The Builders Part 13

[144] Nor was that all. In 1735 it was resolved in the Grand Lodge "that in the future all Grand Officers (except Grand Master) shall be selected out of that body"--meaning the past Grand Stewards. This act was amazing. Already the Craft had let go its power to elect the Wardens, and now the choice of the Grand Master was narrowed to the ranks of an oligarchy in its worst form--a queer outcome of Masonic equality. Three months later the Grand Stewards presented a memorial asking that they "might form themselves into a special lodge," with special jewels, etc. Naturally this bred discontent and apprehension, and justly so.

[145] Often we speak of "the York Rite," as though it were the oldest and truest form of Masonry, but, while it serves to distinguish one branch of Masonry from another, it is not accurate; for, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a York Rite. The name is more a tribute of reverence than a description of fact.

[146] _Masonic Facts and Fictions_, by Henry Sadler.

[147] _Atholl Lodges_, by R.F. Gould.

[148] William Preston was born in Edinburgh in 1742, and came as a journeyman printer to London in 1760, where he made himself conversant with the history, laws, and rites of the Craft, being much in demand as a lecturer. He was a good speaker, and frequently addressed the Lodges of the city. After his blunder of seceding had been forgiven, he was honored with many offices, especially the Grand Secretaryship, which gave him time to pursue his studies. Later he wrote the _Freemason's Callender_, an appendix to the _Book of Const.i.tutions_, a _History of Masonry_, and, most famous of all, _Ill.u.s.trations of Masonry_, which pa.s.sed through a score of editions. Besides, he had much to do with the development of the Ritual.

[149] The history of the Ritual is most interesting, and should be written in more detail (_History of Masonry_, by Steinbrenner, chap.

vii, "The Ritual"). An article giving a brief story of it appeared in the _Masonic Monthly_, of Boston, November, 1863 (reprinted in the _New England Craftsman_, vol. vii, and still later in the _Bulletin of Iowa Masonic Library_, vol. xv, April, 1914). This article is valuable as showing the growth of the Ritual--as much by subtraction as by addition--and especially the introduction into it of Christian imagery and interpretation, first by Martin Clare in 1732, and by Duckerley and Hutchinson later. One need only turn to _The Spirit of Masonry_, by Hutchinson (1802), to see how far this tendency had gone when at last checked in 1813. At that time a committee made a careful comparative study of all rituals in use among Masons, and the ultimate result was the Preston-Webb lectures now generally in use in this country. (See a valuable article by Dr. Mackey on "The Lectures of Freemasonry,"

_American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry_, vol. ii, p. 297.) What a pity that this _Review_ died of too much excellence!

[150] _Military Lodges_, by Gould; also Kipling's poem, _The Mother Lodge_.

[151] Among the articles of union, it was agreed that Freemasonry should consist of the three symbolic degrees, "_including the Holy Royal Arch_." The present study does not contemplate a detailed study of Capitular Masonry, which has its own history and historians (_Origin of the English Rite_, Hughan), except to say that it seems to have begun about 1738-40, the concensus of opinion differing as to whether it began in England or on the Continent ("Royal Arch Masonry," by C.P.

Noar, _Manchester Lodge of Research_, vol. iii, 1911-12). Lawrence Dermott, always alert, had it adopted by the Atholl Grand Lodge about thirty years before the Grand Lodge of England took it up in 1770-76, when Thomas Duckerley was appointed to arrange and introduce it.

Dermott held it to be "the very essence of Masonry," and he was not slow in using it as a club with which to belabor the Moderns; but he did not originate it, as some imagine, having received the degrees before he came to London, perhaps in an unsystemized form. Duckerley was accused of shifting the original Grand Masonic word from the Third Degree to the Royal Arch, and of subst.i.tuting another in its stead.

Enough to say that Royal Arch Masonry is authentic Masonry, being a further elaboration in drama, following the Third Degree, of the spirit and motif of old Craft Masonry (_History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders_, by Hughan and Stillson).

[152] It is interesting to note that the writer of the article on "Masonry" in the Catholic _Encyclopedia_--an article admirable in many ways, and for the most part fair--makes much of this point, and rightly so, albeit his interpretation of it is altogether wrong. He imagines that the objection to Christian imagery in the ritual was due to enmity to Christianity. Not so. Masonry was not then, and has never at any time been, opposed to Christianity, or to any other religion. Far from it. But Christianity in those days--as, alas, too often now--was another name for a petty and bigoted sectarianism; and Masonry by its very genius was, and is, _unsectarian_. Many Masons then were devout Christians, as they are now--not a few clergymen--but the order itself is open to men of all faiths, Catholic and Protestant, Hebrew and Hindu, who confess faith in G.o.d; and so it will always remain if it is true to its principles and history.

[153] As for the chronicle, the one indispensable book to the student of American Masonry is the _History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders_, by W.J. Hughan and H.L. Stillson, aided by one of the ablest board of contributors ever a.s.sembled. It includes a history of Masonry in all its Rites in North, Central, and South America, with accurate accounts of the origin and growth of every Grand Lodge in the United States and British America; also admirable chapters on Early American Masonic History, the Morgan Excitement, Masonic Jurisprudence, and statistics up to date of 1891--all carefully prepared and well written.

Among other books too many to name, there are the _History of Symbolic Masonry in the United States_, by J.H. Drummond, and "The American Addenda" to Gould's ma.s.sive and magnificent _History of Masonry_, vol.

iv. What the present pages seek is the spirit behind this forest of facts.

[154] For the full story, see "Reminiscences of the Green Dragon Tavern," in _Centennial Memorial of St. Andrew's Lodge, 1870_.

[155] _Washington, the Man and the Mason_, by C.H. Callahan. Jackson, Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, Johnson, Garfield, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, all were Masons. A long list may be found in _Cyclopedia of Fraternities_, by Stevens, article on "Freemasonry: Distinguished Americans."

[156] _Washington and his Masonic Compeers_, by Randolph Hayden.

[157] Thomas Paine, whose words these are, though not a Mason, has left us an essay on _The Origin of Freemasonry_. Few men have ever been more unjustly and cruelly maligned than this great patriot, who was the first to utter the name "United States," and who, instead of being a sceptic, believed in "the religion in which all men agree"--that is, in G.o.d, Duty, and the immortality of the soul.

[158] William Morgan was a dissolute, nondescript printer in Batavia, New York, who, having failed in everything else, thought to make money by betraying the secrets of an order which his presence polluted.

Foolishly misled, a few Masons had him arrested on a petty charge, got him out of the country, and apparently paid him to stay out. Had no attention been paid to his alleged exposure it would have fallen still-born from the press, like many another before it. Rumors of abduction started, then Morgan was said to have been thrown into Niagara River, whereas there is no proof that he was ever killed, much less murdered by Masons. Thurlow Weed and a pack of unscrupulous politicians took it up, and the rest was easy. One year later a body was found on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario which Weed and the wife of Morgan identified--a _year afterward!_--she, no doubt, having been paid to do so; albeit the wife of a fisherman named Munroe identified the same body as that of her husband drowned a week or so before. No matter; as Weed said, "_It's good enough Morgan until after the election_"--a characteristic remark, if we may judge by his own portrait as drawn in his _Autobiography_. Politically, he was capable of anything, if he could make it win, and here he saw a chance of stirring up every vile and slimy thing in human nature for sake of office. (See a splendid review of the whole matter in _History of Masonry_, by Hughan and Stillson, also by Gould in vol. iv of his _History_.)

[159] _Cyclopedia of Fraternities_, by Stevens, article, "Anti-Masonry," gives detailed account with many interesting facts.

[160] Following the first day of the battle of Gettysburg, there was a Lodge meeting in town, and "Yanks" and "Johnny Rebs" met and mingled as friends, under the Square and Compa.s.s. Where else could they have done so? (_Tennessee Mason_). When the Union army attacked Little Rock, Ark., the commanding officer, Thomas H. Benton--Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Iowa--threw a guard about the home of General Albert Pike, _to protect his Masonic library_. Marching through burning Richmond, a Union officer saw the familiar emblems over a hall. He put a guard about the Lodge room, and that night, together with a number of Confederate Masons, organized a society for the relief of widows and orphans left dest.i.tute by the war (_Washington, the Man and the Mason_, Callahan). But for the kindness of a brother Mason, who saved the life of a young soldier of the South, who was a prisoner of war at Rock Island, Ill., the present writer would never have been born, much less have written this book. That young soldier was my father! Volumes of such facts might be gathered in proof of the gracious ministry of Masonry in those awful years.

[161] _Cyclopedia of Fraternities_, by Stevens (last edition), article, "Free Masonry," pictures the extent of the order, with maps and diagrams showing its world-wide influence.

[162] s.p.a.ce does not permit a survey of the literature of Masonry, still less of Masonry in literature. (Findel has two fine chapters on the literature of the order, but he wrote, in 1865, _History of Masonry_.) For traces of Masonry in literature, there is the famous chapter in _War and Peace_, by Tolstoi; _Mon Oncle Sosthenes_, by Maupa.s.sant; _Nathan the Wise_, and _Ernest and Falk_, by Lessing; the Masonic poems of Goethe, and many hints in _Wilhelm Meister_; the writings of Herder (_Cla.s.sic Period of German Letters_, Findel), _The Lost Word_, by Henry Van d.y.k.e; and, of course, the poetry of Burns.

Masonic phrases and allusions--often almost too revealing--are found all through the poems and stories of Kipling. Besides the poem _The Mother Lodge_, so much admired, there is _The Widow of Windsor_, such stories as _With the Main Guard_, _The Winged Hats_, _Hal o' the Draft_, _The City Walls_, _On the Great Wall_, many examples in _Kim_, also in _Traffics and Discoveries_, _Puck of Pook's Hill_, and, by no means least, _The Man Who Would be King_, one of the great short stories of the world.

Part III--Interpretation

WHAT IS MASONRY

/# _I am afraid you may not consider it an altogether substantial concern. It has to be seen in a certain way, under certain conditions. Some people never see it at all. You must understand, this is no dead pile of stones and unmeaning timber. It is a_ LIVING _thing._

_When you enter it you hear a sound--a sound as of some mighty poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that it is made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music of men's souls--that is, if you have ears to hear. If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself--a looming mystery of many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no ordinary builder!_

_The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet flesh of men and women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every corner stone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and s.p.a.ces are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building--building and built upon._

_Sometimes the work goes on in deep darkness; sometimes in blinding light; now under the burden of unutterable anguish; now to the tune of great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome--the comrades that have climbed ahead._

--C.R. KENNEDY, _The Servant in the House_ #/

CHAPTER I

_What is Masonry_

I

What, then, is Masonry, and what is it trying to do in the world?

According to one of the _Old Charges_, Masonry is declared to be an "ancient and honorable inst.i.tution: ancient no doubt it is, as having subsisted from time immemorial; and honorable it must be acknowledged to be, as by natural tendency it conduces to make those so who are obedient to its precepts. To so high an eminence has its credit been advanced that in every age Monarchs themselves have been promoters of the art, have not thought it derogatory from their dignity to exchange the scepter for the trowel, have patronized our mysteries and joined in our a.s.semblies."

While that eulogy is more than justified by sober facts, it does not tell us what Masonry is, much less its mission and ministry to mankind. If now we turn to the old, oft-quoted definition, we learn that Masonry is "a system of morality veiled in allegory and ill.u.s.trated by symbols." That is, in so far, true enough, but it is obviously inadequate, the more so when it uses the word "peculiar" as describing the morality of Masonry; and it gives no hint of a world-encircling fellowship and its far-ramifying influence. Another definition has it that Masonry is "a science which is engaged in the search after divine truth;"[163] but that is vague, indefinite, and unsatisfactory, lacking any sense of the uniqueness of the Order, and as applicable to one science as to another. For surely all science, of whatever kind, is a search after divine truth, and a physical fact, as Aga.s.siz said, is as sacred as a moral truth--every fact being the presence of G.o.d.

Still another writer defines Masonry as "Friendship, Love, and Integrity--Friendship which rises superior to the fict.i.tious distinctions of society, the prejudices of religion, and the pecuniary conditions of life; Love which knows no limit, nor inequality, nor decay; Integrity which binds man to the eternal law of duty."[164]

Such is indeed the very essence and spirit of Masonry, but Masonry has no monopoly of that spirit, and its uniqueness consists, rather, in the form in which it seeks to embody and express the gracious and benign spirit which is the genius of all the higher life of humanity.

Masonry is not everything; it is a thing as distinctly featured as a statue by Phidias or a painting by Angelo. Definitions, like delays, may be dangerous, but perhaps we can do no better than to adopt the words of the German _Handbuch_[165] as the best description of it so far given:

/#[4,66]

_Masonry is the activity of closely united men who, employing symbolical forms borrowed princ.i.p.ally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to enn.o.ble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now on a small scale._ #/

Civilization could hardly begin until man had learned to fashion for himself a settled habitation, and thus the earliest of all human arts and crafts, and perhaps also the n.o.blest, is that of the builder.

Religion took outward shape when men first reared an altar for their offerings, and surrounded it with a sanctuary of faith and awe, of pity and consolation, and piled a cairn to mark the graves where their dead lay asleep. History is no older than architecture. How fitting, then, that the idea and art of building should be made the basis of a great order of men which has no other aim than the upbuilding of humanity in Faith, Freedom, and Friendship. Seeking to enn.o.ble and beautify life, it finds in the common task and constant labor of man its sense of human unity, its vision of life as a temple "building and built upon," and its emblems of those truths which make for purity of character and the stability of society. Thus Masonry labors, linked with the constructive genius of mankind, and so long as it remains true to its Ideal no weapon formed against it can prosper.

One of the most impressive and touching things in human history is that certain ideal interests have been set apart as especially venerated among all peoples. Guilds have arisen to cultivate the interests embodied in art, science, philosophy, fraternity, and religion; to conserve the precious, hard-won inheritances of humanity; to train men in their service; to bring their power to bear upon the common life of mortals, and send through that common life the light and glory of the Ideal--as the sun shoots its transfiguring rays through a great dull cloud, evoking beauty from the brown earth. Such is Masonry, which unites all these high interests and brings to their service a vast, world-wide fraternity of free and devout men, built upon a foundation of spiritual faith and moral idealism, whose mission it is to make men friends, to refine and exalt their lives, to deepen their faith and purify their dream, to turn them from the semblance of life to homage for truth, beauty, righteousness, and character. More than an inst.i.tution, more than a tradition, more than a society, Masonry is one of the forms of the Divine Life upon earth.

No one may ever hope to define a spirit so gracious, an order so benign, an influence so prophetic of the present and future upbuilding of the race.

There is a common notion that Masonry is a secret society, and this idea is based on the secret rites used in its initiations, and the signs and grips by which its members recognize each other. Thus it has come to pa.s.s that the main aims of the Order are a.s.sumed to be a secret policy or teaching,[166] whereas _its one great secret is that it has no secret_. Its principles are published abroad in its writings; its purposes and laws are known, and the times and places of its meetings. Having come down from dark days of persecution, when all the finer things sought the protection of seclusion, if it still adheres to secret rites, it is not in order to hide the truth, but the better to teach it more impressively, to train men in its pure service, and to promote union and amity upon earth. Its signs and grips serve as a kind of universal language, and still more as a gracious cover for the practice of sweet charity--making it easier to help a fellow man in dire plight without hurting his self-respect. If a few are attracted to it by curiosity, all remain to pray, finding themselves members of a great historic fellowship of the seekers and finders of G.o.d.[167] It is old because it is true; had it been false it would have perished long ago. When all men practice its simple precepts, the innocent secrets of Masonry will be laid bare, its mission accomplished, and its labor done.