ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
FREEMASONRY
AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

Browse the Encyclopedia by clicking on any of the letters below.

 

A  |  B  |  C  |  D  |  E  |  F  |  G  |  H  |  I  |  J  |  K  |  L  |  M

  N  |  O  |  P  |  Q  |  R  |  S  |  T  |  U  |  V  |  W  |  X  |  Y |  Z

K

Hebrew, Kaph. signifying hollow or palm of the hand. This is the eleventh letter of the English alphabet and in Hebrew has the numerical value of 20. In the Chaldaic or hieroglyphic it is represented by a hand, as in the illustration.

*

KAABA

The name of the holy temple of Mecca, which is to the Mohammedans what the Temple of Solomon was to the Jews. It is certainly older, as Gibbon admits, than the Christian era, and is supposed, by the tradition of the Arabians, to have been erected in the nineteenth century before Christ, by Abraham, who was assisted by his son Ishmael. It derives its name of Kaaba from its cubical form, it being fifteen feet long, wide, and high. It has but one aperture for light, which is a door in the east end. In the northeast corner is a black stone, religiously venerated by the Mussulmans, called "the black stone of the Kaaba," around which cluster many traditions. One of these is that it came down from Paradise, and was originally as white as milk, but that the sins of mankind turned it black; another is, that it is a ruby which was originally one of the precious stones of heaven, but that God deprived it of its brilliancy, which would have illuminated the world from one end to the other. Syed Ahmed, who, for a Mussulman, has written a very rational history of the Holy Mecca (London, 1870), says that the black stone is really a piece of rock from the mountains in the vicinity Mecca; that it owes its black color to the effects of fire; and that before the erection of the temple of the Kaaba, it was no other than one of the numerous altars erected for the worship of God, and was, together with other stones, laid up in one of the corners of the temple at the time of its construction. It is, in fact, one of the relics of the ancient stone worship; yet it reminds us of the foundation-stone of the Solomonic Temple, to which building the temple of the Kaaba has other resemblances. Thus, Syed Ahmed, who, in opposition to most Christian writers, devoutly believes in its Abrahamic origin, says (on page 6) that "the temple of the Kasba was built by Abraham in conformity with those religious practises according to which, after a lapse of time, the descendants of his second son built the Temple of Jerusalem."

*

KABBALA
See Cabala

*

KADIRI, ORDER OF

A secret society existing in Arabia, which so much resembles Freemasonry in its object and forms, that Lieutenant R. F. Burton, who succeeded in obtaining initiation into it, called the members Oriental Freemasons. He gives a very interesting account of the Order in his Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca.

*

KADOSH

The name of a very important Degree in many of the Masonic Rites. The word is Hebrew, and signifies holy or consecrated, and is thus intended to denote the elevated character of the Degree and the sublimity of the truths which distinguish it and its possessors from the other Degrees. Pluche says that in the East, a person preferred to honors bore a scepter, and sometimes a plate of gold on the forehead, called a Kadosh, to apprise the people that the bearer of this mark or rod was a public person, who possessed the privilege of entering into hostile camps without the fear of losing his personal liberty.

The Degree of Kadosh, though found in many of the Rites and in various countries, seems, in all of them, to have been more or less connected with the Knights Templar. In some of the Rites it was placed at the head of the list, and was then dignified as the ne plus ultra, nothing further, of Freemasonry.

It was sometimes given as a separate order or Rite within itself, and then it was divided into the three Degrees of Illustrious Knight of the Temple, Knight of the Black Eagle, and Grand Elect.

Brother Oliver enumerates five Degrees of Kadosh: the Knight Kadosh; Kadosh of the Chapter of Clermont; Philosophical Kadosh; Kadosh Prince of Death; and Kadosh of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

The French records speak of seven: Kadosh of the Hebrews; Kadosh of the first Christians; Kadosh of the Crusades; Kadosh of the Templars; Kadosh of Cromwell or the Puritans; Kadosh of the Jesuits; and the True Kadosh. But the correctness of this enumeration is doubtful, for it cannot be sustained by documentary evidence. In all ofthese Kadoshes the doctrine and the modes of recognition are substantially the same, though in most of them the ceremonies of initiation differ.

Ragon mentions a Kadosh which is said to have been established at Jerusalem in 1118; but here he undoubtedly refers to the Order of Knights Templar. He gives also in his Tuileur Géneral the nomenclature of no less than fourteen Kadosh Degrees.

The doctrine of the Kadosh system is that the persecutions of the Knights Templar by Philip the Fair of France, and Pope Clement V, however cruel and wunary in its Renaults, did not extinguish the Order, but it continued to exist under the forms of Freemasonry. That the ancient Templars are the modern Kadoshes, and that the Builder at the Temple of Solomon is now replaced by James de Molay, the martyred Grand Master of the Templars, the assassins being represented by the King of France, the Pope, and Naffodei the informer against the Order; or, it is sometimes said, by the three informers, Squin de Florian, Naffodei, and the Prior of Montfauçon. As to the history of the Kadosh Degree, it is said to have been first invented at Lyons, in France, in 1743, where it appeared under the name of the Petit Elu, Minor Elect, as distinguished from Grand Elect. This Degree, which is said to have been based upon the Templar doctrine heretofore referred to, was afterward developed into the Kadosh, which we find in 1758, incorporated as the Grand Elect Kadosh into the system of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, which was that year formed at Parish whence it descended to the Scottish Rite Freemasons. Of all the Kadoshes, two only are now important, namely, the Philosophic Kadosh, which has been adopted by the Grand Orient of France, and the Knight Kadosh, which constitutes the Thirtieth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, this latter being the most generally diffused of the Kadoshes.

*

KADOSH

called also the Holly Man. The French phrase is Kadosch ou l'Homme Saint. The Tenth and last Degree of the Rite of Martinism.

*

KADOSH, GRAND, ELECT KNIGHT

The Sixty-fifth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim

*

KADOSH, KNIGHT

The Thirtieth Degree of the Scottish Rite (9ee Unix Radoeh)

*

KADOSH OF THE JESUITS

According to Thory (Acta Latomorum i, page 320) this Degree is said to have been invented by the Jesuits of the College of Clermont. The statement is not well supported. De Bonneville's Masonic Chapter of Clermont was probably, either with or without design, confounded with the Jesuitical College of Clermont (see Jesuits).

*

KADOSH, PHILOSOPHIC
A modification of the original Eadosh, for which it has been substituted and adopted by the Grand Orient of France. The military character of the Order is abandoned, and the Philo sophic Eadosh wear no swords. Their only weapon is the Word.

*

KADOSH, PRINCE

A Degree of the collection of Pyron

*

KADOSH PRINCE OF DEATH

The Twentyseventh Degree of the Rite of Mizraim

*

KALAND'S BRUEDER, DIE

German for The Brethren of the Calen~ds. A religious brotherhood of the Middle Ages whose name was from the Calends, the first of each month, and whose traditions refer to Solomon's era.

*

KALB, JOHANN

Baron de Kalb. Born at Hüttendorf, Germany, June 29, 1721, and died August l9, 1780. A close friend of Lafayette, he entered the American service as a Major General in 1776, fought in several actions, became second in command at Camden, South Carolina, August 16, 1780, at which time he was wounded and died three days later. He was buried with both military and Masonic honors. It is not positively known where De Kalb received the Degrees of Freemasonry, though there is reason to believe that it was in the Army Lodge No. s 79, chartered April 17, 1780, by the Grand Lodge of w Pennsylvania for the benefit of the Brethren of the Maryland Line. On a visit to South Carolina, Lafavette, under the auspices of Kershaw Lodge, laid the corner-stone of a monument to De Kalb, March 9, 1825, on the spot where he was wounded at the battle of Camden (see History of Freemasonry in Maryland, Edward T. Schultz, volume 4, page 327, and volume 2, pages 477-8).

*

KAMEA

Hebrew, an amulet. More particularly applied by the Cabalists to magic squares inscribed on paper or parchment, and tied around the neck asasafeguardagainst evil (see Magic Squares).

*

KANES DOCTOR ELISHA KENT

American scientist and explorer, born at Philadelphia, February 20, 1822, and famous on account of two voyages to the Arctic regions in search of Sir John Franklin, an English Freemason and explorer. Kane was an enthusiastic Freemason, a member of Franklin Lodge, No. 134, Philadelphia. lye died on February 16, = 1857. When Brother Kane reached Newfoundland on his way north in search of Brother Franklin, he was entertained at a reception held by Saint John's Lodge on June 17, 1853, and presented with a Masonic flag (see Doctor Mackey's History of Freezasonry, 1921, page 2178).

*

KANSAS
KANSAS LODGE, U. D.

By Dispensation granted to John M. Chivington on August 4, 1854, Grove Lodge was opened in Wyandotte Territory at the house of Mathew R. Walker. A Convention was held on November 14, 1855, at Leavenworth, but as Wyandotte Lodge was not represented the meeting was adjourned until December 27. On that date representatives of Wyandotte Lodge were again absent, but it was decided not to delay the organization of a Grand Lodge further. The following were present at this meeting held in the office of A. and R. R. Rees: Brother John W. Smith, W. M. of Smithton Lodge, No. 140; Brother R. R. Rees, W. M. of Leavenworth Lodge, No. 150, and Brothers C. T. Harrison, L. J. Eastin, J. J. Clarkson, G. W. Purkins, I. B. Donaldson, and Simon Kohn, Master Masons. The Grand Lodge was then opened and it was decided to send a report to Wyandotte Lodge asking them to approve the proceedings. A completely representative meeting was held on March 17, 1856, when it was resolved that, as there was some doubt whether the proceedings of the previous Convention were entirely legal, owing to the absence of delegates from one chartered Lodge, the Grand Lodge of Kansas should be organized then and there. When this was done, Brother Richard R. Rees. elected Grand Master, was installed and he then installed the other Grand Officers.

Leavenworth Chapter was granted a Dispensation on January 24, 1857. Not until September 8, 1865, however, was its Charter issued. The first Chapter in Kansas to possess a Charter was Washington, No. 1, Dispensation granted May 18, 1859; Charter, September 14, 1859.

Representatives of these two Chapters and of Fort Scott Chapter met in Convention by permission of the Deputy Grand High Priest on January 27, 1866, and on February 26, the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Kansas was duly organized and constitute.

The Grand Council of Missouri chartered three Councils of Royal and Select Masters in this State. On December 12, 1867, representatives of the three Councils organized a Grand Council which has since met annually except in 1880.

A Commandery, Leavenworth, No. 1, was established by Dispensation issued February 10, 1864. Its Charter was granted September 6, 1865. This Commandery, with the others in the State, namely: Washington, No. 2; Hugh de Pavens, No. 3, and DeMolay, No. 4, met on December 29, 1868, by Warrant from Grand Master William Sewall Gardner issued on December 2, 1868, and established a Grand Commandery.

The following Scottish Rite Bodies were established in Kansas: Salina, No. 9, Lodge of Perfection, September 13, 1876, at Salina; Unity, No. 1, Chapter of Rose Croix, February 17, 1881, at Topeka; William de la More, No. 1, Council of Kadosh, December 12, 1883, at Lawrence; Topeka, No. 1, Consistory, April 23, 1892, at Topeka. Those established at Fort Leavenworth, one in 1890 and three in 1909, in each case as Army, No.1, came at first under the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction. At the session of 1909, the Supreme Council agreed to exercise concurrent jurisdiction, but in 1919 the Army Bodies at Fort Leavenworth were transferred to the authority of Kansas.

*

KARMATIANS

A Mohammedan sect that became notorious from its removal of the celebrated black stone of the Kasba, and, after retaining it for twenty-two years, voluntarily surrendered it. Founded by Sarmata at Irak in the ninth century.

*

KASIDEANS

A Latinized spelling of Chasidim, which see.

*

KATHARSIS

Greek, The ceremony of purification in the Ancient Mysteries. Muller says that one of the important parts of the Pythagorean worship was the poean, which was sung to the lyre in spring-time by a person sitting in the midst of a circle of listeners: this was called the Catharsis or purification" (Dorians I, 384).

*

KATIPUNAN

Secret society in the Philippine Islands. See Philippine Islands.

*

KEEPER OF THE SEALS

An officer called Garde des Sceaul; in Lodges of the French Rite. It is also the title of an officer in Consistories of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The title sufficiently indicates the functions of the office.

*

KELLERMAN, MARSHAL

Duke de Valmy, born 1770, died 1835. Member of the Supreme Council and Grand Officer of Honor of the Grand Orient of France; elected 1814. Served in the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Waterloo.

*

KELLY CHRISTOPHER

A Masonic plagiarist, who stole bodily the whole of the typical part of the celebrated work of Samuel Lee entitled Orbis Miraculum, or The Temple of Solomon Portrayed by Scripture fight, and published it as his own under the title of Solomon's Temple spiritualized; setting forth the Divine Mysteries of the Temple, with an account of its Destruction. He prefaced the book with An Address to all Free and Accepted Masons. The first edition was published at Dublin in 1803, and on his removal to America he published a second in 1820, at Philadelphia. Kelly was, unfortunately, a Freemason, but not an honest one. Brother Woodford points out that all such works seem to be founded on John Bunyan's Solomon's Temple Spiritualized. Bunyan died in 1688 but the popularity of his work was shown by the eighth edition of this book appearing in 1727.

*

KENIS
See Lewis

*

KENNING'S MASONIC CYCLOPEDIA

Edited by Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, in London, contemporaneously with the encyclopedia of Dr. A. G. Mackey, in the United States, but published by the well-known Brother George Kenning, London, to whom the work is dedicated in affectionate terms. Kenning's Cyclopedia is rendered unusually invaluable in consequence of the fulness of its bibliography. Kloss's well-known Bibliographer der Freimaurer does not become so great a necessity, having Kenning yet other subjects have not been permitted to suffer in consequence of the numerous short biographical sketches. The work is an admirably arranged octavo of nearly seven hundred pages.

*

KENT, EDWARD AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF

Duke of Strathearn also. Born November 7, 1767, fourth son of George III, England. Father of Queen Victoria. Initiated in 1790 at Geneva and was elected Grand Master of the Ancient December 27, 1813, credited with effecting the union of the two English Grand Lodfres. He died January 20, 1820.

*

KENTUCKY

Until the year 1792, when Kentucky became a separate and distinct State, jurisdiction over its Lodges was exercised by Virginia. On November 17, 1788, Lexington Lodge was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Virginia. Four other Lodges, namely, Paris, Georgetown, Hiram, and Abraham's, were chartered at various times by the same Body. Representatives of the five Lodges met at Lexington, September 8, 1800, and determined to establish a Grand Lodge of Kentucky. A second Convention met on October 16, and elected Grand Officers who duly opened the Grand Lodge.

Dispensations for Chapters at Lexington, Frankfort, and Shelbyville were issued by Companion Thomas Smith Web Deputy General Grand High Priest, on October 16, 1816. These Chapters according to the Proceedings of the fifth regular Convocation of the General Grand Chapter of the United States formed a Grand Chapter in 1817 under the jurisdiction of the General Grand Chapter. At its annual Convocation in Lexington, the Grand Chapter of Kentucky advocated the dissolution of the General Grand Chapter, and in 1857 actually seceded from that Body. It was announced, however, at the twenty-second triennial Convocation of the General Grand Chapter held on November 24, 1874, that it had renewed its allegiance.

When Jeremy L. Cross made his official tour through the Western States in 1816 as General Grand Lecturer of the General Grand Chapter, he established the Select Degree in this State and, on his return in 1817, sent Charters to the Companions at Lexington and Shelbyville, dating them from the time when the Degrees were conferred A meeting was held on December 10, 1827, to establish a Grand Council. Representatives of six Councils were present, namely: Washington, No. 1; Warren, No. 2; Center, No. 3; Louisville, No. 4; Frankfort, No. 5, and Versaiiies, No. 6. Where the Councils obtained their Warrants is not known, though it is thought that John Barker organized them in September, 1827. The Anti. Masonic period affected the Craft in Kentucky to some considerable extent and the Grand Council only met once in 1841. From 1878 to 1881 the Degrees were included in the Chapter work but in 1881, after the organization of the General Grand Council, the Grand Council of Kentucky was reorganized. On October 14, 1912, it affiliated with the General Grand Council as a constituent member.

Webb, No. 1, at Lexington, was the first Commandery to begin work in Kentucky. It was authorized by Charter dated January 1 1826, but this was probably a Charter of Recognition as there is in existence a copy of the original Proceedings of Webb Encampsment, with a list of members as of January 1, 1819. A Dispensation was issued by John Snow on the following December 28, and a Charter on January 1, 1820. The Grand Commandery in Kentucky, authorized by Warrant from the Grand Encampment dated September 14, 1847, was constituted on October 5, at Frankfort. Its subordinate Commanderies were Webb, No.1; Louisville, No. 2; Versailles, No. 3; Frankfort, No. 4, and Montgomery, No. 5. On August 8, 1859, four Bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, were chartered at Louisville: Union Lodge of Perfection, No. 1; Pelican Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1; Kilwinning Council of Kadosh, No. 1, and Grand Consistory, No. 1.

*

KENYA COLONY

British East Africa where the Grand Lodges of England and Scotland have each chartered a Lodge at Nairobi in this district.

*

KEWIS
See Lewis

*

KEY

"The Key," says Doctor Oliver (Landmarks I, page 180), "is one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry. It bears the appearance of a common metal instrument, confined to the performance of one simple act. But the well-instructed brother beholds in it the symbol which teaches him to keep a tongue of good report, and to abstain from the debasing vices of slander and defamation." Among the ancients the key was a symbol of silence and circumspection; and thus Sophocles alludes to it in the Oedipus Coloneus (line 105), where he makes the chorus speak of "the golden key which had come upon the tongue of the ministering Hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis—Callimachus says that the Priestess of Ceres bore a key as the ensign of her mystic office. The key was in the Mysteries of Isis a hieroglyphic of the opening or disclosing of the heart and conscience, in the kingdom of death, for trial and Judgment.

In the old instructions of Freemasonry the key was an important symbol, and Doctor Oliver regrets that it has been abandoned in the modern system. In the ceremonies of the First Degree, in the eighteenth century allusion is made to a key by whose help the secrets of Freemasonry are to be obtained, which key "is said to hang and not to lie, because it is always to hang in a brother's defense and not to lie to his prejudge." It was said, too, to hang "by the thread of life at the entrance, " and was closely connected with the heart, because the tongue "ought to utter nothing but what the heart dictates." And, finally, this key is described as being "composed of no metal, but a tongue of good report." In the ceremonies of the Masters Degree in the Adonhiramite Rite, we find this catechism (in the Recueil Précieu:, page 87):

What do you conceal?
All the secrets which have been intrusted to me.
Where do you conceal them?
In the heart.
Have you a key to gain entrance there?
Yes, Right Worshipful.
Where do you keep it?
In a box of coral which opens and shuts only with ivory teeth.
Of what metal is it composed?
Of none. It is a tongue obedient to reason, which knows only how to speak well of those of whom it speaks in their absence as in their presence.

All of this shows that the key as a symbol was formerly equivalent to the modern symbol of the "instructive tongue," which, however, with almost the same interpretation, has now been transferred to the Second or Fellow-Craft's Degree. The key, however, is still preserved as a symbol of secrecy in the Royal Arch Degree; and it is also presented to us in the same sense in the ivory key of the Secret Master, or Fourth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In many of the German Lodges an ivory key is made a part of the Masonic clothing of each Brother, to remind him that he should lock up or conceal the secrets of Freemasonry in his heart. But among the ancients the key was also a symbol of power; and thus among the Greeks the title of Kxeiaouxos~ or key-bearer, was bestowed upon one holding high office; and with the Romans, the keys are given to the bride on the day of marriage, as a token that the authority of the house was bestowed upon her; and if afterward divorced, they were taken from her, as a symbol of the deprivation of her office, Among the Hebrews the key was used in the same sense. "As the robe and the baldric," says Lowth (Israel, part ii, section 4), "were the ensigns of power and authority, so likewise was the key the mark of office, either sacred or civil." Thus in Isaiah (xxii, 22), it is said: "The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulders; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open" Our Savior expressed a similar idea when he said to Saint Peter, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." It is in reference to this interpretation of the symbol, and not that of secrecy, that the key has been adopted as the official jewel of the Treasurer of a Lodge, because he has the purse, the source of power, under his command.

KEY OF MASONRY
See Knight of the Sun

*

KEYSTONE

The stone placed in the center of an arch which preserves the others in their places, and secures firmness and stability to the arch. As it was formerly the custom of Operative Masons to place a peculiar mark on each stone of a building to designate the workman by whom it had been adjusted, so the Keystone was most likely to receive the most prominent mark, that of the Superintendent of the structure. Such is related to have occurred to that Keystone which plays so important a part in the legend of the Royal Arch Degree.

The objection has sometimes been made, that the arch was unknown in the time of Solomon. But this objection has been completely laid at rest by the researches of antiquaries and travelers within a few years past. Wilkinson discovered arches with regular keystones in the doorways of the tombs of Thebes the construction of which he traced to the year 1540 B.C., or 460 years before the building of the Temple of Solomon. And Doctor Clark asserts that the Cyclopean gallery of Tiryns exhibits lancet-shaped arches almost as old as the time of Abraham. In fact, in the Solomonic era, the construction of the arch must have been known to the Dionysian Artificers, of whom, it is a freely received theory, many were present at the building of the Temple.

*

KHEM

The Egyptian Deity, Amon, in the position that is metaphorically used in representations of Buddha and by the Hermetic philosophers, extends one hand toward Heaven and the other toward Nature.

*

KHEPRA

An Egyptian Deity, presiding over transformation and represented with the beetle in place of a head.

*

KHER-HEB

The Master of Ceremonies in the Egyptian system of worship.

*

KHESVAN

or CHESVAN. Hebrew, The same Hebrew month as Marchessan, which see.

*

KHETEM EL NABIIM
Mohammed, the seal of the prophets.

*

KHON

The title given to the dead, subject to examination as depicted in Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead in the Egyptian Ritual.

*

KHOTBAH

The Confession of Faith under the Mohammedan law.

*

KHURUM-ABI

A variation of the name of Hiram Abi.

*

KI

A word used in some old ceremonies of the Eighth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

*

KILWINNING

As the city of York claims to be the birthplace of Freemasonry in England, the obsscure little village of Kilwinning is entitled to the same honor with respect to the origin of the Order in the sister kingdom of Scotland. The claim to the honor, however, in each case, depends on the bare authority of a legend, the authenticity of which is now doubted by many Masonic historians. A place, which, in itself small and wholly indistinguishable in the political, the literary, or the commercial annals of its country, has become of great importance in the estimation of the Masonic antiquary from its intimate connection with the history of the Institution.
The Abbey of Kilwinning is situated in the bailiwick of Cunningham, about three miles north of the royal burgh of Irving, near the Irish Sea. The abbey was founded in the year 1140, by Hugh Morville, Constable of Scotland, and dedicated to Saint Winning, being intended for a company of monks of the Tyronesian Order, who had been brought from Kelso. The edifice must have been constructed at great expense, and with much magnificence, since it is said to have occupied several acres of ground in its whole extent.
Lawrie (History of Freemasonry, page 46, 1859 edition) says that, by authentic documents as well as by other collateral arguments which amount almost to a demonstration, the existence of the Kilwinning Lodge has been traced back as far as the end of the fifteenth century. But we know that the body of architects who perambulated the Continent of Europe and have frequently been mentioned under the name of Traveling Freemasons, flourished at a much earlier period; and we learn, also, from Lawrie himself, that several of these Freemasons traveled into Scotland, about the beginning of the twelfth century. Hence, we have every reason to suppose that these men were the architects who constructed the Abbey at Kilwinning, and who first established the Institution of Freemasonry in Scotland. If such be the fact, we must place the origin of the first Lodge in that kingdom at an earlier date, by three centuries, than that claimed for it by Lawrie, which would bring it much nearer, in point of time, to the great Masonic Assembly, which is traditionally said to have been convened in the year 926, by Prince Edwin, at York, in England.

There is some collateral evidence to sustain the probability of this early commencement of Freemasonry in Scotland. It is very generally admitted that the Royal Order of Herodem was founded by King Robert Bruce, at Kilwinning. Thory, in the Acta Latomorum, gives the following chronicle: "Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, under the title of Robert I, created the Order of 8t. Andrew of Chardon, after the battle of Bannockburn, which was fought on the 24th of June, 1314. To this Order was afterwards united that of Herodem, for the sake of the Scotch Freemasons, who formed a part of the thirty thousand troops with whom he had fought an army of one hundred thousand Englishmen. King Robert reserved the title of Grand Master to himself and his successors forever, and founded the Royal Grand Lodge of Herodem at Kilwinning." Doctor Oliver says that "the Royal Order of Herodem had formerly its chief seat at Kilwinning; and there is every reason to think that it and Saint John's Masonry were then governed by the same Grand Lodge. "

In 1820, there was published at Paris a record which states that in 1286, James, Lord Stewart, received the Earls of Gloucester and Ulster into his Lodge at Kilwinning; which goes to prove that a Lodge was then existing and in active operation at that place.

The modern iconoclasts, however, who are leveling these old legends with unsparing hands, have here been at work. Brother D. Murray Lyon has attacked the Bruce legend, and in the London Freemasons Magazine (of 1868, page 14) says:

Seeing that the Fraternity of Kilwinning never at any period practiced or acknowledged other than Craft degrees, and have not preserved even a shadow of a tradition that can in the remotest degree be held to identify Robert Bruce with the holding of Masonic Courts, or the Institution of a Secret Order at Kilminning, the Fraternity of the "Hero(lim" must be attributed to another than the hero of Bannoekburn and a birthplace must be sought for it in a soil Still more favorable to the growth of the high grades than Scotland has hitherto proved.

He intimates that the legend was the invention of the Chevalier Ramsay, whose birthplace was in the vicinity of Kilwinning.
Brother Mackey says, "I confess that I look upon the legend and the documents that contain it with some favor, as at least furnishing the evidence that there has been among the Fraternity a general belief of the antiquity of the Kilwinning Lodge." Those, however, whose faith is of a more hesitating character, will find the most satisfactory testimonies of the existence of that Lodge in the beginning of the fifteenth century. At that period, when Jarnes II was on the throne, the Barons of Roslin, as hereditary Patrons of Scotch Freemasonry, held their annual meetings at Kilwinning, and the Lodge at that place granted Warrants of Constitution for the formation of subordinate Lodges in other parts of the kingdom.

The Lodges thus formed. in token of their respect for, and submission to, the mother Lodge whence they derived their existence, affixed the word Kilwinning to their own distinctive name; many instances of which are still to be found on the register of the Grand Lodge of Scotland such as Canongate Kilwinning, Greenock Kilwinning, Cumberland Kilwinning, etc.

But, in process of time, this Grand Lodge at Kilwinning ceased to retain its supremacy, and finally its very existence. As in the case of the sister kingdom, where the Grand Lodge was removed from York, the birthplace of English Freemasonry, to London, so in Scotland, the supreme seat of the Order was at length transferred from Kilwinning to the metropolis; and hence, in the doubtful document entitled the Charter of Cologne, which purports to have been written in 1642, we find, in a list of nineteen Grand Lodges in Europe, that of Scotland is mentioned as sitting at Edinburgh, under the Grand Mastership of John Bruce.

In 1736, when the Grand Lodge of Scotland was organized, the Kilwinning Lodge was one of its constituent Bodies, and continued in its obedience until 1743. In that year it petitioned to be recognized as the oldest Lodge in Scotland; but as the records of the original Lodge had been lost, the present Lodge could not prove, says Lawrie, that it was the identical Lodge which had first practiced Freemasonry in Scotland. The petition was therefore rejected, and, in consequence, the Kilwinning Lodge seceded from the Grand Lodge and established itself as an independent Body. It organized Lodges in Scotland; and several instances are on record of its issuing Charters as Mother Kilwinning Lodge to Lodges in foreign countries.

Thus, it granted one to a Lodge in Virginia in 1758, and another in 1779 to some Brethren in Ireland calling themselves the Lodge of High Knights Templar. But in 1807 the Mother Lodge of Kilwinning renounced all right of granting Charters, and came once more into the bosom of the Grand Lodge, bringing with her all her daughter Lodges.

Here terminates the connection of Kilwinning as a place of any special importance with the Freemasonry of Scotland. As for the Abbey, the stupendous fabric which was executed by the Freemasons who first migrated into Scotland, its history, like that of the Lodge which they founded, is one of decline and decay. In 1560, it was in a great measure demolished by Alexander, Earl of Glencairne, in obedience to an Order from the States of Scotland, in the exercise of their usurped authority during the imprisonment of Marv Stuart. A few years afterward, a part of the Abbey Chapel was repaired and converted into the parish church, and was used as such until about the year 1775, when, in consequence of its ruinous and dangerous state, it was pulled down and an elegant church erected in the modern style. In 1789, so much of the ancient Abbey remained as to enable Grose, the antiquary, to take a sketch of the ruins.

*

KILWINNING MANUSCRIPT

Also called the Edinburgh Kilwinning Manuscript. This manuscript derives its name from its being written in a small quarto book, belonging to the celebrated Mother Kilwinning Lodge of Scotland. For its publication, the Masonic Fraternity is indebted to Brother William James Hughan, who has inserted it in his Unpublished Records of the Craft, from a copy made for him from the original by Brother D. Murray Lyon, of Ayr, Scotland. Brother Lyon, "whilst glancing at the Minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh from December 27, 1675, till March 12, 1678, was struck with the similarity which the handwriting bore to that in which the Kilwinning copy of the Narrative of the Founding of the Craft of Masonry is written, and upon closer examination he was convinced that in both cases the calligraphy is the same" (History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, page 107). It was probably written in 1665. The Anglican phraseology, and the fact that one of the Charges requires that Freemasons should be "ledgeman to the King of England," conclusively show that the manuscript was written in England and introduced into Scotland. It is so much like the text of the Grand Lodge Manuscript, published by Brother Hughan in his Old Charges of British Freemasons, that, to use the language of Brother Woodford, "it would pass as an indifferent copy of that document."

*

KILWINNING, MOTHER LODGE

For an account of this Body, which was for some time the rival ) the Grand Lodge of Scotland, see Kilwinning).

*

KILWINNING SYSTEM

The Freemasonry practiced in Scotland, so called because it is supposed to have been instituted at the Abbey of Kilwinning. Brother Oliver uses the term in his Mirror for the Johannite Masons (page 120, see also Saint John's Masonry).

*

KINDERAUSTAUSCHSTELLE DER GROSS LOGE ZUR SONNE
See Chilaren's Exchange Bureau

*

KING

The second officer in a Royal Arch Chapter in the United States. He is the representative of Zerubbabel, Prince or Governor of Judah. When the Chapter meets as a Lodge of Mark, Past, or Most Excellent Masters, the King acts as Senior Warden. After the rebuilding of the second Temple, the government of the Jews was administered by the High Priests as the viceregents of the Kings of Persia, to whom they paid tribute. This is the reason that the High Priest is the presiding officer in a Chapter, and the King only a subordinate. But in the Chapters of England and Ireland, the King is made the presiding officer. The jewel of the King is a level surmounted by a crown suspended within a triangle.

*

KING OF THE SANCTUARY

A side Degree formerly conferred in the presence of five Past Masters, now in disuse.

*

KING OF THE WORLD

A Degree in the system of the Philosophical Rite.

*

KINGS, THE FIVE

The sacred code of the older Chinese. The word kin{, signifies web of cloth, or the warp that keeps the threads in position, or upon which we may weave the somber and golden colors that make up this life's pictured history. This great light in Chinese secret societies contains the best sayings of the best sages on the ethico-political duties of life They cannot be traced to a period beyond the tenth century before Christ, although the religion is believed to be older.
Some of the superior classes of Chinese are believers in the great philosopher Lao-tse, and others in the doctrines of Confucius. The two religions appear to be twin in age, not strikingly dissimilar, and each has been given a personality in color in accordance with the character of ethics believed in by the two writers. Lao-tse and Confucius were the revivers of an older religion, the former of whom was born 604 B.C., and the latter fifty-four years subsequently.

The five kings are, the Yih-King, or Book of Changes; the Shi-King, or Book of Songs; the Shu King, or Book of Annals; the Ch'un Ts'ju, or "Spring and Autumn"; and the Li-King, or Book of Rites. The fourth book was composed by Confucius him self, while the first three are supposed to have been compiled by him, and the fifth by his disciples from his teachings.

Doctor Legge, late Professor of Chinese at Oxford, England, and Doctor Medhurst assert that there are no authentic records in China earlier than 1100 B.C., and no alphabetical writing before 1500 B.C.

The grandeur of the utterances and brilliancy of the intellectual productions of Confucius and Mencius, as law-givers and expounders of the sacred code of the Chinese, called The Five Kindles, are much to be admired, and are the Trestle-Board of many thousands of millions of the earth's population.

*

KIPLING, RUDYARD

Celebrated author and poet. Born in Bombay, India, December 30, 1865. His writings frequently give Masonic allusions peculiarly significant to the Craft. The story of The Man Who Would be Ring is a good specimen of the kind in question. His poems, the Mother Lodge, the Palace, and L'Envoito Life's Handicap are splendidly typical. He was made an honorary member of Canongate Kilwinning Lodge at Edinburgh, a Masonic distinction of which he very properly has been not a little proud. The English Masonic Illustrated (London, July 1901+ volume 1, number 10) says Brother Kipling was initiated in Freemasonry at the age of twenty and a half, by special dispensation obtained for the purpose, in the Hope and Perseverance Lodge, No. 782, at Lahore. In 1888 joined the Independence and Philanthropy Lodge, No. 391, meeting at Allahabad, Bengal. In the issue of the London Times quoted in the Freemason, March 28, 1925, there is an interesting statement from Brother Kipling regarding his active service in his own Lodge in Lahore, Punjab, East Indies.

He was Entered for membership by a Hindu, Passed by a Mohammedan, and Raised by an Englishman. The Tyler was an Indian Jew.

This is what he writes: "I was Secretary for some years of the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance, No. 782, E.C., Lahore, English Constitution, which included Brethren of at least four creeds. I was entered by a member from Brahmo Somaj, a Hindu, passed by a Mohammedan, and raised by an Englishman. Our Tyler was an Indian Jew. We met, of course, on the level, and the only difference anyone would notice was that at our banquets some of the Brethren, who were debarred by caste rules from eating food not ceremonially prepared, sat over empty plates." To this very remarkable experience of Brother Kiplingis due the poem by him which follows and which by his permission is reprinted here from The Sawen Seaw, published by Doubleday Page and Company, Garden City, New York (page 177).

THE MOTHER-LODGE
There was Rundle, Station Master,
An' Beazeley of the Rail,
An' 'Ackman, Commissariat,
An' Donkin' o' the Jail;
An' Blake, Conductor-Sargent,
Our Master twice was 'e,
With 'im that kept the Europe shop,
Old Framjee Eduljee.
Outside "Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam! "
Inside "Brother," an' it doesn't do no 'arm.
We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square,
An' I was Junior Deacon in ma Mother Lodge out there!

We'd Bola Nath, Accountant,
An' Saul the Aden Jew,
An' Din Mohammed, draughtsman
Of the survey Office too;
There was Babu Chuckerbutty,
An' Amir Singh the Sikh,
An' Castro from the fittin'-sheds,
The Roman Catholick!

We 'adn't good regalia
An' our Lodge was old an' bare,
But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
An' we kep' 'em to a hair
An' lookin' on it backwards
It often strikes me thus,
There ain't such things as infidels,
Exceps, perhaps, it s us.

For monthly, after Labour,
We'd all sit down and smoke,
(We dursn't give no banquits,
Lest a brother s caste were broke),
An' man on man got talkin'
Religion an' the rest,
An' every man comparing
Of the God 'e knew the best.

So man on man got talkin'
An' not a Brother stirred
Till morning waked the parrots
An' that dam' brain-fever-bird
We'd say ttvwas 'ighly curious,
An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed,
With Mo'ammed, God, and Shiva
Changin' pickets in our 'ead.

Full oft on Guv'ment service
This rovin' foot 'ath pressed,
An' bore fraternal greetin's
To the Lodges east an' west,
Accordin' as commanded
From Kohat to Singapore,
But I wish that I might see them
In my Mother Lodge once more!

I wish that I might see them
My brethren black and brown,
With the trichies smellin' pleasant
An' the hog-darn (Cigar-lighter) passin' down
An' the old khansamah (Butler) snorin'
On the bottle-khana (Pantry) floor,
Like a Master in good standing
With my Mother Lodge once more!

Outside»"Seryeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!"
Insise Brother," an' it doesn't do no 'arm.
We met upon the Level an' we parted on she Square,
An' I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!

*

KISLEV or CHISLEV

Hebrew. The third month of the Hebrew civil year, and corresponding with the months November and December, beginning with the new moon of the former.

*

KISS, FRATERNAL

The Germans call it der Bruder Kuss, the French, le. Baiser Fraternal. It is the kiss given in the French and German Lodges by each Brother to his neighbor on the right and left hand when the labors of the Lodge are closed. It is not adopted in the English or American systems of Ancient Craft Freemasonry, although practiced in some of the advanced Degrees.

*

KISS OF PEACE

In the reception of an Ancient Knight Templar, it was the practice for the one who received him to greet him with a kiss upon the mouth. This, which was called the Osculum Pacis, or Riss of Peacc, was borrowed by the Templars from the religious orders, in all of which it was observed. It is not practised in the receptions of Masonic Templarism.

*

KITCHENER, VISCOUNT HORATIO HERBERT

Famous English soldier, Commander-in Chief and High Commissioner in the Mediterranean, as well as a member of the Masonic Fraternity with years of active service to his credit. Born June 24, 1850, at Bally Longford, County Kerry, England, and died, 1916, in the World War. Son of LieutenantColonel H. H. Kitchener. Entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1868, and in 1871 appointed Second Lieutenant, Royal Engineers.

Sent to Palestine, thence to Egypt, being promoted to Captain in 1883. In 1884, serving in the expeditionary forces on the Nile, he was first Major and then LieutenantColonel. Commandant at Suakin for three years, ending 1888, having received a dangerous wound. Served as Adjutant-General until 1892 when he succeeded Sir Francis Grenfell as Sirdar (Persian for Leader, equivalent in Egypt to Commander-in-Chief) of the Egyptian Army. Displayed great skill in administrative work with the expeditionary force and he advanced the frontier and railway to Dongola in the Sudan. In 1896 he was appointed British MajorGeneral, succeeding so well that he was appointed to the peerage as Baron Kitchener of Khartoum, receiving a grant of thirty thousand pounds and the thanks of Parliament.

He was shortly afterwards appointed Chief-of-Staff to Lord Roberts in the South African War and promoted to LieutenantGeneral. He served in the field until 1900, when he was made Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts returning to England. The long, arduous and loyal work of Kitchener was rewarded by the title of Viscount when the war ended, a grant of fifty thousand pounds; the Order of Merit and the rank of General "for distinguished service." For the following data as to Brother Kitchener's Masonic record we are indebted to his personal friend, Brother Lieutenant-Colonel E. C. Mugrue, Southsea, England:

His Mother Lodge, British Union, No. 114 was founded at Ipswich, England, in 1762. He was a founder member of the following: Drury Lane Lodge, No.2127, founded in 1885; Khartoum Lodge, No.2877, founded in 1901; Kitchener Lodge, No. 2998, founded at Simla, Punjaub, in 1903.

Brother Lord Kitchener was District Grand Master of Egypt and Sudan in 1899; District Grand Master of the Punjaub in 1902; Junior Grand Warden of England in 1916. "Brother Iiitchener possessed great talents as a linguist in Oriental languages which stood him in good stead in his Masonic work, and this, coupled with his strength of character and power and skill as a soldier, made him a man who was loved by all his men and by the entire English-speaking world and one of whom the Masonic Fraternity is justly proud" writes Brother Mugrue.

Brother Kitchener served for seven years in India, Id made many far-reaching reforms in the Government, —entirely reorganized the British and native forces. In 1909 he was promoted to Field Marshall, virtual command of the colonial forces. He visited Japan, Australia and New Zealand studying military and engineering problems, earning the gratitude of his Government He returned to England in 1910, refusing a Mediterranean appointment. War Minister from 1914, Earl Kitchener was in June, 1916, drowned in the torpedoed ship Hampshire, off the coast of Scotland.

*

KANSAS LODGE, U. D.

Any Grand Lodge in Annual Communication assembled, and though it were composed of Masonic jurisconsults of the first water, would agree unanimously that no such Lodge as Kansas Lodge U. D. was possible ever had been or ever could be. Nevertheless the impossible Lodge existed; and the storv of it ought to be known wherever Masons meet because it proves that there is some secret in Freemasonry which transcends analysis. In 1854 there was a Lodge or two in the remote wildernesses of Washington "where rolls the Oregon"; two or three in Sew Mexico, a land as remote as the moon; two or three in Indian Territory; otherwise, and excepting for a few settlements around a few forts, and some thousands of Indians, there stretched an empty empire larger than Europe from the Missouri River west.

In 1854 three Wyandot Indians and five white men who lived in their midst, having made themselves Known as Master Masons and duly accredited, petitioned the Grand Lodge of Missouri, mother of Freemasonry in the West, for a Dispensation to establish a Lodge in a Wyandot Indian village in Kansas Territory. On August 4, 1854, the Dispensation was granted; on August 11 the Kansas Lodge U. D. opened for Work, and elected a missionary, the Rev. John M. Chivington, its Master. On the heels of this new Masonic birth two other Lodges followed; in 1856 whe three formed the Grand Lodge of Kansas. The second oldest Lodge was given the glory of No. 1; Ransas Lodge, though the oldest, was assigned No. 3, because "it was an Indian Lodge."

The Indians had come originally from Ohio, but somewhere in their enforced migrations had the institution of slavery forced upon them (a novelty to them) therefore they were slave-holders when their Lodge was formed; three of the white men were abolitionists; of the other two nothing is known. The White Man, the Wyandots used to say, is like a stick; he has two ends and they point in opposite directions; a footnote to that same effect is given by one of Kansas Masonry's historians, Bro. F. P. Strickland, Jr. in his brilliant treatise on page 485, Transactions, The American Lodge of Research; Vol. III; Number 3:

" In the bloody 1850's and the years of the Civil War, Kansas was continually torn by bitter strife, [over slavery] members of the two factions relentlessly hunting down and slaying each other. Yet, whenever enough Brethren, regardless of faction could be found they eagerly stood their guns against the nearest tree and began the erection of a Masonie altar. Enemies by day they met as Brothers at night."

*

KNIGGE, BARON VON

A history of Adam Weishaupt and his Order of the Illuminati is given. The work and principles of the Lodges in which each man had been initiated would not be recognizable as Freemasonry by us in America, or by regular Masons anywhere, because while the first German Lodges were founded on the Landmarks they were later taken over by the German aristocracy and transformed, most of them, into an aristocratic cult which contradicted the ancient principles of the Craft at every point.

After Weishaupt, a brilliant and well-intentioned man, had won a position for himself among German Lodges he was seized with a desire to set up a grandiose new society of his own, with vague but vast aims, and officers with resounding titles, called the Order of the Illuminati. The Baron von Knigge joined the enterprise and became Weishaupt's St. Paul, then turned against it, and in his last years became a savage Anti-Mason. The Order of Illuminati was the greatest single misfortune ever to befall European Freemasonry because it became at once the pattern and the point of departure for a succession of secret, underground, political conspiracies which (though it was not a Masonic society) divided Masonry and brought disgrace upon its name; even the Jesuits founded an Order of Illuminati of their own, and the scheme of it was the blue-print for the Italian Carbonari.

Prof. John Robison of the University of Edinburgh wrote a book about it in 1797 (see page 862). This Professor had a bland, credulous, innocent-appearing mind strikingly like that of Marshal Petain; he believed everything he read about the Illuminati, became possessed of a great fear of it, and expected any moment to see the civilization of Europe come crashing down, undermined by the secret, under-ground Weishauptian conspiracies; he took the Illuminati to be identical with Freemasonry, and his ProcJs of a Conspiracy became an Anti-Masonic book. Ever since, it has been in Europe the Anti-Masonic Bible (supported by the writings of the Abbe Barruel; see page 125), and it has been re-published, rewritten, imitated, quoted from; and its weird and simple-minded charges against Masons have been repeated ever since. It even became the inspiration of an Anti-Masonic movement in Massachusetts and Connecticut at the end of the Revolutionary War. As for Knigge it was supposed that he had quarrelled with Weishaupt. Near the end of his days he published a book entitled Uber den Umgang mit Menschen, which may be freely translated as on Dealing moth People.

At the end of World War II there came to the surface, and with a sort of apocalyptic luridness and grandiosity, what Weishaupt and Knigge had both been meaning to certain powerful groups of the German ruling class. It transpires that Weishaupt had inadvertently discovered what had never been dreamed of before: a technique for a secret movement which could be operated in public, an underground on top of the ground, a nation-wide conspiracy completely invisible, and which a class or a people could carry on under the very eyes of their enemies. It also transpires that it was this which Knigge had taken the Illuminati to be; and it was this which was the subject matter of his uber. The latter book was re-printed, revised, enlarged, modified, and went on generation after generation.

The Germans created a secret army after Napoleon had conquered them, and conquered him at Leipsig. After Metternich had set up the absolutist Holy Alliance regime secret societies on the Knigge pattern came into existence everywhere; the Carbonari in Italy (Louis Napoleon was trained in it), the Decembrist revolutionists in Russia in 1825, etc., etc. It also has transpired that while the Nazis were still an underground movement they followed Knigge's formula, and that the fiber was the favorite text-book of Heinrich Himmler.

In the eight centuries or so of its history Freemasonry has had its own adventures but never before or since has anything happened to it quite so extraordinary, quite as impossible as this, that a simple-minded and typically mystical Bavarian Mason, ambitious to be a Founder of something great for himself, should have become the Architect of gestapos and a fountainhead of Anti-Masonry If there be Masons who believe that the Craft should look with tolerant indifference upon quasi- and semi-Masonic "societies," and that Anti-Masonry should be ignored, Weishaupt and Knigge should "give them furiously to think."

NOTE. There could be no greater fallacy than the theory that underground conspiracies ale carried on only by the poor, the downtrodden, and revolutionaries. The French Royal war against the Huguenots began as an underground movement. For a history of it see Cathertne de Medicz and the Host Revolution, by Ralph Roeder; Viking Press; New York; 1937.

*

KNIGHTS AND ORDERS OF CHIVALRY

A knight originally was a boy in attendance on a prince, and was called an aldor or altherro; from this was a gradual transition first to a knight as a soldier, next as a professional soldier, and lastly as one class of professional soldiers those who had taken up arms under vow to make it a life-long vocation, like the vow of priesthood. The word itself first was knight among the Saxons, Knight among Danes, cniocllt in Ireland. A modern professional soldier takes oath to the government, fights or is ready to fight for his country, and lives under military regulations; the knight took a vow to his vocation, a personal oath to his king, or his lord, or his chieftain, and behaved according to the rules of chivalry. These latter, and allowing for a great difference in the circumstances, were in essence the same as military regulations now.

Just as there was a transition from Operative Masonry to Speculative Masonry, so was there a similar transition, and following in general the same lines from the "operative" soldiery of the Saxon and Norman periods to chivalry as a set of ideals and rules for gentlemen and ladies, which may be metaphorically described as its "speculative" or "symbolical" form. This latter consisted of legends and traditions art, poetry, ballads, music, ideas and ideals, a philosophy of daily conduct, an ideal of honor and gentle manliness, and grew into such a mass that a great cycle of legends such as that which accumulated around the Search for the Grail. Modern Knight Templarism has no historical continuity as either a calling (Masonic knights, for one thing, are not soldiers), or as an organization, with the Orders of Knights in the early Middle Ages, but it is the heir of that large wealth of tradition, literature, art, philosophy; and few modern fraternal societies have so rich a heritage.

The philosophy underlying chivalry, considered solely as a system of thought, has been overlooked by professors and historians of philosophy; it also has been very largely overlooked by Knights Templar themselves, else they would by this time have a larger and more learned literature of their own. A student of that philosophy of chivalry has ready to hand, as text book or authoritative work, a masterpiece of learning and thought: The Broad Stone of Honor; or, The True Sense and Practice of Chivalry, by Kenelm Henry Digby; in five books, the last of which is in two volumes, making six volumes in all; London; Bernard Quaritch; 1877.

*

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

In the official history entitled The Knights of Columbus in Peace and War, by Maurice Francis Egan and John B. Kennedy (New Haven; Conn; 1920) it is stated that Michael Joseph McGivney, an assistant in St. Mary's Church, New Haven, "sometimes had the painful experience of seeing young Catholics enter fraternal societies either frowned upon or actually forbidden by the Church. " There had been since the Civil War a loose fraternity called Red Knights composed of Roman Catholics; a small number of these met with McGivney to discuss with him the formation of a fraternity. The first thought was to set up a branch of the Catholic Order of Foresters, with death benefits a principal feature. Instead it was finally decided to launch a new fraternity. This was in January, 1882.

At a third conference Knights of Columbus was adopted as the name. McGivney himself wrote three degrees of Ritual. The new secret society was incorporated by the State, March 29, 1882. The first lodge was formed April 6, 1882, at New Haven. The Supreme Council wss formed May 16, 1882, with C. T. Driscoll as Grand Knight. A Constitution was adopted on the 15th of the following month; and the revised and completed ritual, approved by Bishop McMahon, was adopted July 7, 1883.

Note. In its Annual meeting in St. Pnul, August, 1914, the Supreme Council of the K. of C. appointed a Commission on Religious Prejudices, a laudable undertaking which attracted the attention of the Masonic press because in a number of centers Masonic leaders co-operated with the Commission in the hopes of lessening the amount of senseless religious fanaticism. [See Final Report of Co1nstsston on Relioious Prejudices, Supreme Couneil, Knights of Columbus, Chicago, 1917.1 The Commission ultimately failed; perhaps it was not sufficiently broad, because it did not include among the many " bigotries " it was opposed to its own Church's Anti-Masonic Crusade. It failed also because it did not learn that to be continually and openly truthful is the one hope for success of any propaganda or educational campaign.

In the Commission's own Final Report occurs on page 41 this paragraph of mendacities. written by Mr. J. J. Farrel, Augusta, Ga. Manager of the Central Bureau: " Mi hen you say 'This is a Protestant country,' as you do say with all a printer's emphasis, you have no thought of it being a fact, I am eure. as you know that fewer than 20 per cent of all our ' people profess any Protestant belief, while in none of the 48 States is Protestantism in any form prescribed as a mode of belief or worship. But in forming opinion you ought to know the facts.

You ought to know that the founder of the American Navy was a Catholic- John Paul Jones was a Scotchman and a Freemason member of two Lodgesl that the first General of the Cavalry was a Catholic, that the only Indians who fought with Washington were Catholics that the money which saved him and his army at Valley Forge was from Catholics, that when Cornwallis surrendered, which all agree made the success of the Revolution secure, more than half the army that opposed him was Catholic- that Catholic Poland, Catholic France, Catholic Spain furnished men, money, munitions and other help to our country and the Catholic States of Germany were the only German States where England couldn't hire troops, like the Hessians, to fight us.

"You ought to remember, sir, and I hope you can remember without misgivings, that the beginning of the breach between Washington and Arnold which finally led to the First Treason [there had been no ''breach''l, was because Arnold objected to Washington's surrounding himself with Catholic generals and aides."

In the Revolutionary War there were but a handful of Roman Catholics in the Colonies; even in Maryland they Reformed a minority. The great majority of men in the Colonies belonged to no church one historian calculates that 91 % did not but many attended who did not register as members. For concise biographies of the generals see Masonry in our Government: 1761-1799, by Philip A. Roth- Milwaukee, Wisc.- 1927. Arnold's "breach" was not with Washington but with Gates; his court martial at Philadelphia he brought upon himself by dissipation gambling, ete. in the "Philadelphis set"; religion had no part in it.

*

KNOOP, JONES, HAMER

Except where otherwise indicated these books were written by Douglas D. Knoop and G. P. Jones in collaboration:

The Medieval Mason: An Economic Histony of English Stone Building in the Later Middle Ages and Early Modern Times; Manchester University Press; 1933. Begemann's History of Freemasonry; 1941; 15 pages. Bolsover Castle Building Account, 1936; 56 pp. Decline of the Master Architect; 1937; 8 pp. The Early Masonic Catechisms (Knoop, Jones, Douglas Hamer) 1943 M. U. Press, 200 pp. Freemasonry and the Idea of Natural Religion London; 1942; 16 pp. The Genesis of Speculative Masonry (by Knoop)- London, 1941; 31 pp. A Handlist of Masonic Documents; M. U. Press; 1942; S5 pp. Impressment of Masone for Windsor Castle; Maemillan, London; 1937. An Introduction to Freemasonry; M. U. Press; 1937- 136 pp.

The London Mason in the Seventeenth Centurv, M. U. Press; 1935- 92 pp. The Mason Word (Knoop)- The Prestonian Leeture; 1938. Masonic Historv Old and Zeus; 1942; 16 pp. Nomenclature of Alasonic MSS. and Handlist of MSS; London; 59 pp; 1941. On the Connection Between Operative and Speculative Mason7~v (Enoop)Sheffield, 1935. Pure Antient Masonry (Knoop)- 62 pp. 1939. Rzse of the Mason Contractor; London; 1936- 24 pp. The Scottish Mason and the Mason U ord, M. U. Press1939; 113 pp. A Short Histo7~v of Freemasonry to 17SO M. U. Press; 1940; 148 pp. The Sixteenth Centurv Mason- 1937, 20 pp. The Two Earliest Masontc MSS (Knoop, Jones, and Douglas Hamer); M. U. Press1938; 215 pp. Bro. Douglas D. Knoop was born in Manchester, September 16, 1883. He was educated in Germany, Switzerland, and at Manchester University. During 1906-7 he was in the United States. In 19l0 he was placed in charge of the Economic Section of the University of Sheffield; was made a Professor in 1920. He is an established authority on the theory of economics.

Bro. Knoop was made a Mason in University Lodge, No. 3911, Sheffeld, December 1921; was Exalted in Loyalty Chapter, No. 296; and founder of University Chapter, Sheffeld. Took Mark Degree in Cleeves No. 618; is Knight Tenoplar, member of Rose Croix, Red Cross of Constantine, Societas Rosicrucianae in Anglia, etc. He w as elected to active membership in Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research No. 2076, in 1931, and has occupied its East. A number of the brochures listed above are reprints from A. Q. C. Because of interests in his own profession his studies in Freemasonry have inevitably been centered on the economics of Operative Masonry working conditions, rules, wages, etc. The data have been a valuable contribution to Masonic historical research. (Note The bibliography given above is not complete, and includes no titles later than 1942.)
 

 

              

               

Museum Home Page     Phoenixmasonry Home Page

Copyrighted © 1999 - 2019   Phoenixmasonry, Inc.      The Fine Print