The Builder Magazine 

July 1928 - Volume XIV - Number 7 


The Order of St. John of Jerusalem 

A Historical Sketch By BRO. R. J. NEWTON, Texas 

THE Order of St. John has a long and honorable history. It is said that a hospital 
for pilgrims had existed at Jerusalem from the third century on. Charlemagne 
seems to have founded and endowed a Latin hospice towards the end of the eighth 
century. This probably combined the functions of a hostel (or hotel) and that of a 
hospital. Jerusalem was in the hands of the Saracens from the time of its capture by 
Omar in 637, but he and his successors interfered but little with the affairs of the 
resident Christians and the pilgrims, with some exceptions. In the year 1010 Abu 
Ali alMansur, the Fatimite Caliph of Egypt (himself the son of a Christian mother, 
and reputed to have been insane), ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre and other Christian buildings in Jerusalem. Some years after his death in 
1020 some merchants of Amalfi, a city of Campania in Italy, purchased the site of 
Charlemagne's institution and founded a new hospital which was put in charge of 
monks of the Benedictine Order, and this was later dedicated to St. John the 
Baptist. The master of this hospital in 1087 was a certain Gerard, of whom very 
little is known, but he gained the favor of the Crusaders under Godfrey de 
Bouillon, and was enabled after the capture of the city to enlarge the institution of 
which he was the head. At this time the "rule" was changed from the Benedictine 
to that of the Augustinian Friars. 


The fame of the hospital spread throughout Europe and gifts were made to it, by 
princes, prelates and nobles, of lands and money. In 1 1 13 the Pope took it under 
his especial protection, and Gerard was entitled, by the bull of Paschal II, as the 
"Institutor" of the Order of the Hospital of St. John. 


The change from a purely charitable and religious institution to a military one 
probably came about under the successor of Gerard, Raymond de Puiz. This does 



not seem to have been deliberate, but to have been due to force of circumstances. 
The Saracens were renewing their efforts to win back the Holy City, and defenders 
were doubtless at a premium. With the example of the Templars before them, it 
was only natural that those brethren of the Order who had previously been soldiers 
should have taken their weapons again in the emergency. However, though it 
became military it did not at once take on that exclusively aristocratic character 
that marked it in later times. The rules enacted by Raymond provided that the 
brethren were to be bound by the usual three monastic vows, chastity, proverty and 
obedience. They were to claim nothing for themselves but bread and water and 
coarse raiment, "since our Lord's poor, whose servants we are, go naked and 
sordid, and it is a disgrace for the servant to be proud when his master is humble." 
They were to wear the cross on the breast of their "capes and mantles" and were 
not to bear arms except when "the standard of the Cross is displayed" in war 
against the infidel. 


The clothing of the brethren is said to have been black in peace and red in war, and 
in each case the cross was white. This usage has continued to the present day. 


There were nuns of the order also, doubtless to care for female pilgrims, and these 
also wore the white cross on a hooded mantle of black over a red robe. 


From being a local institution it rapidly expanded, and it had houses at various 
places in the East and on the pilgrims' route, and all over Europe as well. Like the 
Order of the Temple it was made independent of the local ecclesiastical authorities 
by repeated papal bulls. Though its character to some extent was changed by this 
wealth and prosperity, yet it must be said that its original purpose was never 
forgotten. There were hospital wards as we would say in all their houses; the best 
physicians and surgeons of the day were retained in their service, and the rule that 
the sick were masters and the brethren their servants was never wholly lost sight 
of. Unlike the Templars the affiliation of women to the Order was encouraged, and 
these ladies engaged actively in nursing the sick. 



This great increase in numbers, and the acquiring of property largely in the form of 
landed estates necessitated a much more elaborate organization than had been 
necessary for the original hospital at Jerusalem. The head of the Order, the Grand 
Master, had perforce to be an administrator as well as a soldier. In fact he was, 
under feudal conditions, to all intents and purposes an independent prince. The 
organization adopted, or evolved, followed the lines familiar at the time, of 
devolved responsibilities. The Grand Master was to the other chief officers as a 
king to his chief barons. Through them the hierarchy passed down to the provinces, 
the priories and so to the commanderies, which were the smallest unit. The chiefs 
of these administered the estates and endowments of the order in their locality. The 
division into "Languages" was a later development, but sprang naturally out of the 
Provincial administration. It is possible that this form of division was intended to 
obviate the suspicion and jealousy of the rulers of the different countries in Europe 
consequent on the rise of a new nationalism in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries. The example of the fate of the Templars doubtless helped them to see the 
danger. 


The later history of the Crusades is far from being a wholly edifying one. The 
domination of the Holy Land by the "Franks" was, or largely became, a 
commercial, or at least an economic business. Without adequate support from 
Western Europe it was only a question of time before the growing power of the 
Saracens forced the intruders out of Syria. And as intruders they were regarded not 
only by the Mohammedans but by the Oriental Christians as well. It does seem, 
however, that with the decadence of the Crusaders generally, the Knights and 
Brethren of St. John kept on the whole to a higher level. As has been noted they 
never forgot the claims of the sick, nor did they forget the claims of the weak. 

They fought the rear guard action of the ebbing occidental invasion. While the 
other warriors returned home they resisted obstinately at every step, and first at 
Rhodes and later at Malta they formed a bulwark against the aggressive attacks of 
the oriental hordes that, but for them, might quite possibly have overwhelmed a 
divided Europe piece-meal. 


It will be impossible in the limits of a brief sketch to do more than to mention the 
heroic defense of Rhodes against the enormous forces of Muhammed II in 1480, 
under the leadership of Peter d'Aubusson; or the still more heroic defeat under 
Grand Master de l'Isle Adam in 1522 by Suleiman the Magnificent. From Rhodes 



the Knights withdrew to Candia in Crete, where they remained for a few years till 
the Emperor Charles V gave them the Island of Malta, with Tripoli in Africa. The 
latter possession they lost in 1551. Eleven years later the Ottoman fleet under 
Dragut attacked them in great force. They were besieged for nearly four months, 
during which 25,000 Turks are supposed to have been killed, including their 
leader. The Knights of St. John were again fortunate in having another heroic 
Grand Master, Jean de la Valette, under whom they withstood the fiercest attacks, 
until long delayed relief appeared in sight. Whereupon the Turks raised the siege 
and departed. It was the last serious attempt of the latter to conquer their ancient 
enemies in their stronghold; and though the Knights saw much fighting through the 
following centuries they remained in secure possession of Malta till 1798, when 
the feeble von Hompesch surrendered to Napoleon without a struggle. This really 
ended the career of the Order as a sovereign independent entity, although it did not 
cease to exist. 


At the time of the Reformation in England, the Knights refusing to take the Oath of 
Supremacy were deprived of their estates and other revenues, but the Order was 
not definitely suppressed for some reason. However, it naturally became extinct 
with the death of its members. 


In Scotland the preceptor, Sir James Sandilands, surrendered the property of the 
Order to the Crown. This was in 1547. It seems to have been something of a 
bargain, for he was created Lord Torpichen, and a considerable part of the estates 
was returned to him as his own property. There has been a claim made that the 
Order was continued under his headship as a Protestant organization. 


In the time of Queen Mary steps were taken to revive the Order in England, but 
though a Royal Charter was issued nothing was actually done owing to the death of 
the queen and the accession of her sister Elizabeth. However the charter was not 
revoked, and it remained in abeyance until 1 834. 


After the final collapse of the first Napoleon there was an effort on the part of the 
Order to obtain a new sovereignty. Malta was out of the question, as it was too 



valuable to England for her to relinquish it, but there was a hope that they might 
regain Rhodes or some other island in the Eastern Mediterranean. Doubtless 
largely with a view to securing the support of the British Government steps were 
taken to revive the English Langue. In 1826 the Commission that had been 
instituted by the French Knights as an emergency administrative body appointed 
Sir William Peat as Prior for England, and he qualified for office under Queen 
Mary's charter. Thus, though the English Order has not had a continuous existence, 
it does have a legitimate descent. 


It has justified its existence by quiet but persistent work for the sick. The 
Ambulance Association was formed in 1877 under its leadership and in 
considerations of the value of this movement Queen Victoria granted a new charter 
to the Order eleven years later, under which its later work has been carried on. The 
following account of the later developments is taken from a pamphlet published by 
the Order: 


What was done for field hospitals by Florence Nightingale has been done for 
ambulance work generally by the St. John Ambulance Association. For nearly 
forty- five years its powers and organization have been steadily developing, not 
only in the British Isles, but throughout the Empire, so that India, Canada, South 
Africa, Australia, New Zealand and all the other Dominions have now their own 
splendid organizations. 


It was soon found that those who had received instruction in first aid and home 
nursing and had passed their examinations should be banded together to work in 
unison, and for this purpose the St. John Ambulance Brigade was formed as an 
offshoot of the St. John Ambulance Association. It may be said to have begun on 
the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887 and has ever since steadily grown. 
The first war service of the St. John Ambulance was during the South African and 
Chinese Wars of 1899 and 1902, when upwards of 2,000 men went to the theatre 
of war and 70 of them laid down their lives in carrying on their work. 



This war proved the expediency of establishing regular reserves for the naval and 
military authorities, a step which was taken with their most cordial cooperation, 
and on the outbreak of war in 1914 these reserves were called up. 


On the 1 st August orders were received from the Admiralty to mobilize the Royal 
Naval Sick Berth Reserve, the peace establishment of which was 1,200, out of 
which 849 men reported at their respective naval depots within forty-eight hours of 
the receipt of orders for their mobilization. Orders were received on the 4th August 
to mobilize Military Home Hospital Reserves, 2,000 strong, and by the 10th all 
members of this reserve had reported at their respective hospitals. On the 6th 
August the War Office called for 450 men to proceed with the Expeditionary Force 
immediately and the call was promptly answered. Following these demands the 
recruiting in the Brigade was continued with greatly renewed zeal in order to meet 
the constant demand of the naval and military authorities, and at the close of the 
war no less than 21,986 members of the St. John Ambulance had served with the 
naval and military forces. Amongst the chief work of the Order should be 
mentioned the St. John Ambulance Brigade Hospital at Etaples. The hospital was 
originally situated at Etaples and was designed for 585 beds, with splendidly 
equipped operating theatres, X-ray room, laboratory, dental surgery and all other 
necessary adjuncts to a first-class hospital and so superior were its personnel and 
equipment that the hospital came to be regarded as the autotype of a military 
hospital. On the 19th and 31st May, 1918, the hospital suffered severely from 
hostile air raids which resulted in death of eleven patients and four members of the 
hospital's personnel and many more casualties. Material damage was so great that 
the hospital had to be closed and was moved to the heights above the village of 
Deauville, and re-opened shortly before the Armistice. 


A most interesting and successful experiment was carried out at Southport where 
an open-air hospital of 500 beds was formed by the local units of the St. John 
Ambulance, guaranteed financially by headquarters. This hospital proved entirely 
successful and demonstrated the fact that even cases where the lungs were 
involved did best in a hospital constructed on the open-air principle. 


The ladies of the Order were in no way behindhand, and immediately on the 
outbreak of war formed a committee which was engaged chiefly in the despatch of 



surgeons and nurses for service abroad and in establishing and maintaining a 
warehouse from which nursing and medical comforts of all sorts were despatched. 


In time of peace the Order is ever at work instructing tens of thousands annually in 
first aid to the injured, nursing and the elements of hygiene, and at the time of 
writing no less than 1,447,095 certificates of proficiency have been awarded. It is 
from these certificated workers that the ranks of the Brigade have been recruited, 
and that body has been enabled to carry out its programme of help to the injured on 
public occasions and processions. This work, though most under the notice of the 
public eye, represents by no means the bulk of the work of the St. John 
Ambulance, for there are the innumerable eases of injuries, great and small, which 
occur in factories, mines, railways and other industrial occupations, and here, 
though not in the limelight, the ambulance men are at work. 


The British Ophthalmic Hospital at Jerusalem is another important undertaking of 
the Orderfounded in 1882, it continued its work amongst the population of 
Palestine and the neighboring countries until it was forced to close owing to the 
hostility of the Turks. On the entry of the British Forces into Jerusalem the 
hospital, which had been used as an ammunition depot, was blown up by the 
retiring Turks. It has, however, now been rebuilt and is continuing its work as of 
old. 


The spirit which inspires the Order of St. John has its roots in the earliest years of 
chivalry, when the Knights of St. John combined for the first time in the history of 
the world the art of healing with valor as soldiers of the Cross. Through the 
centuries the Order has continued with a history more full and stimulating than that 
of any royal dynasty. 


In England, the Order of St. John includes among its officers and members the 
greatest and oldest names of the realm. The King himself is its Sovereign and 
Patron. The Duke of Connaught, Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge, is the 
Grand Prior. The sub-Prior is the Earl of Scarbrough. The Prelate is the Archbishop 
of York, the King of Norway, the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur of Connaught 



are Knights of the Order, and the list of the members of the Grand General 
contains many of those most notable for their services to their country as statesmen 
or as soldiers and sailors. 


The Order of St. John in America plans to function along the same practical lines 
of humanitarian service which has distinguished the English Order above every 
other branch of the Hospital Order in other European countries. The record made 
in England shows what can be accomplished by a fraternal order existing for 
service only and the hundreds and thousands of Freemasons, and others, who have 
sought an opportunity and agency through which they can help their fellows will 
now find it in the Order of the Hospital of St. John. 


— o — 


A Grand Lodge Acts 


PERHAPS it is the high privilege of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey to save a Lost 
Cause, or at least, a cause which many of those not actively engaged in the 
movement may have come to consider as lost. 


From New Mexico come great tidings. Past Grand Master Herbert B. Holt, 
President of the National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association, writes that 
Grand Master Samuel E. Wood of New Mexico has received a check in favor of 
the Tuberculosis Association in the sum of $21,878.90, which represents the total 
contribution of the Masons and members of the Order of the Eastern Star of New 
Jersey for the cause of Masonic tuberculosis relief. Of this total, $12,299.00 was 
contributed by members of Masonic Lodges, and $7,672.00 by members of the 
Eastern Star, the balance being represented by interest on the fund. 



In forwarding the contribution the Grand Master of New Jersey wrote that it was 
sent "with the express request and distinct understanding that it is to be used 
exclusively for actual relief and hospitalization of Master Masons, their wives and 
children." 


In commenting upon this generous donation, Bro. Holt writes: 


This represents the most munificent contribution which our association has thus far 
received. It speaks more eloquently than words of the true spirit of Masonry which 
prevails among the brethren of the Grand Jurisdiction of New Jersey. Its receipt 
has given us new hope and courage. We shall now press forward toward our 
ultimate goal. 


New Jersey's contribution comes at a time when apparently there was no more 
hope of securing any official action or assistance for Masonic tuberculosis relief, 
and it therefore has a value far in excess of the amount of money contributed, in 
that it will give the brethren of New Mexico new strength and courage to continue 
their self-imposed task. 


New Jersey's action proves two things. First, that a cause that is right is never lost, 
and second, that Freemasons, anywhere and everywhere, will, when given the 
opportunity, always respond generously to the call to aid and assist their distressed 
brethren. The chief obstacle to the movement for relief has been the apathy and 
indifference of Masons in official positions, and their unwillingness to permit any 
appeal from the Southwest to be presented to the Masonic bodies under their 
supervision. 


New Jersey's action is a challenge to every other Masonic Grand Jurisdiction in 
America. A precedent has been created, a tradition has been established, and a 
landmark has been founded, and those who worship at the shrine of this Masonic 
trinity may now, perhaps, be able to turn their gaze toward their brethren in need. 



Other Grand Lodges have voted small contributions paid out of Grand Lodge 
funds. A few have levied a small per capita tax. But New Jersey permitted an 
appeal direct to its constituent bodies, and to the Eastern Star, and this contribution 
is a voluntary free gift from individual Masons and their female relatives, for the 
succor of their suffering brethren. It is an evidence that Freemasonry, in America, 
can function to fulfill its obligations. 


All honor to New Jersey. May its noble action help to arouse renewed interest and 
activity in every state for the help of our numerous brethren and the member, of 
their families, who are afflicted with tuberculosis. May it cause every Mason in 
official position to consider seriously whether he has been a stumbling block or not 
in the way of his brethren, in denying to them the opportunity and the privilege of 
serving their brethren in need. 


— o — 


The Degrees of Masonry; Their Origin and History 


By BROS. A. L. KRESS AND R. J. MEEKREN 
(Continued from June) 


IN dealing last month with the arguments of William James Hughan in support of 
the theory that our present second and third degrees were invented some time 
during the interval between the definite organization of the Grand Lodge in June, 
1717, and the publication of the Book of Constitutions in 1728, we had noticed that 
the minutes of the old lodge at Alnwick, like the pre-Grand Lodge records of the 
old lodges in Scotland, spoke of entering apprentices and admitting fellows, 
without any indication of what the terms used implied in the way of ceremonial, 
esoteric or otherwise, and suggested that aside from some interpretation based on 



other considerations these references were indeterminate in their bearing upon the 
problem. 


Hughan next refers (1) to the "admission into the fraternity" of six gentlemen at 
Scarborough in 1705, and the Rules and Minutes of the old lodge at York. The 
former, which bears the date of 1725, provide only for the "making of a Brother," 
or "to make a Mason," which proves, he thinks, "the simple and primitive character 
of the regulations." The minutes use only the formula "admitted and sworn" varied 
by "sworn and admitted." Yet, as he points out, Dr. Drake, in his famous speech 
made on St. John's Day, Dec. 27, 1726, referred to three degrees under the initials 
E.P., F.C. and M.M., though the minutes go on to 1730 recording the swearing and 
admission only of candidates (2). One point which Hughan did not seem to have 
considered was that these records make no reference to any grades, apprentices do 
not seem to be mentioned at all, nor yet fellows. The head of the lodge was a 
President, though some of the brethren presiding signed themselves "master," as in 
1725, followed by the two wardens, bracketed together without further distinction. 


A number of other minutes and records of lodges subsequent to the formation of 
Grand Lodge are cited and discussed, the first being those of the lodge meeting at 
the Swan and Rummer, which was instituted Feb. 16, 1725-26, the two years being 
given because it was in the awkward period of transition between Old and New 
Style of dating. These minutes we unfortunately have not been able to consult. 
Hughan however definitely states that the degree of Fellow Craft (3) is never 
mentioned, but he says that this is not remarkable as the secretaries of lodges often 
ignored this ceremony even during the following decade when it is known from 
by-laws and other records that it was duly "sandwiched" between the first and third 
degrees. Consequently the omission in this case is not, in his opinion, conclusive 
that it was not being worked in this particular lodge. On the other hand it does not 
prove that it was. 


According to the citation made by Hughan, at the meeting on June 8, 1726, Dr. 
Desaguliers and the Earl of Inchiquin being present as visitors, four gentlemen, 
including a lord and a baronet, 



Were admitted Into the Society of Free Masonry and made by the Deputy Grand 
Master, 


that is by Dr. Desaguliers. The terms "made" and "admitted" may be important. 


The first reference in these minutes to the grade or degree of Master is under the 
date of April 29, 1727, and gives four names bracketed together with the brief note 
appended: 


Were admitted Masters. 


Hughan says that the first of these names, that of Jno. Dixon Hammond, Esq., 
appears "in the minutes of a remarkable meeting" in the previous month, March 26, 
with the remark 


by Dispensation of the G. Master this Gent, was admitted. 


What was remarkable about this meeting does not appear unless it was this entry. 
This is important as showing that the term "to admit" was not used in a specialized 
sense as applying to any particular grade or ceremony. 


It may be noted also that this lodge was about a year old, if this year 1727 is 
reckoned New Style, as we presume it was. The next reference to Masters is under 
date of March 31, 1729, two years later, when in an entry headed 


At a particular lodge held for passing of Masters . . . 



we are told 


The Masters Lodge was formed and the following brethren were admitted 
Masters . 


followed by six names and this, 


Brother John Emslie having been Recommended as a worthy and good Mason he 
was passed Master at the same time. 


It appears that two of the six first mentioned brethren had been elected as Wardens 
of the lodge at a meeting on the 26th of the same month. There having been three 
meetings apparently between the 26th and the 29th, inclusive. It seems also that 
they were installed after being "admitted." But it may be better to quote what 
Hughan says in full, seeing we have not been able to refer to the original: 


Two of the six who were thus made "Masters" or Master Masons, viz., Nelthorpe 
and Aynsworth, had been elected as Wardens at the previous Lodge held on the 
26th of the same' month, and were so invested immediately after their becoming 
Masters, but certainly not because thereof, the third degree not being a 
qualification for office at that period (4). 


The last statement refers to the first Book of Constitutions of 1723, where almost 
incidentally it is said 



The most expert of the Fellow-Craftsmen shall be chosen or appointed the Master, 
or Overseer of the Lord's work, 


which is adapted without very great change from the phraseology of the old MS. 
Charges or Constitutions (5). 


As Hughan held that our three degrees were in existence in 1723, that is that the 
present F.C. and M.M. had been invented and super-posed upon the original simple 
initiation, he very naturally interpreted the reference to the "Master's Lodge" in the 
minute of Mar. 31, 1729, as indicating the working of a "third" degree at that date, 
or rather, of the third degree, as is indicated by the use of conjunction "or" between 
"Masters" and "Master Masons" in the quotation above. That this numerical 
designation is no more than his interpretation of these minutes is definitely 
indicated a little further on, where he says, in parenthesis, 


The next entry respecting the third degree (though not so called) is dated, etc. 


There seems to be nothing of special importance in the remaining quotations from 
the records of this lodge. The entry of April 14, 1731, uses the phrase "passed" 
instead of "admitted": 


Bro. Roul and Bro. Shipton having a desire to be passed Masters, the Master's 
Lodge was formed and they were passed accordingly. 


The new term is used in the other citations, but we cannot say if the older word 
was disused completely after the above date. 



Two quotations from old by-laws are also given which are important, taken in 
conjunction. Lodge No. 71, meeting at the Barbican, constituted in January, 1730. 
required each new member 


To pay two Pounds seven shillings at his Making, and received Double Cloathing. 
Also when this Lodge shall thi nk Convenient to confer the Superior Degree of 
Masonry upon him, he shall pay five Shillings more. 


The term "superior" being comparative seems to imply two grades only. Hughan 
does not discuss this at all, nor yet the following from the by-laws of Lodge No. 83 
meeting at the Three Tuns constituted in December, 1731, 


... for making the sum of Three Pounds three Shillings, And for their admittance 
the sum of five Shillings, and every Brother who shall pass the Degrees of F. C. 
and M. shall pay the further sum of seven shillings and sixpence. 


Both these Codes were framed in 1732, so on the face of it one lodge worked two 
degrees and the other three. The notable point is not that No. 83 practiced our 
present system, for we know from Prichard's work that three degrees were in 
existence in 1730, but that there was still a lodge in London that apparently 
provided only for two. Possibly the clause was copied without alteration from 
some earlier set of by-laws. But then again, it may equally have represented the 
actual usage of the lodge. 


A brief reference is also made to the records of other old lodges which 


. . . illustrate the working of both the F.C. and M.M. Degrees; as those of the old 
Lodge at Bath (now No. 41) from 1733; whilst others, similar to a still older lodge 
at Lincoln, arrange for the Master Mason's Degree being worked (By-laws, A.D. 



1732, and Records 1734, etc.), but do not provide for the Fellow Craft's ceremony. 
Doubtless the latter was known to and practiced in the Lodges, whose Secretaries 
are uncommunicative on the point, as in the others, whose Scribes inform us of all 
three being worked. It is probable that the term "making" often included the First 
two Ceremonies; the third being left to convenient opportunities when the Master's 
Lodge was convened, or in many instances never communicated at all, the brethren 
being content as Fellow Craft Freemasons. 


We have quoted this at length because it seems a curious argument from one who 
so greatly objected to inferences and suppositions when made by others, and who 
so constantly exhorted them to keep strictly to the evidence. "Doubtless" the 
"Fellow Craft's ceremony" was "known to and practiced" though no mention was 
made of it. "It is probable" that the first degree and the second (that "doubtless" 
was worked) were often included in the term making. But none of this is here on 
record. 


The curious minutes of the Philo-Musicae et Archtecturae Societas were also 
quoted. This Society was an early instance of an "appendant" organization, having 
been inaugurated in February, 1725. It required its members to be Masons, and 
considered it had the power to form a lodge to initiate those who wished to become 
members who had not the necessary Masonic qualification. On the old theory it 
would seem that its members had this "inherent right," but the Grand Lodge 
naturally did not like it. These minutes on their face seem to refer to our present 
three degrees, and Hughan took this view of them, but as this point will have to be 
mentioned later it may be passed over here. 


The question also of the interpretation of the references in the first and second 
editions of the Book of Constitutions was also discussed, but this also may be more 
conveniently treated when we come to the views of R.F. Gould. We may just quote 
the following from the close of Hughan's paper: 


As respects the "Book of Constitutions," I consider the regulations of 1723 and the 
alteration agreed to in 1725, concerning the "Making of Masters," are alone 



sufficient to prove that the three degrees were known to the English Craft of that 
period, the uniform silence as to the trio of an earlier date, suggesting that the 
Ceremonies were arranged subsequent to the inauguration of the premier Grand 
Lodge. 


Hughan expressed his views elsewhere than in the discussions of Quatuor Coronati 
Lodge; in fact they were fully crystallized long before the lodge was founded. A 
great many volumes of old periodicals have been gone through without much 
result so far as discovering any further argument for his views. In 1873 he replied 
at length in the London Masonic Magazine (6) to a review of Lyon's History of the 
Old Lodge of Edinburgh by the Rev. A.L.A. Woodford, in which he argued for the 
antiquity of three degrees. In his reply to this review Hughan rather takes, as he 
undoubtedly had the right to do, the position of an expert giving his dogmatic 
conclusions from prolonged study of the evidence. He says that nowhere is there 
any record from the sixteenth century "to the first half of the second decade of the 
eighteenth" of any assembly of Masons working ceremonies or communicating 
"secrets" from which any portion of the fraternity was excluded, or denied 
participation. He admits the existence of three grades or ranks, those spoken of in 
the Old Charges as Masters, who had men working for or under them, Lellows and 
Apprentices, but says that 


... so far as the records throw light on the customs of our early brethren the 
apprentices were as welcome at the election and reception of masters as the latter 
were required to participate in the initiation of the former. 


He might have put it more strongly and said that not only were apprentices 
welcome, but that their presence was required by the Shaw Statutes, as we have 
already seen. He goes on to say: 


We are quite willing to grant for the sake of argument that a word may have been 
whispered in the ear of the Master of the lodge (or of Master Masons) on their 
introduction or constitution in the lodge, but supposing that such were the case, and 
we think the position is at least probable, the three degrees are so far from being 



proved as before, especially as we have never traced any intimation ever so slight 
of a special ceremony at the "passing" of Fellow Crafts peculiar to that grade, and 
from which the apprentices were excluded. 


And further on he emphasizes this opinion: 


We must reiterate our conviction that whatever the ceremonies may have been at 
the introduction of Fellow Crafts and Master Masons anterior to the last [the 
eighteenth] century, they were not such as to require the exclusion of apprentices 
from the lodge meetings ... in other words we can only fairly advocate that to 
have existed of which we have evidence. 


It must be borne in mind that in this earlier expression of his views he is arguing 
against the existence of three degrees of M.M., F.C., and E.A., while at the same 
time, it would seem, he believed that three grades existed, that is, that the Master 
was a grade or rank above that of Fellow, and not merely a Fellow holding an 
office in a lodge or acting as an employer or supervisor. The last sentence cuts both 
ways for it might be argued that there is no evidence in these old records (with one 
or two exceptions) for any initiatory ceremony at all. 


In a letter to the Grand Lodge of Ohio (7) a few years later he asserted that 


It is quite clear that the evidence submitted by Bro. Lyon proves that Modern 
Freemasonry was introduced into Scotland by Dr. Desaguliers in 1721. Before, 
however, the Past Grand Master was permitted to visit the Ancient Lodge of 
Edinburgh he was examined, and found to be "duly qualified in all points of 
Masonry," so that whatever differences (or additions) there might have been 
between Modem and Ancient Freemasonry they were not sufficient to obliterate 
the original character of the society or prevent visitation. 



This is one more indication of how much Lyon's work was built upon. If the 
foundations fail the superstructure must fall. "Modern" and "Ancient" in this 
passage of course are to be understood generally, and not in their partisan sense 
during the schism between the senior and junior Grand Lodges in England. 


We may now pass on to other exponents of the single initiation theory. In the 
discussions in Quatuor Coronati Lodge John Lane and Edward Macbean strongly 
supported Hughan's position, as did also Murray Lyon in a letter to him, but these 
brethren adduced no new evidence. 


It will be noted that, so far, the discussion has been confined entirely to 
documentary records, statutes, bylaws and minutes, and early references to the 
Fraternity. Hughan was not inclined to place much weight on ritual evidence, 
though in criticizing the opinions of his opponents he referred to it. We now come 
to the American student, Albert Mackey, who did argue from this point of view. In 
his Encyclopedia, however, under the heading of Degrees (8) the conclusion is 
based chiefly on the external evidence. He says that "it is now [in 1874] the 
opinion of the best scholars, that the division" was the work 


... of the revivalists of the beginning of the eighteenth century that before that 
period there was but one degree, or rather one common platform of ritualism; and 
that the division into Masters, Fellows and Apprentices was simply a division of 
ranks, there being but one initiation for all. 


Then he continues with the startling assertion that 


In 1717 the whole body of the Fraternity consisted only of Entered Apprentices, 
who were recognized by the thirty-nine Regulations, compiled in 1720, as among 
the law-givers of the Craft, no change in those Regulations being allowed unless 
first submitted "even to the youngest Apprentice." 



We see what he means, of course, but it is very awkwardly, even inconsistently, 
stated. He then goes on to observe that in Anderson's Constitutions 


....the degree of Fellow Craft is introduced as being a necessary qualification for 
Grand Master, although the word degree is not used. 


And he adds that in Regulation xiii 


. . . the orders or degrees of Master and Fellow Craft are recognized in the 
following words: "Apprentices must be admitted Masters and Fellow Crafts only in 
the Grand Lodge." 


This quotation is not quite correct, and the passage will have to be considered later. 
But neither the 1723 or 1738 editions have the phrase "in the Grand Lodge" though 
that is undoubtedly the meaning of the actual words, "admitted . . . only here." He 
then points to the change made in the revised book of 1738 in the fourth article of 
the Charges which definitely states the progression of the Candidate through 
"Entered Prentice," or "Free Mason of the lowest degree" through that of Fellow 
Craft to Master Mason," which does not appear in the earlier version, and from all 
this he deduces that 


The division of the Masonic system into three degrees must have grown up 
between 1717 and 1730, but in so gradual and imperceptible a manner that we are 
unable to fix the precise date of the introduction of each degree, a conclusion 
which seems to have been inspired by Findel. 



Now there is reason in the suggestion that the new system was the result of a 
growth or evolution, seeing that it was propagated with no recorded objections or 
disputes; but the introduction of two new superposed inventions, as he apparently 
envisages the process, is neither growth nor evolution, and could hardly have been 
imperceptible. 


THE PRINTED CONSTITUTIONS 


A brief reference is made to the Grand Mystery first published in 1724 (though he 
says 1725) as being "the earliest ritual extant" and as making no reference to 
degrees. Actually another "ritual," the Mason's Examination, was published in 
1723, and there was yet another, earlier still, of which no copy remains, but 
evidently he had not then heard of these, nor perhaps later we may presume, as he 
does not mention them in the fuller discussion embodied in Chapter xxxii of his 
History. But before considering this it may be as well to dispose of the arguments 
based on references in the first edition of Anderson's Constitutions and the changes 
made fifteen years later in the second. Mackey of course was not the first to point 
out their significance but he may have seen it independently. In the first book we 
are told the Apprentice is to look forward to being made a Fellow Craft, and then 
perhaps to being elected Warden or Master; the Fellow Craft thus appearing to be 
eligible to any office in the Craft. The Tyler of Grand Lodge was to be a Fellow 
Craft, the Committee to examine visitors at the annual feast were to be Fellow 
Crafts, as also the Treasurer and Secretary of Grand Lodge. Naturally these 
officers would have to be of the highest degree known in the lodge. In constituting 
a new lodge the Master and Wardens were "among the Fellow Crafts" before 
installation, and finally the ultimate secrets of Masonry were only to be obtained 
by the "key of a Fellow Craft." In the second book all these passages have been 
systematically amended to read "Master Mason" instead of Fellow Craft. These 
were not the only changes it may be mentioned. In the first edition there was a 
distinct tendency to call the annual gathering, or assembly and feast, a General 
Lodge, and to restrict the term Grand Lodge to the quarterly meetings of the 
Masters and Wardens of particular lodges. In the revised book the term General 
Lodge has been everywhere deleted and Grand Lodge substituted, doubtless to be 
in accord with the disuse of the other and earlier term among members of the Craft. 



The fourth charge in the first edition (10) has a long and rather obscure sentence: 


Only Candidates may know that no Master should take an Apprentice, unless he 
has sufficient Imployment for him, and unless he be a perfect Youth, having no 
Maim or Defect in his Body, that may render him uncapable of learning the Art, of 
serving his Master's Lord, and of being made a Brother, and then a Fellow Craft in 
due time, even after he has served such a Term of Years as the Custom of the 
country directs. 


This is a cumbersome adaptation of the language of the Old Charges, and leaving 
out the intermediate clauses it states negatively, that: 


No Master should take an apprentice . . . unless he [have no defect that would 
render him] uncapable . . . of being made a Brother, and then a Fellow Craft in due 
time. 


In the second edition this passage has been much changed, and the clause of 
special interest in the present connection runs as follows: 


....that, when of Age, and Expert, he [the apprentice] may become an Enter'd 
Prentice, or a Free Mason of the lowest degree, and upon his due improvements a 
Fellow-Craft and a Master-Mason, capable to undertake a Lord's work. 


The fiction of operative usage is carefully retained, but the highest grade now 
appears to be Master Mason, although the meaning is not absolutely unequivocal, 
as Master Mason might still be taken to mean Master of a lodge. But the next 
paragraph bars this interpretation, for it runs: 



The WARDENS are chosen from among the Master-Masons, and no Brother can 
be a Master of a Lodge till he has acted as Warden somewhere, except in 
extraordinary Cases. 


Regulation xiii deals with the Quarterly Communications, and states that 


....all matters that concern the Fraternity in general, or particular Lodges or single 
Brethren, are quietly, sedately, and maturely to be discoursed of and transacted: 
Apprentices must be admitted Masters and Fellow-Craft only here, unless by a 
dispensation. Here also all Differences, that cannot be made up and accommodated 
privately ... are to be .. . decided: 


and a right of appeal to the Annual Grand Lodge is provided for. 


Mackey argues that the clause after the colon, about Apprentices being admitted 
Masters and Fellow Craft, is an interpolation. It certainly does seem to be an after 
thought, but it does not follow that we must conclude, as he would have us, that it 
was inserted after the manuscript had been submitted to the Grand Lodge for 
approval. Mackey supposes it to have been done surreptitiously by Anderson, at 
the instance of Dr. Desaguliers, to pave the way for the introduction of his newly 
invented degrees, and possibly connived at by some other members of the Grand 
Lodge. But the approbation and license to print give the impression that the 
manuscript was very fully considered; and in the second edition Anderson states, in 
the chronicle of events after 1717, that at the meeting of the Grand Lodge on 
March 7, 1722, 


The said Committee of 14 reported that they had perused Brother Anderson's 
manuscript, viz., the History, Charges, Regulations and Master's Song, and after 
some Amendments had approved of it. 



The awkward clause may quite well be an interpolation, as Mackey suggested, and 
yet one made regularly and in order by this Committee, or else in Grand Lodge. 
There is no reason to doubt this statement of Anderson's, and amendments to 
motions and by-laws are frequently interpolations that are quite as awkward as this. 
We shall have to return to the consideration of this clause again, so here we will 
only note that in the second edition it was repealed and made to read, according to 
Anderson, 


The Master of a Lodge, with his Wardens and a competent Number of the Lodge 
assembled in due form, can make Masters and Fellows at discretion. 


But he also made a change in the wording of the "Old Regulation" itself, making it 
read: 


Apprentices must be admitted Fellow Crafts and Masters only here unless by a 
Dispensation from the Grand Master. 


Thus, by reversing the sequence of "Masters" and "Fellow Craft" he has made the 
original enactment fit the new three degree system. 


All this is also "interpretation." Mackey here apparently followed Gould, though it 
may possibly be that he reached this conclusion independently. It depends on when 
this part of his work was written, and that seems impossible to determine exactly. 
At least Gould has priority of publication. This will have to be further discussed 
when we come to the consideration of the views of the latter authority, when 
Hughan's comments will also have to be taken up again. Mackey, though at one 
with him in regarding both the second and third degrees as inventions made after 
1719 as he insists there was but the one simple admission till that year, yet agrees 
with Speth and Gould in holding that in 1723 a two degree system was in 
existence. The possible permutations are confusing to say the least ! 



We may now go back and consider Mackey's arguments for the hypothesis of an 
original single ceremony of admission with one set of esoteric secrets. He quoted 
the thirteenth article of the Regius MS. (under the title of the Halliwell MS.) which 
deals with the Master's duty to instruct his apprentice. Mackey interprets the last 
two lines 


That he the crafte abelyche may conne Whersever he go undur the sonne 


to refer to means of recognition, and says that it implies that 


He was to be invested with the modes of recognition common to all, whereby a 
mutual intercourse might be had. It was not that he was to know just enough to 
prove himself to be an apprentice, but he was to have such knowledge as would 
enable him to recognize in a stranger a Fellow-Craft or Master in other words, he 
was to have all they had in the way of recognition. 


Old English is not very easy to understand. These verses might be paraphrased; 


That he the craft ably may know Wherever he may go under the sun. 


Mackey has taken "craft" to mean "the Craft" in our modern sense of the word, the 
members of the Fraternity at large. Of course it means the craft or art of operative 
masonry. But in any case the argument is a curious one. What kind of secrets 
would enable an Apprentice to recognize a Master as such that would not make it 
possible for him to pass himself off as one? 



In his next quotation he is on more solid ground. This is the "third point," and gives 
a metrical version of a rule that appears in all the Old Charges, that the Mason is 


....to hele the counsel of his fellows in lodge and in chamber and wherever Masons 
meet, 


as the Cooke MS. has it; or as it is said in the William Watson MS. 


That every Mason keep true councell both of Lodge & Chamber all other 
Councells that ought to be kept by way of Masonrie. 


But there is nothing that is necessarily to be taken as esoteric about these 
"councells," or the "secrets" of his Master or Dame, that in later versions of the 
MS. Constitutions the Apprentice is charged to keep. Aside from ritual tradition 
these could be best and most naturally interpreted as referring only to trade and 
business secrets, and domestic privacies. 


NOTES 


(1) In the paper read before Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1897 A.Q.C., Vol. x, p. 
130. 


(2) Ibid, p. 131. 

(3) Ib.,p. 134. 

(4) lb. p. 135. 



(5) "And that . . . they should ordain the wisest of them to be Master of the Lord's 
work;" which, with variations, appears in the "charges" that, according to the 
Legend of the Craft, were delivered by Euclid in Egypt. 

(6) Masonic Magazine (London 1873-74), Vol. i, p. 108 

(7) Ibid (1867-77), Vol. iv, p. 418. 

(8) The article will be found unchanged in the Revised edition Vol. i, p. 203. 

(9) Mackey; History of Freemasonry (1905), Vol. iv, p. 975 et seq (In the Revised 
edition, Vol. iv, p. 1030.) 

(10) The citations from the 1723 Book of Constitutions have been taken from the 
reproduction in Vol. i of Kennings, Masonic Archaeological Library, edited by the 
Rev. A.F.A. Woodford; and for those from the New Book of 1738, the reprint in 
Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha, Vol. vii, edited by W. J. Hughan has been 
employed. 

(1 1) Mackey: op. cit., Vol. iv, p. 949. 


— o — 


The Papacy and the State 


By DR. JOANNES GALLICAN 


IN the January and February numbers of THE BUILDER a splendid article by Dr. 
Leo Cadius appeared, which was very instructive and showed a great deal of 
thought. The matter of bringing about the reforms that he desiderates is one that 
presents very grave difficulties.. 



It is not my desire in the following article to arouse the animosity of any Christian 
organization, but rather to show the origin of the papacy as we now understand it, 
which means the Roman Catholic Church in action; and if, by arousing honest 
discussion of the facts involved, we can once and for all remove the cancer of the 
seemingly growing religious strife in this country so needless among real 
intelligent Christian people, such as the United States holds within its confines. 


GENERAL HISTORY OF THE PAPACY 


Christianity arose in the East, Greek being the language of the common people and 
also the language of the New Testament, the rites of the Church were conducted in 
Greek. Christianity was bitterly opposed by the Roman Empire until Constantine 
was converted to Christianity, when it became the official religion of the Empire. 


He divided his provinces into dioceses and the Church adopted the same division. 
The Council of Nicaea, called by Constantine and held in 325 A.D., the first of the 
Ecumenical Councils, recognized three patriarchates, Rome, Alexandria and 
Antioch. To these were subsequently added Constantinople and Jerusalem. When 
the Empire was divided there was only one patriarch in the West, viz., at Rome, 
while in the East there were two, Alexandria and Antioch; Constantinople and 
Jerusalem were later added as shown above. Each of these patriarchs was 
sovereign within his own territory; the early Church was governed by an oligarchy 
of patriarchs; there was no thought of a despotic monarch nor of the papacy as at 
present organized. The bishop of Rome was only called upon to act as a referee 
when any differences arose between brother bishops; even then his decisions were 
not always put into execution, nor even respected, unless the dissenting patriarch 
was condemned for heresy, as was Honorius I, bishop of Rome in the seventh 
century, for maintaining "one will" in Christ. 


After the power of the Roman Empire was concentrated upon the Italian peninsula 
with provinces extending all over the known world, the bishop of Rome occupied a 
position of great prestige and vast power. In 1054 A.D. the Western Church 
separated from the Eastern Church. There never had been complete harmony 



between them; the Eastern Church used the Greek language in its liturgy, the 
Western used the Latin; the former remained dependent upon the state, the latter 
was to a large extent independent. 


The bishop of Rome was assuming unconferred powers; while Western Christians 
accused the Eastern patriarchs of being disloyal to the See of Rome. Then the 
Western Church introduced the words Filioque into Nicene Creed, causing a 
complete separation. At this period the patriarch and bishop of Rome assumed the 
title of pontifex maximus (the pope), and the Western Church became the Roman 
Catholic Church, while the Eastern Church was henceforth known as the Orthodox 
Church, consisting of the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria 
and Jerusalem. They remain so to this day (1). 


THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH THE FIRST MASS WAS CELEBRATED 


In the time of our Lord three particular languages were common throughout Judea. 
They were, in some sense of the word, the languages of the world in those days, 
viz., the Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The first, better known as the SyroChaldaic, or 
more properly the Syriac, was the language of the greater part of Judea, especially 
of Jerusalem itself and its environs, and without a doubt, was the vernacular of our 
Divine Lord and His Blessed Mother. This can be proved almost to a 
demonstration, both from the common consent of critics and from the numerous 
Syriac expressions that we find here and there in the New Testament yet in their 
original dress, such as "talitha cumi," "eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani," and 
"ephphetha," all of which are Syriac, with a few euphonic changes made to suit 
Greek ears. 


The second, or the Greek, obtained a large sway in Palestine also, as St. Jerome 
testifies (2), and various records show. "And this glory," says Brerwood in his 
Languages and Religions, "the glory the Greek tongue held in the Apostles' time, 
and long after in the Eastern parts (3)." 



The third, or the Latin, had obtained a far wider sway in the Holy Land in the time 
of our Lord and His Apostles than either of the other two, for it was the language 
of imperial Rome; and as Judea was a Roman province at that time, and for years 
previous, it was but natural to expect that the language of Rome would be forced 
on the conquered people. But as we shall have occasion to treat of these languages 
more fully a little further on, we dismiss them with these brief remarks, and take up 
the subject that heads our article, viz., in what language was the first Mass offered? 


Eckius, a learned German divine and antiquarian of the sixteenth century, was the 
first who broached the opinion that Mass was celebrated everywhere, in the 
beginning, in Hebrew. But this cannot be sustained for the ablest liturgical writers 
and linguists hold that in the days of the Apostles Mass was celebrated in the 
language that prevailed in those places whither the Apostles went to spread the 
light of the Gospel; hence, that at Jerusalem it was celebrated in Syriac; at Antioch, 
Alexandria and other Grecian cities, in Greek, and at Rome, and throughout the 
entire West, in Latin. 


As the first Mass then was celebrated at Jerusalem, it is an opinion which it would 
be rash to differ from, that the language in which it was offered was the Syriac (4). 


In the minds of many of the Roman Catholic people of the world the only official 
language used in the administration of their sacraments and of the Mass is the 
Latin. Many assume, also, that all priests of the Roman Church, and those in 
communion with Rome, are celibates. The following quotations from The History 
of the Mass by Father O'Brien prove conclusively that neither supposition is true. 


THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH MASS IS CELEBRATED TODAY 
THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM 



The Catholic Church of today celebrates the holy Sacrifice of the Mass in nine 
different languages, viz., in Latin, Greek, Syriac, Chaldaic, Sclavonic, Wallachian, 
Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopic. 


Latin This is the language of the Mass in the entire West and in a few places in the 
East, and has been so, without change from the beginning of Christianity. It may, 
in fact, be called the vernacular language of the Western Church. 


Greek At the present day Mass is said in Greek by the Uniat or Melchite Catholics 
of the East. They are to be found in Syria, Jerusalem, Russia, in the kingdom of 
Greece, in Italy, and in several places of Europe; and they comprise the 
Mingrelians, Georgians, Bulgarians, Muscontefs and others. These Catholics are 
allowed by Rome to retain all their ancient rites such as consecrating the Holy 
Eucharist in the leavened bread, giving Communion in both kinds, saying the 
Creed without the "Filioque," and putting warm water into the chalice after 
Consecration. Nay, more, the Holy See even allows their clergy to marry. They 
have three patriarchs, residing respectively at Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem; 
and they use three different Liturgies for the celebration of the Mass. 


It is true, however, that Father O'Brien adds: 


When we say the Holy See allows the Eastern clergy in her Communion to marry, 
we must not be understood as implying that she allows those who are in Sacred 
Orders to do so. This would not be true. Her discipline in this matter is precisely as 
follows: Marriage is allowed all the inferior clergy from the subdeacon, exclusive, 
down. Should any member, then, of this inferior body be promoted to Sacred 
Orders, whether to be subdiaconate, diaconate, or priesthood, he is allowed to 
retain his wife and do for her as best he can from his living, but he can never marry 
again. Should he do so he would be degraded and forbidden to officiate. There is 
no such thing allowed or heard of as a clergyman getting married in Sacred Orders. 
If he is not married when a subdeacon he never can be afterwards. And as for 
bishops, patriarchs, metropolitans and the other great dignitaries of the Oriental 
hierarchy, the rule is that they must be single men. Hence it is that all, or nearly all 



the Oriental bishops, are taken from the monasteries; and this is the rule with the 
schismatics (5) also. 


Besides these there are the "Old Roman Catholics," who in 1870 refused to accept 
the dogma of Papal Infallibility, represented in this country by one Archbishop, 
Henry Cornell Corfora, who resides at Chicago. It permits its clergy to marry, 
allows the Latin, English and other languages; mention is here also made of "The 
American Catholic Church," with Archbishop F. Lloyd, Primate, whose 
headquarters are in Chicago, at 64 West Randolph St. This Church has also 
retained valid Holy Orders, is thoroughly American in ideals, receiving Apostolic 
Succession from the Patriarch of Antioch, the very seat of Catholicity. They 
believe in absolute separation of Church and State, their clergy may marry, 
auricular confession is optional, the sacraments are administered in Latin or the 
vernacular of the country; their members can and do join Masonic and any secret 
orders so long as they profess a belief in a Supreme Being. The Roman Pontificale 
is rigorously followed in administering Holy Orders to its clergy. 


The pope is a despotic monarch, has complete control of his subjects, both 
temporal and spiritual. This has always been so. 


The popes have been responsible for eight crusades. Pope Innocent III preached a 
crusade against the Albigenses and placed Pierre de Castelnan at its head in 1204, 
and afterwards the legates Milon and Amaud Amalric as well as Simon de 
Montfort and the crusaders in 1209 obtained possession of Beziers and there slew 
60,000, among whom were some Catholics. 


Carcassone also soon fell into their hands The legate ordered his troops to 
slaughter all in this city without distinction of age or sex. Thirty thousand persons, 
including women and children, perished in one day and when one of the crusading 
officers affected with carnage came to the legate to inquire by what signs he could 
distinguish heretics in the crowd, the legate replied, "Kill, kill. God will know 
which are His." 



The principle of action in this war was identical with that of the crusades against 
the Turks. The pontiffs of those times thought it right to exterminate by the sword 
the unbelievers whom they could not convert whenever their presence became 
dangerous to the Church and to society, or was supposed to be so. 


Heresy was then regarded as rebellion against the State no less than against the 
Church. It was a crime of the deepest dye and worthy of the severest punishment. It 
was impossible to exaggerate the note of the evil or to devise means too severe for 
its suppression. 


Let us remember that the present reigning pope in his recent Bull or Encyclical on 
"Church Unity," speaking for his Church, said, 


We have received the deposit of faith from the Holy Ghost and anyone who 
knowingly refuses to join our Church, if in his own mind he feels that our Church 
is the only true Church, for him there is no salvation. 


Inasmuch as the papacy was not thought of until the conversion of Constantine, 
how and from whom was the deposit of faith received? It is regrettable that the 
mere mention of historical data at the present time arouses such a storm of protest 
from many well meaning persons. It is regrettable that there should be religious 
hatred in any country, and if the papacy is divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost it is 
a peculiar negation that its early history should be written in blood. The papacy has 
time and again killed thousands and tens of thousands because they called 
themselves heretics; time and again preached the righteousness of crusades, and if 
American Roman Catholics only understood the history of the papacy and 
compared it with the teachings and life of Christ they would perhaps then learn to 
know really what real religion is. Romanists in this country support a despotic 
monarch, a nobility that they know nothing of; pay tribute and blind obedience to 
an institution that is neither Catholic nor Apostolic, an Institution that is political 
first, last and all the time and has very little real religion, simply to perpetuate a 



hierarchy of princes of the Church, papal knights, ministers accredited to foreign 
governments under the names of papal delegates, legates, nuncios, and so on. 


The papacy never presents a financial statement of its condition, and the laymen 
are never expected to ask any questions, they are assessed for the construction of 
churches, schools, academies here and abroad, subscribe to all the magazines, 
papers; every parish is taxed for the support of the different colleges and 
seminaries and for the education of students for the priesthood, while many of the 
clergy are living lives of luxury and have fortunes to leave to their immediate 
families. 


In attending services in the different parishes in many parts of this country about 
five minutes are spent in reading Gospels of the Sunday and thirty minutes in 
begging, or rather hounding, the people for money; so much so that a friend of 
mine was very careful in purchasing his new home in a certain diocese to avoid 
certain sections where they were building new churches. 


Dr. L. Cadius' remedy to ameliorate the conditions he so eloquently depicts, viz., 
through the Knights of Columbus, is a hopeless task. The Knights of Columbus 
would not even dare to allow a lecturer to present the history of the papacy from 
some of their own publications, and how can any reform be brought about when 
the pope can excommunicate at any time and for any reason he sees fit. There is 
not a Judge of one of our Supreme or higher Courts that will even dare hear a case 
in which the prelates or princes of the Roman Catholic Church are concerned, and 
this is in free America, not Soviet Russia. What is the remedy? 


As free bom Americans why not organize and support an American Catholic 
Apostolic Church, having the real Apostolic Catholic faith and the primitive 
sacraments acknowledging complete separation of Church and State, where all of 
the clergy are allowed their God created rights to marry, and where every incentive 
to live upright lives is held out, that thoroughly believes in a sound public school 
educational system; a Church that has no princes nor nobility, a Church thoroughly 
liberal in all countries and climes, a Church that permits its clergy and members to 



membership in the Masonic or any fraternal association as long as they profess a 
belief in a Supreme Being, a Church that does not "double cross" Masonry in 
America, only to wage war on it in France, Italy and foreign countries. Would to 
God we had such a Church in this country. 


Not until we come right out and show on what false premises the Roman Catholic 
Church and papacy stand and how insulting the Encyclical of the pope on church 
unity is to the millions of educated, liberty-loving Americans, and letting the world 
really know where we stand on this question, will there be real peace and 
brotherhood. And if this were done, all religious strife would disappear. I doubt 
whether even the Ku Klux Klan would fight such a program. 


The way to successfully fight the false position of the papacy is to refuse to open 
up our pocket-books directly or indirectly; then let them keep their Canon Law 
with their forged decretals, their papacy, their hierarchy, their nobility, and all the 
corruption that goes with it in the country that desires it, and this will bring them to 
their knees quicker than anything else. 


If America is to retain true freedom from all religious strife, several matters must 
be thoroughly understood and forever settled. There should be no room for any 
political interference of any religious sect or creed with the state or government 
and a church which must needs have the police powers to enact and enforce its 
creed of faith is neither Christian nor religious. 


We have proven that the position of the Roman Catholic Church and papacy as 
expressed by the pope in his latest Encyclical is false, since Christ never founded 
the papacy nor the Roman Catholic Church; Christ founded an Apostolic Catholic 
Church. The Roman Catholics of America as citizens are the equal of any others, 
and those who claim America to be a Protestant country are as much in error as the 
Romanists. There is no room in America for a bigot, be he Romanist or Protestant, 
and anyone seeking office on such claims should be defeated continually and 
exposed to ridicule. It is regrettable that those of us who came from the Isle of 
Saints are prone to rancor and bigotry, and I must confess we are very quick to 



show it upon the slightest occasion. Our priests are continually preaching against 
the public schools as "Godless," as being responsible for loss of religion and 
morals. If this be true I would suggest that all Roman Catholic teachers be 
employed in Roman Catholic schools and institutions of learning and let Roman 
Catholics support them without any hope of taxpayers helping them out, because 
the atheist's and agnostic's child has the same equality according to our 
Constitution as the Romanists. 


The pope is a despotic monarch as a temporal sovereign. As pope he is the head of 
the Roman Catholic Church. These are the claims of his Church and while the 
Romanists of America may never attempt to rule as they have in European 
Catholic countries, it may also be true that our American Roman Catholic priests 
are different; but until the entire papacy as at present organized is overthrown it 
would be a sad day for free American institutions to put the balance of power into 
the Roman Catholics' hands, or any other sect. 


If the Knights of Columbus are attempting to organize the young boys of Italy with 
Mussolini's help that is their affair; nor should it concern Americans as to their 
reasons for so doing. All liberty-loving Americans should stamp out the 
professional ex-nun, and any periodical or magazine that continually strives to stir 
up religious rancor or hatred. The personnel of the Roman Catholic clerical and 
religious ministry are morally as good as any of the learned professions in 
America. 


It is to be regretted, however, that Roman Catholics, who in this country preach so 
much broadmindedness and tolerance regarding their Protestant neighbors and the 
large fraternal orders, as Masonry, Odd Fellows, etc., are very intolerant of these 
same organizations in Catholic countries. Go to Ireland or the Province of Quebec 
to organize a Lodge of Masonry and report back the welcomed Oh, yes, the 
Romanists tell us that the Freemasons of Italy, France, Austria and the European 
countries are not like those of America. I have made it a point to interview Masons 
in this country as to their views on evolution, belief in a Supreme Being, and find 
the ratio the same; and according to the Roman Catholic Church, not one Mason 
have I met would pass muster. 



A Wall Street banker recently told me that all the solid business financial interests 
should encourage the Roman Catholics of this country to prevent the Soviet system 
of Russia from taking a foothold in America; he was a 33rd Degree Mason; 
personally admitted the falsity of the papacy as to its divine origin; admitted the 
Roman Catholic Church was simply a part and parcel of the old Apostolic Church, 
but that it was a good business arrangement to have a responsible head, as the pope 
is, of a highly centralized government, even if he was a despotic monarch; 
admitted our system of electing presidents hadn't proved successful nor beneficial, 
and that as a solid business proposition he encouraged the missionary labors of the 
Roman Catholic Church; and this evidently is the opinion of many business people 
of America. 


I have no reliable method of finding out just what the Soviet Government means, 
much less what they are accomplishing. I do know about the Roman Catholic 
Church here and in Europe, and if we are to retain a free government, of, by and 
for the people, as founded by the framers of this Constitutional Government, let us 
one and all, at all times and in all places, demand a complete separation of Church 
and State and refuse to allow any sect or creed to lobby bills or enact laws to 
perpetuate the religious teachings of their peculiar sect or creed. 


NOTES 


(1) Strictly speaking the title of the Eastern Church is the "Holy Orthodox, 

Catholic and Apostolic Church." That of Rome is the "Holy Roman Church," also 
Catholic and Apostolic. The conception of the Roman Church as actually including 
the other churches of Western Europe did not reach its final evolution till the 
nineteenth century. The term Catholic, or Universal can in its full sense apply only 
to the Christian Church as a whole. A division of the Church can properly call 
itself Catholic as an integral part of the Church Universal, or it can do so 
controversially by unchurching all other churches. 



(2) St. Jerome, Proem, 1, 2, Com. Eptst. ad Cabal 


(3) Brerwood, Languaves and Religions, p. 9. 


(4) Bona, Re. Liturg. 207; Gavantus, Thesaur, Saer. Rit. 16, 17; Kozma, Liturg. 
Sacr. Cathol., p. 111. 


(5) The "Schismatics" are those of the Oriental Church who steadfastly refuse to 
acknowledge the papal claims. 


(6) [The writer seems to be somewhat misinformed here. In Quebec the 
comparatively few French Canadians who become Masons are subject to petty 
persecution in their own social circles, but there is no general opposition, nor can 
there be under the Constitutional safeguards, to the flourishing Grand Lodge of the 
Province. The same is true of Ireland. Ed.] 


— o — 


"The Religion of All Good Men" 


Communicated by BRO. LOUIS BLOCK, Associate Editor, Iowa 


THIS address was given by Rabbi Hirschberg in the auditorium of Medinah 
Temple at Chicago, on the occasion of the Feast of Atonement last year. It is a 
wonderful plea for religious charity and tolerance in the true sense of the word. 

The Rabbi is not a Mason, we understand, but he has, nevertheless, given utterance 



to the belief of all thinking Masons, that the essentials of true religion should draw 
men together and not separate them. 


THESE holy days of ours, friends, and especially this solemn night, reveal as 
nothing else the philosophy of the Jewish religion. More than that of any other day, 
the ritual of Y om Kippur plainly indicates what is the ground- work and 
foundationstone of all Jewish belief and practice. Would we understand the real 
essence of Judaism, we need but consult those utterances of our Bible and prayer- 
book that are inseparably identified with the observance of this day. Whether it is 
the passionate declaration of an Isaiah, rebelling against the social abuses of his 
day, whether it is the flaming appeal of an Amos, crying out against the 
hypocritical pomp of the Temple service and the corruption of the priests, or 
whether it is the eloquent utterance of a Micah, phrasing in words that can never 
die his immortal definition of religion: 


He hath told thee, oh man, what is good and what the Lord doth require of thee, but 
to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God: 


there is, in reality, but one supreme theme to which they are all attuned: to win 
men back to God, to turn them away from evil thoughts and vain pursuits, to 
dedicate them to a life of loving service every day in the year, to foster a finer 
feeling of fellowship in the world, to free men's minds from the galling chains of 
prejudice, to bind their hearts with indissoluble bonds of brotherhood and love. 
This is the one melody, the one divine note, the supreme motif of the Kol Nidre 
anthem, the keynote of all the prayers of this holy night. All others are but minor 
chords that blend harmoniously with this major symphony. 


Those who are still under the impression that this day is chiefly concerned with the 
mechanics of religion, prayer and fasting, ceremonial, creed and custom, may be 
surprised and shocked at such a revelation. They may consider me an iconoclast 
for making such a statement, but there is indisputable and incontrovertible 
evidence to support the contention. In fact, if we read the prophets with an open 
mind, dismissing all our inherited beliefs and traditions, there can be no doubt as to 



what religion meant to them and what they considered the prerequisites of a 
religious life, and the proper, the most fitting, observance of this day. Judaism, as 
they understood the term, was something more than a profession of faith or a 
declaration of principles. It was something more than a church or a synagogue, an 
elaborate ritual, an inspiring song-service or an eloquent sermon. It was life itself, 
the entire gamut of life, with all its play of light and shadow, comedy and tragedy, 
laughter and tears. Nothing was foreign to life. And so they interpreted religion in 
terms of human service and human brotherhood. What other interpretation than 
this can be given to such immortal utterances as: 


Rend your hearts and not your garments. Cease to do evil, learn to do good. Let 
justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. Ye shall do no 
unrighteousness in judgment. Ye shall not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block 
before the blind. Just weights, just measures shall ye have. Love thy neighbor as 
thyself. 


What are these and countless other inspired passages, if they are not the mighty 
preachments of liberal-minded men, wedded to the broadest kind of universalism, 
world-embracing in its scope, with no geographical bounds and no racial 
limitations whatsoever? No narrow-minded, hide-bound sectarians these, but 
ambassadors of God, champions of humanity, praying and working to make life 
more clean and decent, to usher in an era of peace and good-will that would spell 
out the betterment and the happiness of the race, not Israel alone, but the whole 
human family. 


And we, who are the spiritual heirs of the prophets, their religious legatees, are 
unalterably committed to just such an interpretation of religion. That is why, on 
such a night as this, the real leaders, interpreters and spokesmen of Judaism, devote 
their sermons to an enunciation of twentieth century problems rather than to a plea 
for the conservation of all the ancient rites and practices. We do not believe that 
just because a thing is old, it is therefore sacred and inviolate. We would not make 
a fetich of the dead past while ignoring the living present. We do not feel that the 
ancients knew all that could possibly be known about God and man. We have a 
profound respect for their piety and zeal, but we are unwilling to admit that the 
very last word, the very last chapter has been written in the story of religion. We 



feel that the book of revelation is not closed, that God is speaking to the heart and 
soul and mind of man today as He spoke to the ancients and that new times and 
new conditions call for new interpretations and a new vocabulary in keeping with 
the trend of modern thought and scientific discovery. If we could only get men, 
who have been alienated from religion, because of their belief that it is fossilized 
and static, to understand this, if we could convince them that there is just as much 
liberal and progressive thinking in the domain of religion as there is in that of 
science, I am sure that their antagonism would quickly be destroyed. For they 
would soon discover that we are not afraid of the truth but rather welcome the 
search-light of investigation and knowledge. We want to open wide the windows 
of our minds and let in the light so that superstition may speedily disappear and 
error be no more. We want no blind alleys, no darkened rooms where ignorance 
festers and superstition breeds. And as we do not fear the truth, so de we not fear 
any honest exploration in the realms of knowledge. It is only the darkness of 
fanaticism and bigotry of which we are afraid. Into the laboratory of the scientist, 
into the study of the scholar and the archaeologist, we go undaunted and unafraid, 
confident that the more we leam, the more we discover, the more light that is 
thrown on what is now obscure, the greater, the profounder our reverence for the 
Supreme Power that rules the universe. 


FREEDOM THE LIFE OF TRUE RELIGION 


Our one aim, our sole desire is to strike off the shackles from the minds of men 
that they might be free to think for themselves and to decide for themselves, free to 
believe or not to believe, free to pray or not to pray, our only regret is that the day, 
envisioned by the prophets and for whose speedy coming we earnestly pray, "when 
every man might sit under his own roof-tree and none there will be to make him 
afraid," has not yet been realized. In this respect our system of education has been 
thus far a dismal failure; in spite of all our institutions of learning the vast majority 
of men are still victims of inherited fanaticisms and bigotries. And the saddest 
thing of all is the fact that their number is not confined merely to the ignorant and 
uneducated, but even college graduates and university professors are guilty of 
blind and unreasoning hatreds. Amongst all the varieties of the human species, 
amongst all the millions upon millions of people in the world, the rarest specimen 
of all is an absolutely unprejudiced man, without any preconceived opinions, 
whose judgments are based solely upon the facts, whose decisions and convictions 



are the result of inexorable logic and whose only concern is the naked and 
unvarnished truth. A modem Diogenes, lantern in hand, would have as difficult a 
time finding such a man in Chicago or New York in 1927 as did his ancient 
predecessor, the Greek philosopher, when searching for an honest man in the city 
of Athens twenty-three hundred years ago. We like to think of justice as the artist 
conceived her, blindfolded, holding in her hands evenly balanced scales. That is 
our democratic ideal, that is the principal upon which our republican form of 
government is founded, equal rights to all, special privileges to none. And yet, how 
many of us even faintly measure up to that ideal in practice. Who of us, in this 
congregation tonight, can honestly and sincerely say that he is free from the 
slightest taint of prejudice and that he approaches every question with an open and 
unbiased mind? How many of us even try to put ourselves in the other man's place 
and see any given question from his viewpoint ? How many of us are willing to 
admit that he may be right and we may be wrong? 


And it is right here, 1 believe, that is to be found the crying fault of the present 
generation, its lack of gentleness and consideration, its brutal disregard of tender 
sensibilities. Our age is brilliantly intellectual. We are blessed with a wealth of 
genius. Sometimes I fear that we have too much brain and would be infinitely 
better off if we had a little less and a little more heart, a little more human 
sympathy and understanding. The world, unfortunately, has not yet rid itself of its 
encumbering ostracisms and taboos, its petty class distinctions, its superficial 
aristocracies of birth and fortune. Even in the church, within the sacred precincts of 
the House of God, the last place where it ought to exist, the very first place where 
we ought to find a spirit of absolute equality, there still exists the absurd, the 
ridiculous notion of a preferred class. Think of it, friends, men and women, pious 
members of the church, have yet to gain a broader and more liberal outlook upon 
life, a finer feeling of fellowship and tolerance. Tolerance, how I hate that word, 
how I wish it could be completely expunged from the dictionary and the thoughts 
of men! How it smacks of that snobbish superiority and arrogant condescension 
against which this day so passionately protests. Tolerance, how contrary to the 
challenge of this holy night, the challenge to meet together, not as master and 
slave, but as equals, children of the same Father, members of the same great human 
family, with equal rights, equal privileges and equal duties. "Have we not all One 
Father, has not One God created us all?" 



RELIGION AND HUMANITY 


It is the challenge, friends, that finds its noblest expression in the glorious vision of 
One God and one Humanity. Here is an aspiration whose sublimity the flight of 
time has not dimmed, whose nobility all the battering rams of scientific criticism 
has not destroyed. For untold ages, the Jew has cherished this lofty hope. It has 
always uplifted and inspired him, it has been his strength and stay even in the 
darkest years of persecution and oppression. He read it in his Bible, he recited it in 
his daily prayers, he taught it in his schools and over the doorways of his House of 
Worship in every age and in every clime, carved the inscription, which is vocal 
with this same noble aspiration: "My House Shall be Called a House of Prayer for 
All Peoples." 


When all has been said, this is the one outstanding, distinguishing and dynamic 
principle of our religion. It is the only genuine test of real religion; not its theology, 
not its conception of the universe, not its speculation about a vague hereafter, but 
its power to fire the hearts and souls of its devotees with a consuming passion for 
humanity that transcends all the barriers and bounds of sectarian prejudice. Has 
modern science with all of its inventive genius, modem philosophy with its cold 
and mechanistic theory of the universe as a blind and mthless machine, formulated 
any thought comparably as fine and ennobling and inspiring as this? Suppose the 
Bible is an intensively human document, suppose it is not the best or most 
authoritative history or treatise on the origin of man, grant that there are many 
imperfections and defects in it and, yet, may we not ask without the fear of 
contradiction is not its vision of a world-at-peace, the mde alarms of war stilled 
forever, swords beaten into plowshares and spears into pmning-hooks, is not the 
vision of a united family of man, all hatred and tolerance banished forever, and 
completely under the domination of a loving and universal Father, the sublimest 
conception that has ever dawned upon the mind of man? 


LOVE AND GOOD WILL TO ALL MEN 



And is not this the most urgent need of the present hour? I am only too ready to 
admit that it is highly important that we have a reasonable and enlightened faith to 
which a thinking man can readily subscribe. It is highly important that we be ever 
ready to welcome the truth no matter whence the revelation, that we be hospitable 
to the latest findings of careful scientific research and investigation and learn as 
much as we possibly can about the universe in which we live. God only knows that 
we need light, more and more light to illumine the stygian darkness of ignorance 
and chase away the shadows of superstition and blind credulity. I would be the last 
person in the world to oppose any honest effort to get at the truth, but let us not 
forget that, important as it is to break asunder the shackles that enslave the mind, 
even more important is it to sunder the chains that shackle the heart and soul. We 
need something more than science and logic and philosophy to satisfy the hungry 
heart and the starving soul of man. Life is something more than a mere cold 
abstraction or mathematical theorem and there is something more urgent and 
pressing today than the proof of the doctrine of evolution. There is need as there 
never has been need for the emancipation of men from every kind of hatred and 
intolerance. Above every other need of the present hour is the vital need for a 
recognition of the inalienable, the God-given right of every human being to live his 
own life, think his own thoughts, obey the dictates of his own conscience, be the 
captain of his own soul, the master of his own destiny. Call no man great, no 
matter what his fame, be he even the President of these United States, who has not 
done everything in his power to bring this about, to put an end to all the 
antagonisms that set man against man, nation against nation, religion against 
religion and bring about an era of good-will and better understanding that will 
stress instead the heritage that we all hold in common. "Have we not all One 
Father, has not One God created us all?" 


Under the dome of God's temple of humanity God, who is the universal Father of 
all, who knows no favorites and will tolerate no distinctions, with whom there are 
no high and no low, no proud and no humble under that dome, wide and high and 
all-embracing as the overarching skies, there are no reserved seats for the high and 
mighty and powerful of the earth, but there is room for all His children, men of 
every creed, color and nationality, white, black or yellow, American or European, 
Jew or Christian, Protestant or Catholic, Fundamentalist or Modernist, believer or 
unbeliever. Such is the lesson that this day teaches above every other lesson. Such, 
indeed, is the fact that, according to the prophet Isaiah, the Lord hath chosen to 
break every yoke and let the oppressed go free. Such is the ministry to which we 
are asked to dedicate ourselves tonight. In it there is a defense of the down- 



trodden, a brief for the widow and the orphan, the sorrowing and the heavy laden. 
Oh! that we might begin that ministry this holy eve and see in the man struggling, 
toiling at our side not a hated adversary but a loving brother, with the same desires, 
hopes and dreams that we possess oh! that tonight we might hear this evening 
whisper of peace and goodwill, pardon, forgiveness and reconciliation and speed 
the coming of the day when "men will no longer hurt nor destroy in all God's holy 
mountain, when the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters 
cover the sea." Oh ! that tonight we might attune our hearts to the music of the Kol 
Nidre song and prayer: 


Brothers hear the sounds which now invite 
"Men," they plead, "let love God's sons unite 
Let hate take flight. Love ye for God is love 
Forgive like God above. Burdens sore make light," 


and thus make our atonement by achievement of our at-onementat-one with God, 
at-one with man ! 


— o — 


BRO. JOHN T. THORP 


We have received a copy of the Leicester Mercury of May 24, published in 
Leicester, England, in which is an account of a presentation made to Bro. John T. 
Thorp, whose name is well known to American Masonic students. The brethren of 
Leicester gathered to do him special honor, and the Deputy Provincial Grand 
Master, Lt. Col. Oliver, presented him with his portrait in oils. 



Bro. Thorp became a Mason as long ago as 1870. In 1875 he was installed as 
Master of John of Gaunt Lodge. In 1892 he was the first Master of the famous 
Leicester Lodge of Research. It is as Secretary of this lodge that he is best known 
in America. He has edited the lodge proceedings from the first, and has 
superintended the publication of reprints of a number of rare and valuable workson 
Masonry, including a number of those of the late Bro. Hughan. 


In 1900 he became a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, to whose 
transactions the well-known Ars Quatuor Coronatorum he has contributed a 
number of valuable papers. 


He has won honors not only in the Craft but outside as well. He is a Fellow of the 
Royal Historical Society, of the Royal Society of Literature of Great Britain, of the 
Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland, and of a number of similar institutions in 
various parts of the world. 


Bro. Thorp is now well advanced in years and it seems well that he should receive 
these deserved honors while he is yet with us. We are very glad of this occasion to 
contribute the felicitations and good wishes of members of the Research Society to 
one who has done so much for Masonic scholarship. 


— o — 


MASONIC SATANISM 


Seeing that we quoted the Fortnightly Review on this subject in the last issue of 
THE BUILDER it will be only fair to reproduce the following from the number for 
June 1 , which shows that the original story is as incredible to intelligent Roman 
Catholics as it is to us. The quaint thing about the situation is that the Freemasons 



of France are supposed to be atheists, and yet believers in the real and miraculous 
effect of the valid consecration of the elements in the Eucharist. The paragraph 
referred to is as follows: 


Apropos of the article on "Masonic Satanism" (F.R., XXXV, 9, 181 sq.) an 
eminent Catholic physician and author writes to us: "I find it very hard to bring 
myself to think that men would do such things unless they were distinctly 
disequilibrated. The mentally alienated often do things of this nature. I am inclined 
to think, however, that there is something wrong also about the reporter. For 
instance, the woman who reported when dying that she had been present at black 
masses by apostate priests, would have exactly the same place in my mind as the 
women who, during the witchcraft delusions, confessed to attendance at the 
witches' sabbath and direct communication with the devil, even succubation, if 
there is such a word, and all the rest. Such people are affected by a combination of 
hysteria and mental alienation. The Leo Taxil matter and the way that a lot of our 
otherwise sensible people fell for that delusion or counterfeiting always comes 
back to me in this connection." 


— o — 


Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19 


A Historical Sketch 


ONE cannot help but be fascinated by the City of Richmond in that aristocratic 
State of Virginia. It is full of historical associations, yet charming in its modernity. 
It is, perhaps, a bit unfortunate that the older section of the city has become an ant 
hill of industry. Modem business buzzes around the curios of a century and more 
ago with a vitality that distracts from the quiet of meditation that one would prefer 
in contemplating such reminders of times long past as is the home of Richmond - 
Randolph Lodge, No. 19. The commission house which flanks the lodge hall upon 



one side, and the other equally squalid commercial enterprises which surround it 
upon every hand, are certainly not in keeping with the antiquity of the building and 
the air of an American Masonic shrine which should envelop it. The large frame 
building seems out of place among the more modern brick structures and its air of 
quiet refinement seems particularly inappropriate to its present environment. Still 
the fact remains that this structure is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Masonic 
building in America. 


The present writer understands that Pennsylvania claims to have possessed the first 
building erected solely for Masonic purposes, and in order to avoid any 
controversy and the necessity for searching out the facts of the case it is the 
intention to qualify the statement of Virginia brethren and to leave our colonial 
friends to settle the matter between themselves. There is at least no doubt in his 
mind but that the brethren of Richmond-Randolph Lodge can claim the distinction 
of holding their meetings in a building which has been used for strictly Masonic 
purposes for a longer period of time than any other. 


The origin and history of this temple is most interesting, and doubtless readers of 
THE BUILDER Will Welcome an opportunity to learn something of its past 
existence. In order that credit may fall where it is due, let it be frankly stated that 
the following description is taken, by special permission, from the account 
compiled by Bros. M.J. DeWitt, W.A. Clarke, Jr., A.J. Clarke and C.P. Eldridge, 
the historical committee of the lodge. 


The structure was built by Richmond Lodge, No. 10 (then No. 13), in 1785. During 
the first century, until 1878, to be precise, the building was occupied jointly by 
Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19, and Richmond Lodge, No. 10, at which time 
No. 10, changed its place: of meeting to St. Alban's Hall. It is interesting to note, 
that No. 19 has met regularly in the hall for over one hundred and forty years. The 
title to the old hall was held by trustees of these two lodges, but the title to the 
ground on which it stood was clouded, and for a long time there was a tradition 
that, the land had been donated, and that it would revert to the heirs of the original 
owners should it no longer be used for the purposes originally intended. An 
investigation undertaken in order to perfect the sale of the rights of Lodge No. 10 
to Lodge No. 19, in 1883, has. brought to light some interesting facts. 



The first Grand Lodge in Virginia was assembled in Williamsburg, Va., on 
Tuesday, 6th of May, 1777. The first lodge in Richmond was chartered on Dec. 28, 
1780. It assembled at the Raleigh Tavern, and was known as Richmond Lodge, No. 
13 (now No. 10). The Grand Lodge assembled in Richmond on 14th November, 
1784, in the "Lodge Room" in the city of Richmond, and Edmund Randolph 
appeared as the Representative of Richmond Lodge, No. 13. We can only 
conjecture as to the location of this lodge room, but it was probably in McGuire's 
school house, then next to the present site of the Mason's hall. 


A building which would serve as a suitable lodge room, and also as a permanent 
location for the Grand Lodge, soon became necessary, and, accordingly, on the 
12th of August, 1785, Gabriel Galt sold to "George Anderson, Alexander Nelson, 
Foster Webb, Jr., Alexander MeRobert, Patrick Wright, Samuel Scherer and John 
Grooves, a committee from Lodge No. 13, a lot of ground fronting 80 feet on the 
back street, opposite Mrs. Warrocks," an d engaged, "under a penalty of 9500, to 
convey the above ground in fee simple and make a deed for the same whenever 
required to do so." 


Steps were then taken to erect a hall upon this lot. The cornerstone was laid by 
Most Worshipful James Mercer, Grand Master, assisted by the officers and 
members of Richmond Lodge, No. 13, Oct. 12, 1785. 


RAISING MONEY BY LOTTERY 


On Dec. 27, 1785, the Legislature passed an act authorizing "the Society of 
Freemasons of the City of Richmond to raise, under the direction of the Common 
Hall (now the Common Council) of said city, a sum of money not exceeding 
1 1,500, by way of lottery, for the purpose of erecting and completing a 
Freemason's Hall in said city." The Common Hall, at a meeting held Jan. 2, 1786, 
appointed a committee, consisting of John Marshall, Recorder, Gabriel Galt, Foster 
Webb, Jr., David Lambert, and John Beckley, to form a scheme of lottery 



agreeably to the above act. The committee reported, Jan. 9, a scheme which was 
adopted, and managers were appointed. This scheme for raising money did not 
seem to meet with much success, and at the expiration of one year the managers 
reported that but few tickets had been sold. 


NEW LOTTERY SCHEME 


About this time the Common Hall, it appears, had abandoned the hope of raising 
money by the lottery scheme. There was much complaint on the part of those who 
had purchased tickets and the managers desired to be relieved. 


At a meeting held April 13, 1787, it was 


Resolved, That the Society of Freemasons be requested to nominate a committee to 
call upon the lottery managers to render an account and to receive the money for 
tickets sold; that they be required to give security in the sum of X5,000, and that 
they (the committee from the lodge) be appointed managers of said lottery, 
according to the following, which was only one third of the original scheme. 


This scheme provided for the raising of 500 instead of 1,500, as was first proposed. 
It is probable that the building had not been raised above the first story at this time; 
that it was roofed over, and served as a lodge room and a hall for public meetings 
of citizens. 


This first story is built of brick, and it was the original design to erect a building of 
that material, but after the abandonment of the most ambitious scheme of raising 
1 1,500, the plan was changed; the remaining stories were constructed of wood, and 
the Hall, as it now stands, was fully completed Dec. 10, 1787. And now the 



members of the lodge were sorely perplexed as to how the money should be raised 
to pay the debt incurred. The lottery scheme appeared a failure. 


The difficulty of raising money at this time is easily accounted for when we 
remember that, on the 9th of January, 1787, a most disastrous fire had destroyed 
between thirty and forty houses in Richmond, and swept away property of the 
value of more than 1 130,000. But there were some members of the lodge who bad 
determined the enterprise should succeed. John Marshall came to the front to 
awaken enthusiasm and restore harmony. Lodge No. 13 was, in 1786, renumbered 
as Richmond Lodge, No. 10. 


On the 29th of October, 1787, Richmond-Randolpn Lodge, No. 19, was chartered, 
with William Waddill as Master, John Dixon, Senior Warden, and David Lambert, 
Junior Warden. The members of the two lodges then went earnestly to work; the 
remainder of the tickets in the lottery were sold, and the drawing took place in the 
Hall June 10, 1788, when over 2400 was realized. This amount served to satisfy t h 
e clamors of the workmen or a time, but there was still a large sum due on the 
building. May 28, 1791, William Booker, the contractor, filed his bill in the 
County Court of Henrico, praying a sale of the building for t he payment to him of 
the balance of 247, 18s., 2d. This sum was, however, advanced to the lodges by 
Joseph Darmstadt an d the suit dismissed. The Hall was not completed and the 
lodges were receiving numerous accessions to their membership, and among them 
were many of the most influential citizens of Richmond. 


The debt which had embarrassed them was gradually reduced and several years of 
prosperity followed. 


All the business of the lodge was then transacted in a lodge on the First Degree of 
Masonry, and a lodge on the Fourth Degree was opened whenever it became 
necessary, for the purpose of raising a Master-elect to the degree of Past Master. 
The Steward's Committee were the almoners of the lodge, and made regular reports 
at every meeting. 



The annual festivals of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist were 
occasions of much interest, and the following extract from the Richmond Gazette, 
Jan. 4, 1788, will show how they were celebrated: 


Thursday last (Dec. 27) being the Festival of St. John the Evangelist, the ancient 
and honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons of lodges in this city went in 
procession from their hall, with a band of music, to the church, where their 
Chaplain delivered a very suitable discourse, after which they returned, in the same 
order; and in the evening they concluded with a grand ball. 


At this time the Masons' Hall was the most popular place in the city; with the 
exception of the court house (Main and 22nd streets), it was the only building east 
of Shockoe Creek in which public meetings could be held. The large room on the 
ground floor was in frequent use as a place of amusement, for public and political 
meetings and for religious worship. Three times a week Monsieur Capers 
instructed the "youth of both sexes in the most approved court dances and the latest 
and most popular figures and steps." Here tke citizens assembled to instruct their 
delegates to the convention; on the absorbing topic of the adoption or rejection of 
the Federal Constitution. Here grand balls were given on the Fourth of July and 
also 


on the 22nd of February, the anniversary of the birth of the illustrious General 
George Washington, whose exertions, under the smile of heaven, have been 
productive of freedom, happiness and glory to a grateful people. 


Here the Hustings Court of the city was held when the General Court was sitting in 
the court house, and John Marshall as recorder was having his first judicial 
experience; and here, on Sunday afternoon, "dissenting ministers" proclaimed the 
new era of religious freedom and preached the gospel of Christ. 



In 1792 the question of title to the property was agitated. Gabriel Galt had died in 
1788 without having made a deed to the property, and the original trustees, with 
two exceptions, had died or removed from the city. At the August, 1792, term of 
the County Court of Henrico, the surviving trustees filed their bill in chancery 
against the widow and heirs at law of Gabriel Galt, praying that they might be 
required specifically to perform the contract of said Galt with them, and make a 
deed conveying the property. The cause remained on the docket until the August, 
1794, term, when a decree was rendered requiring the defendants, within thirty 
days, to execute a deed conveying the property to John Marshall, Joseph 
Darmstadt, John Moody, Alexander Yuille, Thomas Nicholson, Julius B. 
Dandridge, Jacob L. Cohen, Jacob Ege, John Steward, William H. Fitzwhylson, 
John K. Reed, John Crawford, John Dixon and Samuel McCraw in trust for the 
sole use and benefit of the Richmond Lodges, No. 10 and No. 19, and their legal 
representatives and successors forever. 


The original deed was doubtless executed, but it is no longer in existence. At that 
time there was much doubt as to the proper office in which deeds to property in the 
city of Richmond should be recorded. Some were recorded in the County Court of 
Henrico, some in the Hustings Court of the city, others in District Court, and many 
in the office of the General Court. It is presumed from a recital in a deed to another 
lot on the same square, that the deed to this property was recorded in the General 
Court, the records of which have all been destroyed. The record in the suit above 
referred to is, however, sufficient to show that lodges 10 and 19 have an 
indefeasible title to the property. 


This history of the old Hall and Lodge No. 19 is indeed full of interest. Patriots, 
warriors, statesmen and philanthropists, whose fame was not confined to one 
hemisphere, have been seated around its lodge altar. From the Grand Lodge, 
assembled within its walls, have emanated the charters of nearly all the lodges in 
the state. While it is true that the Grand Lodge had its birth elsewhere, yet here it 
was nourished to vigor and manhood, and the "Masons' Hall, on Franklin street, 
between 18th and 19th street, Richmond, Virginia, may justly be regarded as the 
cradle of Virginia Masonry. 



Worshipful William Waddill was the first Master of No. 19 and commenced his 
administration with four members - three besides himself, viz. : David Lambert, 
John Dixon, Sr., and John V. Kautzman. David Lambert was appointed Secretary 
and John V. Kautzman, Tiler. The remaining subordinate officers were appointed 
as members were received. Worshipful William Waddill's administration extended 
over a period of two years and was very prosperous, having held one stated 
meeting and ten occasional meetings during the month of December, 1787, and a 
total of forty-nine meetings during the two years. Twelve brothers joined the lodge, 
twenty-two persons were regularly initiated, eleven were passed to the Degree of 
Fellowcraft, and ten raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason. During this 
period there were no deaths, no withdrawals, and only two persons recommended 
whose characters were not good and were consequently rejected. 


Erection of Master's Chair in the Hall, Sept. 7, 1791. The lodge having agreed to 
the proposition for the erection of a Master's Chair and other accommodations in 
the lodge room, the Master appointed Bro. Crawford, Senior Warden, to inform 
No. 10 that the lodge desired concurrence in the same. Lodge No. 10 concurred, 
and at the next meeting of the Grand Lodge, Oct. 29, 1791, the Grand Lodge 
resolved to pay one-third of expenses, not exceeding fifty pounds. The chair thus 
erected in the lodge is now in good condition, and used regularly by the Master of 
No. 19, and was purchased in England. The Grand Tiler's sword, used by the 
Grand Tiler of the Grand Lodge at this time, was presented to No. 19 by 
Worshipful Bro. John Dove, and is now suspended over the same chair. 


At this time all the business of the lodge was transacted in the First Degree. 


Sept. 5, 1792, the lodge purchased ten tickets in the Richmond Lottery, gotten up 
to build a bridge over Shockoe Creek. They drew blanks. 


On Oct. 3, 1793, the Worshipful Master of No. 19 received a letter under seal of 
the Grand Lodge from Right Worshipful Thomas Matthews, Grand Master, 
appointing Bro. William Waddill "Inspector-General of Lodges." 



The first penitentiary house in Virginia was built in Richmond and the cornerstone 
laid on the 12th day of August, 1797, and of American Independence the XXII, by 
Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19, assisted by the other lodges of the city and 
Manchester. 


The following is a copy from the Lodge Records, "Oct. 6, 1 824, at a stated meeting 
of No. 19, held this evening at Masons' Hall, a communication was received from 
Richmond Lodge, No. 10, through Worshipful Bro. John Dove, concerning 
suitable arrangements for the reception of Illustrious Worshipful Bro. Lafayette." 

A preamble unanimously adopted appointing a committee to confer with 
committees of sister lodges, and to carry into effect such measures as may be 
deemed by them proper for paying due respect to our illustrious brother, General 
Lafayette, when he shall have arrived in this city and directed the Tiler to draw 
upon the Treasurer for any expenses attending the illumination of Masons' Hall. 


Reception, etc., to Worshipful General Lafayette Saturday, Oct. 30, 1824. At a 
called meeting of Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19, held at Masons' Hall, in the 
city of Richmond, the lodge was opened in the First Degree of Masonry in due 
form. On motion of Worshipful Brother Cabell, seconded by Brother Ives' 
Worshipful Brother Lafayette was unanimously elected an Honorary Member of 
this lodge. On motion of Brother Ives, Brother George Washington Lafayette (a 
son of Gen. Lafayette) was unanimously elected an Honorary Member of this 
lodge. On motion of Brother Anderson, Brother LaVasseur was unanimously 
elected an Honorary Member of this lodge. The lodge was then called from labor 
to refreshments. 


The lodge, after having joined in a procession, proceeded to the Union Hotel 
(corner Main and Nineteenth streets) to partake of a dinner provided in compliment 
to Brother General Lafayette. The lodge then escorted that brother to his lodgings 
at the "Eagle Hotel" (comer Fifteenth and Main streets) and returned to the 
Masons' Hall and resumed labors. Wor. Bro. R. A. Carrington was Master at this 
time. 



The signatures of all the foregoing honorary members appear on the recorded by- 
laws of No. 19 preceding the record of this meeting and reception (and have been 
inspected by thousands of Masons from all parts of the world). 


At the Nov. 3, 1824, meeting it was resolved that the Master and Wardens of No. 
19 procure appropriate certificates of membership, written on parchment, and 
present them to the brethren recently elected honorary members. 


W. Bro. Gen. Lafayette died on 20th of May, 1834, and this lodge held suitable 
memorial exercises to pay the last sad tribute of respect to our deceased brother 
June 23, 1834. 


The lodge was called Thursday, July 9, 1835, to pay the last sad tribute of respect 
to our deceased brother, Worthy Brother John Marshal, Chief Justice and late Most 
Worshipful Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia. The procession formed and 
moved to the county court house, where they met the body, and thence proceeded 
to the house of the deceased, on the comer of Ninth and Marshall streets, where a 
suitable discourse was delivered, thence to Shockoe burial ground, where the body 
was interred with the usual Masonic honors. Judge Marshall was A member of No. 
10. Why No. 19 buried him is not known. There is no record that No. 10 
participated. 


We will close this historical sketch with an impressive scene in No. 19, Dec. 17, 
1872. 


At this meeting a most impressive scene was witnessed - that of initiating the 
grandson of our esteemed Worthy and ever useful Worshipful Grand Secretary, 
John Dove (Win. B. Isaacs, Jr., son of Wm. B. Isaacs, Sr., Past Master of No. 19). 
This occasion called forth feeling remarks to the time (1817) when No. 36 Lodge 



was amalgamated with Lodge No. 19, and some twenty or more members of No. 
36 were nominated and elected members of No. 19, and returning their charter to 
the Grand Lodge of Virginia. Shortly thereafter (June 24, 1820) Bro. John Dove 
became Master of No. 19, continuing, he said: 


"In 1842 the father of this candidate (Wm. B. Isaacs, Sr.) became a member of No. 
19, and has continued a member to this evening." Turning to the Worshipful 
Master, he said: "Thus, Worshipful Sir, you see what very rarely occurs, if it ever 
occurred in Virginia, or elsewhere, three generations in good standing, and present 
members of our respected lodge, No. 19, over which a John Marshall and Edmund 
Randolph presided." 


Then turning to his grandson (the candidate), Bro. Dove explained to him the 
importance of keeping well in mind the impressive ceremonies he had just gone 
through; and, concluding, he said: 


"The infidel may scoff, the unbeliever sneer, the renegade denounce; yet will we 
strive to emulate her noble teachings, and bound by the ties of brotherly love and 
affection, continue on until the last setting sun sheds its golden rays upon the 
unshaken dome of Freemasonry. But the crowning commentary on this word 
'brother' and the inestimable value of its relations to society is to be found in the 
august words of Him who spake as never man spake, when He said, 'Ye have heard 
it said of them of olden time, thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill, shall be 
in danger of the judgment; but I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother, 
without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his 
brother Raca, shall be in danger of hell fire.' Thus, my brother, may we always 
appreciate our noble institution." 


The lodge was one hundred years old Oct. 29, 1887, and celebrated its centennial 
Oct. 31, 1887, at 8 o'clock, Worshipful Master Judson Cunningham, Master. The 
lodge history was read by Wor. Charles P. Rady (now deceased), Historian of the 
lodge, and many stirring addresses made, some of the speakers being Grand Master 
Drankard, Judge B. R. Wellford, Col. Thomas J. Evans, Senator William 



Lovenstein and R. W. William B. Isaacs, Grand Secretary, and others. And thus 
could we proceed with the ancient history of the ancient lodge, No. 19, until 
volumes would be consumed. 


RELICS AND PRESENTS 


In January, 1904, Bro. W. A. Clarke, Jr., while rummaging about the hall for any 
relies of the past of historical value, found in the bottom of a closet three heavy 
brass candlesticks, or columns, each 2 1 inches high and of Doric, Ionic and 
Corinthian styles of architecture, an old Bible, and an old ballot box. The 
candlesticks were green with canker, and were turned over to Bro. W. A. Beard, of 
this lodge (now dead), who had them cleaned and polished. He gave the opinion of 
expert brass moulders, who had examined them, that they were very old - at least 
one hundred years old (opinion given 1904), as they were probably made before 
the art of core-making was discovered, being cast in two lengthwise sections and 
brazed. The lodge ordered them to be mounted on suitable pedestals and to be used 
as the burning tapers about the altar. They are fine specimens of brass work and 
have been much admired by the brethren. What they were used for in the past is 
not known, but they now serve a very appropriate purpose. 


The old wooden columns or candlesticks of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian styles of 
architecture, originally used about the altar, are kept in the cloak room of the lodge, 
though not now used. They are probably as old as the building, and from the best 
information obtainable were in use until 1838, when the "appropriate chandelier" 
over the altar, given to the lodge by St. James Episcopal Church, replaced them. 


The old Bible is in a fairly good state of preservation. The fly-leaf contains the 
following inscription in ink: "Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19, August, A. L., 
5795" (or 1795). This Bible was printed in "Cambridge, England, 1773, by John 
Archdeacon, printer to the University," and no doubt adorned the altar of old 19 for 
a long time in its early years. 



The ballot box is rather a small one, and appears to be very old. On its sides is 
painted: "Richmond Lodge, No. 10, and Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19." It 
contained a quantity of white and black peas, which were probably used for ballots. 


The large and handsome triangular shaped brass chandelier now suspended over 
the altar was presented to No. 19 on May 2, 1838, by the Vestry of St. James 
Episcopal Church, in appreciation of the "very handsome and spirited manner in 
which Lodge No. 19 complied with their request to lay the cornerstone of the new 
church." 


NORTHERN CAVALRYMAN'S SABRE 


On Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1898, a motion was unanimously adopted instructing the 
trustees to place on deposit with the Valentine Museum, comer 12th and Clay 
streets, this city (in trust for the lodge), the old blue crockery which was in use in 
the dining room of Masons' Hall for over one hundred years. The set consists of six 
large dishes, three cups, two saucers and fourteen small plates, all that remains of 
the original set. They are very old and beautiful specimens of blue China. There 
are three different patterns or designs in the set, the most beautiful being the 
willow. 


At one of the meetings of the lodge held after the evacuation of Richmond, at the 
close of the Civil War, and while the city was under military control, a number of 
Northern soldiers who were Masons visited the lodge. One of them wore his sabre 
at his side. Before entering the lodge he divested himself of his sabre and hung it 
on a hook in the cloak-room. After the lodge closed he went away and forgot his 
sabre, and it is still in the hall, a reminder of those dark days of civil strife. Neither 
the sabre or belt contains a name or anything to indicate its ownership. 


When the city was under military control some of the older members of the lodge, 
fearing that some harm might be done the old Hall by disorderly soldiers, waited 



upon the commandment of troops and asked for its protection. That officer (Gen. 
Godfrey Weitzel, a Mason) was pleased to grant their request, and a guard was 
placed at the Hall whenever the sentinels were posted, and no harm was done it. 
Mr. John W. Fergusson, an old citizen of Richmond (now deceased) informed the 
writer that he well remembers seeing the sentinels around Masons' Hall in those 
days. 


On Jan. 17, 1888, Bro. C. W. Ragland, through the Worshipful Master, Judson 
Cunningham, presented the lodge with a handsome set of Wardens' columns, 
which were received on behalf of the lodge by Worshipful C. P. Rady. 


On Tuesday, June 18, 1889, Bro. J. M. Newell, through Wor. Bro. C. P. Brady, 
presented the lodge with a very handsome set of Deacon's rods, made of walnut 
and jointed with silver bands, inscribed: "Presented to Richmond-Randolph Lodge, 
No. 19, by J. M. Newell, 1889." Worshipful Judson Cunningham accepted the rods 
in behalf of the lodge. On the same evening Bro. A. B. Crowell presented the 
lodge, through Worshipful Judson Cunningham, three gavels made of wood from 
the Libby Prison. 


The Mason & Hamlin organ in the lodge room was given the lodge some years ago 
by Bro. E. H. Fergusson. 


During the administration of Worshipful Judson Cunningham, Bro. (now 
Worshipful) Ed. E. Richardson presented the lodge with a large steel knocker, 
made by himself, for the lodge room door. It consists of the square, compass and 
letter G, and the knocker is a metal gavel. 


Among the pictures in the lodge room is a photograph of His Excellency Most 
Worshipful Edmund Randolph, after whom the lodge is named; a photograph of 
Bro. William J. Riddick, for eighteen years Secretary of No. 19; a photograph of 
the gavel used by Worshipful Brother George Washington in laying the 



cornerstone of the Capitol of the United States at Washington, and subsequently 
used in laying cornerstones of many important buildings in this country, and a 
picture of the Hon. Mrs. Aldworth, the only woman ever made a Mason. 


Bro. P. M. Slaughter presented the lodge with a pretty Masonic emblem, composed 
of beautiful minerals and metals from the Rocky Mountains, all enclosed in a neat 
frame. 


A history of the old Hall would be incomplete without a reference to the faithful 
old negro janitor, Joshua Henley, or Uncle Josh, as he is familiarly known. He was 
over eighty years old when he died, and a genuine old-time Virginia darkey, a type 
of whom, unfortunately, so few remain. He became janitor in 1867 and remained 
until February, 1904, when he was relieved by the trustees of active duties, given a 
pension by the lodge, and a home secured for him, in appreciation of the thirty- 
seven years of faithful service he rendered in taking such good care of the property 
entrusted to him. Although not required to do so, he came to the Hall every 
meeting night as long as he lived. Upon giving up his charge, he turned over to the 
trustees eight massive iron keys of ancient design, which he said were given him 
when he took charge of the building. Most of the big locks which they fitted have 
been removed and modem locks with small keys substituted. The old keys will be 
preserved as relies of the past. 


An eventful evening was held Monday, Feb. 8, 1909, when Worshipful Leonard G. 
Roberts, Master of St. John's Lodge, Boston, Mass, (chartered July 30, 1733), the 
oldest lodge in America, visited No. 19, to pay a fraternal visit from the oldest 
lodge to this, the oldest Masonic building in America. He was accompanied by 
Grand Master Joseph W. Eggleston and other Virginia Grand Lodge officers. The 
officers of No. 19 were all clad in colonial costumes. The address of Bro. Roberts 
was most masterly. No. 19 presented St. John's Lodge a framed picture of the Hall 
and a set of working tools made of wood taken from the building. The fraternal 
relations thus established between these two lodges were further cemented when, 
on Oct. 30, 1922, R. Wor. Harry N. Shepherd, Past Master of St. John's Lodge, 
visited No. 19 and presented it with a large and handsome silver facsimile of the 
seal of St. John's Lodge, on the reverse side of which is inscribed: "Presented to 



Richmond-Randolph Lodge, No. 19, A. F. & A. M., Richmond, Virginia, at its 
135th anniversary, Oct. 30, 1922, by St. John's Lodge, Boston, Mass." 


All of the records of the lodge, from its institution to the present time, have been 
preserved and are safely kept in a fireproof vault. From them and from other 
sources a much better history can be written, which we will leave for a more 
competent historian to write. 


— o — 


EDITORIAL 

R.J. MEEKREN, Editor in Charge 
E.E. Thiemeyer, Research Editor 

BOARD OF EDITORS 

LOUIS BLOCK, Iowa 
ROBERT I. CLEGG, Illinois 
GILBERT W. DAYNES, England 
RAY V. DENSLOW, Missouri 
GEORGE H. DERN, Utah 
N.W.J. HAYDON, Canada 



R.V. HARRIS, Canada 


C. C. HUNT, Iowa 
CHARLES F. IRWIN, Pennsylvania 
A. L. KRESS, Pennsylvania 
F. H. LITTLEFIELD, Missouri 
JOSEPH E. MORCOMBE, California 
ARTHUR C. PARKER, New York 
J. HUGO TATSCH, Iowa 
JESSE M. WHITED, California 
DAVID E. W WILLIAMSON Nevada 


ITALIAN FREEMASONS 


A CORRESPONDENT, an American Mason of Italian descent, wishes to know 
why American Masonry has not given any sympathy to the trials and persecutions 
to which Italian Masons have been subjected in their own country. We presume 
that an official expression is what is intended, for there have been many 
sympathetic reports of what has happened in the American Masonic press 
generally. 


The situation from the official point of view undoubtedly presents difficulties. In 
the first place a majority of our Grand Lodges did not "recognize" either of the two 
Italian governing bodies, the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge. There have thus 
been many good brethren who have taken it for granted that Italian Masonry was a 
political and irreligious organization and was only meeting its more or less just 
deserts. This general prejudice, based though it is on ignorance of actual 
conditions, has had its effect. 



Recently there has been a kind of treaty arranged between Mussolini and the 
United Grand Lodge of England, in which the Italian dictator acknowledges a 
difference between the Masonry of England and that of Italy. As this has been 
reported in the Masonic press it would, at first glance, appear to be an impertinence 
on Mussolini's part and a little undignified on the part of the United Grand Lodge. 

It has been the occasion of some complacent self-congratulation that English 
speaking Masons are not as their brethren of other nationalities, but of far superior 
clay. Really this is not at all a just or exact estimate of what was done. The Italian 
laws and edicts made no exceptions, it was a crime for any citizen of Italy to be a 
Mason, a crime to be avenged on his relatives if he were out of reach. The Grand 
Lodge of England was only doing its duty in seeking to gain an exemption from 
the strict application of these laws to those Italians who were resident in England 
and were members of English lodges. Mussolini, to save his face in agreeing to 
such exemption, had to differentiate between the two brands of Masonry. Thus he 
was enabled with some superficial show of reason and consistency, to hold Italian 
Masonry guilty of all the crimes and treasons of which it has been accused, while 
making the exceptions in favor of English Masons of Italian allegiance. No one 
however is likely to believe that this exception was made from any real conviction 
of a difference. It was a matter of political and diplomatic expediency solely. In the 
eyes of autocrats all Freemasonry is equally pernicious. Its very virtues only make 
it more dangerous to despotism. Like the early Christians in the Roman Empire, it 
is not what Freemasons do, but what they are, that the reactionary forces are afraid 
of. In countries possessing free institutions this is most difficult to realize. 


Thus to some extent, official action of the kind desiderated by our correspondent 
has been inhibited by prejudice and misinformation as to the facts. But there has 
been another, and much more fraternal motive as well. One that has definitely 
operated in the case of those more enlightened Grand Lodges that knew the real 
character of, and had recognized, Italian Masonry. This was the well-grounded fear 
that such action could do no good, and was practically certain to do great harm. 
Grand Master Torrigiani himself begged his friends in other countries to take no 
such action; and his fears were justified, for the protests that were made by various 
European Grand Bodies only added fuel to the fire of persecution. However such 
abstention from official expression of opinion need not be interpreted as lack of 
sympathy. Nor does there seem to be any logical necessity to construe it into a 



prohibition of any mention of the subject, or presentation of the facts, either in 
Masonic lodges or other assemblies of Masons. 


* * * 


THE SCOPE OF RESEARCH 


IN the May number we expressed ourselves editorially upon the question of the 
scope of a Masonic journal, what subjects may be considered proper to discuss in 
its pages, and what improper. And as such questions can hardly be answered 
without some guiding principle we attempted a preliminary analysis for the 
purpose of trying to discover something of the sort. So far as we are aware it is a 
point that has hardly ever been explicitly raised and certainly has never been fully 
discussed. 


Since then we have had some interesting letters from several members of the 
Society, who seem on the whole inclined to disagree with the position taken, 
though on the other hand there is not much more agreement between their several 
points of view. One brother, for example, comes directly to cases. He grants a wide 
liberty in the choice of subjects to Masonic periodicals generally, but would restrict 
it in the case of a research organ such as THE BUILDER. Rather unfortunately he 
did not give his reasons for this judgment. We are inclined to believe that he is not 
alone in this view, however, and it may be well to consider this aspect of the 
general problem more closely, for there seem to be certain misapprehensions that 
obscure the judgment. Such an opinion must rest, it would seem, upon a 
conception of what Masonic Research is, and we suppose that this conception must 
be a narrow one. There is some cause for this, if not any very good reason. 

Masonic Research began and has developed almost entirely upon the purely 
historical side. This is due, however, to purely extraneous conditions, for 
"research" is not merely a synonym for historical investigation. The history of the 
institution had become so swathed in and distorted by myth and legend, that this 
was naturally the place where those brethren who desired to know the truth began 
their labors of clearing away the rubbish and laying foundations for a new and 



more stable structure. Thus, for the mere reason that the great majority of really 
sound Masonic students have dealt with historical aspects of the Craft, it has been 
quite natural for everyone to think that Masonic research had to do only with 
Masonic history. 


But, surely, it only needs to state this in so many words for everyone to see that it 
is a wholly arbitrary and needless limitation. After all, any subject whatever that 
has a connection with Freemasonry (and there are few major subjects that do not 
touch it somewhere) is a proper subject for investigation by critical and scientific 
methods. There are mistakes and errors to be corrected, principles to be 
established, new connecting links to be noted, and everywhere differing opinions 
to be noted and discussed. Here again, as we said previously, it resolves itself into 
a question of treatment rather than any arbitrary delimitation of subject. Not even 
"news," which in general is out of place in such a magazine as THE BUILDER, 
can be wholly excluded. There are many things that are "news" at the time they 
occur, that should be recorded for their historical value, as well as, often enough, 
as illustrating the various tendencies and "movements" that are always affecting 
every living organization in a changing world. 


So we are told that nothing bearing at all on practical matters; nothing dealing with 
the problems of the moment, should ever be a subject of research, nor discussed in 
the pages of THE BUILDER. The doctrine seems rather strange. While we are far 
from holding that intellectual curiosity should be set to labor in fetters solely for 
the sake of practical activity, nevertheless it is a happy coincidence in the nature of 
things that any item of knowledge may turn out to be of the most practical value, 
and it is certain that the average intelligent man (either in or out of the Craft) will 
support research of any kind chiefly for the sake of its practical value. It is for the 
reason that Masonic study has been so abstract that the majority of Masons have 
neglected it and passed it by. 


The advocacy of any special cause or movement is, from this restricted view of 
which we speak, very improper in a research periodical. Our support of the 
Tuberculosis Campaign has been criticised on these grounds. We have defended 
this before on the grounds that we are Masons first and Masonic students second, 
and that certain duties and obligations rest upon all Masons alike. This defense we 



hold to be quite sufficient. But it can further be insisted that there is a real place for 
research in such questions as this. There is information to be collected, verified and 
disseminated for one thing, and the best methods to solve the problems presented 
can only be decided after full discussion. We might here paraphrase the well- 
known passage from Milton and say that we do not love a "cloistered knowledge" 
that avoids the arena of practical affairs, and its "dust and heat." The facts 
concerning any need for Masonic benevolence cannot be barred from the purview 
of Masonic research, nor the investigation of ways and means of exercising it. It is 
only on arbitrary limitation that this appears even plausible. Research cannot be 
divorced from action. Ultimately, even if only at times indirectly, all knowledge 
acquired has a bearing on what we do and how we do it. 


* * * 


TOLERATION 


EVERY word that is not limited to the simplest and most definite signification is 
capable of being used with different shades of meaning and thus of collecting very 
different associations in the minds of individuals. It is in this way that words 
change their significance, and either ascend the scale or become "degraded," as 
philologists say. The word charity, one of the noblest in origin in our language, is 
an example of a word on the downward path. Taken by the translators of the 
English version of the Bible to represent the Greek word for love, in its purest and 
highest meanings, it has come to be too often used for cold and heartless 
almsgiving. Toleration is another word that is frequently misused in the same way. 
In both cases the tendency to degradation in meaning is due, it would seem, to the 
employment of the words to designate actions or attitudes unworthy of the name. 
Virtues are always being imitated in outward show for selfish ends, and words are 
always a convenient cloak. 


Through its misuse toleration is coming to mean to many Masons an unworthy 
laxity and indifference of opinion. Less generally, it is taken as designating an 
arrogant and snobbish condescension. This tendency should be checked if possible 



for there are other words to use for these purposes and we need the word toleration 
in its proper sense, just as we need the word charity. The language would be 
definitely the poorer if they were lost. 


Toleration of other people's beliefs and opinions, does not imply a self-sufficient 
indifference to them nor yet a lack of any belief or principles of our own. 

Toleration properly speaking can exist only between equals. We do not tolerate the 
naive ideas of children nor yet the ignorance of the illiterate. Tolerance is really the 
same thing in the realm of opinion and belief that probity and honesty are in 
material things. It is a recognition on its own plane that other people have a right to 
their own opinions just as they have a right to their goods and chattels, and the 
wealth they have lawfully acquired. 


The analogy is illuminating. No community or aggregate of human beings is 
perfectly logical and systematic. Its customs, conventions, laws and regulations are 
the result of an evolution determined by practical considerations. By compromises 
and adaptations to meet new situations with the least possible alteration and 
disturbance of existing habits and customs a modus vivendi is arrived at. A state of 
affairs that, difficult as it may be to realize, is always to some extent fluid and 
unfixed. We find, therefore, that the individual is not free to possess any and every 
kind of material objects without restriction, and still less entirely free to make, 
transport or buy and sell them. Poisons, narcotics, explosives and the like will 
occur at once as being in this category. In exactly the same way, no community, 
civilized or savage, is absolutely tolerant in regard to ideas and opinions. The 
intolerance may be in any given case a mistaken policy, but its motive is sound 
enough. A social unit instinctively condemns ideas that have, or seem to have, a 
tendency to disrupt it. 


We no longer burn people at the stake for heresy, and we are apt to plume 
ourselves on the fact. But it is far from assured that we have really made much 
advance, except perhaps in humanizing the penalties provided by our laws. Heresy 
once meant the disruption of the social organism. To understand the situation we 
should substitute political for religious doctrine. Communists to us are what the 
Albigenses or Lollards were to Mediaeval states. 



Toleration is thus an ideal, like liberty, but it is an ideal that could only be realized 
in an ideal state. Toleration is indeed only the formal expression of liberty in the 
realm of opinion and belief. It remains always to some extent a compromise, and 
the limitations to freedom of thought, like those to freedom of action are purely 
practical, and should not be greater than are necessary to prevent interference with 
the rights of others or the well being of society. We are slowly learning that 
repressions and inhibitions are worse in their effects than the diseases they are 
employed to cure, both in the body politic and the individual mind. Tolerance, in 
this sense, is an essential characteristic of Freemasonry. Not fully or logically 
worked out perhaps, but generally in advance of the community at large. And in 
Masonry, toleration is felt to be the result of knowledge and understanding of the 
position and point of view of those with whom we disagree. 


— o — 


THE SQUARE 


Communicated by Bro. Chas, H. Merz, Ohio 


I have read with interest the communication by T.H.P., of Illinois, in the May 
number of THE BUILDER. It calls to mind the following item which appeared in a 
recent issue of the Sandusky Masonic Bulletin, which was apropos of the following 
statement quoted from another periodical: 


"It (the Gallows Square) is the ordinary carpenter's square, one leg 18 inches long 
and the other 12, which makes it look like a gallows if stood on end, the short leg 
ready to swing the culprit. One sees it occasionally in old Masonic illustrations. 
But the real Masonic square is a little try-square, the legs of which are equal." 



In comment upon this the Bulletin said: 


There are some things in this connection which the writer of the above paragraph 
has not taken into consideration. There is a form of square proper to be used as a 
"Great Light" in each degree in Masonry, and there is a manner of placing the 
proper symbolic geometric figure in each degree. Masonry I founded on geometry. 
The compasses and square are called second and third Great Lights. It has been 
asserted that square of equal limbs has no place in Masonry, and that the square of 
unequal limbs is not a Masonic implement. What wonder that there is confusion on 
this point. 


The square of equal limbs (equilateral triangle) is the representative, in geometry, 
of the Divine in its essence or being; the right-angled triangle (the square) 
represents the Divine existence, operation, or works. Each has its own proper and 
peculiar place in the degrees. The reasons may not be given here. 


Again, the Operative Mason's Square is the true square of Freemasonry, and it is 
met with more frequently in early symbolism than the so-called Speculative 
Square. 


It is sufficient to say here that the square mentioned in the above quotation as the 
gallows square pertains more particularly to the E. A. and F. C. Degrees. It is not 
proper to explain its particular use and positions in these degrees, but they may be 
readily learned by every Mason with a little study and reflection. Reference to the 
accompanying illustration will help make this clear. 


The square of equal limbs finds its application particularly in the second section of 
the Master's Degree. The rightangled triangle is the prime symbol throughout the 
"work" in all the degrees, and equilateral in the finality. The Masonic student who 



is desirous of informing himself upon this subject more fully, will find much to 
interest him in Bromwell's Masonic Geometry and Symbolry Restored. 


[It is curious how mistakes concerning easily ascertainable matters of fact are 
copied by one writer from another with never a thought of verification. By the 
"carpenter's square" in the quotation given above is presumably meant the steel 
square so widely used in this country. Its dimensions are, however, the blade 
twenty-four inches long and two inches wide, the "tongue" or shorter arm, sixteen 
inches long and one and a half inches wide. Many masons use this same kind of 
square, though there is one expressly made for stone cutters which differs chiefly 
in the size, the tongue being two feet long and the blade two feet and a half-thirty 
inches. It is not graduated so finely, showing only eighths of an inch instead of 
sixteenths. But it must be remembered, and insisted upon, that this type of square is 
a modern American invention. No argument can be based upon it regarding the 
"proper" or original form of, mason's square. Ed.] 


— o — 


THE STUDY CLUB 


A pamphlet on "How to Organize and Maintain a Study Club" will be sent free on 
request, in quantities to fifty 


Lodge Quatuor Coronati, No. 2076 


EVERY reading Mason, no matter how superficial his interest in Masonic 
Research, has at some time met with the letters A.Q.C. Reference to the list of 
abbreviations used in the text will tell him that these letters stand for Ars Quatuor 
Coronatorum. Less frequently he encounters the letters Q.C.A. In like manner he 



leams that these mean Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha. To many neither of these 
inscriptions mean very much, but the Masonic student recognizes therein the sign 
of Lodge Quatuor Coronati, and the implied meanings are many. The American 
Mason generally knows little or nothing about this famous research body. Only too 
frequently he is unable even to pronounce the name. It is because everyone in the 
least interested in Masonic Research should know something about this lodge that 
we are devoting this month's Study Club page to it. 


For nearly half a century No. 2076 has been functioning as a Research Lodge. The 
oldest body of its kind in the world, it set for itself at the very beginning the 
highest of Scholastic standards. It has maintained those standards through all the 
years of its existence. In spite of the fact that other lodges have Since been 
chartered with similar purposes, Quatuor Coronati still stands upon the pinnacle, 
and the aim of every research writer is to see his name included among the list of 
contributors to the Transactions of this lodge, which have for their title, Ars 
Quatuor Coronatorum. Such an inclusion immediately places an author in the 
forefront among Masonic scholars. 


The Transactions of the Lodge are published three times each year. The three parts, 
together with the title page, St. John's Card and Index which accompany Part III of 
each year's publication, constitute one volume. Included in the Transactions are 
accounts of every meeting of the lodge, the paper read at each meeting, what was 
said in the discussion of the paper, and occasionally other treatises which have not 
been read, but which are deemed worthy of inclusion in this publication. 


Before leaving the subject of the publications of the lodge, let us briefly touch 
upon the history, aims and membership of the group itself. Chartered in 1884 as 
the pioneer Research Lodge in the world, it had for its first Master, Sir Charles 
Warren, whose name is so well known in connection with archaeological work in 
Palestine, and equally noted for his brilliant record in the military forces of 
England. Associated with him was George William Speth, whose work on 
Builders' Rites is still eagerly sought, though rarely obtained, by Masonic students. 
Bro. Speth became the first editor of A.Q.C., and the Lodge Transactions owe 
much of their present form to his untiring effort in this field. Bro. Speth was 
succeeded in this position by Bro. W. H. Rylands, an indefatigable worker and 



frequent contributor to the publication, as well as editor of Volume I of the 
Records of Antiquity Lodge, No. 2. This work has long been unobtainable and just 
recently has been reprinted under the editorship of Capt. Firebrace, who scarcely a 
year ago had published the second volume of the lodge history. Bro. Ry lands was 
followed by Bro. W. J. Songhurst, the present Secretary of the lodge and editor of 
its publications. 


Membership in the Inner Circle, or rather the active membership of the lodge, has 
always been limited to forty by the bylaws. The high literary and Scholastic 
standing of the founders has insured the maintenance and the qualifications 
originally set. It has never happened, in the forty-four years of the lodge's 
existence, that the membership roll was filled. Among the many well-known 
names to be found upon it are those of William James Hughan, who first published 
a critical collection of the old MS. Constitutions, Robert Freke Gould, the famous 
Masonic historian, and Count Goblet d'Alviella, statesman and scholar, author of 
the much sought after work, The Migration of Symbols. Without special reference 
to their accomplishments may also be mentioned, Dr. Chetwode Crawley, W. 
Wonnacott (both unfortunately deceased), John T. Thorp, Arthur Heiron, E. H. 
Dring, Lionel Vibert, J. Heron Lepper and Gilbert W. Daynes, the names of whom 
are all more or less familiar to American Masonic students. Is there any reason for 
wonder that Quatuor Coronati Lodge still ranks first among bodies devoted to 
Masonic Research? 


The purposes of the lodge are set forth as follows: 


1. To provide a center and bond of union for Masonic students. 


2. To attract intelligent Masons to its meetings, in order to imbue them with a love 
for Masonic research. 



3. To submit the discoveries or conclusions of students to the judgment and 
criticism of their fellows by means of papers read in lodge. 


4. To submit these communications and the discussions arising thereon to the 
general body of the Craft by publishing, at proper intervals, the Transactions of the 
Lodge in their entirety. 


5. To tabulate concisely, in the printed Transactions of the Lodge, the progress of 
the Craft throughout the world. 


6. To make the English-speaking Craft acquainted with the progress of Masonic 
study abroad, by translations (in whole or part) of foreign works. 


7. To reprint scarce and valuable works on Freemasonry, and to publish 
manuscripts, etc. 


8. To form a Masonic Library and Museum. 


9. To acquire permanent London premises, and open a readingroom for the 
members. 


There is no need to comment upon the methods followed for accomplishing these 
aims except to say that the lodge owns its own domicile at 27 Great Queen street, 
and there maintains a library, museum and reading-room. The seventh clause has 
been in part fulfilled by the publication of ten volumes of Reprints, the Q.C.A. 
earlier mentioned. The first six objects are fulfilled by the publication of the 
Transactions and the establishment of a Correspondence Circle in conjunction with 
the Active Membership. 



It may be said now that a complete set of A.Q.C. of which thirty-eight complete 
volumes have been published, is very difficult to obtain and, unfortunately, those 
sets which are in existence are not always available to students of Freemasonry. 
There is doubtless, no more complete and no more accurate source of information 
relative to Masonic history available than A.Q.C. Practically every theory of the 
origin of the Institution is discussed therein; almost every outstanding character in 
the early history of the Grand Lodge is represented by a biographical sketch; the 
ritual is traced from its earliest beginnings; in fact A.Q.C. occupies much the same 
position in the world of Masonic knowledge as the Encyclopedia Britannica 
occupies in general knowledge. 


Membership in the Correspondence Circle is open to Master Masons owing 
allegiance to any Grand Jurisdiction in official communication with the United 
Grand Lodge of England. Such 3 members enjoy all of the privileges of active 
members except voting and holding office. There are some 3600 members of this 
group at present. It is the desire of the lodge to increase the membership to 
approximately four thousand. During the past fifteen years Quatuor Coronati 
Lodge has been laboring under severe handicaps. Due to the war and the rapid 
increase in the price of everything connected with printing, they have been unable 
to publish all of their Transactions. At the present time this deficiency has been 
reduced to approximately two years. We are informed that there is much valuable 
material ready which should be made available to the Masonic student through the 
medium of Q.C.A. This will be done as soon as funds are available. 


Two methods of accomplishing these purposes are suggested. The members of the 
Correspondence Circle have been asked to assist in increasing membership in this 
group, and a publication fund has been established. THE BUILDER welcomes the 
opportunity to be of service to Quatuor Coronati Lodge and is sure that there are 
many American Masons who will be more than willing to cooperate in this 
movement to promulgate Masonic knowledge. We are not positive, but we believe 
that every member of our editorial Staff is a member of the Correspondence Circle. 
For the information of the members of the Society, the joining fee is twenty-one 
shillings, approximately $5, included in this fee is the first year's dues and the 
complete current volume of the Transactions. The annual dues are 10s. 6d, about 



$2.50. In addition to new memberships subscriptions in any amount are solicited 
for the publication of additional volumes of Q.C.A. It is our understanding that 
with 500 additional members and a publication fund of approximately $8,000 the 
lodge will have ample money to bring its work up to date. With 4,000 
Correspondence Circle members it will be possible to carry on as before the war, 
without increasing the fees, which are today the same as they were forty- four years 
ago. It may be well to state that none of the funds solicited are for the purpose of 
paying debts. The lodge is free of all but current obligations. The additional funds 
are to be used entirely for publication purposes. 


Subscriptions to the Publication Fund and applications for membership in the 
Correspondence Circle should be by postal money order made payable to W. J. 
Songhurst, Sec'y, 27 Great Queen St., London, W. C. 2, England. We shall be very 
glad to recommend any member of the N.M.R.S. for this purpose. Lodges and 
Study Clubs and Libraries are eligible for membership as well as individual 
brethren. We shall be glad to furnish any additional information required to those 
interested. 


— o — 


THE LIBRARY 


The books reviewed in these pages can be procured through the Book Department 
of the N.M.R.S. at the prices given, which always include postage. These prices are 
subject (as a matter of precaution) to change without notice; though occasion for 
this will very seldom arise. Occasionally it may happen, where books are privately 
printed, that there is no supply available, but some indication of this will be given 
in the review. The Book Department is equipped to procure any books in print on 
any subject, and will make inquiries for second-hand works and books out of print. 



THE LEGISLATION OF THE CRAFT. By Lionel Vibert, P.D.S.G.W. Madras, 
etc. Inaugural Address delivered at Bristol on Sept. 29, 1927, as President of the 
Bristol Masonic Society. Paper, 1 5 pages. Privately printed. 


TWO PAPERS read at the 150th Anniversary of the Founding of the York Lodge, 
No. 236. York and the Craft through the Centuries. By' W. Bro. Lionel Vibert. 
Also, The Founding and Early Years of the Union Lodge, No. 504, by W. Bro. W. 
R. Makins. Paper, 39 pages, privately printed at York on the presses of W. Bros. C 
B. and G. V. Johnson. 


BRO. VIBERT, who as is well known to readers of THE BUILDER is an authority 
on the early history of the Craft, has touched on a subject, in the first of the two 
pamphlets under review, that has not received anything like the attention its 
importance deserves. The paper is a very brief one, and within its narrow compass 
it was naturally impossible to do much more than mention a number of points that 
one could wish to see fully developed. Bro. Vibert divides the consideration of 
Masonic Legislation, or Jurisprudence, into three periods. One before the gilds and 
fraternities had been made the subject of civil enactments. The second, that during 
which Masonic regulations were modified under the pressure of the requirements 
of the state, the third being the era of Grand Lodge Constitutions. The first period 
lasted to the reign of Henry VI, Bro. Vibert holds which will not mean much to 
most American readers. Perhaps if we substituted the name of Joan of Are it might 
be better appreciated. 


The Black Death or, as it is now called, bubonic plague, so reduced the population 
of England in the years 1347-1350 that the economic balance of the, social 
organism was totally upset. The ruling classes tried hard to keep wages and prices 
at the old level, but in spite of laws and penalties the lack of supply to meet the 
demand had its effect. The first Statute of Laborers was passed in 1351, re-enacting 
an Ordinance of two years earlier. From that time on such laws were repeatedly re- 
enacted, with apparently but small effect, as the preambles of each successive act 
confesses. At first they confined their provisions to agricultural laborers and 
servants; but very soon artificers were included as well, among them Freemasons. 



The Masonic code of the earliest period is represented only by the Regius Poem 
and the Cooke MS. The law is divided into three parts, Charges, Manners and what 
Bro. Vibert calls "the Rule." 'This term appears to be taken from the passage in the 
Cooke MS., that "kynge adhelstone," and his council, for the great default found 
among Masons, "ordeyned a certayne reule" among them, that once a year or once 
in three years, "congreciones" should be held in different provinces and 
"countries." 


The Charges in these two earliest documents are chiefly concerned with the 
relations of Masons to the public and their employers. The "points" of the 
"Manners," or as the Regius MS. calls them Plures Constituciones, deal almost 
entirely with the behavior, morals, of the individual Mason and his relations with 
his fellows. 


Bro. Vibert says the Charges and Manners are fairly clear, but 


. . . whether owing to faulty transcription or to a faulty MS. that the Scribe was 
working on, the Rule has come down to us in a very confused manner. 


This is quite possible, yet it seems fairly plain that the two accounts provide for 
periodical assemblies, called congregations, in different centers, of all the Masons 
working or domiciled within the surrounding district, up a radius of sixty miles 
according to some later versions. And that such "congregations” had power to 
legislate, if there were need, for the whole Craft within the district, but their 
particular function was that of a, court to decide disputes, punish offenders, and to 
"pass masters," if a modem phrase is permissible, examining the candidates', 
(whether apprentices who had served their time, or others is not, said) and giving 
them their charge. 


Bro. Vibert holds that such assemblies were regularly held up till the period of the 
various Statutes of Laborers. In the third year of Henry VI an act was passed 



specifically forbidding the "yearly congregations" and "general assemblies" of the 
Masons. This was in 1425, but in 1460 a statute was enacted that prohibited "all 
alliances and covins of masons and carpenters" and "the congregations, chapters, 
ordinances and caths betwixt them made." Bro. Vibert thinks the law of Henry VI 
was effective and that the assemblies were no longer held. He bases this belief 
upon the fact that the later versions of the Constitutions divide the laws of the Craft 
into two parts instead of three. The "Rule" disappears, and the articles and points of 
the two earliest documents become "Charges General and Special"; as he says: 


. . . it is significant that there are now no instructions as to the Assembly beyond 
the bare recital that the Mason is bound to attend it and there to stand to the award 
of his fellows. 


An additional confirmation is instanced in the complaint of the Masons at Norwich 
in 1491 that "since they are forbidden to convene their meetings they are unable to 
appoint masters and frame or enforce regulations." 


There is no doubt that the question is a very obscure one. The Statutes undoubtedly 
had effect - at times and in places. It is hard to say that they were effective equally 
everywhere, and we know they were not effective all the time. The fact that all the 
later documents continue to insist on the absolute duty of masters and fellows to 
attend the Congregation or Assembly may be significant of their continued 
existence here and there sufficiently at least to keep the tradition alive. The point is 
not one of mere antiquarian curiosity, for if such general assemblies did persist in 
some form or other, then the Grand Lodge of 1716-1717 was not the complete, 
innovation it is now generally considered to be by students of Masonic history. 


The first of the two papers in the second pamphlet is a sketch of the history of 
Masonry in York. The first part deals with the early legends that ascribe the 
organization of the Craft in England to the Assembly held there under the 
Athelstan or Edwin. There is much information concerning the customs and 
regulation of working Masons during the Middle Ages, to be derived from the 
documents in the archives of York Minister. Much of this is quite well known, but 



it is possible that valuable information still awaits discovery by diligent research 
workers. 


The records of the old lodge at York begin in 1712. The usual interpretation of the 
facts concerning it, which Bro. Vibert takes for granted, is that an old lodge had 
existed there for an indefinite period - perhaps a very long one, perhaps not - and 
that moved by the reorganization of the Fraternity in London by four old lodges 
there, it decided to form itself into a Grand Lodge. Our strict legalists of the older 
school have always been inclined to hold this a highly irregular proceeding upon 
the grounds that a Grand Lodge must be formed out of several - three at least 
private or particular lodges. That the York body borrowed the term "Grand Lodge" 
is practically certain, but that in doing so it changed its character or claimed new 
powers is not at all certain. We are peculiarly liable to interpret the scanty vestiges 
of the past in the light of our present organization, and to suppose that the terms we 
use meant the same thing then that they do now. The York records can quite 
consistently be interpreted in another way altogether. The St. John's Day meetings 
of Masons in York may have been regarded as an Assembly, in the meaning of the 
Old Charges, at which every Mason within reach was supposed to appear - even if 
in 1712 this might have been more in theory than practice. If so, the use of the new 
and more magniloquent term "Grand Lodge" instead of "General Assembly" may 
have been effectually concealing the fact that the ancient traditional organization 
persisted at York till well within the "Grand Lodge Era." 


Bro. Vibert concludes with a discussion of the origin and original meaning of the 
term "York work." There has been much confusion about the term, and its origin 
has been ascribed to downright dishonesty on the part of Laurence Dermott. But 
we must agree with Bro. Vibert that Dermott meant, not Masonry as practiced at 
York in his own day, but the original Masonry of the traditional York Assembly, 
which the Ancients claimed to have maintained in its purity as against the 
innovations and improvements of the Modems. 


The second of the two papers is a sketch of the history of York Lodge, No. 236, 
originally Union Lodge, No. 504, the 150th anniversary of which was the occasion 
of both addresses. Bro. Makins is a Past Master of the Lodge and an authority on 



the history and antiquities of the Craft in the North of England. He has been for 
some years now Assistant Librarian to Grand Lodge. 


When the York Lodge was founded the old Lodge of York was still in existence, 
and there was also a military lodge warranted by the Ancients at work in the city. 


It is rather curious to note that even in a new lodge authorized by the Modems in 
1774 that Provincial affairs were mixed up with the private business. It thus 
happens that in the minutes of the Apollo Lodge under date of 1777 is recorded the 
petition of several brethren to receive authority to form themselves into a lodge - 
the lodge in fact that became Union Lodge and has continued its existence to the 
present day. It would seem that in York it was hard for Masons in the 18th century 
to distinguish clearly between a private lodge and a general governing body such 
as we call a Grand Lodge. It may be that there is much yet to be learned from the 
Masonic records of the North of England if we could only find the right key to 
unlock the secret of their meaning. 


M. 


* * * 


SYMBOLISM: Its Meaning and Effect. By Alfred North Whitehead. The 
Macmillan Company. Cloth, Table of Contents, 88 Pages. Price, $1.50. 


THE author of this little book is a professor of philosophy in Harvard, with degree 
of Doctor of Science from five different universities, LL.D. from another, fellow 
of the Royal Society, and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University. It 
consists of three lectures delivered in 1927 and published by the University of 
Virginia. 



Insofar as the man of the street can apprehend the meaning of words, the title is 
misleading. The Mason, for instance, who understands that the lamb is a symbol of 
innocence, that the Bible is a symbol of divine truth, that light is a symbol of 
knowledge and darkness of ignorance, and so on, will find but. little in the book 
that is of direct interest. It is a book for metaphysicians, but not for poets. 


Saying this, however, is not to belittle the book. It is a profound discussion, briefly 
combining the sciences of being, knowing and thinking from the metaphysical 
realistic angle, in its application to the psychological processes of the development 
of civilized society. 


Broadly speaking, in the author's use of language, all knowledge is symbolic. It 
might seem at first blush as if he were a pronounced idealist and skeptic as to 
reality. For, "things-in- themselves" cannot pass through the alembic of the brain. 
All the knowledge we derive from sense-presentations is representative and not 
real. The landscape does not become a part of us merely because its lights, 
shadows and colors have left a sense impression upon the nerves and organs of 
sight. It is only an image, or picture of the landscape that we retain. And the author 
calls this image or picture a symbol. So with all sense-presentations, whether 
through sight, hearing or the modifications of feeling. 


But the author is in fact a metaphysical realist. He reminds the present reviewer of 
Sir William Hamilton's view that we must accept the revelations of our senses as 
true. "The root of our nature cannot be a lie." In the author's view, that direct 
knowledge which comes from "presentational immediacy," or what is usually 
known as sense perception, is infallible; what we have experienced is experienced 
beyond all possibility of doubt. It is not in the experience that we are liable to err, 
but in the symbolic reference of perceptive data, by which are induced actions, 
feelings, emotions and beliefs about things, which are mere notions without that 
exemplification in the outer world which the symbolism leads us to suppose. 



He defines symbolism thus: 


The human mind is functioning symbolically when some components of its 
experience elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and usages, respecting other 
components of its experience. The former set of components are the symbols, and 
the latter set constitute the "meaning" of the symbols. 


The organic functioning, whereby the transition is made from the symbol to the 
meaning, the author calls "symbolic reference." 


This symbolic reference is an activity of the percipient, although it may be 
intuitive. The author calls it "self-production," and bases moral responsibility upon 
it. "The potter," he says, "and not the pot, is responsible for the shape of the pot." 
There is no indication of religious belief, however, in the author's discussion, either 
of pantheism, or of old Tom Carlyle's distinction of "pot-theism," despite this 
reference to the pot. On the contrary, the determinism of Carlyle appears to be 
substituted by freedom of the will in self -production. 


We are somewhat in doubt as to the author's all-inclusive treatment of symbolism. 
For instance: 


If you are a poet and wish to write a lyric on trees, you will walk into the forest in 
order that the trees may suggest the appropriate words. Thus for the poet in his 
ecstacy - or perhaps, agony - of composition the trees are the symbols and the 
words are the meaning. He concentrates on the trees in order to get at the 
words. . . . For us, the words are the symbols which enable us to capture the rapture 
of the poet in the forest. 



It is true that words are signs, or symbols, of ideas. In their original adoption they 
must have been purely arbitrary and conventional signs, without any symbolic 
reference whatever beyond the mere recall of the idea signified. They only become 
actually symbolic as distinguished from a mere sign, after they have become a part 
of the unconscious mechanism of thought. But after they become symbols, our 
judgment is that they remain symbols, and the poet, instead of symbolizing 
language with trees, simply uses the symbols of language to symbolize the feelings 
induced by the trees. 


While the first lecture is devoted to sense perception under the phrase 
"presentational immediacy," the second treats of "causal efficacy," which includes 
both the subjective and objective sides of perception in its cognition of phenomena 
as simple cogs in a world unified as a relational whole in space and time. He 
attributes this cognition to pure perception, and not to a subsequent judgment. He 
disputes Hume's skeptical view that thinking and judging are mere habits of 
thought on the one hand; and on the other he disputes Kant's position that such 
judging is a category of thought. It is this view of "causal efficacy" on the part of 
the author that distinguishes him as a metaphysical realist from the skepticism of 
Hume or the idealism of Kant. His view of time is that it is the scope of concrete 
succession rather than the mere scope of duration. 


The conclusion of the second lecture is that symbolism provides the higher animals 
with the power to forecast with some degree of probable accuracy the features of 
the immediate future, but not infallibly, and therefore with the risk of error and 
consequent disaster. 


The third lecture is so full of matter that it is impossible to give an intelligible 
synopsis of it. It is entitled "Uses of Symbolism." Man's attitude toward symbolism 
is an unstable mixture of attraction and repulsion. But however much you may 
expel it, it ever returns. It is inherent in the very texture of human life. When you 
eliminate symbolistic ceremonials from state affairs, at once private institutions 
began to develop the masquerade. It would seem that the author is hylozoistic in 
his biological views. For instance: 



A rock is nothing else than a society of molecules indulging in every species of 
activity open to molecules. I draw attention to this lowly form of society in order to 
dispel the notion that social life is a peculiarity of the higher organisms. The 
contrary is the case. So far as survival value is concerned, a piece of rock, with its 
past history of some eight hundred millions of years, far outstrips the span attained 
by any nation. 


The general conclusion of the book is that the progress of society is dependent 
upon its symbolism, and this symbolism is undergoing constant changes in the 
effort to adapt itself to the continual changes in social life and ideals. The differing 
meanings evolved from symbolic reference as made by individuals divides them 
into two classes, conservatives and radicals, comparable to the two forces 
operating in circular motion, the centrifugal and centripetal; one tending to 
centralize power at the expense of freedom, and the other to fly off into space at a 
tangent at the expense of integrity. 


It is the first step in sociological wisdom to recognize that the major advances in 
civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - 
like an arrow in the hand of a child. The art of free society consists first in the 
maintenance of the symbolic code; and secondly in fearlessness of revision, to 
secure that the code serves those purposes which satisfy an enlightened reason. 
Those societies which cannot combine reverence to their symbols with freedom of 
revision, must ultimately decay either from anarchy, or from the slow atrophy of a 
life stifled by useless shadows. 


Taken as a whole, it is both interesting and instructive to the student of sociology 
from a metaphysical and psychological basis; but the rhetorician, unless he 
combines his rhetoric with profound thought on the deeper things of life, would do 
better to give it a wide berth. 


L.B.R. 



AMERICAN INQUISITORS: A Commentary on Dayton and Chicago. By Walter 
Lippmann. Published by the Macmillan Co. Cloth, table of contents, 120 pages. 
Price, $1.35. 


THIS is an exceedingly clever and amusing book, but it is much more than merely 
clever and amusing. It really is one that every American interested in the future of 
his country should read, more than once. This includes every thinking American 
Mason. 


People in the mass are exceedingly easy to lead - either in the safe path, or far 
astray - by catch- words, slogans, platitudes in short by "bunk." Even the 
"debunking" of the moment, so much affected by our "civilized" circles, is nothing 
but the familiar stuff turned inside out. 'So long as the majority of people are not 
really educated but only trained - it makes no difference with what scholastic 
paraphernalia the training is given - the minority who think, or try to think for 
themselves, must always expect to find every new and corrective statement of truth 
transferred into a truism and used as a formula for popular consumption. It is 
discouraging, but so far it seems to be the way humanity has wobbled and 
staggered along the path of progress like a kitten that has not yet got its eyes open. 
So long as the majority are not able to appreciate the thought of the intellectual 
leaders of the race, so long many things that in themselves are simple, obvious and 
practical, will in truth be outside "practical politics." By the time the new idea has 
reached the mass mind it has become crystallized into a platitude or dogma, and 
the intellectual pioneers have gone far beyond it. 


It is the fate of the pioneer. He is regarded as a fool by his contemporaries, and as a 
hero by their grandchildren. It is the conservative, safe, unprogressive, practical 
people who have ridiculed or persecuted the inventor, philosopher and prophet 
since men were men. It is the same conservative, safe, unprogressive people who 
have always grabbed the profits, material, moral or spiritual, of the men they 
persecuted, as soon as by use and wont, and the evidence of their eyes, the new 



idea had been demonstrated through the labor and sacrifice of their natural, but 
never recognized, leaders. 


In these three lectures delivered at the University of Virginia on the Barbour-Page 
Foundation, Mr. Lippmann has raised in a few pages more questions than could be 
easily answered in many times their number. It may be asked, perhaps, to what end 
- seeing that the average man will ignore their implications, will probably fail to 
see them, even if he be persuaded to read the book; which he may well do for the 
sake of its humor. 


The device is adopted of imagining a conversation between Socrates, Jefferson and 
Bryan, on the question of the relationship of church and state - religious and 
political creeds. Like most Socratic dialogues the subject is left unsettled - only 
one is left with a devastating sense that a lot of sacred principles, maxims and 
dogmas are not much more than mere platitudes, if not sheer humbug. 


The author insists, and all who have considered the events of recent years as a 
whole must agree with him, that the Scopes trial at Dayton, and the Thompson 
episode of Chicago, are merely two typical and specially dramatic instances of 
what has been occurring over and over again throughout the country. He asserts, 
too - and this will undoubtedly rouse instant dissent, though it will be hard to prove 
him wrong - that the Fundamentalists and Patriots have a much stronger case than 
the intellectuals have perceived. He says, indeed: 


These assaults upon the freedom of teaching have been supported by the ignorant 
part of our population, the spokesmen of these inquisitions have often been 
mountebanks, and invariably they have been ignoramuses. As a result, educated 
men have been disposed, partly because they were sincerely contemptuous, partly 
because they were prudent, to treat the whole matter as a farce which would soon 
break down of its own absurdity. 



"Partly because they were prudent" ! The author says that he is convinced that had 
"Mr. Bryan at Dayton been as acute as his opponents he would have conquered 
them in debate." In other words, the intellectual minority, consciously or 
unconsciously, have taken advantage of the stupidity of their opponents, because it 
would have been much more difficult to meet the issue squarely on its merits. 


To make this plain Mr. Lippmann proposed in his lectures to take the part of the 
Advocatus Diaboli, and argue the case for the modern suppressors of heresy - or 
the suppressors of our modem heresies - because as he says, there "is no advantage 
in winning a cheap victory because the opposition has a poor lawyer." 


However, this is not really much encouragement for fundamentalists - religious or 
political - for he also says: 


... it is a curious fact that in the conflict between reason and authority, the conflict 
itself is a victory for reason. Authority is always on the road to defeat when it has 
to appeal either to force or reason. It is secure only when it rests upon 
unquestioned habit. Inquisitions and heresy haunts are therefore invariably the 
signs that reformation and emancipation are under way. 


The difficulty is that we live in a world of change, where nothing is certain, 
nothing is clear, where we have to continually stake our future on the present - it is, 
in the favorite scientific slang of the day - a purely "relative" world. But men have 
to act, and those who are disinclined to reflect, or whose daily labor leaves them no 
time for it, earnestly desire certainties - rules of action. The human mind creates 
these certainties for itself, and is naturally disturbed when they are questioned. 
Being disturbed it is naturally indignant with the questioner. Hence, the sentence of 
death passed on Socrates - and the dismissal of the modern school teacher who 
believes in modem science. Perhaps the real fault of the latter is that he makes a 
new dogma out of his science, not one whit better in principle than the old ones be 
opposes. 



The world being transitory, its conditions constantly changing, men are not really 
standing still, or sitting comfortably under metaphorical vines or fig trees, but are 
careering along at a dizzy speed in a high-powered automotive vehicle. Because it 
proves safe to turn one way here gives no absolute rule for steering, or for putting 
on the brakes or "stepping on the gas." As Socrates is made to say: 


Your Washington was willing to shed blood in order to defy the constituted 
authorities. Your Lincoln was willing to shed blood to uphold the constituted 
authorities. They have both been justified. There can be no rule of conduct. That 
which brave men do with wisdom lesser men make rules to justify. 


And that pretty well sums it up. The lesser men do this because they follow on in 
the footsteps of the last great leader - the one immediately before them - and 
because they must have a rule of thumb to work by, being unable or unwilling to 
think for themselves. We may conclude with one more quotation. Socrates having 
led Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Bryan into an impenetrable thicket of contradictions 
consequent on the application of their principles of freedom of conscience and 
majority rule, is asked point blank what he would do himself, and he replies, "I'd 
re-examine my fundamental principles." If the book will lead others to do likewise, 
it will be well worth the hour or so it will take to read it. 


* * * 


CREATION BY EVOLUTION. Edited by Frances Mason. Published by the 
Macmillan Company. Cloth, table of contents, illustrated, index, 371 pages. Price, 
$5.25. 


WE see that this symposium on evolution is dedicated "To those who seek 
evidence of Nature's Universal Method of Creation and to those who find the story 
of inexhaustible interest." Under this dedication should appear a bold-faced solid 
capital line reading, "All others keep out." Possibly you will question the propriety 



of such a warning, but unless the Fundamentalist, or better, the opponent of 
Evolution, wishes to have his faith shaken to its very roots, he had best not read the 
modern story of Genesis, which, to use a formula I have previously expressed, has 
replaced the Book of Genesis. 


The immediate consequence of such a statement as that just made will probably be 
to rouse dissent and disappointment in some quarters, but those who are inclined to 
criticise and censor may be answered in the words of David Starr Jordan: 


Does any educated person now respect the dictum ascribed to Archbishop Ussher, 
who said 200 years ago, that "Heaven and earth, center and circumference, were 
created all together at the same instant, with clouds of water, on October 24, 4004 
B. C., at 9 o'clock in the morning?" 


That query, propounded by the Chancellor Emeritus of Leland Stanford University, 
may be supplemented with the pronouncement of James McCloud, a Presbyterian 
minister of Lexington, Ky., in 1818, when Darwin was a small boy: 


Progressive evolution is the universal plan. Everything which we meet in the world 
around us, matter and mind, every individual and all congregated masses, begin 
their course as germs and unfold in slow progression. . . . The faculties of all 
intelligent creation, all that you call mind, all that you call heart, are framed for an 
interminable series of evolutions. ... It is not mainly the mould of this mighty 
frame of things which establishes it, it is the fact that creation is eternally unfolding 
new resources and presenting itself under successive and amazing combinations of 
which no creature in the universe had imagined it capable. 


But it is too late in the day to argue the cause of evolution with anyone. Frankly, 
the reviewer holds to it and is satisfied with the evidence and considers it so 
preponderant that he can only say to those who, after reading this book, do not 
accept it, "There are none so blind as those who will not see." 



The work is one which has long been needed. If it is read open-mindedly and with 
a sense of fairness one cannot but be convinced of the weight of the evidence in 
favor of evolution. The work is composed of twenty-four separate articles, each 
intended to cover a particular phase of the subject and each written by a specialist 
in his field. Thus all of the evidence upon the subject is marshalled for the reader's 
consideration. 


The plan of the book is admirable and carries out the purpose of the editor as stated 
above. Not only are the articles authoritatively written, but each chapter is 
accompanied by a list of reference works which will enable those interested in 
learning more about that particular branch of the subject to follow their inclinations 
as far as they wish. 


Above all the work is interesting, not merely sufficiently so to hold attention, but 
grippingly. One reads it with all of the ease of the lighter types of literature. It 
presents at the same time a picture of the universe that, so far as the present writer 
knows, cannot be obtained from any other source without a vast amount of reading 
and study. The authors avoid the use of technical terms as much as possible and 
consequently avoid the too frequent mistake of specialists who are apt to speak in 
language, compendious for their own purposes, but obscure to dullness to 
everybody else. 


One could not begin to discuss any one of the many points that are brought up in 
the several essays, but one is sufficiently important to merit comment. The popular 
conception of the theory of evolution is simply that man was once a monkey. The 
absurdity of this belief is strikingly shown in this new book. If it does no more than 
correct this false impression the book will have accomplished a great deal of good 
and will be worth all the effort that may have been expended in its compilation. 



It is curious that the controversy should have to be fought again in this country 
fifty years after the rest of the, civilized world had made up its mind to accept it. 
What is to be understood as evolution? David Starr Jordan says: 


The theory of organic evolution is, in brief, that in our world no living thing and no 
succession of living things remain exactly the same for any period of time, long or 
short; and furthermore, that all change is orderly, never the result of accident or 
caprice or favoritism. 


Apply that to one's own body. Are we the same today as we were yesterday, or the 
day before? The chemical changes which take place in the body are concrete 
evidences of evolution. 


But let us take another definition. J. Arthur Thomson, Regius Professor of Natural 
History in Aberdeen University, says: 


Evolution just means that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the 
future. 


Dr. Edwin Grant Conklin, Professor of Biology, Princeton University, says: 


Evolution means only the transformation of an earlier into a later stage according 
to natural laws. 


The present work should go far to remove prejudice and misunderstanding, if it 
meets the reception that it undoubtedly deserves. 



M. T. 


* * * 


AL SMITH, THE POPE AND THE PRESIDENCY: A Sober Discussion of the 
Church-State Issue. By Theodore Schroeder. Published by the author. Cloth, table 
of contents, 212 pages. 


MR. SCHROEDER has a fine vein of sarcasm and ironic humor. Those who are 
really quite certain about their position and beliefs may read him with much 
interest and considerable amusement. But those who have any secret doubts, 
conscious or unconscious, will do better to avoid him as a pestilence if they do not 
wish to have their peace of mind disturbed. 


Upon the title page is a brief explanation of the circumstances which led to the 
author producing his book himself. It seems that the subject is so "unimportant" 
that "most of the many publishers consulted refused even to consider the 
manuscript." This we can quite believe, not on the grounds of unimportance, nor of 
intemperance of presentation, but because the author, taking no sides, like an 
Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, hits wherever he sees an available head. In a 
subsequent leaflet advertising the work he remarks: 


Letters already received indicate that every organized prejudice can find some 
displeasure in this book. Is there no prejudice anywhere in favor of the METHOD 
of a sober discussion of this question? 


This is an example. None of us like to have our own beliefs described as an 
"organized prejudice," and we all flatter ourselves that we are in favor of the 
method of sober discussion. We can test the soundness of this private opinion by 



observing the equanimity and patience with which we can listen to arguments in 
support of some one of the many highly erroneous and pernicious beliefs held by 
other people, who in general, aside from these, appear to be quite respectable and 
fairly intelligent. 


The book is written, as its title suggests, about the now historic Marshall-Smith 
correspondence of last year. It will doubtless be remembered with what a 
remarkably unanimous chorus of enthusiastic approval the majority of the 
newspapers of the country received Governor Smith's reply to Mr. Marshall, in 
curious contrast to the timid reception of the latter's Open Letter. To the thoughtful 
citizen, who has some interest in his country's future, that phenomenon alone 
pointed to an unhealthy condition in the body politic. When in any community or 
state there are subjects which must not be discussed, then there is danger ahead for 
free speech. And when speech is no longer free, freedom herself is ready to depart. 
This is true regardless of what the tabu is upon - whether prohibition, historical 
textbooks, or the relations of church and state. Freedom is never lost at a blow; 
tyrannies and despotisms do not spring fully armed from the earth. They grow 
silently in the shadow like pestilent weeds. And there are always those who are 
momentarily profiting to say "Peace, peace," and "Hush-hush," when any attempt 
is made to check or uproot them; and always many more who are unable to 
remember from yesterday or foresee tomorrow, who will join this chorus of the 
"yes men," to use the latest term for the breed. It is possible that the most 
significant thing about this book is the refusal of publishers to have anything to do 
with it. 


This is not to say that it has no significance in itself. Very much the contrary. It 
contains an acute, subtle and detailed examination of the question that was raised 
by Mr. Marshall. To this is prefaced four chapters on church history in special 
reference to its relations to the state. This is not particularly illuminating, as it is 
merely retelling an oft-told tale. While it could hardly have been left out, seeing so 
few people now-a-days know anything of the history of the church, there is yet the 
danger that always lies in condensed synopses of this kind; necessarily selective, 
bias is almost certain to creep in. We must judge the church in the past by the 
circumstances of the age, which is precisely what cannot be done in any such brief 
account. It is perhaps for this reason so little use is made of history in judging 



problems of the present - it is so easily turned to the uses of propaganda. As easily 
indeed as statistics. 


It seems to the present writer that neither Mr. Marshall nor Mr. Schroeder have 
realized that we are in a period of transition. Political theories always begin with 
the existing state of affairs. The theory of feudalism, for example, was founded on 
a practical condition that had come about as naturally and inevitably as the 
interlocking of gangsters, bootleggers and corrupt politicians in our large cities, 
and for much the same reasons at bottom - or to use a more respectable example, 
the consolidation of financial and commercial interests. No nation or people has 
ever yet had a wholly consistent form of government, or a permanently fixed one. 
Every state is the resultant of internal forces, that is, a result of compromise. As 
soon as any given compromise becomes relatively stable, it is rationalized, and 
eternal and immutable principles are deduced from it, which become the pet 
platitudes of politicians and sometimes even of statesmen. Mr. Marshall believes in 
the "civic supremacy of the people," we gather that Mr. Schroeder, though he does 
not definitely say so, is a "secularist," and Governor Smith himself, in his reply to 
Mr. Marshall, professed his adherence to the principle of the separation of church 
and state. But that is just the question - is it a principle? Mr. Schroeder shows in 
how many different ways the phrase may be understood, and also that everyone 
actually tends to understand it in accordance with his own general system of 
prejudices and beliefs, religious and otherwise. But the still more fundamental 
question remains - is this political "Principle," enshrined in the American 
Constitution, an eternal truth, or a dogma, a mere formula expressing in a 
convenient and compendious way a compromise that hitherto has worked without 
too much friction? And if it is this last only, is it a compromise that will continue 
to work? Or has the balance of internal social and religious forces been gradually 
changing so that sooner or later some new arrangement will have to be made? 


It is not a question that can be answered off hand, it cannot well be answered at all 
- safely - without much study and thought, but it is one that every intelligent 
American citizen should consider, and Mr. Schroeder's book, if it does not supply 
any answer, will certainly be of assistance in pointing to new viewpoints and 
opening up an approach to the essentials of the problem. 



ANCIENT RECORDS. Published by the Ancient Records Publishers. Cloth, 120 
pages. Price, $2.50. 


THE book appears to be a collection of tracts printed separately and now issued in 
a single volume. The several titles of these are: The Secret Law; The English 
Alphabet; The Arabic Numerals; The Zodiac; Blessings of Israel. The dedication is 
to "the Sons of God," and on the title page we are informed that the work is 


An interpretation of very ancient records which seem to have been left to humanity 
by a people who lived in an erudite age, one from a long forgotten past, wherein 
God was One. Language was one language, the people one people under divine 
law. 


Most Masonic students have taken a keen interest in symbolism in general as well 
as the more particular geometrical and architectural symbolism familiar to all. This 
leads many of us to read a wide variety of works which purport to interpret and 
elucidate a most difficult subject. 


The present work gives some very interesting interpretations of figures included in 
a complicated chart. The central figure is a triangle on each side of which is 
another triangle in which are inscribed a pyramid, a cube and a sphere or the three 
geometrical manifestations of the Great Geometer. Around this is constructed the 
manifestations of the spiritual principles which are symbolized by the alphabet, the 
numerals and the zodiac. 



The zodiac was probably the earliest systematic astrological symbolism, and 
numerical symbolism has been used from ancient times. Present knowledge of 
their full significance, however, is problematic and the present interpretation is 
useful only as it stimulates philosophical speculation. The "Blessing of Israel" 
shows correspondence between the twelve tribes of Israel and twelve officers of a 
Masonic lodge. This also is only useful as a process of thought stimulant. 


S. H. S. 


* * * 


FOLLOWING CHRIST. By Charles Lewis Slattery, D.D. Published by Houghton 
Mifflin Co., Boston. Cloth, table of contents, 167 pages. Price, $1.15. 


THE book has evidently been written for Episcopalians, not for the general public, 
and more especially for those who have been initiated (baptized) and become 
learners of the wisdom contained in the forms and ritual of the church. 


It postulates and explains the duties and service of those who have been confirmed 
and have taken upon themselves the full obligations of fellowship in the church 
and the method adopted, and the reasons for the method by which Episcopalians 
are expected to work and live, as they journey through life "following Christ." 


Short concise paragraphs tell of the church's history, of the vestments, their use and 
meaning. 



In another section the evolution of church architecture, the chancel, choir, altar, 
lectern are briefly, authoritatively and pleasingly told. 


The book is not only interesting and informative, but lays down a line of conduct, 
which by following truly the individual must surely benefit. 


The book can be read with profit by anyone who wishes to know the joy of a 
church service centuries old carried majestically along, by the use of a beautiful 
ritual. 


W. H. W. 


— o — 


THE QUESTION BOX 
and CORRESPONDENCE 


HISTORY OF ST. ALBAN'S LODGE 


I would like to ask you to make a correction in the next issue of THE BUILDER. 


On page 190, in the June number, you noticed the History of St. Alban's Lodge, 
and the reviewer makes a statement that is wholly incorrect, doubtless due to a too 
hasty reading of the paragraph referred to. 



M. Wor. Bro. F. W. Harcourt, the first Master of this Lodge, is not and never was 
an adherent of the Roman Church. The paragraph on page 7 of the History refers to 
his father, Bro. Michael Harcourt, of whom it says that although a Roman Catholic 
he "was opposed to Separate Schools and was also a Freemason." 


I am taking this upon myself as the author, R. W. Bro. H. T. Smith, is away at 
present and I know he would wish to have the correction made at the earliest 
opportunity. 


N. W. J. Haydon, Canada. 


Your reviewer wishes to apologize for the error, which was due, as Bro. Haydon 
suggests, to a too hasty reading of the passage in question. 


* * * 


AN AMAZING STATEMENT. 


In the June BUILDER, in an article on "The Legend of the Cross" Bro. Chas. Merz 
of Ohio tells us "The early Christians revered the Cross as the way of the truth and 
the life. They had no knowledge of a crucified Savior." 


Paul, who is a better authority than Bro. Merz, in an Epistle whose authenticity is 
generally recognized, says, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live." (Gal. 

1 1 :20.) Again he says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world." 



(Gal. VI: 14.) To the Corinthians he wrote, "But we preach Christ crucified." (1 
Cor. 1:23.) "Crucified under Pontius Pilate" has always been believed and 
preached in the Christian Church. 


C. H. Briggs, Missouri. 


* * * 


THE CRUX ANSATA 


In the June number of THE BUILDER Bro. Chas H. Merz gives us a paraphrase of 
the "Legendary History of the Cross." In this he says in listing various forms: 


(e) The crux ansata, the tau cross combined with the circle, as in the hands of the 
Egyptian divinities - the symbol of life and immortality. 


The crux ansata in the hands of Egyptian divinities does not consist of the tau cross 
combined with a circle, but with an oval, or rather an egg-shaped loop, the two 
combined representing the male and female principles, and can only symbolize the 
generating and creative attributes of the Deity. 


Ernest E. Murray, Montana. 



THE ARK OF THE COVENT ANT. 


Bro. C.H. Briggs of Missouri in the June BUILDER offers some criticism of my 
article on the "Ark of the Covenant" printed in the May number of THE 
BUILDER. I am always glad to have any mistakes that I make corrected. 


My authority for three of the statements that he criticizes is the article in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 7, pages 907 and 908, by William Robertson Smith, 
LL.D., editor of the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica; professor of natural 
philosophy, Edinburgh University, 1863-1870; some time professor of Oriental 
languages and Old Testament exegesis Free Church College, Aberdeen; appointed 
one of the Old Testament revisors, 1875; Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic, 
Cambridge, 1883; author of "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church," "Lectures 
on the Religion of the Semites," etc., and Stanley Arthur Cook, M. A., editor of the 
Palestine Exploration Fund; Lecturer in Hebrew and Syriac; formerly a Fellow of 
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; examiner in Hebrew and Aramaic, 
London University, 1904-1908; author of "Glossary of Aramic Inscriptions," "The 

Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi Critical Notes on Old Testament 

History," "Religion of Ancient Palestine," etc. They say: 


Even Moses is said to have made a brazen serpent which, down to Hezekiah's time, 
continued to be worshipped at Jerusalem. . . [The only certain date in Hezekiah's 
time is 801, B. C.] 


In the narrative of Exodus the relation of the "ten words" of xxxiv to the words 
spoken from Sinai xx, 2-17, is not so clearly indicated, and it is generally agreed 
that the Pentateuch presents divergent and irreconcilable views of the Sinaitic 
covenant . . . 


But the general result of the study of the Decalogue as a whole, in connection with 
Israelite political history and religion, strongly supports, in fact demands, a post- 



Mosaic origin, and modem criticism is chiefly divided only as to the approximate 
date to which it is to be ascribed. The time of Manassah has found many adherents, 
but an earlier period, about 750 B. C., is often held to satisfy the main conditions; 
the former, however, is probably nearer the mark. 


I pass over the rest of Bro. Briggs' criticism, although there is ample authority for 
every statement made. 


B. E. Bennett, Washington. 


* * * 


THE COMPAGNONNAGE IN QUEBEC 


In THE BUILDER for February, 1928, on page 64, in re "The Annapolis Stone," it 
is said: 


In the town of Ste. Anne de Bellevue on the Island of Montreal, is a small wooden 
building used by a friendly society of carpenters (charpentiers et menuisiers) upon 
which appears the Square and Compass in the usual arrangement. The society is 
purely French Canadian in membership and is dedicated to St. Joseph. In view of 
the strong prejudice in French Canada against everything pertaining to 
Freemasonry, it seems impossible to believe that this emblem was borrowed and it 
is doubtless an independent tradition. 


There would be no difficulty in explaining this, or the Annapolis stone with its date 
of 1 606 and the Square and Compass, if we accept that these things are the product 
of members of the French body, the "Compagnonnage," which ante-dates modern 



Freemasonry and of which modern Freemasons as a rule are in total ignorance. 
Members of this body naturally went to Canada, when it was settled by French 
workmen, and used the symbol of the Square and Compass (Equerre et compas) 
which was the common property of the three Devoirs, the Enfants de (children of) 
Solomon, the Enfants de Maitre Jacques, and the Enfants de Pere Soubise. "The 
stone cutters and joiners (menuisiers) who recognize Solomon say that this King in 
order to recompense them for their work gave them a Devoir (Charge or 
Obligation) and united them fraternally in the precincts of the Temple, work of 
their hands." [See Le Livre du Compagnonnage. Agricol Perdiguier, Paris, 2nd 
edition, 1841, page 20, beginning Les tailleurs de pierres, etc.] 


The carpenters at one time all belonged to the children of Pere Soubise. The 
menuisiers (joiners) were divided, one section belonging to the children of 
Solomon, and the other to the children of Maitre Jacques, who is, according to a 
legend, Jacques de Molay. The members of the Devoirs of Maitre Jacques and of 
Pere Soubise admitted only Roman Catholics, after the strike at the Church of the 
Holy Cross at Orleans, which church was begun, according to the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, in 1287. 


The children of Solomon admitted those of all religions, hence they called their 
Devoir, the Devoir de Liberte. The Roman Church attempted to catholicize the 
workmen of France, and did; while the "Foreign Companions," as the stone cutters 
called themselves after the strike, refusing to become Roman Catholics, went over 
into English territory and from thence into England which was the cause of the 
building of so many edifices in stone and the development of the operative art in 
that country. 


It is easy to see how the Catholic carpenters of Canada have used this emblem, for 
the Square and Compass was used in the Companionage from the earliest times. In 
1551, during the reign of Francis I, an edict was issued against them. On page 61, 
of Perdiguier's book, we read: 



L’equerre et le compas sont les attributs de tout le Compagnonnage, car on pense, 
je l'ai deja dit, que le mot 'compagnon' derive de compas, 


which is in English, 


The Square and the Compass are the attributes of the whole Companionage, for it 
is thought, as I have already said, that the word companion is derived from 
compass. 


We may say here, in passing, that those who are striving to have Masons use the 
singular form Compass, are correct etymologically and that form is imbedded in 
our California ritual. On page 64, Perdiguier says: 


The stone cutters celebrate the festival of the Ascension and the carpenters that of 
St. Joseph, 


like the Canadian society, which was undoubtedly a branch of the 
Compagnonnage. It is easy to see that a member of this society could have carved 
the Square and Compass on the "Annapolis Stone" in 1608, as they were in 
existence and used this emblem when the edict was issued against them in 1551. It 
may also explain the legend of the Jews coming from Lisbon to Newport, R. I., and 
bringing the "degrees of Maconrie" and initiating Abm. Moses "at Mordecai 
Campunall's house after synagog" in 1658. We know that the Faculty of the 
Sorbonne fulminated against the Compagnonnage in 1655, and gave their 
ceremonies in full, and at which time the ceremonies of initiation had extended to 
the trades "without the Compass," that is, to trades which did not use the Square 
and Compass in their daily work. 



In the "Book of the Companionage," page 24, Perdiguier says, quoting the letter of 
King Hiram to Solomon after saying that the latter had formed the earlier branch, 
the stone cutters, "Now I am sending you a man expert and skillful," and in a 
footnote, on that page he adds: 


Cet homme expert et habile est sans doute, cet autre Hiram que Ton considere 
comme fun des architets du temple. (This expert and skillful man is without doubt 
that other Hiram that they consider as one of the architects of the Temple.) 


Perdiguier was not a stone cutter but a joiner, and yet he says on page 39 "They 
wear also white gloves because they have not, so they say, dipped their hands in 
the blood of Hiram." 


There are many other facts and sayings in the literature of the Companions, which I 
shall bring out later, that shows that it was known that the body of Hiram was 
placed in a certain place and how that place was discovered where under the 
rubbish lay the body of Hiram, architect of the Temple, as he relates. 


This shows the existence of the Hiramic Legend among the Companions of France 
as early as 1551 and by analogy, in 1287. At some time, the writer hopes to bring 
out a book on the Companions which will give more of these facts and show how 
Masonry came into England from France and that Desaguliers adapted it in modern 
Freemasonry, when he and George Payne made the laws and regulations of English 
Freemasonry. 


C. F. W., California. 



THE FIRST (?) MASONIC FUNERAL 


Apropos of Bro. Williamson's article on the Dionysiac Artificers, as being only a 
group of disreputables associated with Greek theaters, it may be interesting to note 
the following which I quote from the Transactions of the Lodge of Research, 
Leicester, 1922-23: 


The Weekly Journal or British Gazatteer of Jan. 12, 1723 - "Mr. Birkhead was last 
Saturday night carried from his lodgings in Wych Street to be interred in S. 
Clement Danes: the pall was supported by six Freemasons belonging to Drury 
Lane playhouse; the other members of that particular lodge, with a vast number of 
other Accepted Masons, followed two and two; both the pall bearers and others 
were in their white aprons." 


Bro. Matthew Birkhead was Master of Lodge No. 5, now Lodge of Friendship, No. 
6. He was a comedian and dancer at Drury Lane Theater, and sufficiently 
important there to receive an annual benefit performance, one being on June 10, 
1713. He appears to have been partly responsible for the famous "Entered 
Apprentice's Song," which appears in the first (1723) edition of Anderson's 
Constitutions. 


J. W. N. Haydon, Canada. 


* * * 


THE LETTER "G" 



I would appreciate it if you will furnish me with some information in respect to the 
use of the letter "G" with the square and compass as the Masonic emblem. This 
question was recently discussed at a meeting of our lodge, wherein a number of 
brethren participated. With one exception it was asserted by the speakers that in 
London they had observed the Masonic emblem of the square and compass with 
the letter "G." 


This only adds confusion to my mind for I have frequently heard it stated that 
English and Scotch lodges do not use the letter "G" with the square and compass, 
any more than Masonic publications in those countries show it in their cover 
designs. I am therefore very much interested in learning the facts regarding this 
subject. 


I would also like to know if the lodges of non-English speaking countries use an 
emblem differing from the emblem of the American lodges, and if so, in what 
particular. 


C. B. R., California. 


This is a question that might be gone into more thoroughly than it is possible to do 
so here. There are several aspects to it. How, or through what stages, did the square 
and compasses come to be, par excellence, the emblem or distinguishing mark of 
the Craft? How and when did the, letter "G" come to be so intimately associated 
with it, as it now is in America? And what is the real status of the square and 
compasses, with or without the letter "G," regarded as an emblem? 


We might, briefly, take this last question first. All such distinguishing emblems or 
designs are individual and voluntary, although there is little doubt that the tendency 
in American Masonry is towards regarding the, square and compass, arranged in 
the well known way, as part of the Masonic system, to be defended and regulated 



as such. This may not be altogether desirable - but then there are other tendencies 
still less desirable. 


The first two subsidiary questions may be taken together. The vogue for personal 
adornments with Masonic designs seems to have set in towards the end of the 
eighteenth century. Watches, signet rings, seals were the natural vehicles for such 
designs. At first they were of a complex type, like miniature trestle boards, or 
Webb's "Master's Carpet." Some were very ingenious and pleasingly arranged. 
However, when reduced in size such designs became indistinguishable except on 
close examination, and when the desire rose to advertise one's membership to the 
world at large, it was necessary to simplify it. Doubtless many other factors led to 
simplification other than the one mentioned. In the, British Isles, so far as our 
information goes, such articles of a personal and metallic kind as bear Masonic 
designs usually have the compass and square simply. In Europe, France, Germany, 
Holland, Switzerland, and so on, such designs generally include, with the square 
and compasses, other implements,. The triangle or triangular level is common, 
perhaps most common, but mallet and trowel are very frequent also. Often a five- 
point star appears where the "G" does in the common American emblem. Now in 
the old complex designs the letter "G" usually appears, and is very frequently 
enclosed in a five-point star, sometimes plain and sometimes radiated. Historically, 
it would seem the process of simplification has gone further in Great Britain than 
in America, and that, as in many other things, the Masonry of Europe is most 
conservative of all. 


It is quite possible that American visitors to England have seen the letter "G" 
associated with the compass and square. Such exceptions do not make or break a 
general rule. There are Masonic temples in America that have the emblem of the 
square and compasses without the letter "G" carved upon the cornerstone or in 
some other equally prominent position, but even two or three swallows do not 
make a summer, and such exceptional cases, due probably to the architect's whim 
or ignorance of accepted usage, most certainly do not nullify the obvious fact that 
the inclusion of the letter is the general rule in America.