Q
The Hebrew letter p, Q or K,
pronounced Koph. The seventeenth letter in the English and modern Latin
alphabets. In the Phenician or Ancient Hebrew its form was one circle within
another. Its numerical value is 100. The Canaanite signification is ear.
*
QUADRIVIUM
In classical Latin the word
quadrivium meant a place where four roads met, and trivium, a place where
three roads met. The scholastics of the Middle Ages, looking to the
metaphorical meaning of the phrase the Paths of Learning, divided what were
called the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences, but which comprised the whole
cycle of instruction in those days, into two classes, calling grammar,
rhetoric, and logic the trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy the quadnvium. These two roads to the Temple of Wisdom, including
seven distinct sciences, were, in the Middle Ages, supposed to include
universal knowledge (see Liberal Arts and Sciences).
*
QUADRIVIUM AND TRIVIUM
The seven liberal arts and
sciences. The Quadrivium, in the language of the schools, were the four lesser
arts, arithmetic, music geometry, and astronomy; while the Trivium wore the
trifle were the triple way to eloquence by the study of grammar, logic, and
rhetoric.
*
QUAKERS
The question of the
admissibility of a Quaker's affirmation in Freemasonry is discussed under the
word Affirmation, which see.
*
QUALIFICATIONS
In the Cooke MS. which is
dated at not later than 1450 A.D. and more probably was written as early as
1410 A.D. are what is believed to be the oldest existing set of rules and
regulations left on record by the Medieval Freemasons, and it is obvious from
internal evidence that they represent rules which had been already in force
for many years, possibly as far back as 1200 A.D. at least. A principal
purpose of these Rules and Regulations (or Points) was to set down officially
the qualifications demanded of any youth before he might be accepted as an
Apprentice. These qualifications are not separately listed, and in a few
instances are only implied; roughly, the list was as follows:
1. The youth must be willing
to work as an apprentice without pay for seven years.
2. A bondman was not eligible—that is, a youth owned by some Lord, not because
it was disgraceful to be a bondman but because his owner might claim him, and
so make fruitless his years of training.
3. He must be whole of limb. The criterion was the work he would be required
to do; a youth without a toe could do a Mason's work, but not one without a
hand. This qualification had no reference to any mystical or religious perfect
youth" doctrine.
4. The youth must not be a thief or a robber. (This would, at that date,
include "sturdy vagabonds.)
5. The youth would be required to obey the Craft rules about hours, wages,
etc.; for example, he could never work at night.
6. He is not to be critical. captious abusive.
7. He must submit to be instructed by his master.
8. He must swear to love God and church, the saints, masters and fellows.
9. He must swear himself to secrecy.
10. He must swear not to be untrue to the Craft.
11. He shall be chaste.
(See P. 176 ff. of The Two
Earliest Masonic SWISS., by Knoop, Jones, and Hamer.) It is obvious that these
requirements, along with the prospective qualifications of mastership in the
future, are dictated throughout by the nature of the organization and the
requirements of the work to be done, and not for any abstract or ideal
considerations. If a Speculative Lodge applies the same criterion its
qualifications will differ in detail but if designed to neet the requirements
of a modern Speculative Lodge they will agree in principle. No set of
qualifications could be designed for use by a Speculative Lodge which would
duplicate those of Operative Lodges— for example, no Speculative Apprentice
could meet the first of the Operative tests of being willing to serve a
full-time apprenticeship of seven years. Also it is obvious that the
qualifications are not designed merely to bring the Petitioner to the point of
admittance but are to apply to him thereafter, and throughout the future;
nothing is demanded of a Petitioner that is not demanded of a Master.
When in 1723 the new Grand
Lodge of Speculative Freemasonry made new Constitutions it entitled the second
part of the document, "The Charges of a FreeMason extracted from The Ancient
RECORDS of Lodges beyond the Sea, and of those in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, for the Use of the Lodges in London," etc. Under Head IV it reads,
inter alia: "that no Master should take an Apprentice, unless he has
sufficient Imployment for him, and unless he be a perfect Youth, having no
Maim or Defect in his Body, that may render him uncapable of learning the Art,
or serving his Master's LORD," etc.
Here at one stroke ore exposed
the horns of the dilemma upon which the Mother Grand Lodge nas tossed during
its formative period, when it was groping for a way to conduct the Fraternity
from a set of traditional rules which had been designed for Operative Masons
to a new set suitable for speculative Masons. Confusion inevitable resulted,
and the above sentence is a specimen of it; for no Speculative Mason was to be
an Apprentice to any selected Master but merely to rank in the grade of
Apprentices in a Lodge. No question of Masonic employment could arise. Odor
did the Master serve a "Lord." This impossibility of adjusting Operative
regulations tc Speculative needs forced the Grand Lodge to amend or to revise
the Constitutions stage by stage. The doctrine of "no Maim or Defeet" was
imbedded in that confusion; if it were needed to retain that Operative
requirements the other Operative requirements would have to be retained with
it, because they alone justify it or give it meaning.
In 1721 the Grand Lodge ruled
that a Petitioner must be twenty-five years of age. This was changed to
eighteen. Later it was changed to twenty-one. In some countries it still is
eighteen; or may even be twenty-five. The consensus of opinion among Ameriean
Grand Lodges is that a Petitioner should be of the lawful age of whe country
in which he resides; in U. S. A. this is twenty-one (George Washington was
twenty when initiated).
In the 1738 Book of
Constitutions the regulations were altered to read: "The men who are made
Masons must be freeborn, no bondsmen Slavery was still lawful in England], of
mature age, and of good report, hale and sound, not deformed, or dismembered
at the time of their making. No woman; no eunuch." By this date the Grand
Lodge was having difficulty with "irregular makings"—this may have been the
reason for a new edition of the Book of Constitutions—and it tried to be
stricter. The physical qualifications w ere a step in return to the old
Operative requirements; yet on the score of religion the 1738 edition
continued to move away from the Operative requirement that a "Petitioner must
love God and the Church, reverence the saints, ete.," by continuing the
paragraph on religion which only required that he be not "a stupid ATHEIST,
nor an irreligious LIBERTINE." Petitioners are only to be obliged (obligated)
"to that Religion in which all hIen agree. "
The Rev. George Oliver was a
great believer in ancient traditions and usages 5 et he w rote: "It would
indeed be a soleeisln in terms to contend that a loss or partial deprivation
of a physical organ of the body could, by any possibility, disqualify a man
from studying the sciences, or being made a Mason in our times, while in
possession of sound judgment and the healthy exercise of his intellectual
powers."
On the point about
intelligence Grand Lodge practice agrees with Dr. Oliver; it debars a
Petitioner in his nonage or in his dotage; also, actually if not formally, one
who cannot read and write and who has not enough intelligence to pass the
proficiency tests. Another "silent" requirement is that a Petitioner shall not
have been solicited (for an unknown reason Petitioners who accept solicitation
are penalized but the solicitors are not)! In the middle of the Eighteenth
Century solicitation was openly practiced—Preston, Dunckerley, and Columbine
Daniels were famous for it.
The Lansdowne MS. required
that the "prentice be of able birth, that is free born." "Free born" was later
changed to "free." In American Grand Jurisdictions this requirement has taken
on an expanded meaning, at least in discussion, and includes such questions
as: Shall it not also mean, "free in mind"; "without reservations"? "What if a
Petitioner is a Quaker, Mormon, Roman Catholic? would he not have mental
reservations? would he be completely free in his will?"
In 1875 (forty-two years after
the Union of the Artiest and Modern Grand Lodges) the Board of General
Purposes of the Grand Lodge of England stated in an official circular: "I am
directed to say that the general rule in this country is to consider a
Candidate eligible for election [to the Degrees] who although not perfect in
his limbs is sufficiently so to go through the various ceremonies required in
the different degrees. " This pronouncement brings to light one of the most
curious facts about the twohundred-year-old discussion of Physical
Qualifications: If a man with one finger missing is disqualified, what about a
man with one lung missing, or one kidney? Why confine the doctrine to limbs?
Why is not chronic ill health (from, say, syphilis) also a disqualification?
(And what about being "disguised in liquor?") A Petitioner must have a degree
of financial ability, enough to pay fees and dues, with "a visible means of
support."
The Grand Lodge of Iowa during
one period gave much attention to the question of qualifications; and it also
took action to revise its laws at the end of World War I, when it gave as a
list of required qualifications: "I aith in God, hope in immortality, charity,
21 years old, free-born, under the tongue of good report." (What is the
meaning of "free-born" in America?) Theodore Sutton Parvin, the famous Grand
Secretary and savant of that Grand Lodge, wrote: "It is the sole right of each
and every Lodge to act upon those ph! cat qualifications, as it is universally
conceded that thev are the sole judges of the smoral' qualifications of all
candidates."
This argument that if a Lodge
can be trusted to judge a Petitioner's character it should be trusted to judge
a man's body was discussed throughout the Craft, and while Parvin's point was
considered to be well taken a number of Grand Lodges could see no way toward
carrying out the prescription; that general discussion, on record m a score or
so of Grand Lodge Proceedings, laid bare the root of the difficulty of the
whole question of physical qualification: that while a Petitioner's character
is adjudged according to moral standards which are always the same, normal and
reasonable, there has always been since the transition from Operative to
Speculative an arbitrariness in the physical qualifications, and therefore a
Lodge must follow rules blindly. According to reason and common sense a
Petitioner with his left hand missing could, as Dr. Oliver said, perform the
duties of a Mason (and as the Board of General Purposes said) but the physical
qualifications ever since 1723 have never rested on reason or common sense but
on a set of rules arbi. trarily chosen at that time.
One of the chief, though
uncodified qualifications, is that a Petitioner shall be personally acceptable
to each and every member of the Lodge, and it is the most difficult of any to
satisfy, for which reason the ballot is described as an "ordeal," since by
means of it any one member can disqualify a Petitioner because he would not
find his company congenial. A number of Grand Lodges in Europe have always
required a Petitioner to have a sponsor—a godfather. In America he has in
actuality three, for a committee becomes his sponsor when it reports favorably
upon him; but, and the fact is extraordinarily interesting, once a Petitioner
has passed the ballot and become a Candidate it is the Master w ho thereafter
is his sponsor, and the Petitioner is until elected to membership under the
hIaster's personal care and responsibility.
As stated in a paragraph in
the beginning, the Book of Constitutions of 1723 had in it one part, called
the Old Charges, in which it endeavored to perpetuate ancient Operative (or
semi-Operative) practices in order to satisfy a large number of Operative
members then in its own Lodges; and a second part, written by George Payne
when he was Grand Masters entitled Rules and Regulations, in which he laid out
a number of rules for the management of a Grand Lodge and Lodges w holly
Speeulative (it is possible that George Payne had a larger part in
establishing Speeulative practice than any other man); from this conjunction
that could not quite conjoin, the set of qualifications became broken and
inwardly inconsistent; and in consequence, as also already stated, the
physical qualifications in particular became arbitrary in principle because of
the attempt to preserve Operative qualifications in Speculative Lodges.
It is this arbitrariness and
inward self-contradiction thus planted at the heart of the doctrine of
physical qualifications which explains why that doctrine has been continually
discussed and debated by American Grand Lodges for 200 years. In two or three
of our Masonic libraries the several hundred volumes of American Grand Lodge
Proceedings have been indexed in one all-inclusive xrulez rerum; if with the
use of such an index a student tracks the question of physical qualifications
back through one set of Proceedings after another he will find that American
Grand Lodges have been gradually settling down to three general (though not
generally formulated) conclusions: first, that if physical qualifications are
dictated by the needs of Speculative Lodges their members are doing what the
Operatives did, and hence the underlying principle has never been altered;
second, that it is unjust as well as anachronistic to require of a Speculative
Petitioner the same physical qualifications that were demanded of an
Operative; and, third, that the Ritual itself shows clearly what physical
defects should debar and what ones need not, so that it is the Ritual, not
history, that is the criterion to be used.
*
QUALIFICATIONS OF CANDIDATES
Every candidate for initiation
into the mysteries of Freemasonry must be qualified by certain essential
conditions. These qualifications are of two kinds, Internal and External. The
internal qualifications are those which lie within his own bosom, the external
are those which refer to his outward and apparent fitness. The external
qualifications are again divided into goral, Relitous, Physical, Mental, and
Political.
First. The Internal
Qualifications are:
1. The applicant must come of his own free will and Accord. His application
must be purely voluntary, to which he has not been induced by persuasion of
friends.
2. He must not be influenced by mercenary motives.
3. He must be prompted to make the application in Consequence of a favorable
opinion that he entertains of the Institutions
4. He must be resolved to conform with cheerfulness to the established usages
and customs of the Fraternity.
Second- The External
Qualifications are, as has already been said, divided into five kinds: 1
Moral. That candidate only is qualified for initiation who faithfully observes
the precepts of the moral law, and leads a virtuous life, so eonductmg him6elf
as to receive the reward of his own conscience as well as the respect and
approbation of the world.
2. Religious. Freemasonry is exceedingly tolerant in respect to creeds, but it
does require that every candidate for initiation shall believe in the
existence of God as a superintending and protecting power, and in a future
life. No inquiry will be made into modifications of religious belief, provided
it includes these two tenets.
3. Physicals These refer to sex, age, and bodily conformation. The candidate
must be a man, not a woman; of mature age, that is, having arrived at his
majority, and not so old as to have sunk into dotage; and he must be in
possession of all his limbs, not maimed or dismembered, but, to use the
language of one of the old Charges, "have his right limbs as a man ought to
have."
4. Mental. This division excludes all men who are not intellectually qualified
to comprehend the character of the Institution, and to partake of its
responsibilities. Hence fools or idiots and madmen are excluded. Although the
landmarks do not make illiteracy a disqualification, and although it is
undeniable that a large portion of the Craft in olden times was uneducated,
yet there seems to be a general opinion that an incapacity to read and write
will, in this day, disqualify a candidate.
5. Political. These relate to the condition of the candidate in society. The
old rule required that none but those who were free born could be initiated,
which, of course, excluded slaves and those born in servitude; and although
the Grand Lodge of England substituted free man for free born, it is
undeniable that that action was the change of a landmark- and the old rule
still exists at least in the United States.
*
QUARRELS
Contention or quarreling in
the Lodge, as well as without, is discountenanced by the spirit of all the Old
Constitutions of Freemasonry. In the Charges compiled from them, approved by
the Grand Lodge of England in 1722, and published by Doctor Anderson, it is
said, "No private piques or quarrels must be brought within the door of the
Lodge, far less any quarrels about religion, or nations, or State policy"
(Constitutions, 1723, page 54).
*
QUARRIES
It is an error to speak, as
Doctor Oliver does, misguided by some Masonic traditions, of the quarries of
Tyre in connection with the Temple of Solomon. Modern researches have shown
without question that the stones used in the construction of the Temple were
taken out of quarries in the immediate vicinity; and the best traditions, as
well as Seripture, claim only that the wood from the forests of Lebanon was
supplied by King Hiram. The great quarries of Jerusalem are situated in the
northeast portion of the city, near the Damascus gate. The entrance to them
was firstt discovered by Barclay. A writer, quoted by Barclay, thus describes
them, City of the Great Rinks (page 466):
Here were blocks of stones but
half quarried, and still attached by one side to the rock. The work of
quarrying was apparently effected by an instrument resembling a pickaxes with
a broad chisel-shaped end, as the spaces between the blocks were not more than
four inches wide, in which it would be impossible for a man to work with a
chisel and mallet. The spaces were, many of them four feet deep and ten feet
in height, and the distance between them was about four feet. After being eut
away at each side and at the bottom, a lever was inserted and the combined
foree of three or four men could easily pry the block away from the rock
behind. The stone was extremely soft and friable, nearly white, and very
easily worked, but. like the stone of Malta and Paris, hardening by exposure.
The marks of the cutting instrument were as plain and well-defined as if the
workman had just ceased from his labor. The heaps of chippings which were
found in these quarries showed that the stone had been dressed there, and
confirm the Bible statement that the stone of which the Temple was built was
made ready before it was brought thither.
Barclay remarks (City of the
Great Ring, page 118) that. Those extra cyclopean stones in the southeast and
south-west corners of the Temple wall were doubtless taken from this great
quarry—and carried to their present position down the gently inclined plain on
rollers—a conjecture which at once solves the mystery that has greatly puzzled
travellers in relation to the difficulty of transporting and handling such
immense masses of rock, and enables us to understand why they were called
"stones of rolling" by Ezra.
Prime also visited these
quarries, and in his Ten! Life in the HolyLarad (pane 114) speaks of them
thus:
One thing to me is very
manifest: there has been solid stone taken from the excavation sufficient to
build the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon. The size of many of
the stones taken from here appears to be very great. I know of no place to
which the stone ean have been carried but to these works, and I know no other
quarries in the neighborhood from which the great stone of the walls would
seem to have come. These two eonneeted ideas compelled me strongly toward the
belief that this was the ancient quarry whence the city was built, and when
the magnitude of the excavation between the two opposing hills and of this
cavern is considered, it is, to say the least of it, a difficult question to
answer what has become of the stone once here, on any other theory than that I
have suggested. Who can say that the cavern which we explored was not the
place where the hammers rang on the stone which were forbidden to sound in the
silent growth of the great Temple of Solomon?
The researches of subsequent
travelers, and especially the labors of the Palestine Exploration Fund, have
substantiated these statements, and confirmed the fact that the quarries where
the workmen labored at the building of the Solomonic Temple were not in the
dominions of the King of Tyre, but in the immediate vicinity of the Temple. In
1868, Rob Morris held what he called a afoot Lodge in these quarries, which
event he describes in his Freemasonry in the Holy Land, a work of great
interest to all Masonic scholars.
*
QUARTERLY COMMUNICATION
The Old Records of the
Institution state that the Fraternity met annually in their General Assembly.
The Hallfwell or Regius Manuscript (line 475) says it is true that the
Assembly may be held triennially, "Ech year or third year it should be hold"
but wherever spoken of in subsequent records, it is always as an Annual
Meeting. It is not until 1717 that we find anything said of Quarterly
Communications; and the firstt allusion to these subordinate meetings in any
printed work to which we now have access is in 1738, in the edition of the
Constitutions published in that year. The expression there used is that the
Quarterly Comunications were "forthwith revived." This of course implies that
they had previously existed; but as no mention is made of them in the
Regulations of 1663, which speak only of an "Annual General Assembly," we
infer that quarterly communications were first introduced into the Masonic
system after the middle of the seventeenth century. They are still retained by
the Grand Lodges of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but in the United States
only by those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
*
QUATERNION
From the Latin quatuor, the
number Four, which see. Doctor Oliver calls it the quaternary, but quaternion
is the better usage.
*
QUATUOR CORONATI
See Four Crowned Martyrs
*
QUATUOR CORONATI, THE
The fame of the Quatuor
Coronati Lodge of Research has made many Masons familiar with the old legend
of the Four Crowned Ones who would never have encountered it through the very
limited public which reads the Regius MS. (or Poem)—about which see sundry
articles and paragraphs as listed in the Index. The long and excellent article
by Bro. Robert I. Clegg which begins on page 365 can now be carried farther by
a number of special treatises and books published since, of which 3 number are
in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of
Research. Bros. Knoop, Jones, and Hamer have given a bibliography of those
studies beginning on page 44 of their The Two Earless Masonic MSS. (Manchester
University Press; 1938.), and at the same time have condensed the findings
(including their own) into a six-page digest.
Their conclusion is given at
the end of the section: "It thus appears probable that such recognition as was
accorded to the Quatuor Coronati by English Masons commenced only in the
Fifteenth Century, and the existing evidence hardly justifies us in saying
that at any period in England were they venerated as the patron saints of the
Masons." Readers must take this to mean that they were never venerated as the
Patron Saints; if so, the point is not of much importance because in the
Operative periods a number of Saints were venerated; the Craft did not settle
down to the selection of the two Sts. John until after the Speculative Period
had begun. The Quatuor Ceronati received some veneration because as the
authors themselves show Masons kept their day as a holiday in a few instances;
furthermore the Regius MS proves that they were venerated because it venerates
them itself. (Ars Quatuor Coronatorum is used as a name of the Craft of Masons
in the Regtus MS.; see lines 497-534.)
*
QUATUOR CORONATI LODGE
This Lodge, No. 2076 on the
Roll of the Grand Lodge of England, was established in 1886, for the purpose
of studying the History, Symbols, and Legends of Freemasonry, and it is in
fact a Masonic Literary and Archeological Society, meeting as a tiled Lodge.
Attached to the Lodge proper, which is limited to forty full members, is a
Correspondence Circle established in 1887, and later numbering several
thousand members drawn from all parts of the world. The transactions of the
Lodge are published under the title of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. The Lodge is
named after the Four Crowned Martyrs, which see elsewhere in this work.
All Master Masons in good
standing are eligible to membership in the Correspondence Circle. The dues are
$3.00 a year, for which the valuable Transactions of the Lodge are sent to
each member.
*
QUATUOR CORONATI LODGE
With the more than half a
hundred published volumes of its treatises, notes, and discussions, minutes,
and illustrations entitled Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Quatuor Coronati Lodge of
Research, No. 2076, London, England, has long since become the supreme court
of learning and authority in Masonic scholarship throughout the world. In the
years immediately preceding the Second World War it even became unofficially,
and after the ancient way of scholarship, a world power; for it armed Masonic
leaders in countries where Fascism and Roman.
Catholicism combined to
attempt to destroy the Fraternity with knowledge whereby Masons were enabled
to lay down a solid foundation for immediate and temporary defense, and as the
ground on which to rebuild the European Fraternity after the war. Where the
Ars Quatuor Corednatorum come, obscurantism among both the friends and the
foes of Masonry must go. It has carried out more successfully the command,
"Let there be light" than any other single agency thus far manned by
Craftsmen. Furthermore, its work is being multiplied by the organizing of
other Research Lodges, and ir. recent years even m America, where, after the
way had been opened up by the Grand Lodges of North Carolina and New York,
Grand Lodges are chartering them in increasing numbers. A copy of the Petition
to form the Lodge was published as page 1, Vol. I, of Ars Quatuor Coronatomm.
In it Bro. Sir Charles Warren was named as proposed Worshipful Master.
It was signed by nine Masons
already eminent for scholarship, among them Gould, Hughan, and Speth. A
succinct biography of each founder is included. The Warrant issued by Grand
Lodge, dated November 28, 1884, was signed by the Grand Master, Albert Edward,
Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. At the consecration of the Lodge,
January 12, 1886, the Grand Secretary, Shadwell H. Clerke, opened in the Third
Degree. A. F. A. Woodford, one of the founders, delivered the Oration. After
the Consecration the Lodge adjourned to the Holborn Restaurant. At the first
Communication, April 7, 1886, six were admitted members, and By-laws were
adopted which limited the membership to forty; and, at least by implication,
adopted the ancient custom of the "masters' piece" to require of each
petitioner for the Degrees or for membership that he first have an
already-established position in scholarship.
The Initiation fee was fixed
at 20 guineas; Passing and Raising, 5 guineas each. The Lodge was to meet in
December, March, June, September. Geo. W. Speth was elected Secretary and as
such became editor of the Ars. It was on his recommendation that at its
Communication on March 3, 1887. the Lodge adopted the plan of a Correspondence
Circle and issued a Circular to that effect.
In their subject matter,
papers in Ars range from ancient times to modern, cover Britain, Europe, and
Asia, and each and every Rite, even including a long and detailed history of
the Carbonari, a non-Masonic Italian secret society; but thus far only two or
three long papers have been published about Freemasonry in the United States.
Since the first American Lodges appeared in the 1720's, Speculative
Freemasonry here is within a decade as old as Grand Lodge Speculative Masonry
in England; until four to six years after the Revolutionary War American
Freemasonry was an integral part of British; at the present time the
membership of American Lodges is more than 90% of world membership; each State
has a Grand Body in each of Five Rites; its should be obvious that no history
or account of the world Fraternity which omits American Masonry can be
complete. The omission of American materials is the one fault American Masonic
students find with the Ars; nevertheless a Research Lodge must be appreciated
for what it does; it is impossible to find fault with it for not doing
everything. American students of Masonry make continuous use of Ars; when they
combine it with bound volumes of The Builder they have a complete
encyclopedia. Research in American subjects will be carried on by American
Research Lodges.
*
QUEBEC
Although tradition states that
a Lodge existed as early as 1755 in Quebec, Freemasonry was probably first
introduced by regiments taking part in the capture of the city in September,
1759. Seven of these had Traveling Warrants, of which the oldest, that of an
Irish Lodge, No. 35, attached to the Twenty-eighth Regiment, was dated 1734.
In 1759, according to a document possessed by the Grand Lodge Library of
England, the Masters and Wardens of the Regimental Lodges in Quebec chose an
acting Grand Master to form a Grand Lodge. June 24, 1760, Brother Simon
Fraser, Colonel of the Highland Regiment, was elected and installed Grand
Master. This Provincial Grand Lodge existed for 32 years. In 1751 arrival
Grand Lodge of Irish Brethren was established. Other Provincial Grand Bodies
were at work during the next few years, and not until October, 1855, did the
Grand Lodge of Canada, governing Canada East and West, that is, Ontario and
Quebec, emerge from the confusion. When the Dominion was established it was
decided to form the Grand Lodge of Quebec on October 20, 1869, and Brother
John Hamilton Graham was chosen Grand Master.
*
QUEENSLANDER
The northeastern state of the
Commonwealth of Australia. The Grand Lodge of England warranted North
Australian Lodge at Brisbane in 1859. Constituted, August 17, but Warrant
dated July 13.
In 1885 England, Ireland, and
Scotland had each established a Provincial or District Grand Lodge. In 1903,
however, the question arose of separation from the Mother Grand Lodges and in
the same year the Grand Lodge of Queensland was established.
*
QUESTIONS OF HENRY VI
Questions said to have been
proposed by King Henry VI of England to the Freemasons of the kingdom, which,
with their answers, are in the Leland Manuscript, which see.
*
QUETZIALCOATL
The Mexican idea of the Deity
of Enlightenment. The spirit-man from whom they received their civilization,
and for whose second coming they wait. Him for whom they mistook Cortez, and
therefore welcomed him with joy.
*
QUORUM
The parliamentary law provides
that a deliberative Body shall not proceed to business until a quorum of its
members is present. This law is applicable to Freemasonry, except that, in
constituting a quorum for opening and working a Lodge, it is not necessary
that the quorum shall be made up of actual members of the Lodge; for the
proper officers of the Lodge being present, the quorum may be completed by any
Brethren of the Craft. As to the number of Brethren necessary to make a quorum
for the transaction of business, the Old Constitutions and Regulations are
silent, and the authorities consequently differ. In reply to an inquirv
directed to him in 1857, the editor of the London Freemasons Magazine affirmed
that Jive Freemasons are sufficient to open a Lodge and carry on business
other than initiation; for which latter purpose seven are necessary. This
opinion appears to be the general English one, and is acquiesced in by Doctor
Oliver; but there is no authority of law for it.
When, in the year 1818, the
suggestion was made that some regulation was necessary relative to the number
of Brethren requisite to constitute a legal Lodge, with competent powers to
perform the rite of initiation, and transact all other business, the Board of
General Purposes of the Grand Lodge of England, to whom the suggestion had
been referred, replied, with something like Dogberrian astuteness, "that it is
a matter of so much delicacy and difficulty, that it is thought advisable not
to depart from the silence on the subject which had been observed in all the
Books of Constitutions."
In the absence, then, of all
written laws upon the subject, and without any constitutional provision to
guide us, we are compelled to recur to the ritual for authority. There the
answer to the question in each Degree,"How many compose a Lodge? that will
supply us with the rule by which we are to establish the quorum in that
Degree. Forwhatever number composes a Lodge, that is the number which will
authorize the Lodge to proceed to business. The ritual has thus established
the number which constitutes a "perfect Lodge," and without which number a
Lodge could not be legally opened, and therefore, necessarily, could not
proceed to work or business; for there is no distinction, in respect to a
quorum, between a Lodge when at work or when engaged in business.
According to the ritualistic
rule referred to, seven constitute a quorum, for work or business, in an
Entered Apprentice's Lodge, five in a Fellow Craft's, and three in a Master
Mason's. Without this requisite number no Lodge can be opened in either of
these Degrees. In a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons nine Companions constitute a
quorum, and in a Commandery of Knights Templar eleven Knights; but. under
certain circumstances, three Knights are competent to transact business.
