The Builder Magazine 

April 1921 - Volume VII - Number 4 


Memorials to Great Men Who Were Masons 

GENERAL HENRY DEARBORN 

BY BRO. GEO. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., District of Columbia 

HENRY DEARBORN, physician, soldier, patriot and statesman, was one of those 
remarkable characters who covered much ground and did it well. He rose to the rank of 
Major General in the Army of the Revolution, and yet the rising generation probably can 
tell us less about him than they can about the champion boxer or the stroke oar in the 
college race crew. 


This Republic, which we hear lauded in many Fourth of July orations, owes as much to 
General Dearborn as it does to any division commander in the Revolutionary War. General 
Dearborn was bom in New Hampshire, in 1751, of English ancestry, and died at Roxbury, 
Mass., in 1829, where he was buried. Past Grand Master Melvin M. Johnson, of 
Massachusetts, informs the writer that the remains of General Dearborn, and those of his 
wife, were removed to Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, in 1834. No memorial was 
erected to mark either burial site. 


Dearborn was a man of great endurance, powerful, enthusiastic and sanguine. When he 
learned of the Battle of Lexington he immediately organized a company of sixty men, 
marched to Lexington, making sixty-five miles the first day, but unfortunately arrived too 
late to get into the fight. 


He was made a Captain in Stark's Brigade, and was at Bunker Hill on the 1 7th of June, 
1775. He accompanied General Arnold to Quebec, going through the dense woods of 
Maine, was taken prisoner at Quebec, paroled, and soon afterwards exchanged. 



He served under General Gates at the capture of Burgoyne and distinguished himself and 
his regiment by a gallant charge at the battle of Monmouth, in 1778. He then served with 
General John Sullivan (who was afterwards Grand Master in New Hampshire) in the 
expedition against the Indians in 1780, and also with the Army in New Jersey in 1781, and 
the following year was on garrison duty at Saratoga. He was appointed Marshal of the 
District of Maine, by General Washington. 


He served two terms in Congress and was Secretary of War for eight years. He held that 
the Republic expected every man to do his duty and was remiss if he did less, that the 
reward for the performance of a great act was in the pleasure one experienced for having 
performed it. 


In 1809 General Dearborn was Collector of the Port of Boston, and in 1812 was 
commissioned the senior Major General in the Army and Commander of the Northern 
Department. In the spring of 1813 he captured the town of York, in Upper Canada, and 
also Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara, being afterwards recalled and placed in 
command of the military district of New York City. 


General Dearborn in 1815 resigned his commission in the Army to accept the position of 
Minister to the kingdom of Portugal, where he remained for two years, being then recalled 
at his own request. 


His life was published by General Henry A. S. Dearborn who was a prominent member of 
the Bar in Boston. 


It is a pleasure to note what a great number of our Revolutionary ancestors were 
Freemasons; how pure and upright they were, but it is a pity their biographers have failed 
to record their Masonic membership. 



The only memorials to this great man and patriot are a street in the city of Boston named 
after him, and Fort Dearborn, at Chicago, shown as the frontispiece in this issue of THE 
BUILDER through the courtesy of the National Geographic Society. 


The War Department will furnish gratuitously small markers for the graves of 
Revolutionary soldiers, and even one of these modest and inexpensive stones would afford 
some pleasure to the descendants of Revolutionary sires. 


Fort Dearborn, which was but a block house, has vanished, and the rising generation who 
thread their way through the curves and tangents of Dearborn Street probably have never 
known whence or why the street received its name. 


Brother Dearborn was made a Mason in St. Johns Lodge, Portsmouth, N. H., in 1777. 


THE CRAFT IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN 1920 


BY BRO. DUDLEY WRIGHT, ENGLAND 


WHEN THE YEAR opened, the Craft in England had to regret the absence of its Grand 
Master, the Duke of Connaught, who had been compelled to seek convalescence, after an 
acute bronchial attack, in the south of France. The year ends with the Grand Master again 
absent from the country, but this time, he having been restored fully to health, he is on his 
way to India as the accredited representative of his king and country, and the latest report 
to hand, coming exactly at the moment these words are being written, is that the Duke of 
Connaught is “enjoying better health than he has enjoyed for some time.” Deo Gratias. 



The past year has witnessed the foundation in England of a record number of lodges, 
warrants having been granted for the consecration of no fewer than 162, as compared with 
129 in 1919; 88 in 1918; 39 in 1917; 24 in 1916; 21 in 1915; 30 in 1914; and 68 in 1913; 
this last being the average pre-war figure. The growth of the Craft in England and the 
increase in the number of lodges has necessitated the appointment of a second Deputy 
Grand Director of Ceremonies in the United Grand Lodge and of Assistant Provincial and 
District Grand Masters in the larger Provinces and Districts. 


In Royal Arch Masonry, the progress has been marked in proportion, 71 chapters having 
been warranted during the year. Six Grand Superintendents have been appointed to 
provinces and two to districts: W. Lascelles Southwell to Shropshire, Lord St. Levan to 
Cornwall, Edward Holmes to Leicester and Rutland, Dr. E. H. Cook to Bristol, Rev. Dr. E. 
C. Pearce to Cambridgeshire, Major R. L. Thornton to Sussex, Sir George Fletcher Mac 
Munn to Punjab, and James Mac Kenna to Burma. Here, as in the Craft, it has been found 
necessary to appoint a second Deputy Grand Director of Ceremonies in consequence of 
the increasing number of Chapter consecrations. 


The principal change in the government of Mark Masonry has been the appointment of Sir 
Richard Vassar-Smith as Deputy Grand Master in succession to Mr. R. Loveland 
Loveland, K. C., who has rendered long and valuable service in this degree in particular, 
but in all branches of Masonry in general. 


A similar story is told by the Scottish Masonic authorities. New lodges are being formed, 
some in very remote districts, and the enthusiasm for the Craft and its many branches, 
apparently is deep-rooted and sincere. Certain restrictions as to the number of candidates 
that may be initiated at one time have been introduced which has led to the introduction of 
“waiting lists,” thus affording an additional test for the neophytes. The Earl of Eglinton 
and Winton has been installed as Grand Master Mason in succession to Brigadier General 
R. Gordon Gilmour, Scotland being more democratic in its constitution than England, the 
Grand Mastership, in normal times, changing annually. One of the most important 
Masonic events of the year was the official visit of a deputation from the Grand Lodge of 
Scotland to the Grand Lodge of England. 



In Ireland, Colonel Claude Cane has succeeded the veteran Sir Charles Cameron as 
Deputy Grand Master, who has devoted some seventy years of his life to Masonic work 
and propaganda. Ireland also, during the year, has lost its Grand Secretary, H. E. Flavelle, 
who was also well known as an indefatigable worker. 


The support given to the three central Masonic institutions has been well maintained, the 
aggregate amount collected at the annual festivals totalling up to no less a sum than 
293,188 pounds from 16,056 Stewards; while the Mark Benevolent Fund also enjoyed a 
record festival, 975 stewards being up to the sum of over 10,050 pounds. All the 
institutions have once more accepted the whole of the qualified candidates without 
subjecting them to the ordeal and expense of a ballot. The Freemasons Hospital and 
Nursing Home, placed at the disposal of the military authorities for the puiposes of a War 
Hospital, has, during the year, reverted to its original puipose and has already well 
justified its existence, despite the doubts of many, when the scheme was first propounded, 
as to its necessity. There was no formal opening ceremony, but the Grand Master paid an 
informal visit at the time of the transfer and gave a welcome to the first patients. The Old 
Peoples' Institution has now 1400 annuitants on its books, while 777 girls and 905 boys are 
being educated and maintained in the other institutions. During the year, R. Percy Simpson 
has resigned from the secretaryship of the Girls' School, and, just at the closing of the year, 
comes the news of the passing of James Morrison McFeod, who, for more than twenty- 
seven years, guided the affairs of the Boys' School in a masterly and highly successful 
manner. 


Many honors, politic and civic, have fallen to the lot of prominent Brethren during the 
year, but none gave greater pleasure than the Baronetcy conferred upon the Deputy Grand 
Master, Sir Frederick Halsey. The Earl of Stradbroke, Provincial Grand Master of Suffolk, 
has now left to take up his duties as Governor of Victoria, but this is the only province in 
England which is not under the direct government of its appointed head. During the year 
three Provincial Grand Masters have been installed into office: F. M. FaMothe, Isle of 
Man; Fouis S. Winsloe, West Fancashire; and the Bishop of Thetford, Norfolk. Four 
District Grand Masters have also been appointed: Major-General Sir George Fletcher 
MacMunn, Punjab; James MacKenna, Burma; John Fangley, Egypt and the Soudan; and 
Henry J. Hyde-Johnson, Nigeria. 


The Masonic Million Memorial Fund, originating with the Grand Master, is making steady 
headway, an impetus having been given to the scheme during the year through the 



acquisition by Grand Lodge of the long line of premises adjoining the existing Masonic 
buildings in Great Queen Street. The Duke of Connaught has now expressed a wish to 
meet all the Provincial Grand Masters in conference upon the scheme immediately after 
his return from India. 


One of the most notable events of the year has been the formation of the grand jurisdiction 
of Queensland, which promises to be one of the strongest of the overseas jurisdictions. 


A notable attack on the Craft was made during the year by a prominent London daily, but 
the readers of THE BUILDER have already been made familiar with the trenchant and 
effective reply of Brother A. E. Waite. 


The obituary list of the year has not been heavy, but it contains some noted names of hard 
workers in the Masonic cause. Four Grand Wardens have passed away: Lord Egerton of 
Tatton (who was also Past Provincial Grand Master for Cheshire); the Earl of Dartrey; 
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Gerard Smith (Past District Grand Master Western Australia); and 
Sir Thomas Vezey Strong. Two Grand Chaplains in the persons of the Rev. Richard Peek 
and Bishop Stevens have also joined the Grand Lodge Above. Other notable names in the 
list are Judge Woodfall, the Rev. C.E.L. Wright (who bequeathed his Masonic collection 
to the Grand Lodge Library), Sir Gabriel Stokes, R. G. ; Venables, Sir David Mercer, and 
Riehard Luck, all Past Grand Deacons, Percy F. Wheeler and James Morley, Past 
Assistant Grand Registrars; Dr. Hill Drury, J.R. Cleave, William Lestocq, and James W. 
Mathews (founder of the Genesius Club of Instruction), Past Assistant Grand Directors of 
Ceremonies. But not all the ardent lovers of the Craft and workers in the cause are 
included in Grand Lodge lists. Many names could be mentioned, but to the writer and to 
many others, the passing of Frederick Henry Buckmaster, London Rank, an ardent student 
of Masonry in all its branches and one who was a thorough exemplification of what a 
Mason should be in practice as well as in idealism, will be felt for many days and years. 


And the future? As a body we are the admiration of the world for our noble 
exemplification of our Masonic principles of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. We can 
honestly lay claim to that achievement as a body. Have we the same right to claim it as 
individuals? Do those who are dependent upon us regard us individually with the same 
high esteem and respect as the world at large appreciates us a body? By the populace we 



are acquitted as possessing high ideals and acting up to them; what is our individual 
position? It is a personal question, and the answer cannot here be written. It must be 
answered individually. 


— o- 


GRAND LODGE OF ARIZONA ADOPTS N.M.R.S. STUDY CLUB PLAN 


At the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodg of Arizona the Committee on Foreign 
Correspondence made the following recommendation to the Grand Lodge, which was 
adopted: 


“Your Committee recommends that each and every Master of a Subordinate lodge in this 
Grand Jurisdiction be directed to immediately proceed to the formation of a Study Club 
(provided that one has not already been formed in his lodge), to meet at least once every 
month and on a date when no degree work is in progress; that each lodge decide for itself 
the manner of carrying out the objects of this recommendation, but we recommend that 
each lodge follow the general outlines of the Study Club plans as promulgated by 'THE 
BUILDER' of Anamosa, Iowa. Further, that the incoming Grand Master see that this 
recommendation is carried into effect at the earliest possible date and that each lodge be 
required to report to this Grand Lodge at its next annual communication the progress and 
results of the formation of the various Study Clubs. 


Harry A. Drachman, Chairman, 
H. D. Aitken, Member 
Lloyd C. Henning, Member, 


February 8, 1921. Committee. 





Good character is human nature in its best form. It is moral order embodied in the 
individual. Men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well 
governed state they are its best motive power; for it is moral quslities which, in the main, 
rule the world. - S. Smiles. 


WHENCE CAME FREEMASONRY 


BY BRO. E. ELLISON, CALIFORNIA 


A REVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL FORCES WHICH TENDED TO GIVE THE 
FRATERNITY ITS PRESENT CHARACTER 


IT IS AN ambitious undertaking to attempt to compress the history of this venerable 
institution within the limits of a brief article. Let me say at the outset, that it is not my 
intention to enter into details. Rather, I propose to draw a brief sketch, or, more 
accurately, an outline of the historical forces which tended to give the Fraternity its present 
character. Let me add that I do not lay claim to original research or discovery in Masonic 
history. I shall only try to piece together information obtained from a general reading, not 
only of Masonic, but also of so-called profane works. 


ORIGIN UNKNOWN 


The origin of Freemasonry is unknown. All attempts to penetrate the veil which 
enshrouds the birth-place and cradle of the institution have proved fruitless. True, our 
tradition informs us that “it has existed from time immemorial,” but is not that in itself an 



admission that we do not know when or where it originated? Probably we shall have to 
content ourselves with Topsy's philosophy and say that it “just growed.” I mean by that, 
that it has sprung into existence in response to that instinct which impels man to seek the 
association, the friendship, and the protection, of his fellow men. 


Up to a generation or two ago, it seems to have been the accepted belief among 
Freemasons that their Fraternity was in no particular the work of man but of divine origin; 
that is to say, it was believed that at some time in the remote past the G.A.O.T.U. had 
handed down the peculiar mysteries of Masonry to some of the personages of whom we 
read in the Old Testament, and that these mysteries had been minutely and regularly 
transmitted down through succeeding generations. There was, of course, some question as 
to who first received the divine revelation. That honour has been variously accredited to 
King Solomon, Moses, Noah, Tubal Cain and even to Adam. But, in either case, the belief 
rests upon a foundation no stronger than the legends which we find embalmed in the so- 
called Ancient Charges or Gothic Constitutions, or in Dr. Anderson's “Constitutions and 
History of the Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons,” and has 
been discarded because it could not stand the test of scientific historical examination. 


HUMAN ORIGIN OF THE FRATERNITY 


We now look upon the Fraternity as of purely human origin - the product of the minds of 
those who comprise it and have comprised it. In other words, it is a reflex of the hopes and 
ideals, the aims and aspirations of its membership. At the same time, it has been subjected 
to pressure from without, because the men who comprise the Fraternity are also members 
of the larger surrounding human society, and their viewpoint as Freemasons is consciously 
or unconsciously influenced by the education, the training and the experience they have 
acquired in the outside world. 


We know that there is a constant change in the current of thought with reference to almost 
every subject and condition of life. As science advances and knowledge increases we are 
gradually throwing off many beliefs which our forefathers religiously entertained, just as, 
by the swine law of progress, many of the things to which we today pin our faith will be 
disproved and rejected by our descendants. 



Like every other human institution, Freemasonry has been affected by this change. The 
history of the Fraternity, therefore, in a measure runs parallel to the history of the 
intellectual development of humanity. On its long march down the centuries, each age has 
put its seal and imprint upon the institution; it has been impressed with the philosophy 
characteristic of successive ages; and it has accepted, absorbed and preserved in its system 
many customs and usages, many forms and ceremonies, many beliefs current in the 
outside world during different periods. With the passage of time, some of these have 
become obsolete and have been discarded, others are being carried along in the body of 
Freemasonry, although the original significance of them has been lost sight of or forgotten, 
and still others have been invested with new meaning - new symbolism. 


MORAL PHILOSOPHY DIVINE 


There is one thing divine and immutable about Freemasonry, namely, its moral 
philosophy. But in that respect it does not differ from other organizations which undertake 
to teach men their duty to God and to their fellows. There is no progress in moral 
doctrines. The Moral Law - the Ten Commandments - is as true today as on the day it was 
handed down to Moses in thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai. The Golden Rule of the 
Carpenter of Nazareth is as truly a living ideal in our day as on the day He first gave it to 
the world in His Sermon on the Mount. 


OLD BELIEF ABANDONED 


Why has the old belief in the divine origin of Freemasonry been abandoned? In the past 
century tremendous strides have been made upon every field of knowledge, including that 
of history. Within the memory of living men, the sites of the cities of ancient civilizations 
have been relocated and their ruins excavated. The languages of peoples who have long 
since vanished have been reconstructed and translated into modem tongues. The pyramids 
of Egypt have been explored and their hieroglyphs deciphered. The temples of Ancient 
Greece and the catacombs of Rome have given up their secrets. The gravemounds of the 
Scandinavian chieftains have been opened and have laid bare their wealth of historical 
treasure. Travellers have explored the countries of Asia, where no white man formerly had 



set foot, and have returned with the sacred books of religions established centuries before 
the Christian era. From the material thus obtained, coupled with the fragments of ancient 
learning which have come down to us, the modern historian has presented to us a 
reconstructed history, enabling us to form a clearer conception of the lives and habits, the 
religious, social and political institutions of the ancient peoples. 


MYSTO-RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES IN ANCIENT TIMES 


Among other things, we have learned of the existence in highest antiquity of secret mysto- 
religious societies, similar in some respects to our present day Freemasonry. This 
historical fact has received close study at the hands of Masonic students, who have 
devoted years of labour in an endeavour to establish the descent of our Fraternity from the 
mystic brotherhoods of ancient times. Some of our learned brethren have essayed the task 
of tracing the pedigree of Freemasonry back to the birth of civilization, and in order to 
demonstrate the ancient origin and high descent of that institution, have attempted to 
reconstruct the rites of the Ancient Mysteries. I shall not attempt to examine the various 
elaborate pedigrees that have been traced, or the ingenious arguments that have been 
advanced in support of them. The fact is, that no satisfactory written or other authentic 
record has come down to us concerning the secret rites of these Mysteries. Consequently, 
the efforts made to reconstruct them from the references available are not likely to have 
met with better success than would the attempt on the part of a profane of our day to give 
to the world the benefit of our Masonic ceremonies. 


It should be remembered that we are here dealing with the customs and usages of peoples 
who have long since disappeared from the earth, with whose institutions we are, after all, 
but imperfectly familiar, and whose viewpoint it is difficult if not impossible, for us to 
obtain. Let us also bear in mind that the secrecy of present day Freemasonry is as nothing 
when compared with the jealous care with which the ancients guarded their secrets from 
the profane. The laws the Brahmins, for instance, provided that if an uninitiate was caught 
listening to the reading of the sacred books, he was to be punished by pouring hot oil into 
his ears, and if he had succeeded in committing to memory any portion of the text, his 
throat was to be cut. 


LEGENDARY OR TRADITIONAL HISTORY 



We shall divide the history of the Fraternity into two parts. The first, we shall call the 
traditional or legendary period, by which we mean the time before accounts of current 
events were committed to writing; when all information was perpetuated by oral 
communication from father to son, and from generation to generation. The second, we 
shall call the historical period, and by that, we, of course, mean that part of the life of the 
Fraternity concerning which we draw our information from authentic records, whether 
found in lodge books, in the public archives, or in the literature of the day. The first period 
is like a desert “without milestone or finger post,” and the Masonic explorers who have 
attempted to trace the path of the Fraternity by its “footprints upon the sands of time,” 
have traversed so many divergent roads, and have arrived at so many conflicting 
conclusions, that their labour is of little value to us. Each succeeding writer has tom down 
and destroyed the hypotheses of those who have preceded him, in order, as it seems, to 
make room for his own theory. 


HISTORICAL PERIOD 


The historical period we shall again roughly divide into three eras. The first, 

(commencing about the year 1200 and ending about the year 1550), we shall call the 
Operative period. The second, (commencing with the Reformation and ending in the year 
1717), for want of a better name, we shall designate as the Operative- Speculative period. 
The third, (commencing with the so-called Great Revival, the formation of the first Grand 
Lodge, and carried down to our own day), let us call the Speculative period. We will now 
consider these eras in the order named. 


OPERATIVE PERIOD (1200-1550) 


Bearing in mind the proposition we laid down at the outset of this discussion, that the 
character of the Fraternity has been largely shaped by surrounding conditions, let us 
briefly review the social and political institutions of the time. 



FORMATION OF GUILDS 


When the Roman Empire fell before the invasion of the barbarians of the North, the 
conquerors built upon its ruins a number of small tribal states. The people were barbarous 
and quarrelsome, and these states were in constant warfare with one another. For centuries 
might was the only law. Anarchy reigned supreme. The great civilization of the Romans 
became engulfed and disappeared. This is the period known in history as the Dark Ages. 


Slowly and painfully civilization had a new birth. The tribal governments gave way to 
national authority. The people fell under the softening influence of Christianity. Wars 
became less frequent, and men again began to practice the arts of peace. 


During the disturbed period of the Dark Ages, the artisans and workmen of the cities, in 
order to obtain protection from the repacity and cruelty of then feudal lords, banded 
themselves together into trade guilds, or coiporations, and step by step, by means of bribe, 
purchase, and quite often by open rebellion, succeeded in wresting from their lords 
paramount the privilege of regulating the affairs of their respective crafts, and, later, 
established the complete self-government of their cities. The Masons, like their brethren 
of other crafts, also formed coiporations; but since their employers and feudal lords, in the 
majority of cases, were ecclesiastical dignitaries, Princes of the Church, it was to them that 
the Masons applied for their charters of privileges. References to these instruments have 
been found in the fabric rolls and archives of medieval churches. 


GOTHIC CONSTITUTIONS 


But the most interesting information concerning the organized life of our forefather 
Masons in medieval times is to be found in the so-called Ancient Charges or Gothic 
Constitutions. The originals of these curious documents were drawn at a time when the art 
of writing was known only to the members of the theological profession, and they bear the 
imprint of the credulity and ignorance which characterizes all the literature of the period. 
Their contents are usually divided into two parts. The first, purports to be a history of the 
craft from its inception down to date, and is valuable chiefly as showing what was the 



belief of our Masonic fore-fathers concerning the origin and progress of their craft. As a 
chronicle of actual events it has no value at all. The oldest existing document of this kind 
is the so-called Halliwell Poem, composed about the end of the fourteenth century, 
although it bears internal evidence of having been compiled from much earlier 
manuscripts. 


MASONIC LEGENDS 


The Buchanan MS., a seventeenth-century Scotch Constitution, may be taken as the type 
for all these documents. In it we are told that God gave the Seven Liberal Arts and 
Sciences to Jabal, Jubal and Tubal, the three sons of Lamech; that when He was about to 
take punishment upon the world for its sins by the Flood, the sciences were enclosed in 
two pillars; one made of wood, that it might not sink; the other of marble, that it might not 
bum; that after the Flood the pillars and the secrets they contained were found by 
Hamarynes (Hermes), the father of all wise men, who taught the sciences to Abraham, and 
were by him brought into the “Londe of Egypt,” where he imparted them to his “Goode 
Clerke Euclid.” From Egypt the sciences were in due course of time introduced into 
Palestine. 


The building of King Solomon's Temple pays an important part in the narrative, and we 
are told of Hiram, the King, and Hiram, the Builder, the latter being referred to as the 
King's Son of Tyre. We are told, further, that in the days of Charles Martel, the science of 
Geometry, which our operative forefathers regarded as synonymous to Masonry, was 
brought into France by one Naymus (Mamon) Grecus, who had been employed at the 
building of the Temple. Now that edifice was erected about one thousand years before 
Christ. Charles Martel mled in France nearly eight hundred years after Christ, so that our 
good brother Grecus must have attained the rather unusual age of nearly eighteen hundred 
years. Of course, the matter of bridging the span of eighteen centuries by the life of an 
individual did not trouble the legend writers of the Middle Ages. I am citing these things 
to show that the “legendary” history of Masonry is simply a compendium of sacred and 
profane history coloured by the romance so generally accepted during that period. 


ANCIENT LANDMARKS 



The second part of these documents contained the rules and regulations of the Craft, and 
taught members their duty to God and to one another. Many of these ancient regulations 
have come down to our own time and are a part of the body of our laws under the name of 
Ancient Landmarks. 


It should be added that in the days before Grand Lodges had been formed, the status of a 
lodge was determined by it having in its possession a copy of these Ancient Charges. 
These, therefore, served the purpose of our present day charters. 


CLAIM TO DIVINE ORIGIN 


The Masonic Craft is unique in the respect that it is the only one of the medieval guilds for 
which divine origin was claimed, or which itself laid claim to have been established by 
Biblical personages. The probable explanation of this claim is to be found in the fact, that 
the Masons were almost exclusively employed upon religious edifices and therefore in 
close contact with the writers of history, as it was then written, and were especially 
favoured by the historians by having ascribed to their craft high antiquity and a long line of 
royal patrons and protectors. We should bear in mind that in the Middle Ages high 
descent was regarded as of great importance, and that many families, and nations even, 
claimed to be able to trace their ancestry back to the flood and even to a more remote 
period. 


The intimate association of the Masons with the members of the religious order, also 
tended to give to their craft that semi-religious character which it has maintained ever 
since. 


The Masonic guilds also differed from other medieval trade coiporations in the fact that in 
the former masters, journeymen and apprentices remained members of the same society. 

In other trades, especially in the commercial pursuits, the guild masters became wealthy 



and arrogant, and made use of their power to oppress their journeymen and apprentices, 
with the result that the latter formed guilds of their own as protection from their masters. 


In the Masonic craft there was no opportunity for great financial gains. The masters did 
not undertake work on their own account, as do our modem building contractors. The 
owner of the building to be erected furnished all the material entering into its constmction, 
and the craftsmen, from master to apprentice, were engaged to supply the skill and labour 
required in preparing plans and specifications, shaping the material and assembling it in 
the edifice. The master was the executive head of the job - the master workman - and 
laboured side by, side with his “companions and varlets” (fellow-crafts and apprentices) in 
the lodge or on the scaffold. 


The pay was modest, considering the character of the work and high requirements of the 
trade, not only in manual dexterity, but technical training and scientific knowledge and 
artistic sense. Still the craft had high standing among the trades, and ranked among the 
most honourable of professions; and its members enjoyed certain exemptions and 
immunities which may account for the fact that they assumed the name “Free Masons.” 


BLACK DEATH-STATUTES OF LABOURERS 


About the year 1340 Europe was scourged by a dreadful contagious disease, known as the 
Black Death. So virulent was the contagion and so frightful its ravages that the population 
in many countries was decimated, and in certain districts completely destroyed. In 
consequence, there existed a great scarcity of labour, especially in the skilled trades. The 
workmen, as might be expected, took advantage of this scarcity to improve their wages 
and conditions of employment. Their efforts met with strong opposition from the 
employing classes, who complained to King and Parliament against what they regarded as 
exactions on the part of the workmen. Drastic legislation was enacted prohibiting and 
punishing any attempt to increase wages above the level prevailing prior to the pestilence. 
This and kindred legislation has been classified in history as the Statutes of Labourers.” It 
did not have the desired effect, as is shown by the fact that in every succeeding Parliament 
the Commons renewed their complaints and grievances, but the only remedy proposed was 
to increase and sharpen the penalties of the law. Finally, a statute was enacted outlawing 
all forms of organizations having for their object the regulation of wages and denouncing 



such organizations as conspiracies. This was intended as a death blow to the guilds; but it 
failed signally. The guilds formed themselves into burial societies and continued in 
existence under that guise. 


The prosecutions of the Masons under the Statutes of Labourers were especially vigorous 
and severe, and the members of the lodges, therefore, were compelled to assemble in 
secret. It is an interesting question whether this may not be the period referred to in the 
Monitor, where we are told that “our ancient brethren assembled on the highest hill and in 
the lowest vales, the better to observe the approach of cowans and eavesdroppers.” Prior to 
this time, according to the Ancient Charges, the Masons in given districts met openly in 
Annual Assembly, and their meetings were attended by members of the nobility as well as 
the civil magistrates. It may be well to explain here that a “cowan” in Masonic language is 
one who attempts to practice the craft without being a member of a regular lodge, and 
having been duly apprenticed to the trade. 


Curiously, the oldest lodge minute extant, that of Edinburgh Lodge No. 1, Scotland, 
contains an account the trial of one George Patton, who had vexed the souls of his brethren 
by putting a cowan to work for two days and a half. The minute is dated July 31, 1599. 


“ACCEPTED” MASONS 


The lodges also adopted the expedient of admitting to membership men of high birth and 
station and placing themselves under the patronage and protection of these new brethren. 
This gave to the lodge an air of respectability, enabled its members to obtain employment 
on public buildings in preference to cowans, and insured them a measure of protection 
from the severity of the Statutes of Labourers. The number of non-operative members 
gradually increased, and they became known in the Fraternity as “Accepted” Masons or 
“Geomatics.” 


GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 



It was during this era that the beautiful Gothic style of architecture was developed and 
perfected and the noble churches erected which distinguish the ancient cities of Europe 
where they stand as eloquent witnesses to the skill and industry of those who built them, 
and the art and science of those who planned and designed them. The architects of 
succeeding ages have copied and imitated, but have never been able to improve upon 
either the style or construction of these famous edirces. 


DECLINE OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 


The Reformation was followed by a decline in church building. The property of the church 
was confiscated by the temporal powers, and Freemasonry as an operative science became 
almost a lost art 


OPERATIVE - SPECULATIVE, PERIOD (1550-1717) 


We have now arrived at the most interesting period in the life of Freemasonry, the time 
when the societies of builders and architects were transformed into speculative or 
philosophical associations. 


Although this era is closer to our own day than that of Operative times, the lodge records 
are extremely meagre and fragmentary. True, they bear sufficient testimony to the fact 
that Freemasonry had a continuous existence from earlier times, and also to the dual 
character of the membership of the lodges; but the lodge books are silent upon the subject 
we are most interested in, namely, how the so-called speculative element became 
superimposed upon the operative. 


In Order to form an opinion on that subject, it is necessary to consult contemporary 
literature, supplemented by information concerning the lives, habits and intellectual 
pursuits of men who were prominent in the Fraternity. Assembling all the information 
thus made available, we can form a tenable theory. 



POWER OF THE CHURCH 


Let us first briefly survey the social and political and life of the people. The power of the 
Church had advanced so rapidly during the last centuries of the Middle Ages, that it had 
become the dominant factor, not only in religion, but in the affairs of state. So powerful 
had it become politically, that the Pope of Rome could compel a German Kaiser to stand 
barefoot in the snow for three days, clad in the penitential hair shirt, while begging 
forgiveness. The Church proudly proclaimed the doctrine, that “as the sun is a greater 
light than the moon, so is the spiritual greater than the temporal power.” Kings and princes 
ruled only at the will and pleasure of the Holy Father at Rome. The influence of the 
Church extended to every detail of life, and from the cradle to the grave. 


During the Middle Ages the Church had been the repository of all learning, and it was also 
the patron of the arts and sciences. This position suited it, because it served to glorify 
religion and to exalt the power of the Church. In its capacity as Keeper of the Public 
Conscience, the Church was also the censor of public morals and beliefs, and no one was 
permitted, except by its sanction, to give utterance to any new idea upon any subject. As 
is always the case with irresponsible power, the Church became arbitrary, despotic and 
tyrannical. Its sole care was to preserve the existing order, and it therefore prohibited the 
publication of any innovation. It mattered not whether a new idea or scientific discovery 
conflicted with the dogmas of the Church. The fact that it was contrary to the accepted 
belief was sufficient to exclude it. The author was haled before the ecclesiastical tribunal 
and ordered to recant. His books were burned by the common hangman, and the author 
himself was indeed fortunate if he did not share the fate of his work. History records the 
names of many men who were thus compelled to deny great scientific discoveries they had 
made, and of others who refused to recant and sealed their conviction with their blood. 


HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY 


The Reformation changed all this. That event was not only a protest against the many 
religious superstitions perpetuated by the Church, but was a revolt against the mental 
bondage laid upon the people. No sooner was the yoke lifted than men began pursuing 



knowledge upon every field and in every direction. They threw themselves with especial 
enthusiasm upon the study of the natural sciences in an effort to solve the mysteries of 
Nature's wondrous laws. Having no previous experience, and no rules of reason to guide 
them, they indulged themselves in the wildest speculations and the most extravagant 
flights of fancy. 


Among the studies which occupied the time of the scientific men of that day were the 
following: They studied the heavens, believing that in the courses of the celestial bodies 
they could foretell coming events. They experimented with the transmutation of the base 
metals into gold. They tried to compound a salt, or panacea, which should be a sovereign 
remedy in all diseases which flesh is heir to. They travelled in search of the fountain of 
eternal youth. They practised magic, white and black. They endeavoured to form a 
“word,” or combination of letters, which when properly pronounced would enable them to 
command the spirits, which, as was then believed, inhabited the sea and air, etc. The 
generic term for all these studies was the Hermetic, or secret, philosophy. Although we 
may smile at the vagaries of these sages, we must not forget that humanity owes them a 
debt of gratitude. Upon their labour and industry our modem sciences rest. The 
astrologer, who studied the stars and cast horoscopes, is the progenitor of the modem 
astronomer. The alchemist, who laboured to transmute the base metals, is the foremnner 
of our chemist. Much of our medical science is founded upon the experiments of the 
Hermetics who tried to produce the universal salt. 


ROSICRUCIANISM AND THE KABBALA 


The mystic philosophy of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross and of the Hebrew Kabbala 
was given to the world about the middle of the sixteenth century and were widely studied 
by the learned men of the day. 


In those days there were no universities in the modem acceptation of that term. The 
Hermetic philosophers, who were as a mle poor men, attached themselves to the 
households of men of high rank, who provided them with the necessary materials for 
conducting their experiments and also afforded them protection from the ignorant and 
bigoted populace. In those times it was not quite safe to be known as a seeker after tmth. 
The common people regarded the Philosophers with superstitious dread, believing they 



were in communion with evil spirits, a belief which was no doubt strengthened by the 
peculiarities of dress and habits affected by the Hermetics. Many of them lost their lives at 
the hands of enraged mobs who believed they were rendering both God and humanity a 
service by ridding the world of them. It might be added that the noble patrons of the 
Philosophers were not actuated by any desire to promote the general knowledge. They 
sought their help, believing them capable of foretelling the outcome of wars and intrigues. 
Greed for gold was no doubt their motive for patronizing the science of alchemy. 


TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOCIETY 


The bearing of these facts upon the history of Freemasonry, is obvious. We have already 
noted that in the Middle Ages a number of lodges placed themselves under the patronage 
of powerful princes and nobles, and we stated the reasons which impelled them to this 
step. Many of these high and mighty men also became employers of Hermetic 
philosophers, and we are not overstepping the bounds of probability in stating that the 
noble patrons introduced the Hermetic philosophers into the craft societies, where, under 
the seal of secrecy imposed by the obligation, they exchanged views, discussed the 
progress of their experiments, and thus gradually transformed the lodges into speculative 
or philosophical societies, finally incoiporating in the ritual the so-called speculative 
element, which ultimately gave to Freemasonry its present character. 


At this point it will be noted that, while Freemasonry as an operative art was practised in 
nearly every country of Europe during the Middle Ages, it is in the British Isles alone that 
we find the speculative element embodied in the Masonic system. 


In Germany and France the operative societies continued to exist until the middle of the 
last century, when they were imperceptibly merged into the modem trades union 
movement. In point of efficient organization the German “Steinmetzen” were in advance 
of their brethren in other countries, having in 1 549 organized their craft under a national 
government, with headquarters at Strassburg, the Master of Works of the cathedral of that 
city being the Grand Master. 


EARLY “ACCEPTED” MASONS 



The earliest “accepted” Mason on record is John Boswell, a Scotch nobleman; who was a 
member of a lodge in Edinburgh in the year 1600. Earl Morey (Murray) is also an early 
“accepted” Mason. He was only the patron of the Masons in his domain, but also rated a 
great Hermetic philosopher. He was admitted in the year 1641. Elias Ashmole, a great 
English antiquary and Hermetic and Rosicrucian writer, was “made” in Warrington Lodge, 
England, 1647. 


SPECULATIVE PERIOD (1717 - ) 


We have now arrived at the last period of our review, at the opening to which the 
Fraternity “threw off the trammels of the operative art” and evolved into a benevolent 
philosophical society, in which form it has spread to every quarter of the globe and is 
being practised in every country where the people have arrived at a sufficient high state of 
civilization to appreciate its beauty. 


Let us again take a view of the social and political conditions, as they presented 
themselves during the first decades of the period we are now considering. 


ABSOLUTISM IN GOVERNMENT 


The Reformation had broken the power of the Church, but in doing so it had helped to 
build up another power which, in course of time, became an even greater menace to 
human freedom and progress. As the Church declined in importance, the authority of the 
kings advanced. Step by step, the king became absolute, both in state affairs and in the 
government of the Church. The latter became the handmaid of the temporal power. 
Government control by both pulpit and press, and other means of public expression, 
rendered it difficult and dangerous for the people to air their grievances, and gradually 
they were deprived of every right and privilege. “The King can do no wrong” became the 
principle by which the nations were governed. 



The only country in which the people had maintained in their own hands a share in 
government, and where the personal rights of the citizens were respected, was England. 
When the king of that country attempted to make himself absolute, the people rose in 
rebellion and assumed the reins of power into their own hands. England, therefore, was 
regarded with great admiration and respect by the people of continental Europe, and her 
institutions were studied and praised by the reformers of other lands. In time the effects of 
the revolution in England made themselves felt on the continent. About the beginning of 
the eighteenth century the system there had become so rotten and corrupt that it was ready 
to fall of its own weight. The “forward looking” men of the time boldly condemned and 
denounced the existing order and demanded its overthrow. Art and science had a new 
birth. This was the so-called Golden Age of literature. 


DEISTS' CULT 


During this period a new religious cult sprang up, known as the Deists. They took the 
ground that all religious dogmas are the invention of the priests with a view to keeping the 
people in ignorance and subjugation, and they declared that the only right way to worship 
God was in his wondrous works. They also preached the “Brotherhood of Man” and gave 
to the world the slogan: “Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood.” There is no doubt that 
Freemasonry became deeply impressed with the new religion; one of the chief tenets of 
our Fraternity being religious toleration, its only requirement being belief in the Supreme 
Architect. 


In the early days of the eighteenth century, a number of the foremost men of science and 
letters of continental Europe visited England, some to study her institutions and others to 
escape persecution at home. Naturally, they associated themselves with men of their own 
views and pursuits. At this time the most prominent members of the Royal Society, a 
body of British scientists, were members of the Masonic fraternity. They introduced their 
visitors into the mysteries of the Craft. When the latter returned to their own countries, 
they came as missionaries for the new philosophy. 


SPREAD OF FREEMASONRY 



The society spread rapidly from England and Scotland to other countries of Europe and 
also to America. The men who were labouring to establish the new principle in religion 
and government made use of the fraternity to propagate these principles, and did so most 
effectively. It was not long, however, before the powers of the time began to recognize in 
Freemasonry a menace to the existing order and took steps to suppress it. Kings 
pronounced banishment and death penalties upon its votaries. The Church hurled its 
anathema against them. And the blindly bigoted populace pursued them in frantic fury. 

To this rule there were some exceptions. King Frederick II, of Prussia, who, as Crown 
Prince, had been made a Mason, on his ascension to the throne took the Fraternity under 
his immediate protection and raised it to the dignity of a semi-public institution. A king of 
Sweden had prohibited the practice of Freemasonry under pain of death. His successor 
repealed the edict and bestowed marked favour upon the Fraternity. This monarch was at 
the time engaged in a struggle with the old nobility. Accordingly, he sought to make use 
of Freemasonry in his cause by securing the admission of men who had made their mark in 
art, science and literature, thus creating a new nobility of mind and attainment with which 
to combat the old aristocracy of birth and wealth. The impress thus left upon the 
Fraternity in Sweden has persisted to our own day. The Craft was introduced to America 
in the year 1738, and here it found fruitful soil. We shall, perhaps, never know the full 
extent of the part played by the Fraternity in establishing upon this continent the principles 
of justice and democracy. We know that a number of those who signed the Declaration of 
Independence were Freemasons, and among those who were in the forefront of the 
struggle for independence were men who had taken the oath upon the Masonic altar. In 
short, the early history of this nation is intimately associated with the history of the 
Masonic Fraternity. 


ESTABFISHMENT OF THE MOTHER GRAND FODGE 


The history of Freemasonry during the period we are now considering commences with 
the establishment of the Mother Grand Fodge. On St. John's Day, 1717, the Masters and 
Wardens of four lodges meeting in Fondon assembled at the “Goose and Gridiron” tavern, 
and, having put the oldest Master Mason in the chair, they erected and proclaimed the 
Grand Fodge of England, which is the mother and model of all grand bodies. 


Shortly thereafter a committee was appointed to examine the Ancient Charges and to 
“digest them upon a new and better form.” One of the members of this committee was Dr. 
James Anderson, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, author of the first printed work on 



Freemasonry. His “Constitutions and History of the Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of 
Free and Accepted Masons” was published by order of the Grand Lodge and was widely 
read. It passed through a number of editions; but it is no longer regarded as a textbook, 
since more recent investigation has shown it to be historically inaccurate and in other 
respects unreliable. 


The committee doubtlessly introduced a number of innovations in the ritual as well as in 
the form of government of the Craft; but they simply built a new superstructure upon an 
old foundation. The basic principles of the Fraternity have remained unchanged through 
all vicissitudes of time. 


Closing this discussion, I would express the hope that the members of the Fraternity would 
give to its history a more close study. It will enable them to understand and appreciate 
many things about their glorious Craft which are now a sealed book to them. It will tend 
to increase their respect and admiration for their ancient institution, and that can but result 
in making them better Freemasons - and that means better men. 


MASONIC CLUBS IN THE A.E.F. 


BY BRO. CHARLES F. IRWIN. OHIO 


UPON THE entrance of the United States into the World War, the several Grand Lodges 
considered carefully the advisability of issuing charters to Military lodges. Most of them 
declined to do so. Since the war and our return to peace-time conditions, the wisdom of 
this decision is apparent to those who were in the army and who were identified with the 
Masonic activities which were carried on through the Masonic Club movement. Although 
the writer assisted in the conferring of the several degrees in lodges which came over to 
France from several Grand Lodges at home, yet I am convinced that in most cases it would 
have been as well both for the candidate as for the Craft in general had the postulants 
waited till they returned to America. Usually there sprang up in the minds of soldiers a 
sudden desire to enjoy whatever privileges or benefits might flow from Masonry. They 
were hastily entered, passed and raised without time to consider the several steps or to 



familiarize themselves with the lectures. They therefore could in the nature of the case get 
but the superficial view of the Fraternity and not the underlying principles. 


The decision to refrain from issuing military charters or dispensations left the Craft within 
the army to their own devices. The heroic struggle of the Grand Lodges of America to 
send a Commission to France to provide for the Craft in the A.E.F. - their efforts to break 
through the “invisible government” which hedged in those who had the authority to grant 
the passports, is embodied in the report submitted by the Committee under the leadership 
of Justice Scudder, of New York. The Justice presented a bound copy of this report to me 
in Paris and it made fine reading not only for us Americans but also for my British and 
French Masonic brethren. I took pleasure in loaning it to numbers of both these classes. 


One of the evidences of the vitality of the Craft is found in the spontaneity with which the 
Craft got together under the most unusual and unpromising circumstances for social 
intercourse and for comradeship. 


Before embarkation for foreign service groups of the Craft had gravitated together in the 
several cantonments and embarkation camps. Aboard many transports of British and 
American registry were found Masons in the crews. By the courtesy of these marine 
officers and brethren, cabins were thrown open for our use and we held conferences and 
rallies as we passed through the strain of expected submarine attacks. 


After landing in France the natural places for Masonic Clubs to open were at the ports of 
entry and the centers of largest concentration of troops. Consequently the clubs of Brest, 

St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, Le Mans, Paris, Tours, etc., were the earliest. As early as the fall of 
1917 these clubs were coming into existence. Being left necessarily to our own devices, 
and under the severe strain of fighting conditions we were in no shape to turn our attention 
as actively toward Masonic club life as we were after the signing of the armistice. Yet, 
early in the spring of 1918, the clubs began to appear in the training camps and even in 
individual units. The latter were invariably itinerant clubs and suffered a more severe 
strain for support than the permanent clubs of the camps and depots. 



With the Army of Occupation, the Masonic Clubs entered the Rhine Valley and speedily 
became the centers for relaxation and fellowship for Masons of high and low degree. The 
Club at Coblenz was a fine example of these. With its commodious parlors and its fine 
spirit of fellowship it has left an indelible record on the members of the Craft who enjoyed 
its hospitality. This club still ministers to the Craft. 


It is to be noted here that four of the welfare organizations which worked with the army 
abroad were strong supporters of our clubs and rendered us splendid support. I refer to the 
Red Cross, Salvation Army, Jewish Welfare Board, and Y.M.C.A. The Y.M.C.A. 
especially gave us invaluable assistance for which American Masonry can not be too 
appreciative. This organization was offered and manned to an unusual degree by Master 
Masons. One club - the Overseas Club of Paris - was composed almost exclusively of 
secretaries and officers of the Y.M.C.A. The earliest attacks upon that institution sprang 
from sources which have ever been opposed not only to the principles for which the 
Y.M.C.A. has stood but also opposed to Masonry. To attack the Y.M.C.A. meant to attack 
Masonry at the same time. 


The places where the clubs should assemble were matters of grave importance. 
Technically they could not be held in military buildings. Actually many of them were held 
in military buildings and were patronized by those in high command. The clubs usually 
came into existence in the same way. A few enthusiastic Masons met together and 
proposed a club. Investigation discovered who were Masons and an invitation was issued 
for those to assemble in a certain place on a specified date. Usually this proved to be a 
Y.M.C.A. hut. For in every hut you could find one or more Masonic secretaries. The club 
contained the usual officers - president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. In addition 
to these came several committees, the number varying according to the strength of the 
club. Meetings were held weekly and programs were put on. These were made up of 
music, oratory, and reminiscences. Later in the period of overseas life, contact was had 
with the Entertainment Section of the A. E. F. and troupes were assigned to the Masonic 
clubs just as they were to the huts and other places of troop meetings. 


Later we also organized the work of the clubs in several of the bases so as to have the 
presence of the American girls working in the several welfare organizations. Thus an 
element of the home life proved invaluable. At these special social meetings dances and 
other forms of entertainment prevailed. One thing was by common consent observed and 
that was the deposit of military titles as we entered the door. It was unique in the American 



Army to hear a buck private greet a Brigadier General as “Brother Smith.” It was even 
more illuminating as to the democracy of Masonry to see that aforesaid buck private tag an 
officer of high rank in a “Paul Jones” and sail away with the fair prize. I really think for 
the first time we understood why this American custom was called “Paul Jones.” When 
our French guests beheld it for the first time they were amazed. For in their country it 
meant the height of rudeness to part a couple in the midst of the dance. 


At every regular meeting of a club much attention was given “for the good of the order.” 
The sick, the distressed, those who were staggering under burdens imposed by the war, 
such received our attention. Flowers were sent to the sick in the hospitals, and laid upon 
the caskets of the dead. Masonic emblems were placed on the graves. The cases of 
Masonic soldiers were investigated and their desires forwarded so far as military custom 
would permit. We ministered to the dead in several ways. In all parts of our overseas army 
brethren who died were laid to rest by Masons. Though we could not use the formal 
ceremonials, yet we employed ceremonies understood by the Craft. One of many incidents 
comes to my mind. A Richmond, Virginia, brother had died in the camp in which the 
writer served as Camp Chaplain. At once there arose in the minds of the club the thought 
that he might be laid away Masonically. A regiment was in camp whose Chaplain had at 
one time been Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey. I refer to that prince of 
men, Captain Charles Dubell, of the Episcopal Church. I trust his many friends may read 
this and let him know of my humble tribute to his merits. Brother Chaplain Dubell chose 
for his pallbearers soldiers who were Masons. The officer who commanded the detail of 
troops was a Mason. In fact every man who had anything to do with the funeral was a 
Mason, and improvising with his inimitable skill, Brother Chaplain Dubell committed this 
brother to the bosom of mother earth with words which were understood to every Master 
Mason present. The writer had occasion to buiy a Surgeon, the head of one of the Indiana 
Hospital Units at St. Nazaire, and in the sight of many soldiers, he laid away the brother, 
having as Wardens two Jewish brethren, and improvising much of the burial ritual of our 
Craft. One of these Wardens by the way was a Captain and the other a Sergeant. 


Opportunities also came frequently to forward the interests of brethren who were sick or 
wounded. An officer, a member of an Illinois lodge, lay with his hip encased in a plaster 
cast. He was headed back to America and indications were unfavorable for his recovery. 
Ascertaining that he was aboard the hospital ship I secured a pass, boarded the ship, and 
entered the hospital bay. There, as they loosed the cables that held the ship to France, we 
placed our arms about this brother and whispered in his ears words of cheer and 
fellowship. And before we were able to leave the ship in the lower harbor, we sought the 
ship's surgeon, found him one of our number, and said good-bye with the assurance that 



our brother who lay in weakness would receive princely care. Later correspondence 
establishes the fact that this occurred. 


During most of this time the several clubs were self-upporting. When you consider that the 
“free money” possessed by the average doughboy per month was $5 or $6, and that he 
paid 25 cents a week dues and an assessment of 25 cents whenever flowers were to be 
ordered, you can measure faintly the hold Masonry had on its membership overseas. But a 
new period came with the arrival of the Overseas Commission headed by Justice Scudder 
and Merwin E. Lay representing the Grand Lodges, and of Charles Connery, representing 
the southern jurisdiction Scottish Rite. These separate commissions established 
headquarters in Paris, under the same roof. They worked in harmony and opened club 
rooms which were used by scores of the brethren sojourning in Paris or passing through 
that city. They endeavored to secure a list of the older clubs which had been formed 
throughout the A. E. F. and I believe they have a large list of the clubs. It would be well 
for members of the many A. E. F. Masonic clubs to forward their club names, locations, 
and further information to THE BUILDER to be added to the list. 


These Commissions found many of the older clubs to be heavily in debt. This grew out of 
the fact that these older clubs at the old ports of entry were now the centers of the 
movement of troops homeward. By this time, the spring of 1919, the Masons were 
becoming aware of the worth of their clubs and they availed themselves of them at the 
ports of embarkation. Thus Bordeaux, St. Nazaire, and Brest faced serious deficits in their 
treasuries. The Commissions as soon as they discovered this condition forwarded moneys 
and erased the indebtedness. Moreover they financed the establishment of secretaries over 
these clubs at the ports of embarkation. Secretary Witte at Brest, and Secretary Huntley at 
St. Nazaire were two of the number. They were in the uniform of the Y.M.C.A. but were 
supported entirely by the Masonic Commissions. 


These army clubs proved to be the breeders of friendships that have spread clear across the 
American continent. The brethten who met amid the shock of battle, who served in the 
back areas, and who endured that long strain when all hearts turned homeward and all feet 
marked time, and who sailed the Atlantic toward the civilian life; all these cemented 
friendships which today are ripening into the richest of experiences. My own most 
pleasant memories cluster around hundreds of these Masonic friendships and I am sure 
that scores from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Gulf to Canada will recall those days 
we spent together when they see my name at the head of this paper. 



The Masonic itch to create side degrees appeared everywhere at home and abroad. 
Numerous mushroom degrees appeared, to flourish for a day in some one locality and then 
fall asleep. The Order of the Frog was one which the writer helped to exemplify. Amid this 
transient growth, there emerged one degree which will remain as the flower of American 
Masonry in France. It originated in the aviation camps at Ramorattin, in the brain of 
secretary Charles Huntley, of Schnectady, N. Y. Its beauty and the potential power in its 
imagery were so apparent that it was impossible to hold it within the bounds of the one 
camp. Thus it slowly spread to neighboring camps. It is called the “S. O. L.” Degree. Its 
similarity to our army “hardluck” slang proved a little unsatisfactory. But since these 
letters have no connection with the army slang, the name will doubtless prevail 
permanently. Unfortunately most of the troops had begun to return home before the worth 
of this degree was recognized. It was when the Commissions at Paris saw its value and 
financed the project of sending Brother Huntley to the various military centers to impart it, 
that it began to grow in numbers. The degree is purely military. Its one lesson is exalted 
patriotism. It is Masonry militant. It can be obtained only by Master Masons who served 
overseas. Also by any overseas soldier who becomes a Master Mason, and by the sons of 
any former overseas Mason. Thousands have received it, the number being now probably 
between 5,000 and 10,000. It would be worth while for any brother eligible to receive it to 
correspond with Brother Charles Huntley, Schenectady, N.Y., who is the Adjutant General 
of the Grand Dugout of America. The writer provided the 6 ritual and administered the 
degree to 400 in Brest in August of 1919, in the space of two afternoons and evenings. 

And literally hundreds of others were asking for the degree when the writer sailed with his 
ritual. 


Masonry thus touched the soldier life on every side. It gave him entertainment; it furnished 
him friendships; it ministered to him when sick, and laid him away when he died; it spread 
its arms about him so that space and time lost their meaning to him; it has perpetuated 
itself on the tablets of a thousand hearts. The emblem of the Square and Compasses for the 
soldier of yesterday has become today the symbol of a brotherhood that is invincible, true, 
glorious, eternal. 




KEEP ME STRIVING 



BY BRO. G. A. NANCARROW, INDIANA 


0 keep me striving after Thee, my God, 

1 ask no lighter way to tread; 

I seek not flowers but e'en the rod, 

And feed my soul on hunger's bread. 

For I would grow to Thee in nature's part; 

Not at a bound to scale the heights 
But by the hungerings of my heart 
Reach up to Thee through days and nights. 

To win to Thee though eons intervene, 

Though I shall labor through the dust 
A thousand groping lives which lie between- 
I shall for Thou hast said I must. 

God grants Liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. 
- Webster. 



FOR THE MONTHLY LODGE MEETING 


CORRESPONDENCE CIRCLE BULLETIN NO. 47 


Edited by Bro. H. L. Haywood 


THE BULLETIN COURSE OF MASONIC STUDY FOR MONTHLY LODGE 
MEETINGS AND STUDY CLUBS 


FOUNDATION OF THE COURSE 


THE Course of Study has for its foundation two sources of Masonic information: THE 
BUILDER and Mackey's Encyclopedia. In another paragraph is explained how the 
references to former issues of THE BUILDER and to Mackey's Encyclopedia may be 
worked up as supplemental papers to exactly fit into each installment of the Course with 
the papers by Brother Haywood. 


MAIN OUTLINE: 


The Course is divided into five principal divisions which are in turn subdivided, as is 
shown below: 


Division I. Ceremonial Masonry. 



A. The Work of the Lodge. 

B. The Lodge and the Candidate. 

C. First Steps. 

D. Second Steps. 

E. Third Steps. 

Division II. Symbolical Masonry. 

A. Clothing. 

B. Working Tools. 

C. Furniture. 

D. Architecture. 

E. Geometry. 

F. Signs. 

G. Words. 

H. Grips. 

Division III. Philosophical Masonry. 

A. Foundations. 

B. Virtues. 

C. Ethics. 

D. Religious Aspect. 

E. The Quest. 



F. Mysticism. 

G. The Secret Doctrine. 

Division IV. Legislative Masonry. 

A. The Grand Lodge. 

1. Ancient Constitutions. 

2. Codes of Law. 

3. Grand Lodge Practices. 

4. Relationship to Constituent Lodges. 

5. Official Duties and Prerogatives. 

B. The Constituent Lodge. 

1. Organization. 

2. Qualifications of Candidates. 

3. Initiation, Passing and Raising. 

4. Visitation. 

5. Change of Membership. 

Division V. Historical Masonry. 


A. The Mysteries— Earliest Masonic Light. 



B. Studies of Rites— Masonry in the Making. 

C. Contributions to Lodge Characteristics. 

D. National Masonry. 

E. Parallel Peculiarities in Lodge Study. 

F. Feminine Masonry. 

G. Masonic Alphabets. 

H. Historical Manuscripts of the Craft. 

I. Biographical Masonry. 

J. Philological Masonry— Study of Significant Words. 


THE MONTHLY INSTALLMENTS 


Each month we are presenting a paper written by Brother Haywood, who is following the 
foregoing outline. We are now in “First Steps” of Ceremonial Masonry. There will be 
twelve monthly papers under this particular subdivision. On page two, preceding each 
installment, will be given a list of questions to be used by the chairman of the Committee 
during the study period which will bring out every point touched upon in the paper. 


Whenever possible we shall reprint in the Correspondence Circle Bulletin articles from 
other sources which have a direct bearing upon the particular subject covered by Brother 
Haywood in his monthly paper. These articles should be used as supplemental papers in 
addition to those prepared by the members from the monthly list of references. Much 
valuable material that would otherwise possibly never come to the attention of many of 
our members will thus be presented. 


The monthly installments of the Course appearing in the Correspondence Circle Bulletin 
should be used one month later than their appearance. If this is done the Committee will 



have opportunity to arrange their programs several weeks in advance of the meetings and 
the brethren who are members of the National Masonic Research Society will be better 
enabled to enter into the discussions after they have read over and studied the installment 


in THE BUILDER. 


REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS 


Immediately preceding each of Brother Haywood's monthly papers in the 
Correspondence Circle Bulletin will be found a list of references to THE BUILDER and 
Mackey's Encyclopedia. These references are pertinent to the paper and will either 
enlarge upon many of the points touched upon or bring out new points for reading and 
discussion. They should be assigned by the Committee to different brethren who may 
compile papers of their own from the material thus to be found, or in many instances the 
articles themselves or extracts therefrom may be read directly from the originals. The 
latter method may be followed when the members may not feel able to compile original 
papers, or when the original may be deemed appropriate without any alterations or 
additions. 


HOW TO ORGANIZE FOR AND CONDUCT THE STUDY MEETINGS 


The lodge should select a “Research Committee” preferably of three “live” members. 
The study meetings should be held once a month, either at a special meeting of the lodge 
called for the purpose, or at a regular meeting at which no business (except the lodge 
routine) should be transacted— all possible time to be given to the study period. 


After the lodge has been opened and all routine business disposed of, the Master should 
turn the lodge over to the Chairman of the Research Committee. This Committee should 
be fully prepared in advance on the subject for the evening. All members to whom 
references for supplemental papers have been assigned should be prepared with their 
papers and should also have a comprehensive grasp of Brother Haywood's paper. 



PROGRAM FOR STUDY MEETINGS 


1 . Reading of the first section of Brother Haywood's paper and the supplemental papers 
thereto. 


(Suggestion: While these papers are being read the members of the lodge should make 
notes of any points they may wish to discuss or inquire into when the discussion is 
opened. Tabs or slips of paper similar to those used in elections should be distributed 
among the members for this purpose at the opening of the study period.) 


2. Discussion of the above. 


3. The subsequent sections of Brother Haywood's paper and the supplemental papers 
should then be taken up, one at a time, and disposed of in the same manner. 4. Question 
Box. 


MAKE THE “QUESTION BOX” THE FEATURE OF YOUR MEETINGS 


Invite questions from any and all brethren present. Let them understand that these 
meetings are for their particular benefit and get them into the habit of asking all the 
questions they may think of. Every one of the papers read will suggest questions as to 
facts and meanings which may not perhaps be actually covered at all in the paper. If at 
the time these questions are propounded no one can answer them, SEND THEM IN TO 
US. All the reference material we have will be gone through in an endeavor to supply a 
satisfactory answer. In fact we are prepared to make special research when called upon, 
and will usually be able to give answers within a day or two. Please remember, too, that 
the great Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa is only a few miles away, and, by order of 
the Trustees of the Grand Lodge, the Grand Secretary places it at our disposal on any 
query raised by any member of the Society. 



FURTHER INFORMATION 


The foregoing information should enable local Committees to conduct their lodge study 
meetings with success. However, we shall welcome all inquiries and communications 
from interested brethren concerning any phase of the plan that is not entirely clear to 
them, and the Services of our Study Club Department are at the command of our 
members, lodge and study club committees at all times. 


QUESTIONS ON “THE EMBLEMS” 


THE HOUR GLASS 


Recite the monitorial lecture on “The Hour Glass.” 


In what manner was the Hour Glass symbol commonly used by operative Masons? Is the 
emblem a modem one? How was it used in funeral ceremonies in early days? What is the 
lesson we should leam from this emblem? 


THE SCYTHE 


Recite the monitorial lecture on the “Scythe.” 


Have you any answers to the questions asked by Brother Haywood in this section of his 
paper? 



EMBLEMS OF MORTALITY 


Recite the ritualistic lecture on these emblems. 


What does the First degree symbolize? The Second? What does the drama of the Third 
degree symbolize? Did you realize the significance of the Hiramic Legend the night you 
were raised? Was its meaning entirely clear to you at that time, or did you have to study 
it out later? 


SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES 


THE BUILDER: Vol. IV. - Acacia, p. 323; Hour Glass, p. 325; Scythe, p. 325; Setting 
Maul, p. 323. Mackey's Encyclopedia Acacia, p. 7; Hour Glass, p. 337; Scythe, p. 674, 
etc. 


THIRD STEPS BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA 


PART IX - THE EMBLEMS - CONCLUDED 


THE HOUR GLASS 


IN WRITING of Masons' Marks, Brother Gould notes that one of the commonest has 
ever been the figure of an Hour Glass. “The Hour Glass form, very slightly modified, 
has been used in every age down to the present and in almost every country. According 
to some good authorities, it was a custom (at the period immediately preceding the era of 



Grand Lodges) to inter an Hour Glass with the dead, as an emblem of the sands of life 
having run out.” What could more clearly prove the hold which this simple eloquent 
symbol has ever had on the imagination of man? “The sands of life! they are swiftly 
running away. Be up, mortal, and about your task. Soon the night cometh when no man 
can work. In the grave man will seek him out no more inventions; what you do you must 
do while it is still called Today!” Such is the message of the Hour Glass, too simple to 
need any interpreter. He who has learned how to transform time into life, how to make 
the years leave behind them that which perishes not, who lives the Eternal Life in the 
midst of time - such a one has learned the lesson of the Glass. 


THE SCYTHE 


If the hour Glass is the symbol of the fleetingness of a mortal life in which all do fade as 
doth the leaf, in which the sands are ever running out, the Scythe is the figure of Time 
which is itself that stream in which the sands are borne along. Time! What a mighty 
theme! The libraries of the world could not hold the books that might be written about 
this eternally fascinating, eternally elusive mystery! least of all would it be possible in a 
page or two to capture its secret, so infinite are the suggestions of one small symbol in 
Masonry's House of Doctrine. 


Time is ever with us, flowing through our minds as the blood courses through our veins, 
yet does it mystify us; and the more thinking we do, the more mysterious does it 
become. We divide it into Past, Present, and Future, but what is the Past? has it ceased 
to exist? If so, why does it continue to influence us; if it continues to exist why do we 
call it the Past? What is the Future? Is it something already made, awaiting us Out There 
as the land waits for its explorer? What is the Present? We feel that it exists said “Now” 
it is still future; the moment I have said it, it belongs to the past. How can one's mind lay 
hold of that which is always becoming but never is? If one's mind can not apprehend it 
how can it be said to exist? It is such puzzles as these that have led our most opulent 
minds to despair of ever surprising its secret from it. 


Nevertheless, Time is here, a part of the scheme of things, for good or for bad; indeed, it 
seems to be the very stuff of life itself, as Bergson has shown so convincingly in his 



“Creative Evolution.” Existence itself is a process of duration and man begins to die the 
moment he is bom. 


The stately solemn words of the Lecture, offered in elucidation of the symbol, leaves the 
mind saddened, and weighted, with a sense of the frailty, or even futility, of life. Wm. 
Morris, who is in so many ways the poet of the Builder, felt in the same way about it. 

All through his pages one feels its presence like a shadow, against which life's little 
events become etched into brighter relief, so that the little amenities of the day became 
all the dearer in that they flutter so fragilely over the abyss of eternity, all the more 
precious because “the sweet days die.” But there is no need that we be shadowed by the 
sadness-sweetness of this melancholy. Time is a part of the scheme of things, it is the 
very form of life, so that he who accepts life must also accept Time and look upon it as 
friend and ally rather than enemy. Time helps to solve our problems, assuages our 
griefs, and always does it carry us farther into the strange advantages of existence. The 
most triumphant minds have tmsted themselves to it, as a child to its mother, learning 
how to transform it into ever richer life, not lamenting the past, nor impatient for the 
future, but living in an Eternal Now which must be such Time as heaven knows. “Man 
postpones or remembers,” complains Emerson; “he does not live in the present, but with 
reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches which surround him, stands on 
tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with Nature 
in the present above time! 


“Great souls live many an eon in Man's brief years,- To him who dreads no spite of Fate 
or Chance, Yet loves the Earth, and Man, and starry spheres, Life's swiftness is the pulse 
of life's romance; And, when the footsteps fall of Death's advance He hears the feet; he 
quails not, but he hears.” 


EMBLEMS OF MORTALITY 


It is above all things fitting that the ritual which began with the candidate's birth into the 
world of the lodge should end by bringing him to that death which is but a larger birth 
into the Grand Lodge above; thus does our sublime symbolism, like the sky, gather all 
things into its embrace and overarch the end as well as the beginning. So also is it fitting 
that the ritual throws about the instruments and trappings of the grave the memories of 



the slain Master, thus reminding us that death may be transfigured by a great soul into a 
paean and a triumph. 


To die is as natural as to be born. Death is no interloper in the universe, but one with its 
laws and its life; in truth, it is itself the friend and servant of life in that it keeps fresh the 
stream and removes the out- worn and the old “lest one good custom should corrupt the 
world.” The very act of death proves this, for, however much we shrink from its 
approach, we yield peacefully to it when it comes. Of this all our physicians testify, as 
witness these words from one of the noblest of them, Dr. Osier: 


“I have careful notes of about five hundred death-beds, studied particularly with 
reference to the modes of death and the sensations of the dying. Ninety suffered bodily 
pain or distress of one sort or another; eleven showed mental apprehension; two positive 
terror; one expressed spiritual exaltation; one bitter remorse. The great majority gave no 
sign one way or another; like their birth their death was a sleep and a forgetting.” 


Natural as it is, death will ever remain solemn, and even sad, not only because of what 
comes after, or “because of the body's masterful negation,” but because, as the Lecture 
reminds us, the day of death is a kind of judgment day, for it brings to an end and sets a 
lasting seal upon, the life of a man. The world with its problems, its imperious needs, its 
gray tragedies, and ancient heart-breaks, is left behind; the man's career is ended, and the 
influences of his life, the harvest of his deeds - all these are now taken from his control. 
What he has done he has done, and death places it beyond his changing. Surely, it must 
be an awful thing for a human being to realize at the last that, so far as he has been 
concerned, there is less happiness, less love, less kindliness and honour among men than 
before he entered life. To so live in the midst of this mystery- haunted world, to so work 
among the winged days that little children may be happier, youth more joyous, manhood 
more clean, and old age less lonely; to so live that men will hate less and love more, be 
honourable in public dealings as in private acts, create more than destroy; to so live that 
the great Kingdom of Brotherhood may be brought near and man be bound closer to 
man, and woman closer to woman; that it is to be a Mason! 



A NEW SERIES OF STUDY CLUB ARTICLES TO BEGIN IN THE APRIL ISSUE 


With this issue of the Correspondence Circle Bulletin is concluded Subdivision E of 
Division I of the Main Outline of the Bulletin Course of Masonic Study, “Third Steps.” 


In the April issue we shall publish the first instalment of a new series of articles on 
“Philosophical Masonry,” or, in plain words, “The Teachings of Masonry.” It has been 
found necessary to deviate somewhat from the plan of the Main Outline as originally laid 
out for the reason that early in 1918, after having published a number of papers by Brother 
Clegg, it was found that a series of articles on the three degrees had just been completed 
by Brother Haywood who had written them with the intention of having them published in 
book form. These articles proved to be just what we needed to cover Subdivisions C, D 
and E of Division I of the Main Outline of the Course of Study, and arrangements were 
accordingly entered into with Brother Haywood for their use. 


It developed in this series Brother liaywood had covered not only “Ceremonial Masonry,” 
but also “Symbolical Masonry,” thus combining Divisions I and II of our Main Outline. It 
is for this reason that the Outline has been re-arranged and we are taking up the study of 
“Philosophical Masonry.” 


The introductory article of the new series, which appears next month, will give the reasons 
for such a series in explanation of what “the teachings of Masonry” mean, and tell us how 
we may each of us arrive at our own “Philosophy of Masonry.” 


What is Freemasonryt What is its function in the world? What is it trying to do? How did 
it come to be? What is it like as a whole? Such are the questions to be answered by such a 
course as this. 


To understand his Fraternity the Mason himself needs to know it in its general principles, 
fundamental ideas, etc. 



There is no authorized interpretation of Masonry - it is the duty of each Mason to think it 
out for himself. “Thinking Masonry out” - this is to make for one's self a “Philosophy of 
Masonry.” Each of us requires the help of a Philosophy of Masonry in order to do this. 


Masonry is a world- wide institution, centuries old, which is as complex as a civilization. In 
order to find one's own proper place, one should know the Fraternity's own life and 
development as a whole. 


Masonry is an international organization which annually costs the world nobody knows 
how many millions in men, money and effort. To justify such a society and such an 
expenditure, is one of the purposes of a Philosophy of Masonry. 


How can one arrive at his own “Philosophy of Masonry?” 


He can study its development through the past, plot the curve of its tendencies, and thereby 
leam what it has Factually been doing. 


There is a great deal in the various activities of the Order - speeches, books, study clubs, 
etc. - which appeals directly to the mind. The philosopher of Masonry can study these 
activities as they actually are. 


Masonry revolves about a few great ideas. These are eadly got at and must be studied with 
care. 


Problems of human society at large can be Sstudied from Masonry's point of view - this is 
one way of arriving at a Philosophy of Masonry. 



We can study the works of Masonic philosophers in the past: Oliver, Preston, Pike, etc.; 
and in the present: Waite, Pound, and others. 


One may study the monitorial interpretations, and lectures in the various degrees. The 
ritual as it now stands is tola certain extent self- interpreting. 


Such are the points to be covered by Brother Haywood in this new series of articles. 


As heretofore, supplemental references to articles in back numbers of THE BUILDER and 
in Mackey's Encyclopaedia will be given prefacing each of Brother Haywood's papers to 
enable the members of lodges and study clubs to prepare additional papers on the subjects 
covered monthly by Brother Hnywood, and this new series will have just as much, if not 
more, interest to every Master Mason as those that have already been published in the 
study course. 


SECRET SOCIETIES IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 


BY BRO. DUDLEY WRIGHT, ENGLAND 


THE STATEMENT is made very frequently both in the Roman Catholic press and from 
the pulpit that members of that faith are not permitted by their church or papal decree to 
become members of any secret society whatever may be their constitution or however 
harmless their character. In accordance with such inteipretation of Roman Catholic 
jurisprudence, consistent Catholics refrain from associating themselves with the Masonic 
Order, and also from such organizations as Druidism, Forestry, Buffaloism, Ancient 
Britons, and the like. The Roman Catholic statement, however, demands qualification, 
for the prohibition applies only to societies not under the jurisdiction or government or 
oversight of the Roman Catholic clergy. For there are affiliated to the Church in all parts 



of the world certain societies to which only Roman Catholics may belong, which have 
certain forms of initiation or admission, which meet behind closed doors, their minutes 
of proceedings not being published; some of which, moreover, engage in revolutionary 
propaganda, which constitutional acts are inhibited by Masonic Constitutions. 


One of the most famous and active of these societies at the present day is that known as 
the Knights of Columbus, which, as a body, has recently recognized officially the 
existence of an Irish republic, with Eamon de Valera as its president, and which has 
passed resolutions urging the United States Senate and House of Representatives to do 
the same without delay. The object underlying such resolution is apparent. It is well 
recognized that were the Senate and House of Representatives to do any such thing, there 
would, at once, be an open break in the diplomatic relations between the United 
Kingdom and the United States, which might, and not improbably, result in another 
outbreak of war. The Knights of Columbus, which is a very powerful organization, 
limited in membership to Roman Catholics, has been, not inaptly, described as the Pope's 
most powerful secret society in America; yet we do not read that this resolution has 
received papal condemnation or disapproval, so that it may quite fairly be assumed that it 
has the papal sanction. There is ample proof in many published statements that the 
members of this society work under clerical direction: the following quotation will 
suffice. In 1916, Archbishop Munderlin, in an address to the Knights of Columbus, as 
reported in the Chicago Evening American of 9th March, 1916, said: “I will expect you 
to be ready. I am your leader, your thinker, and your director. I will tell you what to do 
and will expect you to do it. I need you men. Never differ from your bishop. He thinks 
for you.” 


There is in Ireland, America, and other counties, another society of a similar character. It 
is known as the Order of Hibernians, and it is a continuation of the famous Ribbon 
Society, which was prominent in Irish life some years ago. These Ribbonmen appeared 
in the early part of the nineteenth century, after the suppression of the rebellion in 1798, 
and was formed from among the surviving members of the United Irishmen, Whiteboys 
and Defenders, all of whom took an oath “to bum, destroy, and murder all heretics up to 
my knees in blood.” Each Ribbonman took an oath (see Report of Select Committee on 
the State of Ireland, 1832) in the following words: “I swear I will to the best of my power 
cut down kings, queens, and princes, dukes, lords, earls, and all such, with land-jobbing 
and heresy. I swear I will never pity the moans and groans of the dying from the cradle to 
the cmtch, and that I will wade knee deep in Orange blood.” All these societies were 
under the direction and control of the Catholic clergy, confined in their membership to 
Roman Catholics, and among their objects were to assist Roman Catholicism and the 



visionary idea of Ireland as an independent nation. The system did not receive the 
support of all Irish Catholics. Mr. A. M. Sullivan, his work, New Ireland, (seventh 
edition, pp. 41 and 42) says: 


“But alas! when one comes to review the actual results of the Ribbon system in Ireland - 
to survey its bloody work throughout those fifty years - how frightful is the prospect? It 
has been said, and probably with some truth, that it has been too much the habit to 
attribute erroneously to the Ribbon organization every atrocity committed in the country, 
every deed of blood arising out of agrarian combination or conspiracy. An emphatic 
denial, and challenge to proofs, have been given to stories of midnight trials and 
sentences of death at lodge meetings. Very possibly the records of lodge meetings afford 
no such proof, though there is abundant evidence that at such assemblages threatening 
notices and warnings were ordered to be served and domiciliary visits for terrorising 
purposes were decreed. But vain is all pretence that the Ribbon Society did not become, 
whatever the original design and intention of its members may have been, a hideous 
organization of outrage and murder. It is one of the inherent evils of oath-bound secret 
societies of this kind, where implicit obedience to secret superiors is sworn, that they 
may very easily and quickly drop to the lowest level of demoralisation, and become 
associations for the wreaking of mere personal vengeance.” 


In the concluding paragraph of the chapter devoted by Mr. A.M. Sullivan to “The Ribbon 
Conspiracy' (it must be remembered that Mr. Sullivan was a Roman Catholic and a 
Nationalist), he says: 


“From 1835 to 1855 the Ribbon organization was at its greatest strength. For the last 
fifteen or twenty years” (he wrote in 1877) “it has been gradually disappearing from the 
greater part of Ireland, yet, strange to say, betimes intensifying, in a baser and more 
malignant form than ever, in one or two localities. With the emigration of the labouring 
classes it was carried abroad, to England and to America. At one time the most 
formidable lodges were in Lancashire, whither, it is said, the headquarters were removed 
for safety.” 


In America the society became known under various names, such as the “Molly 
Maguires,” “Buckshots,” etc., and there are some interesting details concerning its 



machinations and iniquities to be read in E. W. Lucy's book, The Moly Maguires, 
particularly the sworn evidences of Detective McParlan. Membership was confined to 
Roman Catholics of Irish birth or parentage. At the time in its history of which Lucy 
wrote, it had an elaborate organization, each lodge consisting of a president or body- 
master, together with a vice body-master, secretary, assistant secretary, and treasurer, 
making five officers at the head of each lodge. Then there were higher bodies, which 
had each a county delegate, county secretary, and county treasurer, who were assisted by 
a county committee. Above these were state officers, consisting of state delegate, state 
secretary, and state treasurer; while, above these again, were national organizations, 
consisting each of national delegate, national secretary, national treasurer, and president 
of the Board. But the over- ruling body was known as the Board of Erin, which consisted 
of representatives from England, Ireland, and Scotland, which met at various intervals, in 
one or other of the three countries. The members of the main body were known to each 
other by signs and pass-words, or sentences, which were issued by the Board of Erin and 
changed four times in the year. Some of these are given in Lucy's book. One ran: 


The Emperor of France and Don Carlos of Spain, They unite together and the Pope's 
right maintain; 


the response being: 


Will tenant right in Ireland flourish, If the people unite and the landlords subdue? 


Another ran: 


That the trouble of the country may soon be at an end, 


to which the answer was given: 



And likewise the man who will not her defend. 


Later, in Beaconsfield's time, the greeting between members was: 


What do you think of Disraeli's plan, Who still keeps Home Rule from our native land? 


the answer to which was: 


But still with good words and men at command We will give long-lost rights to our 
native land. 


During part of 1875 the greeting was changed to: 


Gladstone's policy must be put down, He is the main support of the British crown; to 
which the fellow-member made reply: 


But our Catholic lords will not support his plan, For true to their Church they will firmly 
stand. 


William Carleton, in his interesting novel, The Tithe Procter, a novel, be it remembered, 
founded absolutely on fact, proof of which is given by him in the preface, and a novel 
which deals entirely with the machinations of a secret society, the membership of which 
was limited to Roman Catholics, says: 



“The condition of all secret and illegal societies in Ireland is, indeed, shocking and most 
detestable, when contemplated from any point of view whatsoever. In every one of them 
- that is, in every local, body, or branch of that conspiracy - there is a darker and more 
secret class, comparatively few in number, who undertake to organize the commission of 
crimes and outrages; and who, in cases where they are controlled by the peaceably- 
disposed and enemies to bloodshed, always fall back upon this private and blood-stained 
clique, who are always willing to execute their sanguinary behests, as it were, con 
amore. In other cases, however, as we have stated before, even the virtuous and reluctant 
are often compelled, by the dark and stem decrees of these desperate ruffians, to 
perpetrate crimes from which they revolt.” 


The most important secret society, from the Roman Catholic point of view, is that great 
and wonderful organization, the Society of Jesus, better known, perhaps, as the Jesuits. 

It consists, not only of the clergy, and of these there are two classes, professed and 
unprofessed, but also of various branches of lay associations and societies. There are 
also various sodalities, meeting ostensibly for devotional practices and religious 
purposes, but which meet in secret conclave, initiated members only being admitted. 

The most important of these latter is that known as the Prima Premaria. This society was 
founded in 1563, and established canonically in 1584, by a Bull issued by Gregory XIII, 
and which bas attached to it a number of branches in all parts of the world. The 
suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, says Waterton, in Pietas Mariana Britannica, 
“did not affect the Prima Premaria, for the ex-members who continued under the name of 
the English Academy, kept up the sodality until they were driven out of Liege in 1794, in 
which year they came to England and established themselves at Stonyhurst. 
Consequently, the Stonyhurst sodality, tracing an unbroken descent from the year 1617, 
is, perhaps, the oldest existing branch in the world of the Prima Primaria.” In December, 
1857, a branch was founded at the well-known London Jesuit church in Farm Street, 
Berkeley Square, W, “for gentlemen only.” One of its rules is that “only those are to be 
admitted into the congregation who are in a respectable position in life and with some 
pretensions to a literary education.” Another runs: “Upon sodalists, moreover, it is 
enjoined that they should always obey, with a prompt and ready will, the counsels and 
commands of their directors.” Yet another says: “The immediate superior of the 
congregation of the Prima Primaria, by virtue of the Apostolic Constitution, is the Father 
General of the Society of Jesus. To him consequently belongs the government of the 
Congregation: it is in his power to make laws; revoke or modify them, since everything 
depends on his authority.” Another rule given in the Manual for the use of Sodalities 
affiliated to the Prima Primaria tells us that “those are excluded from the congregation 
who suffer from epileptic fits, or are physically or accidentally deformed.” 



Another society, also closely connected with the Jesuits, is that known as the “Holy 
League of the Heart of Jesus,” all members of which have to make the following solemn 
promise: “Freemasonry and all other secret societies having been condemned by the 
infallible voice and authority of the Vicar of Christ. I . . . . obedient to that authority, 
solemnly resolve and engage never to belong to any such secret association, under 
whatever name it may be called; but, on the contrary, to oppose to the utmost of my 
power, their influence, their teaching, and their acts. Amen.” 


This obligation is elaborated in the Handbook of the League, where part of the 
constitutions is set out as follows: 


“Our reverend directors, our promoters and associates, will understand the motives 
which should prompt the Director General of the Holy League to issue the following 
instructions: In order the more thoroughly to enter into the intention of the Holy Father 
expressed in the teaching of the late Encyclical Letter, Humanum Genus, (directed 
against Freemasonry), we earnestly beg of all our Directors, both diocesan and local, to 
require in all receptions of associates of either sex to the Holy League, and, in the case of 
our promoters, as a necessary condition, the promise never to enter into any secret 
society, and not to give encouragement or help to any of them.” 


It may not, perhaps, be known generally that some of the branches of the Children of 
Mary, the members of which form an attractive and striking figure in many open-air 
Roman Catholic processions, now so frequent in the summer months, are branches of the 
Prima Primaria, erected by a diploma of the General of the Society of Jesus, and enjoy 
all privileges of indulgence attached to it in common with all other sodalists. A 
distinction, says Waterton, must, therefore, be made between the Children of Mary, or 
lady sodalists, who are affiliated to the Prima Primaxia, and those local or convental 
fraternities, known by the same name. 


In 1877, Pope Pius IX organized the “Militia of Jesus Christ,” a Catholic Crusaders 
association, which had as its third aim: “to array against the powerful organization of the 
secret societies leagued against the Lord, and His own innumerable army of devoted 



Catholics, ready to fight in open day, with all the means at its power, those who work in 
secret and in darkness.” It is unnecessary to point out that the objects of the attack were 
not the Jesuits and other Roman Catholic secret societies, who, undoubtedly, correspond 
thoroughly to the description given. According to a correspondent of the Daily News 
this Militia numbered more than a million members, principally in France and Belgium, 
within a very short time of its formation. 


In the Memoirs of Saint-Simon (Volume III, p. 268, 1902 ed.), we are told that “the 
Jesuits constantly admit the laity, even married, into their company. The fact is certain. 
There is no doubt that Des Noyers, secretary of state under Louis XIII, was of this 
number, and that many others have been so too. These licentiates make the same vow as 
the Jesuits, so far as their condition admits: that is, unrestricted obedience to the General, 
and to the superiors of the Company. They are obliged to comply with the vows of 
poverty and chastity by promising to give all the service and all the protection in their 
power to the Company; above all, to be entirely submissive to the superiors and to their 
confessor. They are obliged to perform with exactitude such light exercises of piety as 
their confessor may have adapted to the circumstances of their lives, and that he 
simplifies as much as he likes. It answers the purposes of the Company to ensure to itself 
those hidden auxiliaries. But nothing must pass through their minds, nothing must come 
to their knowledge that they do not reveal to their confessor, and to the superiors, if the 
confessor thinks fit. In everything, too, they must obey, without comment the superior 
and the confessor.” This, of course, is in accordance with the enormous claims made by 
the Church of Rome, not only to be the administrator of the laws of God, but also to be 
empowered to make fresh laws, which must be obeyed with equal rigidity, under 
penalties and punishments. This claim is well set forth by the Rev. Edmund J. O'Reilly, 

S. J., in his book, The Relations of the Church to Society, wherein he says: “The 
Church's jurisdiction, like that of any State, comprises legislative an executive powers. 
The Church not only administers divine laws, but makes laws herself. Some of them are 
in great measure identified with her administrate of divine law. She imposes on her 
subjects the obligation of receiving her declarations of faith, and, more less, under 
ecclesiastical penalties. But, besides doing this, she imposes other obligations in 
connection with faith and morals. She commands and forbids acts that are not already 
respectively commanded or forbidden by God. All this she does for the better attainment 
of her end, which is the salvation of souls. These laws of the Church are human laws, 
enacted in virtue of authority received from God, but still human laws, liable to 
abrogation, mortification, and dispensation, where circumstances may so require or 
render expedient.” 



THE AWAKENING IN MASONRY 


It is quality and not quantity that Masonry seeks in her membership and we are not at all 
interested in acquiring members unless they shall be, or appear likely to become, Masons 
in fact as well as in name. 


I have the courage to believe from my observation throughout the state, and my 
correspondence with other jurisdictions, that a greater and more vital interest is being 
taken in what Masonry stands for than ever before, but whether or not that awakening of 
interest in vital topics is a by-product or in any sense due to the war conditions, is not 
really important. The salient thing is that there is this awakening of interest, and it is most 
decidedly a feature which must be taken into account in our calculations, and as we 
recognize the fact, we realize that more and more it is true that the eyes of the world are 
upon us, and that our responsibility is correspondingly enhanced. 


If we can once get the great mass of the brotherhood to realize that there is nothing more 
important than the recognition of the common bonds of humanity, that the doctrine of 
brotherhood means in very fact just what it says, that we are all descendants of one 
Almighty Father, that we are linked together in fact as well as in name, by an indissoluble 
tie of sincere affection, I venture the prediction that we will see the Masonic order take its 
rightful place as a dynamic force in the nation, and in the life of the people, and that it will 
command recognition not alone for its professions, not alone for the beauty of its 
doctrines, but deservedly for its solid, practical accomplishment in all constructive policies 
and endeavors for the uplift and unity of humanity. - P.G.M. Webster, California. 


EDITORIAL 


PRACTICAL BROTHERHOOD 



“Alas, a Gospel of Brotherhood, not according to any of the Four old Evangelists, calling 
on men to amend each his own wicked existence, but a Gospel rather according to a new 
Fifth Evangelist, calling on men to amend each the whole world's wicked existence, and be 
saved by making a Constitution.” - Carlyle, The French Revolution. 


THE WORLD will never be better than the men who inhabit it. Everything begins and 
ends with the individual. One man living a Brotherly Life is worth a thousand lectures on 
Brotherhood. Men can make many things by wholesale, but great souls, faithful and 
generous hearts are made one by one. Commonplaces ! it will be said. Even so. Bread, 
meat, sunlight, night and day are commonplace, but by such things men live. The trouble 
is that we fly so high that we overlook what is near by, building air-castles without 
foundation. Freemasonry is the realization of God and the practice of brotherhood, and it 
must begin with each of us in his own life. 


INDIVIDUAL BROTHERHOOD 


Once for all the Great Brother of Galilee set forth this fact with unforgettable vividness in 
a story that one can read in two minutes. He told of “a certain man,” - it might be any man 
of any race who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and was set upon by thieves who 
robbed him, beat him, and left him half dead. One can see the hard faces of the robbers 
silhouetted against the rocks - low-browed, dark-faced, with cruelty in their eyes - the 
plagues of society, desperadoes by calling, murderers by vocation. 


There are the Priest and the Levite who journey that way, passing by the man in his 
distress. They are not hypocrites; they are simply men who separate religion from human 
service, as most men do. They tried to unite devotion to God with contempt of the need of 
mankind. They thought God lived in the Temple, listening to songs and prayers, not 
knowing that He is out on the highways of life where men faint and fall. It is the old 
atheism which divides piety from humanity, and thinks of religion as a sweet, dreamy 
emotion, rather than a matter of practical service. 



There is the Samaritan - a heretic, an outcast, - with divine instincts, quick and keen 
sympathies, responsive to human need, asking no questions, but doing the thing that 
needed to be done. There is the innkeeper, kindly but business-like, glad to welcome the 
man who has been unfortunate, but glad also to have a paying guest, and happy to be 
assured that everything will be settled on business principles. It is an immortal picture of 
our human society, and in the living wisdom of the world there is nothing to suipass it 
alike in vividness and comprehensiveness. 


The medicine for the sickness of the world, the way out of the blind alley into which it has 
run, the hope of a better day of justice and goodwill, lies in the actual practice of 
brotherliness between man and man. Nothing can take the place of it. There is no 
substitute for it. No plan, no scheme, no programme for a better world order is worth the 
paper it is written on, without men of the brotherly spirit. Whoso lives the brotherly life, 
however obscure he may be, does more for the world than all the orators. Professions of 
Brotherhood in a Masonic lodge are of no more value than professions of religion in a 
church - unless they are acted upon. 


Such words need to be said again and again, each man to himself, if only to keep alive the 
sense of solemn and high responsibility in our own hearts. No one may shirk this matter, 
or shift it to another, without weakening the basis of society and making all holy things 
less secure. The Samaritan did not report the case of the man by the roadside to the Society 
for the Relief of the Distressed. He got down off his donkey, picked the man up, and took 
care of him. He did not denounce the Priest and Levite. He saw it as his duty, did it, and 
went on about his business. 


But let us go a little further. Some one has said that it is easier to give five dollars to a 
begger than it is to forgive a man who rides his logic ruthlessly over our pet prejudices. It 
is easier to help a man who is down - whether by his own folly or the fault of another - 
than to give a square deal to one who is in the race with us for the prizes of life. 
Philanthropy is one thing; justice is another. In time of dire need men want charity; justice 
they want all the time. The ancient prophet had the true order of things when he told us 
what is required of us: “To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” 
Here is the idea in a very striking, searching poem by Ina Coolbirth: 



0 Soul! however sweet 


The goal to which I hasten with swift feet- 
If, just within my grasp, 

I reach, and joy to clasp, 

And find there one whose body I must make 
A footstool for that sake, 

Though ever and for evermore denied, 

Grant me to turn aside! 

ORGANIZED BROTHERHOOD 


“The principal intention of forming societies is undoubtedly the uniting men in the stricter 
bands of love; for men, considered as social creatures, must derive their happiness from 
each other; every man being designed by Providence to promote the good of others, as he 
tenders his own advantage; and by that intercourse to secure their good offices, by being, 
as occasion may offer, serviceable to them.” 


- Charles Brockwell, A Charge to Masons, 1749. 


Masonry is organized brotherhood. Because fellowship is a source both of joy and of 
power, because we can do together what we could never do alone, men are drawn together 
and joined together in a great fratemityj the better to promote the principle and practice of 
brotherhood in their own lives and in the life of the world. Such an order of men, ancient, 
universal, beneficent - made up of select men trained and sworn to help make 
righteousness prevail - is a prophecy of that spirit, that tendency, that tie which at last 



Shall bind each heart and nation 


In one grand brotherhood of men 
And one high consecration. 


Masonic philanthropy is an honor and an ornament to the Craft. It does the work of the 
Good Samaritan, taking care of the widow, the oiphan, the aged and infirm with a 
munificence as beautiful as it is gracious. Besides, in ways innumerable and untraceable 
the spirit of Masonry mitigates the hard lot of many outside the order. Only the art of an 
angel could record the ways in which Masons help one another, showing a brotherliness 
truly practical in sickness and in difficulty. Wrought in secret, under cover of Masonic 
silence, only a tiny part of this untiring ministry is known to the world - and that is as it 
should be. 


Unfortunately the thieves who robbed the man on the road to Jericho escaped. Nothing 
more is said about them in the parable. No doubt they robbed other travellers. Here is one 
of the dark problems of the world, weaving a shadowy fringe on the borders of human 
society. The Good Samaritan did not remove the cause of the misery he helped to heal. He 
could not do it alone. Hence the necessity of organized fraternity, that together we may 
clean out the den of thieves, and make the highways of the world safe for all who travel on 
lawful avocations. The State, in any great conception of it, is an organized brotherhood, 
and Masonry labors unceasingly to inculcate that idea. An unworthy citizen cannot be a 
good Mason. 


Masonry is organized patriotism. Neither a political party nor a religious sect, it none the 
less stands for just laws and the spirit of loyalty and co-operation without which the state 
cannot be stable and effective. Patriotism is the translation of private faith and individual 
righteousness into terms of public virtue and social service. Nothing less than this is 
worthy of the name. The crying need of today is to extend the spirit and principles of 
Masonry to the whole life and transactions of mankind - and this must begin by extending 
them to all the transactions of Masons. The failure to do this accounts for the deficit 
between private morality and public morality. Men as a group, as a party, as a coiporation 
will do what not one of them would do as an individual. The responsibility is distributed 
until it evaporates; and so we have a public and coiporate life which is a reproach to the 
character of the community. When we are truly patriotic this will not be so. 



Practical brotherhood, if it has any meaning at all, means that all men, regardless of race, 
rank, or creed, shall have an opportunity to live and to live well - that even the humblest 
child, to the measure of its capacity, shall be admitted to the full inheritance of humanity. 
It will not merely be friendly to, but will help forward every wise effort in behalf of a full, 
free, happy, useful life for all classes, and will seek to organize civilization to that end. 
Masonry, in its organized capacity, may not formulate or support definite political and 
social programs; but it will create and cultivate in its members the will and the passion to 
be champions of every cause which endeavors intelligently to build a better human order. 


APPLIED BROTHERHOOD 


We are all blind until we see 
That in the human plan 
Nothing is worth the making if 
It does not make the man. 

Why build these cities glorious 
If man unbuilded goes? 

In vain we build the work unless 
The builder also grows. 

- Edwin Markham. 


That is to say, Masonry is the application of noble ideas to practical life. If it merely ends 
in fine emotion or eloquent sentiment, it fails. Ideas do not work themselves out 
automatically. Some seem to think that all we have to do is to throw a great idea into the 
world, and then by virtue of some magic power that truth possesses, it will begin to work 



and bear fruit of its own accord. It is not so. There must be soil for the seed, and hard work 
in its cultivation. Ideas by themselves are ghosts until they are incarnated in men, and the 
men are organized for the service of the truth. 


Great ideas are simple enough, but their application is complex and difficult. For example, 
many men today - men who are in no sense Socialists - refuse to accept the present 
industrial order as final. It makes money, but it mutilates humanity. Commercially it may 
be a triumph, but humanly it is sadly imperfect, and its injustice is only equalled by its 
ugliness. We cannot see the next step, but there must be a way to bring back beauty and 
joy into the work of the world, which is now so often a drudgery and a grind. Ruskin was 
right when he said that life without industry is sin, and industry without beauty is brutality. 
He was also right when he wrote: 


“There is no wealth but life - life, including all its powers of love, of joy, of admiration. 
That country is richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human 
beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the 
utmost, has also the widest influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over 
the lover of others.” 


Our ancient Operative Brethren came nearer solving these vexing questions than any one 
has ever come since. They worked as a fraternity; they had joy in their work, and saw 
spiritual meaning in it. Labor was a joy to them because it was constructive, and because 
they never lost the human touch - which is the saddest tragedy of modem industry. Their 
labor was communal. Each man worked as a brother in a community, not as a cog In a 
machine. It was mixed with friendliness, comradeship, and goodwill. They regarded their 
ingenuity - both as artists and as artisans - as a form of divine inspiration, a holy and 
consecrated skill, for which they gave thanks as a community on Whit- Sunday. The 
Master was not a Foreman or an Overseer; he was a Brother, a friend, a teacher. 


Surely modem industry is not the better for the loss of this spirit of reverence and 
cooperation - brotherly leadership and communal responsibility - which distinguished the 
fraternity of Operative Freemasonry. Today Master and Man are far apart. They have little 
personal contact. Social welfare work in factories is too much like a sop to the 
discontented - too much like a form of charity. Men go to their work as if driven, finding 



no joy in it, shirking it as much as possible. Our ancient Brethren never thought of getting 
all they could for as little work as possible. The whole idea of using men to make money, 
instead of using money to make men, is foreign to the genius and history of Masonry. No 
Mason was regarded as a “hand”; he was a fellow, a brother - not an animated tool but a 
human being. There is no hope of peace in the industrial world until this spirit of humanity 
and fraternity is recovered - restoring the status of labor, and also its high obligation. 
Masonry did it once; Masonry can help to do it again 


Masonry is an international fraternity. Its members are prepared to travel in foreign 
countries and work and receive the wages of a Master Mason. Each is enjoined to be loyal 
to his own country, without hatred of other lands - knowing that other men love their 
countries as he loves his. In all the teaching of Masonry there is a recognition of the 
human race as a family, a brotherhood - a sense of the fact that the good of humanity as a 
whole does actually exist - and that is the one thing needed today. The world is perishing 
for lack of Brotherhood, and though we have the great ideal on our lips, it has not yet 
found its way into our hearts and hands. 


Does it make you mad when you read about 
Some poor, starved devil who flickered out, 
Because he had never a decent chance 
In the tangled meshes of circumstance? 

If it makes you bum like the fires of sin, 
Brother, you are fit for the ranks - fall in! 


Does it make you rage when you come to learn 
Of a clean-souled women who could not earn 
Enough to live, and who fought, but fell 
In the cmel struggle and went to hell? 



Does it make you seethe with an anger hot? 
Brother we welcome you - share our lot! 

Whoever has blood that will flood his face 
At the sight of Beast in the holy place; 

Whoever has rage for the tyrant's might, 

For the powers that prey in the day and night, 
Whoever has hate for the ravening Brute 
That strips the tree of its goodly fruit; 

Whoever knows wrath at the sight of pain, 

Of needless sorrow and heedless gain; 

Whoever knows bitterness, shame and gall 
At thought of the trampled ones doomed to fall; 
He is a brother-in-soul, we know; 

With brain afire and with soul aglow; 

By the sight of his eyes we sense our kin- 
Brother, you battle with us - fall in! 


- Joseph Fort Newton 



THE LIBRARY 


EDITED BY BRO. ROBERT TIPTON 


THE MARKED tendency among men is to think in terms of their own calling. We recall a 
time when we were engaged in the vocation of mining. It was at an early period of our life, 
but we remember very distinctly that all things of import were in some degree considered 
with reference to our own vocation. One felt that the importance of mining was primary in 
character. If men should cease to go down into the depths of the earth and bring forth coal, 
commerce would stop and households would perish. There probably was some recognition 
at times that the farmers were indispensable, but the knowledge of complexity of 
civilization and a genuine dependence on coal of all who participate in civilization, gave 
us a sense of our immeasurable importance. We think that this, probably, was something 
of the emotion that possessed those engaged in the great Steel industry when the strike was 
being carried on a little over a year ago. Had success come to the strikers, the country for a 
while would be thinking quite pertinently in terms of Steel. 


There came to our desk sometime ago two or three books dealing with Steel. The poet 
endeavoring to interpret it, and the steel worker, a name much maligned by the public 
press (justly or unjustly, it is not ours at this time to say), Em. Z. Foster, told of the 
struggle about Steel, and then a group of Churchmen, of whose integrity and uprightness 
there is no question in the minds of any, sought to indicate to the people of the country the 
tragedy of Steel. To the first, of course, the poems of Strandberg, which in a subtle way 
incoiporate both the struggle and the tragedy, will probably belong the credit, ultimately, 
of arousing the consciences of men to things nefarious in the industry, and what we may 
conveniently designate at this time as un-American. 


We are not unmindful at this juncture of a certain eastern minister, a man whom, we have 
been assured, can neither be bought nor bribed, resenting the criticisms and reflections of 
the commission of his fellow ecclesiastics, entered the ring of controversial conflict like 
some medieval gladiator, in defense of those practices of the great coiporations that 



governed steel whose privileges and prerogatives he felt were being unrighteously and 
unjustly assailed. 


As our interests here, however, are in books, and our chief anxiety is to have the people at 
large judge rightly on the question affecting in so marked a way the happiness and 
prosperity of the American people, we are but anxious to draw the attention of reading 
Masons to these publications, believing in that fairmindedness that has characterized the 
fraternity that will enable its members to pronounce a just verdict and one that will be 
consistently American and for the promotion of happiness generally. Our interest centering 
in such a specific way upon a program which we conveniently designate as 
Americanization, we feel urged to say that in brief these books point out that the major 
portion of those engaged in the steel industry, of foreign extraction, anxious to become 
Americans, cannot become so, under the conditions and circumstances imposed upon them 
in the steel industry. Only a fair consideration of these documents will assure us of the 
justice of such a conclusion. That we might not be accused of partiality or prejudice, and 
that we might vindicate our position of keen desire to have all Masons acquaint themselves 
with the vital problems whose solution means weal or woe for America, we but urge that 
these works be read and considered in a true, impartial, and Masonic spirit. 


The publications are: “Report on the Steel Strike of 1919,” (Inter-church Commission of 
Inquiry Report); “Smoke and Steel,” and “The Great Steel Strike.” 


* * * 


The amazing genius and prolific powers of writings of H. G. Wells are again amply 
testified to in his “Outline of History,” published by the Macmillan Co., 66 Fifth Ave., 
New York, N. Y., ($10.00). One wonders indeed how it were possible to undertake such a 
task in the face of the wide and searching reading necessary to produce such a work, 
especially when we consider the yearly output of literature of one kind or another that 
generates in the fertile brain of England's premier novelist. That the “Outline of History” is 
infinitely more than a sentimental generalizing of which the average educated man may be 
capable through his knowledge of history is clearly shown by a perusal of the names of the 
collaborators of Wells in his marvelous achievement. Connected with his own name and 



revealed throughout the book as keen critics and admiring helpers are some of the leading 
scientists, archaeologists, etc., of Great Britain. 


One feels that to have written such a work, having its genesis in the misty dawn where 
astronomers find their field for speculation, and coming down through those departments 
of life of interest to the geologist, biologist, and archaeologist, even down to the present, 
climaxing with the Great War, Wells must have exhausted all sources of information 
which were of pertinent value in the writing of the “Outline.” 


Not a little of its charm is contained in its Wellsian phraseology, his brilliancy of intellect 
being everywhere apparent. We feel that it is timely, bringing hope to a chaotic world 
through the revelation that progress is certain and sure, even though it is slow in 
development. Whatever cataclysmic disasters have befallen the efforts of men in the 
attempt to mold the world, arising out of the ruins of the old, there has ever emerged the 
enthusiastic effort to renew and rebuild. War is revealed as the fateful fallacy, and nowhere 
is this better emphasized than in the brief chronicling of the ancient civilization of the 
island of Crete, where for a thousand years because of a general peace, the arts and all 
things conducive to human happiness seemed to have flourished. 


One wonders, on closing these volumes, what Wells will attempt next; whether his 
prophetic genius will prove to be as great as his capacity for accurate retrospection. This 
will probably be proven when he writes a book that will be prophetic in its imports as it is 
deducted from the observances of his “Outline of History.” 


* * * 


We have just had the pleasure of reading what is probably the most talked of novel of the 
season - ’’Main Street,” by Sinclair Lewis. Our first pronouncement upon this book would 
be that it was a condition and not a place. Saying such would be analogous to the 
conception of Heaven that prevails in most minds today, but to make such comparison is 
to at once realize that “Main Street,” as a condition, is far more cognizable than Heaven. 
We venture to assert that no more daring arraignment of mediocrity in life has ever been 



made. It is so pertinently realistic that one senses it immediately as a delineation of those 
circumstances, conditions and places with which the majority of us are most familiar. 


The little western town, with its characters that have so much to do about nothing, is but a 
microscopic portrait of the whole United States. The rare soul, ever the pertinent power in 
the transformation of things from a condition of dull mediocrity to an advanced step of 
living, fighting against malignant forces disguised in the garb of respectability, is 
admirably portrayed here. The price of her protest is sensed in her defeat. “Main Street” 
does not become transformed from a place of petty selfishness and arbitrary notions to one 
of freedom and utmost good will toward all, in a day, but the hope that is perennial is that 
the Carol Kennicotts, with their eternal agitation, do succeed in lifting things a little higher 
and pushing things a little forward. The manner in which this is accomplished is probably 
best emphasized in the book where she leads her husband to look at the sleeping babes in 
their cot, and says to him, “Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? 
It is a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise you wouldn't arrest anarchists; 
you would arrest all these children while they're asleep in their cribs. What that baby will 
see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an industrial union of 
the world, she may see aeroplanes going to Mars.” 


The book, indeed, is not only a study but a challenge. 


Now comes “Potterism.” Our first characterization would be that it was the English “Main 
Street.” Such is true as far as its analytical phase is concerned, but whereas “Main Street” 
is microscopic, we would feel like pronouncing Potterism as telescopic. We sense in it a 
very sane arraignment of the most marked phases of our everyday life. Its description of 
the chaotic thinking of the day is accentuated as the author makes manifest the cause of 
such muddle-headed confusion. There is little room left for believing anything but that we 
are all representative of some phase of Potterism, and that the genius whose sanity and 
respect for truth and fact is his greatest characteristic is a rare specimen in our midst and, 
like the hero of Potterism, he is likely to be killed. 


It is a splendid thing to be revealed just as we are, especially when what we are is but the 
revelation of possibilities for further deterioration in matters of taste, ideals, and modes of 
living, for thereby desires might be created within that will crave redemption. We 



sometimes feel that we are having more than our fill of the literature that is dubbed 
realistic, but of books of this character of which these days there are a multitude, there are 
books to some puipose and those that are utterly worthless; that reveal but snobbery at 
work seeking the distasteful to exploit it, and which erstwhile caters to the most base and 
vain in man. 


The narrative in Potterism related by Arthur Gideon we feel to be worthy of second 
reading. It is clear, erudite, and serviceable. The selfishness, greed, and love of the 
sensational, so alluring to the mass is here noted and understood in all its nakedness. That 
the cheapness of life that is such a major quantity is the result of the great convulsive 
change in the world conditions one can hardly question. 


That this book may in some measure be a ministrant to the regaining of right concepts of 
living and proper values is devoutly to be wished, and those critics whose word is worth 
hearing have spoken in some measure in regard to it. Delightfully written, throbbingly 
interesting, one is carried along catching the variety of viewpoints set forth, and finally left 
in a frame of mind that ought to warrant better things, if sufficient numbers read the book. 


* * * 


Frances Kellor has made a very subtle analysis of what is probably the most compelling 
problem before the American people in her book, “Immigration and The Future.” The 
clear-cut apprehension of the nature of the problem is at once ascertained when the author 
distinguishes between what is the grave concern of both Europe and America. Here in 
America the problem is of amalgamation and assimilation of the various nationals that 
come to our shores, and Europe reveals her keen interest in preserving national unity and 
character. A thoughtful presentation of the view taken by Europe of America is given in a 
very convincing way. Europe's concern will be in no small degree an effort to retain her 
hold upon those immigrants of their respective countries who come to these shores, if for 
no other reason than in some great emergency they may be found to speak a good word for 
them. An appreciation of this viewpoint will be accentuated by recalling the effort of 
Germany and her conception of dual citizenship. In plain words, the effort of foreign 
countries will be to keep those who come to these shores still in vital relationship to them. 
To continue such relationship will be to intensify the racial and national difficulties of 



Europe in this country, and the sorry experiences of the war, brought about with those 
whose racial and national affiliation would not admit of them sensing the American 
viewpoint as readily as we desire, determine that the American policy shall be one of a 
severence of relationships on the part of the immigrant to old lands from which he came, 
and demand that he subjugate himself to the assimilation process whereby he becomes 
Americanized. 


The difficulties, advantages, and necessities relative to this problem the author has 
admirably stated. The analysis clearly distinguishes the romantic aspect that largely 
characterized immigration in the past and the economic considerations that are to 
determine immigration in the future. Indeed, immigration is to be thrashed out purely on 
an economic basis. 


The formidable list of names cited by the author as advisers, and those whose patriotic 
interest in the problem reveals their utmost concern for America's future? is a formidable 
one and comprises men from all walks of public life in America. 


At this moment of severe agitation regarding the immigrant problem the book will be a 
most serviceable instrument in the hands of all who are endeavoring to shape the 
Americanization movement from a wise and sane basis. 


To illustrate further the character of the .work and in order that our readers may judge 
whether or not they need this book on their shelves we are appending an epitome of the 
work as it is presented by the publishers: 


“American Labor wants immigration suspended for a period of years. American Business 
anticipates expansion that requires immigration. American Public Opinion is for America 
first. Europe wants to control its nationals wherever they are. 


“These are the questions America must answer in its future policy: 



“Is immigration essential to the economic development of this country? 


“Is America a necessary asylum for the foreign-bom? 


“Will the troubles of Europe be solved in America? 


“Shall immigrant savings be spent in America? 


“Shall America become a one-language country? 


“What shall be done with the foreign-language press? 


“Shall American citizenship be compulsory? 


“Shall aliens be registered? 


“Shall immigration be dealt with abroad? 


“What is the answer? - Race Assimilation or Race Separation?” 


For our part we deem it indeed a most timely and indispensable work. 



It is published by the George H. Doran Company, . 38 West 32nd St., New York, N. Y., 
and may be had at all first-class bookstores. 


THE QUESTION BOX 


THE BUILDER is an open forum for free and fraternal discussion. Each of its contributors 
writes under his own name, and is responsible for his own opinions. Believing that a unity 
of spirit is better than a uniformity of opinion, the Research Society, as such, does not 
champion any one school of Masonic thought as over against another, but offers to all 
alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each to stand or fall by its own 
merits. 


The Question Box and Correspondence Column are open to all members of the Society at 
all times. Questions of any nature on Masonic subjects are earnestly invited from our 
members, particularly those connected with lodges or study clubs which are following our 
“Bulletin Course of Masonic Study.” When requested, questions will be answered 
promptly by mail before publication in this department. 


THE PAPAL WARNING AGAINST NON-ROMAN CATHOLIC ORGANIZATIONS 


A large number of requests have been received from our reader's for a full translation of 
the text of the warning against non-Roman Catholic organizations issued by the Pope of 
Rome through the Papal Secretary, Cardinal Merry Del Val, November 5th, 1920. 


A careful perusal of the secular press, supplemented by an examination of a number of the 
leading Roman Catholic journals, has thus far failed to uncover a complete translation, but 
we reprint herewith, in answer to our numerous inquirers, a textual translation of the 
warning, which appeared in the Christian Science Monitor of February 5th, 1921. Editor. 



The most eminent and reverend cardinals who are, like the writer whose name is 
subjoined, inquisitors general in matters of faith and morals, desire that the ordinaries 
should pay vigilant attention to the manner in which certain new non-(Roman) Catholic 
associations, by the aid of their members of every nationality, have been accustomed now 
for some time to lay dangerous snares for the faithful, especially the young folk. 


They provide in abundance facilities of every kind which apparently aim only at physical 
culture and intellectual and moral training, but in point of fact corrupt be integrity of the 
(Roman) Catholic faith and snatch away children from the church, their mother. 


These organizations enjoy favour, have at their disposal material resources and the zeal of 
influential people, and render distinguished services in the different fields of beneficence; 
it is not suiprising, then, that they impose on inexperienced people who have not made a 
close examination of these works. 


"INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CULTURE" 


But no thoughtful person can have any doubt of their real spirit; for if up to the present 
they have allowed people only gradually to obtain glimpses of the end whither they tend, 
they proclaim it today in the brochures, newspapers and periodicals which are the organs 
of their propaganda. 


Their object, they state, is to insure by good methods the intellectual and moral culture of 
the young; and making this culture their religion, they define it as full and complete liberty 
of thought outside and independently of every religion or deity nomination. On the 
pretence of bringing light to young folk, they turn them away from the teaching of the 
church established by God, the light of truth, and incite them to seek severally from their 
own consciences and within the narrow circuit of human reason the light which should 
guide them. 



The principal victims of these snares are young students of both sexes. These young boys 
and young girls who need the help of others to learn the Christian doctrine and to preserve 
the faith inherited from their fathers come under the influence of people who despoil them 
of this precious patrimony and lead them insensibly today to hesitate between contrary 
opinions, tomorrow to doubt all things whatsoever, and in the end to embrace a sort of 
vague and indecisive religion which has absolutely nothing in common with the religion 
preached by Jesus Christ. 


CREDIT GIVEN FOR BENEFICENT WORK 


These maneuvers cause much more considerable ravages in the souls - would to God that 
they were less numerous - who, owing to the negligence or ignorance of parents, have not 
received at the domestic hearth that early instruction in the faith which is a primordial 
necessity for the Christian. 


Deprived of the use of the sacraments and excluded from every religious practice, 
accustomed to regard the most sacred things only with the most complete independence of 
judgments these souls thus fall miserably into what is called religious indifferentism, 
which has been condemned by the church on numerous occasions, and which implies the 
negation of all religion. 


Thus one sees these Christians in their bloom, on a road where they have no guide, 
perishing in the darkness and torture of doubt; to make shipwreck of the faith; is it not 
enough to refuse the mind's adhesion even to a single dogma? 


It will happen, perhaps, that one may chance to hear from the lips of these young folk 
some sign, and may find in their hearts some dying shadow of piety, or even that they 
show more than ordinary ardor in their devotion to works of beneficence; this may be 
taken as the effect of a long habit, or of a more gentle temperament, or of a more 



sympathetic heart, or, in a word, of an entirely human and natural virtue, which of itself is 
devoid of all value in regard to eternal life. 


Y.M.C.A. IS NAMED 


Among these societies it will suffice to mention that which, having given birth to many 
others, is the most widespread (by reason especially of the important services which it 
rendered to a large number of unhappy people in the course of the terrible war) and 
disposes of the most considerable resources; we mean the society called the Young Men's 
Christian Association and in abbreviation form the Y.M.C.A. 


Non (Roman) Catholics of good faith give it their support inadvertently, considering it an 
organization of advantage to all, or, at least, inoffensive to every one, and it is also 
supported by certain (Roman) Catholics who are too confident, and are ignorant of what it 
is in reality; for this society professes a sincere love of young folk, as if nothing was dearer 
to it than the promotion of their corporal and spiritual interests; but at the same time it 
shakes their faith, since, by its own confession, it proposes to purify it and to impart a 
more perfect knowledge of real life by placing itself "above every church and outside 
every religious denomination." ("What the Y.M.C.A. Is and What It Proposes," brochure 
published at the central office, Rome). 


What good can be expected from those who, banishing from their hearts the last vestiges 
of their faith, go far from the cradle of Jesus Christ, where they enjoyed happiness and 
rest, to wander at the instigation of their passions and of their nature? 


NEW ZEAL IMPLORED 


Therefore, all of you who have received from Heaven the special mandate to govern the 
flock of the Master are implored by this congregation to employ all your zeal in preserving 
young folk from the contagion of every society of this kind, whose good works, presented 



in the name of Christ, endanger the most precious gift that the grace of Christ has given 
them. 


Put the imprudent on their guard and strengthen the souls of those whose faith is 
vacillating; arm with the Christian spirit and courage the organizations of the young of 
both sexes existing in your dioceses, and establish others like them; to provide these 
societies with the means of counteracting the conduct of their adversaries, appeal to the 
generosity of the more well-to-do Roman Catholics. 


Also get parish priests and directors of organizations for the young to fulfil their mission 
bravely, and particularly by the diffusion of books and pamphlets, so as to raise up barriers 
against the encroaching waves of error, to expose the tricks and snares of the enemy, and 
to give efficacious aid to the defenders of the truth. 


It will be your duty, then, at the regional meetings of Bishops to treat this grave question 
with the attention it merits and, after deliberation, to come to the decisions that will appear 
practically suitable. 


In this connection the Sacred Congregation asks that in each region an official act of the 
hierarchy declare duly forbidden all the dally organs, periodicals, and other publications of 
these societies of which the pernicious character is manifest, and which are profusely 
distributed with a view to sowing in the souls of Roman Catholics the errors of rationalism 
and religious indifferentism. 


Here a note calls attention to Fide e Vita (Faith and Life), a monthly review of religious 
culture, the organ of the Italian Federation of Students for Religious Culture, San Remo; to 
Bilychnis, a monthly review of religious studies, Rome, and II Testimonio (The 
Testimony), a monthly review of the Baptist Churches, Rome. 



Metropolitans are charged with the duty of making known to the Holy See, within six 
months, the resolutions and decisions occasioned by the situation of each diocese. 


Given at the Palace of the Holy Office, Rome, on the 5th November, 1920. R. CARD. 
MERRY DEL VAL, Secretary. 


* * * 


THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS MEMORIAL OFFER TO THE AMERICAN 
LEGION 


Many inquiries have reached us of late for full information concerning the Knights of 
Columbus' proposition to turn over to the American Legion the sum of $5,000,000 from 
the former's “War Fund.” The following press reports give the status of the matter at the 
time we go to press with this number of THE Editor. 


KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS MEMORIAL 


Due to the interest which is being manifested in the proposal of the Knights of Columbus 
to appropriate out of its war fund moneys the sum of $5,000,000, to be used in the 
construction and equipment of a building in Washington for the American Legion, the 
terms of this offer, now under consideration by the National Executive Committee of the 
Legion, are hereby published in full. They are as follows: 


The K. of C. propose and offer to appropriate the sum of $5,000,000 of its War Funds 
moneys to and for the following uses and puiposes: 



1st. Four million dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary (any surplus reverting to 
the principal of the Endowment Fund hereinafter referred to), to be used to erect, furnish, 
and equip a building in Washington, D. C., to be known as The American Legion National 
Memorial and to become upon completion the property of The American Legion subject to 
the conditions and puiposes hereinafter expressed. 


Said building is to be erected on a plot of land to be secured by The American Legion, 
preferably by Act of Congress devoting some public land in Washington for this purpose. 


The building is to be devoted as far as possible to patriotic uses and the public welfare. 


Its puipose under the control of The American Legion shall be to serve as a memorial to 
those who have given their lives in the service of the nation at war; to serve as an evidence 
of the people's gratitude to those who enlisted but happily survive their service; to serve as 
an incentive to the coming generation to serve their country freely and bravely when war 
may come in the future. 


AUDITORIUM AND HEADQUARTERS 


It shall provide for an auditorium to accommodate 10,000 or more people and smaller 
halls for gatherings of the public - all free, if possible; if not, at the lowest charge 
commensurate with maintenance and upkeep. It shall provide free headquarters for the 
business and affairs of The American Legion and appropriate space for the Spanish War 
Veterans, the United Confederate Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Grand 
Army of the Republic, and a room for the Knights of Columbus; also quarters for such 
other bodies devoted to similar puiposes as may from time to time be determined. 


Said building to be erected, furnished and equipped by a committee consisting of three 
members to be designated by the Knights of Columbus; three members to be designated 
by the American Legion; and the Secretary of War, for the time being, if he will accept; 



otherwise, by the Superintendent of State, War and Navy Buildings, if he will accept; 
otherwise, by such person, preferably a public official, as the President of the United 
States shall designate. The architects shall be Magenis & Walsh, of Boston, Mass. 


2nd. One million dollars of said five million shall be set aside and known as The American 
Legion National Memorial Endowment, to be held by a Board of Trustees, with fullest 
powers to manage, to invest and reinvest said fund and consisting of the head of The 
American Legion, for the time being; the head of the Knights of Columbus, for the time 
being; and the Secretary of the Treasuiy for the time being, if he will accept; otherwise, by 
such person, preferably a public official, as the two first named shall designate. In case of 
vacancy the body represented shall have the right to fill, and a vacancy in the third place 
mentioned shall be filled by the two remaining trustees. 


BUILDING AND LUNDS TO REVERT 


The income from this fund shall be devoted to the upkeep, lighting, heating, and cleaning 
of the building as in the discretion of said trustees seem best. 


The committee hereinabove designated and the trustees shall serve without compensation. 
Their expenses shall be paid from the building fund and from the income of the 
Endowment Fund respectively. 


In case The American Legion shall cease to exist, then and in such event the title to said 
building and land shall revert to the nation for such puiposes as the United States Senate 
shall determine, and the Endowment Fund shall revert to the Knights of Columbus to be 
subject to the same trust as the War Fund from which it is taken. 


- Capital News Service. Washimrton. D.C. 



LEGION REJECTS MEMORIAL OFFER 


Washington, D.C.,Feb.8, 1921.- The American Legion decided last night that, while it 
could not accept “in its present form” the offer of $5,000,000 from the Knights of 
Columbus for the construction of a war memorial in Washington, it would accept the 
tender if certain revisions in it were made. 


The executive committee announced the appointment of a special committee to confer 
with Knights of Columbus officials to ascertain whether that organization is “willing to 
revise the offer so as to tender the fund unconditionally.” 


The Knights of Columbus offer was made with provision for a building committee with 
three members each to be appointed by that organization and the American Legion and 
one by the Secretary of War, and also for three trustees to administer the maintenance fund 
of approximately one million dollars each organization to name one trustee and the 
Secretary of War the third. 


Members of the committee explained that there was no objection to the nature of these 
conditions, but that it was thought best to accept the offer only if made unconditionally. 


The following were named on the committee to confer with the Knights of Columbus: 
John J. Wicker, Jr., Richmond, Va.; John G. Emery, Grand Rapids, and T. Semmes 
Walmsley, New Orleans. 


After discussing the proposal at a session which lasted until midnight, the executive 
committee of the legion, which convened here today for a three day meeting, issued a 
statement in which it said: 



“Acting on the offer to the Knights of Columbus to donate $5,000,000 to the American 
Legion for the erection and maintenance of a national memorial building in Washington, 
the national executive committee of the American Legion decided that it was not best to 
accept the offer in its present form. 


“A special committee is to be appointed by the national commander to confer with Knights 
of Columbus to ascertain vhether the Knights of Columbus are willing to revise the offer 
so as to tender the fund unconditionally. It was decided that if such revision is made the 
offer will be accepted.” 


- Capital News Service, Washington, D.C. 


* * * 


JEREMY CROSS 


Mention was made in THE BUILDER several months ago of Jeremy Cross, to whom is 
accredited the authorship of the lecture on the “Broken Column.” Since I do not have 
access to any reference works on Masonry except my copies of THE BUILDER and can 
find nothing about the life and activities of Cross in them, will you please give me some 
information along this line? F. H. K., Oregon. 


Jeremy Cross was a pupil of Thomas Smith Webb, who was practically the founder of our 
American system of Freemasonry, and who was Grand Master in Bhode Island in 1813. 
Cross was bom in Haverhill, New Hampshire, June 27, 1783, and died there in 1861. He 
was made a Mason in 1808. 


Webb's modifications of the lectures of Preston became generally accepted throughout the 
United States, and Cross, who had become highly proficient as a pupil, traveled 



extensively and taught the work in several States. Webb having borrowed liberally from 
the works of Preston, Cross did the same from Webb and published in 1819 “The True 
Masonic Chart or Hieroglyphic Monitor.” In this work he published a number of 
engravings of the different emblems of Masonry as memory aids which so popularized the 
work that it almost superseded the monitor compiled by Webb. Cross later published a 
Knight Templar monitor. 


Mackey says that Cross received the appointment of Grand Lecturer from many Grand 
Lodges and traveled for many years extensively through the United States teaching his 
system in lodges and other Masonic bodies. 


In his later years he made an effort to establish a Supreme Council of the Ancient and 
Accepted Scottish Bite. His efforts along this line proved unsuccessful and he shortly 
thereafter retired to private life. He died at the age of seventy-eight. 


* * * 


MASONIC MEMBERSHIP STATISTICS 


Will you kindly give me the statistics on the Masonic membership of the United States and 
the English-speaking nations throughout the world? W. B. F., Montana. 


Such statistics are difficult of exact compilation for the reason that the fiscal years of the 
several Grand Lodges vary. We give herewith, however, the figures for 1919 and 1920 as 
nearly as it has been possible to cotnpute them. This information has been collected by 
Brother Robert I. Clegg, one of the Board of Editors of THE BUILDER, and just 
published by him in the “Masonic Year Book” of the Masonic History Company: 


1919 AND 1920 



Official reports of the Grand Jurisdiction in continental and insular America for 1919 show 
that at the end of the fiscal year there were 2,086,808 members in 15,225 subordinate 
lodges. 


The largest Grand Lodge is that of New York, which then had jurisdiction over 872 lodges 
and a membership roll of 202,777; while the smallest is Nevada, with 22 lodges and a 
membership of 2,078. 


The United Kingdom comes second, with an aggregate of 5,130 lodges and a total 
membership of 327,764; England contributing 3,442 lodges with 240,000 members; 
Scotland, 1,115 lodges with 69,745 members; Ireland 530 lodges with 18,000 members. 
Australia has seven Grand Lodges, with 1 ,025 private lodges and a membership register of 
74,733; while Canada has nine Grand Lodges, 1,057 private lodges and 1 18,1 12 members. 


The above figures were compiled by Brother C. C. Hunt, Deputy Grand Secretary of the 
Grand Lodge of Iowa, and he has very kindly brought them up to date for us as regards the 
United States. His revision follows: 


Total membership of the Masonic fraternity in the United States, 2,246,724, furnished by 
the Grand Secretary of each jurisdiction, from the last figures obtainable from them, in 
December, 1920: 


Alabama37,217 
Arizona3,786 
Arkansas 26,574 
California 76,873 


Colorado 


23,790 



Connecticut 

31,298 

Delaware 

4,381 

District of Columbia 

Florida 

16,612 

Georgia 

55,060 

Idaho 6,934 


Illinois 203,447 

Indiana 

98,170 

Iowa 67,346 


Kansas 

55,572 

Kentucky 

53,182 

Louisiana 

23,008 

Maine 35,670 

Maryland 

21,978 

Massachusetts 82,410 

Michigan 

106,186 

Minnesota 

39,995 

Mississippi 

23,807 

Missouri 

90,416 

Montana 

13,813 

Nebraska 

30,806 

Nevada 2,178 


13,723 



New Hampshire 12,247 
New Jersey 55,083 

New Mexico 4,761 

New York 234,894 

North Carolina 30,912 

North Dakota 12,325 

Ohio 132,053 
Oklahoma 40,545 

Oregon 18,170 

Pennsylvania 151,434 

Philippine Islands 4,107 
Rhode Island 10,885 

South Carolina 2 1 ,723 

South Dakota 14,628 

Tennessee 33,880 

Texas 83,277 
Utah 3,021 
Vermont 15,992 
Virginia 31,321 

Washington 25,536 

West Virginia 22,880 


Wisconsin 


38,651 



Wyoming 5,167 
Total 2,246,724 


-o- 


CORRESPONDENCE 


MASONIC PLAYS 


A letter in a recent number of THE BUILDER contains an inquiry from Bro. Jeme M. 
Whited of San Francisco, for “Masonic plays.” On the same page there is an interesting 
note by Bro. Dudley Wright concerning the Knights of St. John. The proximity of these 
two items is, doubtless, accidental; but there is, nevertheless, a connection between them. 
The history and symbolism of the Knights of St. John figure in more than one brand of 
Masonry; e. g. in the Commandery as the “Knights of Malta” and in the Constantinian 
Orders as the third and highest of the ordinary grades. 


That peculiar Syrian sect known as the Druses has also a certain connection with Masonry. 
The 25d of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, at least as worked in the northern 
jurisdiction, is based upon its history and symbolism. 


Now it happens that Robert Browning left us a five-act play entitled “The Return of the 
Druses” in which not only that peculiar sect but the Knights of St. John (of Rhodes) form 
the characters. 


The scene is laid in the fifteenth century on an island of the southern Sporades, in the 
Aegean sea, which had been colonized by Druses from Lebanon but was ruled by the 
Knights of St. John from Rhodes through a Prefect. The particular prefect in command up 



to the time of the play seems to have ruled harshly and to have incurred the hostility of the 
Druses, one of whom - an initiate - is made to say: 


“I know our Nation's state? Too surely know, 

As thou, who speak'st to prove met Wrongs like ours 
Should Rake revenge: but when I sought the wronged 
And speke, 'The Prefect stabbed your son - arise! 

Your daughter, while you starve, eats shameless bread 
In his pavilion - then arise,' my speech 
Fell idly - 'twas, 'Be silent, or worse fare. 

Endure, till time's slow cycle prove complete. 

Who may'st thou be that takest on thee to thrust 
Into this peril - art thou Hakeem ? ' “ 

Hakeem, be it remembered, was the Druse Khalif or prophet who, some three centuries 
before had disappeared (the Druses do not believe that he died) and whose reincarnation is 
one of the articles of the Druse faith. 


Another Druse initiate of the isle was Djabal who sought to rouse his people against their 
oppressors and lead them back to Mt. Lebanon and who took advantage of the popular 
belief by declaring himself Hakeem and announcing that he would presently be changed 
into the prophet. 


Meanwhile the old Prefect having died 



“The Knights at last throw off the mask - transfer, 

As tributary now, and appanage, 

This islet they are but protectors of, 

To their own ever-craving lord, the Church, 

Which licenses all crimes that pay it thus- 
You, from their Prefect, were to be consigned 
Pursuant to I know not what vile pact, 

To the Knights' Patriach, ardent to outvie 
His predecessor in all wickedness; 

The pact of villany complete, there comes 
This Patriach's Nuncio with this Master's Prefect 
Their treason to consummate.” 

Upon his arrival, which was to have been the signal for the Druse uprising, the Nuncio 
seeks to persuade them of Djabal's imposture: 

“What say ye does this wizard style himself? 

Hakeem? Biamrallah? The third Fatemite? 

What is this jargon? He - the insane Khalif, 

Dead near three hundred years ago, come back 
In flesh and blood again?” 



Djabal believes himself betrayed by a young Druse girl with whom he is in love but who, 
overcome at his reproaches, and believing him to be indeed Hakeem, falls dead before 
him. In sore distress Djabal tells the Druses: 


“We shall henceforth be far away. 

Out of mere mortal ken - above the Cedars- 
But we shall see ye go, hear ye return, 

Repeopling the old solitudes, - thro' thee, 

My Khalil. Ye take 
This Khalil for my delegate? To him 
Bow as to me? He leads to Lebanon- 
Ye follow?” 

And as the curtain falls he states himself and cries 


“On to the Mountain. At the Mountain, Druses.” 


The play is full of dramatic episodes and stirring passages and provides a fitting subject for 
the best histrionic talent of our craft. It leads, too, into many interesting though half 
forgotten by-paths of history, and appropriate scenery might be found by reproducing 
views of the Hospital of the Knights of St. John at Rhodes. This famous building, erected 
about the time covered by the play, has recently been restored by the Italian administration 
of Rhodes and converted into a museu n of which it has been said that none other “in the 
Near East can vaunt a residence of such monumental and historic value.” 



Here, then, we have a play which, if not strictly Masonic, deals with subjects of great 
interest to Masons and leads to a deeper study of the origins and ramifications of our 
world-wide order. 


Charles S. Lobingier, China 


* * * 


THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE AND FREEMASONRY 


Widespread as are the enteiprises of the yeoman Catholic Church and of our ancient Craft 
there is one feature wherein we Freemasons are fettered. The Church of Rome has long 
encouraged and required a common means of intercommunication between the 
congregations of all countries. Latin is the language employed for this purpose. We need 
not now discuss the ecclesiastical dialect that is used by papal authority nor its suitability 
for the worshipper in his devotions; these are matters of some importance but we may put 
them aside for the present. Suffice it to say that the Roman Catholic Church has by 
universal choice of Latin enabled its priests and the executive officers of all ranks and of 
all nationalities to have an intercourse that has undoubtedly done much for uniformity of 
practice and the avoidance of misunderstanding. How much we as Freemasons have lost 
by lack of the very same benefits, only those of us may infer who seek to be informed of 
the work of the Fraternity the world over. 


For these reasons the several attempts at an international language have been followed 
with sympathetic interest in the hope that out of them there would arise a really practical 
means of reaching hands over the seas and the quicker gaining a knowledge of the status 
and aims of brethren abroad. 


At the various international language congresses attempts have been made to assemble the 
Freemasons in attendance. Such was the case at the one held at the Hague last fall. An 



English brother learning of my desire to know what might have been accomplished, was 
good enough to bring me into correspondence with the presiding officer of the Committee 
organized at the Hague. Synopsis of the business done there has been forwarded to me 
together with an announcement from the Secretary. These have been translated and they 
are submitted herewith: 


UNIVERSAL LEAGUE OF FREEMASONS 


A resume of the report of the Convention of Esperantist Freemasons at the Hague on the 
occasion of the Twelfth Universal Esperanto Congress. 


There were present at this convention thirteen Freemasons, male and female, from 
England, Holland and Seotland. Freemasons from Spain, Italy and France, although 
registered for the Hague Congress of Esperantists were not able to come to Holland. 


The President was Brother Paul Blaise, of the Lodge Albert of Belgium, London. 


The order of the day (program of procedure) was to reestablish the Universal League of 
Freemasons. 


The proposition was made that the Universal League of Freemasons be a League for the 
spread of Esperanto among Freemasons. 


As regards the question of who would be able to join the League, the President said “We 
will be as far as possible broadminded in the matter.” 


Concerning the first proposition they unanimously accepted the following resolution: 



“The Freemasons of the various nations, convened at the Hague, on the occasion of the 
Twelfth Universal Congress of Esperantists, express the desire that the Universal League 
of Freemasons be re-established with the object of studying the best means of spreading 
our language among the Freemasons of all countries.” 


Concerning the second proposition they decided to accept as members all Freemasons, 
male or female, of whatsoever Grand Orient, Grand Lodge, or Order, he or she might be. 


Owing to various causes, the conference was of opinion that it would be best that the 
executive officers should have the headquarters in a neutral country. All were of the same 
opinion and Holland was selected as the headquarters home. 


As President they elected Brother Dreves Uitterdyk, Hilversum (Grand Orient of Holland), 
and as Secretary Brother F. Foulhaber, Borgerstrant 103, Amsterdam (Lodge “George 
Martin II, No. 93, Universal Co-Masonry”). 


After an inspiring address from the President, Brother Blaise, to zealously advocate our 
language in the Lodges, in order that we should have a great and more fruitful convention 
at Prague, the meeting was closed. 


(The Secretary adds the following communication.) 


Very dear Brethren and Sisters: 


Here is a resume of the report of our first after-the-war convention. Our League, while 
reawakened, yet is found in a chaotic condition. As regards many of its former members 
we do not know whether they are living. This nnnouncement is just to take measures to 



reunite the brokenup fraternal organization in order that we may fervently work for “our 
holy cause.” 


Relative to the needs of our International Language in an Order as important as is ours, we 
ought not to have unlike opinions. The Masonic Fraternity throughout the whole world 
fain would have it. The Institution where we are missionaries, asks for it. Many other 
important organizations already very well understand its utility and turn it to nccount. We, 
as bearers of the new culture, should not linger in the rear ranks. Our duty is to go in the 
front of the civilizing agencies and to show mankind its ideal and for that ideal point the 
wny. 


The field of our labor is great and ought to be systematically cultivated. As unity is the 
requisite for harmonious cooperation, the headquarters advises you to act as follows: 


1 . Make a translation of the above report and write an article about our language and get it 
printed in the Freemnsonss journal of your country. 


2. Subscribe to the “Bulletin,” the official organ of the International Bureau of Masonic 
Affairs. (Five Francs, yearly). The editor, Brother Quartier-In Tente, has promised to us a 
page dedicated to Esperanto. In that page will appear all information relating to our 
League. 


3. Have your address printed with the addition of the word “Esperantisto” in the Masonic 
Year-Book issued from the same office (Rue Beaux Arto 26, Neuchatel, Switzerland). 


4. Send all news concerning Esperanto in Freemasonry to the Secretary of the Universal 
League of Freemasons, also the issues of your Masonic publication in which appear 
articles about Esperanto. 



5. Let it be known when your Grand Lodge or Grand Orient will have national or 
international conventions in order that we may be able to consider in what manner our 
language may be better advertised during these meetings. 


6. Translate the various technical terms pertaining to our Order and if you are able the 
whole ritual of the three first degrees. It is necessary that we should have as far as possible 
and very soon the terms and the whole ritual in Esperanto in order that we will be ready 
when the language shall officially be neceptable. Send these to the Secretary so that we 
may Inter on compare the different translations and eventually offer a choice of them. 


7. Send as soon as you can your subscription for 1920. (Fifty Cents). Kindly forward it by 
international reply coupons. Following the payment you will receive your membership 
card. Seeing that this small sum at the preselit time will not suffice, and since the Treasury 
is in an empty state, gifts of money will be freely acceptable. 


8. Buy the very fine pamphlet “The Fiberty of Conscience and World-wide Freemasonry” 
(Fa Fibereco de la konscienco kaj In tutmonda Framasonaro), to be obtained from Sinjoro 
F. Schoofs, Anwerpen Kl. Beerstrant 45, Belgium, (10 centimes). 


9. Found a section of the Universal Feague of Freemnsons if in your neighborhood there 
are some Brother Esperantists. 


Fellow thinkers ! Between the several nationalities Brethren still find this great wall of 
diversity of tongues, this wall of n thousand years which shall divide them. Help us to 
destroy that wall. The great success of our Twelfth Congress give to us the needful energy: 
Onwards Fet each one fulfil the admonition of the Executive Officers according to his 
strength. If each bears n brick we shall be able to build the Temple. 


With fraternal salutations and handclasp. 



F. Faulhaber. 


On carefully reading the statements we are impressed by the fact that in the purpose to be 
broad the Committee has gone very far. We for example do not recognize as Masonic the 
organization of which the Secretary is a member. Therefore the project is very seriously 
handieapped at the very start and at headquarters. The reader will also note that among the 
suggestions is the one of translating the rituals. Of course this is out of the question for an 
American Freemason. But the particulars are all of much importance to us and we hope 
that other attempts may bring results in which we Americans can take an active part. This 
article will at any rate show the necessity for great care in correspondence with foreigners 
claiming to be members of the Craft. Robert I. Clegg, Illinois. 


* * * 


HAYWOOD'S “VEST POCKET HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY” 


The Book Committee of the Cincinnati Masonic Library Association, after careful 
examination, has recommended that the Library purchase one hundred copies of “A Vest 
Pocket History of Freemasonry,” by H. L. Haywood, and acting upon this 
recommendation, I have been authorized to make such purchase. 


For a long time we have been trying to locate some small pamphlet that would cover the 
subject of Masonry generally that could be read by the average young man in less than an 
hour, and yet contain enough detail to be interesting enough to carry the reader through to 
the end. Most short works have attempted to make the subject matter interesting through 
the use of fiction, or assertions based more on the imagination of an unreliable writer than 
on known facts, and it is a dangerous thing to place a work of this kind in the hands of one 
who is reading his first book on Masonry, and who, in nine cases out of ten, will make the 
first book his last, through one excuse or another. 



It is the beginner you have to coax to read, and it is usually harder to get him to read the 
second book than it was the first, and, I understand, this is true generally throughout the 
country. 


It seems to me that writers should have these things in mind when writing on the various 
Masonic subjects today. It certainly would be a big help to librarians in increasing the 
circulation of books in their libraries, and, in the near future, Masons would be generally 
the better informed. You can not create interest in a dry and voluminous work of any kind, 
except in a book-worm, and there are very few book-worms being taken into the Masonic 
fraternity today. With all due respect to the lodges and their membership, most of them are 
book-shy. 


Brother Haywood has carried out well the idea we have had for some time, and if I had 
any criticism to offer, it would be that he should keep in mind the fact that a great many 
Masons who should, at least, read the work, are men who for the first time are hearing of 
the persons, creeds, sects, times and places mentioned by him, when they see these in his 
essay, and that particular care should be taken that explanatory phrases are added, 
wherever these appear, that the reader may not become discouraged because he is a little 
weak on history or literature. In almost every instance Brother Haywood seems to have 
had this in mind, and I felt that I wanted you to know our appreciation of his and the 
Research Committee's efforts along this line, and we shall await with interest the future 
efforts of these people as promised in the “Foreword” of the pamphlet referred to. 


I do not mean to discredit the need of larger and more detailed and comprehensive works - 
not at all, for they are necessary adjuncts to the library of any reliable writer, but I am 
more concerned with the beginner in Masonry just now. 


I might say that it is our puipose to take up this pamphlet with the Masters of each of the 
lodges in this county, and those across the river in Kentucky, about fifty in all, and urge 
that each Master adopt the policy of presenting this pamphlet to each Mason as he is 
raised, having the lodges get their supply through us, selling to them at the exact cost to us. 



Frank S. Bonham, Secretary and Librarian, 

The Masonic Library Association, Cincinnati, Ohio. 


* * * 


CANDIDATE RAISED BY FATHER AND BROTHERS 


The Masons of Butte, Montana, had a unique experience of witnessing the conferring of 
the degrees in Masonry on the seventh son of one of the members of the fraternity when 
Charles R. Gieser became a member of Butte Lodge No. 22, A. F. & A. M., the work of all 
three degrees being conferred during sessions at which all of the stations, from Worshipful 
Master to Junior Steward, were filled by the father and six brothers of the candidate. It is a 
record for Montana for the father and six of his sons to confer the degrees of Masonry on 
the seventh son. Another feature of the work that was out of the ordinary is that only one 
of the members of the Gieser family has ever held office in a Masonic lodge, although they 
are all enthusiastic Masons and all members of Butte Lodge No. 22. George Gieser, Jr., is 
Senior Warden of Butte Lodge No. 22. 


Warren E. Coman, Montana. 


* * * 


THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF SOME OF OUR SYMBOLS 



It is a cardinal principle in treating of Masonic symbols that most of them have been 
imported into our modern ritual minus the original explanation of their significance and 
minus any explanation at all worthy of the name. 


Indeed the whole treatment of the subject should resolve itself to this: 


1 . The establishment of this principle. 


2. Study of the question in each case why the true meaning is lost. It is usually conjectured 
that the early ritual mongers adopted the symbols not knowing the meaning and not caring 
much. An alternative conjecture, in many cases, is that the true significance frightened 
them. They were very orthodox, very narrow, very conventional and very unscrupulous 
with the unscrupulousness of highly moral, self-righteous men. 


3. Especially the study from countless sources outside of Masonry as to what Masonic 
symbols may be conjectured to have originally meant. 


The meanings assigned in the modem ritual are almost invariably not worth considering or 
learning or passing an examination upon. 


Perhaps the most striking illustration of point two is the sun and moon as symbols. I do not 
doubt but that they really meant something to our medieval brethren nor that the 
Presbyterians who had Masonry in their charge in 1717 would have altered that genuine 
significance to the childish explanation of the ritual of today puiposely if they did not do it 
ignorantly. 


Compare the fact that one of the Scottish Rite degrees originally taught the Manichaean 
heresy and that traces thereof can be found therein today. Not for nothing has Freemasonry 



been denounced as devil worship. Of course the fire is in ludicrous disproportion to the 
smoke but it is true here as often that where is much smoke there is some fire. 


Consider the explanation given of one symbol that “it teaches Masons to be general lovers 
of the arts and sciences.” Can any one doubt but that is a substitution for the original 
explahation? I believe that to have been almost the most significant of all their symbols to 
the medieval ancestors of modem Masonry. 


All this is suggested by the treatise upon the “Book of Constitutions” contained in the 
February BUILDER. 


I do not doubt but that symbol originated in the practice in medieval times of securing a 
“book” as the warrant for constituting a new lodge. The treatment of this symbol would 
consist in getting together all the information available as to what such book consisted of 
and how the book was secured. I do not puipose treating it but to show what I mean I refer 
to that Chapter of Gould's History entitled the “Stonemasons of Germany.” 


Modem writers almost always in treating of this symbol wander down to the modem 
“constitutions” of Grand Lodge. There is no analogy. The modem article which most 
nearly resembles the “Book of Constitutions” is the lodge charter. The significance of 
showing that guarded by the Tyler's sword is obvious. Past Grand Master Upton 
somewhere speaks of the “ludicrous idea” that the modem Grand Lodge Constitution 
corresponds to the ancient Book of Constitutions referred to in the ritual. A. G. Pitts, 
Michigan. 


* * * 


PUBLICATIONS WANTED 



We are constantly receiving inquiries from members of the Society and others as to where 
they might obtain books on Masonry and kindred subjects, other than those listed each 
month on the inside back cover of THE BUILDER. Most of the publications wanted have 
been out of print for a number of years. Believing that many such books might be in the 
hands of other members of the Society willing to dispose of them we are setting apart this 
column of THE BUILDER each month for the use of our readers. Communications from 
those having old Masonic publications for disposal will also be welcomed. 


Postoffice addresses are here given in order that those interested may communicate direct 
with each other. 


By Bro. Elmer G. Smith, Box 102, Tooele Utah, “The Cathedral Builders,” by Leader 
Scott; “Ancient Charges,” by W. J. Hughan. 


By Bro. N. W. J. Haydon, 564 Pape Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a copy of Da Costa's 
“Dionysiac Artificers.” Brother Haydon has been trying for years to find a copy of this 
work, but without success, and will gladly enter into an arrangement with some more 
fortunate brother for the temporary loan of a copy. 


By Bro. T. J. Fox, 638 East Water St., Princeton, Indiana, “Mystic Masonry,” by J. D. 
Buck. 


By Mrs. Albert Clark Stevens, 80 South Clinton St., East Orange, N. J., Volumes 1 to 4 
and 15 to 30, inclusive, Universal Masonic Library. 


By Bro. H. M. Jacobs, 10212 64th Ave. South, Seattle, Washington, “Ahiman Rezon,” 
Mackey; “Comparison of Egyptian Symbols and Hebrew,” by F. Portal; “The Chaldean 
Account of Genesis, etc.,” by Geo. Smith; “The Temple of Solomon,” Open Court Co., 
Chicago; “The Temple of the Jews,” by Ferguson; “Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan 
People,” by Schroeder.