The Builders Part 11

FOOTNOTES:

[113] We should not forget that n.o.ble dynasty of large and liberal souls in the seventeenth century--John Hales, Chillingsworth, Whichcote, John Smith, Henry More, Jeremy Taylor--whose _Liberty of Prophesying_ set the principle of toleration to stately strains of eloquence--Sir Thomas Browne, and Richard Baxter; saints, every one of them, finely-poised, sweet-tempered, repelled from all extremes alike, and walking the middle path of wisdom and charity. Milton, too, taught tolerance in a bigoted and bitter age (see _Seventeenth Century Men of Lat.i.tude_, E.A. George).

[114] For instance the _Cooke MS_, next to the oldest of all, as well as the _W. Watson_ and _York No. 4_ MSS. It is rather surprising, in view of the supremacy of the Church in those times, to find such evidence of what Dr. Mackey called the chief mission of primitive Masonry--the preservation of belief in the unity of G.o.d. These MSS did not succ.u.mb to the theology of the Church, and their invocations remind us more of the G.o.d of Isaiah than of the decrees of the Council of Nicaea.

[115] It was, perhaps, a picture of the Masonic Lodges of that era that Toland drew in his _Socratic Society_, published in 1720, which, however, he clothed in a vesture quite un-Grecian. At least, the symposia or brotherly feasts of his society, their give-and-take of questions and answers, their aversion to the rule of mere physical force, to compulsory religious belief, and to creed hatred, as well as their mild and tolerant disposition and their brotherly regard for one another, remind one of the spirit and habits of the Masons of that day.

[116] Now is as good a time as another to name certain curious theories which have been put forth to account for the origin of Masonry in general, and of the organization of the Grand Lodge in particular. They are as follows: First, that it was all due to an imaginary Temple of Solomon described by Lord Bacon in a Utopian romance called the _New Atlantis_; and this despite the fact that the temple in the Bacon story was not a house at all, but the name of an ideal state. Second, that the object of Freemasonry and the origin of the Third Degree was the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England; the idea being that the Masons, who called themselves "Sons of the Widow," meant thereby to express their allegiance to the Queen. Third, that Freemasonry was founded by Oliver Cromwell--he of all men!--to defeat the royalists.

Fourth, that Free-masons were derived from the order of the Knights Templars. Even Lessing once held this theory, but seems later to have given it up. Which one of these theories surpa.s.ses the others in absurdity, it would be hard to say. De Quincey explodes them one by one with some detail in his "Inquiry into the Origin of the Free-masons,"

to which he might also have added his own pet notion of the Rosicrucian origin of the order--it being only a little less fantastic than the rest (_De Quincey's Works_, vol. xvi).

[117] Of the Masonic feasts of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist much has been written, and to little account. In pre-Christian times, as we have seen, the Roman Collegia were wont to adopt pagan deities as patrons. When Christianity came, the names of its saints--some of them martyrs of the order of builders--were subst.i.tuted for the old pagan G.o.ds. Why the two Saints John were chosen by Masons--rather than St. Thomas, who was the patron saint of architecture--has never been made clear. At any rate, these two feasts, coming at the time of the summer and winter solstices, are in reality older than Christianity, being reminiscences of the old Light Religion in which Masonry had its origin.

[118] The badge of office was a huge white ap.r.o.n, such as we see in Hogarth's picture of the _Night_. The collar was of much the same shape as that at present in use, only shorter. When the color was changed to blue, and why, is uncertain, but probably not until 1813, when we begin to see both ap.r.o.n and collar edged with blue. (See chapter on "Clothing and Regalia," in _Things a Freemason Ought to Know_, by J.W. Crowe.) In 1727 the officers of all private--or as we would say, subordinate--Lodges were ordered to wear "the jewels of Masonry hanging to a white ap.r.o.n." In 1731 we find the Grand Master wearing gold or gilt jewels pendant to blue ribbons about the neck, and a white leather ap.r.o.n _lined_ with blue silk.

[119] This is clear from the book of _Const.i.tutions_ of 1723, which is said to be "for the use of Lodges in London." Then follow the names of the Masters and Wardens of twenty Lodges, all in London. There was no thought at the time of imposing the authority of the Grand Lodge upon the country in general, much less upon the world. Its growth we shall sketch later. For an excellent article on "The Foundation of Modern Masonry," by G.W. Speth, giving details of the organization of the Grand Lodge and its changes, see _A. Q. C._, ii, 86. If an elaborate account is wanted, it may be found in Gould's _History of Masonry_, vol. iii.

[120] _History of the Four Lodges_, by R.F. Gould. Apparently the Goose and Gridiron Lodge--No. 1--is the only one of the four now in existence. After various changes of name it is now the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2.

[121] _Royal Masons_, by G.W. Speth.

[122] From a meager sketch of Dr. Anderson in the _Gentlemen's Magazine_, 1783, we learn that he was a native of Scotland--the place of his birth is not given--and that for many years he was minister of the Scots Presbyterian Church in Swallow Street, Piccadilly, and well known to the folk of that faith in London--called "Bishop" Anderson by his friends. He married the widow of an army officer, who bore him a son and a daughter. Although a learned man--compiler of a book of _Royal Genealogies_, which seems to have been his hobby--he was somewhat imprudent in business, having lost most of his property in 1720. Whether he was a Mason before coming to London is unknown, but he took a great part in the work of the Grand Lodge, entering it, apparently, in 1721. Toward the close of his life he suffered many misfortunes, but of what description we are not told. He died in 1739.

Perhaps his learning was exaggerated by his Masonic eulogists, but he was a n.o.ble man and manifestly a useful one (Gould's _History of Masonry_, vol. iii).

[123] Having emphasized this point so repeatedly, the writer feels it just to himself to state his own position, lest he be thought a kind of materialist, or at least an enemy of mysticism. Not so. Instead, he has long been an humble student of the great mystics; they are his best friends--as witness his two little books, _The Eternal Christ_, and _What Have the Saints to Teach Us?_ But mysticism is one thing, and mystification is another, and the former may be stated in this way:

First, by mysticism--only another word for spirituality--is meant our sense of an Unseen World, of our citizenship in it, of G.o.d and the soul, and of all the forms of life and beauty as symbols of things higher than themselves. That is to say, if a man has any religion at all that is not mere theory or form, he is a mystic; the difference between him and Plato or St. Francis being only a matter of genius and spiritual culture--between a boy whistling a tune and Beethoven writing music.

Second, since mysticism is native to the soul of man and the common experience of all who rise above the animal, it is not an exclusive possession of any set of adepts to be held as a secret. Any man who bows in prayer, or lifts his thought heavenward, is an initiate into the eternal mysticism which is the strength and solace of human life.

Third, the old time Masons were religious men, and as such sharers in this great human experience of divine things, and did not need to go to Hidden Teachers to learn mysticism. They lived and worked in the light of it. It shone in their symbols, as it does in all symbols that have any meaning or beauty. It is, indeed, the soul of symbolism, every emblem being an effort to express a reality too great for words.

So, then, Masonry is mystical as music is mystical--like poetry, and love, and faith, and prayer, and all else that makes it worth our time to live; but its mysticism is sweet, sane, and natural, far from fantastic, and in nowise eerie, unreal, or unbalanced. Of course these words fail to describe it, as all words must, and it is therefore that Masonry uses parables, pictures, and symbols.

[124] _Seventeenth Century Descriptions of Solomon's Temple_, by Prof.

S.P. Johnston (_A. Q. C._, xii, 135).

[125] _Transactions Jewish Historical Society of England_, vol. ii.

[126] Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, article "Temple."

[127] _Jewish Encyclopedia_, art. "Freemasonry." Also _Builder's Rites_, G.W. Speth.

[128] In the _Book of Const.i.tutions_, 1723, Dr. Anderson dilates at length on the building of the Temple--including a note on the meaning of the name Abif, which, it will be remembered, was not found in the Authorized Version of the Bible; and then he suddenly breaks off with the words: "_But leaving what must not, indeed cannot, be communicated in Writing_." It is incredible that he thus introduced among Masons a name and legend unknown to them. Had he done so, would it have met with such instant and universal acceptance by old Masons who stood for the ancient usages of the order?

[129] Letter to Gould "Touching Masonic Symbolism."

[130] _Hermes and Plato_, Edouard Schure.

[131] _History of the Lodge of Edinburgh._

[132] Steinbrenner, following Findel, speaks of the Third Degree as if it were a pure invention, quoting a pa.s.sage from _Ahiman Rezon_, by Lawrence Dermott, to prove it. He further states that Anderson and Desaguliers were "publicly accused of manufacturing the degree, _which they never denied_" (_History of Masonry_, chap. vii). But inasmuch as they were not accused of it until they had been many years in their graves, their silence is hardly to be wondered at. Dr. Mackey styles Desaguliers "the Father of Modern Speculative Masonry," and attributes to him, more than to any other one man, the present existence of the order as a living inst.i.tution (_Encyclopedia of Freemasonry_). Surely that is going too far, much as Desaguliers deserves to be honored by the order. Dr. J.T. Desaguliers was a French Protestant clergyman, whose family came to England following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1710, succeeding Keill as lecturer in Experimental Philosophy. He was especially learned in natural philosophy, mathematics, geometry, and optics, having lectured before the King on various occasions. He was very popular in the Grand Lodge, and his power as an orator made his manner of conferring a degree impressive--which may explain his having been accused of inventing the degrees. He was a loyal and able Mason, a student of the history and ritual of the order, and was elected as the third Grand Master of Masons in England. Like Anderson, his later life is said to have been beclouded by poverty and sorrow, though some of the facts are in dispute (Gould's _History of Masonry_, vol. iii).

UNIVERSAL MASONRY

/# _These signs and tokens are of no small value; they speak a universal language, and act as a pa.s.sport to the attention and support of the initiated in all parts of the world. They cannot be lost so long as memory retains its power. Let the possessor of them be expatriated, ship-wrecked, or imprisoned; let him be stripped of everything he has got in the world; still these credentials remain and are available for use as circ.u.mstances require._

_The great effects which they have produced are established by the most incontestable facts of history. They have stayed the uplifted hand of the destroyer; they have softened the asperities of the tyrant; they have mitigated the horrors of captivity; they have subdued the rancor of malevolence; and broken down the barriers of political animosity and sectarian alienation._

_On the field of battle, in the solitude of the uncultivated forests, or in the busy haunts of the crowded city, they have made men of the most hostile feelings, and most distant religions, and the most diversified conditions, rush to the aid of each other, and feel a social joy and satisfaction that they have been able to afford relief to a brother Mason._

--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN #/

CHAPTER V

_Universal Masonry_

I

Henceforth the Masons of England were no longer a society of handicraftsmen, but an a.s.sociation of men of all orders and every vocation, as also of almost every creed, who met together on the broad basis of humanity, and recognized no standard of human worth other than morality, kindliness, and love of truth. They retained the symbolism of the old Operative Masonry,[133] its language, its legends, its ritual, and its oral tradition. No longer did they build churches, but the spiritual temple of humanity; using the Square not to measure right angles of blocks of stone, but for evening the inequalities of human character, nor the Compa.s.s any more to describe circles on a tracing-board, but to draw a Circle of goodwill around all mankind.

Howbeit, one generation of men, as Hume remarks, does not go off the stage at once, and another succeed, like silkworms and b.u.t.terflies. No more did this metamorphosis of Masonry, so to name it, take place suddenly or radically, as it has become the fashion to think. It was a slow process, and like every such period the Epoch of Transition was attended by many problems, uncertainties, and difficulties. Some of the Lodges, as we have noted, would never agree to admit Accepted Masons, so jealous were they of the ancient landmarks of the Craft.

Even the Grand Lodge, albeit a revival of the old a.s.sembly, was looked upon with suspicion by not a few, as tending toward undue centralization; and not without cause. From the first the Grand Master was given more power than was ever granted to the President of an ancient a.s.sembly; of necessity so, perhaps, but it led to misunderstanding. Other influences added to the confusion, and at the same time emphasized the need of welding the order into a more coherent unity for its wider service to humanity.

There are hints to the effect that the new Masonry, if so it may be called, made very slow progress in the public favor at first, owing to the conditions just stated; and this despite the remark of Anderson in June, 1719: "Now several old Brothers that had neglected the Craft, visited the Lodges; some n.o.blemen were also made Brothers, and more new Lodges were const.i.tuted." Stuckely, the antiquarian, tells us in his _Diary_ under date of January, 1721--at which time he was initiated--that he was the first person made a Mason in London for years, and that it was not easy to find men enough to perform the ceremony. Incidentally, he confides to us that he entered the order in search of the long hidden secrets of "the Ancient Mysteries." No doubt he exaggerated in the matter of numbers, though it is possible that initiations were comparatively few at the time, the Lodges being recruited, for the most part, by the adhesion of old Masons, both Operative and Speculative; and among his friends he may have had some difficulty in finding men with an adequate knowledge of the ritual.

But that there was any real difficulty in gathering together seven Masons in London is, on the face of it, absurd. Immediately thereafter, Stuckely records, Masonry "took a run, and ran itself out of breath through the folly of its members," but he does not tell us what the folly was. The "run" referred to was almost certainly due to the acceptance by the Duke of Montagu of the Grand Mastership, which gave the order a prestige it had never had before; and it was also in the same year, 1721, that the old Const.i.tutions of the Craft were revised.

Twelve Lodges attended the June quarterly communication of the Grand Lodge in 1721, sixteen in September, twenty in December, and by April, 1723, the number had grown to thirty. All these Lodges, be it noted, were in London, a fact amply justifying the optimism of Anderson in the last paragraph of the _Book of Const.i.tutions_, issued in that year. So far the Grand Lodge had not extended its jurisdiction beyond London and Westminster, but the very next year, 1724, there were already nine Lodges in the provinces acknowledging its obedience, the first being the Lodge at the Queen's Head, City of Bath. Within a few years Masonry extended its labors abroad, both on British and on foreign soil. The first Lodge on foreign soil was founded by the Duke of Wharton at Madrid, in 1728, and regularized the following year, by which time a Lodge had been established at the East India Arms, Bengal, and also at Gibraltar. It was not long before Lodges arose in many lands, founded by English Masons or by men who had received initiation in England; these Lodges, when sufficiently numerous, uniting under Grand Lodges--the old Lodge at York, that ancient Mecca of Masonry, had called itself a Grand Lodge as early as 1725. The Grand Lodge of Ireland was created in 1729, those of Scotland[134] and France in 1736; a Lodge at Hamburg in 1737,[135] though it was not patented until 1740; the Unity Lodge at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1742, another at Vienna the same year; the Grand Lodge of the Three World-spheres at Berlin in 1744; and so on, until the order made its advent in Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Following the footsteps of Masonry from land to land is almost as difficult as tracing its early history, owing to the secrecy in which it enwrapped its movements. For example, in 1680 there came to South Carolina one John Moore, a native of England, who before the close of the century removed to Philadelphia, where, in 1703, he was Collector of the Port. In a letter written by him in 1715, he mentions having "spent a few evenings in festivity with my Masonic brethren."[136]

This is the first vestige of Masonry in America, unless we accept as authentic a curious doc.u.ment in the early history of Rhode Island, as follows: "This ye [day and month obliterated] 1656, Wee mett att y House off Mordicai Campanell and after synagog gave Abram Moses the degrees of Maconrie."[137] On June 5, 1730, the first authority for the a.s.sembling of Free-masons in America was issued by the Duke of Norfolk, to Daniel c.o.xe, of New Jersey, appointing him Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and three years later Henry Price, of Boston, was appointed to the same office for New England. But Masons had evidently been coming to the New World for years, for the two cases just cited date back of the Grand Lodge of 1717.

How soon c.o.xe acted on the authority given him is not certain, but the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, published by Benjamin Franklin, contains many references to Masonic affairs as early as July, 1730. Just when Franklin himself became interested in Masonry is not of record--he was initiated in 1730-31[138]--but he was a leader, at that day, of everything that would advance his adopted city; and the "Junto," formed in 1725, often inaccurately called the Leathern-Ap.r.o.n Club, owed its origin to him. In a Masonic item in the _Gazette_ of December 3, 1730, he refers to "several Lodges of Free-masons" in the Province, and on June 9, 1732, notes the organization of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, of which he was appointed a Warden, at the Sun Tavern, in Water Street. Two years later Franklin was elected Grand Master, and the same year published an edition of the _Book of Const.i.tutions_--the first Masonic book issued in America. Thus Masonry made an early advent into the new world, in which it has labored so n.o.bly, helping to lay the foundations and building its own basic principles into the organic law of the greatest of all republics.

II