMERICAN MASONIC FEDERATION; HIRAM ABIF AND THE BIBLE 
"THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST" FOR SALE 

YE EDITOR'S CORNER 


— o 


The Society of Operative Stone Masons; Its Links With Operative and Speculative 
Masonry of the Present Day 


BY BRO. BERNARD H. SPRINGETT, L. R., England 


THE BUILDER is happy to publish this carefully considered study, submitted to it 
for that purpose by the author. The subject is one that has received much discussion, 
especially in England, where brethren have long been keenly interested in the origins 
of our Speculative Fraternity. Bro. Springett holds many Masonic honors, won for 
him by years of activities in many branches of the English Craft. On this side of the 
water he is widely and favorably known as the author of a fascinating book, "Secret 
Sects of Syria and the Lebanon." 



AS probably most readers of THE BUILDER are aware, we have working in London 
today, as for many years past, a keen body of Freemasons, including many well- 
known Grand Lodge officers, who use a ritual supposed to have been invented, 
according to those who have no sympathy with us, by Clement Stretton, John Yarker 
and Dr. Carr, all keen searchers back into Masonic history. It is really a revival of 
what we have every reason to believe was worked by the members of at least one of 
the four old lodges who banded themselves together under Anthony Sayer in 1717 to 
form the first Grand Lodge. 


While the landmarks of Speculative Masonry are identical with those of Operative 
Masonry, as everyone would expect to find them, in the latter many of the reasons for 
certain words and much of the floor work which Anderson retained are more clearly 
defined, and it is the usual thing for those who join us to find explanations for much 
that had previously been looked upon as unexplained symbolism. 


In Scotland, all the older lodges show distinct traces in their minute books of having 
gradually changed over from Operative to Speculative— that is, from confining 
admission to pure Craftsmen to extending the benefits of initiation into Freemasonry, 
at first to a limited number of professional men, and continuing to increase the 
proportion of these latter, with the gradual extinction of the former. In 1708 no fewer 
than forty members of No. 1 Lodge of Edinburgh, generally known as St. Mary's 
Chapel, seceded from their Mother Lodge on account of the increasing number of 
admissions of men who were not Craftsmen, and formed a lodge of their own, "The 
Lodge of Journeymen, No. 8," from whose own history we get a very interesting 
insight into the work that was carried on by them, as handed down by tradition— 
certainly not taught by book. Up to 1 840 this lodge insisted on one-tenth only of its 
members being non-Craftsmen, the remainder being purely "Wrights and Masons," 
the former signifying most of the trades other than stonemasons who would be 
engaged in the building trade, and it was from this portion of its members that the 
officers of the lodge were selected, with the exception of the Secretary, who was 
usually a lawyer. These officers consisted of a Warden, sometimes called also the 
Deacon, or "Deces," who presided over the lodge; a Box-master, or Treasurer, and 
one who was known as "The Eldest Entered Apprentice," who seems to have been 
elected annually from among the members of the lodge and to have taken a leading 
part in the initiation of candidates. The latter, as in all Operative lodges, had to 



undergo a rigorous examination as to their physical capacity, for which purpose they 
were stripped completely, and were then re-clothed in a long white garment, a 
practice still observed in most countries but our own. 


In England and Ireland we have the Operative Stonemasons, pure and simple, holding 
their lodges all over the country, but especially in connection with stonequarries and 
where large edifices were under construction, employing a great many skilled 
craftsmen. These Stonemasons worked a very simple ritual, but allowed no one to 
join their ranks except through an initiation ceremony closely resembling that known 
to us today. 


Owing to the doubts cast on Bro. Stretton's account of the ceremonial worked in the 
Mount Bardon quarries, near Leicester, I have spent quite a lot of time looking into 
this particular question, and have been able to satisfy myself, as well as many 
Masonic friends who previously had some doubts, that even to this day Operative 
Stonemasons are quietly working a ritual, greatly emasculated, it is true, since the 
advent of trade unionism, which they have clearly derived by oral transmission from 
medieval times. 


Papers and books of account which have been kindly loaned to me by the 
Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers, through their genial Secretary, Mr. 
George Hicks, show that at the commencement of the last century many such lodges 
were in existence. They worked a ritual somewhat resembling in many respects that 
of our own lodges— that is, as regards the admission of new members— that at first 
sight it might be taken for a crude imitation of our own ceremony of initiation, the 
result of some Operative Masons being also Freemasons in our established use of the 
word. But there seems no reason to doubt that both bodies derived their ceremonial 
from a common source, this being, in my opinion, the trade gilds of the Middle Ages, 
themselves deriving from Eastern ancestors. 


I have been able to find records of 191 of these lodges in England and Wales, and I 
have had particulars of seventeen in Ireland. All of these were subject to the rules of a 
Grand Lodge, to which they elected delegates, with a certain number of District 



Lodges to act as intermediaries. These met quarterly, while the Grand Lodge met 
twice a year, for many years at Huddersfield, and afterwards at Manchester. But the 
greatest possible secrecy was always observed with respect to these lodges, which 
will account for so very little being known of them by the ordinary Mason, of whom 
they seem to have been extremely jealous, regarding him as the unqualified usurper of 
the name of a trade of which he knew nothing. With the coming of trade unionism, 
and the passing of the Act of 1838 prohibiting the holding of all unauthorized secret 
assemblies, mainly at the instigation of our then Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex, 
still greater secrecy and still simpler ritual resulted, and a skeleton form of the ritual, 
formerly imparted in the tap-room or the quarry, is, I am told by one who ought to 
know, now gone through quietly on the scaffold. 


Mr. R. W. Postgate, in his valuable trade union work, The Builder's History, writes as 
follows: 


"The various Acts passed between 1799 and 1810, under which all combinations were 
forbidden and heavy penalties for infraction from time to time enforced, drove those 
trades whose organisations did not disappear to more secret organisation. Some such 
as the London tailors, went in for a semi-military system. The Building Unions 
practised the oaths and initiations which played such a large part in their later history. 
Without, like some trades, seeking to extend their clubs beyond the limits of a small 
town they confined themselves to the little local clubs which were the predecessors of 
the modern Trade Union movements. These did not disappear. All over England and 
Scotland the skilled craftsman continued to hold the fort nightly meeting of his trade 
club at the public-house, and the records and rules of some of these clubs have 
survived. The old traditions were very strong, and the desire for mutual improvement, 
as men an as craftsmen, was very marked. The Falkirk Society excluded all lewd, 
disorderly and fractious persons, and drunkards swearers, and Sabbath-breakers. 

Other societies, such as the Newcastle Operative Masons, stressed the improvement 
effected in man's nature by association. In some case there was also a rule against the 
introduction of politics a destructive of harmony. 


"The festive nature of these gatherings must not be forgotten. The Masons' Society 
and the two Carpenters' Societies which existed at Newcastle, had rules to the effect 
that twopence per night must be spent on beer by every member, while the first 



entries in the Preston Joiners' Cashbook. 1807— perhaps the oldest remaining Trade 
Union document— relate to the purchase of beer." 


I am indebted to Mr Sidney Webb, a very prominent member of the late Labor 
Government, for giving me a clue to obtaining much valuable information as to these 
stonemasons' lodges and their ceremonial. Mr. Webb, with the assistance of his wife, 
wrote The History of Trade Unionism, which is very justly considered the standard 
work on the subject. In this he states: 


"The Operative builders did not rest content with an elaborate constitution and code. 
There was also a ritual. The Stonemasons' Society has preserved amongst its records a 
manuscript copy of a 'Making Parts Book,' ordered to be used by all lodge of the 
Builders' Union on the admission of members. Under the Combination Laws, oaths of 
secrecy and obedience were customary in the more secret and turbulent trade unions, 
notably that of the Glasgow Cotton Spinners and the Northumbrian Miners. The 
custom survived the repeal, and admission to the Builders' Union involved a very 
lengthy ceremony, conducted by the officers of the lodge: the outside and inside 
Tylers, the Warden, the President, the Secretary, and the Principal Conductor, and 
taken part in by the candidates and the members of the lodge. Besides the opening 
prayer, and religious hymns sung at intervals, these 'initiation parts' consisted of 
questions and answers by the dramatis personae in quaint doggerel, and were brought 
to a close by the new members taking an oath of secrecy. Officers clothed in 
surplices, inner chambers into which the candidates were admitted, blindfolded, a 
skeleton, drawn sworn, battleaxes, and other mystic properties enhanced the 
sensational solemnity of this fantastic performance. Ceremonies of this kind, 
including what were described in Home Office Papers of 1 834 as 'oaths of an 
execrable nature,' were adopted by all the national and general unions of the time. 
Thus, we find items 'for washing surplices' appearing in the accounts of various 
lodges of contemporary societies." 


A similar ritual is printed in Character, Objects and Effects of Trade Unions, 
published in 1834, as used by the Woolcombers' Union. Probably, says Mr. Webb, the 
Builders' Union copied their ritual from some Union of Woolen Workers. I would 
prefer to think it was the other way about. The stonemasons' MS. contains, like the 
copy printed in the pamphlet just mentioned, a solemn reference to King Edward the 



Third, who was regarded as the great benefactor of the English wool trade, but whose 
connection with the building trade is not obvious. In a later printed edition of The 
Initiating Parts of the Friendly Society of Operative Masons, dated Birmingham, 

1834, his name is omitted, and that of Solomon substituted, apparently in memory of 
the Freemasons' assumed origin at the building of the Temple at Jerusalem. "The 
actual origin of this initiation ceremony," continues Mr. Webb, "is unknown. John 
Tester, who had been a leader of the Bradford Woolcombers in 1825, afterward 
turned against the unions, and published in the Feeds Mercury of June and July, 1834, 
a series of letters denouncing the Feeds Clothiers' Union. In these he states "the mode 
of initiation was the same as practiced for years before the flannel weavers of 
Rochdale, with a party of whom the thing, in the shape of it then wore, had at first 
originated. A great part of the ceremony, particularly the death scene, was taken from 
the Odd Fellows, who were flannel weavers at Rochdale, in Fancashire, and all that 
could be well turned from the rules and lectures of the one society into the regulations 
of the others was so turned, with some trifling verbal alterations." In another letter he 
says that the writer of the "Fecture Book" was one Mark Ward. 


The series of "Initiating Parts," or forms to be observed on admitting new members, 
which are preserved in the archives of the Stonemasons' Society, I have been able to 
borrow and make extracts from, at the same time getting some of the pages 
photographed in order to show where I have personally obtained the material for 
much of this article. They reveal a steady tendency to simplification of ritual. We 
have first the old MS. doggerel already described, copied most probably from a still 
older manuscript. The date of this present copy Bro. Wonnacott considers would be 
considerably anterior to the first printed ritual, which is dated 1834. This, whilst 
retaining a good deal of ceremonial, turns the liturgy into prose, and the oath into an 
almost identical declaration, invoking the dire displeasure of the society in case of 
treachery. A second print, which bears no date, is much shorter, and the declaration 
becomes a mere affirmation of adhesion. The society's circulars of 1838 record the 
abolition, by vote of the members, of all initiation ceremonies, in view of the 
parliamentary inquiry about to be held into trade unionism. 


(To be concluded) 


— o — 



How St. Alban's Abbey Came to Be Built 


BY BRO. N.W.J. HAYDON, Associate Editor 


THE varying forms of the Legend of the Craft related in the old MS. Constitutions of 
the Freemasons, are all agreed that St. Alban introduced Masonry into England and 
was the builder of the first church at the place now called after him. Needless to say 
this account is not historical. However, the traditional connection should make the 
subject of this article by Bro. Haydon of especial interest to our readers. 


THE legend of the building of St. Alban's Abbey is particularly interesting as it is 
one of the oldest, if not the oldest, references to the Masonic Craft (Operative) in 
English literature, which is founded on evidence still to be seen after a lapse of many 
centuries. The first historian to whom we owe an account of this event is Roger de 
Wendover, a native of Buckinghamshire, who was Prior of Bel voir, a dependence of 
St. Alban's Abbey, and who died in 1237 A. D. He wrote The Flowers of History and 
gave us the tradition as it had come to him. The translation used here is that by J.A. 
Giles, D.C.L., as published in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. 


A generation later, another learned monk of the same abbey, known as Matthew of 
Paris, compiled his Chronicles of English History, bringing the tale down to 1273 
A.D., and incorporating the writings of his predecessor, so that at first later scholars 
were of the impression that he was responsible for the whole. The photograph 
reproduced on the next page shows a page of his manuscript. 


The first printed edition of these "Chronicles" was produced, in Latin, in 1639 A. D. 
by Watts, under the title of Vitae Duorum Offarum, and the translation given here is 
made from that edition by one of the scholars attached to the British Museum; I am 
also indebted to the co-operation of the curator of the manuscript department, 
Professor J.A. Gilson, for becoming possessed of the photograph. 



While it will appear on examination that the Watts' edition does not follow too closely 
on the heels of Matthew of Paris, the combination of this rendition with that 
contained in the Bohn publication covers the ground sufficiently to give us a 
reasonably complete story. Students of the history of our Ritual who are also 
Companions of the Chapter will no doubt be impressed with certain resemblances 
between the legend of the R. A. and that supplied by the learned Roger de Wendover. 


THE STORY RELATED BY ROGER DE WENDOVER 


"The same year (A.D. 793) while Offa, the most potent king of the Mercians, was 
residing at Bath, and was taking his rest on the royal couch after the labors of the day, 
he was admonished by an angel from heaven to disinter Alban, the Saint of God and 
first martyr of the English, or Britons, and to place his relics in a shrine more worthy 
of them. 


"Anxious to obey the divine commands, the King straightway summoned Humbert, of 
Lichfield, archbishop of the Mercians, who with Ceowulf, bishop of Lindsey, and 
Unwona, bishop of Leicester, together with a great multitude of each sex and every 
age, met the King at Verolamium on a day appointed. 


"As he was journeying thither, the King beheld a ray of light like a great torch sent 
down from heaven and illuminating the place of the sepulchre. This miracle, which 
was seen of all, confirmed their faith in the truth of the vision. 


"Now the memory of the martyr had perished and the place of his burial been 
forgotten for about 344 years, for the pagan Saxons, Jutes, an Angles had driven out 
the Britons, burnt their towns and levelled their sacred places and churches, 
mercilessly destroying the face of the island from one sea to the other. At this time 
therefore, the church of the blessed Alban, described by Bede in his history of the 



English, had been utterly destroyed, with the other churches in the desolation of that 
country. 


"After these things the King summoned a council of the province and consulted with 
ah the primates about the privileging of a monastery in the place which had been 
consecrated by the blood of the martyr. They ah were pleased with the King's design 
and, that these things might have a more worthy effect, they gave their counsel that 
the King should either send envoys, or in his own person, treat with the court of 
Rome about them. And the King undertook the laborious journey to the end that as 
the blessed Alban was the first martyr of the English, so his monastery should surpass 
in possessions and privileges ah others in his kingdom.... At length arriving at Rome 
the King made his earnest petition to the chief pontiff, Adrian, both for the 
canonization of the blessed Alban and the founding of the monastery. The court 
yielded a ready compliance, the more so that the discovery of the martyr was the 
effect of divine revelation, confirmed the privileges the King desired, and adopted the 
monastery as a favoured daughter of the Rome See— 'subject to our Apostolic See, 
without the intervention of King or Archbishop.' 


"The King considered within himself how he could make recompense for such a gift, 
and the next day, going to the English school which flourished at Rome at that time, 
he made a grant to it for ever for the support of such of his kingdom as shall come 
there, of a penny from every family that had possessions to the value of thirty pence, 
and for this liberality he obtained that none of the English nation should suffer evil by 
way of doing penance. After making this grant the noble King returned home. 


"He next summoned a council of nobles and bishops at Verolamium and conferred 
ample possessions on the blessed Alban and ennobled them with a multiplicity of 
liberties. He then brought together a convent of monks from the most religious houses 
to the martyr's tomb and set over them an Abbot named Willigod to whom he granted 
the monastery with ah royal rights. Now the great King Offa reigned over twenty 
three provinces, which the English call 'shires' and from ah these, the King granted 
the blessed Peter's penny, which the English call 'Romescot.' Moreover the most 
mighty King Offa conferred on Alban his own royal villa called Wunceslaw about 
twenty miles from Verolamium, with the land around it, as the King's writings testify 
which are to this day preserved in the Church aforesaid.' 



THE STORY OF MATTHEW OF PARIS 


From. "Vitae Duorum Offarum" 


"After completing the arrangements for this endowment, the King made confession of 
all his sins (especially in having waged so many batiles) and the founding of the said 
monastery was accepted as his penance the King then returned home under the 
brightest auspices and with the fervent blessing of the Pope. 


"The Monastery founded, and an Abbot and Convent placed there, Offa then 
summoned to Verolamium his council of bishops and magnates, and, with their 
unanimous consent and good will, conferred on the blessed Alban wide lands and 
innumerable possessions, with the idea that free hospitality should flourish there. For 
through that place there runs a highway and street used by those coming from the 
North and returning from the South, called Watling Street. And it seemed to him a 
thing of grace that all who passed through should find there a shelter provided for 
them of grace by his alms. Therefore he granted to the said place dedicated to the said 
monastery extraordinary privileges and liberties; and at the tomb he assembled a 
convent of monks from diverse religious houses, but chiefly from the house of Bee in 
Normandy; and he appointed as Abbot over them a man named Willegod, which 
being interpreted is WITTING GOOD. And he was, indeed, a man of good will, a 
scion of the royal race, and near of kin to King Offa. He had been present at the 
finding of the said Martyr, and had seen the rays of heavenly light that appeared, 
when his body was being found and raised out of the ground, and which disappeared 
after this had been accomplished, as though its mission had been fulfilled. He had 
therefore at once resolved to take the monastic habit and to devote his life to the 
service of God, and to so holy a martyr; and when the story became generally known, 
very soon after the body had been found, the King without delay began to build the 
Church. And he laid the first stone of the foundation, saying TO THE HONOR OF 
GOD AFMIGHTY, THE FATHER, SON AND HOFY GHOST, AND OF HIS 
MARTYR AFBAN, THE FIRST MARTYR OF MY WHOFE FAND. And then he 
knelt down and with closed hands and tears running down his cheeks, he continued: 



PRAYER OF THE MOST CHRISTIAN KING OFFA FOR HIS WORK 


"OH, FORD JESUS CHRIST, TO THEE, AND TO THEE, MARTYR ALBAN, 
AND TO THEE, WILLEGOD, I COMMIT THIS THY HOUSE, FAITHFULLY TO 
BE KEPT. A CURSE UPON ALL WHO OPPOSE OR DISTURB OR 
SPIRITUALLY DETRACT FROM IT. MAY ALL ITS BENEFACTORS RECEIVE 
REWARD ETERNAL. And to Willegod who was then already a monk, the King 
gave abundance of treasure and appointed him overseer of the fabric [construction] of 
the Church, and he granted him all regalities and liberties. And this the King took 
care to do before he set out on his journey across the Alps, not knowing what God 
might ordain concerning his life. But after his return in such happy circumstances he 
solemnly renewed and confirmed all these things, and he appointed the said Willegod 
Abbot in the presence of his son and heir EGFRID, and of Humbert, archbishop of 
Lichfield, and a number of other bishops and magnates of the land, for of a truth, he 
had found this same WILLEGOD most faithful in the keeping of his kingdom, which 
the King had committed to his son and to him, while he went to Rome. And he 
established a convent of monks from the most renowned houses as is above said, and 
at his own expense he constructed all the buildings, except the very oldest one 
(pristinium), which he found already made out of the old buildings of the Pagans. 

And in the same Church the most Christian King Offa acting as steward and special 
keeper passed some years of lis life. And one day he ordered the charters, and all the 
instruments given and acquired, to be brought (and) placed them on the High Altar, 
'that they might become consecrated in that Holy Place as a witness and a memorial 
to those who might come after him.'" 


Bound up with the early history of this ancient building are two other matters which 
link it closely with items of great interest in the development of that system which has 
become our Speculative Masonry of today. There is, for example, the claim of some 
Masonic scholars that our M. M. Degree has become what it is as a result of the old 
English custom, wherein certain gilds regularly portrayed in dramatic form portions 
of the known Scriptures, for the benefit of an age when illiteracy was general. 



Wm. Hone, in his book. on the English Miracle Plays (Ancient Mysteries Described, 
London, 1823), writes: 


"The first trace of theatrical representations in this country is recorded by Matthew 
(of) Paris, who relates that Geoffrey, a learned Norman, master of the school of the 
Abbey of Dunstable, and afterwards Abbot of St. Alban's Priory, composed the play 
of St. Catherine, which was acted by his scholars. Geoffrey's performance took place 
in the year 1110, and he borrowed copes from the sacrist of the neighbouring abbey 
of St. Alban's, to dress his characters." 


The other matter is connected with the name "Naymus Grecus" which has so long 
puzzled our antiquarians, and for which solutions are offered by Bros. C.C. Howard, 
of New Zealand, and S. Russell Forbes, in A.Q.C., Vols. IV and V, from which it 
appears that this old Master of Masons is mentioned in three of the early MSS. of our 
Ancient Charges, towit, the Cooke, 1430, the Lansdowne, 1560, and the Buchanan, 
1660. Their writers refer to a "Curious Mason named Naymus Grecus" who came to 
France in the time of Charles Martel, and taught him the secrets of Operative 
Masonry. ("Curious" here means skilful.) This Charles Martel is one of the heroes of 
early French history, who turned back the conquering Saracens at Tours about 729 
A.D., and as St. Alban's Abbey was built some sixty-five years later, it is reasonable 
to admit that the fathers of its builders, as well as their Operative instructors, would 
be acquainted with the stories that were growing up about the great deeds of Charles 
Martel, that were afterwards interwoven with the great poem, "The Song of Roland." 


Although the date when King Offa visited Rome is in dispute, there is still evidence 
there of the Saxon colony he helped to establish, the streets are still named "borgo" 
from the Saxon word "burgh" and the old church "S. Spirito in Sassia" is still 
standing. At this time also there was in Rome a Greek colony with its church, formed 
of Greek exiles driven out about 760 A. D. by theological opponents, and the road on 
the south side of their church is still known as the "Via della Greca." 


We may assume that during one of his several visits to Rome, Charlemagne, who was 
finally crowned Emperor there in 800 A.D., engaged the skilled Mason, Naymus, of 



the Greek colony in Rome, with his coworkmen to build his cathedral at Aix-la- 
Chapelle. Thence Naymus passed either in the company of, or at the request of, King 
Offa, when the latter returned from his pilgrimage, to St. Alban's. As a result 
Operative Masonry was first organized in Eritain at this city, but was broken up by 
the Danish wars of the next century and then reorganized at York under Athelstan in 


926 A.D. 


This ingeniously constructed chain of events— of which I have given only an outline- 
received various historical criticisms from the learned brethren to whom it was 
offered, but, on the whole, they accept it as feasible. One serious objection, however, 
is made by Bro. Mattieu Williams, who holds that Greek architects, or workmen, or 
artists, had no influence on the early builders of Britain, since their own types are 
destitute of Gothic character, nor had he found any Greek names in Britain, though 
there are many in Southern France. 


Of all the theories as to the source of Gothic architecture Bro. Williams finds only 
one probable, that it is Scandinavian, inasmuch as the pointed arch and the nave 
(navis— ship) derive from the customary tomb of the sea-king, his ship, which was 
hauled ashore a placed keel uppermost on the natural rock pillars of the craggy coasts 
of Norway. The track of the Vikings, and their descendants the Normans, is marked 
by Gothic structures, nearly all situated on islands or near the sea coast. English 
workmen built the cathedral at Stavanger, the second in age and importance in 
Norway, about 862 A.D., and from 900 to 1300 the literary center— with all that 
implies— of Northern Europe was Iceland, whose Skalds visited these Courts and have 
left honorable memories. 


Of general interest as relics of our Operative ancestors are the accompanying pictures, 
one of which is taken from a fifteenth century wood cut— the scene is laid in 
Germany. It can be seen how the use of the wheel and crane had gradually improve 
the shape and efficiency of this mechanism. The masons are also shown as wearing 
aprons, which in the earlier drawing they do not seem to have. Further comparison, 
too, can be drawn between King Offa's Master of the Masons and the effigy of 
William Warmington (died 1427), a Master Mason (No. 4), who built Croyland 
Abbey. This is reproduced by Conder in his Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons, 
who refers to it in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. V, p. 2. 



An enlarged copy of the Offa photo was presented by the Toronto Society for 
Masonic Research to the Temple Board where they meet, and any other Temple 
Boards, or Societies for Research, that would like copies can be supplied as I have the 
negative. 


ADDENDUM 


The illustrations of parts of the abbey itself give one an idea of the immense amount 
of interest the building provides, for the lover of history and architecture, though 
these are only a very small part of the things worth noting in this structure. 


The so-called shrine of St. Alban stands in the Saint's Chapel, just east of the great 
Reredos, or screen, behind the high Altar. The original shrine was small enough to be 
carried in processions on festivals, being made of precious metals, and has long since 
disappeared. Thousands of pilgrims from many countries have visited the spot 
depicted in this photograph (No. 5); for centuries it was one of the most favored 
places for pilgrims from France, who often made the journey under most unfavorable 
conditions, to leave an offering and to say prayers at the shrine, or tomb, as it has 
often been called, of St. Alban. 


Many considered that the bones of the martyred Saint possessed curative qualities, 
and in the base of the present shrine holes can be seen in which cloths were placed, so 
as to be impregnated with the supposed curative powers. Many pieces of stone were 
chipped from the carving to be taken away home to heal those who could not make 
the journey to the shrine. 


The Watching Loft, seen in the background, was built in 1400 A. D. to provide 
shelter for a monk who was appointed to protect the shrine from damage, and to 
receive the alms brought by the pilgrims. The steps to the loft are solid oak logs, and 



the lower part contains cupboards in which relics were once stored but are now used 
to preserve pieces of Roman pottery and other articles of interest. 


At the first glance of the interior may be noticed the extreme plainness of the Norman 
work compared with other buildings of the same period, and this is explained by the 
fact that most of the material used by the Norman Masons consisted of Roman brick 
or tiles carried from Verulamium, just a few miles away, where an immense mass of 
such material was found on the spot where the town of Verulamium was burned by 
the Saxons after the Roman evacuation of Britain. The bricks not being amenable to 
carving, did not allow the Masons to display their usual beautiful work, and it 
necessitated the building of the arches and pillars in a very severe manner. The rough 
work was plastered over, any many frescoes were painted on the large square-shaped 
pillars in the nave. In the South Transept, the plaster has been removed in places in 
the triforium, where the edges of the Roman brick are seen in the Norman arches. 


An interesting point in the same location as the above is the presence of ringed 
baluster shafts of Saxon work, being beyond doubt part of the original Church built 
by King Offa, 793 A.D. The Norman Masons were never so much enthused with their 
own work as to ignore the beauty of work done by their predecessors, and in several 
places the Saxon work has been incorporated in a Norman building, for example, the 
Celtic window, high up in the west end of Kilpeck Church, that wonderful little gem 
of Norman architecture. 


On the exterior of the North Transept, we see by our illustration how the Norman 
builders used the Roman material. The white stones are flint gathered from the fields 
in the vicinity by the Normans. 


The Reredos was completed in 1484, its only rivals being that of Winchester and 
Durham, and the similarity of design and workmanship makes one almost sure that 
both were the efforts of the same gild of workers or craftsmen. It is a superb piece of 
stone tracery. 



I am indebted to Bro. H. J. Unwin, formerly of St. Alban's, for these final notes, and 
for the photos which are enlargements of his snapshots. 


— o — 


Daniel Coxe and St. John's Lodge, Philadelphia 


By BRO. DAVID MCGREGOR, New Jersey (Concluded from last month) 


Surely Franklin was sufficiently conversant with the eighth section of the 
Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England, which he had recently published, to 
know just exactly what was meant by the term "rebel brethren"; if, as is claimed, he 
had not himself been a regular Mason at that time, it would have been a case of the 
pot calling the kettle black ! 


No one will doubt that Franklin had a sufficient command of the English language to 
use the proper words to convey his thoughts; therefore when he used the word 
privileges he meant exactly what it implies, viz., that they were then enjoying 
something that had been granted to them, not an inherent right assumed by them; and 
the granting of those privileges must have been by a person who had the authority to 
do so —none other than the Grand Master of England. 


In making the request Franklin approached the matter as would any regular Mason, 
expressing his willingness to submit himself to higher Masonic authority wherever it 
existed, at the same time asserting the dignity of his own position in the words, "The 
Grand Master of Pennsylvania only yielding his chair when the Grand Master of All 
America shall be in place." 



As to the extension of Price's jurisdiction, it is unfortunate that neither the newspaper 
notice of it in the Boston prints, nor the original document or even a copy of it can be 
found. Nor does the records of the Grand Lodge of England contain any reference to 
it, as they do in regard to Coxe's deputation. It is desirable to know whether or not it 
was limited territorially as were most all such deputations issued by the Grand 
Masters of England, so as not to include territory where Provincial Grand Masters had 
been already appointed. 


FOR "ALL AMERICA" 


This limitation has been ignored in Bro. Melvin M. Johnson's references to these 
deputations in his recently published Beginnings of Freemasonry in America, leaving 
the reader to infer that all deputations to the Provincial Grand Masters of New 
England, with the exception of Robert Tomlinson, were for All America 
unrestrictedly. We know this is not a fact. True, the newspaper's report of Price's 
deputation to Franklin as Provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1735 designates 
Price as "Grand Master of His Majesty's Dominions in North America", which on the 
face of it is not correct, as it was not within the province of the Grand Master of 
England to depute to any brother an authority of equal prestige to his own, that 
belonging exclusively to the Grand Lodge as a body, his powers being limited to the 
deputizing of Provincial Grand Masters, so that, as in all others emanating from that 
source, Price's deputation must have been for a Provincial Grand Mastership. 


The omission of this qualifying prefex leads us to suspect that territorial limitations 
were also omitted-thus establishing a precedent that has become a regular habit 
among the historians of New England Freemasonry. 


It was no doubt known to Grand Master Crauford that a self-perpetuating deputation 
had already bee issued for a Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania; and it is highly improbable that he would have done anything to cause 
confusion or dissension among the brethren here by permitting the overlapping of 
jurisdictions. 



In regard to this report which appeared in the Philadelphia Weekly Mercury as to 
Price's appointment for all America, it looks rather strange that such an important 
item of news failed to appear in Franklin's Philadelphia Gazette. It is scarcely 
conceivable that after making application for it, if it was received and accepted by 
Franklin, he would have neglected to give it all the publicity possible, in order that 
the "false and rebel brethren" of Philadelphia might be promptly informed, as it was 
to meet their criticisms that the deputation had been asked for. If Franklin did receive 
it, his refusal to publish it seems to indicate that Price had not been able to satisfy him 
fully as to his authority as Grand Master of All America as he had requested him to 
do. In fact, neither Price nor any of his successors ever had any authority delegated to 
them to appoint anyone to the office of Provincial Grand Master, the full extent of 
their deputations being the appointment of a Deputy Grand Master and Grand 
Wardens, also the issuing of warrants for the institution of subordinate lodges within 
the territory prescribed by their deputation; therefore if Price did issue such a 
deputation to Franklin he assumed an authority that belonged only to the Grand 
Master of England. 


While even admitting that Price may have received some authority or order to extend 
his territorial jurisdiction, we are not prepared to admit, as claimed by Bro. Johnson, 
that its publication in a Philadelphia newspaper was "unequivocal evidence of the 
extension of Price's authority over all America, and Pennsylvania's recognition 
thereof'. Surely he does not mean to suggest that Bradford's Weekly Mercury (a 
paper not in any way identified with Masonry, and one which earned for itself the 
appellation of being the first anti-Masonic paper in America) presumed to represent 
the Pennsylvania Masons, the only persons whose recognition could be considered in 
the matter! In fact, its non-appearance in Franklin's paper may rather be looked upon 
as an absolute refusal on the part of himself and those for whom he spoke to 
recognize it in any way. 


GRAND LODGE MET AS USUAL 


This much we know. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania continuing on the even tenor 
of its way, met on June 24, 1735, and elected a successor to the office of Provincial 
Grand Master for the fourth or fifth consecutive year. Had Franklin and the Grand 
Lodge accepted the deputation from Price dated Feb. 24, 1735, it is not likely that he 



would have been requested or even willing to retire from the chair, after serving but 
four months under the new dispensation. If Price's deputation meant anything to 
Franklin, it surely meant at least a full year of service under it. 


In later years Price does not appear to have been so certain as to that extended 
deputation to All America; in one letter he said he had received it in 1735, instead of 
1734; and when the Provincial Grand Lodge in Boston petitioned for a deputation to 
Jeremy Gridley to be "stiled Grand Master of All America," which they persisted in 
asking for on every opportunity, Price urged the granting of the comprehensive title in 
a letter to the Grand Master of England, under date of Aug. 6, 1755, in which he said 
he had received his deputation from the Right Honourable Lord Montague in April, 
1733 (which was for New England only), "which I held for four years, and constituted 
several Lodges, and was succeeded in the office by Bro. Tomlinson" (whose 
deputation was also for New England only). No mention whatever was made of a 
deputation for "All America." Then he proceeded: "Now with my consent all the 
brethren in North America have made choice of our Bro. Jeremy Gridley, Esq., to be 
Grand Master for three years." The only lodge officially represented on that occasion 
outside of those in Boston, was the New London Lodge. Price was surely suffering 
from an attack of Bostonitis, in which the mental vision of the patient is so restricted 
that he believes that "The Hub" is the whole wheel ! 


Despite this request so strongly urged and endorsed. Gridley's deputation was, as 
usual, issued for "Provincial Grand Master of all such Provinces and places in North 
America, and the Territories thereof, of which no Provincial Grand Master is at 
present appointed". 


Price's memory was evidently failing him when in 1768 he claimed in a letter to the 
Grand Master of England that "his deputation was the first that the Grand Lodge ever 
issued to any part of America". If he did not know better, he was sadly ignorant of 
what his protege and successor in Solomon's Chair, Jeremy Gridley, was fully 
cognizant of years before. 



We find that when Jonathan Hampton applied to Jeremy Gridley in 1762 for a 
warrant to institute a lodge in Elizabethtown, N.J., Gridley refused to grant it until he 
was fully satisfied that Daniel Coxe did not still have jurisdiction over that Province; 
and it was only after Hampton had apprized him of the fact that Coxe had died before 
Gridley was appointed Provincial Grand Master, that he acceded to the request and 
granted a warrant for the second known lodge in New Jersey. 


PRICE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE "ALL AMERICA IDEA" 


The more modem and modified form of the claim that "The deputation to Price was 
the first to be transmitted across the seas", must now be also abandoned in view of 
what was proven in my previous article. 


It is quite apparent that Price was largely responsible for the promulgation of this 
unrestricted "All American" idea; and as he advanced in years he became more and 
more obsessed with it, until he actually permitted himself to believe that no other 
deputation of equal Masonic authority was ever granted to an American. Of the actual 
existence of such deputations he was forcibly reminded by the Grand Secretary of 
England, who, in answer to a request that he [Price] be given proper priority in the 
records of the Grand Lodge of England, advised him that "no deputation which has 
been granted since your appointment, for any part of America can affect you, as their 
authority can only extend over those Provinces where no other Provincial Grand 
Master is appointed", as did his. This equality of jurisdiction in Provinces where no 
Grand Master existed, is clearly shown in the case of New Jersey, where within a few 
years lodges were instituted on warrants derived from three Grand Jurisdictions, New 
York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; New Jersey being then, Masonically 
speaking, a no-man's-land. 


This obsession of Price goes beyond the bounds of charitable interpretation when, 
after having for the fourth time installed successors to himself in the office of 
Provincial Grand Master, he turns around and challenges the Grand Secretary of 
England to find that he had at any time resigned from the office of Grand Master of 
All America. Did he consider himself to be a Supreme Grand Master, exercising 



authority over and above the regularly appointed successors to himself as Provincial 
Grand Master where no Grand Master had been appointed? 


While we are willing to draw the mantle of forget fulness over such evidences of 
mental aberration, we do not feel justified in accepting his claims as to his authority 
or the extent of his jurisdiction in the year 1734/5 but fully believe that he had no 
jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, where a Grand Lodge existed; nor had he any 
authority to appoint a Provincial Grand Master anywhere in America. The attempt to 
use Franklin's letters to Price, as proof of the irregularity of the Grand Lodge of 
Pennsylvania, is utterly futile. 


— o — 


A Spanish American Masonic Lecture 


Translated by BRO. J.W. CHAPMAN, New Mexico 


THIS lecture was given in "The Worshipful Lodge, Condor No. 9," and published in 
The Rivista Masonica of Chile. It is interesting from at least two points of view. It 
indicates a number of evident ritual variations, and it also sets out quite clearly the 
ideals and aspirations of Masonry in that part at least of Spanish America. 


As it is known, the Masonic practice is to teach by making use of symbols, which 
have been preserved and transmitted from remote times. Thus, when we reach the 
doors of the temple, we see objects which represent principles and ideas which are 
impressed on our minds. 



The lodge meets in places called "temples," which are of rectangular form and extend 
from East to West. When we enter, our attention is called to two great columns, 
generally of bronze, whose chapiters, of Corinthian order, are decorated with 
pomegranates and lilies. These pomegranates signify to us that we must preserve a 
close and cordial union rather than isolation, and that the nucleus of ideas and 
doctrines have their beginning in these places, which we must shuck out from all 
parts, acquiring Knowledge and Virtue. These columns have the letter B on the left- 
hand one and J on the other, which we recognize is somewhat distinctive of the two 
first degrees. 


Beyond in front of the entrance and in the East, is an elevated dais where sits the 
Worshipful Master, who presides and directs our steps. In the west is another dais, a 
little smaller than the first, where sits the Senior Warden, who pays our wage and 
preserves harmony among the workmen. In the south is installed the Junior Warden, 
in a seat similar to the other, who observes that labor is performed properly and 
profitably. 


There are three columns which form the supports of the lodge, or, the three principal 
Lights which illuminate it, and represent Wisdom, Strength and Beauty; the first to 
conceive and direct; the second to realize; and the third to beautify and adorn the 
work. 


THE BIBLE IS NECESSARY 


In the center of the lodge is a small altar, triangular in form, with three lights, and on 
which rests the Bible, the symbol of that enlightenment which it gives to our minds, 
and the square and compasses; that one (the square) signifies that we must always 
think and act with rectitude, and this one (the compasses) that we must proceed with 
regularity in all our endeavors. So likewise here is encountered the Constitution, the 
fundamental law of organization and procedure of Symbolical Masonry. 



At the left of the Worshipful Master and next to him is the Orator, the Counsel of the 
Lodge, who gives attention to the respectful and faithful application of the 
Constitution and regulations. At the right is the Secretary. A little below and on the 
left and right, are the Treasurer and the Dispenser of Alms, the latter being charged to 
heed and care for those who need the assistance of the lodge. In the middle of the 
temple in front of the Junior Warden, is the Master of Ceremonies, and opposite him 
is the Expert, who is learned in the ritual and in the requirements of Masonry. Finally, 
the entrance is guarded by the Temple Guard. Around the foot of the station of the 
Worshipful Master are the members of the lodge, who form the legal institution and 
permit it to function regularly. 


THE CHAIN REPLACES THE CABLETOW 


Decorating and encompassing the ceiling is a chain, emblematic of the intimate and 
fraternal union which reigns among Masons, in which everyone is a strong link 
attached to the other; a chain comprised of Masons of the world, one and all. At the 
west of the ceiling are a multitude of stars, which, as the East is approached, diminish 
in number and increase in size, so we are taught to enjoy the light of Truth and 
Wisdom. 


The floor is laid out with black and white squares, and this represents the toleration 
which reigns among us concerning all opinions and creeds, notwithstanding there 
may be differences of opinion; and also, to remind us that all the actions of life have a 
diversity of appearance which we must interpret with reason before forming 
judgment. 


In the East, at the foot of the station of the Worshipful Master, are two stones: the one 
on the left is unpolished, its sides are uneven, and is wholly unfitted for use in 
building. On the other side is the true edged stone, with its smooth surfaces, already 
prepared for the builders' use. The one is the symbol of our natural personality, filled 
from the beginning with imperfections and impurities, and which may be purified by 
the love of study and work, and by the constant practice of virtuous deeds, to which 
we are induced and bound by the Masonic obligations. 



ALLEGORICAL PICTURES USED TO DECORATE THE LODGE 


Some pictures decorate the walls of the place: in the East, at the right, is Minerva, 
Goddess of Wisdom; at the left is Hercules, emblem of Strength; and east of that one 
is Venus, symbol of Beauty: three conditions necessary for individual and collective 
progress. 


Another mural picture represents a very fine sieve, which represents Masonry boldly 
selecting from the materials introduced, and from which are obtained those to be 
promoted to higher dignity. And another represents a magnificent uncompleted 
edifice. This is the palace of Knowledge and of Civilization, which Humanity is 
perpetually constructing but never completing. 


One of the virtues which recommends itself to us most zealously is Work, and so it is 
said that Masons work tranquilly devoting ourselves to preparing sepulchres for vice, 
and to raising up temples to Virtue. 


In return, according to our efforts, we receive our wage; and likewise, speaking 
symbolically, as we are employed with rough materials, we must use an apron, of 
white skin with a flap raised for better covering. 


THE ENGLISH WORKING TOOLS ARE EMPLOYED 


Also, it is said that we work in our degrees with chisel and hammer; and again, that 
we do not write except to trace out plans with marker or pencil. So it is necessary that 
we have a Master to teach us to use the implements and to oversee the work; and as 
he is a just and kind director, he wins our respect and appreciation, and on account of 
this we call him "Worshipful." 



The Wardens aid the Master in inspecting our work, paying the wages, and 
encouraging us to perfect our rudimentary knowledge. 


For this reason the apprentices, whom we arrange on the left of the lodge, are said to 
be in darkness and are not permitted to kindle a light from our side. 


Masonic lodges are workshops where the laborers work freely and conscientiously, 
and who are divided into three classes or basic degrees: Apprentice, Fellowcraft and 
Master. 


THE DEGREES SIGNIFY THE THREE AGES OF MAN 


These degrees have also other significances: they represent the three principal periods 
of the life of man. 


That of Apprentice is equivalent to Childhood, that age in which all is seen and 
observed, and in which knowledge and experience is constantly acquired. Forsake the 
darkness for the light. 


The second degree, or Fellowcraft, represents Manhood, that period in the life of a 
man which is complete without the impetuosity of youth and childhood, in which he 
begins to acquire practice in the use of his faculties and in the employment of the 
implements of his work, and finally reaches the way which he pursues to the end of 
life. 



And the third degree, or Master, represents Maturity, and the full knowledge of skill 
to which it is dedicated, of the use of the working tools, and of the theories by which 
the laborer is instructed. It is knowledge of life, and of the pleasure, happiness and 
triumphs which it offers to us. 


THE NUMBER THREE IS STRESSED 


Already we will have perceived that all these symbols and instructions have three 
points of support or aspects. In addition, the triangle is the figure most used and 
respected in the Order. 


It is said that this is the proper emblem of a complete philosophical system, especially 
of Freemasonry. 


The triangle reminds us that we must unfold our personalities, parallel and 
harmoniously, according to natural philosophy, intellectually and morally, then we 
will approach an indestructible whole. 


And this triple instruction repeats itself in the call for entrance into the lodge, in the 
steps which we must take, in the three great lights which illuminate, etc., etc. 


It is curious to note the importance of trinity with us, Wisdom, Strength and Beauty 
have a certain equivalence with the Holy Trinity of the Catholics, the Father, the Son 
and the Holy Ghost. 


THE PURPOSE OF MASONRY STATED 



Finally, it is permitted to express the conception, which, through the medium of 
lectures and addresses by well-informed brethren, is and has been formed of 
Symbolic Masonry, and it is that which we pursue. 


Masonry is an institution which has existed from remote times and in distant 
countries, and which has been formed of men eagerly desirous of Wisdom and 
Purification. Always it has held one essential basis, philosophy and progress. It 
searches for the truth with solicitude, and is tolerant of all opinions and doctrines, it 
conducts itself with circumspection, is submissive to harsh and rigorous analysis. 


It has never been a religion, but has always pursued knowledge with a zeal almost 
religious; and the methods of instruction, in which the symbol is foremost, has a 
resemblance to many of the religions of the East and West. 


Its purpose has ever been for mutual profit, and not, as some believe, to fight forcibly 
against the clergy. 


Being an institution, essentially philosophical and reasonable, it has as its foundation 
liberty of conscience and freedom of inquiry. From these proceed, as result, its 
permanent and fundamental disputes with all religions and sects which attempt to 
muzzle human thought. 


So has been preserved, across the centuries, the symbol of the Grand Architect of the 
Universe, to whom we render tribute of studying and of inquiring into the Supreme 
Law, the Power or the Great Principle, however we may desire to invoke Him, who 
directs and co-ordinates this vast and unceasing movement of matter in all of its 
infinite manifestations. 


Prejudices limit freedom of inquiry; and these are essentially un-Masonic. 



For the attainment of morality and intellectuality among our adepts, it has been, and 
is, one of the first principles of our Order to require physical perfection. 


Anciently, candidates had to submit themselves to rigorous and very long tests, which 
sometimes continued for years, before they might be introduced into the Temple for 
initiation. 


Now, we observe the life of the aspirant, and demand information more less strictly. 


But we must call to mind and hold, dismissing all prejudices to the contrary, that the 
complete purification of the individual is a Masonic obligation, and an essential duty 
of a good Mason. 


— o — 


A Brief Application of the York Rite to Daily Life 


BY THE GRAND HIGH PRIEST, Texas 


THE Grand Chapter of Texas, R.A.M. alive to the need for a richer understanding of 
the magnificent mysteries of the chapter, eager to put every Royal Arch Mason into a 
more complete possession of its wealth of wisdom, has published for distribution 
among Texas brethren a little book bearing the above title, here published by 
permission of the Grand High Priest. It is a hint of what may be done by way of 
bringing home to a man in his own bosom, as something good to know and to have, 
the lore and wisdom of Masonry, than which nothing is more practicable. 



MASONRY is the ocean of fraternity, and every Mason should strive to sail its broad 
expanse, because its profound solemnity and matchless beauty can never be 
appreciated by those who merely wade in the shallow waters at the shore. The tides of 
time have rolled mighty waves upon its bosom, and the storms of centuries have 
lashed the billows into foam upon its surface, but beneath there have remained, 
undisturbed and immutable, the principles of the Brotherhood of Man. 


No Mason should deny himself the privilege of knowing at least the salient features 
of our Fraternity, and we owe it to the ancient and honorable institution to leam 
enough of its teachings to grasp their deeper significance, so that we shall not be 
gigglers in the Master's degree nor Shriners in the Royal Arch degree. If the Masonic 
bodies of all rites and branches will, during the next five years, be as diligent and 
efficient in making Masons as they have been during the past five in making 
members, our great Fraternity will be a tremendous power for good, a power made 
possible by numbers and knowledge, but not by numbers alone. A uniform does not 
make a soldier and a button does not make a Mason. 


When the beginner in Masonry first starts his inquiry into the principles of the 
Fraternity, he should be advised of the necessity for bearing in mind at all times that 
the Temple, which plays so important a part in the lodge, is a symbol of the Temple 
on High, and that this symbolism also applies to the king and to the master builder, as 
well as to all in the Blue Lodge, or Symbolic, degrees. He should also be advised to 
disregard the history of Masonry in the beginning of his studies, since great confusion 
is certain to result, and he will waste his time. Unfortunately, our most scholarly 
historians are pleased to begin their history of Masonry at a time when it had already 
grown great in influence and hoary with age, having brought down through the 
centuries the traditions which have fascinated the Speculative Masons. Such a history 
of George Washington would date his birth at the time he was inaugurated President 
of the United States. 


But the beginner does not need history; the degrees themselves contain earmarks of 
antiquity which will be convincing enough for the beginner. Teach him that the 
ritualistic work is only an index to Masonry, merely enabling him to read the 



symbols. Masonry is a picture of human life, real life as it was yesterday and as it is 
today, of man struggling between the fallacies of the senses and the infallibility of 
divinity, going down to the grave without seeing his life-work bloom in full fruition, 
then rising to immortality through the merits of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. 


Man's mortal existence is great subject, but Masonry deals with more than this, for it 
impregnates a part of each Degree with a little something which leads the mind of the 
thinker to something higher, to greater possibilities. One of the great lessons of the 
Fellowcraft's Degree is that a thorough, well-round education forces the thinker to 
recognize God; rationalistic in every sense, laying aside the Bible and teaching only 
the sciences and arts, yet leading to that important conclusion, and making this 
Degree the predicate for all that follows it in Masonry. 


This profound system of thought, this marvelous cycle of symbolism, the beginning 
of which the Grand Lodge of Texas interprets in the York Rite, can be completed 
only in the York Rite. Unless a Mason proceeds further in the York Rite, he never 
sees the divine light which is promised him; he stumbles through life with a 
Substitute Word; he fails to recognize the priceless heritage for which he should 
work; he never learns of the greatest part that Masonry has play in history; he never 
knows the debt of gratitude which the world owes to our great Fraternity. 


York Rite Masonry is a book of many chapters, each chapter dependent upon those 
preceding it; the actual life of man and his rewards are the golden threads which run 
through the entire story. The following lines are written with the hope that they may 
be assistance to members of our Fraternity in interpreting the Degrees to the young 
Masons, so that they may enter into the real spirit of the ceremonies, grasping their 
deeper meaning and enjoying the splendid lessons which they teach to the thinking 
Mason. 


THE MARK MASTER'S DEGREE 



The Mark Master's Degree is a part of the Fellowcraffs and is founded on the ancient 
custom of requiring each workman to place his mark upon his work. It teaches many 
lessons and is historical as well as philosophical. It teaches that the world demands 
substantial service which should measure up to certain standards, must pass the 
squares of certain authorities, and must bear our mark if we would take credit for it. 
This is a worldly lesson, yet there creeps into it the idea that the work of a Greater 
Artist may be accepted by most of us, whereas the supposed high authorities will 
reject it until it is redeemed by the highest authority. Think back on the Fellowcraffs 
Degree and study its prophecy on the work of this greater artist; if you do not know 
the Fellowcraffs Degree, you have no foundation for Masonry. 


Although supposed to do so, a Mark Master may not record his mark in the lodge, but 
in daily life he has no option; it is recorded for him. The Book of Mark in the lodges 
is the Book of Life in the world; in one, his mark is what he says it is; in the other, it 
is what the people say it is; in the Book of Marks on high, it is probably exactly what 
he has made it by thoughts, words and actions. In the commercial world, the value of 
the trade mark is well understood. In humanity's clouded vision, where many a scar is 
mistaken for a stain, a man's reputation is his mark and it may be better or worse than 
he deserves. By his mark, the Mark Master shall be known and he should record it in 
the keystone which binds the arch, the stone which is the work of a greater artist, and 
it is surrounded by two circular lines, enclosing a mystic sentence, which is translated 
in plain English as follows: "The Master Builder of God's house reserves this space 
for me to register my pledge of faith." 


This degree also teaches services and co-operation, and demonstrates that we can 
often assist a friend when we actually feel that we cannot; even the pass grip is a 
symbol of assistance and co-operation in getting up the steep places of life with the 
valuable qualities of character which go into our spiritual building. It also touches 
upon man's selfishness in claiming a greater reward than his fellow, overestimating 
the value of his own efforts and underestimating the other man's, but it shows that 
merit stands the test when referred to the wise and impartial judge. 


A Mark Master is taught charity in the true sense of the word; charitable thinking is 
often more valuable than money. Common experience teaches us that men are prone 
to err and this Degree emphasizes that forgiveness, after suitable punishment, may 



enable a man to come again, regain what he has lost, perfect his life, and bring up 
good and square work, which is always acceptable. 


THE PAST MASTER'S DEGREE 


The Past Master's Degree is strictly a Blue Lodge Degree, and is frequently conferred 
upon the Master elect of a lodge in a convocation of Past Masters, none of whom are 
members of the chapter. From time immemorial, it has been the custom that none but 
those who had been elected to the East in a lodge, could be exalted to the Royal Arch 
Degree; this custom debarred thousands of deserving Master Masons from the 
chapter, or Capitular, Degrees. On this account the Past Master's Degree is conferred 
in the chapter and those who receive it become "virtual" Past Masters as distinguished 
from actual Past Masters. 


After a Mason has heard the obligation and the ancient charges, rules and regulations, 
he gets an insight into lodge procedure which he has never had before; he learns the 
"whys and wherefores" of certain practices, such as either opening or closing the 
lodge in long form in order to give a part of the trial lecture; he also learns why 
Masters frequently make certain requirements that the written law does not demand. 
Correctly conferred, the Degree does much toward really qualifying a candidate to 
preside over a lodge, and is a wonderful assistance to one who has had no experience 
in presiding or parliamentary practice. Care should be taken to see that this instruction 
is given. 


It also teaches lessons of a moral and symbolic nature. It demonstrates that there is a 
correct method of teaching, which will drive home a lesson after other methods have 
failed. School teachers should understand this principle, although they may not be 
Masons. It also teaches obedience to the law, something that a Master must recognize 
at all times, and it calls attention to the necessity for closely following set rules while 
striving to master a new vocation, science or art. A beginner in music, medicine or 
Masonry must give the strictest attention to certain rules and formulas if he would 
become a Master; having become a Master, he may vary from them, perhaps, but not 
as a beginner. 



Masonry has a central theme which runs entirely through the York Rite, and the Past 
Master's Degree usually demonstrates that evil consequences may develop if we lose 
sight of a central thought. Some men possess splendid qualifications and are capable 
of excellent work, but they are in the clutches of some particular sin which prevents 
them from achieving success. "One thing thou lacketh," Jesus told the young ruler. 
The Past Master's Degree, like all other Degrees in the York Rite, deals with man in 
his actual life, and it teaches in a striking manner that a man may be well qualified in 
many particulars, and yet meet with failure because he overlooks or underestimates 
the importance of some one feature. 


Whereas the Mark Master's Degree teaches that men have an individual responsibility 
although working in the masses, the Past Master's Degree brings out the thought that 
this responsibility increases in proportion to the power that is placed in one's hands, 
and that the truly great man, while occupying the highest place of power, bears this 
responsibility without forgetting for a moment that he is a brother to the lowliest. 
Although circumstances may lift a man to an exalted position, a haughty or arbitrary 
spirit is very unbecoming, since other circumstances may work his undoing and 
reduce him to the level of those about him. 


THE MOST EXCELLENT MASTER'S DEGREE 


The Most Excellent Master's Degree is still another picture of man in actual life, but it 
is founded on one of the high lights in history. As it is conferred in Texas, the 
candidate never gets anything out of it, because he does not comprehend it; he stands 
off to one side and watches the proceeding, but it is meaningless to him. If he takes 
time to study it after receiving it, he discovers that it is a congratulatory degree, a 
degree of rejoicing, thanksgiving and praise. The materialist, the strictest rationalist, 
can apply every feature of it to his own views, but into the Mason's mind again creeps 
that spiritual touch, a symbolic hint of something finer than clay, something beyond 
the finite. When we really understand this Degree we find that it has been conferred 
on us many times, and that we have helped confer it on others long before we 
received it in the lodge room. When the boy or girl masters the course in school and 
receives a diploma, it is the Most Excellent Master's Degree that is conferred upon 



them. In business, society or politics a man may plan his work, follow it to a 
successful termination and look back upon it with thanksgiving and praise to those 
who have helped him, and receive the Most Excellent Master's Degree. When a man 
marries the woman he loves he receives the degree, and when these two build their 
first home, how strikingly they confer it upon themselves; however humble that home 
may be, however dim the lights within, a fire churls down from heaven and 
illuminates the souls of these two who have set the capstone and finished the house. 


THE ROYAL ARCH DEGREE 


The most important Degree in Masonry, regardless of Rite, is called the Royal Arch, 
but in reality this name should be applied only to York Rite Masonry in its entirety, 
since it alone is the stupendous Royal Arch, the rainbow of hope set in the heavens, 
with one end resting upon Eden and the other on the crumbled ruins of the world. 


Into the Royal Arch Degree is compressed more information, more food for thought, 
than any other degree, and its sheer greatness is shown by the variety of views of its 
votaries, each seeing it from his own angle, and its seriousness is impressed upon 
each in proportion to his natural ability and his knowledge of the Degree. Serious 
situations are not always so regarded by onlookers, whose ignorance of existing 
conditions prevents their appreciation of the seriousness; in one of the Great 
Nazarene's tense moments the rabble laughed. The Royal Arch Degree is still another 
picture of man in actual life— and the rabble still laughs. 


One of the lessons of this Degree is that the greatest of rewards is due to loyal service, 
especially service which is rendered at a sacrifice, for that shows the heart of the man; 
vicarious suffering is worthy of the noblest rewards. No matter whether one's abilities 
be great or small, his service is valuable and his reward should be in proportion to his 
zeal and fidelity rather than according to the high or low plane in which the laborer 
toils. The reward given in this Degree should be studied from every angle by every 
Royal Arch Mason, and he should strive to master its full meaning; he can get a very 
clear and distinct idea of what Masonry really means to him by attempting to fix a 



value upon the Recovery; his whole idea of Masonry is involved in the value he 
places upon it. 


The historical sides of this Degree should appeal to every candidate, whether he is 
able to follow its symbolism and philosophy or not, and he is invested with secrets, or 
traditions, of which he may be justly proud, since he finds a heritage worthy of any 
man, learning that he is the successor of men who did more than any other in 
preserving the very foundation stone on which our civilization rests, on which our 
nation must stand or fall, on which Masonry is founded and must stand throughout 
the ages. 


In the life of every man there is a Babylonish captivity, but it is only the good man 
who hears the news of his release and hastens to offer his services in a noble and 
glorious undertaking without the hope of fee or reward; in the life of every man there 
is a long and weary journey on which he passes the ruins of other lives, the blighted 
hopes and shattered ambitions which stand out like stupendous rows of columns and 
obelisks, and from which he should derive a serious lesson; but the good Mason is 
justified in believing that he can pass the rough and dangerous places in that straight 
and narrow path, refreshing himself in an occasional oasis, finding time and 
opportunity to render thanks for his protection and deliverance, and finally reach the 
goal where, by the signet of eternal truth, he may pass the thin veil which hangs 
between the finite and the infinite. 


The greatness of the Royal Arch Degree cannot be written nor can it all be told even 
behind tiled doors; perhaps its whole story can never be told; it touches not only those 
in the lodge room, city, state or nation, not only the world today, but it reaches back 
into the dim, distant past and likewise projects itself into the future until the universe 
shall be dissolved and time shall be no more. 


THE COUNCIL DEGREES 



With the possible exception of Ohio, the Grand Council, Royal and Select Masters of 
Texas is the largest Council Jurisdiction in the world. It controls three Degrees, but 
only two have ever been taught by the Committee on Work; these are the Royal 
Master's and the Select Master's. 


After a Royal Arch Mason has devoted himself to thought on the Chapter Degrees, 
especially the last one, numerous questions present themselves to his mind, and he is 
unable to answer them; during the period in which he is pondering over these 
problems and trying so hard to solve them, he is "ripening" for the Council Degrees, 
for they explain the perplexing points of the Royal Arch Degree. 


The Royal Master's Degree depicts a scene which took place before the events of the 
Master's Degree occurred, and the great artist of the Master Mason's Degree is the 
moving spirit of the Royal Master's Degree. On this account, the candidate wonders 
why the Council Degrees are conferred subsequent to the Chapter Degrees, but a little 
knowledge of the entire system will convince him that Texas confers the Council 
Degrees at the right place. If Masons were unwise enough to demand chronological 
sequence, the Council Degrees would necessarily be conferred before the Master 
Mason's Degree. 


The Royal Master's Degree is a little gem and is perhaps the only Degree which 
makes the candidate wish they would turn right around and confer it on him again. It 
is in this Degree that the master builder delivers a discourse which is one of the most 
impressive and beautiful parts in all the ritualistic work of Masonry. 


One passes the "circle of perfection" in the Select Master's Degree, which is one of 
great importance and relates a tradition that is always remembered by the candidates. 
When the important part of the Degree is reached the candidate is given a seat and the 
team proceeds to do the work. A person must see and hear it several times in order to 
grasp its full significance, but when it is understood the Select Master is in position to 
look back over the entire system of Ancient Craft Masonry and view the perfect 
whole. 



THE COMMANDERY OF KNIGHTS TEMPLAR 


There are no Degrees in the Commandery; they are called "Orders" and there are 
three of them, namely, the Order of the Red Cross, the Order of Malta, and the Order 
of the Temple. It is a useless waste of time to attempt to trace a lineal kinship between 
them and the knightly orders of the Crusades, but this could be done perhaps, if the 
Masonic historian were as credulous of medieval and modem history as he is of all 
things pertaining to King Tut. However, this is wholly unnecessary, because the 
Orders speak for themselves, and the Order of the Temple is the very capsheaf of 
Masonry. 


Around the altar of the lodge the Gentile and Jew, the Hindu and Mohammedan, can 
fraternize in the Brotherhood of Man, acknowledging their dependence on the Most 
High and enjoying the blessed communion of "brethren who dwell together in unity." 
In the chapter and council the Jew and Gentile enjoy a closer relationship, since their 
philosophy and their theology have stood the test of time, and there is a harmony 
which must be experienced to be understood. But only the Christian can 
conscientiously pass the portals of the Commandery, because two of these Orders are 
founded on the deeds and customs of the knights of old, who were devout Christians, 
and since 1760 only Royal Arch Masons who were Christians have been eligible to 
knighthood 


CHRISTIAN FREEMASONRY 


The Order of the Temple is veritably the Christian's paradise for reflection, for here 
he can interpret Masonry conformably to his religious belief. Jesus Christ has no 
place in the lodge, chapter or council, and the Mason who tries to place Him there is a 
supreme egotist. If God, in His wisdom, saw fit to withhold the Christ from the world 
for four thousand years, it is not becoming in any Mason to deviate from the Divine 
Plan or attempt to improve upon it by forcing Jesus into Masonry until Masonry is 
prepared to receive Him. The lodge, chapter and council deal historically with events 
under the Mosaic dispensation, and not until the Mason has reached the Commandery 
is he symbolically entitled to the Christ. As men of old looked forward with longing 



eyes to the time when the Star should appear in the East, so should every earnest 
Christian Mason look forward to his entrance into the Commandery where he is 
entitled to a realization of his fondest hopes. 


The Knight of the Order of the Temple, or Knights Templar, can look back upon the 
whole plan of Masonry with a clearer view; it seems to be a more vitalized and a 
more sacred system than ever before. He recalls the marvelous parallel of the Old 
Testament and the Fellowcraff s Degree, both a thousand years old when Jesus was 
bom, the Old Book prophesying that there would come One upon the earth through 
whom all men must enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Fellowcraff s Degree 
telling us of a man, half Jew and half Gentile, a master builder, whose blood 
represented alike God's Chosen People and the Gentiles, who constmcted the two 
large brazen pillars that were set up at the entrance porch and between which all men 
must pass into King Solomon's Temple, which was the symbol on earth of the 
heavenly temple. If the Christian's mind should be perplexed as to whom this man 
typifies, all doubt disappears when this master builder, this paragon of fidelity and 
integrity, falls without sin or blame and is borne almost in the direction of Calvary, 
and is raised from the tomb by him who symbolizes on earth the Great King on His 
heavenly throne. 


When the devout Christian, who is likewise a zealous Mason and Knight Templar, 
looks back upon Masonry in a contemplative mood, he seems to see the footprints of 
the Creator in every avenue; the Divine hand seems to have fashioned each setting; he 
beholds each scene illuminated by a new light; each Degree has a new and deeper 
meaning. The Christian Mason closes his York Rite career with the Order of the 
Temple, a ceremony so solemn, so beautiful and impressive, so tender in allusion, so 
sublime in thought, that he never forgets it, never regrets, but enjoys it more and more 
as he advances in learning and experience; then, after a few years of earnest thought 
and patient study, he must guard against over-zealousness, or his reflections will 
bring him perilously near the conclusion that Masonry is a divine science. 


CHAPTER STUDY CEUBS 



For the past few years such a tremendous amount of Degree work has been required 
of the chapters that there has been but little, if any, time for most of the active 
workers to devote themselves to a study of the philosophy and symbolism of the 
Degrees. This has proven unfortunate, and it is high time that we get back to study. 
We should not only know what the Degrees mean, but we should teach the newly- 
made Companions. 


We now have a vast army of recruits who have never been trained. In military circles 
such, as an army, would be considered valuable only because of its possibilities; it 
requires months of hard training to qualify a recruit as a soldier, and it also requires 
hard training to make real Masons out of young and untrained members. 


There is hardly a chapter which would not profit very much by organizing a Study 
Club for the purpose of sounding Capitular Masonry to a profound depth, and High 
Priests will also find it advantageous to have a talk by some well-posted Companion 
each time the Royal Arch Degree is conferred. Every intelligent candidate will 
appreciate any effort which is made to give him more light on the work he has just 
taken and help him to understand its true significance. 


— o — 


Great Men Who Were Masons 


Jabez Bowen 


By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, P. G. M., District of Columbia 



JABEZ BOWEN was one of the early members of St. John's Lodge at Providence 
which was organized in 1757. The date of his initiation is not known but he is said to 
have been made a Mason some months before the full age of twenty-one. In 1762 he 
was Junior Warden of his lodge, and again from 1766 to 1769, when for some reason 
the lodge became dormant for nine years. In 1778 the Grand Master of Massachusetts, 
John Rowe, authorized him to revive the lodge and to act as its Master. At the end of 
the following year he was re-elected and continued in this office by his lodge for a 
period of thirteen years, to 1791. Under his guidance the lodge seems to have 
flourished, and a new impetus given to Freemasonry in Providence. In 1791 the 
Grand Lodge of Rhode Island was formed and he was elected as the first Deputy 
Grand Master. This office he held until 1794 when he was elected Grand Master and 
was re-elected for six years in succession to this exalted office. 


He was born in Providence June 2, 1739, his father being Ephraim Bowen and his 
mother Mary Penner, both descended from the best Puritan stock. He was educated in 
his native town and at Yale University. After graduating in 1757 he returned home 
and began the practice of law. His superior attainments and sterling qualities won him 
many friends and naturally resulted in his entrance into public affairs. In 1773 he was 
elected a member of the Town Council, then a much greater honor than it would be 
considered today, and in 1777 he was returned as a representative in the General 
Assembly, and a year later was chosen deputy governor to succeed the Hon. William 
Bradford. He was also appointed a judge of the Superior Court, the equivalent of the 
Supreme Court today. In 1786 he was chosen by the Legislature as a commissioner to 
represent Rhode Island in the Convention of States proposed to be held at Annapolis, 
and was a delegate to the convention at which the Constitution of the United States 
was adopted, and was very active in securing the support of Rhode Island in its favor. 
During Washington's administration he was Commissioner of Loans for his own state, 
a position of trust but not of emolument. 


Among other activities in the public welfare he served as President of the Bible 
Society of Rhode Island, he was a member of a committee to take charge of the public 
schools, the first appointed by the town. He also took a great interest in Rhode Island 
College, now Brown University, an institution that has had so much influence in the 
development of the state. He was a member of the Board of Fellows in 1768, after 
which he became a Trustee and in 1785 was elected Chancellor, which office he held 
until his death. 



The college conferred on him, in 1769, the degree of L.L.D., honoris causa, and in 
1800 Dartmouth honored him in the same way. 


He was a sincere and devout member of the First Congregational Church, and his 
earnestness in urging that the Bible was the rule and guide of our faith will endear 
him to the heart of all good Masons. 


He married Sarah, daughter of Obadiah Brown Providence, who bore him seven sons 
and a daughter. After her death he married a second time, the daughter of Judge 
Leonard, of Raynham, Mass. 


Governor Bowen had the reputation of being a man of remarkably even temper; he 
apparently let nothing disturb him, his mood was ever the same. In his old age he was 
as eager to learn as in his youth. He was a public spirited citizen as his record proves. 
He exercised a great and wholesome influence in the community because of his 
integrity, capacity and unselfish interest in the general welfare. The same qualities 
enabled him to contribute largely to the revival of the Masonic Order in Providence 
and the state generally. His interest in Masonry never flagged and to the last he was 
one of the most faithful and regular attendants at the meetings of his lodge. He was at 
good father and had the great happiness to see his children follow in his steps. He 
died May 7, 1815, full of years and honors, and was buried with Masonic rites in the 
burying ground of the First Congregational Church of which he had been for so long 
a member. A simple stone was placed over his grave, but it is now so weather worn 
that the inscription can with difficulty be read. True he was one of those of whom it 
can truthfully be said that his memorial should be in the hearts of his brethren, yet 
surely, for the honor of the Craft, a more fitting monument should be erected lest they 
forget. 


— o 



ONE 


Howe'er I view this thought of God, 

A star, a babe, a tree, a clod 

I know that in it all there lies 

His Thought and Breath that never dies. 

Nay, know we not there is no death 
For all the Atoms of His Breath? 

Can o'er to nothingness depart 

The very stream from God's own heart? 

God is! For see we not His face 
In every form, in every place? 

In every smiling summer tree? 

In every calm or raging sea? 

In every sun in every sky, 

In every bright gleam in the eye; 

In every sense and thought we know 
In His own Fife our highways go. 



In all our actions and repose 
In every dewdrop on the rose; 
Infinite Space and Endless Time - 
It all is God - The One - Sublime 


- Gerald Nancarrow 


— o — 


Joseph Robbins' Famous Masonic Oration 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR 


It is a good thing for us to celebrate famous men not alone because of the inspiration 
gained from their personal achievements but in order that we of today may sit at the 
feet of the masters of yesterday, the better to learn wisdom. From few of the great and 
wise teachers of Masonry now gone to the Grand Lodge above would one leam more 
than from Bro. Joseph Robbins, whose almost epoch making oration is printed below. 


Joseph Robbins was born in the good town of Leominster, Mass., Sept. 12, 1834, of 
the best of stock, his granduncle having fallen in the Battle of Bunker Hill, his 
grandfather having served through the Revolutionary War, and his mother having 
been a descendant of the first president of Harvard College, all of which means that 
sound red blood coursed in his veins, a fact not belied by his own militant career. 
Little is known of his early education except that it was both broad and deep, so that 
at the comparatively early age of twenty- seven he was able to graduate from Jefferson 
Medical College at Philadelphia. Upon his graduation he set himself up in practice in 



Quincy, 111., where in the course of time he became a kind of institution, with a 
notable practice. He was too charitable to make much money, but he made a host of 
friends, and had countless admirers among his own profession. In his late years he 
abandoned general practice altogether to become a consulting specialist. After his 
honorable and arduous career he fell into everlasting rest at Quincy, July 19, 1909. 


Dr. Robbins was made a member of the Craft by Quincy Lodge, No. 296, on 
December 16, 1859. Of this lodge he was W.M. during the period 1863-1869 
inclusive, and then again in 1880. From his first visit to Grand Lodge in 1863 until 
and including 1908 he did not miss a session except for the year 1864. In addition to 
numberless other offices and honors of Grand Lodge he was Grand Master for 1876 
and 1877. 


The beginning of this Grand Lodge career was anything but auspicious. Thereby 
hangs a tale, the substance of which as here given has been borrowed from Bro. Owen 
Scott's little book The Standard Work of Illinois. It appears that in 1844 Bro. Levi 
Lusk, then Grand Lecturer, reported to Grand Lodge that pursuant to a resolution 
adopted by that body in the preceding year he had visited with Bros. Carnega and 
Foster at St. Louis, both of whom had been delegates from the Grand Lodge of 
Missouri at the Baltimore Convention, and from them had obtained the lectures as 
these had been adopted by that convention. Upon this, Bro. Lusk was asked to 
exemplify the work of the Third Degree that night; presumably this was done, for 
Grand Lodge at the same session voted to adopt his report and to use the Ritual as 
recommended by him as the Standard Work for Illinois. 


Unfortunately no adequate machinery was devised, except for the appointment of 
Lecturers and Inspectors, to set up this new standard in the constituent lodges, so that 
for a period of twenty years or so "the conferring of degrees [I am quoting Bro. Scott] 
produced as great a variety as the hues of the rainbow." 


Then came a new actor into the scenery. Bro. Robert Morris of Kentucky had 
organized what he called the "Conservator's Association," a secret society, the 
purpose of which was to propagate among all Grand Lodges the Webb-Preston 



Ritual, as it was called. This society succeeded in winning over Quincy Lodge, of 
which Dr. Robbins was a member, and later W.M. When Quincy Lodge stubbornly 
adhered to the Webb-Preston work, defying the edict of Grand Lodge to the contrary, 
G.M. Thomas J. Turner reported to Grand Lodge in 1865 of this "contumacy" and 
recommended that Bro. "Joseph Robbins, W.M. of Quincy Lodge, No. 296, be 
suspended from all the rights and benefits of Freemasonry for the period of twelve 
months for contumacy and disobedience of the resolution of the Grand Lodge and the 
lawful edict of the Grand Master." Later in the day Bro. Robbins appeared before 
Grand Lodge and "made suitable explanations and acknowledgments," and the matter 
was dropped. 


Evidently this bit of disciplining had little effect on the young W.M's popularity with 
his brethren at Grand Lodge for after three years he was elected Grand Orator, and as 
such delivered, in 1869, an oration, herewith published, described by Bro. Scott as 
"the greatest exposition of the aims and purposes of Masonry ever presented in the 
Grand Lodge." 


In this same year Bro. Robbins began his duties as Fraternal Correspondent, in which 
office he shone with an ever growing lustre until at the end of his career his name was 
known from one end of the country to the other. He contributed reports in 1869, 1871 
to 1875, 1879, 1880, and then from 1888 to 1903 inclusive, making thirty reports in 

all. 


My, how the man could write! His sentences are as lithe as an athlete's muscles, with 
never a waste word, or ornamental phrase, or idle trope, bound together into 
paragraphs as succinct as were ever printed. In and out of them play summer 
lightnings of wit and sarcasm, and at times a faint shimmer of poetry. Neither Parvin 
nor Drummond was a harder hitter; and as for comprehension of Freemasonry as a 
whole, and knowledge of its facts, Robbins had not a superior. 


These high qualities were recognized by Grand Lodge when in 1916 it directed Bros. 
Owen Scott, Alexander H. Bell and George A. Stadler to prepare a memorial volume 
In Appreciation of the Character and Services of Joseph Robbins. In this cloth bound 



book of 1 63 pages one will find a collection of excerpts from his reports in which are 
faithfully mirrored his genius and character. The oration immediately following has 
been taken by permission from that volume. 


ONE year ago tonight, when the last moments of the session were waning, and the 
hand on yonder dial had almost reached the hour of low twelve, some of us heard the 
beautiful address of the Grand Orator. All who were then present will understand why 
I approach my duty with diffidence, and hesitate to break in upon the murmuring 
echoes of that rippling river of silver speech, the spell of whose eloquence yet rests 
upon us like a benediction of peace. 


It is no light thing to follow such a man and, in doing so, only your commands can 
acquit me of presumption. I ask your indulgence, then, while we consider the force 
that has sent us up hither from every part of this great state. What is this Institution 
whose interests today engross our attention ? Whence comes it, and why does it exist? 


What is the peculiar nature of this paradox of all time which, though wholly a 
voluntary association, can preserve its unity when families are divided, when 
churches are rent asunder, and even states go whirling out of their accustomed orbits ? 
This Institution which, though almost autocratic in its government, yet finds a 
common level whereon all, from the least to the greatest, stand as equals? This 
Institution which, though it embraces enough to satisfy the highest mental culture, yet 
adapts itself with equal facility to those who might almost be termed illiterate? This 
Institution which, though it comes down to us venerable with the weight of uncounted 
years, stands today with its frontlet unmarked by the furrows of time, the dews of 
eternal youth glittering on its brow? 


There must be some intrinsic reason for this wonderful vitality which has preserved it 
intact, and substantially unchanged, through so many centuries, enabling it to 
withstand alike the disintegrating influences of time; the prejudices of the ignorant; 
the anathemas and persecutions of the Romish Church, and the wiles of king-craft and 
state-craft vainly seeking to use it for selfish ends. 



There must be some wonderful adaptability in an Institution that can command alike 
the allegiance of the highest culture, and the mind whose outlet goes no further than 
the daily routine of a life of toil. In this, Masonry is like music. They are twin 
daughters of that harmony which we are wont to claim as the strength and support of 
our Society. Doubtless he who understands the whole science of music may find in it 
a keener esthetic enjoyment than the uneducated; but he who knows not a note may 
have his soul lifted to the skies on the wings of its melody, and filled to the measure 
of its capacity with its harmony. 


WHAT MASONRY IS NOT 


In attempting to inquire what Masonry is let us first see what it is not. In the first 
place, Masonry is not a church nor, primarily, a religious organization. It is only so 
far interwoven with religion as to lay us under obligations to pay a rational homage to 
the Deity. It knows nothing of sectarian lines, requiring only of its initiates a 
recognition of the one everliving God— the Creator and Governor of the Universe. 


As it knows no sect, so it knows no party, enjoining only on its members the duties of 
loyalty to their country, obedience to the civil magistrates, and a cheerful submission 
to the government under which they live. It is not a moral reform association. Not that 
it neglects the duty of reforming its own members, but it does not exist for the 
purpose of taking up the outcasts of society and attempting to reform. On the 
contrary, it requires that the candidates for its privileges shall be men of honor, 
integrity, and of good report. 


But do not these things— the relation of the individual to God, the state, and to his 
fellows-include everything for which institutions need exist among men ? And if 
Masonry is not a church, a political organization, nor primarily engaged in the work 
of reform, why should it exist? 


All institutions spring up to meet some real or fancied human need, and exist to 
conserve some truth, to give it expression and make it a vital force. If the truth, of 



which they are the outgrowth, be a central--a fundamental— one then have they within 
themselves the elements of perpetuity; but if it be fragmentary, then have they equally 
within themselves the germs of dissolution, and are smitten, even in their first 
inception, with the effacing fingers of decay. 


The highway that leads down to the present out of the misty past is strewn with the 
crumbling debris of institutions founded by men who caught at a fragment of truth 
and vainly supposed they possessed the key that would unlock the system of the 
universe. 


Out of the great central truth that God is, has grown, as an expression of man's 
reverential adoration, the institution of the church; and so long as there exists finite 
beings to adore an Infinite God, so long will the church— using the word in its larger 
sense-endure. 


But men have often confounded their theological opinions with the essential verities 
of religion; and have projected institutions for the conservation of their particular 
dogmas. Founded in no essential truths, their wrecks lie stranded all along the shores 
of time. 


From the necessity of public peace and individual security, has grown the institution 
of civil government; and so long as a man is an imperfect being, governments must 
exist. But peculiar governmental forms and political institutions have grown up, 
whose founders either lost sight of, or made secondary to their own selfish interests, 
the great essential purpose of all just government— the security of the individual and 
the common good— and these have either quietly disappeared through their inherent 
tendency to decay, or they crumble and go down, as in our own day, in the blood and 
flame of a Gettysburg or Sadowa. 


So of the home, an institution comprehending all that we hold most dear. Being the 
natural outgrowth of that affection which binds together kindred or congenial souls, it 
must continue while love endures. 



But, catching at the fragmentary truth which we recognize in the mutual inter- 
dependence of all man kind, and overlooking the greater truth that the impulse of love 
is stronger than any merely economical consideration, men have attempted to erect 
socialism into a permanent institution. The attempt failed, not because it was founded 
wholly in error, for the system contained some elements of success, and these are 
being utilized and preserved in the co-operative associations of the present day. It 
failed because its truth was but fragmentary, and because its plan ignored the isolated 
home, founded on the sanctity of the family relation and that love which will tolerate 
no profanation of its holy of holies. 


MINISTERS TO WANTS OF MEN 


If, then, no institution can achieve a permanent existence unless it be an outgrowth of 
some central truth, and minister to some real want of humanity, the very permanence 
of Masonry, the fact that it has so long maintained its hold on human hearts, is 
sufficient evidence that it somehow ministers to the wants and aspirations of men. 


Rejecting as fanciful the speculations of those who profess to trace Masonry back to 
the days of Enoch, we may yet say, with safety, that it is among the most ancient of 
human institutions; not, perhaps, precisely in its present form, but in forms so nearly 
allied as to leave little doubt of their identity. Whence this wonderful vitality ? The 
answer, already partly indicated, is that Masonry is founded on essential truths, 
whence naturally flow the great moral lessons it inculcates, and that it recognizes and 
responds to that yearning desire for human sympathy which is implanted in every 
human heart. 


The great central truth— the alpha of Masonry— is that God lives and governs the 
world, at once the Supreme Architect and Universal Father; that all mankind are His 
children, the objects of His love, and entitled to our consideration as members of the 
same great family. What wonder, then, that in the long weary centuries through which 
man has struggled on towards the goal of a common equality, an Institution of which 
this is the central idea, should command the devotion of those who saw, even dimly, 



the logical sequence of this grand conception of the brotherhood of mankind. No 
human institution inculcates this truth with such force as Masonry. It views man 
separated from his accidents. It looks through the trappings of wealth; the insignia of 
rank; the humble garb of honest poverty, and sees alike beneath them all--the MAN. 
Within its charmed circles all are equal. Whether coming from the hovel of the 
peasant or the palace of the prince; at its portals they leave all worldly distinctions, 
and meet on the level of its checkered floor, brothers and equals by virtue of their 
manhood. The humblest and the proudest must travel the same paths to attain 
Masonic knowledge; are bound to the same fraternity and to each other by the same 
sacred ties; their equal covenants are made in the presence of the same Almighty 
Father. To you, my brethren, these statements are but truisms. But if the uninitiated 
would ponder them with a sincere desire to discover the springs of that power by 
which Masonry holds the life-long allegiance of so many men, they would go far in 
assisting him to a just conclusion. From this perfect equality of all Masons he will see 
how we naturally deduce those duties which we owe to our fellowmen; all summed 
up in the injunction- "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." 


CHARITY TOPMOST ROUND OF LADDER 


As naturally as the stream from the fountain, from this great central truth of the 
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, flows the chief of Masonic virtues. 
Charity or brother love, the topmost round of that emblematic ladder which reaches 
from earth to heaven. This virtue Masonry inculcates at every step. It is this which 
should lead us to seek a brother's welfare and hold his reputation equally with our 
own; to he ready to go out of our way to succor him if he in need; to stretch forth our 
hands to support him if he be falling; to keep sacred in our own breasts the 
confidences which he give us, only because we are his brothers by this mystic tie, and 
to whisper tenderly in his ear alone that counsel which his errors and the purpose of 
his reformation may require. It is the assurance of the recognition of this virtue and 
the duties that grow out of it among Masons that hallows in their hearts the memory 
of the brother who dies among them a stranger, and whom they see perchance for the 
first time as they gather about his newly-made grave. It is this, too, that casts a halo of 
sanctity about his widow and orphans, and makes their future care the legacy of his 
survivors. 



As the greater includes the less, so this broad charity includes the lesser of alms- 
giving. Thus Masonry teaches the claims of every human being on our sympathies; 
and if it recognizes as its first duty to minister to the wants of those who are of the 
household of the faithful, it does no more than is done by every association and 
institution under the sun. But the objection sometimes urged that Masonic charity is 
exclusive is true only in the technical and narrow sense that its revenues are usually 
applied to Masonic uses within the Fraternity. But millions outside its pale may bless 
the Order whose subtle sympathies have first roused the slumbering benevolence of 
the heart, made it sensitive to the cry of distress, and quick to respond, come from 
what quarter it may. Even those whose hearts have been quickened by the glow of its 
altar fires can never compute the beneficent influence of Masonry in this direction; 
still less can they who have never drawn from its fountain of inspiration. 


If Masonry is an organized recognition of human brotherhood so, too, it is an 
organized expression of man's trust in his fellow man. So indispensable is a strict 
regard for that divine attribute, Truth, that without it Masonry would be but a form 
without vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction. So carefully is it calculated, 
and so universally accepted, that when two strangers meet and find each other to be 
Masons each instinctively relies on the other's word, because each has learned to trust 
to the influence of Masonry on the life of his fellows. Moreover, each brings to the 
other the recommendation that some lodge has, by admitting him to membership, 
unanimously endorsed him as a man of honor and veracity. The fundamental idea of 
human brotherhood, and its necessary corollaries— Equality, Brotherly Love and 
Truth-constituting as they do the very essence of Masonic ethics, we can partially 
discern what it is that gives the Institution its vitality, and comprehend its hold on the 
affectionate devotion of so many of the good and great whose names adorn the pages 
of its history. But beyond all this— permeating Masonry as the sunlight permeates the 
air we breathe —is an element of wonderful power, its mysticism. 


The incorporation of this element into its body is a practical recognition of a 
metaphysical fact of which all, perhaps, are conscious, but which few feel in its full 
force, THAT A SECRET HELD BETWEEN TWO OR MORE PERSONS IS A 
BOND OF SYMPATHY BETWEEN THEM. It brings them nearer together by 
giving them a point of common interest; and this aim is apparent in the whole plan of 
Masonry. It seeks attractions and not repulsions. It seeks and secures unity and 
harmony by carefully eliminating all causes of diversity and discord. Not that it asks 



men to yield their convictions, but only that they shall not attempt to divert the Order 
from its legitimate purposes and make it an engine of propagandism. 


SECRET SOCIETY A MISNOMER 


To you who have felt the power of this mysticism, there can be no better illustration 
of the potency of an idea than this: that while it is the custom to speak of Masonry as 
a secret society, yet so narrow is the thread of secrecy that runs through it, and so 
wide the margin of its definitely declared and published aims, that it is almost a 
misnomer. 


Whosoever turns to its law and its literature may gain a correct and very full 
knowledge of its nature and design. Its principles are as plain as the noonday sun. Its 
charities are not paraded before the world, for it is too tender of the feelings of the 
recipients of its bounty to add another to the stings of that necessity which impels 
them to ask it. Nor does it give to be seen of men, but clings to the injunction of its 
own great light, the Bible: "When thou givest alms, give them in secret; let not thy 
left hand know what thy right doeth." It seeks not the meretricious popularity which 
follows in the wake of trumpeted charities, lest it should attract to its fold a class of 
mercenary persons whose affiliation would prove a source of weakness. But that 
which can really be called the secrecy of Masonry, lies only in its ritual and 
ceremonial, the true APPORETA which constitute that universal language spoken 
among people of every tongue and kindred, and by which a brother may recognize 
another anywhere under the wide arch of heaven. As at the Temple of Jerusalem, 
whither all the people went up to worship, though they were all possessed of the law 
and the testimony, yet the High Priest alone was permitted to enter the Sanctum 
Sanctorum, where dwelt the Shekinah— the symbol of the living Presence. So 
Masonry has its holy place and its mysteries too sacred save for its own anointed. 


The subtle, indefinable influence, the quick, apprehensive sympathy, engendered by 
the possession of a common secret held sacred and inviolable, can never be fully 
comprehended by those who have not themselves felt its mystic power. 



It quickens the impulses of charity; sharpens the sense of integrity; softens the 
asperities of political warfare; tones down the dogmatic acrimony of theological 
discussion; mitigates the horrors of war; and prompts to deeds of truest chivalry— of 
generous self-sacrifice. 


THE SELF-SACRIFICING SPIRIT 


Many a tombstone standing where pestilence has blazed its desolating way through 
crowded cities is but a monumental record of the self-sacrificing spirit, thus 
developed. 


A striking illustration of its influence came under my own observation a few years 
since. 


In a rural district, where the very name of the disease is terror, a Mason fell sick with 
smallpox. He was deserted by all save one young man, bound to him only by the 
Masonic tie, who watched over him while living, and alone cast the evergreen into his 
early grave. A few days later this young man came to the city suffering with the 
initial fever of the disease, and asked me to take him to the pesthouse, to remain until 
the danger of infecting his friends was past. In answer to my questions he told me 
how he had contracted the disease, remarking that the man was a Mason and he 
"couldn't see him lie there and suffer without care." He made no ado about it, and 
seemed unconscious that he had performed an act of selfsacrificing devotion requiring 
the highest type of courage. 


This young man's surroundings, the atmosphere of his daily life, had not been of an 
elevating character. More than likely he neglected the "mint, anise, and cummin" of 
the law, and might have been termed a reprobate by those who adhere rather to the 
letter which killeth, than to the spirit which giveth life; but this compelling power of 
Masonry had taken root in his heart and blossomed into deeds redolent of the sweet 
odors of charity and blessed in the sight of Heaven. The influence of this spirit— I 
might almost say this INSTINCT of brotherhood— in mitigating the horrors of war is 



attested by many well-known instances, and many more are known only to those who 
were parties to them. It snatched Putnam from the torturing hands of his captors in the 
old French War. It more than once unnerved the arm of Butler when, with Brant and 
his savage followers, he swept with fire and sword the lovely valley of the Wyoming. 


In the last great struggle for national existence it ministered to the necessities of our 
brave defenders who languished in southern prisons, snatching them from their living 
death, or failing in that, smoothing the pathway that led down into the dark valley of 
the shadow, for many a brother who offered 


"The last libation that liberty draws, From the hearts that bleed and break in her 
cause." 


It was this spirit which sent the heroic Kane on his crusade against the elements, far 
up in the regions of eternal ice, in a vain attempt to rescue his brother, Sir John 
Franklin; a forlorn hope, whose sad record shines on the page of history with a 
brilliancy which pales the very Aurora whose dancing rays beckoned him to this 
crowning chivalry of the century. 


UNITES INTO A COMMON MANHOOD 


It is this spirit which makes it possible to overcome the antipathies engendered by 
national, partisan, and sectarian jealousies, and bring men of every country, sect and 
opinion into one common fold. Without it, not even Masonry, which alone of all 
human institutions has been able to compass so grand a result, could bring men of the 
most diverse religious and political opinions into harmonious fellowship on the 
simple basis of a common manhood. 


Whatever lies wholly, or even largely, within the domain of the feelings is difficult to 
analyze and understand; and so it happens that we are only able to apprehend, dimly, 



perhaps, the potency of this element of mysticism in developing that instinctive 
sympathy of brotherhood, that love which is the keystone of the Masonic arch; but if 
we grasp the idea with sufficient clearness to comprehend, even partially, its vivifying 
power, we can see how it would vitalize an Institution growing out of the ideas I have 
enumerated; deepen in the hearts of its votaries that reverence for God, order and law 
which its traditions inculcate; quicken and make real, impelling forces, springing up 
into active life, what would otherwise exist only as passive sentiments in the heart— 
the doctrine of the equality of all God's children; that all embracing charity which is 
its logical sequence, and that recognition of the sacredness of truth, without which 
there can be no confidence among men. These great principles are the warrant which 
Masonry offers for its existence, while its mysticism is the flux by whose aid its 
diverse elements are fused into one harmonious whole. 


We can now see more plainly what it is that knits its members together as with hooks 
of steel, and holds them in willing allegiance to their common mother. We can see 
what sustained them through the dark days of the anti-Masonic crusade; that 
anomalous outburst of unreasoning bigotry which disgraced this free country during 
the present century, a persecution which lacked not the spirit but only the power that 
lighted the fires of Orleans, Smithfield and Madrid. 


LANDMARKS SUPREME LAW 


Another point not to be overlooked in our estimate of what tends to the perpetuity of 
Masonry is this: that these cardinal principles, together with its governmental and 
ritualistic forms, are unchangeable. They constitute the LANDMARKS, to which 
naught can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away. Unalterable as the 
laws of the Medes and Persians, they have determined the form and development of 
the Institution; given it stability through centuries of existence, and made it a gigantic 
moral lever, whose elevating and beneficent influence has been felt wherever 
civilization has given it a fulcrum. 


Though the government of the Craft is vested in the Grand Master and the Grand 
Lodge, which is the representative body of the fraternity, yet above all and beyond 



the power of the Grand Master, Grand Lodge, or the whole body of the Craft to 
change, stand the landmarks— the supreme law. Against these the tide of passion and 
prejudice may beat in vain. True, its flood has sometimes obscured them with its 
blinding spray, but its ebb has again revealed them, standing out clearer, for the storm 
that has washed from their hieroglyphics, the moss-grown coverings of error, and 
swept from their firm-set bases the burying sands of time. 


Freed from the perturbations which must inevitably result from any fluctuation in its 
organic law, the Institution goes on from age to age, substantially the same today as 
when, already crowned with the benedictions of the widows and orphans of buried 
centuries, it emerged from the dark womb of the dim, traditional past into the clearer 
light of the age of written history. 


MOST POTENT SOCIAL FORCE 


Today it is felt as one of the most potent of the social forces; bringing millions within 
the scope of its humanizing influence, teaching them reverence for God, trust in their 
fellow men, and that most difficult of all problems— the subjection of the passions and 
the government of self. No one who knows, or who will take care to inform himself 
what Masonry is and what it teaches, can for a moment doubt its beneficent influence 
on its own members, or on the community in which it flourishes. Like a tree by the 
wayside, it yields its blessings, not alone to those who have planted and cared for it, 
but society, like the wayfaring man, plucks from its wide- spreading branches the 
fruits of peace and law, order and good government. 


To our care, my brothers, this Institution— founded in the broadest liberality, yet 
conservative in the best sense of that abused word-is committed in this generation, 
and it is our duty to see that it suffers no detriment at our hands. The puny efforts of 
narrow minded men outside the Fraternity can avail nothing against it; and so long as 
Masons themselves are loyal to its landmarks, true to its teachings, and faithful to the 
light they have received, it will continue to exist, an aid and solace to men in ages yet 
to come. So long it will continue to teach the worth of individual manhood; to reprove 



selfishness; encourage charity; promote peace, and vindicate its fitness to elevate and 
bless mankind. 


DON'T HELP 


"If your club is on the bum, 
Blame the secretary; 

If your members will not come. 
Blame the secretary; 

Don't take hold and do your part, 
Don't help give the thing a start, 
Show 'em all that you are smart- 
Blame the secretary. 

"If the programs are a frost, 
Blame the secretary; 

Don't help put the thing across, 
Blame the secretary; 

If the grub's not what you like, 
Threaten to go on a strike; 

Don't help, for the love of Mike- 
Blame the secretary. 



"When you get a bill for dues, 
Blame the secretary; 

When you're asked to help, refuse; 
Blame the secretary; 

Let her do it— she gets paid- 
Why should she be seeking aid? 
That is why her job is made- 
Blame the secretary." 

— o — 

EDITORIAL. 

BOARD OF EDITORS 
Editor-in-Chief - H.L. HAYWOOD 

ASSOCIATE EDITORS 


LOUIS BLOCK, Iowa 
ROBERT L. CLEGG, Ohio 
GILBERT W. DAYNES, England 



RAY V. DENSLOW, Missouri 
GEORGE H. DERN, Utah 
N.W.J. HAYDON, Canada 
C. C. HUNT, Iowa 
CHARLES F. IRWIN. Ohio 
A.L. KRESS, Pennsylvania 
R. J. MEEKREN, Canada 
JOSEPH E. MORCOMBE, California 
JOSEPH FORT NEWTON, New York 
ARTHUR C. PARKER, New York 
JESSE M. WHITED, California 
DAVID E. W. WILLIAMSON, Nevada 

PRESENT DAY GILD MASONRY 


THE article by Bro. Springett, the first half of which we are able to present to our 
readers in the present issue, is of great value in itself as a contribution to the subject, 
and will be of especial interest to those Masons in this country who have been 
intrigued by the claims that the Operative Masonry from which our institution derives 
has continued to exist down to the present day in its original form; still fulfilling the 
functions of a mediaeval craft gild. 


So far THE BUILDER has kept an open mind on the subject. A number of brethren 
whose opinion carries weight have been ardent advocates of the claims of the present 
day Operatives. On the other hand brethren whose reputation for scholarship is very 
high point out that no actual evidence has been put forward to substantiate these 



claims. Such evidence, in the shape of records and minutes is said to exist, and in 
overwhelming amount, but there is some scruple about making it public - or even 
submitting it to selected Masonic students for their appraisal. 


Were there certainly any truth in the Operative's account of the beginnings of 
Speculative Freemasonry, that it was irregular or clandestine, we could understand 
that they might still traditionally hold to an attitude of non-intercourse, but it seems 
on the face of it a peculiar and almost inexplicable attitude to be willing to 
communicate the ritual secrets to Speculative Freemasons, but to refuse to show 
minutes and records, which presumably are concerned solely with purely business 
matters about which could be no especial secrecy. The early minutes of the Grand 
Lodge of England have been published, and those of many subordinate lodges, and 
are open to the world, and though recent minutes may very naturally be kept as 
private matters there could hardly be any real reason for making a mystery of those of 
a hundred years ago. The position seems topsy-turvy, and the net result has been to 
make those best qualified to judge very doubtful as to the reality of these claims. That 
our readers may hear both sides we are hoping to publish an article in the near future 
in which the subject will be discussed from the critical point of view. 


* * * 


WHY HISTORY? 


MANY a worthy brother thinks, and not a few express the thought, sometimes in very 
forcible language, that there is altogether too much time and space devoted to 
Masonic history. "Why all this antique, out-of-date stuff?” say they, “What we want 
to know is what does Masonry mean to men today? What is Masonry going to be 
tomorrow?" 


Doubtless there is truth and justice on their side. There is a small percentage of people 
who are interested in what is old because it is old. Another fraction of the race are 
interested in old things because they love to solve problems and puzzles, and of all 



problems those of history are the most puzzling to solve, and become in general the 
more difficult the further back in the past they go. But we can neglect this minority; 
the ordinary citizen, who is also the ordinary good sort of Mason, the bulwark and 
foundation of the ordinary lodge, cares for none of these things. He is interested in the 
problems of the day, and how his action now may affect the future, and so to him the 
historical has no appeal. 


Perhaps the fault lies not so much with history in itself, but in the historian. It is only 
too true that those most gifted in digging out the facts from the records of the past are 
also too seldom careful to attempt to set them out in such a way as may hold the 
interest of those living in the present. It is perhaps possible that the only way to make 
history generally interesting is to write it with an eye on the present day. Macauley 
wrote a history of England that in its day was read almost as a "best-seller" novel - he 
wrote it with a strong partizan bias which gave it a "punch" for his readers. To take 
another example nearer home, Bro. Newton's The Builders has been read by 
hundreds, probably thousands of Masons who scarcely realized they were reading 
history, for the style and manner of presentation beguiled them, and the story of the 
past was shown to be connected directly with the problems of the present. 


When we stop to think about it we are all necessarily interested in history, if not 
"ancient" history - but not because it deals with things past but because it is relevant 
to our purpose, because it has a bearing on our present needs. For instance, an 
employer is interested in knowing something of the history of an applicant for a 
position, but he probably is not interested in the history of the applicant's father or 
great-grandmother - yet if he were to learn that for several generations there had been 
insanity or epilepsy in the family, or that the majority of its members had been 
shiftless, dissolute and dishonest, then such "ancient" history would interest him very 
much, and might very materially affect his present decision. 


In the case of a society or a nation we must go back much further into the past than in 
that of an individual if we are to understand the present. For an example if we know 
the history of Germany we can understand how she broke out in the Great War. To 
most people in other countries there was something inexplicable, something unnatural 
about it; but really it was very human, and in a sense inevitable. In the same way if an 
immigrant to this country is to be Americanized, he must be taught something of the 



history of the United States, he must learn something of the Constitution. But to fully 
understand the American Constitution it is necessary to go back still further in the 
centuries and learn something of the development of government and the age-long 
fight for individual liberty among the so-called nordic races and especially the Anglo- 
Saxon people. 


Exactly the same thing is true of Freemasonry. It is a living institution, having its 
roots in the past, having its problems of today, that will affect its future. If those 
charged with rulership are ignorant of the past they may act to its serious detriment - 
and as Masonry is essentially democratic every Master Mason in part shares in the 
control of the destinies of the Order. For example, the question arises as to who is to 
be admitted to the Order, and it is decided by a reference to the oldest records of the 
Craft. What are the prerogatives of the Master of a lodge? Again a matter of history. 
Can a Grand Fodge take any of them away? Still again it must be decided by 
reference to our history. There are a thousand things that might be done to adapt 
Masonry to our own needs or desires - we might put Abraham Fincoln as a substitute 
for Hiram the widow's son, or George Washington as the builder of his country in 
place of King Solomon - and it might serve the purpose - but it would no longer be 
Freemasonry. Out of all possible paths that may be taken we have to choose those few 
which do not involve cutting ourselves off from the past - our past - which do not 
lead to making our fraternity something organically different from what it has always 
been. 


There is doubtless little need of such argument for the majority of the readers of THE 
BUIFDER. They would not have joined the National Masonic Research Society had 
they not already seen the importance of such studies, but it may help to make clear 
how necessary it is, in view of the vital connection of the history of Masonry with its 
present day requirements, that there should be some forum where these questions can 
be discussed dispassionately, with the sole idea of arriving at the truth of the matter, 
unbiased by the desire to oppose some specific legislation or to advocate some course 
of action that may appear very desirable as a solution of the problems of the day, but 
which may also involve all kinds of unforeseen consequences as well. 



THE QUESTION OF REFRESHMENT 


A QUOTATION from an address by the Grand Master of Manitoba, Canada, has 
been brought to our notice which in part we reproduce here: 


"Should not the same caution be used in tyling the door of the banquet room as is 
used in tyling the door of the lodge? 


. . . To me the refreshment hour is as much a part of the lodge meeting as the 
ceremonies of the lodge room. Its standard of excellence should be as high as that in 
the lodge room, its atmosphere should be refining and the tenor of all addresses and 
entertainments should be educational. 


"Let innocent mirth be there in abundance; let us have wholesome song and 
humorous story; but let it be always understood that at the table of a Freemason 
impurity of thought, speech and conduct are prohibited. 


"At these gatherings there are always Masonic toasts, and they should not be 
proposed or responded to in the presence of strangers ..." 


In the United States the Masonic banquet has in general fallen from its high estate. It 
seems in most cases to be regarded as something to be explained away or excused; 
there is a feeling that a lodge that gives "feeds" is following a course that is verging 
on impropriety, that in so doing it is derogating from the dignity of the Institution. In 
short, the underlying assumption is taken for granted apparently, either that the lodge 
has a non-attendance problem which it seeks to palliate by bribing members with 
something to eat, or else that the members are not interested in Masonry but only in 
the pleasures of the table. 



Just how this conception came to arise is difficult to say. Elsewhere in the world the 
Masonic banquet is still regarded as an integral part of the meetings of the lodge, and 
this usage goes back to the time when Ashmole attended the lodge held at the 
Mason's Hall and enjoyed "a Noble Dinner prepared at the charge of the New- 
accepted Masons." And it is as equally certain that this early glimpse of the Craft 
gives us a picture of neither a new institution nor an innovation in custom. The 
Ascetic and the Ultra-Puritan may desire to forget the body and its needs, but it is 
quite certain that not only must it be fed at frequent intervals, but also that to do so is 
normally one of the pleasures of life. Men have always felt this. When we wish to 
enjoy the society of our friends we invite them to dine with us. It is not just that they 
may satisfy their hunger, it is not to gobble the food down as if there were not enough 
and we were anxious like pigs at a trough to get all our share and if possible more, it 
is not so much what is eaten, but the eating together, the customary conventions and 
the conversation, that gives pleasure. 


It is probably because the special conventions of a Masonic feast have been so 
completely forgotten in this country, that the hour of refreshment is looked at 
askance. Even the ordinary rules of courtesy seem frequently to be forgotten. It has 
been the experience of not a few brethren visiting a lodge to find that there is a mad 
scramble for the first seats at table, in which they are completely forgotten. The 
manners of a quick lunch counter do not lead to brotherly love, or to more intimate 
social intercourse. There is absolutely no need for this sort of thing; it is entirely in 
the hands of the Master and Wardens to remedy it. They will in very few cases have 
to do no more than suggest a better way, and their brethren will be only too glad to 
take it. 


Many men join the Masonic Fraternity with the desire of finding brotherly 
intercourse, and to have an opportunity to enter into closer relations with their fellows 
than every day life normally affords. How many are deeply disappointed ? New 
organizations have been formed with little other real object in view than to satisfy this 
human need, and they, too, as they succeed grow unwieldy, and again the individual 
is lost. It is in the lodge that Masons should find brotherhood - and there they would 
find it if the wheels of the degree mill were allowed to slow down and more attention 
paid to cultivating brotherly love. And no machinery is better adapted to this than the 
Masonic banquet. 



At the present time when Masonic education is attracting so much of the attention of 
the rulers of the Craft, it might be well worth the while of some Grand Lodge 
committee charged with this work to adopt manual for the guidance of lodge officers 
in this social side of the lodge with the definite purpose of reviving the ancient forms 
and usages of the Craft while at refreshment. This ceremonial is just as old, and just 
as much an original part of Freemasonry, as anything in the "work" of the lodge, and 
were it revived it might go far towards solving, indirectly, a number of the problems 
that are facing the Order in the United States at the present day. 


— o — 


The Late Thomas R. Marshall 


BRO. THOMAS RILEY MARSHALL, Vice-President of the United States during 
the War, was born March 14, 1854, at North Manchester, Wabash Co., Indiana. He 
was initiated in Columbia City Lodge, No. 189, of Columbia City, in the same state, 
where he was raised a Master Mason Sept. 5. 1881. He was exalted in Columbia City 
Chapter, No. 54, six months later, on Feb. 11, 1882. He was created a Knight Templar 
March 8, 1888, in Fort Wayne Commandery, No. 4, Fort Wayne, later taking his 
dimit and becoming a charter member of Cyrene Commandery, No. 3, in Columbia 
City. He received the ineffable degrees, from the fourth to the fourteenth, in the Fort 
Wayne Lodge of Perfection, Oct. 25, 1887, while it was still under dispensation, and 
took the remaining degrees of the A. & A. S. R. up to the thirty-second at 
Indianapolis. On Sept. 20, 1898, he was crowned a Sovereign Inspector General, the 
thirty-third and last degree, at Cincinnati, Ohio, and was made an active member of 
the Supreme Council on Sept. 21, 191 1, at Saratoga Springs, New York. 


From 1890 to 1895 he held the offices of High Pries, in Columbia City Chapter, a 
long period, but exceeded by his tenancy of the office of Illustrious Master of the 
Columbia City Council, No. 55, which was from 1887 to 1895. In the latter year, 
1895, he was electeded Most Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council of 



Indiana, and in 1897 he became Excellent Commander of Cyrene Commandery. His 
public career is so well known that there is no need to speak of it here. 


— o — 


An Appeal to the Masonic Fraternity 


WE, the undersigned Master Masons, belonging to divers regular jurisdictions, 
impressed by the disagreement which persists between the various Masonic groups 
concerning points of essential Masonic importance, and feeling ourselves moved to 
discuss with each other whether means can be devised to create conditions favorable 
to a more complete understanding between all Freemasons scattered over the face of 
earth and sea, have met together, unofficially and confidentially, and having 
exchanged views, we now have the honor tentatively to submit two propositions, 
products of our deliberations. 


The first of the principal causes of divergence between brethren is the difference of 
opinion which exists among them concerning the essentials and fundamentals of 
Freemasonry. We have taken conscientiously into consideration the views held by the 
several groups, and we now hope that all brethren, approaching the subject in a spirit 
of fraternity and tolerance, will feel able to agree to some formula such as the 
following viz.: 


"Freemasonry is a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by 
symbols. It is founded on the indestructible belief in the existence of a Force or 
Intelligence, Supreme and Infinite, causing humanity to progress and symbolically 
designated in our lodges by the term: - THE GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE 
UNIVERSE." 



Another of these causes is the difference of opinion that exists concerning the attitude 
which Freemasons, as such, should adopt towards questions of a political or religious 
character. Touching this problem, we offer the following suggestion, viz.: 


"It is considered to be a fundamental Masonic principle that political and religious 
discussions shall be excluded from all regularly assembled meetings of Freemasons. 
In putting it into practice, Sovereign Masonic Powers are guided by the spirit of this 
principle, and by the actual conditions existing within their jurisdictions." 


We, the undersigned brethren, venture to submit the two foregoing formulae to the 
brethren of all jurisdictions. We beg you to take them into serious and kindly 
consideration and we appeal for your concurrence and approval of the step we have 
taken. 


In inviting response to this appeal, we ask you to join with us in the earnest endeavor 
to bring together the too disunited members of our Great Fraternity, and thus 


contribute to a UNIVERSAL MASONIC ACCORD. 


PROF. DR. J. G. CARPENTIER ALTING, Late Member of the Council of 
Netherlands, India, The Hague (Holland). 


REAR ADMIRAL WILFRED HENDERSON, Ropley (England). 


DR. W. A. BARON VAN ITTERSUM, Chamberlain to H. M. the Queen of the 
Netherlands, The Hague (Holland). 


REV. A. E. F. JUNOD, Late Minister, The Hague (Holland) 



A. ARIENS MAPPERS, Amsterdam (Holland). 


DR. STEPHAN KEKULE VON STRADONITZ, Dr. jar., utr., Dr. Phil., late 
Chamberlain to H. S. H. the Prince of Sehaumburg-Lippe, Berlin (Germany). 


PROF. DR. C. N. STARCKE, Prof, of Philosophy at the University of Kopenhague 
(Denmark). 


TOWNSEND SCUDDER, late Justice of the Supreme Court of New York (U. S. A.) 


— o — 


THE POLITICAL IDEAL IN FREEMASONRY 


HOWEVER much we may be interested in Freemasonry's historic past, certainly we 
are all more deeply concerned with its present and future. Masonry is a conservative 
institution like all others which have their roots in far-distant times. We are living in a 
day when all things are rapidly changing. Old customs, old practices, old ideas are 
going by the board. Human progress— at least we call-it that— advances at a rapid pace. 
Yet never was there greater need to prove all things and hold fast to that which is 
good in the old. One must be blind indeed to believe Masonry immune to the forces 
which make for change. Parrot-like repetition of the phrase "remove not the ancient 
landmarks" will hardly protect us. The changing ideals in Masonry simply must be 
guided into right channels. 



"Saving the nation" has become a great American indoor sport. We are literally being 
"organized" to death by well-meaning persons to promote well-meaning causes. A 
regular technique has been worked out which is supposed to marshall public opinion 
behind such causes. Masons ought to realize what a tremendous temptation our Order 
offers to the professional uplifters, the faddists and the self-appointed saviours of the 
nation. We are a well-organized body of men, numbering several millions, with so far 
a good reputation for uprightness and sincerity of purpose. Little wonder they would 
do anything to align us behind their movements. There never was a time when 
Freemasonry should exercise greater vigilance than now in its commitments on public 
and political affairs. We have too many members within the Order who will not be 
happy until they have driven us to embrace permanently what can only be termed the 
Political Ideal in Freemasonry. These same members are loudest in their 
condemnation of European Masons who are said to have done just that same thing. 


For some years there has been pending in Congress bill to create a Federal 
Department of Education. Basically, the plan consists of nothing more than offering 
the individual states a bribe or subsidy to do what each state has within its power to 
do, if, and when it chooses. Now no one questions the desirability of education. That 
is the difficulty. The intent is so excellent in these cases that we overlook 
fundamentals. Almost 5 per cent of the national income is being disbursed at present 
on similar subsidy plans. States like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois in effect are 
taxed to aid less prosperous and populous states. Nevada, for example, is said to have 
received back, during the last fiscal year, $ 1 . 1 6 for every dollar paid to the federal 
treasury. This in itself may not be serious. The real danger, in the words of John 
Bassett Moore, is that "In a country so vast as ours the transfer to the sphere of 
national regulation and administration of matters which the Constitution left to the 
several states necessarily means the growth of a bureaucratic type of government. 
Such a type of government possesses certain inherent defects . . . want of intelligence 
and sympathy in dealing with local conditions . . . tendency towards disrespect for 
and disregard of the fundamental principles of individual liberty for the conservation 
of which the Constitution was ordained." 


Some of our Grand Lodges have endorsed the bill to create a Federal Department of 
Education. When they did that, whether they realize it or not, they embraced the 
Political Ideal in Freemasonry. When they did that, they endorsed a principle which, 
if allowed to continue unchecked, must change the character of our government and 
the political conceptions of our people. I quite agree that Masonry must stand for 



something definite. In deciding what these definite things shall be, we do not need to 
be guided entirely by our traditions of two hundred years. Still, we surely should not 
be swayed by opportunism or an "emotional jag" in deciding them. Let us go forward 
wisely, sanely, calmly, with all the facts before us, but never sentimentally. Let those 
who pretend to speak for Masonry look to their mandate. Let us not sell our 
birthright, the heritage of two hundred years, for a mess of political pottage. 
Otherwise, though we may still be Masons we shall no longer be Free Masons. A. L. 
Kress, Pennsylvania. 


— o — 


GEMS FROM "MORALS AND DOGMA" 


Selected by Charles Henry Smart, 32nd degree, Sec. of the Scottish Rite bodies, 
Nashville, Tenn. 


Commercial greed values the lives of men no more than it values the lives of ants. 

He that does me a favor hath bound me to make him a return of thankfulness. 

Civil and religious freedom must go hand in hand, and persecution matures them 
both. 

Offices, it is true, are showered, like the rains of heaven, upon the just and the unjust. 

It is not beyond the tomb, but in life itself, that we are to seek for the mysteries of 
death. 

The faithless and the false in public life and in political life will be faithless and false 
in private. 


What is truth to the philosopher would not be truth, nor have the effect of truth, to the 
peasant. 



Knowledge is the most genuine and real of human treasures, for it is Light, as 
ignorance is darkness. 


The citizen who cannot accomplish well the smaller purposes of public life cannot 
compass the larger. 

Though Masonry neither usurps the place nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part 
of our ceremonies. 

The true problem of humanity is wrought out in the humblest abodes. No more than 
this is done in the highest. 


— o — 


A ROYAL ARCH PROBLEM 


One subject which gives reason for grave consideration is the tendency of several of 
the Grand Chapters to enact legislation which will prevent the constantly growing 
eagerness to secure petitions for the Chapter Degrees without giving the members of 
the lodges sufficient time to appreciate the beautiful lessons taught in symbolic 
Masonry. We will all agree that there is a very close connection between the 
Symbolic Degrees and the Most Sublime Degree of the Royal Arch, and one which it 
is in all ways desirable to consummate. 


Yet we do violence to our obligation to impart true Masonic light and knowledge to 
our less informed brethren when we wholly neglect to so direct them in their seeking 
after knowledge that we bring them to a point in their Masonic instruction far in 
advance of the lessons they should thoroughly know before assuming to take upon 
themselves the mastery of still higher and more important truths. We are constantly 
tempted to regard numbers first and a thoroughly qualified membership second. It is a 
constant study, requiring the best of good judgment to keep the proper balance. 



As to the practice of using the chapter as a preliminary to the conferring of other and 
different degrees in Masonry and in related bodies not recognized as strictly Masonic, 
there can be no defense possible. The solicitation of members for such organizations 
before the initiates have become thoroughly grounded in the great truths that are 
intended to be conveyed to them, is harmful and works against the best interest of true 
Masonry. 


Arthur Warren. 


Chairman Committee on Foreign Correspondence, Grand Chapter, Royal Arch 
Masons, New York 


— o — 


THE LIBRARY 


SCIENCE AND FREEMASONRY 


THE MASTER BUILDER. By S. G. Fielding. Stiff paper, 68 pages. Price, postpaid, 
70c. 


THE CENTRE. By the same author. Paper, 86 pages. Price postpaid, 80c. Very 
limited remainders of these two works have been obtained by the National Masonic 
Research Society's Book Department, 1950 Railway Exchange, St. Louis, Mo., and 
will be sold at the above prices as long as the supply lasts. 



THE first of these little books is based on a series of lectures given by the author 
while Master of his lodge - and to digress a moment, what a great thing it would be 
for the Craft if more Masters not only could but did instruct their lodges in like 
manner. The subject treated in the lectures is truly, as Bro. Fielding intimates in his 
preface, well nigh a virgin field. In all the enormous number of Masonic works the 
question of the relation of Freemasonry to science has scarcely been touched; indeed 
since Preston composed the rather pompous and superficial lectures that form the 
basis of our present Ritual, the instruction in the Second Degree, few Masons seem to 
have even realized that there was such a relationship, much less that it might be 
profitably discussed. The present work is a most praiseworthy pioneer effort along 
these lines. The historical references are not entirely to be relied on, for instance, few 
Masonic students would agree that Sir Christopher Wren ever held the office of 
Grand Master, but in these matters the author has evidently taken these items as he 
found them in older and popular works on the subject, where they are usually asserted 
with an emphasis and confidence inversely proportioned to their accuracy. However, 
as his main argument does not depend upon the incidental historical details given the 
defect is in no way serious, his purpose being to bring the results of the biological 
sciences within the purview of Freemasonry. 


In doing this he is of course merely carrying out the implications of the lectures of the 
Second Degree. He shows how the great advances made in scientific knowledge may 
be brought within the scope of Speculative Masonry and especially how the 
individual Mason should be prepared to apply them to the problems of the present 
day. Not merely to be willing to cast his influence on the side of building up a new 
and better social structure, but like his operative predecessor to have become a master 
of his craft in the narrow technical sense of Ritual accomplishment, or even in the 
more extended though necessary meaning of forming his own moral character by the 
precepts of Masonic teaching, but in the only sense in which Freemasonry can be said 
to have a mission in the world, by knowing and appreciating the various influences 
and forces which are shaping the destiny of mankind. Without such knowledge all 
effort is building in the dark without a plan, and in a confusion of tongues as it was at 
the Tower of Babel. 


The second work, The Centre, is in a sense a sequel to the Master Builder, though it 
does not follow quite the same lines. The title has a significance that will be missed 
by American Masons who are unfamiliar with any but their own Ritual. In the forms 
followed generally in the British Empire a lodge of Master Masons is opened on the 



Centre. The symbolism is much the same as that of the Point within a Circle, but they 
also say that the only hope of finding the lost secrets is at the Centre. The author 
shows in the stages of his exposition how all things tend to a centre. Knowledge 
strives toward a comprehensive formula for the whole universe. In God is the centre 
of the Universe, in Love is the centre and meaning of Life. He concludes by taking 
the Temple of Solomon as the centre of the life and religion of the Hebrews, and 
finally the Abbey at Westminster as the symbolic centre of union of the peoples of the 
British Empire, a bit of national particularism pardonable in an Australian, and the 
more so as he transcends the limits of nationality in a vision of peace and good-will 
towards all men, of whom the true centre is the love and father hood of God. 


It is very curious in this connection to consider the petrifaction which overtook the 
Masonic lectures in the nineteenth century. Before that they had been fluid, entirely in 
tie hand of the Master of the lodge. Preston elaborated a set of instructions for the 
Fellowcraft, with the hope of making the lodge a sort of school of culture; in which at 
least a desire for knowledge should be stimulated. His lectures were adopted, 
hardener into rigidity and have remained practically as he left them to this day, 
though the difference between our science and what went by that name in his day is 
as the difference between darkness and the brilliance of high noon. It has been a case 
where the letter killeth, and we need more Masters like Bro. Fielding to introduce 
more and further light into our lodge. 


* * * 


THE NEW ANTI-MASONRY 


WORLD REVOLUTION, THE PLOT AGAINST CIVILIZATION. By Nesta 
Webster. May be purchased through the Book Department of the National Masonic 
Research Society, 1950 Railway Exchange, St. Louis, Mo. Green cloth, 328, pages. 
Price, postpaid, $3.75. 



THIS book is as exciting as a story by H.S. Wells before he began to write with 
religious and moral purposes in view - it perhaps would not be quite fair to carry out 
the comparison and suggest that it is in the same category regarded as a contribution 
to history. One thing about it is certain, it is very powerfully written, and sweeps the 
reader away from all the moorings of accepted ideas and common sense - unless he 
hangs on very tightly indeed. The tale is put together so plausibly, and Mrs. Webster 
is evidently so sincerely convinced herself, that even those with some knowledge of 
history might waver, while those with none, unless they possess some of the gift of 
wholesome scepticism, are more than likely to fall under the glamour of her spell. 

The work is so fortified by reference and quotations that unless the reader critically 
scans the steps of the argument he may come to believe with the authoress that the 
world is in the grip of a dire anarchic society, persisting from century to century, 
closely and cunningly organized with no other purpose or function than to destroy - to 
make an end of civilization - to wreck faith and morals, good order and government. 


Of course a refusal to be convinced, especially on the part of a Freemason, and more 
especially doubtless for a Mason reviewing the book in a Masonic periodical, will be 
taken by the authoress and those who agree with her, as merely one more instance of 
the policy of the inner ring of this conspiracy to conceal it by denying its existence. 
She hints quite strongly that historical writers have suppressed or falsified facts, 
presumably through this sinister influence, and how much more would a Masonic 
scribe be suspect when she indicts the Fraternity as being an accomplice, more or less 
willing and conscious, of the superhuman and monstrous council or clique that hides 
in the background, pulling the strings that raise up rebellions and revolutions and 
bring down kingdoms and their rulers. 


But it would almost seem as if her rhetoric was contagious! However, those 
belonging to the Masonic Order realize, as those outside cannot very well, how much 
probability or even possibility there is for any group, no matter what their rank or 
degree, to control the thought and action of the rank and file. Outwardly Masonry 
may appear to the world at large as a complex hierarchical organization. The profane 
hear, either with awed astonishment, or possibly ribald amusement, of thirty-two or 
thirty-three grades of Masons, of Supreme Councils and Imperial Potentates, and 
most naturally they suppose that the few in these exalted positions control the many 
who are merely common or garden Masons - the whole nomenclature if the degrees 
gives the impression of ordered subordination as in an army - Worshipful Masters, 
Past Masters, Most Excellent and Grand Masters - it certainly sounds very imposing 



and tremendous, and it seems as if it must mean something. It is naturally difficult for 
the profane observer (in either sense of the word profane) to realize the breaks in 
continuity between Masonry, and the various orders, chapters and councils that are 
called Masonic; it may be even more difficult for him to realize that the most 
powerful bodies, the Grand Lodges, are in the series apparently the lowest, or that 
they are absolutely democratic. Outside the lodges the officers have no authority, and 
only so much respect as their own personal character and reputation inspires. Inside 
their power is concerned only with matters of ritual and order. A Mason is not 
obligated to obey anything but the moral law; his opinions, judgments and actions are 
in his own hands; his vows bind him only to such duties and responsibilities towards 
his brethren as any church member is supposed to render to any man, that very just 
and upright man would as a matter of course render to everyone. It is true that the 
formal oaths with their ancient find traditional sanctions, their archaic penalties, 
sound as if come dreadful machinery were actually in being - but mere common sense 
is enough to destroy the illusion without special knowledge. Thieves and criminals, 
political plotters and the like, do not need such oaths to bind themselves together, 
though they may at times have used them; the fact that they all stand in a real and 
common danger makes it obvious that discovery if their secrets must be revenged. 
Soldiers on enlistment take in oath of obedience and loyalty to their flag and country, 
but that is not the spring of military discipline. Rather it is the realization by all, 
consciously or unconsciously, less or more, that obedience in all ranks is absolutely 
essential if an army s to function at all, and that of necessity disobedience must he 
punished. The vows of a Mason are declaratory only of ifs principles and intentions, 
and like all else in the institution, they are couched in forms of immemorial antiquity. 


It is quite true that the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is in appearance just such 
an organization as Mrs. Webster requires for her theory, but the slightest knowledge 
of the real history of this secondary Masonic institution would show how insecure a 
foundation it is for such a superstructure as she would place upon it. It was never 
created as a whole as Weishaupf s Order of Illuminati was, or even the Templar Rite 
of the Strict Observance. It was patched together here and there out of odd degrees, 
the aggregation growing like a snow-ball rolling down hill. Possibly, indeed very 
probably, among those connected with its formation, especially in the early stages of 
the Rite of Perfection and the Emperors of East and West, there was an idea, based 
largely on vanity and the very human desire for personal pre-eminence, that the vows 
of obedience of the lower grades to their titular rulers of higher order might somehow 
be made a reality - but the interminable and confusing story of divisions, schisms, and 
internal squabbling is enough to demonstrate that this could never have been much 
more than a pious (or impious) wish on the part of the ambitious. It is certain that 



until the Rite came to America it had no fixed form, and almost as certain that until 
Albert Pike re-wrote the rituals it was no more than a heterogeneous conglomerate of 
unrelated degrees. Whatever judgment may eventually be passed on Pike's work, 
there can be no doubt that he left his impress on the Rite, that he gave it form and as 
great a measure of consistency as could be expected of the materials he had to work 
with. But the result of his work was to give a philosophical and ethical character to 
the whole, and to use every detail as a symbol of some part of his system. It would 
therefore be quite accurate to say that the only meaning that the all-embracing vows 
of obedience and allegiance given by the initiates of the Rite refer to the obedience 
and loyalty all men, and especially Masons, are bound to render to Righteousness, 
Justice, and above all to Truth. It is absolutely certain that the least attempt of a 
Supreme Council to issue orders to Scottish Rite Masons dealing with matters beyond 
ritual and internal domestic routine would automatically result in the disruption of the 
whole edifice. 


But even so, it might be argued, there is a possibility that some inner circle would 
have a special advantage in proposing political and other policies, and from their 
position of eminence in the Craft their influence might be very great. Such an 
argument would be, however, merely plausible from the outside. As every Mason 
knows, it would be impossible for any such matters to be even broached in the lodge, 
much less discussed, and unless it could be done in the guarded assemblies of the 
Craft, what advantage could such a clique have in propagating their ideas over anyone 
else? In free countries everyone can plead in favor of any opinion so long as he does 
not incite to crime or actions subversive of the State, and today all civilized countries 
in this sense are free except perhaps Italy and Spain - Russia hardly counts as 
civilized - so that it is impossible here to set European over against Anglo-Saxon 
Masonry as has been done by Anti-Masonic alarmists since the days of Prof. Robison. 


It has been necessary to take up so much space in showing what is obvious to all 
Masons, because Mrs. Webster gives the Masonic Order an integral part in her theory. 
It is true she admits that the average Mason is quite ignorant of any such purpose, and 
that even the leaders of the Fraternity (in her sense) are probably not fully admitted to 
a knowledge of the real object of the policies they are set (as she supposes) by their 
superiors (outside the Craft) to inaugurate and further according to orders received - 
in other words that the Masonic Institution is only one battalion in the army of 
anarchy and its officers take their orders from an unknown general staff without 
knowing what part they themselves are playing in the strategy of the whole 



movement. In brief, she supposes that some very secret and persistent international 
group has had the intention of breaking up and destroying our occidental civilization. 
She hints that such a group may have been organized even in the early Middle Ages, 
but she begins her detailed account with the free thinking and sceptic philosophers of 
the eighteenth century. She works in every rebellion, conspiracy and secret society, 
from that time to this, including Irish Fenians and Sinn Feiners and Trades Unions, 
Communists, Socialists and of course Bolsheviks, and makes a wonderful pattern of 
the whole. She connects different characters together by the fact that they were 
individually Freemasons wherever this is possible, and where not, then the fact that 
they were reformers or critics of the social order of their own time and place is 
sufficient. 


Those with special knowledge of the history of the various movements which she 
brings in will find that her account of these is as little to be relied on as her 
impressions of Freemasonry. But the fatal flaw in her argument is the utter lack of 
motive that these suppositions enemies of the human race have for their desire to 
wreck civilization. The Roman Catholic, following Leo Taxil, might reasonably put it 
down to the direct inspiration and instigation of Satan, the personal devil. Our author 
does not even suggest this - the motives she does hint at are however just as 
incredible, as well as being inconsistent. Their inconsistency may be the reason that 
they are only hinted at. One of them must be due to a survival of war psychology, 
when she insinuates that Germans and Germany would be the gainers. The other is 
Anti-Semitic. But that Jew and German are partners she does not say, nor does it 
seem possible to make out any case for such a supposition. Certainly many of the 
social movements she includes were of German origin, but they were all ruthlessly 
opposed by German governments. Again if Germany is to be supposed the cat's-paw 
of the Jews, what do the latter stand to gain in the reign of anarchy, when trade and 
commerce are destroyed with the social order that gave them birth? 


However, in spite of all the book is interesting, and anyone who enjoys a thrill of 
horror may be recommended to read it without a too critical eye. Civilization as we 
know it, may not be safe, it may bear the seeds of its own dissolution within itself, it 
may even be that as time is counted in the age of peoples and empires that its day is 
nearly done, but it will not be done to death by any such theatrical machinery as this 
book supposes. 



A HISTORY OF WYOMING MASONRY 


HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY IN WYOMING. By Alfred James Mokler, Grand 
Historian. Published by the Grand Lodge of A. F. & A. M. of Wyoming, 1924. (J. M. 
Lowndes, Grand Secretary, Casper, Wyo.) Cloth, 12 mot, 267 pages; supplement. 
Illustrated. Price, postpaid, $3.15. 


THE review of this attractively printed and bound volume of Wyoming Masonic 
history is approached in a spirit akin to that which actuates a father in saying to his 
offspring, before administering deserved corporal punishment upon him, "My son, 
this hurts me more than it does you." I wish to assure Bro. Mokler that it hurts 
grievously to point out faults in a volume so patiently compiled with only the best of 
motives and intentions. But like the father before mentioned, I also steel myself to the 
thankless task before me. 


It is a habit of chronic readers to turn to two places of a book to find out what it is all 
about. The first is the table of contents, which usually gives one a good idea of the 
subject matter as a whole; the second is the index, without which no self-respecting 
volume seeks a place among representative books. Imagine my astonishment to find 
that the book before me has neither! Much as one bemoans the lack of an index, we 
have become more or less accustomed to such glaring defects in Masonic books; but 
who ever heard of a book without a table of contents? Even though an inexperienced 
writer would omit such an essential, surely a printer worthy of the name, no matter if 
his be a one-man shop or a plant covering acres, would not overlook such an 
essential. But the book before us is the exception which proves the rule. 


With table of contents missing, one naturally leafs the book page by page, providing 
he has not thrown it aside by this time. Bookworms and bibliophiles are not 
discouraged by lack of signposts; they find their way through mystifying volumes just 
as the woodsman instinctively picks his path through the mountains. The opening 



chapter of the volume, more or less statistical, and unnumbered as are all the other 
chapters, covers "Fifty Years of Freemasonry in Wyoming." It is followed by the 
"Golden Jubilee Communication," held at Laramie in 1924. 


The next section of the book consists of pithy and interesting histories of the forty- 
four constituent lodges, written by brethren of the local bodies. It is to be regretted 
that no account is given of Glenrock Lodge, No. 16, which received a charter in 1893, 
only to surrender it in 1896. One wonders why! (Perhaps there is an account of this 
lodge somewhere in the book, but as there is no index, the story cannot be found 
unless one seeks painfully through every page ! ) 


The constituent lodge histories are followed by biographical sketches of Grand 
Masters and other prominent Wyoming brethren. They are well handled; biographies 
are always difficult to write - especially if the subject of a sketch is still among us. 


The volume closes with a chapter on "Ancient Freemasonry" which is a part of an 
oration delivered at the Grand Lodge in 1886. It is replete with misinformation, for 
the Grand Orator purports to give an account of Masonic history from "the deep 
shadows of Roman, Grecian, Hebrew and Egyptian antiquities"; and we are further 
informed that "Prior to 715 B. C. the Masonic Order is more or less traditional and 
mythical.... The Order first emerged upon the face of history in 715 B. C. in fully 
defined and distinct actuality - in full bodied maturity; in fact, strangely suggestive of 
the idea that it had a far extended pre-existence." And so on, ad nauseam. Apparently 
our good Brother Orator secured his startling information from Rebold's History of 
Freemasonry, a useless volume insofar as pre-1717 Masonic history is concerned. Let 
me say in passing that all Masonic histories written prior to 1860 must be taken with a 
grain of salt; and there are many more since that date which fall in the same category. 


Bro. Joseph M. Lowndes, Grand Secretary of Wyoming, contributes a chapter on the 
genealogy of the Grand Lodge of Wyoming. He quotes Anderson in some highly 
erroneous statements and gives an account of Masonry from 1725 to 1813 which 
omits some vital points, such as are essential to the subject as he has treated it. A 
genealogical chart traces the descent of the Grand Lodge of Wyoming from England 



and Scotland through ten American Jurisdictions, and of which American bodies 
historical accounts are given, evidently based upon Mackey's History of Freemasonry 
(unrevised edition) A printer's error is responsible for giving the name of Iowa's first 
Grand Master as "Cook" instead of Cock. 


The most interesting chapter to the general reader is the one entitled "Masonic 
Meetings on Independence Rock." [There was an account of this meeting in THE 
BUILDER for September. 1920, p. 243.] It presents the story of an early meeting by 
twenty Master Masons held July 4, 1862, on the Old Oregon Trail, about fifty- five 
miles southwest of Casper. Asa L. Brown, of Platteville, Wisconsin, presided at this 
meeting. That he was a zealous Mason is shown by his election as Grand Master of 
Washington in November, 1864. The Bible used on this occasion and the jewels made 
out of a paste-board box were preserved, and subsequently presented to the Grand 
Lodge of Wyoming. A Masonic Temple fire destroyed the jewels, but the Bible was 
picked up on the street, undamaged, and returned to the custodian. It was used again 
fifty-eight years later, when a memorial meeting was held on Independence Rock by 
Casper Lodge, No. 15, at which time a bronze plate was placed to commemorate the 
two historical events. 


We also learn that Charles H. Collins was the first man to receive the degrees of 
Freemasonry in Wyoming, he having been initiated, passed and raised in 1868. 
Wyoming Lodge, No. 2, held its first meetings in a two-story log cabin, for which a 
monthly rental of $50 was paid. The altar, columns and pedestals used by the lodge 
were cut out and sawed by whipsaw, and hauled out of the mountains in the middle of 
winter. 


An account is given where a white man's life was saved because he had been 
recognized by an Indian as a member of the, "Cross Finger" group; a visit of General 
Grant to Rawlins, Wyo., is recorded under the account of Lodge No. 5, as is also a 
hunting party of the seventies in which Thomas A. Edison participated; space forbids 
mention of other interesting sidelights of the places and periods under discussion. 



Aside from its own high value as a historical Wyoming account, the book presents 
two important subjects worthy of serious consideration by every Masonic historian. 
First, care should be taken to compile a lodge history in accordance with approved 
and standard methods of book making. Inexperienced brethren are urged to call upon 
the National Masonic Research Society for the valuable suggestions and assistance 
which it can render. In the belief that the Society will endorse my recommendation, I 
suggest that Bro. Wildey E. Atchison, assistant secretary of the National Masonic 
Research Society from 1916 to 1922, and now residing at Rawlins, Wyoming, be 
asked to compile an index for the volume, which can be printed separately and 
distributed to all who have received the book. This index could also contain 
corrigenda vital to the authenticity of Bro. Mokler's capable undertaking. 


The second point I wish to make is to emphasize the importance of writing lodge 
histories while the material is still available. One is appalled in reading the history of 
the local Wyoming lodges to learn that so many of the early records are lost - and all 
this in less than sixty years! Brethren who would have been able to give important 
facts were among us but a few short years ago; their deaths sealed sources of 
information now hopelessly lost. 


We read in the preface that the volume was projected as early as 1908. Two years 
later an appropriation of $500 was made to cover the expense incident to a suitable 
compilation; in 1914 the subject was again stressed, but the brother appointed as a 
committee of one to begin the history received little support; from 1915 to 1922 the 
craftsman designated to do the work did not accomplish anything and it was not until 
Bro. Alfred J. Mokler was appointed Grand Historian that the work was undertaken in 
earnest. Wisely calling to his aid brethren in various parts of the Jurisdiction, he 
completed his task in two years, and the excellent work herein reviewed shows how 
effectively he worked. Only those who have undertaken the preparation of a lodge 
history can realize how arduous and discouraging the task becomes at times. 


My hearty congratulations are extended to Bro. Mokler upon the successful 
completion of his difficult assignment. He has shown a typical Western spirit in 
blazing a trail which other trans-Mississippi Grand Lodges might well follow; and I 
wish to assure him that my criticisms are not intended to minimize the value of his 
book, but rather to indicate the pitfalls which future Masonic historians should avoid. 



Jacob Hugo Tatsch. 


* * * 


A GROUP OF BOOKS ABOUT MASONRY IN SCOTLAND 


A MANUAL OF FREEMASONRY, by WILLIAM HARVEY. Blue cloth, in case, 
price, postpaid, $1.25. Booklets on Freemasonry by William Harvey. The Northeast 
Corner, The Wages of an Entered Apprentice, The Pillars of Freemasonry, The Lodge 
and Its Furniture, The Altars of Freemasonry, The Third Degree, The Story of Hiram 
Abiff, The Mason's Apron, The Doorway of Freemasonry, and The Mason's Mallet. 
Stiff paper, from 20 to 25 pages each. Price for the ten, postpaid, $1.25. 


Set of booklets of humorous character. The Deil Among the Masons, Tam O'Shanter 
and the Merry Masons, How Tamson Got the Third Degree, The Secrets of 
Freemasonry, A Tramp's Own Ritual, The Candidate's Dream. Price, postpaid, 70c. 


All these may be obtained through the Book Department of the National Masonic 
Research Society, 1950 Railway Exchange, St. Louis. 


BRO. WILLIAM HARVEY seems to be a most prolific writer. Among other efforts 
of his we have before us no less than fourteen little leaflets and booklets, besides a 
Manual of Freemasonry as worked in Scotland. This last is published in two forms, 
one as a single volume in a blue cloth case, and the other as separate booklets for each 
degree in a similar case. As in Scotland the Mark Degree is worked usually in the 
Blue Lodges, this is included in the Manual. 



The Ritual used in Scotland in its general character is very similar to that generally 
followed in England, but in some respects, and especially in the Third Degree, it 
comes much nearer to the form used in America. • Brethren interested in variations in 
the work will find this manual most interesting. 


The little booklets fall naturally into two groups, serious and humorous. Truth 
compels us to state that externally they are not very attractive, being merely paper 
covered, but the contents should be judged by the internal qualifications. The 
character of the first group may be judged by the titles. The Northeast Corner and The 
Wages of an Entered Apprentice deal with the First Degree. In both many features 
will seem strange to American Masons, and on one point Bro. Harvey assumes that 
Mackey made a mistake in his Lexicon because of his own very natural ignorance of 
the American usage to which, of course, Mackey was referring. 


The Pillars of Freemasonry is intended for the Fellowcraft, and is designed as an 
alternative to the lecture in the Ritual, which will be found given in full in the author's 
Manual. 


The titles of The Lodge, and Its Furniture and The Altar of Freemasonry are self- 
explanatory, while The Third Degree gives an alternative lecture explaining the 
emblems of the Master Mason as used in Scotland, which are those employed in 
England with the addition of some of those, such as the Hour Glass and the Scythe, 
which are used in America; while the Story of Hiram Abiff is a brief and very 
judicious discussion of the history and origin of the Third Degree. 


The Apron is also in part historic, as is the Doorway of Freemasonry, which deals 
with the office of Tiler, while the Mason's Mallet is a consideration of the Master's 
gavel, its history, use and symbolism. Bro. Harvey writes in a pleasing style, simple, 
clear and interesting. He is not at all inclined to be led away by fancy and 
imagination, and though he evidently lacks neither quality he sticks closely to sober 
and accepted facts. 



The second group comprise skits and parodies of a very amusing character with a 
strong Scotch flavor, The Deil Among the Masons and Tam O’Shanter and the Merry 
Masons and How Tamson Got the Third Degree are humorous poems, while The 
Secrets of Freemasonry is an amusing parody on the customs of the Craft. 


In the same vein is the leaflet containing the Tramp's Own Ritual, which though 
published in Scotland certainly, from internal evidence, hails from the United States, 
and another humorous poem by William Haldane, The Candidate's Dream, would 
make a very good recitation. 


The first group would materially assist an American Mason, in conjunction with the 
Manual, in getting a very good picture of Masonry as worked in Scotland. While the 
second group will undoubtedly be of service to any brother seeking something fresh 
for a program of entertainment in a lodge. 


* * * 


AN OCCULTIST NOVEL 


OM, THE SECRET OF ABHOR VALLEY. By Talbot Mundy. Published by the 
Bobbs-Merrill Company. Indianapolis. May be purchased through the National 
Masonic Research Society Book Department, 1950 Railway Exchange, St. Louis, 
Mo. Green cloth, 892 pages. Price, postpaid, $2.15. 


THIS is a mystery tale, with a propaganda purpose, or so it would appear. The scene 
is laid in India and Thibet, and the purpose more or less consciously in view is to 
further Theosophic belief. At least one can only take the quotations from the 
supposed sayings of Tsiang Samdup which appear - quite extraneously - at the close 
of each chapter as being intended seriously. 



The author writes with an easy style that without any great pretensions to literary 
ornament, carries the story along without dragging, and the interest is well sustained 
to the end. 


It is, however, not altogether easy for anyone to lay the plot of a novel in a foreign 
land, least of all in such a country as India, unless he knows it very well indeed. The 
author has visited the East, one would judge, but his characters, especially the Lama, 
show the influence of Kipling's Kim very strongly. His other native characters, 
especially the buffoon braggart, Dawa Tsering, are far from convincing; neither can 
one swallow such mysterious arrangements as the "Middle Way" without a very 
liberal allowance of salt. Secret lines of communication quickly spring up anywhere 
when there is a demand for them. There are such underground railways for 
introducing liquor and drugs into the U.S.A. There was one in Germany in 1915 for 
spiriting prisoners of war into Switzerland - if they had the price. And doubtless there 
are such in India. But the one used by the Lama and his cavaran is purely spectacular 
and seems otherwise without purpose. 


The protagonist of the Lama, Cottswold Ommany, the one from whose point of view 
the story is told, again reminds one of several of Kipling's characters, notably 
Strickland of the Police, but he is made the merest foil to the Lama and is put in quite 
unnecessarily humiliating positions. Also there is a great deal too much mechanism. 
If the Lama be endowed with all kinds of supernormal powers what is the need of the 
elaborate system of espionage that he employs? It would seem that the author lacked 
the courage of his convictions. If the Lama had been a fraud, then the web of intrigue 
and secret organization would be quite natural and proper. But he was not, and so it 
greatly detracts from the dignity of his character to employ it. Or rather the author 
does not tell us he did employ such means, but after indicating that he had them at his 
disposal, leaves us to choose which explanation we like best. Prom the point of view 
of literary craft the result is bound to be unsatisfactory. 


Nevertheless, in spite of these defects, the story is interesting and one might spend a 
leisure hour far worse than in reading it. 



R. J. M. 


— o 


"It cannot be too strongly emphasized that Freemasonry is not to be entered in the 
hope of personal gain or advancement. Admission to the Order must not be sought 
from mercenary or other unworthy motives. Anyone so actuated will be bitterly 
disappointed, and in all friendship we warn you. The aim of the true Freemason is to 
cultivate a brotherly feeling among men, and help where he can.” 


— o — 


What to Read in Masonry 


Jurisprudence, Constitutions, Monitors, Etc. 


JURISPRUDENCE is the science of which laws, their making, enforcement, and 
interpretation, are the subject matter. Is there, according to this strict use of the word, 
such a thing as Masonic jurisprudence? Or is the term merely an euphuism, meaning 
nothing more than that Freemasonry has a set of laws of its own, but no organized 
science of the same ? 


Bro. Roscoe Pound raises these questions in the opening pages of his Lectures on 
Masonic Jurisprudence, published in 1920 by the National Masonic Research Society, 
the only volume on its subject, it may be parenthetically noted, written by a legal 
mind of high order, and in a class by itself, consequently, as compared to the works 



on jurisprudence composed by amateurs. Having raised the above mentioned 
questions at the beginning of his treatise Bro. Pound returns with his answer at the 
end, in a paragraph recommended to the attention of lawyer members of the Craft: 


"In conclusion, let me repeat the disclaimer with which I began. I have not sought to 
expound the law of the Craft at large or of any jurisdiction in particular. I have sought 
rather to consider how far there may be said to be such a thing as Masonic 
jurisprudence, what materials are at hand for an organized body of knowledge that 
may be called appropriately a science of Masonic law, what general principles may be 
found for such a science, and in particular how far the problems of legal science 
generally may be found in and their solutions may be applied to the law of our Craft. 
So studied, the subject of Masonic jurisprudence has great possibilities which are as 
yet scarcely opened. The ambitious Masonic student who essays any of its problems 
as he would a problem of the everyday law, going through our Grand Lodge 
proceedings as l:e would the legal sources, using our texts as he would a legal text 
book, reasoning from our traditions as he would from the body of written tradition we 
call the common law. will not only be abundantly repaid but will do a service in 
helping to make Masonic jurisprudence a reality." 


In his contribution toward a system of Masonic jurisprudence our distinguished 
brother classifies the source materials under three heads: (1) the Landmarks; (2) the 
Masonic common law; (3) Masonic legislation. "Presupposing this three-fold 
division," he goes on to say, "we have first, the Landmarks, a small, not clearly 
defined body of fundamentals which are beyond reach of change. They are the 
prescriptive or unwritten constitution (using constitution in the purely American 
sense) by which everything must be judged ultimately and to which we must all 
conform. Second, we have Masonic common law - the body of tradition and 
doctrine, which falling short of the sanctity and authority of the Landmarks, 
nevertheless is of such long standing, and so universal, acid so well attested, that we 
should hesitate to depart from it and are perforce wont to rely upon it whether to 
apply our own law or to appreciate the law of our neighbors." These two elements rest 
in tradition; and in such doctrinal writings as Oliver's Institutes of Masonic 
Jurisprudence, and Mackey's Masonic Jurisprudence; decisions of Grand Masters and 
reviews thereof; and reports of Committees on Correspondence, etc. 



The data of Masonic legislation are to be found in (1) Grand Lodge Constitutions, 
"which are usually compiled and edited from time to time and thus kept in organized, 
systematic form;" (2) "decisions of the Grand Lodge on appeal from the Masters of 
subordinate (or constituent) lodges or from the lodges themselves;" (3) edicts of 
Grand Masters; and (4) "answers of the Grand Master to inquiries as to the law 
submitted to him, or decisions of the Grand Master upon questions asked by Masters 
of lodges with reference to matters pending before them or their lodges." 


The grand aim of Masonic jurisprudence must be to organize all such data into a 
genuine science, the function of which will be to bring the enactment, enforcement, 
and interpretation of Masonic laws under the guidance and control of sound and 
generally recognised legal principals. 


How slender is the number of titles available for grouping under the general head of 
Masonic Jurisprudence is shown be; the list given below. For the convenience of the 
student a few books on Constitutions and Monitors have been included, these subjects 
being revealed by the titles themselves in most instances. As regards constitutions Ars 
Quatuor Antigrapha calls for special mention, not alone because of the number of 
early Old Charges given in fac-simile, but also by virtue of the last volume thus far 
published in the series in which are published the Minutes of the Grand Lodge of 
England for 1723-1739 


Ahiman Rezon, Laurence Dermott. 

Ancient Charges and Regulations, Cornelius Moore. 
Ancient Masonic Rolls of Constitutions, Wm. J. Hughan. 
By-Ways of Masonry, John T. Lawrence. 

Code of Masonic Law, Robert Morris. 

Common Law of Masonry, The, J. W. S. Mitchell. 
Constitutions of the Freemasons, James Anderson. 



Constitutions of the Freemasons, Wm. J. Hughan. 

Constitutions of St. John's Lodge, published by Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. 
Cushing's Manual of Parliamentary Law. 

Digest of Masonic Jurisprudence. Henry A. Robertson. 

Digest of Masonic Law, George W. Chase. 

Familiar Treatise on the Principles and Practices of Masonic Jurisprudence, John W. 
Simons. 

Freemasonry and Its Etiquette, W. P. Campbell-Everden. 

Freemasonry and Its Jurisprudence, Chalmers I. Payton. 

Freemasons Guide, Daniel Sickels. 

Illustrations of Masonry, John Cole. 

Institutes of Masonic Jurisprudence, George Oliver. 

Lectures on Masonic Jurisprudence, Roscoe Pound. 

Manual of the Lodge, Albert G. Mackey. 

Masonic Jurisprudence, John T. Lawrence. 

Masonic Law and Practice, Luke A. Lockwood. 

Masonic Manual, Jonathan Ashe. 

Masonic Monitor, George Thornburgh. 

Masonic Parliamentary Law, Albert G. Mackey. 

Masonic Ritualist, Albert G. Mackey. 

Masonic Trials, H. M. Look. 

Monitor, Thomas Smith Webb. 



Monitor, Thomas Smith Webb and E. T. Carson. 

Old Charges of British Freemasons, Wm. J. Hughan. 

Old Constitutions of Freemasonry, Edited by Joseph Fort Newton. 
Old Constitutions, J. E. Cox. 

Principles of Masonic Eaw, Albert, G. Mackey. 

Standard Masonic Monitor, G. E. Simmons. 

Textbook of Masonic jurisprudence, Albert G. Mackey. 
Worshipful Master's Assistant, Robert Macoy. 


— o — 


THE SECRETS OF ARCHITECTURE 


For architecture was in those medieval days more or less a secret art; its mysteries 
were carefully guarded within a group kept as small as actual demands would permit, 
its primary purpose being the preservation of the secrets of the crafts as well as the 
protection of its members. The group later became to be called a lodge, and the 
architect was the Master of the lodge. Here we have the origin of our Masonic 
Fraternity of today which, however, has become almost totally dissociated from the 
building craft except in elements of symbolism and ritual. 


What the secrets of the ancient Masons were we can only discover by study of their 
works. There is little doubt that it was the rule to destroy all plans and models upon 
the completion of the buildings, and whatever records of the ancient formulae were 
kept in the archives of the lodges have either been lost or are no longer identifiable as 
such. There is, of course, much of the beautiful Masonic ritual that is of very ancient 



origin, and it is colored by the occupation of its originators, but brother Masons will 
agree with me that the secrets of the Order are not architectural. 


The Fraternity claims the building of King Solomon's Temple as its birthtime and 
place, and this to the archaeologist seems a very modest claim of antiquity. There is 
not the least reason why gilds of builders should not have come into being in China 
India or Egypt, where most intricate building problems were solved long before 
Solomon's time, though I have been unable to find record of them. - From How to 
Know Architecture (Harper’s: 1910), by Frank E. Wallis. 


— o — 


THE QUESTION BOX 
and CORRESPONDENCE 


THE ROYAL ORDER 


What is the Royal Order of Scotland? Does it exist in this country? 


G. E. C., Illinois. 


According to its own account of itself, this Order, or rather Ale of its two degrees, 
"Heredom de Kilwinning," was founded by David I of Scotland; while the other, the 
Rosy Cross, was instituted, it is said, by Robert the Bruce after the Battle of 
Bannockburn, where the Sects defeated the English invaders so decisively. This 
legend however seems to be merely another form of the Templar theory of the origin 
of Freemasonry. Indeed, certain Knight Templars are said to have fought at 



Bannockburn on the Scottish side. R. F. Gould was of the opinion that its real origin 
was in France, in the middle of the eighteenth century. That it was connected with the 
so-called "Scots" or Ecossais" degrees. That it was brought to London about 1750, or 
a little earlier, from thence it went to Scotland, the fabled country of its origin, and 
there took abiding root. That it afterwards returned to London, the first chapters there 
having become defunct. The Scottish branch itself became dormant between 1819 and 
1839, but was revived, and has apparently flourished ever since. In theory it is very 
exclusive, and very largely in practice also judging by all accounts. A chapter was 
authorized in Canada in 1 875 and another for the United States in 1 877, of which the 
charter was granted to Albert Pike and some other members of the Ancient and 
Accepted Scottish Rite. At first, the membership was limited in number, half to he 
taken from the Southern and half from the Northern Jurisdictions of the Rite, but 
apparently this restriction has since been removed. No place of meeting was 
mentioned in the charter, and it can assemble in any part of the United States, but not 
outside their limits. The subordinate bodies of this Order have the high sounding title 
of "Provincial Grand Chapters," but the term "Grand" is purely honorific here, and 
does not carry any of the usual significance attached to the word in Masonic 
terminology. 


* * * 


NEGRO FREEMASONRY 


There are negro lodges of Freemasons in this city, and elsewhere in the United States, 
or so I have been told, and I should like to know if there are any regular negro 
Masons. 


E. T., St. Louis, Mo. 


The answer to this question must be an indeterminate one as it depends on the exact 
meaning to be given to the word regular. It may be said however at once, that in the 
sense of being recognized by the white Grand Lodges of the United States there is no 



negro Freemasonry that is regular. There is said, however, to be a regular lodge in 
New Jersey which at one time had a number of negro members. On account of the 
objections of other Jurisdictions, the Grand Lodge of New Jersey forbade the 
reception of any more candidates of that race, though some of those previously 
received may still survive. 


It may be said that in its origin the Freemasonry of the negroes is as legitimate as any 
other. Certain defects in its transmission are frequently alleged, but if the argument 
for this holds good it would equally invalidate the regularity of most white Grand 
Lodges. It is also argued that it is illegal and clandestine from the principle of 
exclusive jurisdiction. Two Grand Lodges cannot exist in the same state, therefore it 
would follow that one must be clandestine. But here again neither men nor 
organizations can be judged for past actions by a law that did not then exist. A law 
cannot be retroactive in short. The doctrine of exclusive jurisdiction is peculiarly 
American, it has never been fully adopted by the rest of the Masonic world, and 
looking from the outside it cannot be fairly applied to negro Freemasonry, which 
existed in its won right before the other system was fully formed. The real feet of the 
matter is that this Masonry cannot be recognized for the same reason that negroes are 
not admitted to our own lodges, which is that the members of the two races are unable 
to enter into fraternal relations with each other. 


It may be added that there are negro Grand Lodges in Haiti and San Domingo, which 
are regular in origin, and recognized by many other Jurisdictions - it is not necessary 
that a Grand Lodge be recognized by every other Jurisdiction to be considered 
regular. And also in many parts of the world individual negroes may be members of 
regular lodges, though we have no precise data on the subject. 


* * * 


THE MORGAN EPISODE 



Could you tell me where it will be possible for me to find out more about the Morgan 
episode and the ensuing rise of the Anti-Masonic party ? 


T. G. S., New Hampshire. 


If you have access to any History of the Order that deals with American Freemasonry, 
you will find at least the salient facts detailed in regard to this matter. There is a good 
chapter on the subject in Mackey's History; also a useful account in Ossian Lang's 
History of Freemasonry in the State of New York; while volume seven of the "Little 
Masonic Library," published by the Masonic Service Association, is entirely devoted 
to this period of the history of American Masonry. 


* * * 


ANDREW JACKSON'S MEMBERSHIP 


Referring to the article on Andrew Jackson, from the pen of our distinguished Bro. 
Erik McKinley Eriksson, which appears on page 1 64 of the June issue of THE 
BUILDER, I am gratified to note your reference to our leaflet on the same subject. 


I note on page 166 that Bro. Eriksson says, regarding Bro Jackson's initiation, "The 
claim of Greeneville, No. 3, formerly No. 43, of North Carolina, seems to be the most 
weighty." 


That is one of the misconceptions which I am having trouble to overcome. The feet is, 
the earliest positive record of Bro. Jackson's membership is found in an original 
transcript of the first meeting of Polk Lodge, U. D., afterward chartered as Tennessee 
Lodge, No. 2 (No. 41, of North Carolina), which is preserved in the archives of the 



Grand Lodge at Raleigh, of which I have an accurate copy, made under my personal 
supervision. This meeting occurred on March 24, 1800, and shows that Andrew 
Jackson was present as a visitor from Harmony Lodge at Nashville. This latter lodge 
was No. 1, of Tennessee (No. 29 of North Carolina), chartered in 1796 (Dec. 17). It 
had probably been at work several years earlier as the Grand Lodge had authorized a 
lodge in that vicinity in 1789. 


The first meeting of Greeneville Lodge, No. 41, under dispensation, occurred on Sept. 
5, 1801, and the original transcript at Raleigh shows that Andrew Jackson was present 
and served as Senior Warden, pro tern, in the absence of the three principal officers. 
While so serving, with his customary tendency to leadership, he made a motion to 
appoint a committee on bylaws. This is all the record now available of his connection 
with Greeneville Lodge, No. 41-3. This meeting occurred nearly eighteen months 
after his visit to Polk Lodge, U. D. Therefore he could not have been initiated in 
Greeneville Lodge, No. 41-3. 


A roster of Philanthropic Lodge, No. 12, furnished by the Grand Secretary of 
Kentucky, does not include his name among its members, and he was known to be a 
Mason five years before that lodge was formed. He located at Nashville in October, 
1788, before he was twenty-two, and was doubtless made a Mason in Harmony 
Lodge, No. 29-1. Tennessee Lodge, No. 2, was located at Knoxville. 


He was either made a Mason in Harmony Lodge, NO. 1 at Nashville, where he 
resided from 1788 to 1800, or in some older lodge than either Tennessee Lodge, No. 
2, or Greeneville Lodge, No. 3. Of this latter suggestion there is no record extant, 
whatever. 


C. Comstock, Tenn. 



THE AMERICAN MASONIC FEDERATION; 


HIRAM ABIF AND THE BIBLE 


I have a friend who recently came from Scotland. He is a member of Lodge St. John, 
Dalmuir, Glasgow. In a letter to him the Secretary warned him against the "American 
Masonic Federation" as being clandestine. After going to lot of trouble I have been 
unable to learn anything of such an organization, nor can I find anyone who has ever 
heard of it. Do you know of such a society? 


I would like to ask another question at the same time. Is H. A. B. mentioned in the 
Bible? If not, what is the origin of the legend ? 


T. M. P., Wisconsin. 


In reply to your first question, the American Masonic Federation was a body 
organized by Matthew McBlain Thompson, who was, on May 15, 1922, tried and 
convicted with some of his associates of the offense of using the United States mails 
for fraudulent purposes, and condemned to two years' imprisonment. Notices of the 
trial appeared in THE BUILDER at intervals during 1922. (The references to this 
organization in THE BUILDER are as follows: Vol. II, p. 190; Vol. VIII, pp. 270, 
299, 327, 361; Vol. IX, p. 311.) 


The law could not, of course, take cognizance of the clandestine character of the 
Federation, but of the misrepresentation on the part of Thompson and his agents to 
the effect that those buying his degrees would be received as regular Masons all over 
the world; through which misrepresentation his dupes were induced to part with their 
money. Bro. Isaac Blair Evans has given a full account of the whole affair in The 
Thomson Masonic Fraud. 



Regarding your second question, there are two accounts of the building of the Temple 
of Solomon given in the Old Testament. Hiram, the widow's son, is mentioned (I 
Kings VIII, 13, 14; II Chronicles II, 13, 14). The word "Abif," which represents the 
Hebrew "Abiv," is translated as "Father" in the early English versions. However, in 
the first complete printed English Bible, which was edited and published by 
Coverdale, though the translation in question may have been by Tyndale, the name 
appears in one place as Hiram Abif, and in another as Hiram Abi. This Bible was not 
in use very long and was superseded by later editions and translations in which this 
word was once more translated as Father. As a matter of fact the use of the word 
father in oriental languages has always been common as a term of respect, and the 
phrase might here be translated as "Master Hiram" or "Lord Hiram." 


The origin of the legend is another matter altogether, and forms a problem on which 
there is at present very little agreement. There is nothing concerning it in the Bible, 
nor, so far as is known, in Hebrew tradition. Some scholars think there were two 
Hirams mentioned in the Bible, and argue that one of them must be supposed to have 
died and that the second one came to complete the work. But this argument is of the 
most tenuous description. Others have suggested that the whole story was made up by 
the group of early eighteenth century Masons who were responsible for the revival 
and new organization of the Craft. Others suppose that it may be an old pre-Christian 
myth that in the Middle Ages was given a new dress by connecting it with Biblical 
characters and the building of the Temple. At present it is impossible to say definitely 
what is the actual truth of the matter. 


* * * 


"THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST" FOR SALE 


I have for sale a complete set of "The Sacred Books of the East," published by the 
Oxford University Press. This set is bound in three-quarter morocco, gilt top, and is 
really a most exceptional buy for anybody who is interested. Ten of the volumes are 
entirely out of print, and if they can be obtained at all, command high premiums. Will 
furnish price and all other particulars on request. Address 



H. V. C., c/o THE BUILDER 
1950 Railway Exchange 
St. Louis, Mo. 


— o — 


YE EDITOR'S CORNER 


Ye Editor's Corner now boasts a new occupant. Bro. R.J. Meekren, formerly of 
Stanstead, Quebec, and an Associate Editor, came to join the staff at headquarters last 
February. He is altogether too modest to permit us to tell much about him. However, 
this much may be said, the aforementioned modesty to the contrary notwithstanding, 
he possesses the rarest of qualifications for the place, and we are proud to have him 
with us. The above photograph was taken while he was Master of his lodge at 
Stanstead, with the wall of the Stanstead Masonic Hall as background. Bro. Meekren 
has been a diligent Masonic student for many years past, specializing in the history of 
the Ritual, and has contributed a number of essays to Masonic periodicals, the most 
memorable of which was published in THE BUILDER March, 1924, page 67. 


* * * 


In the signature to his two-part article on "Andrew Jackson, the Man and Mason," 
Bro. Erik McKinley Eriksson was given as Professor of History in Lombard College, 
Galesburg, 111. Since that valued contribution was set in type, Bro. Eriksson has 
accepted a position with Coe College, Cedar Rapids, la. 



A CORRECTION 


We have received information of an error in tile title of a work given in our book lists 
in the June number. 


When the book was first published it was under the title as given in our catalog The 
Builders of Man: The Doctrine and History of Masonry, or the Story of the Craft. The 
secondary title was later changed to the Romance of the Craft. 


We will be very glad at any time to receive such corrections, as in spite of the greatest 
care mistakes will creep in and get overlooked. 


— o — 


Freemasonry is not something to join or a goal to be attained, but a way to be 
traveled, or rather a craft to be followed.