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
L
In Hebrew, Samaritan, 4. The
shape of the twelfth English letter is borrowed from that of the Oriental
lomad, coinciding with the Samaritan. The numerical value in Hebrew is thirty.
The Roman numeral L is fifty. Hebrew name of Deity, as an equivalent, is h,
dimmed, or Doctus. This letter also signifies a stimulus, generally feminine.
*
LABARUM
The monogram of the name of
Christ, formed by the first two letters of that word, XPI2TOZ, in Greek. It is
the celebrated sign which the legend says appeared in the sky at noonday to
the Emperor Constantine, and which was afterward placed by him upon his
standard. Hence it is sometimes called f the Cross of Constantine. It was
adopted as a symbol by the early Christians, and frequent instances of it are
to be found in b the catacombs. According to Eusebius, the Labarum was
surrounded by the motto EN TOTTQ NIGH, or Conquer oy this, which has been
Latinized to In hoc signo Minces, the motto assumed by the Masonic Knights
Templar (see In hoc signo Minces). In his Life of Constantine (i, page 31),
Eusebius describes the arrangement of the Labarum as on a long gilded spear
having a crosspiece supporting a square purple cloth jewelled richly, at end
of spear a gold wreath enclosing monogram. The derivation of the word Labansm
is uncertain. The Greek word Labaron means a flag.
*
LABOR
It is one of the most
beautiful features of the Masonic Institution, that it teaches not only the
necessity, but the nobility of labor. From the time of opening to that of
closing, a Lodge is said to be at labor. This is but one of the numerous
instances in which the terms of Operative Masonry are symbolically applied to
Speculative; for, as the Operative Masons were engaged in the building of
material edifices, so Free and Accepted Masons are supposed to be employed in
the erection of a superstructure of virtue and morality upon the foundation of
the Masonic principles which they were taught at their admission into the
Order.
When the Lodge is engaged in
reading petitions, hearing reports, debating financial matters, etc., it is
said to be occupied in busyness; but when it is engaged in the form and
ceremony of initiation into any of the Degrees, it is said to be at work.
Initiation is Masonic labor. This phraseology at once suggests the connection
of our Speculative System with an Operative Art that preceded it, and upon
which it has been founded. Gadicke says: Labor is an important word in
Freemasonry- indeed, we might say the most important. For this, and this
alone, does a man become a Freemason.
Every other object is
secondary or incidental. Labor is the costumed design of every Lodge meeting.
But do such meetings always furnish evidence of industry? The labor of an
Operative Mason will be visible, and he will receive his reward for it, even
though the building he has constructed may, in the next hour, be overthrown by
a tempest. He knows that he has done his labor. And so must the Freemason
labor. His labor must be visible to himself and to his Brethren, or, at least,
it must conduce to his own internal satisfaction. As we build neither a
visible Solomonic Temple nor an Egyptian pyramid, our industry must become
visible in works that are imperishable, so that when we vanish from the eyes
of mortals it may be said of us that our labor was well done.
As Freemasons, we labor in our
Lodge to make ourselves a perfect building, without blemish, working hopefully
for the consummation, when the house of our earthly tabernacle shall be
finished, when the Lost Word of Divine Truth shall at last be discovered, and
when we shall be found by our own efforts at perfection to have done God
service.
*
LABORERS, STATUTES OF
Toward the middle of the
fourteenth century, a plague of excessive virulence, known in history as the
Black Death, invaded Europe, and swept off fully one-half of the inhabitants.
The death of 80 many workmen had the effect of advancing the price of all
kinds of labor to double the former rate. In England, the Parliament, in 1350,
enacted a Statute, which was soon followed by others, the object of which was
to regulate the rate of wages and the price of the necessaries of life.
Against these enactments, which were called the Statutes of Laborers, the
artisans of all kinds rebelled; but the most active opposition was found among
the Masons, whose organization, Doctor Mackey asserts, being better regulated,
was more effective (see Freemason). In 1360, Statutes were passed forbidding
their "Congregations, Chapters, Regulations, and Oaths," which were from time
to time repeated, until the third year of the reign of Henry VI, 1425 A.D.,
when the celebrated Statute entitled "Masons shall not confederate themselves
in Chapters and Congregations," was enacted in the following words:
Whereas, by yearly
Congregations and Confederacies made by the Masons in their General
Assemblies, the good course and effect of the Statutes for Laborers be openly
violated and broken, in subversion of the law, and to the great damage of all
the Commons, our said sovereign lord and King, willing in this case to provide
a remedy, by the advice and assent aforesaid, and at the speei31 rev quest of
the Commons, hath ordained and established that such chapters and
congregations shall not be hereafter holden; and if any such be made, they
that cause such Chapters and Congregations to be assembled and holden, if they
thereof be convicted, shall be judged for felons. and that the other Masons
that come to such Chapters and Congregations be punished by imprisonment of
their bodies and make fine and ransom at the king's will.
All the Statutes of Laborers
were repealed in the fifth year of Elizabeth; and Lord Coke gave the opinion
that this act of Henry VI became, in consequence, "of no force or effect"; a
decision which led Anderson, very absurdly, says Brother Mackey, to suppose
that "this most learned judge really belonged to the ancient Lodge, and was a
faithful Brother" (Constitutions, 1723, page 57); as if it required a judge to
be a Freemason to give a just judgment concerning the interests of
Freemasonry.
*
LACEPEDE;, B. G. E. DE LA
VILLE
A French savant and
naturalist, born in 175d, died 1825. President of the Legislative Assembly in
1791. Master of the Lodge de Saint Napoléon in 1805. An account of his
installation is recorded by Kloss.
*
LACORNE
The Count of Clermont, who was
Grand Master of Francis having abandoned all care of the French Lodges, left
them to the direction of his Deputies. In 1761, he appointed one Lacorne, a
dancing-master, his Deputy; but the Grand Lodge, indignant at the appointment,
refused to sanction it or to recognize Lacorne as a presiding officer. He
accordingly constituted another Grand Lodge, and was supported by adherents of
his own character, who were designated by the more respectable Freemasons as
the Lacorne Faction. In 1762, the Count of Clermont, influenced by the
representations that were made to him, revoked the commission of Lacorne, and
appointed Monsieur Chaillou de Joinville his Substitute General. In
consequence of this, the two rival Grand Lodges became reconciled, and a union
was effected on the 24th of June, 1769. But the reconciliation did not prove
altogether satisfactory.
In 1765, at the annual
election, neither Lacorne nor any of his associates were chosen to office.
They became disgusted, and, retiring from the Grand Lodge, issued a scandalous
protest, for which they were expelled; and subsequently they organized a
spurious Grand Lodge and chartered several Lodges. But from this time Lacorne
ceased to have a place in regular Freemasonry, although the dissensions first
begun by him ultimately gave rise to the Grand Orient as the successor of the
Grand Lodge.
*
LADDER
A symbol of progressive
advancement from a lower to a higher sphere, which is common to Freemasonry
and to many, if not all of the Ancient Mysteries. In each, generally, as in
Freemasonry, the number of steps was seven (see Jacob's Ladder).
*
LADDER, BRAHMANICAL
The symbolic ladder used in
the Mysteries of Brahma. It had seven steps, symbolic of the seven worlds of
the Indian universe. The lowest was the Earth; the second, the World of
Coexistence; the third, Heaven; the fourth, the Middle World, or intermediate
rexion between the lower and the upper worlds; the fifth, the World of Births,
in which souls are born again; the sixth, the Mansion of the Blessed; and the
seventh, or topmost round, the Sphere of Truth, the abode of Brahma, who was
himself a symbol of the sun.
*
LADDER, CABALISTIC
The ladder of the Cabalists
consisted of the ten Sephiroths or Emanations of Deity. The steps were in an
ascending series the Kingdom, Foundation, Splendor, Firmness, Beauty, Justice,
Mercy, Intelligence, Wisdom, and the Crown. This ladder formed the exception
to the usual number of seven steps or rounds.
*
LADDER, JACOB'S
See Jacob's Ladder
*
LADDER, MITHRAITIC
The symbolic ladder used in
the Persian Mysteries of Mithras. It had seven steps, symbolic of the seven
planets and the seven metals. Thus, beginning at the bottom, we have Saturn
represented by lead, Venus by tin, Jupiter by brass, Mercury by iron, Mars by
a mixed metal, the Moon by silver, and the Sun by gold; the whole being a
symbol of the sidereal progress of the sun through the universe.
*
LADDER OF IZADOSH
This ladder, belonging to the
advanced Degrees of Freemasonry, consists of the seven following steps,
beginning at the bottom Justice, Equity, Kindliness, Good Faith, Labor,
patience, and Intelligence or Wisdom. Its supports are love of God and love of
our neighbor, and their totality constitute a symbolism of the devoir or duty
of Knighthood and Freemasonry, the fulfilment of which is necessary to make a
Perfect Knight and Perfect Freemason.
*
LADDER, ROSICRUCIAN
Among the symbols of the
Rosicrucians is a ladder of seven steps standing on a globe of the earth, with
an open Bible, Square, and Compasses resting on the top. Between each of the
steps is one of the following letters, beginning from the bottom: I. N. R. I.
F. S. C., being the initials of Iesus, Nazarenus, Rex, Iudaeorum, Fides, Spes
Caritas. These words suggesting Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews; Faith,
Hopc, Charity. But a more recondite or hidden meaning is sometimes given to
the first four letters.
*
LADDER, SCANDINAVIAN
The symbolic ladder used in
the Gothic Mysteries. Doctor Oliver refers it to the Yggrasil, or sacred
ashtree. But the symbolism is either very abstruse or very doubtful. It
retains, however, the idea of an ascent from a lower to a higher sphere, which
was common to all the mystical ladder systems. At its root lies the dragon of
death; at its top are the eagle and hawk, the symbols of life.
*
LADDER, THEOLOGICAL
The symbolic ladder of the
Masonic Mysteries. It refers to the ladder seen by Jacob in his vision, and
consists, like all symbolical ladders, of seven rounds, alluding to the four
cardinal and the three theological virtues (see Jacob's Ladder).
*
LADRIAN
In the Sloane Manuscript 3848
and probably meant for Edwin.
*
LADY
In the androgynous, both
sexes, Lodges of Adoption, where the male members are called Knights, the
female members are called Ladies, as, the Knights and Ladies of the Rose. The
French use the word Dame.
*
LAKAK DEROR PESSAH
The Hebrew words, NDD nn: npi.
The initials of these three words are found on the symbol of the Bridge in the
Fifteenth Degree of the Scottish Rite, signifying Liberty of Passage and
Liberty of Thoughd (see Bridge, also Liber) .
*
LALANDE
See De la Lande
*
LAMAISM
The name of the religion
prevalent in Tibet and Mongolia. The Tibetian word, Llama, is pronounced lama,
a chief or high priest. The faith is Buddhism, corrugated by Sivaism, an
adoration of saints. At the summit of its hierarchy are txvo Lama Popes,
having equal rank and authority in spiritual and temporal affairs.
*
LAMA SABACHTHANI
An expression used in the
Masonic French Rite of Adoption. The words are from Matthew (xxvu, 46), "And
about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
*
LAMB
In Ancient Craft Masonry the
Lamb is the symbol of innocence; thus in the instructions of the First Degree:
"In all ages the Lamb has been deemed an emblem of innocence." Hence it is
required that a Freemason's Apron should be made of lambskin. In the advanced
Degrees, and in the Degrees of chivalry, as in Christian iconography, or
station, the lamb is a symbol of Jesus Christ. The introduction of this
Christian symbolism of the lamb comes from the expression of Saint John the
Baptist, who exclaimed, on seeing Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God"; which was
undoubtedly derived from the prophetic writers, who compare the Messiah
suffering on the cross to a lamb under the knife of a butcher. In the vision
of Saint John, in the Apocalypse, Christ is seen, under the form of a lamb,
wounded in the throat, and opening the book with the seven seals. Hence, in
one of the Degrees of the Scottish Rite, the Seventeenth, or Knight of the
East and West, the lamb lying on the book with the seven seals is a part of
the jewel.
*
LAMBALLE, THE PRINCESS OF
Marie Thérese Louise, born at
Turin, 1749, devoted companion of Marie Antoinette, who appointed her
Superintendent of the Royal Household. Imprisoned with the Queen at the
Revolution, she refused to take the oath against the royalty and was on
September 3, 1799, delivered to the populace for execution, her head on a
spear being carried before the windows of the Queen's apartment. The Grand
Mistress of the so-called Mother Lodge of La Masonnerie d'Adoption.
*
LAMB OF GOD
See Lamb, Paschal
*
LAMB, PASCHAL
The Paschal Lamb, sometimes
called the Holy Lamb, was the lamb offered up by the Jews at the paschal
feast, the Passover. This has been transferred to Christian symbolism, to
Easter, and naturally to Chivalric Freemasonry; and hence we find it among the
symbols of modern Templarism. The paschal lamb, as a Christian and Masonic
symbol, called also the Agnw Dez, or Lamb of God, first appeared in Christian
art after the sixth century.
This is depicted as a lamb
standing on the ground, holding by the left forefoot a banner, on which a
cross is inscribed. This paschal lamb, or Lamb of God, has been adopted as a
symbol by the Knights Templar, being borne in one of the banners of the Order,
and constituting, with the square which it surmounts, the jewel of the
Generalissimo of a Commandery. The lamb is a symbol of Christ; the cross, of
His passion; and the banner, of His victory over death and hell. Barrington
states (Archaeologia ix, page 134) that in a Deed of the English Knights
Templar, granting lands in Cambridgeshire. the seal is a Holy Land, and the
arms of the Master of the Temple at London were argent, a cross gules, and on
the nombril point thereof a Holy Lamb, that is, a Paschal or Holy Lamb on the
center of a red cross in a white field.
*
LAMBSKIN APRON
See Apron
*
LAMP, KNIGHT OF THE
INEXTINGUISHABLE
A Degree quoted in the
nomenclature of Fustier (see Thory, Greta Latomorum I, page 320).
*
LANCE
A weapon for thrusting at an
enemy, usually adorned with a small flag, made of tough ash, weighted at one
end to balance it in use, and pointed at the other.
*
LANE, JOHN
Born in England, in 1843, he
died suddenly on December 30, 1899. Statistician of the Masonic Fraternity, as
he was so termed by Brother W. J. Hughan. Initiated on September 10, 1878, in
the Jordan Lodge, No. 1402, at Torquay, he scarcely ever missed one of its
meetings. He became Worshipful Master in 1882.
Brother Lane published his
Masonic Records, 1717 -1886, in 1886, a second edition appearing in 1895. The
Board of General Purposes, Grand Lodge of England, warmly praised the colossal
volume and remarked most truly "that many years of patient labor and careful
research were spent by the compiler in its preparation, and it is perhaps the
most useful Masonic work ever published." In 1889 he published A Handy Book to
the study of the engraved, printed, and manuscript Lists of Lodges of Ancient
Free and Accepted Masons of England Moderns and Ancient 1723-1814; and in
1891, Centenary Warrants and Jewels, comprising an account of all the Lodges
under the Grand Lodge of England to which Centenary Warrants had been granted,
together with illustrations of all the special Jewels.
He contributed several papers
to Freemasonry during his affiliation with the Inner Circle of Quatuor
Coronati Lodge which Brother Lane joined in 1887, and of which he was a very
active and devoted member. A representative list of these articles is given
here: "Another New List of Lodges, A.D. 1732," 1898; "Early Lodges of
Freemasons, Their Constitution and Warrants, 1717-1760;" "Masters Lodges,"
1888 and 1895; "Date of Origin of the Grand Lodge of the Ancient 1751," 1892,
appeared in the Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge; "motes on the Minute
Book of an Early Athol Lodge," 1887; "Old Warrants, Lodge of Unanimity, No.
89, Dukinfield," 1891: "Notes on the FPrlv Minute Book of Premier Grand Lodge
of England, 1887, appeared in the Freemason, and an article entitled "Lodges
in America under the English Constitution, 1733-1889, " was printed in the
History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders. An important Lecture of Brother
Lane's led to considerable discussion, but could not be reproduced in print.
It bore the suggestive title "Some Aspects of Early English freemasonry
Esoteric, with Special Reference to the Signs, Tokens, Words and Obligations."
For biographical references to
Brother Lane see Freemason, No. 34, 1895 (pages 33G5), and Transactions,
Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume XLU, page 41, 1900).
*
LANGES, SAVALEITE DE
The Master of Les Amis Réunis,
meaning Reunited Friends, who aided in founding the system of Philalethes in
in 1775.
*
LANGLEY, BATTY
An English architect who died
March 31, 1751. His Ancient Masonry published in 1736 is dedicated to Francis,
Duke of Lorraine and "to all others the Right Hon. and Right Worshipful
Masters of Masonry, by their humble servant and affectionate Brother, Batty
Langley." There is art interesting introduction to Geometry in the fourth
edition of the Builders Complete Assistant. The Build ers Jewel or the Youth's
Instructor and Workman's Remembrance, written by Batty and Thomas Langley and
published at London in 1751, has a remarkable frontispiece full of Masonic
symbols.
*
LANGUAGE, UNIVERSAL
The invention of a universal
language, which men of all nations could understand and through which they
could communicate their thoughts, has always been one of the dreams of certain
philologists. In the seventeenth century, Dalgarno had written his Ars
Signorum to prove the possibility of a universal character and a philosophical
language. About the same time Bishop Wilkins published his Essay towards a
Real Character and a Philosophical Language; and even the mathematical
Leibnitz entertained the project of a universal language for all the world. It
is not, therefore, surprising, that when the so-called Leland Manuscript
stated that the Freemasons concealed a "Universal Language," John Locke, or
whoever was the commentator on that document, should have been attracted by
the statement. He says:
A universal language has been
much desired by the learned of many ages. It is a thing rather to be wished
than hoped for. But it seems the Masons pretend to have such a thing among
them. If it be true, I guess it must be something like the language of the
Pantomimes among the ancient Romans, who are said to be able, by signs only,
to express and deliver any oration Intelligibly to men of all nations and
languages.
The guess of the commentator
was near the truth. A universal language founded on words is utterly
impracticable. Even if once inaugurated by common consent, a thing itself
impossible, the lapse of but a few years, and the continual innovation of new
phrases would soon destroy its universality. But there are signs and symbols
which, by tacit consent, have always been recognized as the exponents of
certain ideas, and these are everywhere understood. It is well known that such
a system exists over the vast territory occupied by the North American
savages, and that the Indians of two tribes, which totally differ in language,
meeting on the prairie or in the forest, are enabled, by conventual signs of
universal agreement, to hold long and intelligible intercourse.
On such a basis the Universal
Language of Freemasonry is founded. It is not universal to the world, but it
is to the Craft; and a Freemason of one country and language meeting a
Freemason of another can make himself understood for all practical purposes of
the Craft, simply because the system of signs and symbols has been so
perfected that in every language they convey the same meaning and make the
same impression. This, and this only, is the extent to which the universal
language of Freemasonry reaches. It would be an error to suppose that it meets
the expectations of Dalgarno or Wilkins, or any other dreamer, and that it is
so perfect as to supersede the necessity of any other method of
intercommunication.
Thus far Brother Mackey whose
comments on Masonic universality are as applicable today as when his words
were written, though his criticisms of the possibilities in universal
languages are less successful in view of the work accomplished in that
direction since his day and generation. However, we must admit that the same
prejudice exists and is likely to persist and long continue. Part of this
objection is due to misunderstanding, a belief that the projected language is
intended to take the place of some national tongue. But this is an error; at
best the attempts have been directed at an easily acquired auxiliary means of
spoken and written communication, an agency especially promising of purpose in
a world that is so readily misled by lack of correct knowledge concerning the
peoples of the earth. Surely this is a task of importance to all Brethren of
the Craft.
As to the earlier attempts to
which Brother Mackey alludes, they were failures, it is true. Dalgamo's Ars
Szgnorum of 1661 and Wilkins' Real Character of 1668 failed because of
insufficient foundation, the preliminary scientific labor had not then been
done. But what was attempted was deserving of admiration and Wilkins in
particular made a contribution to phonetics that is valuable among experts of
modern times while his classification of ideas was the acknowledged forerunner
of later efforts by Roget and Linnaeus. More recently we have had Volapuk of
1880, Esperanto, 1887, and Idiom Neutral, 1902. Of these the second is
admittedly the most reasonable and practical artificial language.
Born as it was among the feuds
of four races using different languages, its inventor, Dr. L. Zamenhof,
believed that the evil could be remedied by a neutral speech. A Masonic Lodge
using Esperanto was established at Paris, one has been planned for London, and
an international group of Freemasons using Esperanto has also functioned (see
Universals Framasona Ligo).
*
LANDMARKS
In ancient times, it was the
custom to mark the boundaries of lands by means of stone pillars, the removal
of which, by malicious persons, would be the occasion of much confusion, men
having no other guide than these pillars by which to distinguish the limits of
their property. To remove them, therefore, was considered a heinous crime.
"Thou shalt not," says the Jewish law, "remove thy neighbor's Landmark, which
they of old time have set in thine inheritance." Hence those peculiar marks of
distinction by which we are separated from the profane world, and by which we
are enabled to designate our inheritance as the Sons of Light, are called the
Landmarks of the Order.
The Universal Language and the
Universal Laws of Freemasonry are Landmarks, but not so are the local
ceremonies, laws, and usages, which vary in different countries. To attempt to
alter or remove these sacred Landmarks, by w hich we examine and prove a
brother's claims to share in our privileges, is one of the most heinous
offenses that a Freemason can commit.
In the decision of the
question what are and what are not the Landmarks of Freemasonry, there has
been much diversity of opinion among writers. Doctor Oliver says (Dictionary
of Symbolic Masonry) that "some restrict them to the 0. B. signs, tokens, and
words. Others include the ceremonies of initiation, passing, and raising; and
the form, dimensions, and support; the ground, situation, and covering; the
ornaments, furniture, and jewels of a Lodge, or their characteristic symbols.
Some think that the Order has no Landmarks beyond its peculiar secrets." But
all of these are loose and unsatisfactory definitions, excluding things that
are essential, and admitting others that are unessential.
Perhaps the safest method is
to restrict them to those ancient, and therefore universal, customs of the
Order, which either gradually grew into operation as rules of action, or, if
at once enacted by any competent authority, were enacted at a period so
remote, that no account of their origin is to be found in the records of
history. Both the enactors and the time of the enactment have passed away from
the record, and the Landrnarks are therefore "of higher antiquity than memory
or history can reach." The first requisite, therefore, of a custom or rule of
action to constitute it a Larulrnark, is, that it must have existed from "time
whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." Its antiquity is its
essential element.
Were it possible for all the
Masonic authorities at the present day to unite in a Universal Congress, and
with the most perfect unanimity to adopt any new regulation, although such
regulation would, so long as it remained unrepealed, be obligatory on the
whole Craft, yet it would not be a Landmark. It would have the character of
universality, it is true, but it would be wanting in that of antiquity.
Another peculiarity of these Landmarks of Freemasonry is, that they are
unrepealable. As the Congress to w hich we have just alluded would not have
the power to enact a Landmark, so neither would it have the prerogative of
abolishing one. The Landmarks of the Order, like the laws of the Medes and the
Persians, can suffer no change. What they were centuries ago, they still
remainf and must so continue in force until Freemasonry itself shall cease to
exist.
Until the year 1858, no
attempt had been made by any Masonic writer to distinctly enumerate the
Landmarks of Freemasonry, and` to give to them a comnrehensibie form. In
October of that year, the author of this work published in the American
4uarterl1y Renew of Freemasonry (volume ii, page 230) an article on "The
Foundations of Masonic Law," which contained a distinct enumeration of the
Landmarks which was the first time that such a list had been presented to the
Fraternity. This enumeration was subsequently incorporated by the author in
his Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence. It has since been very generally
adopted by the Fraternity and republished by many writers on Masonic law;
sometimes without any acknowledgment. According to this recapitulate tion, the
result of much labor and research, the Landmarks are twenty-five, and are as
follows:
1. The modes of recognition
are, of all the Landmarks, the most legitimate and unquestioned. They admit of
no variation; and, if ever they have suffered alteration or addition, the evil
of such a violation of the ancient law has always made itself subsequently
manifest.
2. The division of Symbolic
Freemasonry into three Degrees is a Landmark that has been better preserved
than almost any other, although even here the misehievous spirit of innovation
has left its traces, and, by the disruption of its concluding portion from the
Third Degree, a want of uniformity has been created in respect to the final
teaching of the Master s Order; and the Royal Arch of England, Scotland,
Ireland, and America, and the high degrees" of Franee and Germany, are all
made to differ in the mode in which they lead the neophyte to the great
consummation of all Symbolic Freemasonry.
In 1813, the Grand Lodge of
England vindicated the ancient Landmark, by solemnly enacting that Ancient
Craft Masonry consisted of the three Degrees of Entered Apprentice,
Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason, including the Holy Royal Arch. But the
disruption has never been healed, and the Landmark. although acknowledged in
its integrity by all, still continues to be violated.
3. The Legend of the Third
Degree is an important Landmark, the integrity of which has been well
preserved. There is no Rite of Freemasonry, prnetised in any eountr,v or
language, in which the essential elements of this Legend are not taught. The
Leetures may vary, and indeed are constantly changing, but the legend has ever
remained substantially the same. And it is necessary that it should be so, for
the legend of the Temple Builder constitutes the very essence and identity of
Freemasonry Anv Rite which should exclude it, or materially alter it, would at
once, by that exclusion or alteration, cease to be a Masonic Rite.
4. The government of the
Fraternity by a presiding officer called a Grand Master, who is elected from
the body of the Craft, is a fourth Landmark of the Order. Many persons suppose
that the election of the Grand Master is held in consequence of a law or
regulation of the Grand Lodge. Such, however, is not the ease. The office is
indebted for its existence to a Landmark of the Order.
Grand Masters, or persons performing the functions under a different but
equivalent title, are to be found in the records of the Institution long
before Grand Lodges were established, and if the present system of legislative
government by Grand Lodges were to be abolished, a Grand Master would still be
necessary.
5 The prerogative of the Grand
Master to preside over every Assembly of the Craft, wheresoever and whensoever
held, is a fifth Landmark. It is in consequence of this law, derived from
ancient usage, and not from any special enactment, that the Grand Master
assumes the chair, or as it is called in England, the throng at everv
Communication of the Grand Lodge, and that he is also entitled to preside at
the communication of every subordinate Lodge. where he mav happen to be
present.
6. The prerogative of the
Grand Master to grant Dispensations for conferring Degrees at irregular times,
is another and a very important Landmark. The statutorv law of Freemasonrv
requires a month, or other deternninate period, to elapse between the
presentation of a petition and the election of a candidate. But the Grand
Master has the power to set aside or dispense with this probation and to allow
a candidate to be initiated at onee. This prerogative he possessed before the
enaetment of the law requiring a probation, and as no statute can impair his
prerogative, he still retains the nower.
7. The prerogative of the
Grand Master to give Dispensations for opening and holding Lodges as another
Landmark. He may grant in virtue of this, to a sufficient number of
Freemasons, the privilege of meeting together and conferring Degrees. The
Lodges thus established are called Lodges under Dispensation (see Lodges).
8. The prerogative of the
Grand Master to make Free masons at sight is a Landmark which is closely
connected with the preceding one. There has been much misap prehension in
relation to this Landmark, which misap plehension has sometimes led to a
denial of its existence in Jurisdietions where the Grand Master was, perhaps,
at the very time substantially exercising the prerogative without the
slightest remark or opposition (see Sight Making Freemasons at).
9. The necessity for
Freemasons to congregate in Lodges is another Landmark. It is not to be
understood by this that any ancient Landmark has directed that permanent
organization of subordinate Lodges which constitutes one of the features of
the Masonie system as it now prevails. But the Landmarks of the Order alwavR
prescribed that Freemasons should, from time to time congregate together for
the purpose of either Operative or Speeulative Labor, and that these
Congregations should be called Lodges. Formerly, these were extemporary
meetings called together for special purposes, and then dissolved, the
Brethren departing to meet again at other times and other places, according to
the necessity of eircumstanees. But Warrants of Constitution, by-laws
permanent officers, and annual arrears are modern innovations wholly outside
the Landmarks, and dependent entirely on the special enactments of a
comparatively recent period.
10. The government of the
Craft, when so congregated in a Lodge, by a Master and two Wardens, is also a
Landmark. A Congregation of Freemasons meeting together under any other
government, as that, for instance of a president and vice-president, or a
chairman and Sulk chairman, would not be recognized as a Lodge The presence of
a Master and two Wardens is as essential to the valid organization of a Lodge
as a Warrant of Constitution is at the present day. The names, of course, vary
in different languages; but the officers, their number prerogatives, and
duties are everywhere identical.
11. The necessity that every
Lodge, when congregated should be duly tiled, is an important Landmark of the
Institution which is never neglected. The necessity of this law arises from
the esoterie character of Freemasonry The duty of guarding the door, and
keeping off cowans and eayesdroppers, is an ancient one, which therefore
constitutes a Landmark.
12. The right of every
Freemason to be represented in all general meetings of the Craft, and to
instruct his representatives, is a twelfth Landmark. Formerly, these general
meetings, which were usually held once a year were called General Assemblies,
and all the Fraternity even to the youngest Entered Apprentiee, were permitted
to be present. Now they are called Grand Lodges, and only the Masters and
Wardens of the subordinate Lodges are summoned. But this is simply as the
representatives of their members. Originally, each Freemason represented
himself; now he is represented by his officers (see Representatives of
Lodges).
13. The right of every Freemason to appeal from the decision of his Brethren,
in Lodge convened, to the Grand Lodge or General Assembly of Freemasons, is a
Landmark highlv essential to the preservation of justiee and the prevention of
oppression. A few modern Grand Lodges, in adopting a regulation that the
decision of Subordinate Lodges, in cases of expulsion, cannot be wholly set
aside upon an appeal, have violated this unquestioned Landmark, as well as the
principles of just government
14. The right of every
Freemason to visit and sit in every regular Lodge is an unquestionable
Landmark of the Order. This is called the Right of Visitation. This right of
visitation has always been recognized as an inherent right which inures to
everv Freemason as he travels through the world. And this is because Lodges
are justlv considered as onlv divisions for convenience of the universal
Masonic family The right mav, of course. be impaired or forfeited on special
occasions by various eircumstanees, but when admission is refused to a
Freemasor in good standing, who knocks at the door of s Lodge as a visitor, it
is to be expected that some good and euffieient leason shall be furnished for
this violation of what is. in general. a Masonic right, founded on the
Landmarks of the Order.
15. It is a Landmark of the
Order, that no visitor unknown to the Brethren present, or to some one of them
as a Freemason, can enter a Lodge without first passing an examination
according to ancient usage. Of course, if the visitoris known to any Brother
present to be a Freemason in good standing, and if that Brother will vouch for
his qualifications, the examination may be dispensed with as the Landmark
refers only to the cases of strangers, who are not to be recognized unless
after strict trial, due examination, or lawful information.
16. No Lodge can interfere in
the business of another Lodge, nor give Degrees to Brethren who are members of
other Lodges. This is undoubtedly an ancient Landmark, founded on the great
principles of courtesy and fraternal kindness, which are at the very
foundation of our Institution. It has been repeatedly recognized by subsequent
statutory enactments of all Grand Lodges.
17. It is a landmark that
every Freemason is amenable to the laws and regulations of the Masonic
Jurisdiction in which he resides, and this although he may not be a member of
any Lodge. Non-affiliation,which is, infact, in itself a Masonic offense, does
not exempt a Freemason from Masonie Jurisdiction.
18. Certain qualifications of
candidates for initiation are derived from a Landmark of the Order. These
qualifixations are that he shall be a man—unmutilated, freeborn, and of mature
age. That is to say, a woman, a cripple, or a slave, or one born in slavery,
is disqualified for initiation into the Rites of Freemasonry. Statutes, it is
true, have from time to time been enacted, enforcing or explaining these
principles; but the qualifications really arise from the very nature of the
Masonie Institution, and from its symbolic teachings, and have always existed
as Landmarks.
19. A belief in the existence
of God as the Grand Architect of the Universe, is one of the most important
Landmarks of the Order. It has been always admitted that a denial of the
existence of a Supreme and Super intending Power is an absolute
disqualification for initiation. The annals of the Order never yet have
furnished or could furnish an instance in which an avowed Atheist was ever
made a Freemason. The very initiatory ceremonies of the First Degree forbid
and prevent the possibility of such an occurrence.
20. Subsidiary to this belief
in God, as a Landmark of the Order is the belief in a resurrection to a future
life. This Landmark is not so positively impressed on the candidate by exact
words as the preceding but the doctrine is taught by very plain implication,
and runs through the whole symbolism of the Order. To believein Freemasonry
and not to believe in a resurrection, would be an absurd anomaly, which could
only be excused by the reflection, that he who thus confounded his belief and
his skepticism was so ignorant of the meaning of both theories as to have no
rational foundation for his knowledge of either.
21. It is a Landmark that a
Book of the Law shall constitute an indispensable part of the furniture of
every Lodge. We say, advisedly, Book of the Law, because it is not absolutely
required that everywhere the Old and New Testaments shall be used. The Book of
the Law is that volume which, by the religion of the country, is believed to
contain the revealed will of the Grand Architect of the Universe. Hence, in
all Lodges in Christian countries, the Book of the Law is composed of the Old
and New Testatements; in a country where Judaism was the prevailing faith, the
Old Testament alone would be sufficient; and in Mohammedan countries, and
among Mohammedan Freemasons, the Eoran might be substituted. Freemasonry does
not attempt to interfere with the peculiar religious faith of its disciples,
except so far as relates to the belief in the existence of God, and what
necessarily results from that belief.
The Book of the Law is to the
Speculative Freemason his spiritual Trestle-Board; without this he cannot
labor- whatever he believes to be the revealed will of the Grand Architect
constitutes for him this spiritual Trestle-Board, and must ever be before him
in his hours of speculative labor, to be the rule and guide of his conduct.
The Landmark, therefore, requires that a Book of the Law, a religious code of
some kinder purporting to be an exemplar of the reveal will of God, shall form
an assential part of the furniture of evety Lodge.
22. The equality of all
Freemasons is another Land mark of the Order. This equality has no reference
to any subversion of those graduations of rank which have been instituted by
the usages of society. The monarch, the nobleman, or the gentleman is entitled
to all the influence, and receives all the respect, which rightly belong to
his position. But the doctrine of Masonic equality implies that, as children
of one great Father, we meet in the Lodge upon the level—that on that level we
are all traveling to one predestined goal—that in the Lodge genuine merit
shall receive more respect than boundless wealth, and that virtue and
knowledge alone should be the basis of all Masonic honors, and be rewarded
with preferment.
When the labors of the Lodge
are over, and the Brethren have retired from their peaceful retreat, to mingle
once more with the world, each will then again resume that social position,
and exercise the privileges of that rank, to which the customs of society
entitle him.
23. The secrecy of the
Instltution is another and most important Landmark. The form of secrecy is a
form in herent in it, existing with it from its very foundation, and secured
to it by its ancient Landmarks. If divested of its secret character, it would
lose its identity, and would cease to be Freemasonry. Whatever objections may,
therefore, be made to the Institutlon on account of its secrecy, and however
much some unskilful Brethren have been willing in times of trial, for the sake
of expediency, to divest it of its secret character, it will be ever
impossible to do so, even were the Landmark not standing before us as an
insurmountable obstacle; because such change of its character would be social
suicide, and the death of the Order would follow its legalized exposure.
Freemasonry as a secret association, has lived unchanged for centuries; as an
open society, it would not last for as many years.
24. The foundation of a
Speeulative Seienee upon an Operative Art, and the symbolic use and
explanation of the terms of that art, for the purposes of religious or moral
teaching, constitute another Landmark of the Order.
The Temple of Solomon was the
symbolic cradle of the Institution, and, therefore, the reference to the
Operative Masonry which constructed that magnificent edifice, to the materials
and implements which were employed in its construction, and to the artists who
were engaged in the building, are all component and essential parts of the
body of Freemasonry, which could not be subtracted from it without an entire
destruction of the whole identity of the Order. Hence, all the comparatively
modern rites of Freemasonry, however they may differ in other respects,
religiously preserve this Temple history and these operative elements, as the
substratum of all their modifications of the Masonic system.
25. The last and crowning
Landmark of all is, that these Landmarks can never be changed. Nothing can be
subtracted from them nothing can be added to them not the slightest
modification can be made in them. As they were received from our predecessors,
we are bound by the most solemn obligations of duty to transmit them to our
successors.
The above article by Doctor
Mackey gives his latest conclusions upon a highly debatable subject. His list
of Landmarks has been adopted by several Grand Lodges, than which no one could
expect higher praise, while on the other hand many Brethren are convinced that
the Landmarks enumerated by Doctor Mackey are too many, and others believe
them too few. Of the latter class five have the late able and highly esteemed
Grand Secretary, H. B. Grant, of Kentucky. He prepared a list of Landmarks for
the Masonic Home Journal, 1889, and added to them for the consideration of the
Masonic Congress of 1893. Since then they have been reprinted, the copy at
hand dated 1910, and the number of Landmarks listed being fifty-four.
The increase is due to the
breadth of Brother Grant's definition. He held that "The Ancient Landmarks of
Freemasonry are the immemorial usages and fundamental principles of the Craft,
and are unchangeable" (see Book of Constitute tion8, Kentucky, 1910, page
209). The Masonic Congress, 1893, as reported by Brother Grant (page 210) was
assured that "The Ancient Landmarks are those fundamental principles which
characterize Masonry, as defined in the Charges of a Freemason, and with out
which the Institution can not be identified."
Both the lists of Doctor
Mackey and Brother Grant are exat ned on pages 183 to 199, Masonic
Jurispridence and Symbolism, Rev. John T. Lawrence, 1908, the author
challenging the universality of some items enumerated by the above Brethren as
Landmarks.
An important and significant
example of a brief list of Landmarks is the one adopted on December 11, 1918,
as a part of the revised Constitutions and Regulations of the Grand Lodge of
Massachusetts Sections 100 to 102 state:
The Common Law of Freemasonry
is to be learned from the ancient usages of the Craft as developed and
interpreted from and after A.D. 1721. It is the foundation of Masonic
jurisprudence. The Landmarks are those ancient and universal fundamental
principles of the Craft which no Masonic authority can alter or repeal. This
Grand Lodge recognizes the following Landmarks: Monotheism the sole dogma of
Freemasonn-; belief in immortality the ultimate lesson of Masonie Philosophy:
the Volume of the Sacred Law, an indispensable part of the furniture of a
Lodge; the Legend of the Third Degree; Secrecy- the Symbolism of the Operative
Art, a Mason must be a free born male adult.
The above list of Landmarks is
not bewared to be exclusive. With reference to the general acceptance by
Masonic authorities in the linited States, as in the foregoing list, that
every Brother must be freeborn, note also the comment by Brother Lawrence on
English practise (Bee Masonic Jurisdiction and Symbolism, 1908, pages 141 and
142).
That a Freemason should be a
free man is axiomatic but previous to 1847 it was neee-ssaTy that he should be
a free man born of a free woman. But by the Emancipation Act a good many
persons became free men who yet were not born of free mothers, and on
September 1, 1847 Grand Lodge decided to abolish the disqualification, and now
the only reference to parentage is in Section 4 of the Antient Charges where
"honest parents" are spoken of. The older Constitutions retun, of course, in
the candidate's declaration. "I . . . being free by birth . . . ," and the
Lectures have referenees to the " degrading habit of slavery. " The older
Cenetitutums did not specify the age of the candidate, but simply required him
to be of mature and discreet age. Article 187 defines mature age to be the
legal age of manhood—twenty-one years and this requirement fits in with the
definition of a "free" man. In present times there is no question of slavery,
and therefore a free man mav well mean a man who is free to act independently
of the consent of his legal guardians a freedom which he only attains at the
age of manhood.
The circumstances under which
the change from Free-born to Free was made by the Grand Lodge of England are
in the Proceedings for the Quarterly Communication of September 1, 1847, and
read as follows:
The Most Worshipful Grand
Master. At the last Quarterly Communication I stated that I thought it
necessary some resolution should be come to as to those persons sho at the
time of their birth were not free, but who are now absolutely free, and w hose
mothers are also free . I stated then that it was very hard that persons of
this description should be precluded from joining our fraternity. Now this is
a subj ect which deserves the attention of Grand Lodge, and should indeed be
attended to without delay. My own opinion, is, that instead of making use of
the term "free-born," the expression "free man" would be sufficient to answer
the end required; for 80 long as a person is a free man he should be capable
of being initiated w Into our Order, and it should not be absolutely necessary
that he be born free. I hope, therefore, some Brother will make a Motion to
that effect..
The Grand Secretary wished to
know if he should read two letters on the subject, one from Antigua, the other
from Saint Vincent.
The Most Worshipful Grand
Master declared his assent, and the letters were read accordingly.
Right Worshipful Brother Dobie
was sure the Grand Lodge would agree with him that they were very much
indebted to the Grand Master for introducing this subject. It was a subject
which had been under the consideration of the late Grand Master, who, if he
had lived would have brought it forward; but to the present Gran Master they
were indebted that it was brought forward It therefore gave him great pleasure
in moving that the term " free " be used instead of "free-born"; that being
ali the change that would be required to give relief to the colonies and that
the change be made forthwith.
Worshipful Brother Goldsworthy
seconded the motion The Grand Secretary read the alterations that would be
required to be made in the Ancient Charges and Book of Constitutions if the
motions were carried.
Worshipful Brother Lane
suggested that an omission had been made in not noticing those parts of the
Lectures where the term occurs.
The Most Worshipful Grand
Master said the Lectures must conform to the Law.
Worshipful Brother Crucefix
was happy that Providence had spared his life to see that those whom the
nation had emancipated should also be emancipated as regarded Masonry. So long
ago as the year 1836 he addressed a letter on this subject to the then Grand
Master feeling that it was a most singular thing that they should emancipate
thousands of fellow-ereatures, and not afterwards allow them to participate in
the benefits of Free Masonry. The Worshipful Brother then read portions of the
letter, wherein it was contended that the term " freeborn " only referred to
the customs of the eastern nations and suggested that the words "free agent,"
if used instead, would counteract the evil.
Adage on this feeling he had
never since that time initiated a man under the form "free-born," ete. He
could not but express his gratitude for the manner in which the Grand Master
had brought the subject forward, as, if agreed to, it would afford the means
of many worthy men entering our blessed Order.
Right Worshipful Brother Dobie
then read the resolution, which proposed that the word "born" at the top of
page 6 of the Book of Constitutions, in the 3rd Head of the Ancient Charges,
be omitted, and that the Declaration to be signed by Candidates, as set forth
in page 86, be altered, and made to commence as follows, viz.: "I, being a
free man and of full age," etc.
A short discussion as to the
propriety of retaining the word "free" at all then ensued, at the termination
of which the proposed alteration being put from the Chair, was agreed to
unanimously.
Brother Dobie wished to know if the Grand Seeretary should send such answers
to the letters which had been read as would allow the writers to act upon them
insmediately, and without waiting for the confirmation of the next Quarterly
Communication. The Most Worshipful Grand Master consented that such answers
should be transmitted.
Section 186 of the Book of
Constitutums of the Grand Lodge of England, now has the statement "every
Candidate must be a free man, and at tile time of initiation in reputable
circumstances," and Section 187 requires the candidate to make the following
declaration:
In being a free man and of the
full age of twenty-one years, do declare that unbiased by the improper
solicitation of friends, and uninfluenced by mercenary or other unworthy
motive, I freely and voluntarily offer myself a candidate for the mvsteries of
Masonry; that I am prompted by a favourable opinion conceived of the
institution, and a desire of knowledge; and that I will cheerfully conform to
all the antient usages and established customs of the Order. Witness my hand.
this...day of ............... Witness ...................................
As to the permanent
characteristics of Landmarks we may note ,XXXIS of the General Regulations
compiled by Brother George Payne, Grand Master in 1720, approved by Grand
Lodge, 1721, published by Dr. James Anderson, 1723, and which reads: "Every
Annual Grand Lodge has an inherent poa er and Authority to make new
Regulations, or to alter these, for the real Benefit of this Ancient
Fraternity: provided always that the Old Land-Marks be carefully preserved."
The extent to which a Grand Lodge may go in the making of laws depends upon
its determination of what are or are not Landmarks, and as is seen at once by
a study of the above particulars the Landmarks of the Fraternity do not find
the same recognition and acceptance by all Grand Lodges. However, Doctor
Mackey's list has found general favor, the attitude of the Craft being well
outlined by the following comment in the Masonic Manual abut Code, Grand Lodge
of Georgia, 1917 (page 226).
No two authors agree in the
enumeration of the Landmarks and no attempt to state all the Landmarks
secretly has been universally accepted by the Craft. The Landmarks here stated
are those published by the eminent Masonic author, Doctor Mackey, in his
textbook on Masonic Jurisprudent where the student will find a valuable
commentary and explanation. The twenty-five Landmarks here given, however,
have been very generally recognized in the Craft of all the States as corrects
Brother Hawkins, in his
Concise Cyclopedia of Freemasonry (pages 138 and 139), describes the issuing
of a Warrant on October 26, 1809, authorizing certain Brethren to hold a
Special Lodge for "the purpose of ascertaining and promulgating the Ancient
Land Marks of the Craft." This Lodge met frequently for some time and on
October 19, 1810, it was "Resolved that it appears to this Lodge that the
ceremony of Installation of Masters of Lodges is one of the two landmarks of
the Craft, and ought to be observed." Brother Hawkins held that probably the
other one svas the modes of recognition of Entered Apprentices and Fellow
Crafts.
December 98, 1810, at a
wellattended Communication of the Lodge "the Right Worshipful Master proceeded
to point out the material parts in and between the several Degrees to which
the attention of the Masters of Lodges would he requisite in preserving the
Aneient Land Marks of the Order—such as the form of the Lodge, the number and
situation of the Officers—their different distinctions in the different
Degrees the restoration of the proper words to each Degree, and the making of
the pass-words between one Degree and another—instead of in the Degree." From
these extracts Brother Hawkins inferred that according to the Lodge of
Promulgation the Landmarks are: The form of the Lodge, its officers and their
duties, the words and passwords, and the Installation of the Master, "though,"
he continues, "it is a pity that in their resolution of October 19 they did
not state precisely what the two Landmarks were."
Another conjecture would be
that the word read as woo might have been intended for true. As we understand
Freemasonry today some difficulty would be oceasioned for most Brethren in
limiting the number of T. stndmarks to only two. But be they few or many we
may well take the injunction of old to heart: "Remove not the ancient landmark
which thy fathers have set" (Proverbs xecu, 28).
Dean Roscoe Pound in his
Masonic Jurisprudence defines Landmarks as "certain universal, unalterable,
and unrepealable fundamentals which have existed from time immemorial and are
so thoroughly a part of Freemasonry that no Masonic authority may derogate
from them or do aught but maintain them." Brother Melvin M. Johnson, Past
Grand Master of Massachusetts then discussing the determination of Masonic
Landmarkst Builder, July,1923 (page 195), says, "Probeally all Masonic
students will agree to this definition (by Brotller Pound) and then proceed
immediately to disagree upon the list of those fundamentals which are to be
classified as 'universal, unalterable, and unrepealable-' " Brother Johnson
points out that the key to the situation is to be found in the Ancient Charges
to which every Installed Master consents and by which he agrees to be bound.
At every Installation the Worshipful Master solemnly asserts it is not in the
power of any man or body of men to make innovations in the Body of
Freemasonry.
The essentials of Freemasonry
are the landmarks, and those combined are the Body of Freemasonry Brother
Johnson therefore submitted the following for the consideration of the Craft:
"The Landmarks are those essentials of Freemasonry without any one of which it
would no longer be Freemasonry."
Brother W- J. Chetwode Crawley
in his paper on Tlte Craft and Its Orphans in the Eighteenth Century,
Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge txxiii, page 1{57) says:
The ancient Landmarks of
Freemasonry, like all other Landmarks material and symbolic can only preserve
their stability when they reach down to sure foundations. When the philosophic
student unearths the underlying rock on which our ancient Landmarks rest, he
finds our sure foundations in the triple dogma of the fatherhood of God
brotherhood of man, and the life to come. All laws customs and methods that
obtain amongst us, and do not ultimately find footholds on this basis, are
thereby earrmarked as conventions and conveniences, in no way partaking of the
nature of ancient Landmarks.
Brother Albert Pike
contributed a discussion upon the Landmarks to the Proceedings, Masonic
Veterans A Association, District of Columbia, and this is reprinted in
Research Pamphlet, No. 20- 1924 (page 147), an excellent compilation by
Brother Silas H. Shepherd, published by the Wisconsin Grand Lodge Committee on
Masonic Research. Brother Pike says:
The Ancient Charges show by
what principles the relations of those of the Fellowship to each other were
regulated ;and these may not improperly be said to have been the ' Landmarks "
of the Craft . . . Perhaps no more can be said with certainty in regard to
them than that they were those essential principles on which the old simple
freemasonry was builded, and without which it would not have been Freemasonry:
the organization of the Craft into Lodges, the requisites for admission into
Fellowship, and the methods of government established at the beginning . . .
There is no common agreement in regard to what are and what are not
"Landmarks." That has never been definitely settled. Each writer makes out for
himself the list or catalogue of them according to his own fancy, some
counting more of them and others less.
Brother Shepherd has in the
following sentences from the Preface to his book attempted a brief state meat
of what is commonly understood by the Brethren as the Ancient Landmarks, as
well as his experience in seeking official light upon the subject: The
prevailing idea of the Ancient Landmarks is that they are those time-honored
and universal customs of freemasonry which have been the fundamental law of
the Fraternity from a period so remote that their origin cannot be traced. and
so essential that they cannot be modified or amended without changing the
character of the Fraternity. Although the universal reverence of the Ancient
Customs and Usages of the Fraternity" mightseem to presuppose an agreement as
to their number and interpretation, nevertheless jurists and scholars express
widely divergent opinions about them nor has any Grand Lodge ever promulgated
a lest that would be acceptable to all.
*
LANDMARKS, ANCIENT
Next only after the Book of
Constitutions of the original Grand Lodge which was published in 1723, the
Ahimin Rezon which was published by the Antient Grand Lodge in 1756, and
Thomas Smith Webb's Illustrations, the article on Ancient Landmarks which
Albert G. Mackey published in the 1877 edition of this Encyclopedia (see page
559 of this edition) has had more influence on American Freemasonry than any
other single writing. The list of Landmarks in it has been officially endorsed
by about one-half of the Grand Lodges; about one-half of these have officially
adopt^ ed it as a part of the Written Law.
Nevertheless the list has been
drastically criticized ever since it was published, by Grand Lodges as much as
by individual writers, and some fifteen or twenty Grand Lodges have adopted
lists of their own widely different from Mackey's. This criticism has been
directed at two points: first, it has been denied that the Landmarks have been
exactly twentyfive in number, and other writers have prepared lists ranging
from one or two up to fifty or sixty; second, it has been contended that the
Landmarks as given by Mackey are not from time immemorial. Bro. Theodore
Sutton Parvin, with whom Mackey discussed his article before it was printed,
made both these criticisms at the time, and proposed that the whole list be
reduced to five or six. (This incidentally proves that before publication
Mackey himself encountered the criticism his article would later meet).
Freemasonry is not a
fluviatile, protean thing which can change itself as time goes on, and as the
whim or desire of its members might elect, but has a fixed, inalterable
identity of its own. That identity has in it a number of constituent elements,
each of which is necessary to it, so that if any one of them is destroyed
Freemasonry as a whole is destroyed with it. It would be possible to effect a
number of changes in Craft usage which would leave Freemasonry itself in
complete integrity, and such changes have been made often enough, as when the
Two Degree system was changed to Three Degrees, or when the title of the
Master was changed from Right Worshipful to Worshipful; but other changes are
such that if only one of them were put into effect Freemasonry would be
destroyed. This is the substance of the Doctrine of Landmarks.
Any constituent of the
identity of Freemasonry, and without which that identity would cease, is a
Landmark. To destroy such a constituent is an Innovation, and it is for this
reason that if a Grand Lodge is guilty of an Innovation other Grand Lodges
immediately withdraw recognition from it. It is plain, for example, that the
requirement that a member must be an adult man is a Landmark, because the
admittance of women and children would entail a complete destruction of
age-old Masonry.
It is impossible to draw up a
hard-and-fast list of Landmarks that will include nothing except Landmarks and
exclude no Landmarks because the world in which Freemasonry works is a
changing world, and what might violate a Landmark in one age would not in
another. The great value of the Doctrine is in its recognition of the fact
that Freemasonry has a fixed, inalterable identity of its own which cannot be
changed by its own members according to taste or fashion or prejudice; and
because it is a standard or criterion by which any proposed change can be
tested. Would this proposed change alter Freemasonry? make of it something
else? if so it is an Innovation; if not, the proposed change can be considered
on its own merits.
Chetwode Crawley gave it as
his opinion that there are three Landmarks: Fatherhood of God; Brotherhood of
Man; the Life to Come.
William J. Hughan gave a
legalistic definition: "A landmark must be a regulation or custom, which
cannot be abrogated without placing offenders outside the pale of the Craft;
and all Landmarks should practically ante-date the Grand Lodge era. " He
mentions belief in God, secrecy, and male membership as being among such
rules. (It is difficult to guess what Hughan here means by "practically. ")
Mackenzie defined Landmarks as
" the leading principles from which there can be no deviation." His definition
had British Freemasonry in mind where there are only three Grand Lodges for a
very large population; it would have even more usefulness in the United States
where there are forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions; so many independent sovereign
Bodies need Landmarks as a common body of praetices and principles in order to
serve as a platform for united action, and as a means for maintaining comity;
this fact is an answer to the question raised by Sir Alfred Robbins as to why
the question of Landmarks is so much more discussed and debated in America
than it is in England. The Rev. George Oliver adopted so loose a defi nition
that it ran away with him, proliferating into hundreds of Landmarks which he
divided into twelve classes—too long a list is as unworkable as one which is
too short.
The phrase "landmarks of our
Order" is firs' found in George Payne's Regulations of 1721, which were
incorporated in the Book of Constitutions published in 1723. In Lodge Minutes
of the period that Book itself was sometimes referred to as "our Landmarks" in
other Minutes the Book and the Ritual were occasionally referred to as "our
two Landmarks. "
In his Masonic Encydopedia
Woodford set dowr a list of eighteen. J. W. Horsley was of the opinion that
Landmarks are of different degrees of "indispensability "; he named five as
indispensable :
1 ) Belief in a Personal God.
2) Belief in a Future Life.
3) The volume of the Sacred Law.
4) Secrecy.
5) The Mode of Recognition.
In a second and less
indispensable class he names:
1 ) Division into Three Degrees
2) Legend of the Third Degree. (It is an odd fact that makers of lists of
Landmarks almost invariably forget the High Grades; according to Horsley the
Scottish Rite, etc., would be a violation of his Landmark "Division into Three
Degrees.")
A. J. A. Poignant was a
skeptic who did not believe that any list is possible: "What is meant by the
Landmarks of the Order? . . . Has anybody within living memory received a
conclusive or satisfactory answer to this question?" He confuses the reality
of Landmarks with attempts to make lists of them. Has any mathematician "
within living memory " ever made an exhaustive list of the propositions and
theorems belonging to Euclid's geometry? or even the axioms? yet engineers
make practical use of geometry every day.
Justinian defined an unwritten
law as " what usage has approved"; E. L. Hawkins, recalling this, wrote: "Now
the Old Landmarks of the Craft are its unwritten laws, either sanctioned by
unwritten custom, or, if enacted, enacted at a period so remote that no trace
of their enactment can be found. "
He held that we have these in
the Old Charges. (It is worth noting that in England Lodge feasts would
satisfy Hawkins' definition, whereas in American Freemasonry Lodge feasts have
not been a custom for a century and a half.)
As quoted above George Oliver
wrote in one book that there are twelve classes of Landmarks; but w hen
writing elsewhere (in 1863) he became skeptical: " we have no actual criterion
by which we may determine what is a Landmark, and what is not"—though what he
meant by "actual criterion" he leaves his reader to guess. Theodore Sutton
Parvin also changed his mind; at one time he said there are three Landmarks;
at another he wrote that there are no Landmarks (a most extraordinary
statement!) because "no two men agree as to what they are." (His attention
should have been called to the fact that some twentyfive American Grand Lodges
agree.) Judge Josiah Drummond wrote: "If 'Landmarks' are anything else than
laws of the Craft, either originally expressly adopted or growing out of
immemorial usage, the term is a misnomer . . . A Landmark is something set,
and 'ancient Landmark' is one which has remained a long time. On the other
hand 'fundamental principles' are like truth, from everlasting to everlasting.
"
In 1871 Findel fixed on nine
Landmarks.
The Grand Lodge of New Jersey fixed on 10 in 1903.
John W. Simon chose 15.
Rob Morris made a list of 17.
The Grand Lodge of New York once selected 31.
The Grand Lodge of Kentucky adopted 54.
J. F. Newton approved Findel's list:
1) Universality.
2) Masonic organized fellowship.
3) The Qualifications.
4) Secrecy.
In 1856 the Grand Lodge of
Minnesota adopted a list of 26 "articles which had the force of Landmarks".
(For a good bibliography on Landmarks see The Builder: Vol. I; page 183.)
Hextall argued that the
"Ancient Landmarks" in the Book of Constitutions referred to Operative
building secrets in general, and to geometry in particular. Canon Horsley
wrote: "For myself I think that the test must have been, and should be now,
what are the tenets or matters the breach or repudiation of which would
entail, at any rate merit, expulsion from the order." (Horsley forgot that a
Lodge or Grand Lodge can be expelled from the Order, and oftentimes for
Innovation, which is a violation of Landmarks; the result is that his "test"
is circular.)
When Bro. C. F. Catlin
circularized American Grand Lodges in 1907 he found that 21 Grand Lodges had
never adopted legislation on the subject of Landmarks—they took them to be
unwritten laws; nine Grand Lodges had officially adopted the " Ancient
Charges. " Among those which had adopted legislation the number of Landmarks
chosen ranged in number from 10 to 75, and embodied more than 100 "separate
and distinct subjects."
In the Iowa Grand Lodge
Proceedings (1888; p. 157) Albert Pike undertook to demolish Mackey's list of
25 Landmarks one by one; "Perhaps no more can be said with certainty in regard
to them than that they were those essential principles on which the old simple
Freemasonry was built, and without which it could not have been Freemasonry;
the organization of the Craft into Lodges, the requisites for admission into
the fellowship, and the methods of government established at the beginning . .
. There is no common agreement in regard to what are and what are not
Landmarks." Lionel Vibert undertook to employ Mill's principle of logical
exclusion to the problem; in his Freemasonry Before the Existence of Grand
Lodges he attempted "to classify all the peculiar features of the Craft which
serve to distinguish it from all other religions, societies, gilds,
brotherhoods or what you will. "
NOTE:
In a book on the words used as titles by the nobility, aristocracy, chivalric
orders, etc., of Great Britain, R. T. Hampton , traces the word "landmark"
back to a point in Anglo Saxon where that language lies closest to its origins
in Sanskrit. In those early times a people, clan, or tribe in the upper half
of the European lands dwelt in an opening in the ever-stretching forests, on a
plain in a valley, or even in a dell; such an area they called a ' land."
Around this land were sharply defined boundaries, in the earliest times guards
or sentries marched up and down the boundary line as much to prevent
trespassing as to be on guard against attack.
Because of this march [maroo]
the boundary came to be called " the land marao," or " landmark "— oftentimes
the whole strip or region inside a border was called " the march "; Englishmen
still call the border between themselves and Wales " the Welsh marches," and
in the north the phrase " the marches of Scotland " antedated "borders of
Scotland." In the course of time the marching guards or sentinels were
replaced by banners, which hung on standards permanently fixed in the ground;
a banner represented a people's or tribe's identity —if a man was said to
belong to "Olaf's Banner" it meant that he belonged to the tribe or people of
which Olaf was King.
When it became necessary to
describe the location of a boundary in order to make treaties and agreements
with neighboring peoples, the line was said to run through a succession of
permanent features, a large rock, the crest of a hill, up the bed of a stream,
past a certain tree, etc., these were " land markers." The boundary, the
marching sentinels, and the permanent features which located the boundary,
these three meanings coalesced and they have belonged to the meaning of the
word ever since.
*
LAW, CIVIL, AND MASONRY
When in 1799, and to be
amended and increased in 1800, the Parliament of Great Britain enacted a law
to forbid secret societies (and which was a classic example of " legislation
of desperation " blindly and hurriedly concocted as a dike against the French
revolutionists on the east and the Irish rebels on the west) it would have
abolished the Fraternity along with the secret societies had not the Grand
Masters of the Modern and the Ancient Grand Lodges, and at the last moment,
appeared in person to give Parliament pledges and assurances and to make
themselves (members of the nobility) personally responsible for the good
behavior of Freemasonry—an impossibly humiliating position for the Fraternity,
and an ambiguous position for them. A clause was inserted in the Bill to
exclude Freemasonry, but it was so vaguely worded that for some years Grand
Lodges chartered no new Lodges.
Thirteen years later when the
Moderns and Ancient united it was discovered, as any intelligent man could
long before have seen, that in many instances property and funds said to be
Masonic are often not wholly so but are a part of, or interlock with, private
property and funds, as when the owner of an inn had gone to great expense to
remodel a Lodge room, or the income from an endowment was divided; when Modern
and Ancient Lodges united the often bitter, and sometimes large, property
claims had to be settled in court, and the Craft found itself without rules
and laws governing its own possession of funds and property.
When after the Revolution, the
clergy of New England followed the lead of the ineffable Rev. Jedediah Morse
in an Anti-Masonic crusade, New England Lodges were embarrassed and
half-paralyzed, and Masons suffered under a barrage of libelous accusations;
it appears that it did not occur to the Masons that they had any rights at
law, and as such, nor did their own Craft legislators ever tell them that they
had; they suffered in consequence of their ignorance, for if any man state in
public, " Freemasons are atheists, corruptionists, conspirators, liars, and
devil-worshipers " the statement is made not against a set of abstract
theories but against known and identifiable men, and these men can sue for
redress even though the charges had not mentioned them by name.
In the Anti-Masonic crusade
launched by the Morgan Affair the whole Fraternity, save in only a few cities,
notably in Boston, gave up and quit under the mistaken assumption that to
submit to destruction was somehow an Ancient Landmark—a dismal contrast to the
Operative Masons of the old days who never failed to stand up like men in
defense of themselves as against lords, country courts, clergy, employers, or
any injustice; and it would never have occurred to the men who for six
centuries comprised the Craft and w ho gave us our Landmarks that Masons have
no right in courts, no defense in the law, nor could they have entertained the
modern notion that civil jurisprudence is a subject outside the provenance and
subject-matter of Masonic jurisprudence.
Nor if they could have read the books on Masonic jurisprudence by Oliver,
Mackey, Morris, Macoy, Lawrence, et al, would they have been able to
understand the complete silence of those books about the hundred and one
points or salients where Craft law interlocks with the civil law; and they
would have said, as publicists and jurisconsults now say, that until Masonic
jurisprudence incorporates into itself a complete coverage of Masonry in its
relations to the Civil law it is not entitled to call itself a jurisprudence.
It is a Landmark that Lodge
members are not to take any quarrels among themselves, and as Masons, to
court; also it is a Landmark that a few esoteric matters can be nowhere
discussed—though, as courts themselves have stated, this latter fact is of no
importance in the eyes of the law since it consists of matters which nowhere
are justiciable. Except for two or three reservations of this type anything
and everything in Freemasonry comes under the eyes of the civil law, or may
come. Many Grand Bodies, or certain Boards or Committees in them, are
incorporated; Grand Bodies and Constituent Bodies own property: or they rent
it, and hence are responsible for it. They possess funds, own furniture and
paraphernalia, and equipment.
Lodge buildings stand on the
public street, and receive police and fire protection. It means something to a
man to be a Mason, in the reputation of himself and family, in the eyes of the
public; if his Lodge is disgraced, if he is expelled, his family suffers from
it. Actions taken by local and by Grand Bodies bind every member. Lodges carry
on their Order of Business according to parliamentary law; if that law is
conformed to, what is done is done by the Lodge as a body. The Lodge becomes
responsible; a Master often is legally responsible for his acts; and it is not
only the responsibilities of the Master which may involve him in a case in
court, but of other officers also, the Secretary, the Treasurer, Trustees, and
Building Committees.
At these points, and at many
others like them, are obvious and inevitable interlinkings with civil law.
But, as the records of them prove, a large number of cases involving Masonry
in the courts raise profounder and more philosophic questions. When the War
Office of the British Government forbade secret societies in the army and navy
did the ruling apply to Military Masonic Lodges? Should British Grand Lodges
have gone before Parliament to protect those Lodges? To do so would have meant
in the end that a high court would have to decide whether Freemasonry is a
secret society in the eyes of the law, or is a voluntary fraternity which,
like other societies, keeps its affairs private to itself, and admits members
only.
If every Grand Lodge in
America were to write into its Constitutions a disclaimer clause, defining
itself as a fraternity and not as a secret society, the action would serve as
a bulwark against future Anti-Masonic crusades (which inevitably will come).
When the case against McBlain Thomson's American Masonic Federation was tried
in the Federal Court at Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1922 (see Thomson Masonic
Fraud, by Isaac Blair Evans), the Federal Judge had to decide whether regular
Grand Lodges are of a de jure or a de facto origin; fortunately, he decided
for the latter, but if he had not done so every American Grand Lodge would
have been in legal jeopardy, and the case would have gone to the Supreme
Court; but when the Masonic lawyers, as they confessed privately, came to
prepare their arguments on the point they could find almost no actions,
decisions, or instruments on the question in the archives of Grand Lodges! If
every Grand Lodge were to write into its Constitution, in the paragraph on its
Title, some such statement as, " constituted according to time immemorial
practice " the whole Craft would be protected against future risks of that
kind; for if Thomson had won his case, if the court had decided that only
Grand Lodges are regular which can produce a written charter, not one Grand
Lodge in America except New York could have produced anything better than a
Grand Master's personal letter of deputation of the Colonial period, and most
Grand Lodges could have produced no documents.
When in a friendly suit the
Tax Commission of the State of New Mexico summoned the Grand Lodge to show
cause for not paying taxes, as the new State Constitution required, the Grand
Lodge there and then had to decide whether it was or was not a religious,
charitable, or educational organization; it lost the case in the District
Court but won it on appeal to the Supreme Court—the weightiest argument in the
eyes of the Supreme Court was the fact, apparently of small import, that
Masonic law compels a member to pay dues, and compels Lodges to use those
dues, at least in part, for charity and relief. If Grand Lodges were to
incorporate in their Constitutions a clause defining Masonic Purposes the
question as to taxation of Masonic property would be greatly enlightened.
For many years in Europe the
burning question has been as to the place of the Craft in the frame-work of
general society: Is it carrying on a propaganda? Is it subversive? Is it
automatically loyal to the established government? Does it support the
established church? Is it a society, a cult, a party, a church, a club? If
seventy-five years ago European leaders had busied themselves less about
getting counts and lords into their membership, or had composed their petty,
unessential differences, and by much labor had learned to understand the whole
of Freemasonry, the Craft would not have been a professed casus belli of World
War II—Freemasonry could have quietly recovered itself after the war because
it would have had a self to recover.
(A basis for this whole study,
especially in Europe, is Gierke's great history of Medieval law, though
Masonry is not its subject. In Maitland's edition of it [here recommended as
the first book of reference for Masonic jurisconsults] a number of classic
Masonic cases are discussed in the notes by way of commentary.)
In his short paper entitled
Freemasonry and the Civil Courts, Arthur H. Hay has prepared a model for
future studies. It is discursive and illustrative rather than analytical, but
it makes the main point, and makes it unambiguously: namely, that Masonic
jurisprudence must incorporate in itself that side of the Fraternity which
comes under the eye of the Civil Law. He shows, among other things, that the
meaning of the word " Freemasonry " has been a question at issue in Court;
that rights to residence in Masonic Homes have been decided; that Masons must
be made such according to the procedure required in the Grand Jurisdiction
where the making occurs; Masons accused of Morgan's murder were tried in
court; Lodge funds have been often in litigation; a court recognizes as
Masonic law whatever system of Masonic jurisprudence a Grand Lodge has been
using (embarrassing, where a Grand Lodge has none, for in the eyes of the law
a mere digest of decisions, acts, edicts, is not a jurisprudence; Mackey's is
oftenness used); courts recognize the existence of Landmarks, but are often
hard put to find what they are; a Lodge is not a partnership; an incorporated
Masonic body is in the eyes of the law a person; in "most jurisdictions"
Masonic property is held to be taxable; a member is not individually liable
for a note signed by the Lodge; seceding members lose all rights to a Lodge
property; a Master himself cannot bind a Lodge to a contract; Lodge property
cannot be distributed among its members; a Master cannot be tried by his
Lodge—this is recognized by the civil law; trustees are not personally liable
for Lodge debt; Masonic private correspondence is not privileged; civil courts
consider a reinstated member as a full member having no loss of privileges; an
expelled member cannot recover initiation fees; etc.
It was for many years the
accepted opinion that in the "famous Wm. Preston Case" Preston had been an
opinionated, stiff-necked, trouble-maker and that it was as a seceder or
schismatic (dreadful words among Trans-Atlantic Brethren!) that he set up his
small but interesting Grand Lodge of England South of the River Trent. The
records of the Antiquity Lodge No. 2 as published by Bros. Rylands and
Firebrace now make it clear that the then Grand Secretary, who had a
reputation for irascibility, picked a personal quarrel with Preston, was in
the wrong, and made use of the Grand Lodge as an engine of persecution—the
members of Antiquity, who knew the facts in detail and at firsthand, so
understood it because they left almost in a body.
They were expelled; after a
decade or so they were reinstated; but while the Lodge and while its members
individually were reviewed, tried, and sentenced by the Grand Lodge at no
moment were the actions taken by the Grand Lodge itself ever reviewed, though
the Grand Lodge had been in the wrong, and a Masonic solution was easier at
the time than it was to prove a decade later. It made it appear as if Masons
were under the law, whereas a Grand Lodge was above it.
Therefrom arises the question: has a Grand Lodge provided clear, practical
machinery by which its own acts are subject to review, revision, or rebuke,
and if so has it promulgated the fact in order that no Master may be timid
about protecting his own Lodge from injustices worked upon it by Grand
Officers, or from their neglect? From that in turn arises a more fundamental
question still: is a Lodge a constituent, or is it a subordinate?
If the former, anything done
in or by the Grand Lodge is subject to a review of peers when the Lodges are
assembled in Regular Grand Communication; if the latter, Grand Lodges' actions
are in the nature of things not subject to review by the Lodges. This question
as between constituent and subordinate has been a point at issue in a large
number of Masonic cases in civil courts.
According to The History of
the Wigan Grand Lodge, by Eustace B. Beesley (Manchester; 1920), some twelve
or more Lodges, mostly in Manchester and Liverpool, set up in 1822 a Grand
Lodge of their own which lasted until 1866, because the then Provincial Grand
Master refused to function, and for years brought his Provincial Grand Lodge
to a dead halt. The merits of the case are irrelevant here but the secession
raised a question about the Unwritten Law which more than once has been at
issue in civil courts: is the Grand Master, and in his own right, a ruler; or
is it the office, the Grand Mastership, which is supreme, any given Grand
Master being only its temporary incumbent? It may turn out, after a hundred
years of thorough legal thought has clarified the subject, that everywhere
there is nothing of final authority but the last law of Freemasonry; and that
competency resides anywhere within the Craft to initiate action against any
man or office who acts contrary to it, in an individual Mason, in a committee,
in a Lodge, in the Grand Lodge.
This would greatly simplify
the work of civil courts reviewing Masonic cases, because instead of having to
decide according to changing ordinances, or Masonic officers who differ among
themselves, or offices which differ from time to time and from state to state,
they could decide every case, in its Masonic aspects, in the terms of pure
Masonic law. This was Drummond's contention; he asserted that there is such a
thing as pure Masonic law; that it is final; and he refused to accept a digest
or collection of multitudinous Grand Lodge actions, Grand Master's edicts, and
by-laws as a statement of that law. Mackey had the same conception; but Mackey
built only one pier of the bridge, and omitted almost the whole question of
the civil law from his pages.
In the present posture of
affairs clandestinism is the point at which it is most clear that an
overhauling of Masonic jurisprudence in order to incorporate in it the
Masonic-civil interrelations is least academic, most urgent, most fateful. The
classic texts for a study of this question are the records of a hundred or
more court cases in the State of Ohio, the aftermath of a plague of Cerneauism
which had followed on the demoralization wrought by the Anti-Masonic Crusade,
the second most important center of which was at Oberlin, Ohio. If the Grand
Lodge had followed the advice of Lodges in Cincinnati it could have seized the
rattlesnake firmly behind the head and crushed out the whole evil at one
stroke; instead it chose to bury its own head in the sand.
New York was almost equally
inactive. Cerneauism was in essence nothing but a scheme to sell the weird
formulas which it miff called Scottish Rite Degrees at bargain rates, and to
any customer; secondarily, it was a scheme to bring the Three Degrees under
the control of its own so called Scots Degrees. At its best it was an ugly,
dreary, unrewarding thing which it is now our good fortune to be able to
forget.
During the Cerneau plague the
legally soporific Grand Lodges most concerned either ignored the evil, or else
took refuge in the once orthodox, vague notion that in some undisclosed sense
clandestinism is an interior, family question, to be dealt with leniently, and
not aired in court. But Cerneauism in Ohio went to court of itself, and did so
with no vagueness of purpose; and the records show that the single issue
before the courts was one which threatened the very existence of Freemasonry
in America, and that issue stands out from the testimony and the decisions
plain as a pike-staff, and of a razor sharpness: Is there, and can there be,
in the nature of things, one Freemasonry in Ohio, and only one? or can there
be many Freemasonries?
If there be many, then
Cerneauism has as good a right to call itself Freemasonry as the Grand Lodge
of Ohio; if Cerneau can start up a new Freemasonry, so can Jones, so can
Smith, so can Brown; there could be fifty Freemasonrys, each legal; and
therefore there would be none. If in the nature of things there can be but
one, then the Grand Lodge of Ohio is it, and any other society calling itself
Masonic is unlawful, and in practice is fraudulent.
It is now almost unanimously
believed among the courts that Freemasonry is necessarily and uniquely one;
since so, there is and can be but one sovereign Craft authority in any state;
the courts therefore condemn clandestine organizers for violation of the civil
law. In New York they have sent a succession of them to Sing Sing. Some
two-thirds of the Grand Lodges are aware of the existence of this vital,
protective law, and act upon it; the others remain soporifically ignorant of
it, and continue to believe that clandestinism is "a family affair," and is
not for the courts. They do not know that to send clandestine literature
through the post-office is to defraud by the use of the mails, is a
penitentiary offense; and in consequence Lodges in their smaller towns
continue to be embarrassed, or pestered, or challenged by a group of salesmen
for regalia and cipher books working under cover of the name "lodge." (For
details of such practices see the book by Evanst referred to above.)
Once the pure law of Masonry
is disentangled from occasional decisions and changing practices, and its
jurisprudence has been enlarged to take in at every point Masonic-civil laws
and interrelations, the whole organized Fraternity will have a clearer
understanding of itself; but more important still, it will have secured itself
against a recurrence of the dangerous Anti-Masonic movements of the Jedidiah
Morse, William Morgan, and Cerneau type, and of the more general kinds such as
have been in war years so de6tructive of the Craft in Europe. Masonic
Jurisprudence will have become something more than a book of rules for the
pragmatic decision of occasional questions, and will have become the chief
instrument and reliance of Masonic statesmanship in the future when it is
going to be compelled to take the whole world into its ken.
Reports, Digests, and Reviews
of Masonic cases in civil courts are plentiful among the forty-eight States;
so also with legislation, though very few States have adopted statutes or
passed bills directed at Freemasonry by name. A few specimens will show over
how broad a field the subjects range: In 1919 the Grand Lodge of New Jersey
forbade Schiller Lodge, No. 66, to use the German language. Counsel for the
Lodge filed a bill in equity in the court of chancery. (No Landmark requires
that English shall be used in a Lodge; on the other hand if the use of another
language destroys peace and harmony in the Lodge a Grand Lodge may take action
on that ground. The Grand Jurisdiction of New York has a large number of
"foreign-speaking Lodges," perhaps forty or fifty, in which German, Italian
Spanish, French, Swedish, Polish, etc., may be used. The majority of Grand
Lodges permit the same.)
In 1921 an Illinois judge
upheld a Mason's plea of property rights as against expulsion. The Criminal
Code of Illinois provides that insignia of any Lodges may be worn " by the
mother, sister, wife or daughter, " etc.
In the test case of Hammer
against the State, the Supreme Court of Indiana upheld a law making it a
misdemeanor for a non-member to wear insignia. (The "infringement of insignia"
in most States rests on same grounds as infringement of patented or
trade-marked emblems pictures names devices.)
The State of New York has a
Benevolent Orders Law. See also Penal Code of New York, Section 567-b
The State of Massachusetts has
a statute against clandestine bodies. (It would be Masonically lawful, and
wise, for Masons to seek to have a similar statute in each State.)
The above facts and
expositions make it plain that Masonic Jurisprudence can neither in theory nor
in practice be independent of the civil law. In scores of instances what is a
Masonic law at one end is a civil law at the other. Nor are Masonic Lodges
exempt from the civil law. A history of the interactions between the Craft and
civil law has never been written, but the materials for it are abundant, and
from the very earliest centuries when Freemasons were Operatives in gilds,
companies, and lodges. The earliest periods are found in such works as Riley's
Liber Albus, Stow's Survey, in the standard histories of Medieval law, the
writings of Pennant, and old Gild and Borough records. Gould and Mackey have
dealt faithfully with the period in their Histories. For the period from 1717
to the present the materials are inexhaustible and of easy access.
For a reader unable to work
through many volumes the subject as a whole is set forth in an excellent
epitome in a chapter entitled "The Statutes Relating to Labor" in Records of
the Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons, by Edward Conder, Jr.; Swan
Sonnenschein & Co.; London; 1894. A precis of the chapter will show the
interconnection between Masonic law and civil law; it also will show how the
history of the civil law lights up the history of Freemasonry, recalling the
while how often general laws have included Freemasonry in laws covering
associations, gilds, etc., without mentioning it by name. The chapter begins
at page 62:
1350. After the Black Death in
England in 1348 which swept away about one-third of the population the Masons,
like other craftsmen, united among themselves to demand better wages.
In 1349 Edward III enacted the famous Statute of Laborers to forbid this; and
in a statute of 1350 fixed their wages by law, Freemasons to receive not more
than 4d per day.
1356. The Mayor and Aldermen
of London had the Masons adopt a revised set of rules, agreed to on behalf of
the Freemasons by six men (including Henry de Yevele); on behalf of the Layers
or Setters, by six other men.
1375. In 1375 the election of
civic dignitaries was transferred from the wards to the City Companies. Also,
they elected a man to Parliament. There were at the time 48 Companies, they
elected 148 members to the Council. The Freemasons elected 2.
1390. Richard II demanded of
the Companies that they lay before him their charters, rolls, etc. This was
the famous " Writ for Returns "; it has been guessed that the original of the
Old Charges may have been written in response to that Writ.
1402. Masons (among others)
were not permitted to hire out for the week- only for the day.
1425. Henry VI ordained that "
Masons shall not Confederate in Chapters or Congregations." This was to
prevent a general strike of builder gilds. This statute proves and contra
certain arguments by Gould, that Masons did hold general assemblies. (The Act
was repealed in 1562.)
1444. Once again wages were
fixed by law. (Those who think of regulation of hours and wages by Government
as a modern innovation would be disillusioned by Medieval history.)
1450. The terms of
apprenticeship affirmed by law. (In about 1550 a term of seven years for
apprenticeship was fixed for the whole of England.)
1463. The Masons Company
secured through the city authorities the Priory and Convent of the Holy Church
of the Trinity within Oldgate for use as Masons Hall.
1469. A record of the time
shows that the Masons Company was required to furnish twenty armed men to "
the watch " to stand on duty at the city gates. (They were police.)
1472. The Masons Company
received a Grant of Arms. It was among the third or fourth to receive that
honor.
1481. The Company received
permission to wear its own Livery. (The great emphasis on clothing by the
early Speculative Lodges goes back to the customs of Livery—their caps,
collars, gauntlets, sashes, aprons, etc.)
1484. A number of members of
the Company were impressed (forcibly ordered) to work at Westminster by
Richard III. (One of the contractors at Westminster was the famous Mayor Sir
Richard Whittington hero of the old story of " Dick Whittington and his cat)
1495. Wages were again fixed by statute
1538 (circa). Henry VIII by
law fixed order of precedence among the Companies. The Masons were placed
thirty-third.
1558 (circa). Queen Elizabeth
revised and rearranged the accumulated Statutes of Laborers.
1563. The Company had held its
Hall on a 99 year lease; in 1563 it purchased the property.
1572. The Masons had to join
other Companies in furnishing trained soldiers. A record of 1585 showed them
supporting 8 men.
1591. The Company contributed
£16 toward building a navy for the King.
1602. It was assessed 25
quarters of grain to guard against shortage of food in the City.
1618. The Masons subscribed to
the planting of Colonies in north Ireland, or Ulster, under the name of The
Irish Society. (These colonists were for the most part Scotch Presbyterians.
Shiploads of them later migrated to America and settled in the Appalachians,
where they fought the British in the Revolution.)
NOTE:
During the " building boom " which swept the United States between 1920 A.D.
and 1930 A.D. thousands of Masonic bodies acting by themselves or in an
association erected new temples and in most instances did so by borrowing
money. The Depression which almost immediately followed sent hundreds of these
Temple Associations into whole or complete bankruptcy, and carried more than
200 of them into court. The courts found that many of the financing schemes,
though honest had been fearfully and wonderfully made, and that their framers
had often failed to draw them in the technical forms required by state laws.
It was another instance of the interrelation between Masonic and civil laws.
Yet another instance is found
in the matter of Lodge endowments and bequests. Almost every State has a set
of laws governing the conditions under which endowments and legacies can be
received- it is not uncommon for Masonic Bodies to lose legacies because of
their failure to conform to the technical requirements of those laws.
*
LANSDOWNE MANUSCRIPT
This version of the Old
Charges is of very early date, about the middle or latter half of the
sixteenth century, as these Free Masons Orders arul Constitutions are believed
to have been part of the collection made by Lord Burghley, Secretary of State
in the time of Edward VI, who died 1598 A.D. Brother Gould, in his History
(volume i, page 61), says: The Manuscript is contained on the inner side of
three sheets and a half of stout paper, eleven by fifteen inches, making in
all seven folios, many of the principal words being in large letters of an
ornamental character. Sims, Manuscript Department of the British Museum, does
not consider these " Orders" ever formed a roll, though there are indications
of the sheets having been stitched together at the top, and paper or vellum
was used for additional protection. It has evidently "seen service." It was
published in Freemasons Maaazirze, February 24, 1858, and Hughan's Old
CJwaraes (page 31), and since in fasnile reproduction by the Quatuor Coronati
Lodge. The catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts—which consisted of twelve
hundred and forty-five volumes, bought by the English Parliament, in 1807, for
£4,925 (about 323,837) has the following note on the contents of this
document: "No. 48. A very foolish legendary account of the origin of the Order
of Freemasonry" in the handwriting, it is said, of Sir Henry Ellis.
*
LANTURELUS, ORDRE DES
Instituted, according to
Clavel. in 1771, by the Marquis de Croismare. Its purposes or objects are not
now understood
*
LAPICIDA
A word sometimes used in
Masonic documents to denote a Freemason. It is derived from lapis, the Latin
meaning a stone. and caedo, to cut, and is employed by Varro and Livy to
signify a StoneCutter. But in the Low Latin of the medieval age it took
another meaning; and Du Cange defines it in his Glossarium as "Aedeficiorum
structor; Gall. Magon," that is, "A builder of edifices; in French, a Mason";
and he quotes two authorities of 1304 and 1392, where lapicidae evidently
means builders. In the Vocabularium of Ugutio, Anno 1592, Lapicedius is
defined As a Cutter of Stones. The Latin word now more commonly used by
Masonic writers for Freemason is Latomus; but Lapicida is purer Latin (see
Latomus).
*
LARMENIUS, JOHANNES MARCUS
According to the tradition of
the Order of the Temple the credibility of which is, however, denied by most
Masonic scholars John Mark Larmenius was in 1314 appointed by James de Molay
his successor as Grand Master of the Templars, which power was transmitted by
Larmenius to his successors in a document known as the Charter of Transmission
(see Temple, Order of the).
*
LA ROCHEFOUCAULT, BAYERS, LE
MARQUIS DE
Grand Master of the Rite
Ecossais Philosophique in 1776. A Freemason of considerable note.
*
LARUDAN, ABBE
The author of a work entitled
Les Franc-Magons ecrasés. Suite du livre inlitule l'Ordre des Franc-Maçons
trahi, traduit du Latin, meaning The Freemasons Crushed, a continuation of the
book entitled the Order of Freemasons Betrayed, translated from the Latin. The
first edition was published at Amsterdam in 1746. In calling it the sequel of
L'Ordre des Franc-Masons trahi, by the Abbe Perau, Larudan has sought to
attribute the authorship of his own libelous work to Perau, but without
success, as the internal evidence of style and of tone sufficiently
distinguishes the two works. Kloss says (Bibliographie, No. 1874) that this
work is the armory from which all subsequent enemies of Freemasonry have
derived their weapons. Larudan was the first to broach the theory that Oliver
Cromwell was the inventor of Freemasonry.
*
LASALLE, TROUBAT DE
One of the founded of the
Mother Lodge of the Rite Ecossais Philosophique.
*
LA-TENTE, EDOUARD
See InterrSional Buzz reau for
Masonic Affairs.
*
LATERAN COUNCILS
They were five in number,
regarded as Ecumenical, that is of world-wide importance, and were held in the
Church of Saint John Lateran in Rome, in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215, and 1512.
*
LATIN LANGUAGE IN LODGES
Latin, the tongue of the
ancient Roman Empire is still in the modern study of the sciences and the
scholarly classics a language long favored by the universities. In the higher
learning it holds tenaciously a prominent place and its international service
now and formerly often finds it useful as a medium of understanding among
scholars when other means of communication fail. Rob Roy MacGregor, in his
tales of travel, tells of illness in a monastery in Palestine where the Latin
of his boyhood was profitably refreshed while he sojourned with the monks who
had with him none other common means of expression. In pharmacy it continues
of everyday service and each medical prescription tells of its present
usefulness. The Roman Catholic Church makes it practically a universal
language employed everywhere she has a foothold. Freemasonry has also striking
instances of the usefulness off Latin in the Lodge.
The Roman Eagle Lodge, No.
160, chartered in 1788, Edinburgh, Scotland, was founded by Dr. John Brown,
its first Right Worshipful Master, to use the Scottish expression for the
Master of the Lodge. Dr. John Brown, born 1735, died 1788, studied at the
University of Edinburgh and became famous as a Latin scholar as well as in
founding a system of medical treatment of the sick that was called after him
the Brunonian method. He published a Latin work in 1780, his Elementa
Medicinae, Elements of Medicine, maintaining that most diseases often
indicated weakness, not excessive strength or excitement, and that
indiscriminate bleeding of the patient was a mistake, that frequently
supporting treatment was required. His system was then radical, met with much
opposition, but slowly prevailed. Some Brethren were students in his
University classes and he encouraged the Lodge to keep the Minutes and perform
other duties in Latin. The mother tongue became the medium of communication in
later years.
With Brother A. M. Mackay we
examined in Edinburgh the old records of Saint David's Lodge, No. 36. This is
the Lodge of which the noted novelist Sir Walter Scott was a member. Readers
of his Ivanhoe may recall his use of a Masonic term in writing of the tourney
where the field for Ousters was laid out as an "oblong square." However, at an
emergency meeting of Saint David's Lodge, September 13, 1783, four persons
were severally initiated and we read "the ceremony was performed b y the R. R.
Br. John Maclure, Grand Chaplain, & translated into Latin by Br. John Brown,
M.D., as none of them (the candidates) understood English." The initiates were
in the service of the Polish Government, and temporarily in Scotland. On
September 18, 1783, only five days later, the Master appears by the Minutes to
have informed the Lodge,
"That the four Polish Brethren
had been extremely diligent in learning the apprentices' part, and as their
time in this Country was to be short, they were anxious to be promoted to the
higher Degrees, and for that purpose he had ordered this Masters' Lodge to be
convened and hoped their request would be granted and their Entries having
proved tedious, first giving it in English and then translating it into Latin,
so the Most W Charles Wm. Little Esqr. Subt. G. M. of Scotland had voluntarily
offered to assist Br. John Brown, M.D., and Br. Clark of Saint Andrews Lodge,
and accordingly the Ceremony which took up above three hours was performed in
very Elegant Latin."
The nest Brethren applied for
certificates showing that they had been "made Masons and Members" of the
Lodge, and although "this request was new and contrary to the practice of the
Lodge, and had been refused in former eases, yet there was a distinction in
this case, the Brethren being Foreigners, who never where, nor probably would
ever be again in Scotland and that giving such certificates might be a means
not only of increasing Masonry, but also a probability of extending the
authority of the Grand Lodge" and therefore the suggestion was unanimously
agreed upon, the certificates written upon vellum and furnished the departing
Brethren who planned to set out for Poland in a few days (see our article in
Builder, September, 1926).
Brother Little was Depute
Master, Royal Lodge of Saint David's, No. 36 1784 6, and Right Worshipful
Master, Roman Eagle Lodge, No. 160, 1787-9, and Right Worshipful Master, Lodge
Edinburgh Saint Andrews, No. 48, in 1791. His great-great-grandson
Brigadier-General R. G. Gilmore, writes Brother Mackay, is Past Grand Master
Mason of Scotland Grand Standard-Bearer, Supreme Council, Thirty third Degree,
and Past Grand Sword-Bearer, Grand Lodge, Royal Order of Scotland, a striking
instance of prominent long-continued Masonic activity in one family .
*
LATOMIA
This word has sometimes been
used in modern Masonic documents as the Latin translation of the word Lodge,
with what correctness we will see. The Greek;latomeion, from the roots laas, a
stone, and temno, to cut, meant a place where stones were cut, a quarry. From
this the Romans got their word latomiae, more usually spelled lautumiae, which
also, in pure latinity, meant a Stone-quarry. But as slaves were confined and
made to work in the quarries by way of punishment, the name was given to any
prison excavated out of the living rock and below the surface of the earth,
and was especially so applied to the prison excavated by Servius Tullius under
the Capitoline hill at Rome, and to the state prison at Syracuse. Both xxxxxxx
and lautumiae are seldom used by ancient writers in their primary sense of a
stone-quarry, but both are used in the secondary sense of a prison, and
therefore Latomia cannot be considered a good equivalent for Lodge.
*
LATOMUS
By Masonic writers used as a
translation of Freemason into Latin; thus, Thor entitles his valuable work,
Acta Latomorum, meaning the Transactions of the Freemasons. This word was not
used in classical Latinity. In the Slow Latin of the Middle Ages it was used
as equivalent to lapmda. Du Cange defines it, in the form of lathomus, as a
cutter of stones, Caesor lapidum. He gives an example from one of the
ecclesiastical Constitutions, u here we find the expression "carpentarii ac
Latomi," which may mean Carpenters and Masons or Carpcnters and Stonecutters.
Du Cange also gives Latomus as one of the definitions of Maçonetus, which he
derives from the French Maçon. But Maçonetus and Latomus could not have had
precisely the same meaning, for in one of the examples cited by Du Cange, we
have "Joanne de Bareno, Magoneto, Latonio do Gratianopolis," or in English,
"John de Bareno, Mason and Stone-Cutter (?) of Grenoble." Latomus is here
evidently an addition to Maçonetus, showing two different kinds of occupation.
Mile have abundant evidence in medieval documents that a Magonetus was a
builder, and a Latomus was most probably an inferior order, what the Masonie
Constitutions call a Rough Mason. The propriety of applying it to a Freemason
seems doubtful. The word is sometimes found as Lathomus and Latonius.
*
LATOUR D'AWERGNE, LE PRINCE DE
nonresident of the Mother
Lodge of the Rite Ecossais Philosophique in 1805, and member of the Grand
Orient of France in 1814.
*
LATRES
This word has given much
unnecessary trouble to the commentators on the old Records of Freemasonry. In
the legend of the Craft contained in all the old Constitutions, we are
informed that the children of Lamech "knew that God would take vengeance for
sinne, either by fire or water, wherefore they did write these sciences that
they had found in two pillars of stone, that they might be found after that
God had taken vengeance; the one was of marble and would not burne, the other
was Latres and would not drown in water" (Harleian Manuscript. No. 1942). It
is the Latin word later, a brick.
The legend is derived from
Josephus (Jewish Antiquities I, ii), where the same story is told. Whiston
properly translates the passage, "they made two pillars; the one of brick, the
other of stone." The original Greek is ÷ _Sos, which has the same meaning. The
word is variously corrupted in the manuscripts. Thus the Harleian Manuscript
has latres, which comes nearest Who the correct Latin plural lateres; the
Cooke has lacerus; the Dowland, laterns; theLansdowne, latherne; and the
Sloane, No. 3848, getting furthest from the truth, has letera. It is strange
that Halliwell, Early History of Freemasonry in England (second edition, page
8), should have been ignorant of the true meaning and that Henry Phillips,
Freemasons Quarterly Revieto, 1836 (page 289), in commenting on the Harleian
Manuscript, should have supposed that it alluded "to some floating substance."
The Latin word later and the passage in Josephus ought readily to have led to
an explication.
*
LAUREL CROWN
A decoration used in some of
the higher Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The laurel is an
emblem of victory; and the corona triumphalis, or crown of victory, of the
Romans, which was given to generals who had gained a triumph by their
conquests, was made of laurel leaves. The laurel crown in Freemasonry is given
to him who has made a conquest over his passions.
*
LAURENS, J. L. A.
French Masonic writer, and the
author of an Essai historique et critique star la Franche-Maçonnerie, meaning
Historical and Critical Essay on Freemasonry, published at Paris in 1805. In
this work he gives a critical examination of the principal works that have
treated of the Institution. It contains also a refutation of the imputations
of anti-Masonic writers. In 1808 he edited an edition of the Vocabulaire des
Franc-Maçons, the first edition of which had been issued in 1805. In 1825 was
published a Histoire des Initiations de l'ancienne Egypte with an essay by
Laurens on the origin and aim of the Ancient Mysteries (Klaus, Bibliographie,
No. 3871).
*
LAURIE
See Lawrie, Ahander
*
LATER, BRAZEN
A large brazen vessel for
washing placed in the court of the Jewish tabernacle, where the officiating
priest cleansed his hands and feet, and as well the entrails of victims.
Constructed by command of Moses (Exodus XXXVIII, 8). A similar vessel was
Symbolically used at the entrance, in the modern French and Scottish Rites,
when conferring the Apprentice Degree. It has been used in many of the Degrees
of the latter Rite.
*
LAWFUL INFORMATION
See Information Lawful
*
LAW, MORAL
See Moral Law
*
LAW, ORAL
See Oral Law
*
LAW, PARLIAMENTARY
See Parliamentary Law
*
LAWRENCE SAMUEL CROCKE
born at Medford,
Massachusetts, November 22, 1832, and died there on September 24, 1911. A
graduate of Harvard University, a member of the banking firm of Bigelow and
Lawrence at Chicago, then in 1858 joined his father and brother in business at
Medford until 1905. Active in many important business enterprises he was also
Lieutenant, 1855; Captain, 1856; Major, 1859, and Colonel of the Fifth
Regiment, Massachusetts Militia, 1861, and organized his regiment on a war
footing even before the outbreak of Civil War hostilities and was severely
wounded in the battle of Bull Run, 1861. First Mayor of Medford. Brought to
light in Hiram Lodge at West Cambridge, novr Arlington, October 26, 1854, a
charter member of Mount Hermon Lodge, Medford, was Junior Warden, Senior
Warden, and Master until 1865; in 1870 elected Grand Senior Warden, ance 1869
a Director, and Grand Master of Massachusetts in 1881-3. Exalted, Saint Paul's
Chapter, June 13, 1855, and a charter member and Past High Priest, Mystic
Chapter at Medford. A Companion of Boston Council, and a Knight of DeMolay
Commandery, Boston, 1858; becoming Eminent Commander, he was Grand Commander
in 1894.
In the Scottish Rite he
received the Degrees Fourth to Thirty-second in 1862, the Honorary in 1864,
and became an Active on December 14, 1866. Grand Commander Barton Smith wrote
of him (Proceedings, 1912, page 228): "It is to his diplomatic skill and wise
and prudent judgment more than to that of any other one person, and probably
more than to that of all persons, that the great Reunion of 1867 was due. When
he succeeded in bringing about a friendly conference between William Sewall
Gardner and Henry L. Palmer, the great seed was sown from which has grown our
present Supreme Council." From May 17, 1867, to his resignation as Grand
Commander at Detroit, through failing health, September 22, 1910, he loyally
served as an officer of the Supreme Council, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.
*
LAWRIE, ALEXANDER
He was originally a
stocking-weaver, and afterward became a bookseller and stationer in Parliament
Square, Edinburgh, and printer of the Edinburgh Gazette. He was appointed
bookseller and stationer to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and afterward Grand
Secretary. In 1804 he published a book entitled The History of Freemasonry,
drawn from authentic sources of information; with an account of the Grand
Lodge of Scotland, from its Institution in t7S to the present time, compiled
from the Records; and an Appendix of Original Papers. Of this valuable and
interesting work, Lawrie was at one time deemed the author, notwithstanding
that the learning exhibited in the first part, and the numerous references to
Greek and Latin authorities, furnished abundant internal evidence of his
incapacity, from previous education, to have written it. The doubt which
naturally arises, whether he was really the author, derives great support from
the testimony of the late Dr. David Irving, Librarian to the Faculty of
Advocates, Edinburgh. A writer in the Notes and Queries (Third Series iii,
366), on May 9, 1863, stated that at the sale of the library of Doctor Irving,
on Saturday, March 28, 1B62, a copy of Lawrie's History of Freemasonry was
sold for £1. In that copy there was the following memorandum in the
handwriting of Doctor Irving:
The history of this book is
somewhat curious, and perhaps there are only two individuals now living by
whom it could be divulged, The late Alexander Lawrie, "Grand Stationer,"
wished to recommend himself to the Fraternity by the publication of such a
work. Through Doctor Anderson, he requested me to undertake its compilation
and offered a suitable remuneration. As I did not relish the task, he made a
similar offer to my old acquaintance David Brewster, by whom it was readily
undertaken, and I can say was executed to the entire satisfaction of his
employers. The title-page does not exhibit the name of the author, but the
dedication bears the signature of Alexander Lawrie, and the volume is commonly
described as Lawrie's History of Freemasonry
There can be no doubt of the
truth of this statement. It has never been unusual for publishers to avail
themselves of the labors of literary men and affix their own names to books
which they have written by proxy. Besides, the familiarity with abstruse
learning that this world exhibits, although totally irreconcilable with the
attainments of the stocking-weaver, can readily be assigned to Sir David
Brewster the philosopher (see Lyon's History of the Lodge of Edinburgh page
55). Lawrie had a son. William Alexander Laurie (he had thus, tor some unknown
reason, changed the spelling of his name), who was for many years the Grand
Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and died in office in 1870, highly
esteemed. In 1859 he published a nest edition of the History, with many
additions, under the title of The History of Freemasonry and the Grand Lodge
of Scotland, with chapters on the Knights Templar, Knights of Saint John, Mark
Masonry, and the Royal Arch Degree.
*
LAW, SACRED
The Sacred Scriptures, the
Holy Bible, the Great Light in Freemasonry (see also Sacred Law).
*
LAWS, GENERAL
See Laws of Freemasonry
*
LAWS, LOCAL
See Laws of Freemasonry
*
LAWS OF FREEMASONRY
The Laws of Freemasonry, or
those rules of action by which the Institution is governed, are very properly
divided into three classes:
1. Landmarks.
2. General Laws or Regulations.
3. Local Laws or Regulations.
1. Landmarks. These are the
unwritten laws of the Order, derived from those ancient and universal customs
which date at so remote a period that we have no record of their origin.
2. General Laws. These are all
those Regulations that have been enacted by such Bodies as had at the time
universal jurisdiction. They operate, therefore, over the Craft wheresoever
dispersed; and as the paramount Bodies which enacted them have long ceased to
exist, it would seem that they are unrepealable. It is generally agreed that
these General or Universal Laws are to be found in the old Constitutions and
Charges, so far as they were recognized and accepted by the Grand Lodge of
England at the revival in 1717, and adopted previous to the year 1721.
3. Local Laws. These are the
Regulations which, since 1721, have been and continue to be enacted by Grand
Lodges. They are of force only in those Jurisdictions which have adopted them,
and are repealable by the Bodies which have enacted them. They must, to be
valid, be not repugnant to the Landmarks or the General Laws, which are of
paramount authority.
*
LAWSUITS
In the Old Charges which were
approved in 1722, and published in 1723, by Anderson, in the Book of
Constitutions (page 56), the regulations as to lawsuits are thus laid down:
And if any of them do you injury you must apply to your own or his Lodge, and
from thence you may appeal to the Grand Lodge, at the Quarterly Communication
and from thence to the Annual Grand Lodge as has been the ancient laudable
conduct of our forefathers in every nation; never taking a legal course but
when the ease cannot be otherwise decided, and patiently listening to the
honest and friendly advice of Master and Fellows when they would prevent you
going to law with strangers or would excite you to put a speedy period to all
lawsuits that 80 you may mind the affair of Masonry with the more alacrity and
success; but with respect to Brothers or Fellows at law, the Master and
Brethren should kindly offer their mediation, which ought to be thankfully
submitted to by the contending Brethren and if that submission is
impracticable, they must, however, carry on their process or lawsuit without
wrath and rancor (not in the common way), saying or doing nothing which may
hinder brotherly love and good offices to be renewed and continued; that all
may see the benign influence of Masonry, as all true Masons have done from the
beginning of the world, and will do to the end of time.
*
LAX OBSERVANCE
Observantia Lata is the Latin
term. When the Rite of Strict Observance was instituted in Germany by Von Hund,
its disciples gave to all the other German Lodges which refused to submit to
its obedience and adopt its innovations, but preferred to remain faithful to
the English Rite, the title of Lodges of Lax Observance. Ragon, in his
Orthodosie Maçonnique (page 236), has committed the unaccountable error of
calling it a schism, established at Vienna in 1767; thus evidently confounding
it with Starck's Rite of the Clerks of Strict Observance.
*
LAY BROTHERS
A Society founded in the
eleventh century, consisting of two classes, who were skilled in architecture;
also recognized as a Degree in the Rite of Strict Observance.
*
LAYER
A term used in the old Records to designate a workman inferior to an Operative
Freemason. Thus: "Alsoe that no Mason make moulds, square or rule to any rough
layers" (Harleian Manuscript, No. 2054). In Doctor Murray's new English
Dictionary the word is said to mean "one who lays stones; a mason," and is
described as obsolete in this sense. A quotation is given from Wyclif's Bible
of 1382 (First Chronicles xxu, 15), "Many craftsmen, masons and leyers."
*
LAZARUS, ORDER OF
An Order instituted in
Palestine, termed the "United Order of Saint Lazarus and of our Beloved Lady
of Mount Carmel.'' It was a Military Order engaged against the Saracens, by
whom it was nearly destroyed. In 1150 the knights assumed the vows of
Obedience, Poverty, and Chastity, in the presence of William the Patriarch. In
1572, Gregory XII united the Italian knights of the Order with that of Saint
Maurice. Vincent de Paul, in 1617, founded a Religious Order, which was
approved in 1626, and erected into a congregation in 1635, and so called from
the Priory of Saint Lazarus in Paris, which was occupied by the Order during
the French Revolution. The members are called priests of the Mission, and are
employed in teaching and missionary labors.
*
LEBANON
A mountain, or rather a range
of mountains in Syria, extending from beyond Sidon to Tyre, and forming the
northern boundary of Palestine. Lebanon is celebrated for the cedars which it
produces, many of which are from fifty to eighty feet in height and cover with
their branches a space of ground the diameter of which is still greater.
Hiram, King of Tyre, in whose dominions Mount Lebanon was situated, furnished
these trees for the building of the Temple of Solomon. In relation to Lebanon,
Kitto, in his Biblical Cyclopedia, has these remarks:
The forests of the Lebanon
mountains only could supply the timber for the Temple. Such of these forests
as lay nearest the sea were in the possession of the Phenicians among whom
timber was in such constant demand, that they had acquired great and
acknowledged skill in the felling and transportation thereof; and hence it was
of such importance that Hiram consented to employ large Bodies of men in
Lebanon to hew timber, as well as others to perform the service of bringing it
down to the seaside, whence it was to be taken along the coasts in floats to
the port of Joppa, from which place it eould be easily taken across the
country to Jerusalem.
The Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite has dedicated to this mountain its Twenty-second Degree, or the
Prince of Lebanon. The Druses inhabit Mount Lebanon, and preserve there a
secret organization (see Druses).
*
LEBANON, PRINCE OF
See Knight of the Royal Ax
*
LE BAULD DE NANS, CLAUDE
ETIENNE
A distinguished Masonic
writer, born at Besangon in 1736. He was by profession a highly respected
actor, and a man of much learning, which he devoted to the cultivation of
Freemasonry. He was for seven years Master of the Lodge Saint Charles de
l'Union, in Mannheim; and on his removal to Berlin, in 1771, became the Orator
of the Lodge Royale York de l'Mmitié, Royal York of Friendship, and editor of
a Masonic journal. He delivered, while Orator of the dodge a position which he
resigned in 1778 a large number of discourses, a collection of which was
published at Berlin in 1788. He also composed many Masonic odes and songs, and
published, in 1781, a collection of his songs for the use of the Lodge Royale
York, and in 1786, his Lyre Masonnique, or Masonic Harp, a familiar title for
a songbook. He is described by his contemporaries as a man of great knowledge
and talents, and Fessler has paid a warm tribute to his learning and to his
labors in behalf of Freemasonry. He died at Berlin in 1789.
*
LECHANGEUR
An officer of one of the
Lodges of Milan, Italy, of whom Rebold (History of Three Grand Lodges, page
575) gives the following account. When, in 1805, a Supreme Council of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established at Milan, Lechangeur became
a candidate for membership. He received some of the Degrees; but subsequently
the founders of the Council, for satisfactory reasons, declined to confer upon
him the superior grades. Incensed at this, Lechangeur announced to them that
ne would elevate himself above them by creating a Rite of ninety Degrees, into
which they should not be admitted. He carried this project into effect, and
the result was the Rite of Mizraim, of which he declared himself to be the
Superior Grand Conservator. His energies seem to have been exhausted in the
creation of his unwieldy rite, for no Chapters were established except in the
City of Naples. But in 1810 a patent was granted by him to Michel Bedarride,
by whom the Rite was propagated in France. Lechangeur's fame, as the founder
of the Rite, was overshadowed by the greater zeal and impetuosity of Bedarride,
by whom his self-assumed prerogatives were usurped. He died in 1812.
*
LECTURE
Each Degree of Freemasonry
contains a course of instruction, in which the ceremonies, traditions, and
moral instruction appertaining to the Degree are set forth. This arrangement
is called a Lecture. Each lecture, for the sake of convenience, and for the
purpose of conforming to certain divisions in the ceremonies, is divided into
sections, the number of which have varied at different periods, although the
substance remains the same. According to Preston, the lecture of the first
Degree contains six sections; that of the second, four; and that of the third,
twelve. But according to the arrangement adopted in this country, commonly
known as the Webb lectures, there are three sections in the first Degree, two
in the second, and three in the third.
In the Entered Apprentice's
Degree, the first section is almost entirely devoted to a recapitulation of
the ceremonies of initiation. The initiatory portion, however, supplies
certain modes of recognition. The second section is occupied with an
explanation of the ceremonies that had been detailed in the first the two
together furnishing the interpretation of ritualistic symbolism. The third is
exclusively occupied in explaining the signification of the symbols peculiar
to the Degree.
In the Fellow Craft's Degree, the first section, like the first section of the
Entered Apprentice, is merely a recapitulation of ceremonies, with a passing
commentary on some of them. The second section introduces the neophyte for the
first time to the differences between Operative and Speculative Freemasonry
and to the Temple of King Solomon as a Masonic symbol, while the candidate is
ingeniously deputed as a seeker after knowledge.
In the Master's Degree the
first section is again only a detail of ceremonies. The second section is the
most important and impressive portion of all the lectures, for it contains the
legend on which the whole symbolic character of the Institution is founded.
The third section is an interpretation of the symbols of the Degree, and is,
of all the sections, the one least creditable to the composer.
In fact, it must be confessed
that many of the interpretations given in these lectures are unsatisfactory to
the cultivated mind, and seem to have been adopted on the principle of the old
Egyptians, who made use of symbols to conceal rather than to express all their
thoughts. Learned Freemasons have been, therefore, always disposed to go
beyond the mere technicalities and stereotyped phrases of the lectures, and to
look in the history and the philosophy of the ancient religions, and the
organization of the ancient mysteries, for a true explanation of most of the
symbols of Freemasonry, and there they have always been enabled to find this
true interpretation. The lectures, however, serve as an introduction or
preliminary es say, enabling the student, as he advances in his initiation, to
become acquainted with the symbolic character of the Institution. But if he
ever expects to become a learned Freemason, he must seek in other sources for
the true development of Masonic symbolism. The lectures alone are but the
Primer of the Science.
*
LECTURER, GRAND
An officer known only in the
United States. He is appointed by the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge. His
duty is to visit the subordinate Lodges, and instruct them in the Ritual of
the Order as practiced in his Jurisdiction, for which he receives compensation
partly from the Grand Lodge and partly from the Lodges which he visits, or
wholly from the Grand Lodge.
*
LECTURES, HISTORY OF THE
To each of the Degrees of
Symbolic Freemasonry a catechetical instruction is appended, in which the
ceremonies, traditions, and other esoteric instructions of the Degree are
contained. A knowledge of these lectures which must, of course, be
communicated by oral teaching constitutes a very important part of a Masonic
education; and, until the great progress made within the present century in
Masonic literature, many bright Masons, as they are technically styled, could
claim no other foundation than such a knowledge for their high Masonic
reputation.
But some share of learning
more difficult to attain, and more sublime in its character than anything to
be found in these oral catechisms, is now considered necessary to form a
Masonic scholar. Still, as the best commentary on the ritual observances is to
be found in the lectures, and as they also furnish a large portion of that
secret mode of recognition, or that universal language, which has always been
the boast of the Institution, not only is a knowledge of them absolutely
necessary to every practical Freemason, but a history of the changes which
they have from time to time undergone constitutes an interesting part of the
literature of the Order. Comparatively speaking, comparatively in respect to
the age of the Masonic Institution, the system of Lodge lectures is
undoubtedly a modern invention.
That is to say, we can find no
traces of any forms of lectures like the present before the middle, or perhaps
the close, of the seventeenth century. Examinations, however, of a technical
nature, intended to test the claims of the person examined to the privileges
of the Order, appear to have existed at an early period.
They were used until at least
the middle of the eighteenth century, but were perpetually changing, so that
the tests of one generation of Freemasons constituted no tests for the
succeeding one. Brother Oliver very properly describes them as being
"something like the conundrums of the present day difficult of comprehension
admitting only of one answer, which appeared to have no direct correspondence
with the question, and applicable only in consonance with the mysteries and
symbols of the Institution" (On the Masonic Tests of the Eighteenth Century.
Golden Remains, volume iv, page 16).
These tests were sometimes, at
first, distinct from the lectures, and sometimes, at a later period,
incorporated with them. A specimen is the answer to the question, "How blows
the wind?" which was, "Due East and West."
The Examination of a German
(Stone-Mason, which is given by Fidel in the appendix to his Historic was most
probably in use in the fourteenth century. Doctor Oliver was in possession of
what purports to be a formula, which he supposes to have been used during the
Grand Mastership of Archbishop Chichely in the reign of Henry VI, and from
which (Revelation of a Spare, page 11) he makes the following extracts:
Question: Peace be here?
Answer. I hope there is.
Q. What o'clock is it?
A. It is going to six, or going to twelve.
Q. Are you very busy?
A. No.
Q. Will you give or take?
A. Both; or which you please.
Q. How go squares?
A. Straight.
Q. Are vou rich or poor?
A. Neither.
Q. Change me that?
A. I will.
Q. In the name of the King and the Holy Church. are you a Mason?
A. I am so taken to be.
Q. What is a Mason?
A. A man begot by a man, born of a woman, brother to a king.
Q. What is a fellow?
A. A companion of a prince, etc.
There are other questions and
answers of a similar nature, conveying no instruction, and intended apparently
to be used only as tests. Doctor Oliver attributes, it will be seen, the date
of these questions to the beginning of the fifteenth century; but the
correctness of this assumption is doubtful. They have no internal evidence in
style of having been the invention of so early a period of the English tongue.
The earliest form of catechism
that we have on record is that contained in the Sloane Manuscript, No. 3329,
now in the British Museum, which has been printed and published by the Rev. A.
F. A. Woodford. One familiar with the catechisms of the eighteenth century
will detect the origin of much that they contain in this early specimen. It is
termed in the manuscript the Freemason's "private discourse by way of question
and answer," and is in these words:
Question. Are you a Mason?
A. Yes, I am a Freemason.
Q. How shall I know that?
A. By perfect signs and tokens and the first points of my Entrance.
Q. Which is the first sign or token, shew me the first and I will shew you the
second.
A. The first is heal and conceal or conceal and keep secret by no less pain
than cutting my tongue from my throat.
Q. Where were you made a mason?
A. In a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge.
Q. What is a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge?
A. A just and perfect lodge is two Entered apprentices two fellow crafts and
two Masters, more or fewer the more the merrier the fewer the better clear but
if need require five will serve that is, two Entered apprentices , two fellow
crafts and one Master on the highest hill or lowest valley of the world
without the crow of a coeh or the bark of a dog.
Q. From whom do you derive your principally.
A. From a greater than you.
Q. Who is that on earth that is greater than a freemason?
A. He y't was earyed to y'e highest pinnicall of the temple of Jerusalem.
Q. Whith'r is vour lodge shut or open'?
A. It is shut.
Q. Where Iyes the keys of the lodge doore?
A. They ley in a bound ease or under a three cornered pavem't about a foote
and halfe from the lodge door.
Q. What is the key of your lodge door made of?
A. It is not made of wood stone iron or steel or any sort of mettle but the
tongue of good report behind a Brothers back as well as before his face.
Q. How many gavels belong to your lodge?
A. There are three the square pavement the blazing star and the Danty tassley.
Q. How long is the cable rope of your lodge?
A. As long as from the Lop of the liver to the root of the tongue.
Q. How many lights are in your lodge?
A. Three the sun the master and the square.
Q. How high i8 your lodge?
A. Without foots yards or Inches, it reaches to heaven.
Q. How stood your lodge?
A. East and west as all holly Temples stand.
Q. Which is the masters place in the lodge?
A. The east place is the masters place in the lodge and the jewel resteth on
him first and he setteth men to work w't the m'rs have in the forenoon the
wardens reap in the afternoon.
Q. Where was the word first given?
A. At the tower of Babylon.
Q. Where did they first call their lodger
A. At the holy chapel of Saint John.
Q. How stood your lodge?
A. As the said holy chapel and all other holy Temples stand (viz.) east and
west.
Q. How many lights are in your lodge?
A. Two one to see to go in and another to see to work.
Q. What were you sworn by?
A. By God and the square.
Q. Whither above the clothes or under the clothes?
A. Under the clothes.
Q. Under what arms?
A. Under the right arms. God is grateful to all Worshipful Masters and fellows
in that Worshipful lodge from whence we last came and to you good fellow with
is your name. A. J or B then giving the grip of the hand he will say Brother
John greet you well you.
A. God's good greeting to you dear Brother.
But when we speak of the
lectures, in the modern sense, as containing an exposition of the symbolism of
the Order, we may consider it as an established historical fact, that the
Fraternity were without any such system until after the revival in 1717.
Previous to that time, brief extemporary addresses and charges in addition to
these test catechisms were used by the Pilasters of Lodges, which, of course,
varied in excellence with the varied attainments and talents of the presiding
officer. We know, however, that a series of charges were in use about the
middle and end of the seventeenth century, which were ordered "to be read at
the making of a Freemason." These Charges and Covenants, as they were called,
contained no instructions on the symbolism and ceremonies of the Order, but
were confined to an explanation of the duties of Freemasons to each other.
They were altogether exoteric in their character, and have accordingly been
repeatedly printed in the authorized publications of the Fraternity.
Doctor Oliver, who had ampler
opportunities than any other Masonic writer of investigating this subject,
says that the earliest authorized lectures with which he has met were those of
1720. They were arranged by Doctors Anderson and Desaguliers, perhaps, at the
same time that they were compiling the Charges and Regulations from the
ancient Constitutions. They were written in a ectechetical form, which form
has ever since been retained in all subsequent Masonic lectures. Brother
Oliver says that "the questions and answers are short and comprehensive, and
contain a brief digest of the general principles of the Craft as it was
understood at that period." The "digest" must, indeed, have been brief, since
the lecture of the Third Degree, or what was called "the Master's Part,"
contained only thirty-one questions, many of which are simply tests of
recognition. Doctor Oliver says the number of questions was only seven; but he
probably refers to the seven tests which conclude the lecture. There are,
however, twenty-four other questions that precede these.
A comparison of these the
primitive lectures, as they may be called with those in use in America at the
present day, demonstrate that a great many changes have taken place. There are
not only omissions of some things, and additions of others, but sometimes the
explanations of the same points are entirely different in the two systems.
Thus the Andersonian lectures describe the "furniture" of a Lodge as being the
"Mosaic pavement, blazing star, and indented tassel," emblems which are now,
perhaps more properly, designated as "ornaments." But the present furniture of
a Lodge is also added to the pavement, star, and tassel, under the name of
"other furniture." The "greater lights" of Freemasonry are entirely omitted,
or, if we are to suppose them to be meant by the expression "fixed lights,"
then these are referred, differently from our system, to the three windows of
the Lodge.
In the First Degree may be
noticed, among others, the following points in the Andersonian lectures which
are omitted in the American system: the place and duty of the Senior and
Junior Entered Apprentices, the punishment of cowans, the bone bonebox, and
all that refers to it; the clothing of the Master, the age of an Apprentice,
the uses of the day and night, and the direction of the wind.
These latter, however, are,
strictly speaking, what the Freemasons of that time denominated tests. In the
same Degree, the following, besides many other important points in the present
system, are altogether omitted in the old lectures of Anderson: the place
where Freemasons anciently met, the theological ladder, and the lines
parallel. Important changes have been made in several particulars; as, for
instance, in the "points of entrance," the ancient lecture giving an entirely
different interpretation of the expression, and designating what are now
called "points of entrance" by the term "principal signs"; the distinctions
between Operative and Speculative Freemasonry, which are now referred to the
Second Degree, are there given in the First; and the dedication of the Bible,
Compass, and Square is differently explained. In the Second Degree, the
variations of the old from the modern lectures are still greater. The old
lecture is in the first place, very brief, and much instruction deemed
important at the present day was then altogether omitted. There is no
reference to the distinctions between Operative and Speculative Freemasonry,
but this topic is adverted to in the former lecture; the approaches to the
Middle Chamber are very differently arranged; and not a single word is said of
the Fords of the River Jordan. It must be confessed that the ancient lecture
of the Fellow Craft is immeasurably inferior to that contained in the modern
system, and especially in that of Webb.
The Andersonian lecture of the
Third Degree is brief, and therefore imperfect. The legend is, of course,
referred to, and its explanation occupies nearly the whole of the lecture; but
the details are meager, and many important facts are omitted, while there are
in other points striking differences between the ancient and the present
system.
But, after' all. there is a
general feature of similarity a substrata of identity pervading the two
systems of lectures the ancient and the modern which shows that the one
derives its parentage from the other. In fact, some of the answers given in
the year 1730 are, word for word, the same as those used in America at the
present time.
Here Brother Hawkins says
Martin Clare and Dunckerley, which see elsewhere, are often credited with
being revisers of the English ritual and lectures, but. as there is no proof
whatever that they had anything to do with such revision it does not seem
worth while to repeat the well-worn tale here. Nothing can be said with any
certainty about the lectures in England until the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, when William Preston took the matter in hand and revised
or more probably rewrote them entirely. Brother Mackey continues from this
point, commenting on Preston.
Preston divided the lecture on
the First Degree into six sections, the Second into four, and the Third into
twelve. But of the twelve sections of the third lecture, seven only strictly
appertain to the Master's Degree, the remaining five referring to the
ceremonies of the Order, which, in the American system, are contained in the
Past Master's lecture. Preston has recapitulated the subjects of these several
lectures in his Illustrations of Masonry; and if the book were not now so
readily accessible, it would be worth while to copy his remarks. It is
sufficient, however, to say that he has presented us with a philosophical
system of Freemasonry, which, coming immediately after the unscientific and
scanty details which up to his time had been the subjects of Lodge
instructions, must have been like the bursting forth of a sun from the midst
of midnight darkness. There was no twilight or dawn to warn the unexpectant
Fraternity of the light that was about to shine upon them. But at once,
without preparation without any gradual progress or growth from almost nothing
to superfluity—the Prestonian lectures were given to the Order in all their
fulness of illustration and richness of symbolism and science, as a substitute
for the plain and almost unmeaning systems that had previously prevailed.
Not that Freemasonry had not
always been a science, but that for all that time, and longer, her science had
been dormant—had been in abeyance. From 1717 the Craft had been engaged in
something less profitable, but more congenial than the cultivation of Masonic
science. The pleasant suppers, the modicums of punch, the harmony of song, the
miserable puns, which would have provoked the ire of Johnson beyond anything
that Boswell has recorded, left no time for inquiry into abstruser matters.
The revelations of Doctor Oliver's square furnish us abundant positive
evidence of the low state of Masonic literature in those days; and if we need
negative proof, we will find it in the entire absence of any readable book on
Scientific Freemasonry, until the appearance of Hutchinson's and Preston's
works. Preston's lectures were, therefore, undoubtedly the inauguration of a
new era in the esoteric system of Freemasonry.
These lectures continued for
nearly half a century to be the authoritative text of the Order in England.
But in 1813 the two Grand Lodges the Moderns and the Ancients, as they were
called after years of antagonism, were happily united, and then, as the first
exercise of this newly combined authority, it was determined "to revise" the
system of lectures.
This duty was entrusted to the
Rev. Dr. Hemming, the Senior Grand Warden, and the result was the Union or
Hemming Lectures, which are now the authoritative standard of English
Freemasonry. In these lectures many alterations of the Prestonian system were
made, and some of the most cherished symbols of the Fraternity were abandoned,
as, for instance, the twelve grand points, the initiation of the freeborn, and
the lines parallel (as to free born in particular, see Landmarks). Preston's
lectures were rejected in consequence, it is said, of their Christian
references; and Doctor Hemming, in attempting to avoid this error, fell into a
greater one, of omitting in his new course some of the important ritualistic
landmarks of the Order.
Brother E. L. Hawkins here
observes that nothing, definite can be stated about the lectures used in
America until near the end of the eighteenth century when a system of lectures
was put forth by Thomas Smith Webb.
The lectures of Webb contained
much, continues Doctor Mackey, that was almost a verbal copy of parts of
Preston; but the whole system was briefer and the paragraphs were framed with
an evident views to facility in committing them to memory. It is an herculean
task to acquire the whole system of Pretorian lectures, while that of Webb may
be mastered in a comparatively short time, and by much inferior intellects.
There have, in consequence, in former years, been many "bright Masons" and
"skillful lecturers" whose brightness and skill consisted only in the easy
repetition from memory of the set form of phrases established by Webb, and who
were otherwise ignorant of all the science, the philosophy, and the history of
Freemasonry. But in the later years, a perfect verbal knowledge of the
lectures has not been esteemed so highly in America as in England, and the
most erudite Freemasons have devoted themselves to the study of those
illustrations and that symbolism of the Order which lie outside of the
lectures. Book Freemasonry that is, the study of the principles of the
Institution as any other science is studied, by means of the various treatises
which have been written on these subjects has been, from year to year, getting
more popular with the American Masonic public which is becoming emphatically a
reading people.
The lecture on the Third
Degree is eminently Hutchinsonian in its character, and Gontains the bud from
which, by a little cultivation, we might bring forth a gorgeous blossom of
symbolism. Hence, the Third Degree has always been the favorite of American
Freemasons. But the lectures of the First and Second Degrees, the latter
particularly, are meager and unsatisfactory. The explanations, for instance,
of the Form and Extent of the Lodge, of its Covering, of the Theological
Ladder, and especially of the Point within the Circle, will disappoint any
intellectual student who is seeking, in a symbolical alliance, for some
rational explanation of its symbols that promises to be worthy of his
investigations (see Dew Drop Lecture and Middle Caliber Lecture)
*
LEFRANC
The Abbé Lefranc, Superior of
the House of the Eudistes at Caen, was a very bitter enemy of Freemasonry, and
the author of two libelous works against the Craft, both published in Paris;
the first and best known, entitled Le Voile lePé pour les curieuc, ou le
secret des revolutions, réuélé àraids de la franc-Mafonnerie, or The Veil
Lified for the Curious, or the Secret of Revolutions, disclosed as the effort
of Freemasonry, 1791, republished at Leige in 1827, arid the other,
Conjuration corare la religion Catholique et les sowerains, dent le projet,
coypu en France, dot s'éxécuter dans Junipers enter, or the Conspiracy against
the Catholic Religion and Rulers, a Project conceived in France aims to spread
over the Whole World, 1792. In these scandalous books, and especially in the
former, Lefranc has, to use the language of Thory (Acta Latomorum I, 192),
"vomited the most undeserved abuse of the Order." Of the Veil Lifled, the two
great detractors of Freemasonry, Robison and Barruel, entertained different
opinions. Robison made great use of it in his Proofs of a Conspiracy; but
Barruel, while speaking highly of the Abbé's virtues, doubts his accuracy and
declines to trust to his authority.
Lefranc was slain in the
massacre of September 9, at the Convent of the Carmelites, in Paris, with one
hundred and ninety-one other priests. Thory (Acta Latomorum i, 192) says that
M. Ledhui, a Freemason, who was present at the sanguinary scene, attempted to
save the life of Lefranc, and nearly lost his own in the effort. The Abbé says
that, on the death of a friend, who was a zealous Freemason and Master of a
Lodge, he found among his papers a collection of Masonic writings containing
the rituals of a great many Degrees, and from these he obtained the
information on which he has based his attacks upon the Order. Some idea may be
formed of his accuracy and credibility, from the fact that he asserts that
Faustus Socinus, the Father of Mcdern Unitarianism, was the contriver and
inventor of the Masonic system a theory so absurd that even Robison and
Barruel both reject it.
*
LEFT HAND
Among the ancients the left
hand was a symbol of equity and justice. Thus, Apulcius (Metamorphoses 1, xi),
when describing the procession in honor of Isis, says one of the ministers of
the sacred rites "bore the symbol of equity, a left hand, fashioned with the
palm extended; which seems to be more adapted to administering equity than the
right, from its natural inertness, and its being endowed with no craft and no
subtlety."
*
LEFT SIDE
In the symbolism of
Freemasonry, the First Degree is represented by the left side, which is to
indicate that as the left is the weaker part of the body, so is the Entered
Apprentice's Degree the weakest part of Freemasonry. This doctrine, that the
left is the weaker side of the body, is very ancient.
Plato savs it arises from the fact that the right is more used; but Aristotle
contends that the organs of the right side are by nature more powerful than
those of the left.
*
LEGALLY CONSTITUTED
See Constituted, Legally
*
LEGATE
In the Middle Ages, a Legate,
or leqatus, was one who was, says Du Cange (Glossary or Glossarium)," in
provincias à Principe ad exercendas judicias mittebalur," that is sent by
Prince into the Provinces to exercise judicial functions. The word is now
applied by the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite to
designate certain persons who are sent into unoccupied territory to propagate
the Rite. The word is, however, of comparatively recent origin, not having
been used before 1866. A Legate should be in possession of at least the
Thirty-second Degree.
*
LEGEND
Strictly speaking, a legend,
from the Latin, legendus, meaning to be read, should be restricted to a story
that has been committed to writing; but by good usage the word has been
applied more extensively, and now properly means a narrative, whether true
orfalse, that has been traditionally preserved from the time of its first oral
communication. Such is the definition of a Masonic legend. The authors of the
Conversatiorus-Lericon, referring to the monkish lives of the saints which
originated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, say that the title legend
was given to all fictions which made pretensions to truth. Such a remark,
however correct it may be in reference to these monkish narratives, which were
often invented as ecclesiastical exercises, is by no means applicable to the
legends of Freemasonry. These are not necessarily fictitious, but are either
based on actual and historical facts which have been but slightly modified, or
they are the offspring and expansion of some symbolic idea; in which latter
respect they differ entirely from the monastic legends, which often have only
the fertile imagination of some studious monk for the basis of their
construction. The instructions of Freemasonry are given to us in two modes; by
the symbol and by the legend. The symbol is a material, and the legend a
mental, representation of a truth. The sources of neither can be in every case
authentically traced. Many of them come to us, undoubtedly, from the old
Operative Freemasons of the Medieval Gilds. But whence they got them is a
question that naturally arises, and which stills remains unanswered. Others
have sprung from a far earlier source; perhaps, as Creuzer has suggested in
his Sywibolik, from an effort to engraft higher and purer knowledge on an
imperfect religious idea. If so, then the myths of the Ancient Mysteries, and
the legends or traditions of Freemasonry, would have the same remote and the
same final cause. They would differ in construction, but they would agree in
design. For instance, the myth of Adonis in the Syrian Mysteries, and the
legend of Hiram Abif in the Third Degree, would differ very widely in their
details; but the object of each would be the same, namely, to teach the
doctrine of the restoration from death to eternal life.
The legends of Freemasonry
constitute a considerable and a very important part of its ritual. Without
them, its most valuable portions as a scientific system would cease to exist.
It is, in fact, in the traditions and legends of Freemasonry, more, even, than
in its material symbols, that we are to find the deep religious instructions
which the Institution is intended to inculcate. It must be remembered that
Freemasonry has been defined to be "a system of morality, veiled in allegory
and illustrated by symbols." Symbols, then, alone, do not constitute the whole
of the system: allegory comes in for its share; and this allegory, which veils
the Divine truths of Freemasonry, is presented to the neophyte in the various
legends which have been traditionally preserved in the Order.
They may be divided into three
classes:
1. The Mythical Legend.
2. The Philosophical Legend.
3. The historical Legend.
These three classes may be
defined as follows:
1. The myth may be engaged in the transmission of a narrative of early deeds
and events having a foundation in truth, which truth, however, has been
greatly distorted and perverted by the omission or introduction of
circumstances and personages, and then it constitutes the mythzeal legend.
2. Or it may have been invented and adopted as the medium of enunciating a
particular thought, or of inculcating a certain doctrine, when it becomes a
philosophicallegend.
3. Or, lastly, the truthful
elements of actual history may greatly predominate over the fictitious and
invented materials of the myth- and the narrative may be, in the main, made up
of facts, with a slight coloring of imagination, when it forms a historial
legend.
Thus far Doctor Mackey, but we
can add further comments to advantage here. The very phrase, Historical
Legends, may seem to some a contradiction in terms. Let us look further into
the matter. Speaking generally, legend and tradition are any knowledge handed
down from one generation to another by word of mouth. Much of what we know of
Freemasonry, and especially that which pertains directly to our ceremonies,
comes down through the centuries exactly in that way. Arriving as it does, we
may naturally expect that in its progress something may have been lost a
change here or there may have been made in the story that reaches our hands
but, as we know, the old Lectures of the Craft have a flavor of the past and
it is not at all unlikely that many of the circumstances that we frankly deal
with as legends may have nevertheless sound historical foundation for their
existence. It is interesting, of course, to note in this connection how a
legend may continue even in our own day and generation.
There is available an example
of the difficulty of preserving truth and discarding error, popular belief
being so easily apt to retain something of both in the same statement. We do
not always have as good an example as the one which is here submitted and
which illustrates how in the course of time the description of a circumstance
has been subjected to alteration and yet has preserved to a very large extent
the original facts. An inquiry came to us from a Brother in Michigan which in
part read as follows: I have on file an article relative to a Maçonic event in
the history of the City of Paris in the year 1871, when France was at war with
Germany. It is to the effect that the City of Paris was surrounded by German
cannon ready for bombardment. The Germans sent an ultimatum to the Parisian
Offieials which required action within twelve hours, otherwise the city would
be bombarded.
Somehow or other the proper
officials did not take the necessary and immediate steps; the consequences
were that the Masonic Lodges of Paris met, prepared an answer to the
ultimatum, went to the outskirts of the city, raised certain Masonic ensigns
which the Germans recognized, with the result that there was no bombardment.
No better means seemed
available than to communicate with that well-informed Brother, Oswald Wirth,
at Paris. The Editor of Le Symbolisme replied under date of March 20, 1925,
thus: If you receive L'Acacia, a French Masonic journal, you will have found
there, in the Februarv issue (page 30 an article which answers your question.
The legend which is circulating in the United States ought to be corrected as
follows:
On April 29, 1871, the
Freemasons of Paris willingly attempted to stop the shedding on` brood between
the French themselves. Paris was then bombarded, not by the Germans, but by
the troops under orders from the Government which sat at Versailles.
Paris was insurgent against
that Government on the eighteenth of March, 1871, but would have submitted
forthwith if the authorities of Versailles had wished to show a little of the
spirit of conciliation- There was a supreme offer of conciliation to which
nearly ten thousand persons had publicly given themselves on that April 29,
1871. Numerous Lodges were represented by their banners, each accompanied by a
delegation of Brethren In the lead was the white banner of the Lodge of
Vineennes. The procession proceeded along the Faubourg St. Honoré and the
Avenue of Friedland on to the Arch of Triumph, and descended thence to the
Avenue of the Grand Army. From the Neuilly Bridge, occupied by the troops of
Versailles these beheld the white banner, and ceased the firing which already
had made several victims in the procession the latter being at this time
reduced to delegations only of Lodges since it entered within the flaming zone
of flying shells. The delegations halted at the ramparts of Paris. Forty
Worshipful Masters detached themselves from the rest of their associates in
the Neuilly Avenue. They thus arrived alone at the Bridge where a Colonel
received them. At their request they were conducted to his chief, General
Montandon, who was a Freemason and had taken the initiative of causing the
firing to be stopped. But, not withstanding his good will, he was powerless to
decide further, so at the outpost he eaused a carriage to be put at the
service of three of these Freemasons who thereby presented themselves at the
Palace of Versailles for the purpose of negotiating with the Government. This
unfortunately showed itself unbending. It demanded of Paris submission without
conditions standing on the principle, they bargained not with rioters.
Alienating these, they were heedless about sparing the blood of the French
which Republican exigencies involved. The enter prise of the Freemasons had
therefore none other result than to cause an interruption of the bombardment
of Paris for a period of twenty-seven hours and forty-five minutes.
You see that the Germans had
nothing to do in this incident of Civil War. The Freemasons exerted them
selves to ward off the horrors of hIay, 1871, at the turmoil in the streets of
Paris, in the political broils and during the shooting of insurgents who were
made prisoners. At Versailles was a man, Thiers, who was bankrupt in heart and
above all bereft of democratic sentiment. He was without consideration for the
people and believed every thing was permitted in the name of a legality
however debatable and disputed. I will not delay the opportunity of furnishing
you this information, of which you will detach the moral for yourself. As
historian, you will understand that a legend may partake of some exact fact,
hut which can be ill transmitted, so much so that it ends by giving rein to
fantastic accounts. It is regrettable that all legends do not permit of being
traced so easily to their point of departure from reality.
There is, as Brother Wirth
points out, just enough flavor of the fact to give this freely circulated
story some foothold amongst us as it originally appeared. The whole truth
seldom has so hearty and permanent a reception. Certainly the facts deserve
publicity because the Germans were not at Paris in May, 1871. They had then
evacuated the city and such bloodshed as is spoken of by Brother Wirth was
caused by Frenchrnen. However, the circumstances are easily misunderstood and
an event which for a time delayed warfare in the streets of Paris so nearly
took place after the departure of the Gertnan forces that, the facts must be
carefully ascertained in order to avoid a confusion of two distinctly
different events.
The Living Age, March 28,
1925, mentions an instance from the Nordisk Tidskrift of Stockholm where a
Swedish writer, Wilhelm Cederschiold, relates an interesting story which seems
to show that an isolated historical fact may be preserved in the popular
memory for thousends of years. This is the tale:
Near Lohede, in Slesvig, there
stands a great burialmound, which the country people call the Queen's Barrow.
Here, according to the legend, lies a prince whom "Black Margaret," the
Consort of Christian I, slew With her own hand. The country folk relate that
she was at war with a foreign prince and this artful woman sent a message to
her enemy inviting him to settle the difference between them in single combat.
The prince agreed. They met and fought together for a time but without either
receiving a wound. Then Black Margaret coiled out: " Wait a moment. I must
fasten the strap of my helmet," and she made him stick his sword to the hilt
in the ground! Immediately Black Margaret swung her Sword and cut off the
Prince's head.
But did Queen Margaret murder the man who lies in the Queen's Barrow! There is
no difficulty in clearing her memory on that score inasmueb as he lived three
thousand years before she was born. Nevertheless the kernel ot the story, that
a man with head cut off lies in the (Queen's Barrow, is absolutely true. When
the Barrow was opened, a skeleton with the head lying at its feet was found.
It was a true story that had been retained in the memory of the country folk
for almost four thousand years.
Arthur Machen in Dog and Duck
has collected a number of similar instances where investigation has revealed
the curious exactness of ancient legend and tradition. One such folk-story
avers that the field where the battle of Na9eby was fought was "down in oats
at the time" but of this account there is usually proposed no way of checking
its entire trustworthiness with any satisfaction.
*
LEGEND OF ENOCH
See Enoch
*
LEGEND OF EUCLID
See Eudid, Legend of
*
LEGEND OF THE CRAFT
The Old Records of the
Fraternity of Operative Freernasons, under the general name of Old
Constitutions or Constitutions of Freemasonry, or Old Charges, were written in
the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The 1099 of
many of these by the indiscretion of overzealous Brethren was deplored by
Anderson. This is mentioned by Dr. James Anderson in the Constitutions, 1738,
as having taken place at the Assembly of June 24, 1720, "This Year, at some
private Lodges, several very valuable Manuscripts for they had- nothing yet in
Print concerning the Fraternity, their Lodges, Regulations, Charges, Secrets,
and Usages particularly one writ by Mr. Nicholas Stone the Warden of Inigo
Jones were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous Brothers; that those papers
might not fall into strange Hands."
But a few of them have been
long known to us, and many more have been recently recovered, by the labors of
such men as Brother Hughan, from the archives of old Lodges and from
manuscript coll dmnq in the British Museum. In these is to be found a history
of Freemasonry; full, it is true, of absurdities and anachronisms, and yet
exceedingly interesting, as giving us the belief of our ancient Brethren on
the subject of the origin of the Order. This history has been called by
Masonic writers the Legend of the Craft, because it is really a legendary
narrative, having little or no historic authenticity. In all these Old
Constitutions, the legend is substantially the same; showing, evidently, a
common origin; most probably an oral teaching which prevailed in the earliest
ages of the confraternity. In giving it, the Dowland Manuscript, as reproduced
in Brother Hughan's Old Charges, 1872, has been selected for the purpose,
because it is believed to be a copy of an older one of the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and because its rather modernized spelling makes it more
intelligible to the general reader.
*
THE LEGEND OF THE CRAFT
Before Noyes floode there was
a man called Lameche as it is written in the Byble, in the iiijth chapter of
Genesis; and this Lameehe had two wives, and the one height Ada and the other
height Sella; by his first wife Ada he got two sons and that one Jahell, and
the other Tuball, And by that other wife Sella he got a son and a daughter.
And these four children founden the beginning of all the sciences in the
world. And this elder son Jahell found the science of Geometric, and he
departed flocks of sheep and lambs in the field, and first wrought house of
stone and tree as is noted in the chapter above said. And his brother Tuball
found the science of .NIusieke, song of tonge, harpe, and orgain. And the
third brother Tuball Cain found smith craft of gold silver, copper, iron and
steely and the daughter found the craft of Weaving. And these children knew
well that God would take vengeance for synn, either by fire or by water;
wherefore they writt their science that they had found in two pillars of stone
that they might be found after Noyes flood. And that one stone was marble, for
that would not bren with fire; and that other stone was clepped laterns, and
would not drown in no water.
Our intent is to tell you
truly how and in what manner these stones were found, that this sciences were
written in. The great Hermarynes that was Cubys son the which Cub was Sem's
son that was Noys son. This Hermarynes afterwards was called Harmes the father
of wise men: he found one of the two pillars of stone, and found the science
written there, and he taught it to other men. And at the making of the Tower
of Babylon there was Masonry first made much of. And the Kinge of Babylon that
height Nemroth, was a mason himself, and loved well the science, as it is said
with masters of histories. And when the City of Nyneve, and other cities of
the East should be made, Nemroth, the King of Babilon, sent thither threescore
Masons at the rogation of the King of Nyneve his cosen. And when he sent them
forth, he gave them a charge on this manner: That they should be true each of
them to other, and that they should love truly together, and that they should
serve their lord truly for their pay so that the master may have worship, and
all that long to him. And other mo charges he gave them. And this was the
first time that ever Masons had any charge of his science.
Moreover, when Abraham and
Sara his wife went into Egypt, there he taught the Seaven Scyences to the
Egyptians; and he had a worthy Seoller that height Ewelyde and he learned
right well, and was a master of all the vij Sciences liberal. And in his days
it befell that the lord and the estates of the realm had so many sons that
they had gotten some by their wives and some by other ladies of the realm; for
that land is a hot land and a plenteous of generation. And they had not
competent leveled to find with their children, wherefore they made much care.
And then the King of the land made a great Counsel and a parliament, to with
how they might find their children honestly as gentlemen. And they could find
non manner of good way. And then they did cry through all the realm, it their
were any man that could inform them, that he should come to them, and he
should be so rewarded for his travail, that he should hold him pleased.
After that this cry was made,
then come this worthy clarke Ewelyde, and said to the king and to all his
great lords: "If yee will take me your children to govern, and to teach them
one of the Seven Science, wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen
should, under a condition that yee will grant me and them a commission that I
may have power to rule them after the manner that the science ought to be
ruled," And that the King and all his Counsel granted to him anyone, and
sealed their commission. And then this worthy Doctor took to him these lords'
songs, and taught them the science of Geometry in practice, for to work in
stones all manner of worthy work that belongeth to buildings churches temples,
castles, towers, and manors, and all other manner of buildings: and he gave
them a charge on this manner:
The first was, that they
should be true to the King, and to the lord that they owe. And that they
should love well together, and be true each one to other. And that they should
call each other his fellow, or else brother and not by servant, nor his nave,
nor none other foul name. And that they should deserve their paid of the lord,
or of the master that they serve. And that they should ordain the wisest of
them to be master of the work; and neither for love nor great lineage, ne
Aitches ne for no favor to let another that hath little conning for to be
master of the lord's work, where through the lord should be evil served and
they ashamed. And also that they should call their governors of the work,
Master, in the time that they work with him. And other many more charges that
long to tell. And to all these charges he made them to swear a great oath that
men used in that time- and ordained them for reasonable wages, that they might
live honestly by. And also that they should come and semble together every
year once, how they might work best to serve the lord for his profit, and to
their own worship; and to correct within themselves him that had trespassed
against the alliance. And thus was the science grounded there; and that worthy
Mr. Ewelide gave it the name of Geometric. And now it is called through all
this land Masonry.
Sythen long after, when the
Children of Israel were coming into the Land of Beheast, that is now called
amongst us the Country of Jhrlm, King David began the Temple that they caned
Templum D'ni and it is named with us the Temple of Jerusalem. And the same
King David loved Masons well and cherished them much, and gave them good paid.
And he gave the charges and the manners as he had learned of Egypt given by
Ewelyde, and other charges more that ye shall hear afterwards.
And after the decease of Kinge
David, Salamon, that was David's sonn, performed out the Temple that his
father begonne, and sent after Masons into divers countries and of divers
lands; and gathered them together, 80 that he had fourscore thousand workers
of stone, and were all named Masons. And he chose out of them three thousand
that were ordayned to be maisters and governors of his worke. And furthermore,
there was a Kinge of another region that men called Iram, and he loved well
Binge Solomon, and he gave him tymber to his worke. And he had a son that
height Aynon, and he was a Master of Geometrie, and was ehiefe Maister of all
his Masons, and was Master of all his gravings and carvinge, and of all other
manner of Masonrye that longed to the Templeand this is witnessed by the Bible
in libro Requm the third chapter. And this Solomon confirmed both charges and
the manners that his father had given to Masons. And thus was that worthy
science of Masonry confirmed in the country of Jerusalem, and in many other
kingdoms
Curious craftsmen walked about
full wide into divers countryes, some because of learninge more craft and
cunninge, and some to teach them that had but little conynge. And soe it
befell that there was one curious Mason that height Maymus Grecus, that had
been at the making of Solomon's Temple, and he came into France, and there he
taught the science of Masonrye to men of France. And there was one of the
Regal lyne of France, that height Charles Martell: and he was a man that loved
well such a science, and drew to this Maymus Grecus that is above said, and
learned of him the ecience, and tooke upon him the charges and manners; and
afterwards, by the grace of God, he was elect to be Binge of France. And when
he was in his estate he tooke Masons, and did helpe to make men Masons that
were none; and set them to worke, and gave them both the charge and the
manners and good paie as he had learned of other Masons; and confirmed them a
Chartor from yeare to yeare, to hold their semble wher they would; and
cherished them right much; And thus came the science into France.
England in all this season
stood voyd as for any charge of Masonrye unto Saint Albones tyme. And in his
days the King of England that was a Pagan, he did wall the to me about that is
called Sainet Albones. And Sainet Albones was a worthy Knight, and steward
with tbe Binge of his Household, and had governance of the realme, and also of
the makinge of the town walls, and loved well Masons and cherished them much.
And he made their paie right good, standinge as the realm did, for he gave
them ijs. vjd. a weeke, and iijd. to their nonesynehes. And before that time,
through all this land, a Mason took but a penny a day and his meate, till
Sainet Albone amended it, and gave them a chartour of the Binge and his
Counsell for to hold a general councell, and gave it the name of Assemble; and
thereat he was himselfe, and helpe to make Masons, and gave them charges as
yee shad heare afterward.
Right soone after the decease
of Sainct Albone, there came divers warrs into the realme of England of divers
Nations, soe that the good rule of Masonrye was de stroyed unto the tyme of
Singe Athelstone days that was a worthy Kinge of England and brought this land
into good rest and peace- and builded many great works of Abbyes and Towres
and other many divers building,and loved well Masons. And he had a son that
height Edwinne, and he loved Masons much more than his father did. And he was
a great practiser in Geometric and he drew him much to talke and to commune
with Masons and to learne of them seienee; and afterward, for love that he had
to Masons, and to the science, he was made a Mason, and he gatt of the Kinge
his father a Chartour and Commission to hold every yeare once an Assemble wher
that ever they would within the realme of Englandand to eorreet within
themselves defaults and trespasses that were done within the science. And he
held himself an Assemble at Yorke, and there he made Masons, and gave them
charges, and taught them the manners, and commanded that rule to be kept ever
after, and tooke then the Chartour and Commission to keepe, and made ordinance
that it should be renewed from Kinge to Kinge.
And when the assemble was
gathered he made a cry that all old Masons and young that had any writeinge or
understanding of the charges and the manners that were made before in this
land or in any other, that they should show them forth. And when it was
proved, there were founden some in Frenche, and some in Greek, and some in
English, and some in other languages: and the intent of them all was founden
all one. And he did make a booke thereof, and how the science was founded. And
he himselfe bad and commanded that it should be readd or tould, when that any
Mason should be made, for to give him his Charge. And fro that day unto this
tyme manmers of Masons have beene kept in that forme as well as men might
governe it. And furthermore divers Assembles have beene put and ordayned
eertaine charges by the best advice of Masters and fellowes.
If anyone carefully examines
this legend, he anll find that it is really a history of the rise and progress
of architecture, with which is mixed allusions to the ancient Gilds of the
Operative Masons. Geometry also, as a science essentially necessary to the
proper cultivation of architecture, receives a due share of attention. In thus
confounding architecture, geometry, and Freemasonry, the workmen of the Middle
Ages were but obeying a natural instinct which leads every man to seek to
elevate the character of his profession, and to give to it an authentic claim
to antiquity. It is this instinct which has given rise to so much of the
mythical element in the modern history of Freemasonry. Anderson hag thug
written his records in the very spirit of the Legend of the Craft, and Preston
and Oliver have followed his example. Hence this legend derives its great
importance from the fact that it has given a complexion to all subsequent
Masonic history. In dissecting it with critical handy we shall be enabled to
dissever its historical from its mythical portions and assign to it its true
value as an exponent of the Masonic sentiment of the Middle Ages.
Brother W. SI. Rylands offers
some suggestive comments on the legendary history that may well be inserted at
this stage of the di8cussion bib Doctor Mackey (see Some Notes on the Legends
of Masonry Transacts s of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xvi, page 9, 1903).
It appears to me not at all
improbable that much, if not all, of the legendary history was composed in
answer to the Writ for their Returns, issued to the Gilds all over the
country, in the twelfth year of Richard II, 1388 A-DSome of the points and
articles would, no doubt, be in use from an earlier period in pretty much the
same form everywhere. One great difficulty appears to present itsself. If the
legendary history was composed for these purposes, the Old Charges, as we now
have them must either represent the Return made by one Gild of Masons or all
the Gilds must have possessed almost exactly the same legend- unless it was
agreed to be a collected body from the various Gilds.
Of course, the easiest way to
decide the question is to accept the statement that the history was collected
by Edwin: but this solution of the difficulty does not satisfy me. There is
still another. If the Old Charges do really represent the Return made in 1388
by one of most important Gild of Mssons in England, it is not very difficult
to understand how during the long period of years when copies are entirely
wanting, the legendary history was spread by the Priesthood, and the Masons
themselves, so that it was at least generally adopted in almost its present
form. It must be understood that in making these suggestions I do not overlook
the possibility or probability of the Gild of Masons having possessed so short
legendary history at any earlier date: but if such were the case, it would
stand alone among all other trades. The various legends pertaining to the
Craft are discussed at length in Doctor Mackey's revised History of
Freemasonry.
*
LEGEND OF THE GILD
A title by which the Legend of
the Craft is sometimes designated is in Dreference to the Gild of Operative
Masons.
*
LEGEND OF THE ROYAL ARCH
DEGREE
Much of this legend is a myth,
having very little foundation, and some of it none, in historical accuracy.
But underneath it all there lies a profound stratum of philosophical
symbolism. The destruction and the rebuilding of the Temple by the efforts of
Zerubbabel and his compatriots, the captivity and the return of the captives,
are matters of sacred history; but many of the details have been invented and
introduced for the purpose of giving fonn to a symbolic idea. And this idea,
expressed in the symbolism of the Royal Arch, is the very highest form of that
which the ancient Mystagogues, interpreters of religious mysteries, called the
Euresis, or the Discovery.
There are some portions of the
legend which do not bear directly on the symbolism of the second Temple as a
type of the second life, but which still have an indirect bearing on the
general idea. Thus the particular legend of the three weary sojourners is
undoubtedly a mere myth, there being no known historical testimony for its
support; but it is evidently the enunciation symbolically of the religious and
philosophical idea that Divine Truth may be sought and won only by successful
perseverance through all the dangers, trials, and tribulations of life, and
that it is not in this, but in the next life, that it is fully attained. The
legend of the English and the American systems is identical; that of the Irish
is very different as to the time and events; and the legend of the Royal Arch
of the Scottish Rite is more usually called the Legend of Enoch.
*
LEGENDS OF MIDDLE AGES
Ancient Craft Masonry of the
Three Degrees has no trace of legends in it, of any sort, Ancient or Medieval;
the Rite of HA.-. is sometimes called a legend and the first half of the Old
Charges is called the Legend of the Craft, but in each csse "legend" is a
misnomer. (See article immediately above.) The High Grades of the Scottish
Rite and the Orders of Templarism rise against a rich background of Medieval
legends, some of them very old, some as recent as the last Crusade, but are
not themselves legends. Legends are not made, or invented, or authored, or
composed; they appear out of nowhere, as if of themselves, and go where they
list, changing shape like a cloud and yet never losing identity. There are
some twelve (roughly) great legends or legend cycles of the Middle Ages:
Beowulf, completed among the Angles and Saxons bew fore the invasion of
England. The Hegeland Legend. This is in the form of thirtytwo "songs," and
its original probably was an old Norse song cycle.
Reynard the Fox. This oldest
of the animal epics grew up in the German lands, went through France where
Reynard as a grape stealer or disguised as a monk caught the fancy of the
cathedral builders, turned north into Flanders, and then returned to Germany.
The old yarns about Reynard are good to read along with one of the old
bestiaries, or books of beasts.
The Nibelungenlied greatest of
the German epics, was not invented by Wagner nor originally designed for grand
opera, but on the contrary—and very contrary—was originally a set of tales
about Attila and his Huns; or so scholars say.
The Langobardian Cyele.
The Amelings.
Dietrich von Bern; out of the old "German Book of Heroes."
The Legend of Roland in the tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins.
Aymon and Charlemagne (about one of the Paladins), the great chanson di gestes-which
chansons are now believed to have been old family songs.
Titurel and Holy Grail, including Merlin, and the Round Table.
Tristan-Ragner-The Cid.
The literature of and about
them is endless (our own Masonic author, A. E. Waite wrote one of the most
comprehensive books about the Grail) but an introduction to it is Myths and
Legends of the Midx114 Ages, by H. A. Guerber; London; Geo. H. Harrap do; Co.;
1910. Dr. Guerber also wrote The Book of the Epic; J. B. Lippincott;
Philadelphia; 1913, in which he tells in his own words the stories of many of
the legends of the Middle Ages which became the sabject-matter of Norse,
German, French, and English epics.
*
LEWIS, JOHN L.
M.-. W. . Bro. John L. Lewis
was born at Dresden, Yates County, New York, July 17, 1813—a year notable in
American history for marking the climax of the British-American War of 1812,
and in Masonic history for the Union of the Modern and Ancient Grand Lodges of
England of which the beneficent effects were felt here scarcely less than in
Britain. He died at Penn Yan, seventyfive years afterwards, June 12, 1888; and
at the head of his grave stands a monolith of Barre granite, thirty-three feet
high, erected conjointly by the Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, and Grand
Commandery of New York, and the Supreme Council, A.&.A.S.R., Northern
Jurisdiction. Translated into the prose of history the meaning of this shaft
is that Bro. Lewis was one of the most eminent Masonic statesmen in the
history of Masonry in America—or in any other land. Were the Fraternity in the
United States to perpetuate its own great names in literature, drama, and art
instead of letting them lie unknown in official archives, Lev; is would be as
familiar to American Masons as Preston or as Dermott is to British.
He was made a Mason in Milo
Lodge, No. 108, at Penn Yan, May 1, 1846. In 1850 he was appointed Grand
Junior Deacon; while in that office he was made a member of the Union
Committee and took the lead in bringing about a union of the regular Grand
Lodge of New York with the schismatic St. John's Grand Lodge. Partly as a
result of Anti-Masonry, partly as a result of Cerneauism, and partly as a
result of a jealousy between "down-state" and "upstate," View York between
1823 and 1858 had at one time or another no fewer than six rival Grand Lodges.
The five schisms which occurred during the twenty-five years were so
intertwined with Scottish Rite schisms, and through them with other Bodies,
that the disentangling of differences and the unification of the Craft in the
five Rites was so slow and so laborious that Masonic leaders were compelled
for years to give almost the whole of their attention to the problem. Among
those leaders Lewis WAS the statesman par ezcellezlce, De Witt Clinton the
politician par excellence.
By 1863 two of the rival
Supreme Councils, one headed by Cerneau followers and the other by the Raymond
followers, united. In 1867 Lewis became Grand Commander of this Body. In that
position he possessed by inheritance the authorities possessed by the former
leaders of various Bodies, Cerneau, Clinton, Atwood, Raymond, Hays, and
Robinson. These he surrendered to the Supreme Council, Northern Jurisdiction,
with its seat at Boston, on May 17, 1867, and was received into that Body by
Sovereign Grand Commander Josiah H. Drummond. He thus effected a Scottish Rite
Union for the Northern States in a manner strikingly similar to the method of
uniting the modern and Antient Grand Lodge of England by the two brothers, the
Duke of Sussex and the Duke of Kent. (The documents covering this union are
given in The Anctent Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by William Homan;
1905.)
*
LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES
In the Ancient world the
Liberal Arts and Sciences consisted of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic,
arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy; at least, the standard histories of
education thus list them, though it is doubtful if Greek and Roman Schools
rigidly adhered to that list or to its nomenclature—the Athenian schools of a
certainty did not, because Aristotle and his successors taught zoology;
neither did the schools and universities which were built in Europe after
CharlemagneS for the university at Salerno specialized in botany; the one at
Cologne, in stenography and bookkeeping; one at Paris in law; etc. (See page
590.)
The Medieval Freemasons were
so devoted to the Liberal Arts and Sciences that w hen the author of the first
of the Old Charges east about among the pages of the polycronicons or
histories of the w orld then being circulated in MS. form for the grounds on
which a Charter had been given to the Fraternity, he gave prominence to an old
legend about two pillars on which the "secrets" of the Arts and Sciences had
been preserved through Noah's Flood. This close and boasted connection between
Operative Freemasons and the Arts and Sciences has long been a puzzle. Masons
did not teach their apprentices each of the seven subjects. Why should a Craft
of workmen boast of possessing u hat belonged to a few universities?
Nevertheless they did boast, and because they did, they considered themselves
apart and above the populace, which was illiterate. Even the clergy was
uneducated? and among the prelates only a few could read and write. The
majority of the kings, princes, and upper nobility knew so little about books
or studies that they almost knew nothing; even as late as 1700 Louis XIV of
France, the Sun King, the Grand Monarch, could only w ith great labor sign his
name or spell out a few sentences.
The answer to the puzzle is
that the Gothic Freemasons who built the cathedrals, priories, abbeys, etc.,
practiced an art which of itself required an education; education was an
integral part of it. To be such a Freemason was to be an educated man. Thus
the connection between Freemasonry and the Arts and Sciences was not a
factitious one, but a necessary one. In a period without schools an education
could not be called schooling, college or university; it was called the
Liberal Arts and Sciences. Since the Freemasons employed the phrase merely as
a name for education, the fact that the classical currieulum had consisted of
seven subjects is irrelevant to their history, and has no significance for
interpretation of the Ritual.
After the system of
Speculative Freemasonry was established in the Eighteenth Century the emphasis
on education as not only retained but was magnified, and it was called by its
old name. The two pillars mere retained; a prominent place was given to the
Arts and Sciences in both the Esoteric and the Exoteric portions of the Second
Degree. Twentieth Century Freemasons feel as by a kind of instinct that
education inevitably and naturally is one of their concerns; they take the
motto, "Let there be light," with seriousness and earnestness.
This is a striking fact, this
continuous emphasis on education by the same Fraternity through eight or nine
centuries of time! The memory of that long tradition, the sense of continuing
now what has been practiced for so long, is alive in the Masonic
consciousness. Masons have seen education persist through social, religious,
political revolutions, from one language to another, from one country to
another; they are therefore indifferent to the labels by which education is
named (else they would substitute "education" for "Liberal Arts and
Sciences"), and they are likely to believe, as against pedagogic
experimentalists and innovators, that the imperishable identity and
long-continued practice of education means that at bottom there is the
curriculum, not countless possible curricula; and that it universally consists
of the language, as it is written or spoken and is its structure, of
mathematics, of history, of science, and of literature; an apprentice in life
must begin w ith these; what else he learns in addition is determined by what
art, trade, or vocation he is to enter.
The fact that education
belongs essentially to the nature of Freemasonry and ever has, possesses a
critical importance for the history of the Craft; is one of the facts by which
the central problem of that history can be solved. There were hundreds of
crafts gilds, fraternities, societies, skilled trades in the Middle Ages; a
few of them were larger, more pow erful, and far more wealthy than the Mason
Craft, and they also had legends, traditions, officers, rules and regulations,
possessed charters, took oaths, had ceremonies, admitted "non-operatives" to
membership. Why then did Freemasonry stand aside and apart from the others?
Why did it alone survive the others? Why did not they, as well as it, and long
after the Middle Ages had passed, flower into world-wide fraternities? What
unique secret did Freemasonry possess that they did not? It is because it had
in itself, and from the beginning, had so much for the mind; so much of the
arts and sciences; its members were compelled to think and to learn as well as
to use tools.
It possessed what no other
Craft possessed, and which can be described by no better name than philosophy,
though it is a misnomer, for the Freemasons were not theorizers but found out
a whole set of truths in the process of their work; and these truths were not
discovered or even guessed at by church, state, or the populace. When after
1717 the Lodges were thrown open to men of every walk and vocation, these
latter discovered in the ancient Craft such a wealth of thought and learning
as must ever be inexhaustible; and they have since written some tens of
thousands of books about it, and have expounded it among themselves in tens of
thousands of speeches and lectures. Furthermore they found that from the
beginning of Masonry, education had never been considered by it to be
abstract, academic, or detached, a luxury for the few, a privilege for the
rich, a necessity only for one or two professions, a monopoly of the learned,
and something in books; they found that education belonged to work; this
connecting of education with work, this insistence that work involves
education, was not dreamed of in Greece and Rome, was not seen in the Middle
Ages, and would have aroused a sense of horror if it had been, and even in
modern times is only beginning to be seen.
The uniqueness of this
discovery explains in part the uniqueness of Freemasonry then and thereafter.
*
LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, EQUALITY
The organized, powerful
Anti-Masonic crusade which M as launched soon after World War I by Chief of
Staff Erie von Ludendorff, to explode over Germany with astounding rapidity
and to be one of the principal Nazi weapons, placed its principal reliance
(though not its only one) on the charge that Freemasonry was a disguise for
the Jews who were plotting to overthrow Christian civilization. In France, on
the other hand, the Anti-Masonic movement from the Abbe Barruel to Bernard
Fay, implemented by Pope Leo's Bureau, placed its reliance on the charge that
Freemasonry was a conspiratorial political revolutionary movement, and that it
had designed and led the French Revolution between 1787 and 1791, though it
also made use of the Jewish myth as well. There was in both these Anti-Masonic
camps what the old theologians would have called "a tendency to lie"; there
were also, especially in the French one, a great deal of "inveterate
ignorance."
There was an ignorance about
modern history. There was an ignorance about the French Revolution itself. But
the complete ignorance about Freemasonry is proved by the fact that the French
Anti-Masons from Lco XIII on down (he was Italian himself, but was for two
decades in control of the French crusade) have taken it for granted that the
Revolutionary motto "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" was also, and for
centuries had been, the motto of Freemasonry. This identification of the
Tenets of our Craft with the Revolutionary motto was a revelation of
ignorance; because no intelligent man could have made it except out of his
ignorance of the known, documented history of Freemasonry. That known,
documented history makes it abundantly clear that neither in 1791 nor in any
year before or since has Freemasonry ever acted on the revolutionary motto of
liberty, fraternity, equality; or ever dreamed of doing so; or ever can do so
in the future without destroying itself.
Each of the words of the
French motto had a Revolutionary connotation. In the Revolution "equality" was
doctrinaire, meant "leveling," meant to reduce each and every man to the same
equation, and in its logic implied some form of communism, or at least a
commune; Freemasonry has never taught or practiced equalitarianism, communism,
or leveling; on the other hand a Lodge is an order; in it, members are not
foot-loose or free to say or do what they please, but each one is in a fixed
place or station, and everything goes according to Rules of Order.
The Revolutionary "liberty"
also was doctrinaire, and became "libertarianism"; no such thing as
libertarianism has ever been taught or practiced in a Lodge; nor is the word
ever employed; it is the word "free" that is used in the Craft, and by "free"
is meant no slavery, no serfdom, but citizenship and responsibility. In
"fraternity" there is not so great a difference as between Freemasonry and the
Revolution, yet what difference there is, is significant; generally, the
Revolutionary "fraternity" sought to abolish distinctions and differences tn
order that men could associate freely with each other, whereas Freemasonry has
always assumed that distinctions and differences exist but that they never
need interfere with brotherliness, neighborliness, friendliness, and are false
and unjust if they do.
This is not to say that the
Fraternity had ever been opposed to the French Revolution, any more than it
was opposed to the American, Russian, Mexican, and Chinese revolutions; and
many Masons in their capacity as citizens have both believed in and worked in
each of them; it only means that Masonry does not involve itself in any
political or economic revolution, whether radical or reactionary (for a
revolution may, like the Nazi one, be reactionary); and it does not borrow
doctrines from outside but has doctrines of its own, understands and practices
them within itself and according to its own definitions; imposes them on its
own members but does not presume to impose them on non-members, least of all
on any government or country.
It is invariably futile to
attempt to identify Free masonry with any cult, movement, crusade, religion,
reform, or revolution which may arise around it; with an incorrigible
stubbornness it adheres to its own Landmarks, through thick and through thin
rides on its own keel, and if its own Lodges or members go astray they are
mercilessly cut off. Masonic students know what came of the attempts in
England to identify Freemasonry with Kabbalism and with Rosicrucianism, of
attempts in France to identify it with the Knights and the Crusades, of the
attempt here in America to win it over to the Ku Klux Klan, to identify it
with Theosophy, and the (commercialized) attempt to identify it with American
"Rosicrucianism. " It keeps its oven identity. During the past eight or more
centuries it has worked in, entered and remained in, and emerged from, scores
of revolutionary changes, some of them world changes; but it has not
re-written its Old Charges.
For generations it worked in
the midst of Roman Catholicism, but has no trace of that denomination in its
teachings; for some two centuries it was girded around by Tudor absolution,
but did not become absolutist; then it worked amidst the Church of England,
but did not sign the Thirty-nine articles, and among dissenters, but did not
become a sect; it is now immersed in industrialism and capitalism and
politicalism, but as far as its Landmarks are concerned might as well be
working in the midst of Chinese gilds or Arab sheep-herders. Those who in
Europe between the two World Wars tried to charge it with having fomented the
French Revolution or to connect it with an imagined Judaic plot, revealed
themselves in the very act to stand in an invincible, at least an inveterate,
ignorance of its history and its principles.
*
LIBRARIES, LIST OF MASONIC
A list of the larger Masonic
Libraries in the United States was made by the Iowa Masonic Library as of
1940: Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, Ia. Scottish Rite Library, S. J.,
Washington, D. C. New York Grand Lodge Library, Masonic Hall, N. Y. C.
Massachusetts Grand Lodge Library, Masonic Temple, Boston, Mass. Pennsylvania
Grand Lodge Library, Masonic Temple, Philadelphia, Penn. North Dakota Grand
Lodge Library, Masonic Temple, Fargo, N. D. Masonic Library Association of
Cincinnati, Masonic Temple, Cincinnati, O. Masonic Library of Southern
California, Los Angeles, Calif. Scottish Rite Library, Los Angeles, Calif.
Scottish Rite Library, Minneapolis, Minn. Utah Grand Lodge Library, Salt Lake
City, Utah. Library of the Grand Lodge of California, Masonic Temple, San
Francisco, Calif. Masonic Library, Denver, Col. Grand Lodge Library of Maine,
Portland, Me. Supreme Council Library, N. J., Boston, Mass. The Harry C.
Trexler Masonic Library, Masonic Temple, Allentown, pa. Grand Lodge Library of
South Dakota, Sioux Falls, S. D. Texas Masonic Grand Lodge Library. Scottish
Rite Library, Scottish Rite Cathedral, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Flint Masonic
Library, Flint, Mich. Sandusky Masonic Library, Sandusky, Ohio. Library of the
Grand Lodge of Louisiana, New Orleans, La. Grand Lodge Library, Tacoma, Wash.
Library of Grand Lodge of Maryland, Baltimore, Md. Grand Lodge Library of
Kansas, Topeka, Kans.
This list is not exhaustive.
At least half the Lodges have small collections of books; a thousand or so
have a collection sufficiently large to be called a library but do not
maintain a librarian and staff. Those at Cedar Rapids, Ia., Boston, Mass.,
Philadelphia, Pa., New York, N. Y., and at Washington, D. C., are among the
largest in the world. The Iowa Masonic Library is the oldest in America, and
until about 1915 was by far the largest; it occupies two large buildings,
maintains a complete staff, and has been used continually by Masons from over
the world, notably by Gould, Hughan, Speth, Crawley, and the scholars who
founded the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research, London, Eng. The majority of
American libraries carry on state-wide educational services, publish
bulletins, send out traveling libraries to Lodges, function as an information
bureau, etc. Consult Masonic Libraries of the Forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions
of the United States, a brochure published by the Masonic Service Association,
Washington, D. C., November 1, 1937.
*
LIBERIA
Oriental Lodge at Monrovia,
founded early in the nineteenth century, with two others, Saint Paul's and
Saint John's, formed a Grand Lodge of Liberia in 1867. This Body has its own
Temple and has been recognized by many of the Grand Lodges of the world.
Liberia is a negro republic on the west coast of Africa, founded in 1820 by
freed slaves under the American Colonization Society and recognized as an
independent State in 1847.
*
LIBERTAS
Latin word, meaning Liberty. A
significant word in the Red Cross Degree. It refers to the "Liberty of
Passage" gained by the returning Jews over their opponents at the river
Euphrates, as described in the Scottish Rite Degree of Knight of the East,
where the old French instructions have "Liberté du Passer" (see Liberty).
*
LIBERTE, ORDRE DE LA.
French name for Order of
Liberty. A French androgyn, both sexes, Order existing in Paris in 1740, and
the precursor of La Maconnerie d'Adoption (Thory, Acta Latomorum i, page 320).
*
LIBERTINE
The Charges of 1722 commence
by saying that "a Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law; and if
he rightly understands the art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an
irreligious libertine" (Constitutions, 1723, page 50). The word libertine
there used conveyed a meaning different from that which it now bears. In the
present usage of language it signifies a profligate and licentious person, but
originally it meant a Freethinker, or Deist. Derived from the Latin
libertines, a man that was once a bondsman but who has been made free, it was
metaphorically used to designate one who had been released, or who had
released himself from the bonds of religious belief, and become in matters of
faith a doubter or a denier.
Hence "a stupid Atheist"
denoted, to use the language of the Psalmist, "the fool who has said in his
heart there is no God," while an "irreligious libertine" designated the man
who, with a degree less of unbelief, denies the distinctive doctrines of
revealed religion. And this meaning of the expression connects itself very
appropriately with the succeeding paragraph of the Charge. "But though in
ancient times, Masons were charged in every country to be of the religion of
that country or nation, whatever it was, yet 'tic now thought more expedient
only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their
particular opinions to themselves." The expression "irreligious libertine,"
alluding, as it does, to a scoffer at religious truths, is eminently
suggestive of the religious character of our Institution, which, founded as it
is on the great doctrines of religion, cannot be properly appreciated by
anyone who doubts or denies their truth. "A Libertine in earlier use, was a
speculative free-thinker in matters of religion and in the theory of morals.
But as by a process which is seldom missed free-thinking does and will end in
free-acting, so a Libertine came in two or three generations to signify a
profligate," one morally bankrupt (On the Study of Words, Trench, lecture ui,
page 90).
*
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
The motto of the French Freemasons
*
LIBERTY OF PASSAGE
A significant phrase in the
advanced Degrees (see Libertas). The French rituals designate it by the
letters L.-. D.-. P. . as the initials of L~iberté de Passer, or Liberty of
Passage. But Brother Pike proposes to interpret these letters asLiberté de
Penser, Liberty of Thought; the prerogative of a Freeman and a Freemason.
*
LIBRARY
It is the duty as well as the
interest of Lodges to facilitate the efforts of the members in the acquisition
of Masonic knowledge, and no method is more appropriate than the formation of
Masonic Libraries. The establishment of a Grand Lodge Library is of course not
objectionable, but it is in Doctor Mackey's opinion of far less value and
importance than a Lodge Library. The original outlay of a few dollars in the
beginning for its establishment, and of a few more annually for its
maintenance and increase, would secure to every Lodge in the land a rich
treasury of Masonic reading for the information and improvement of its
members. The very fact that Masonic books were within their reach, showing
themselves on the well-filled shelves at every meeting, and ready at their
hands for the mere asking or the trouble of taking them down, would induce
many Brethren to read who never yet have read a page or even a line upon the
subject of Masonic history and science.
Considering the immense number
of books that have been published on the subject of Speculative Freemasonry,
many of which would be rendered accessible to every one by the establishment
of Lodge Libraries, the Freemason who would then be ignorant of the true
genius of his art would be worthy of all shame and reproach. As thoughtful
municipalities place public fountains in their parks and at the corners of
streets, that the famished wayfarer may allay his thirst and receive physical
refreshment, 80 should Masonic Lodges place such intellectual fountains in
reach of their members, that they might enjoy mental refreshment. Such
fountains are libraries; and the Lodge which spends fifty dollars, more or
less, upon a banquet, and yet does without a Library, commits a grave Masonic
offense; for it refuses, or at least neglects, to diffuse that light among its
cXl~nshiD ohligotien requires it to do.
Of two Lodges the one without
and the other with a Library the difference is this, that the one will have
more ignorance in it than the other. If a Lodge takes delight in an ignorant
membership, let it forego a Library. If it thinks there is honor and
reputation and pleasure in having its members well informed, it will give them
means of instruction.
But let us not mistake the
collecting of books for the study of them. Book buying and book reading are
not necessarily the same. Many a book of knowledge goes unread by the owners
and many a Library is an unworked mine of information. In fact, cases have
been known where a Library within reach at the Lodge has been urged as a
sufficient excuse for members to possess no books of their own and further
inquiry soon determined that the Library was rarely used. A Library is never
intended as an idle possession.
The Library of many volumes
always has the problem before it to get its treasures known and used. our
leading libraries are doing this by circulation of works by mail and providing
systematic courses of instruction for classes in profitable Masonic reading.
But the Brother who has some reliable, thorough books of his own for reference
can take these from the shelves at pleasure, dip deeply or moderately as
opportunity may serve, and brouse happily and profitably with the Masonic
authorities, settling for himself those queries and problems that his own
experience or the questions of his Brethren suggest for investigation. In this
way the Library of the individual Brother is a splendid possession fortified
and supplemented by the larger institutions appealing to the bibliophite and
student with their great collections of books. An uninformed Freemason is a
liability that the wise use of books may turn into an asset for the Craft with
equal pleasure and profit to himself. The task of becoming proficient is not
drudgery, it is but to read as one's advancement requires, not enough to cause
indigestion, but sufficient for Masonic health and progress.
Grand Lodges maintain
libraries several of which are notable in the scope of their collections and
the rarity of many of their treasures. Among these one readily calls to mind
the fine Masonic libraries of the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland and
Scotland. In the United States the Grand Lodge of Iowa has a separate building
at Cedar Rapids devoted entirely to library purposes, and there are splendid
collections housed by the Grand Lodges of Pennsylvania, New York, and
Massachusetts, the latter having acquired by gift the library of Brother
Samuel R. Lawrence which included that of Brother Enoch T. Carson of Ohio
which he had purchased.
The Supreme Council, Southern
Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has a Sne library at
Washington, District of Columbia, in the House of the Temple, which includes
amongst its possessions the books of General Albert Pike. There are many very
good local libraries such as for example the useful collections preserved
practically by the Masonic Library Association of Cincinnati which holds in
trust the Stacker Williams Library, the property of the Grand Lodge of Ohio.
Another excellent library of choice works is found in the Masonic Temple at
Evanston, Illinois, due to the enterprise of Brother Wm. S. Mason and his
associates. The few mentioned are simply given as representative of the
interest found in the several States and a complete list of really noteworthy
libraries would be too extensive to be dealt with freely here.
*
LIBYAN or LYBIC CHAlN
The eighty-fifth grade of the
Rite of Memphis; old style.
*
LICHT, RITTER VON WAHREN
Knight of the True Light,
presumed to have been founded in Austria in 1780, by Hans Heinrich Freiherr
von Ecker and Eckhoffen. It consisted of five grades.
*
LICHTSEHER, ODER ERLEUCHTETE
German, meaning the
Enlightened. A mystical sect established at Schlettstadt by Kuper Martin
Steinbach, in the sixteenth century. Mentioned in the Handbuch, in 1566, by
Pastor Reinhard Lutz. It delved in Scriptural interpretation.
*
LIEUTENANT GRAND COMMANDER
The title of the second and
third officers of a Consistory in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and
the second officer in a Supreme Council.
*
LIFE
The three stages of human life
are said in the lectures to be symbolized by the three Degrees of Ancient
Craft Freemasonry, and the doctrine is illustrated in the Third Degree by the
emblem of the Steps on the Master's Carpet, which see.
*
LIFE, ETERNAL
See Eternal Life
*
LIFE MEMBER
It is the custom in some
Lodges to permit a member to become a life member by paying dues for some
number of years, say twenty-one to twenty-five), determined by the By-Laws of
the Lodge or the immediate payment of a sum of money, after which he is
released from any subsequent payment of quarterly or yearly dues. Such a
system is of advantage in pecuniary sense to the Lodge, if the money paid for
life membership is invested in profitable stock, because the interest
continues to accrue to the Lodge even after the death of a member.
A Lodge consisting entirely of
life members would be a Lodge the number of whose members might increase, but
could never decrease. Life members are subject to all the discipline of the
Lodge, such as suspension or expulsion, just as the other members. Such Life
Membership is, however, not recognized by the Grand Lodge of England, which
restricts the privileges of the Craft to those who continue to be subscribing
members of some Lodge (see Report, June 1873, Grand Lodge of England). The
Grand Lodge of Scotland permits the commutation of Annual Contributions by a
single payment (Law 176), but has therefore decided it is illegal to stipulate
for payment of the life-membership fee by installments (Digest of Scottish
Masonic Jurisprudence, R. E. Wallace-James, page 8). on the subject of paying
dues by a single outlay the Grand Lodge of Ohio (Masonic Code, page 57) has an
interesting decision. "It is improper, because leading to improvidence in the
present, and therefore unjust to those who succeed the present membership, for
Lodges to receive from their members dues in bulk in lieu of annual dues, and
the Grand Lodge declares any such Regulation or By-law inexpedient and void."
*
LIGHT
Light is an important word in
the Masonic system. It conveys a far more recondite meaning than it is
believed to possess by the generality of readers. It is in fact the first of
all the symbols presented to the neophyte, and continues to be presented to
him in various modifeations throughout all his future progress in his Masonic
career. It does not simply mean, as might be supposed, truth or Sodom, but it
contains within itself a far more abstruse allusion to the very essence of
Speculative Freemasonry, and embraces within its capacious signification all
the other symbols of the Order. Freemasons are emphatically called the Sons of
Light, because they are, or at least are entitled to be, in possession of the
true meaning of the symbol; while the profane or uninitiated who have not
received this knowledge are, by a parity of expression, said to be in
darkness.
The connection of material
light with this emblematic and mental illumination, was prominently exhibited
in all the ancient systems of religion and esoteric mysteries. Among the
Egyptians, the hare was the hieroglyphic of eyes that are open, because that
animal was supposed to have his eyes always open.
The priests afterward adopted
the hare as the symbol of the moral illumination revealed to the neophytes in
the contemplation of the Divine Truth, and hence, according to Champollion, it
was also the symbol of Osiris, their principal divinity, and the chief object
of their mystic rites thus showing the intimate connection that they
maintained in their symbolic language between the process of initiation and
the contemplation of divinity. On this subject a remarkable coincidence has
been pointed out by Baron Portal (Les Symboles des Egyptiens, 69) in the
Hebrew language. There the word for hare is arnebet, which seems to be
compounded of aur, tight, and nabat, to see; so that the word which among the
Egyptians was used to designate an initiation, among the Hebrews meant to see
the light.
If we proceed to an
examination of the other systems of religion which were practiced by the
nations of antiquity, we shall find that light always constituted a principal
object of adoration, as the primordial source of knowledge and goodness, and
that darkness was with them synonymous with ignorance and evil. Doctor Beard
(Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature), attributes this view of the Divine
origin of light among the Eastern nations, to the fact that:
Light in the East has a
clearness and brilliancy, is accompanied by an intensity of heat, and is
followed in its influence by a largeness of good, of which the inhabitants of
less genial climates have no conception.
Light easily and naturally
became, in consequence, with Orientals, a representative of the highest human
good. All the more joyous emotions of the mind, all the pleasing sensations of
the frame all the happy hours of domestic intercourse, were described under
imagery derived from light. The transition was natural from earthly to
heavenly, from corporeal to spiritual things; and so light came to typify true
religion and the felicity which it imparts. But as light not only came from
God but also makes man's way clear before him, so it w as employed to signify
moral truth and preeminently that divine system of truth which is set forth in
the Bible, from its earliest gleamings onward to the perfect day of the Great
Sun of Righteousness.
As light was thus adored as
the source of goodness, darkness, which is the negation of light, was abhorred
as the cause of evil, and hence arose that doctrine which prevailed among the
ancients, that there were two antagonistic principles continually contending
for the government of the world. Duncan (Religion of Profane Antiquity, page
187) says:
Light is a source of positive
happiness: without it man could barely exist. And since all religious opinion
is based on the ideas of pleasure and pain, and the corresponding sensations
of hope and fear, it is not to be wondered if the heathen reverenced light.
Darkness, on the contrary, by replunging nature, as it were, into a state of
nothingness, and depriving man of the pleasurable emotions conveyed through
the organ of sight, was ever held in abhorrence, as a source of misery and
fear. The two opposite conditions in which man thus found himself placed,
occasioned by the enjoyment or the banishment of light, induced him to imagine
the existence of two antagonistic principles in nature, to whose dominion he
was alternately subjected.
Such was the dogma of
Zoroaster, the great Persian philosopher, who, under the names of Ormuzd and
Ahriman, symbolized these two principles of light and darkness. Such was also
the doctrine, though somewhat modified, of Manes, the founder of the sect of
Manichees, who describes God the Father as ruling over the kingdom of light
and contending with the powers of darkness. Pythagoras also maintained his
doctrine of two antagonistic principles. He called the one, unity, light, the
right hand, equality, stability, and a straight line; the other he named
binary, darkness, the left hand, inequality, instability, and a curved line.
Of the colors, he attributed white to the good principle, and black to the
evil one.
The Jewish Cabalists believed
that, before the creation of the world, all space was filled with the Infinite
Intellectual Light, which afterward withdrew itself to an equal distance from
a central point in space, and afterward by its emanation produced future
worlds. The first emanation of this surrounding light into the abyss of
darkness produced what they called the Adam Kadmon, the first man, or the
first production of the Divine energy.
In the Bhagavad-Gita the Book
of Devotion, a work purporting to be a dialogue between Krishna, Lord of
Devotion, and Arjuna, Prince of India, and one of the religious books of the
Brahmans, it is said:
Light and darkness are
esteemed the world's eternal ways; he who wralketh in the former path
returneth not that is, he goeth immediately to bliss; whilst he who walketh in
the latter eometh back again upon the earth.
In fact, in all the ancient
systems, this reverence for light, as an emblematic representation of the
Eternal Principle of Good, is predominant. In the Mysteries, the candidate
passed, during his initiation, through scenes of utter darkness, and at length
terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly illuminated sacellurn,
the Holy of Holies, where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light,
and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with
that knowledge of the Divine Truth which had been the object of all his
labors.
*
LIGHT, ORDER OF
See Order of Light
*
LIGHTS, FIXED
According to the old
instructions of the eighteenth century, every Lodge-room was furnished, or
supposed to be furnished, with three windows, situated in the East, West, and
South. They were called the Fixed Lights, and their uses were said to be "to
light the men to, at, and from their work."
*
LIGHTS, GREATER
The Bible, and the Square and
Compasses, which see. In the Persian initiations, the Archimagus informed the
candidate, at the moment of illumination, that the Divine Lights were dies
played before him.
*
LIGHT, TO BRING TO
A technical expression in
Freemasonry meaning to initiate; as, "He was brought to light in such a
Lodge," that is, he was initiated in it.
*
LIGURE.
The first stone in the third
row of the High Priest's breastplate. Commentators have been divided in
opinion as to the nature of this stone; but in the time of Doctor Mackey was
supposed by the best authorities to have been the rubellite, which is a red
variety of the tourmaline. Leshem, the Hebrew word, referring to ligure, has
had many explanations as to the meaning and derivation, the latter being
usually traced to the Greek Lynkourion, meaning a gem. Some connect the word
with amber from its source, by the Greeks, Liguria, in northern Italy. Petrie
identifies Lecture with yellow agate, others with jacinth, etc., usually with
some yellow gem. The figure in the Breastplate was referred to the Tribe of
Dan.
*
LILIS
or LILITH. In the popular
belief of the Hebrews, a female specter, in elegant attire, who secretly
destroys children. The fabled wife of Adam, before he married Eve, by whom he
begat devils.
*
LILY
The plant so frequently
mentioned in the Old Testament under the name of lily, as an emblem of purity
and peace, was the lotus lily of Egypt and India. It occupies a conspicuous
place among the ornaments of the Temple furniture. The brim of the molten sea
was wrought with flowers of the lotus; the chapiters on the tops of the
pillars at the porch, and the tops of the pillars themselves, were adorned
with the same plant. Sir Robert Ker Porter, describing a piece of sculpture
which he found at Persepolis, says
Almost every one in this
procession holds in his hand a figure like the lotus. This flower was full of
meaning among the ancients and occurs all over the East. Egypt, Persia,
Palestine, and India present it everywhere over their architectures in the
hands and on the heads of their sculptured figures, whether in statue or in
bas-relief. We also find it in the sacred vestments and architecture of the
tabernacle and Temple of the Israelites.
The lily which is mentioned by
our Savior, as an image of peculiar beauty and glory, when comparing the works
of nature with the decorations of art, was a different dower probably a
species of lilium. This is also represented in all pictures of the salutation
of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, and, in fact, has been held in mysterious
veneration by people of all nations and times. It is the symbol of divinity,
of purity, and abundance, and of a love most complete in perfection, charity,
and benediction; as in Holy Scripture, that mirror of purity, Susanna is
defined Susa, which signified the lily flower, the chief city of the Persians,
bearing that name for excellency.
Hence, the lily's three leaves in the arms of France meaneth Piety, Justice,
and Charity." so far, the general impression of a peculiar regard to this
beautiful and fragrant Sower; but the espy Persians attached to it a peculiar
sanctity. We must not, however, forget the difference between the lotus of the
Old Testament and the lily of the New. The former is a Masonic plant; the
latter is scarcely referred to. Nevertheless, through the ignorance of the
early translators as to sacred plants, the lotus is constantly used for the
lily; and hence the same error has crept into the Masonic instructions (see
Lotus).
*
LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY
A side Degree in the Templar
system of France
*
LILY WORK
The lily work which is
described as a part of the ornamentation of the two pillars in the porch of
Solomon's Temple is said to be, from the whiteness of the plant, symbolic of
purity and peace. Properly, it is lotus work (see Lily, Lotus, and Pillars of
the Porch).
*
LIMBS
See Qualifications, Physical
*
LINDBERGH, CHARLES A.
and other Pioneer Masonic
Aviators. Famous air-mail pilot whose non-stop flight from the United States
to France, May 2-1, 1927, followed a trip by air from San Diego, California,
to St. Louis, Missouri, thence to the Atlantic seaboard, and these excursions
were continued with journeys to the countries southward in the Western
Hemisphere, returning to his home city of St. Louis by way of Havana, Cuba,
all daring exploits modestly done. Born on February 4, l902, Colonel Lindbergh
was initiated in Keystone Lodge No. 243, St. Louis, on July 9, 1926; Passed,
October 20, and Raised, December 15, and became a member of St. Louis Chapter
No. 22. Other notable air-men of the period included Commander Richard E. Byrd
who also made, on June 29-July 1, 1927, a non-stop trip to France and had
similarly journeyed to the North Pole, May 9, 1926, was Raised, March 9, 1921,
in Federal Lodge No. 1 at Washington, District of Columbia; Lieutenants Albert
F. Hegenberger and Lester J. Maitland, the first to make a successful flight
by air to Hawaii from the United States, were both Freemasons, Brother
Hegenberger a member of Stillwater Lodge No. 616, Dayton, Ohio, Brother
Maitland a member of Kenwood Lodge No. 303, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Raised July
19, 1921; Edward S. Evans, Master in 1927 of Palestine Lodge No. 357, Detroit,
Michigan, circled the globe in 28 days, 14 hours, and 36 minutes, spending 16
days on ocean, 5 on trains, 8 on planes; traveling 8,000 miles by boat, 4,000
by train, the remainder by plane about 18,700 miles in all. A courageous
attempt to break this record by use of plane only was made by another
Palestiner, Brother Edward F. Schlee, who traveled eastward from Detroit as
far as Japan when the trip was abandoned. Clarence D. Chamberlain and Charles
A. Levine, the latter a member of Fortitude Lodge No. 19, Brooklyn, New York,
made the journey in a plane from New York to Germany, June 4-6, 1927. Major
Frederick L. Martin, United States Army, commanded the first world flight in
1924; he, a member since 1919 of Myron M. Parker Lodge No. 27, Washington,
District of Columbia, and Lieutenant Leslie P. Arnold, another world flier,
and Major Herbert A. Darque, appointed commander air expedition to circle
South American continent, 1926, are Freemasons. Paul Redfern, lost on a
monoplane 4,600mile trip, Georgia to Rio de Janeiro, leaving August 25,
petitioned Richland Lodge No. 39, Columbia, South Carolina, August 8, 1927,
and at request of Richland Lodge was initiated by Atlantic Lodge No. 82,
Brunswick, Georgia. Lieutenant Bernt Balchin, mechanic of Commander Byrd's
airplane flight to France, since initiated in Norsemen Lodge No. 878,
Brooklyn, New York (see Grand Lodge Bulletin, Iowa, September, 1927; American
Tyler Keystone, November, 1927 Masonic Outlook, August, 1927).
*
LINDNER, FRIEDERICH WILHELM
A Professor of Philosophy in
Leipsic, who publishedin 1818-9 an attack on Freemasonry`under the title of
Mac Benac; Er lebet im Sohne; oder das Positive der Freimaurerez. This work
contains some good ideas, althouch taken from an adverse point of view; but,
as Lenning has observed, these bear little fruit because of the fanatical
spirit of knight errantry with which he attacks the Institution.
*
LINE
One of the Working-Tools of a
Past Master, and presented to the Master of a Lodge at his installation (see
Plumb Line).
*
LINEAR TRIAD
Brother Oliver says that the
Linear Triad is a figure which appears in some old Royal Arch Floor-Cloths. It
bore a reference to the Sojourners, who represented the three stones on which
prayers and thanksgivings were offered on the discovery of the Lost Word;
thereby affording an example that it is our duty in every undertaking to offer
up our prayers and thanksgivings to the God of our salvation.
*
LINES, PARALLEL
See Parallel Lines
*
LINGAM
The Iingam and the Youi of the
Indian Mysteries were the same as the phallus and dezs of the Grecian (see
Phallic Worship).
*
LINK
A Degree formerly conferred in
England, in conneetion with the Mark Degree, under the title of the Mark and
Link or Wrestle, sometimes known as the Ark, Mark,Link, or Wrestle (see in
this connection Genesis xi, 1-9; xxxii, 2G30). The Degree is now obsolete.
*
LINNECAR, RICHARD
The author of the celebrated
Masonic anthem beginning
Let there be Light! Th' Almighty spoke
Refulgent beams from chaos broke,
T' illume the rising earth.
Well pleased the great Jehovah stood
The Power Supreme pronounced it good,
And gave the planets birth.
Little is known of his
personal history except that he was the Coroner of Wakefield, England, and for
many years the Master of the Lodge of Unanimity, No. 238, in that town. He was
a zealous and studious Freemason. In 1789 he published, at Leeds, a volume of
plays, poems, and miscellaneous writings, among which was an essay entitled
Strictures on Freemasonry, and the anthem already referred to. He appears to
have been a man of respectable abilities.
*
LION, CHEVALIER DU
French for Knight of the Lion
The twentieth grade of the third series of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.
*
LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH
The connection of Solomon, as
the Chief of the Tribe of Judah, with the Lion, which was the achievement of
the Tribe, has caused this expression to be referred, in the Third Degree, to
Him who brought life and immortality to light. The old Christian
interpretation of the Masonic symbols here prevails; and in Ancient Craft
Masonry all allusions to the Lion, as the Lion's Paw, the Lton's Grip, etc.,
refer to the doctrine of the resurrection taught by Him who is known as "the
Lion of the Tribe of Judah." The expression is borrowed from the Apocalypse
(v, 5): "Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath
prevailed to open the Book, and to loose the Seven Seals thereof." The lion
was also a Medieval symbol of the resurrection, the idea being founded on a
legend. The poets of that age were fond of referring to this legend ary symbol
in connection with the Scriptural idea of the Tribe of Judah. Thus Adam de
Saint Victor, in his poem De Resurrectione Domini, says:
Sic de Juda Leo fortis,
Fractis portis dirae mortis
Die surgit tertia,
Rugiente voce Patris.
Thus the strong lion of Judah
The gates of cruel death being broken,
Arose on the third day
At the loud-sounding voice of the Father.
The Lion was the symbol of
strength and sovereignty, in the human-headed figures of the Nimrod Gateway,
and in other Babylonish remains. In Egypt, it was worshiped at the City of
Leontopolis as typical of Dom, the Egyptian Hercules. Plutarch says that the
Egyptians ornamented their Temples with gaping lions' mouths, because the Nile
began to rise when the sun was in the Constellation Leo. Among the Talmudists
there was a tradition of the lion, which has been introduced into the higher
Degrees of Freemasonry.
But in the symbolism of
Ancient Craft Masonry, where the lion is introduced, as in the Third Degree,
in connection with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, he becomes simply a symbol
of the resurrection; thus restoring the symbology of the Medieval Ages, which
was founded on a legend that the lion's whelp was born dead, and only brought
to life by the roaring of its sire. Philip de Thaun, in his Bestiary, written
in the twelfth century, gives the legend, which has thus been translated by
Wright from the original old Norman Freneh: "Know that the lioness, if she
bring forth a dead cub, she holds her cub and the lion arrives; he goes about
and cries, till it revives on the third day.... Know that the lioness
signifies Saint Mary, and the lion Christ, who gave Himself to death for the
people; three days He lay in the earth to gain our souls....By the cry of the
lion they understand the power of God, by which Christ was restored to life
and robbed hey."
The phrase, "Lion of the Tribe
of Judah, " therefore, when used in the Masonic instructions, referred in its
original interpretation to Christ, Him who "brought life and immortality to
light."
*
LOCKE'S LETTER
The letter of John Locke which
is said to have accompanied the Leland Manuscript, and which contains his
comments on it (see Leland Manuscript).
*
LODGE, CHARTERED
See Chartered Lodge
*
LODGE, CLANDESTINE
See Clandestine Lodge
*
LODGE, CONSTITUTED
See Constisuted Legally
*
LODGE, DORMANT
See Domant Lodge
*
LODGE, EMERGENT
See Emergent Lodge
*
LODGE, EXTINCT
See Extinct Lodge
*
LODGE, FUNERAL
See Sorrow Lodge
*
LODGE, HOLY
See Holy Lodge
*
LODGE HOURS
Brother Laurence Dertnott says
(Ahiman Rezon, page xxiii), "that Lodge hours, that is, the time in which it
is lawful for a Lodge to work or do business, are from March 25th to September
26th, between the hours of seven and ten; and from September 25th to March
25th, between the hours of six and nine." Whence he derived the law is
unknown; but it is certain that it has never been rigidly observed even by the
Antient Lodges, for whom his Ahimun Rezon was written.
As a matter of general
interest regarding Lodge hours we find in the Fabrie Rolls of York Minster,
1355, orders were issued for the guidance of the Operative Masons. In summer
they were to begin work immediately after sunrise, until the ringing of the
bell of the Virgin Mary; then to breakfast in the Fabric Lodge; then one of
the Masters shall knock upon the door of the Lodge, and forthwith all are to
return to work until noon. Between April and August, after dinner, they shall
sleep in the Lodge; then work until the first bell for vespers; then sit to
drink to the end of the third bell, and return to work so long as they can see
by daylight. It was usual for this Church to find tunics, aprons, gloves and
clogs—wooden-soled shoes—and to give occasional "drinks," and remuneration for
extra work (see Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Society, volume 35,
1858; also Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons, Edward Conder, Jr., page 38).
*
LODGE, JUST
See Just Lodge
*
LODGE, LATIN
In the year 1785, the Grand
Lodge of Scotland granted a Warrant for the establishment of Roman Eagle Lodge
at Edinburgh; the whole of whose work was conducted in the Latin language. Of
this Lodge, the celebrated and learned Dr. John Brown was the founder and
Master. He had himself translated the ritual into the classical language of
Rome, and the Minutes were written in Latin (see Lyon's History of the Lodge
of Edinburgh, page 257). The Lodge is No. 160 on the Scotch Roll, but ceased
to work in Latin in 1794. An article in the Builder, September, 1926 (page
275), by Brother Robert I. Clegg, mentions a peculiar use of Latin in a Lodge.
An extract was copied for him by Brother A. H. Mackey from the records of
Lodge Saint David, No. 36, at Edinburgh, Scotland. The famous novelist, Sir
Walter Scott, was a member of this Lodge. The item from the Minutes of an
emergency meeting on September 13, 1783, is as follows:
The Lodge being convened on an
Emergency and the Right Worshipful being in the Country, Brother W. Ferguson
took the chair and represented, That Fabian Gordons Esqr., Colonel of Horse,
Carolus Gordon. Esqr., Maior of Foot; Stefanus Dziembowskie, Esqr., Captain of
Foot. all in his Polish Majesty s Service, and Joseph Bukaty, Esqr., Secretary
to the Polish Embassy at London has applied to him to be made Masons and
Members of this Lodge, and as he is particularly acquainted with them all, he
recommends to his Brethren to grant their requested which being unanimously
agreed to, they were introduced in the order above mentioned, when the
ceremony was performed by the Right Reverend Brother John Maclure, Grand
Chaplain, and translated into Latin by Brother John Brown, M.D., as none of
them understood English. The Brethren were entertained in the most Elegant
Manner by Voeal and Instrumental Music particularly by the whole Band of the
21st Regiment with French Corns, Cor-de-Chasse Trumpets, Hautboys and
bassoons.
At a later meeting, September
18, 1783, a Masters' Lodge was convened and the Minutes read: That the four
Polish Brethren had been extremely diligent in learning the apprentices' part,
and as their time in this Country was to be short, they were anxious to be
promoted to the higher Degrees, and for that purpose he had ordered this
Masters' Lodge to be convened and hoped their request would be granted and
their Entries having proved tedious, first giving it in English and then
translating it into Latin so the Most Worshipful Charles Wm. Little Esqr.
Substitute Grand Master of Scotland had voluntarily offered to assist Brother
John Brown, M.D., and Brother Clark, of Saint Andrews Lodge, and accordingly
the Ceremony which took up above three hours was performed in very Elegant
Latin.
*
LODGE MASTER, ENGLISH
The French expression is
Mastre de Lodge Anglais. A Degree in the nomenclature of Thory, inserted on
the authority of Lemanceau.
*
LODGE MASTER, FRENCH
In French the title is Maitre
de Lodge Français. The Twenty-sixth Degree of the collection of the
Metropolitan Chapter of France.
*
LODGE, OCCASIONAL
See Occasional lodge
*
LODGE OF INSTRUCTION
These are assemblies of
Brethren congregated without a Warrant of Constitution, under the direction of
a lecturer or skillful Brother, for the purpose of improvement in Freemasonry,
which is accomplished by the frequent rehearsal of the work and lectures of
each Degree.
The Bodies should consist
entirely of Master Masons; and though they possess no Masonic power, it is
evident to every Freemason that they are extremely useful as schools of
preparation for the duties that are afterward to be performed in the regular
Lodge. In England, these Lodges of Instruction are attached to regularly
Warranted Lodges, or are specially licensed by the Grand Master. But they have
an independent set of officers, who are elected at no stated periods—sometimes
for a year, sometimes for six or three months, and sometimes changed at every
night of meeting. They of course have no power of initia- AS tion, but simply
meet for purposes of practice in the ritual. They are, however, bound to keep
a record of their transactions, subject to the inspection of the superior
powers.
*
LODGE OF SAINT JOHN
The Masonic tradition is that
the primitive or Mother Lodge was held at Jerusalem, and dedicated to Saint
John, first the Baptist, then the Evangelist, and finally to both. Hence this
Lodge was called "The Lodge of the Holy Saint John of Jerusalem." From this
Lodge all other Lodges re supposed figuratively to descend, and they therefore
receive the same general name, accompanied by another local and distinctive
one. In all Masonic documents the words ran formerly as follows:
"From the Lodge of the holy
Saint John of Jerusalem, under the distinctive appellation of Solomon's Lodge,
No. 1," or whatever might be the local name. In this style foreign documents
still run; and it is but a few years since it has been at all disused in the
United States of America Hence we say that every Freemason hails from such a
Lodge, that is to say, from a just and legally constituted Lodge. In the
earliest catechisms of the eighteenth century we find this formula: "Q. What
Lodge are you of? A. The Lodge of Saint John. " And another question is, "How
many angles in Saint John's Lodge?" In one of the advanced Degrees it is
stated that Lodges receive this title "because, in the time of the Crusades,
the Perfect Masons communicated a knowledge of their Mysteries to the Knights
of Saint John of Jerusalem," and as both were thus under the same law, the
Lodges were called Saint John's Lodges. But this was only one of the attempts
to connect Freemasonry with the Templar system.
*
LODGE OF THE NINE SISTERS
See Nine Sisters, lodge of the
*
LODGE, PERFECT
See Just Lodge
*
LODGE, REGULAR
See Regular Lodge
*
LODGE-ROOM
The Freemasons on the
Continent of Europe have a prescribed form or ritual of building according to
whose directions it is absolutely necessary that every hall for Masonic
purposes shall be erected. No such regulation exists among the Fraternity of
the United States of America or of Great Britain. Still, the usages of the
Craft, and the objects of convenience in the administration of our Rites,
require that certain general rules should be followed in the construction of a
Lodge-room. These rules, as generally observed in the United States of
America, are as follows:
A Lodge-room should always, if
possible, be situated due East and West. This position is not absolutely
necessary; and yet it is 60 far so as to demand that some sacrifice should be
made, if possible, to obtain so desirable a position. It should also be
isolated, where it is practicable, from all surrounding buildings, and should
always be placed in an upper story. No Lodge should ever be held on the ground
floor. The form of a Lodge-room should be that of a parallelogram or Oblong
Square, at least one-third larger from East to West than it is from North to
South. The ceiling should be lofty, to give dignity to the appearance of the
hall, as well as for the purposes of health, by compensating, in some degree,
for the inconvenience of closed windows, which necessarily will deteriorate
the quality of the air in a very short time in a low room. The approaches to
the Lodge-room from without should be angular, for, as Brother Oliver says, "A
straight entrance is un-masonic, and cannot be tolerated."
There should be two entrances
to the room, which should be situated in the West, and on each side of the
Senior Warden's Station. The one on his right hand is for the introduction of
visitors and members and leading from the Tiler's room, is called the Tiler's,
or the outer door; the other, on his left, leading from the preparation room,
is known as the inner door, and sometimes called the northwest door. The
situation of these two doors, as well as the rooms with which they are
connected, and which are essentially necessary in a well-constructed
Lodge-room, may be seen from the diagram, which also exhibits the seats of the
officers and the arrangement of the Altar and Lights. We have already
mentioned that the arrangement of the room as here described is a common one
but is by no means universal. This should be kept in mind. For further
observations, see Hall, Masonic.
*
LODGE, ROYAL
See Royal Lodge
*
LODGE, SACRED
See Sacred Lodge
*
LODGE, STEWARDS
See Stewards' Lodge; also
Grand Stewards' Lodge
*
LODGE, SYMBOL OF THE
The modern symbol or
hieroglyphic of the word Lodge is a rectangle having unequal pairs of sides,
the figure which undoubtedly refers to the form of the Lodge as an Oblongs
Square. But in the old rituals of the early part of the eighteenth century we
find this symbol: The cross here, as Krause (Kunsturkunden i, page 37)
suggests, refers to the "four angles" of the Lodge, as in the question: "How
many angles in Saint John's Lodge? A. Four, bordering on squares"; and the
Delta, or equilateral triangle, is the Pythagorean symbol of Divine Providence
watching over the Lodge This symbol has long since become obsolete. Another
suggestion comes from the Swastica or Fylfot, elsewhere discussed, and the
symbol may then be seen as in the accompanying illustration.
*
LOGE
The French word for Lodge.
*
LODGE, THE
The discussion of the "Lodge"
as part of the furniture of a Lodge on page 599 states a puzzle insoluble in
Mackey's time, and one which is not yet wholly solved, though it has been the
object of much research. What, exactly, was the "Lodge"? Why was it included
in the "furniture?" If the puzzle cannot be cleared up now it should be at a
not too distant date because a large number of small facts have been
accumulating, slowly but nevertheless steadily, with most of them found in
Minutes of old Lodges. There are too many of these latter to name under the
present limitations of space, but a general ization based on them can be
accepted as a generalization of records, not of theories:
The various City Companies,
the Masons Company among them, kept their charter and other important
documents in a "casket." Lodge Aberdeen had in 1670 (and has still) an "old
wooden charter box, known in the Lodge as the 'Lockit Kist,' [locked chest]
with three locks so that it could only be opened when the three Keymasters
were present at the same time." A large number of Eighteenth Century Lodges
had a box (or casket, or ark) in which were kept the Old Charges or the Book
of Constitutions (or both), the charter, and members' cards—a few Minutes
speak of a member putting his card in or taking it out of the Lodge; there was
a double meaning here, it will be notedy and the word Lodge as denoting its
members could easily transfer its meaning to the box in which membership cards
were kept.
In the oldest Lodges the
principal symbols were drawn on the floor in chalk (usually the Tiler did it)
for an initiation, then mopped off; later, these drawings were painted on oil
cloth to be hung up, or on a foor-cloth to lie on the floor; also, they came
to be painted (or set in mosaic) on boards; yet again, objects corresponding
to the symbols might be placed on a trestle-table (hence, trestle-board) or
laid on a floor-cloth. This ensemble of drawings was called "the Ludge," and
such a board or cloth might have been carried in procession at the time of
consecration of a new Lodge.
The Minutes of Lodge Amity,
No. 137, for May 28, 1819, give in the Inventory, "Box to Carry the Lodge in."
In a footnote the author of the History of Amity quotes Bro. E. H. Dring (Ars
Quatuor Coronatorum, Yol. XXIX, pp 243-264) as saying, "I have always
Understood this to refer to an Altar' in Craft ceremonial (or to the Ark, in
Royal Arch ceremonial), or to a portable imitation thereof ...." He also
quotes Bro. Wynn Westcott as having said in A. Q. C., "A further feature which
some Masonic Lodges have borrowed from the symbolism of the Tabernacle, is the
possession of a cista mystica, a secret coffer, representing the sacred Ark
within the Tabernacle of Moses." (This is a dubious theory because the "Lodge"
would appear to have pre-dated the Royal Arch cista.)
In his Manual of the Lodge
(1868), Albert G. Mackey gives on page 127 the procession at the Consecration
of a Lodge, and under the rubric of "The New Lodge" has "Two brethren carrying
the Lodge." In the Maine Masonic Tent Book (1877) Bro. Josiah H. Drummond has
a variant where on page 137 he writes: "The procession passes once around the
Lodge (or Carpet), and the Deputy Grand Master places the golden vessel of
Corn and the burning taper of white wax at the East of the Lodge (or Carpet)."
In the former instance the "Lodge" would appear to be a tpiece of furniture,
in the latter, it is the tracing-cloth, or board, or carpet. The idea of the
former would be that the "Lodge" is its Charter and members, of the latter
that it is the Lodge as a box, or casket.
Meanwhile a third idea had
long been combined with those two. In the first half of the Old Charges it is
related that before the Deluge the "secrets" of the Liberal Arts and Sciences
had been carved on two pillars, and that after the Deluge they were recovered.
Since the earliest constellation of Speculative Masonic symbols appear to have
referred back to the Old Charges, Noah and the Ark were drawn into symbolism,
and it is in many Minute Books evident that there was a coalescence of the
idea of Noah's Ark, of the charter box, of the box on the pedestal before the
Master w ith the Old Charges and member list in it, and of the "drawing of the
Lodge on the Tracing Board." Sphere the Royal Arch Degree was still a part of
the Third Degree the idea of the Ark of the Covenant may, as Bro. Westcott
suggested, have been added to the previous ideas. In his Concise Cyclopaedia
of FCeexwasonry the unusually cautious Bro. E. L. Hawkins editor, on page 143
expresses himself in agreement with the theory that by "the Lodge" was meant a
tracing-board.
During this entire time, and
even from before its beginning, there was in every Mason's mind the fact that
a Lodge was the building in which Masons met, and that Masonry once had been
the art of architecture. The "Lodge" as now used, an ark-like piece of
furniture, is thus the convergence of a number of lines of tradition, ideas,
and uses; it may be that the fact of a Lodge having so often been used of, or
associated with, a building, was the determining factor.
Why is the Holy Bible
described as a part of the "furniture" of a Lodge? A reasonable theory is
suggested by the data as indicated in the paragraphs above. To begin with, the
Old Charges were kept in a box; later the Book of Constitutions and the
Charter were kept in a box; if when the Holy Bible came into use (roughly in
the period 1725-1750) it may also have been kept in the same box; if the box
or "Lodge" was a piece of furniture it was easy for the idea of the box to be
transferred to the contents of it; it may be that this never exactly occurred
but it is reasonable to believe that we have the Bible described as
"furniture" because of some such association of uses or ideas.
*
LODGE, THE, IN JURISPRUDENCE
A Lodge is the whole of
Freemasonry as Freemasonry is present and at work in a community. It is not a
representative of a set of doctrines or general theories, nor a subordinate
branch of something with headquarters else where. Freemasonry never exists as
a set of floating generalizations, or as "a ballet of abstractions," is never
a set of ideas and notions and beliefs diffused through a population, or
something carried in memory from books and speeches; is not a philosophy, or a
"cause," or an ideology; where it is present in a community it invariably is
present as a Lodge, or it cannot be present. It has no way to be at all, and
never has had, except to be a Lodge. (See page 597.)
The word itself is a happy one
etymologically, because it is so truly descriptive; it is also accurate as a
term in Masonic jurisprudence, because an adequate definition of the word
itself is almost a statement of the doctrine of the Lodge which belongs to
jurisprudence. Freemasonry in a community is, first, called a Lodge, because
it means that Freemasonry lodges in that community. It was not compelled to
come there; it is not compelled to remain there; nor can it compel a community
to accept its presence or permit it to remain. The community itself does not
create the Lodge.
What the Lodge is, and where
it is, is not determined by politics or by business or by geography. It is
only when a certain number of Master Masons decide to petition for a Charter
that a Lodge can be formed; the Fraternity never constitutes a Lodge
otherwise, and never listens to a petition from any other source; so that it
is Freemasonry itself, and not a town or a town's population, which decides
when and where a Lodge may be present in that town. Second, it is called a
Lodge because of what is lodged in it. It is Freemasonry itself, the whole of
it, that is lodged in it. Just as a Lodge may on its own volition withdraw
from a community, so may Freemasonry itself withdraw from a Lodge, after which
any residue remaining is no longer a Lodge
In the Freemasonry which is
thus lodged in a Lodge, is the authority to make Masons, the authority of
these Masons to assemble, the authority by which they adopt their own by-laws
and enforce them on their own members, the authority to supervise all Masons'
activities in the name of Freemasonry inside a fixed jurisdiction; etc. This
general authority and these special authorities are inherent in the Lodge (not
derived from elsewhere) because they are inherent in Freemasonry itself; and
the Lodge, because it is Freemasonry itself as present in a local community,
therefore is whatever Freemasonry is. No other Lodge nor any Grand Lodge can
alienate the authority and authorities inherent in the Lodge because they do
not create Freemasonry, nor can they alter it.
It is because a Grand Lodge
does not create Freemasonry that a Charter does not create a Lodge. The
purpose of the Charter is to give the Grand Lodge's official authorization and
approval to the Lodge its charter members are making, and to certify
officially to other chartered Lodges that the Lodge in question is a regular,
duly-constituted Lodge—that Freemasonry itself is now and henceforth at work
in such-and such a community. In its beginning the Charter is a Dispensation,
or temporary warrant, of which the purpose is to give official sanction and
protection to the Master Masons during the months in which they are organizing
their Lodge; once it is organized in such a form that it can become
Freemasonry present and at work in that community, the Deputation becomes a
Charter, a legal document containing authority in itself.
If the members of the Lodge
cease to carry on the work of Freemasonry the Charter is withdrawn, is no
longer in existence, and Freemasonry no longer is present in that local
jurisdiction.
The office of Worshipful
Master has inherent authority which a Grand Master did not give and cannot
take away; it is because such an office is inherent in the nature of
Freemasonry. Such authorities, offices, principles, and required activities as
constitute, or comprise, Freemasonry itself are called Ancient Landmarks. The
fact that Freemasonry is nowhere at work except as a Lodge is a Landmark. (The
same principles apply, mutasis mutandi, to Chapters, Councils, Commanderies ,
Consistories .
*
LODGE, THE WORD
Since the middle of the
Nineteenth Century American Masonic jurisprudence has given the word Lodge a
fixed and (comparatively) rigid meaning: first, it is a body of Master Masons
working under a Warrant or Charter; second, it is the consecrated Room in
which they meet. Before that date the word "Lodge" had everywhere a more
flexible meaning. Before the erection of the first Grand Lodge in 1717 many
Lodges were "Private" and met in private homes.
The Stewards of the Grand
Lodge were formed into the Grand Stewards' Lodge. A Grand Masters Lodge was
formed. For some years Masters Lodges were separately formed, and a number of
Lodges might send their members to the same Masters' Lodge to be Raised. There
were special Relief Lodges, Charity Lodges, etc. When the two Grand Lodges of
Moderns and Ancient prepared to unite they formed a Lodge of Reconciliation
expressly for the purpose of preparing for the Union consummated in 1813. (The
effect of the work of this Lodge and of the Union on American practice has not
received adequate attention.) At the time of the Union a special Lodge of
Promulgation was formed to teach Lodges the new "working." Prior to this
period there existed (and some continue to exist) special Lodges of
Instruction, the functions of which were similar to those of an American Grand
Lecturer, or Grand Custodian of the Work. In 1886 the first Lodge of Research
was warranted in England, to be followed by many others.
It is evident that the
restricted meaning of the word "Lodge" in American Jurisprudence, and without
calling it into question, does not rest on an old or a general tradition; is
not a Landmark. A regular Warranted Lodge consists in reality of four Lodges-
to conduct the Regular Order of Business it is one Lodge to Enter an
Apprentice it is an Apprentice Lodge; etc. The word "Degree," the more
rigorous Masonic authorities are agreed, is a misnomer, and should be replaced
by the word "Lodge"; a Candidate is Initiated in a Lodge of Apprentices, is
Passed in a Lodge of Fellowcraft, is Raisedina Lodge of Master Masons; so that
he does not become a member of an Entered Apprentice Degree (and so on) but of
an Entered Apprentice Lodge. A number of American Grand Lodges, following the
lead of North Carolina and New York, have since 1931 granted Warrants to
Lodges of Research. A few Grand Lodges art discussing the possible formation
of Relief Lodges, Instruction Lodges, etc.
*
LODGE JOHORE ROYAL
By-Laws and History of Lodge
Johore Royal, No. 3946, E. C. was pubs fished by the Lodge in Johore Bahru,
capital of the native Malay state of Johore near Singapore. It was issued
"With the Compliments of His Highness the Sultan of Johore, Worshipful Master
of the Lodge." Its title page bears the dates, Year of Masonry 5922, the
Mohammedan Year 1341, and 1922 A.D. It is "illuminated with one hundred and
one extracts from the Holy Koran, containing advice, admonition, and the true
principles of life." His Highness the Sultan w as Raised to the Sublime Degree
of a Master Mason in the Lodge, June 5, 1920; was invested Senior Warden on
the following July 16th; and in the following year was installed Worshipful
Master. The list of 83 members in 1922 was headed, in addition to the Sultan,
by Their Highnesses Prince Ismail (Crown Prince), Prince Abu Bakar, and Prince
Ahmed; the majority of members were Englishmen. The Lodge worked under a
regular charter issued by the Grand Lodge of England, the Duke of Connaught
being Grand Master, but was immediately answerable to the District Grand Lodge
of the Eastern Archipelago, which dated from 1858. The first Lodge in Malaya
was consecrated in Penang, under a Charter from the Antient Grand Lodge in
England, in 1809, under name of Lodge Neptune. It became extinct in 1819.
Lodge of Humanity with Courage, in Penang, was warranted by the District Grand
Master of Bengal in 1821 Lodge Zetland-in-the-East was consecrated in Singa
pore in 1845; St. George was consecrated in Singapore in 1867; Read Lodge, No.
2337, was consecrated in Kuola Lampur, in 1889; a succession of Lodges in
Malaya have followed since. Sir Ibrahim, Sultan of Johore, was born September
17, 1873; was crowned Sultan in 1895.
NOTE. The above may remind
Masonic students that five years after he had been named Charter Master of
Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Researeh, No. 2076, in London, Sir Charles Warren
was installed District Grand Master of the Eastern Archipelago; his was one of
the most remarkable careers in modern times because he had a place of
leadership in the founding of the period of modern Freemasonry in England
Africa, Palestine and the Far East. The period to which the name "modern
Freemasonry" applies may be roughly set as beginning at about 1875, because in
that generation not only Lodges but District, Provincial, and Grand Lodges
became permanently and prosperously established in every settled country in
the world, each regular Lodge and Grand Lodge being fraternally connected with
each and every other one in a network which literally covers the earth.
This establishment of World
Masonry, once the prophecy of it had become a realization, settled, onen and
for all, two facts: that Freemasonry was not a possession of the Anglo-Saxon
peoples, or even of the Occident; that it was not the peculiar possession of
any one race, religion, or culture. Universality is a present fact Speculative
Freemasonry began as a local fraternity in the City of London about 1717 -
1725; in what way and to what an extent it will be inwardly transformed by
becoming a world fraternity it is too early to predict; thus far only one fact
is certain, that henceforth Masonic statesmanship cannot tolerate any local
custom or doctrine which violates the reality of world-wide universality.
*
LODGE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION
The Lodge System of Masonic
Education was developed by The National Masonic Research Society in 1923. It
embodied the experience of hundreds of Lodges and the Society's twenty to
thirty thousand members in Masonic educational work in each and every American
Grand Jurisdiction and in the majority of foreign countries (the Society had
full members as far away as New Zealand, China, India, etc.), and was based on
the principles which those experiences had revealed. The Educational Committee
of the Grand Lodge of Michigan offered to test the System in two or three of
its Lodges. At the end of two years this test hall proved so satisfactory that
the Board of General Activities (of nine members) of the Grand Lodge of New
York, which administered the educational services of some 1100 Lodges (they
had 340,000 members at the time), recommended the System to the Grand Master,
who in turn presented it to Grand Lodge which approved it without a dissenting
vote. The Board prepared and printed the text-book which after receiving
official endorsement was sent to the Lodges. The Masonic Service Association
of America, with headquarters at Washington, D. C., adopted the System and
issued a text-book of its own. At last report some fifteen Grand Jurisdictions
had the System in use.
The theory of the System is
that "Masonic Education" is to prepare a Candidate to play his part in the
activities of the Lodge; that it should be an integral, official part of
Initiation, Passing, and Raising; and that no Candidate could petition for
membership in the Lodge until he had received the training. Many Grand Lodges
had already written Masonic Education into their Constitutions; the Lodge
System meant that Lodges had written it into their By-Laws.
The National Masonic Research
Society had in its files a larger mass of data about Masonic educational work
under circumstances of every possible kind than had ever been accumulated
before; an analysis of the data showed that the universal weakness of the
plans in use was that they were not official, were left to voluntary leaders
and Committees, and that in this, as elsewhere in the Craft, the voluntary
Committee system was becoming less and less reliable because Committees so
often fail to discharge their promise— grow weary, or forget to meet.
In the Lodge System a Standing
Committee is placed in charge. It is a permanent, official part of the Lodge
organization, on a par as to dignity, honor, and importance with Lodge
Officers. When a Petitioner has been approved he spends an evening with the
Committee before he receives the First Degree; and one evening each after each
of the Degrees, making four in all. At a meeting each of the five members of
the Committee reads to him (or to them) a paper about ten minutes in length.
Each paper has been prepared and officially approved, and does not merely
express the reader's personal views. A paper gives information on such
subjects as the organization of a Lodge, how to visit, Masonic finances, the
meaning of each Degree, the Landmarks, the Grand Lodge, history of Masonry in
the State, general history of Masonry, etc. The Candidate can then ask
questions By the end of the fourth meeting the Candidate is well informed, and
also has five Masonic acquaintances by the time he is ready for membership; he
has learned how interesting Masonry is in itself; has lost his shyness; and is
equipped to take an active part in Lodge work.
To adopt the Lodge System:
1. It is endorsed officially by the Grand Lodge.
2. The Grand Lodge has the text-book of papers (including instructions to the
Committee) printed and distributed.
3. A Lodge discusses the System under the Order of Business, and if it adopts
it provides for it in the By-Laws.
4. The Master appoints a Standing Committee (usually of five).
5. After the Petitioner has passed the Ballot the Secretary mails him
instructions when and where to meet with the Committee.
There is nothing for the Candidate to learn by heart, but he is required to
take this educational preparation as seriously as the Initiation ceremonies.
The result of the use of the System is to give a Lodge a membership in which
each man is trained in the thought and practices of the Craft.
*
LONDON
At more than one period in
Masonry's history London became the Masonic city par excellence; for example,
when many French Masters came into England via London at the time of the
introduction of the Gothic style into the Island; after the great fire of 1666
which was followed by an unheard of amount of building, centering around Sir
Christopher Wren, and the Mason Company; and in 1717 when the first Grand
Lodge of Speculative Freemasonry was erected there—Speculative Freemasonry was
for some years widely known as "London Masonry" or "the London Grand Lodge";
and finally when the second, and more vigorous Grand Lodge, the Ancient, was
formed there in 1751.
As an introduction to an
almost inexhaustible literature see London Life in the !4th Century, by
Charles Pendrill; Adelphi Co.; New York; it contains one excellent chapter on
London gilds, and another on "the Liberty of London," each with a direct
bearing on the history of Freemasonry. The greatest work on London is by the
distinguished Mason, Sir Walter Besant who is credited with having originated
the idea of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, and who was an early member of it, in
a series of massive, richly illustrated volumes published at various intervals
of time by A. & C. Black; London. (See in especial London in the Eighteenth
Century, by Sir Walter Besant; 1902; 667 pages; a detailed description of
London Life as it was in the Grand Lodge period; and London in Time of the
Tudors; 1914; it has a chapter on "The 'Prentice." See also London Life in the
X VIII Century, by M. Dorothy George; Kegan Paul; 1925.)
*
LOW TWELVE CLUBS
Begun as death benefit clubs
the Low Twelve Clubs are in reality an insurance society, and in a majority of
States are under the rules and supervision of the State Insurance Commission.
Benefits are not guaranteed, the amounts paid depending on the size of the
club. A club is usually organized near a Lodge, of which each member is by
virtue of the fact eligible for membership in the Club.
NOTE. The Grand Lodge of
England once undertook to establish a Benefit [or insurance) society in
connection with the Lodges, but in practice it was found that the form of
organization required by an insurance society was incompatible Tooth the form
of organization of a Lodge as required by the Ancient Landmarks. In the 1840's
the Grand Lodge had much difficulty with Benefit Societies organized in
conjunction with Lodges- they resulted in two classes of members in the same
Lodge, and often only "Benefit Masons" could vote or hold office. see Grand
Lodge Proceedings of England for 1844.
*
LUDENDORFF AND FREEMASONRY
After Germany's defeat in 1918
General Eric von Ludendorff began an open and declared war on Freemasonry with
a pronunciamento which began: "Today, Liege Day, General Ludendorff strikes a
devastating blow against Freemasonry ...." This blow consisted of a periodical
called Dee Deutsche Wochenschau, and of a pamphlet called Destruction of
Freemasonry by the Disclosure of its Secrets, followed by a sequel entitled
War Propaganda and Mass Murders of the last 150 years in the Service of the
Grand Architect of the Universe. The General also gathered about him a band,
or bund, including a number of alarmed ladies; including also Adolf Hitler,
his favorite protege, and with whom he marched in the Munich putsch. The
General reported to his countrymen that he was being enthusiastically assisted
in his researches by his wife.
"The secret of Freemasonry is
always the Jew." "All Germans who are initiated into Freemasonry are fettered
with Jewish bonds and are lost to Germany for ever." The purpose of these Jews
is by means of Freemasonry to subjugate Germany, with its holy soil, to "the
Jewish Capitalist Priestly World Monarchy" in New York City. The League of
Nations conferences in Geneva were held under Masonic auspices. Benes was a
Mason. Dr. Stresemann was. Each had received that indelible stamp on his
countenance by which a non-Mason can tell a Mason at a distance. Even Mrs.
Ludendorff became adept at identifying them on the street. Such were a few of
the General's "devastating blows."
Nine German Grand Lodges
replied to General Ludendorff, "a man of such former greatness and
importance." Some hundreds of ex-officers sent the General an Open Letter; in
it they reminded him that the "great Prussian War Lord, Field-Marshal
Blucher," had spent "thirty years of leading activity in our Brotherhood";
Ludendorff and his wife replied that Blucher had not kept his oath of
allegiance to the king (probably a Mason).
General Ludendorff and his
wife next announced that the War Memorial at Tannenberg was a secretly
inspired Cabalistic and Jewish temple symbolically representing the Masonic
domination of the world. The Masonic Apron is the Apron of the priest of the
"filthy Jehovah"; to wear it means that a Mason has been symbolically
circumcised. The general confessed that these discoveries had been distasteful
to his wife but that she had heroically endured them.
Ludendorff had been Chief of
the General Staff. After having heard of the General's (and his wife's)
"discoveries" President von Hindenburg grunted: "I know quite well what I am
to think of Freemasonry. My grandfathers were Freemasons ...." In a letter to
the Association of German Students Ludendorff said, "I do not rate this fight
any less important than the struggles of the World War."
General Ludendorff and his
wife next discovered that a large number of Pastors in the Evangelieal Church
were Masons; they withdrew from membership. Is there a more deplorable picture
than that of innumerable Protestant ministers of German blood wearing the
Aaron apron and practicing the ritual of symbolical circumcision!" But the
General and his wife found even more deplorable pictures. Melanehthon had been
a "Lodge Brother," and a thief Lessing was murdered in Lodge. Mozart was
poisoned by Masons. Schiller was murdered by Masons, with the connivance of
Goethe, who, as a Mason, was a "mute dog" and "the living corpse of Weimar."
Mrs. Ludendorff, become an expert by long tutelage under her husband, linked
Jews, Jesuits, and Freemasons together, and explained that they committed
crimes because they were "children of the moon."
(A complete bibliography is given on page 360 of The Freemasons by Eugen
Lennhof, Oxford University Press; New York; 1934. The above is indebted to Ch.
3, Part III.)
*
LOGE ANGLAISE
An English Lodge, No 204
organized in the south of France, 1730, and still active. Some merchant
captains in the course of their trade put into Bordeaux and founded this Lodge
Sunday, April 27, 1732, under the Grand Lodge of England. In those days three
Master Masons assembled for the express purpose could constitute a Lodge
without Grand Lodge Warrant.
The Minutes of the first
meeting show Martin Kelly, Master, and Nicolas Staunton and Jonathan Robinson
the Wardens. Two candidates were present, one being James Bradshaw. The Lodge
met on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of the same week and at the
latter meeting Nicolas Staunton was elected Master. Brother Kelly had
Initiated five and Raised four to the Third Degree. Brother Staunton was
installed May 2 and by May 6 he Initiated two and Raised two others. On May 6
James Bradshaw was elected Master. During the first year seventeen members
were enrolled, only one French. English was used in the Minutes the first
eleven years. From September 8,1743, onward, French became the language of the
Lodge and, except for short periods during its first few years and fifteen
months during the Reign of Terror, the Lodge has met regularly. With the ads
approval of the Grand Lodge of England the early Lodge granted Constitutions
to various Lodges in France and abroad.
Of interest is a record in the
Minutes of August 2, 1746, that admittance was refused three initiates on the
ground that they were "players of instruments in the theater." February 11,
1749, they decided that "no Jew shall ever be admitted a member in this
Lodge." On March 25, 1781, Brother La Pauze, a Roman Catholic priest and Curé
of the Parish of Saint Pierre, is recorded as Master of the Lodge. In April,
1766, the Lodge received a Warrant from the Grand Lodge of England
specifically confirming the proceedings from the time of its inception in
1732. In 1766 the Grand Lodge of France issued an edict stating that all
Lodges in France not accepting its Jurisdiction would be irregular. At the
intercession of the Grand Lodge of England in behalf of the Loge Anglaise an
exception was made in its case. In 1767 the Loge Anglaise appears as N. o. 363
on the List of Lodges of the Grand Lodge of England but is omitted from the
list of 1774 and therefore negotiations begun with the Grand Orient for a
formal Warrant, of December 12, 1780, the Lodge giving up its right to found
other Lodges in France but retaining friendly relations with England.
The Grand Orient issued a
Warrant, January 6, 1783, to seventeen Brethren who had resigned, forming the
new La T'raie AnS7laise, the True English, and the Loge Anglaise had itself
restored on the list of the Grand Lodge of England as No. 240 in 1785. August
31, 1790, this Lodge with four other French Lodges agreed to no longer
recognize the authority of the Grand Orient of France. In 1793 the name was
changed to Lodge No. 240 'Egalité (called Equality) but the old title was
resumed in 1795. In 1802 a renumbering of Lodges under the Grand Lodge of
England put the Loge Anglaise as No. 204 on the Register. The Loge Anglaise
agreeably to the Grand Orient of France, September 7, 1803, and the Grand
Lodge of England, with three other Lodges formed a Provincial Grand Lodge,
February 21, 1804. New by-laws, June 7, 1816, specified that the Lodge was
under "Joint protection of the Grand Orients of England and France." May 16,
1818, the Grand Secretary of England wrote the Loge Anglaise that all
connection with the Grand Lodge had ceased since 1786.
The Lodge protested and
remained independent. Brother John Lane says in Masonic Records that the Lodge
was on the English Register until 1813. After considerable time the Lodge
again associated with the Grand Orient of France, maintaining always the
custom of toasting the Grand Lodge of England at banquets. In 1869 an
amendment to Article 1, Constitution of the Grand Orient, came up for
decision.
This Article stated that "The
principles on which Freemasonry is founded are the existence of God, the
immortality of the soul, and the solidarity of the human race.' An amendment
was defeated thanks to the effort made by the Loge Anglaise, but the matter
again came up, 1876, and the Lodge was helpless to prevent the adoption of the
amendment by the General Assembly and relations were severed. January 7, 1913,
the Lodge passed a vote of disapproval of the Grand Orient, and with the Lodge
CentRre des Amis undertook to form the new Grand Loge Nationale pour la France
(see Loge Anglaise, by Edmund Heisch, London, 1917; also Transactions Authors
Lodge, London, volume 2, and the English Lodge at Bordeaux G. W. Speth, a
paper read in Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1899).
*
LOGIC
The art of reasoning, and one
of the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences, whose uses are incuLcated in the
Second Degree. The power of right reasoning, which distinguishes the man of
sane mind from the madman and the idiot, is deemed essential to the Freemason,
that he may comprehend both his rights and his duties. And hence the
unfortunate beings just named, who are without this necessary mental quality,
are denied admission into the Order. The Old Charges define logic to be the
art "that teacheth to discern truth from falsehood."
*
LOKI
See Balder
*
LOMBARDY
At the close of the dark ages,
Idombardy and the adjacent Italian States were the first which awakened to
industry. New cities arose, and the kings, lords, and municipalities began to
encourage the artificers of different professions. Among the arts exercised
and improved in Lombardy, the art of building held a pre-eminent rank, and
from that kingdom, as from a center, the Comacine Masters were dispersed over
all Europe (see Traveling Freemasons; also Commune).
*
LONDON
With the city of London, the
modern history of Freemasonry is intimately connected. A Congress of
Freemasons, as it may properly be called was convened there by the Four Old
Lodges, at the Apple-Tree Tavern, in 1717. Its results were the formation of
the Grand Lodge of England, and a modification of the Masonic system, whence
the Freemasonry of the present day has descended. Anderson, in his second
edition of the Book of Constitutions, 1738, gives the account of this, as it
is now called, Revival of Freemasonry, which see.
*
LONDON RANK
Authorized by the Grand Lodge
of England upon the suggestion of the Grand Master, December 4, 1907, as a
means of conferring Masonic honors upon members of those Lodges which were
held within a radius of ten miles of Freemasons Hall, London, and which are
known as London Lodges, they not coming under any Provincial or District
organization and thus being unable to obtain any distinction but that of Grand
Lodge Office. As a result of this condition, much discussion was had regarding
the dividing of the London Lodges into Provinces, thereby multiplying the
honors within their reach, but at this time the Grand Master was authorized to
confer the right to wear a distinctive jewel, collar, and apron with the
designation London Rank, this honor to be conferred upon Past Masters of
London Lodges, one for each such Lodge for 1908 and up to the number of 150
each year thereafter, a certain fee being paid for the distinction. This Rank
is the equivalent of Provincial or District Rank and is bestowed on the
Brethren for long and meritorious service to the Craft.
*
LOST WORD
The mythical history of
Freemasonry informs us that there once existed a Word of surpassing value, and
claiming a profound veneration; that this Word was known to but few; that it
was at length lost; and that a temporary substitute for it was adopted. But as
the very philosophy of Freemasonry teaches us that there can be no death
without a resurrection—no decay without a subsequent restoration—on the same
principle it follows that the loss of the Word must suppose its eventual
recovery.
Now, this it is, precisely,
that constitutes the myth of the Lost Word and the search for it. No matter
what was the Word, no matter how it was lost, nor why a substitute was
provided, nor when nor where it was recovered. These are all points of
subsidiary importance, necessary, it is true, for knowing the legendary
history, but not necessary for understanding the symbolism. The only term of
the myth that is to be regarded in the study of its interpretation, is the
abstract idea of a word lost and afterward recovered.
The Word, therefore, may be
conceived to be the symbol of Dianne Truth; and all its modifications— the
loss, the substitution, and the recovery—are but component parts of the
mythical symbol which represents a search after truth. In a general sense, the
Word itself being then the symbol of Disine Truth, the narrative of its loss
and the search for its recovery becomes a mythical symbol of the decay and
1088 of the true religion among the ancient nations, at and after the
dispersion on the Plains of Shinar, and of the attempts of the wise men, the
philosophers, and priests, to find and retain it in their secret mysteries and
initiations, which have hence beed designated as the Spurious Freemasonry of
Antiquity.
But there is a special or
individual, as well as a general interpretation, and in this special or
individual interpretation the Word, with its accompanying myth of a loss, a
substitute, and a recovery, becomes a symbol of the personal progress of a
candidate from his first initiation to the completion of his course, when he
receives a full development of the mysteries.
*
LOTUS
The lotus plant, so celebrated
in the religions of Egypt and Asia, is a species of Nymphaea, or water-lily,
which grows abundantly on the banks of streams in warm climates. Although more
familiarly known as the Lotus of the Nile, it was not indigenous to Egypt, but
was probably introduced into that country from the East, among whose people it
was everywhere consecrated as a sacred symbol.
The Brahmanical deities were
almost always represented as either decorated with its flowers, or holding it
as a scepter, or seated on it as a throne. Coleman says (Mythology of the
Hindus, page 388) that to the Hindu poets the lotus was what the rose was to
the Persians. Floating on the water it is the emblem of the world, and the
type also of the Mountain of Meru, the residence of the gods. Among the
Egyptians, the lotus was the symbol of Osiris and Isis. It was esteemed a
sacred ornament by the priests, and was placed as a coronet upola the heads of
many of the gods. It was also much used in the sacred architecture of the
Egyptians, being placed as an entablature upon the columns of their temples.
Thence it was introduced by Solomon into Jewish architecture, being found,
under the name of lily work, as a part of the ornaments of the two pillars at
the porch of the Temple.
The word of almost the same
sound in Arabic as in Hebrew includes many of the allied flowers and it is now
generally accepted that the various biblical references to lilies (as in First
Kings vii, 19; Second Chronicles iv, 5; Canticles in, 1; Hosea xiv, 5; Matthew
vi, 28, and elsewhere) mean more than that one flower (see Lily and Pillars of
the Porch).
*
LOUISIANA
Freemasonry was brought to San
Domingo by Charter from the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
at a time when it was peopled chiefly by the Freneh and their negro slaves.
The negro insurrection of 1791 caused an influx of white refugees to many of
the cities of the United States. In 1793 the Freemasons who fled to New
Orleans organized the Parfaite Union Lodge, No. 29, by Charter from the Grand
Lodge of South Carolina, and Officers were installed in the York Rite by Jason
Lawrence on March 30, 1794. The sale of Louisiana to America and the return of
many of thr refugees to San Domingo left Freemasonry in Louisiana more in the
hands of the American Brethren than had hitherto been the case. On September
2, 1807, a Charter was granted by the Grand Lodge of New York to Louisiana
Lodge, No. 2, the first Lodge in New Orleans to work in the English language.
In 1812 five of the twelve Lodges chartered in Louisiana had either ceased
work or amalgamated with other Lodges and there were thus seven left, all of
which worked the York Rite, namely: Perfect Union, Charity, Louisiana,
Concord, Perseverance, Harmony and Polar Star. The above seven Lodges
organized themselves into a Committee for the establishment of a Grand Lodge.
Harmony and Louisiana withdrew
from the Committee before long and the Grand Lodge was formed by the remaining
five Lodges on July 11, 1812. It was announced at a Quarterly Communication
held March 27, 1813, that a Grand Royal Arch Chap ter had been organized and
attached to the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. In 1829 a representative was
admitted to the General Grand Chapter. After 1831, however, no meeting took
place and the subordinate Chapters, with the exception of Holland, No. 9,
ceased to exist. In 1841, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana
called a meeting and a Grand Chapter of Louisiana was organized Holland
Chapter was not represented at the Convention and refused to recognize the
authority of the new Grand Chapter. In 1847 the General Grand Chapter denied
that it had any legal existence. The following year, on May 1, representatives
of the four Chapters in Louisiana chartered by the General Grand Chapter,
Holland, No. 1; New Era, No. 2; Red River, No. 3, and East Feliciana, No. 4,
met at New Orleans and duly established a Grand Chapter for Louisiana.
The first Council in the State
was Holland, No. 1, probably organized by John Barker in 1827. In the official
reports of the Grand Chapter of Louisiana in 1829 and 1830 a Grand Council of
Royal and Select Masters is mentioned. This seems to have died out but was
revived about 1848 to 1850 when Holland, No. 1; Louisiana, No. 15, and
Orleans, No. 36, were represented at a Convention to organize a Grand Council.
A Charter was granted on May
4, 1816, for the formation of an Encampment which was enrolled under the Grand
Encampment of the United States on September 15, 1844, as Indivisible Friends
Encamp ment, No. 1. This Commandery with Jacques de Molay, No. 2, and Orleans,
No. 3, assembled on February 12, 1864, and formed the Grand Commandery of
Louisiana.
On June 19, 1813, Charters
were granted to Albert Pike Lodge of Perfection, No. 1, and Eagle Council of
Kadosh, No. 6, at New Orleans. Grand Consistory, No. 1, was chartered at New
Orleans on August 8, 1852, and a Chapter of Rose Croix, Cervantes, No. 4, was
opened during the year 1887.
*
LOUIS NAPOLEON
Second Adjoint of the Grand
Master of the Grand Orient of France. Nominated, in 1806, King of Holland.
Louis, Napoleon III, was widely known as an interested Freemason.
*
LOUVETEAU
See Lewis
*
LOWEN
In the Lansdowne Manuscript we
meet with this charge: "that a Master or fellow make not a molded stone
square, nor rule to no Lowen, nor sett no Lowen work within the Lodge."
Brother Hawkins observes this has been said to be an error for Cowan, but in
his opinion it is more probably intended for Layer, which is the word used in
the parallel passage in other Manuscripts (see Layer).
*
LOW TWELVE
In Masonic language midnight
is so called. The reference is to the sun, which is then below the earth. Low
Twelve in Masonic symbolism is an unpropitious hour.
*
LOYALTY
Notwithstanding the calumnies
of Barruel, Robison, and a host of other anti-Masonic writers who assert that
Freemasonry is ever engaged in efforts to uproot the governments within which
it may exist, there is nothing more evident than that Freemasonry is a loyal
institution, and that it inculcates in all its public instructions, obedience
to government, Thus, in the Prestonian Charge given in the eighteenth century
to the Entered Apprentice, and continued to this day in the same words in
English Lodges, we find the following words:
In the State, you are to be a
quiet and peaceable subject, true to your sovereign, and just to your country;
you are not to countenance disloyalty or rebellion, but patiently submit to
legal authority and conform with cheerfulness to the government under which
you live, yielding obedience to the laws which afford you protection, but
never forgetting the attachment you owe to the place of your nativity, or the
allegiance due to the sovereign or protectors of that spot.
The Charge given in American
Lodges is of the same import, and varies but slightly in its language. In the
State, you are to be a quiet and peaceful subject, true to your government.
and just to your country; you are not to countenance disloyalty or rebellion,
but patiently submit to legal authority, and conform with cheerfulness to the
government of the country in which you live.
The Charge given in French
Lodges, though somewhat differing in form from both of these, has the same
spirit and the same lesson. It is to this effect: Obedience to the laws and
submission to the authorities are among the most imperious duties of the
Freemason, and he is forbidden at all times from engaging in plots and
conspiracies.
Hence it is evident that the
true Freemason must be a true patriot.
*
LUCHET, JEAN PIERRE LOUIS,
MARQUIS DE
A French historical writer,
who was born at Saintes in 1740, and died in 1791. He was the writer of many
works of but little reputation, but is principally distinguished in Masonic
literature as the author of an attack upon Illuminism under the title of Essai
sur la Secte des Illuminés. It first appeared anonymously in 1789. Four
editions of it were published. The third and fourth with augmentations and
revisions, which were attributed to Mirabeau, were printed with the outer
title of Histoire secrete de la Cour deBerlin, par Mirabeau. This work was
published, it is known, without his consent, and was burned by the common
executioner in consequence of its libelous character. Luchet's essay has
become very scarce, and is now valued rather on account of its rarity than for
its intrinsic excellence.
*
LUDEWIG, H. E.
An energetic Freemason, born
in 1810, in Germany; died in 1856, in America. By "powers from home" this
ardent Brother attempted to set up an independent authority to the existing
Grand Lodge system in the United States; but, like many such attempts, it
flashed brilliantly for a season, but proved of ephemeral nature.
*
LUFTON
One of the French terms for
Louveteau, or Lewis, which see.
*
LULLY, RAYMOND
A celebrated chemist and
philosopher, the Seneschal of Majorca, surnamed docteur iUuminé, the
enlightened doctor His discoveries are most noted, such as the mode of
rectifying spirits, the refining of silver, etc. He was born about 1234. In
1276 he founded a college of Franciscans at Palma, for instruction in Eastern
lore, and especially the study of the Arabic language, for which purpose he
instituted several colleges between the years 1293 and 1311. He died in 1314.
He is known as an eminent Rosicrucian, and many fables as to his longevity are
related.
The foregoing account has long
been generally acceptable though there is some uncertainty as to the dates of
Lully's birth and death, and investigators have not agreed as to his
scientific knowledge nor the authorship of certain works attributed by others
to him. The alchemical works bearing his name are all apocryphal, spurious,
according to J. Fitzmaurice Kelly (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911), but Lewis
Spence (Dictionary of Occultism, 1920) not only accepts him as an author and
alchemist of ability but quotes a German historian of chemistry, Gruelin, who
asserts Lully to be a scientist of exceptional skill. However, it is clear
that he was a devoted missionary to the infidels, a progressive student and
teacher of languages, venerated as saint and poet. Some of his views were in
advance of the Church he served and in 1376 they were condemned in a Papal
Bull issued at the behest of the Inquisition, but this was annulled by Pope
Martin V in 1578. At eighty Lully was of unabated enthusiasm, preaching the
Gospel, journeying far afield in Europe, crossing into Africa, where he was
stoned to death by the people.
*
LUMIERE, LA GRANDE
French for The Grand Light. A
grade in the collection of Brother Viany.
*
LUMIERE, LA VRAIE
French for The True alight, or
Perfect Mason. A Degree in the Chapter of the Grand Lodge of Royal York of
Berlin (Thory, ActaLatomorum i, page 321).
*
LUMINARIES
The first five officers in a
French Lodge, namely, the Master, two Wardens, Orator, and Secretary, are
called Luminaires or Luminaries, sources of light, because it is by them that
light is dispensed to the Lodge.
*
LUNUS
An Egyptian deity, known as
Khons Lunus, and represented as hawk-headed, surmounted by the crescent and
disk. When appearing with the head of an ibis, he is called Thoth-Lunus. His
worship was very extensive through ancient Egypt, where he was known as Aah,
who presides over rejuvenation and resurrection. Champollion mentions in his
Pantheon a Lunus-Bifrons.
*
LUSTRATION
From a Latin word meaning both
gashing and atonement. A religious rite practiced by the ancients, and
performed before any act of devotion It consisted in washing the hands, and
sometimes the whole body, in lustral or consecrated water. It was intended as
a symbol of the internal purification of the heart. It was a ceremony
preparatory to initiation in all the Ancient Mysteries. The ceremony is
practiced with the same symbolic import in some of the advanced Degrees of
Freemasonry. So strong was the idea of a connection between lustration and
initiation, that in the low Latin of the Middle Ages lustrare meant to
initiate. Thus Du Cange (Glossarium) cites the expression "lustrare religione
Christianorum" as signifying "to initiate into the Christian religion."
*
LUX
Latin for Light, which see.
Freemasonry anciently received, among other names, that of Lux, because it is
that sublime doctrine of truth by which the pathway of him who has attained it
is to be illumined in the pilgrimage of life. Among the Rosicrucians, light
was the knowledge of the philosopher's stone; and Mosheim says that in
chemical language the cross was an emblem of light, because it contains within
its figure the forms of the three figures of which LVX., or Light, is composed
*
LUXEMBURG
An independent Grand Duchy of
Europe situated to the southeast of Belgium. In 1774 a Grand Orient with the
reigning Duke as Protector was at work in Bouillon, a town which, though now
in Belgium, was formerly part of Luxemburg. In 1812 this Grand Body had ceased
to exist. The Lodge, Les Enfants de la Concorde, meaning in French The
Children of Good Understanding, was chartered in 1803 by the Grand Orient of
France though it is possible that it was at work some years before that date.
The Grand Duchy became independent in 1839 and a few years later the Lodge
became independent also. It is the smallest self-governing Masonic Body in the
world.
*
LUX E TENEBRIS
Latin, meaning Light out of
darkness. A motto very commonly used in the caption of Masonic documents as
expressive of the object of Freemasonry, and what the true Freemason supposes
himself to have attained. It has a recondite meaning. In the primeval ages and
in the early mythology, darkness preceded light. "In the thought," says Cox,
"of these early ages, the sun was the child of night or darkness" (Aryan
Mythology I, page 43).
So lux being Truth or
Freemasonry, and tenebrae, or darkness, the symbol of initiation, luxe
tenebris is Masonic truth proceeding from initiation. A Lodge at London
comprising Brethren devoted especially to the welfare of blind persons has
been given this appropriate name.
*
LUX FIAT ET LUX FIT
Latin, meaning Let there be
light, and there was light. A motto sometimes prefixed to Masonic documents
(see True Light).
*
LUZ
An ever-living power,
according to the old Jewish Rabbis, residing in a small joint-bone existing at
the base of the spinal column. To this undying principle, watered by the dew
of heaven, is ascribed the immortality in man. Rabbi Joshua Ben Hananiah
replied to Hadrian, as to how man revived in the world to come, "From Luz, in
the back-bone." When asked to demonstrate this, he took Luz, a little bone out
of the back-bone, and put it in water, and it was not steeped; he put it in
the fire, and it was not burned; he brought it to the mill, and that could not
grind it, he laid it on the anvil and knocked it with a hammer, but the anvil
was cleft and the hammer broken.
*
L.Y. C.
Letters engraved on the rings
of profession worn by the Knights of Baron von Hund's Templar system. They are
the initials of the words in the Latin sentence Labor Viris Convenit, meaning
Labor is suit able for men, It was also engraved on their seals.
*
LYON, DAVID MURRAY
This well-known writer and historian of Freemasonry in Scotland was initiated
in 1856 in Lodge Ayr Saint Paul, No. 204, on the roll of the Grand lodge of
Scotland. He was a printer by trade and was at one time employed by the Ayr.
shire Express Company. In 1877 he was appointed Grand Secretary of the Grand
Lodge of Scotland and held the post until 1900. He died on January 30, 1903.
He was, without doubt, says Brother Hawkins, who prepared this article, the
foremost Masonic student in Scotland, either of this or any other period; and
the results of his continuous and arduous researches are to be found in all
the books and periodicals of the Craft for twenty years, both at home and
abroad. It is simply impossible to furnish anything like an accurate and
complete list of his many valuable contributions to Masonic magazines. His
chief works have been the History of the Mother lodge Kilwinning, Scotland,
the History of the old Lodge at Thornhill, and, finally, the History of the
Ancient Lodge at Edinburgh, Mary's Chapel, from the sixteenth century. This
grand work, which was published in 1873, has placed its author in the front
rank of Masonic authors.
*
LYONS, CONGRESS OF
A Masonic Congress was
convoked in 1778, at the City of Lyons, France, by the Lodge of Chevaliers
I3ienfaisants, or Benevolent Knights. It was opened on the 26th of November,
and continued in session until the 27th of December, under the presidency of
M. Villermoz. Its ostensible object was to procure a reformation in
Freemasonry by the abjuration of the Templar theory; but it wasted its time in
the correction of rituals and in Masonic intrigues, and does not appear to
have been either sagacious in its methods, or successful in its results. Even
its abjuration of the Strict Observance doctrine that Templarism was the true
origin of Freemasonry, is said to have been insincere, and forced upon it by
the injunctions of the political authorities, who were opposed to the
propagation of any system which might tend to restore the Order of Knights
Templar.
