The Builder Magazine

October 1918 - Volume IV - Number 10

 

THE HOUSE OF THE TEMPLE

BY BRO. H. L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

MORE than a year has passed since I paid my first visit to the House of the Temple, headquarters for the Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction, which stands in Washington, but the impressions remain as vividly as though I had seen it yesterday. There are many remarkable buildings in our Capital City, some of them historic, a few of them beautiful; but, with the possible exception of the Capitol building itself, the House of the Temple is the most wonderful and beautiful of them all. He who has seen the building, outside and inside, will say this whether he be a Mason or not.

 

I shall never forget my first view of it. On a misty April morning it stood amid the fog as something almost eerie and unearthly, like that palace which Coleridge saw in his vision of Kubla Khan; there was that about it which seemed to speak of antiquity, as though the genius of the ancient East had wandered into the Capital City of the new West; it had an air of timelessness about it which made it hard to believe that it had not yet been completed five years.

 

In general shape it is patterned after the original Mausoleum which Queen Artemisia erected to contain the ashes of her husband three hundred and fifty-three years before the birth of Christ. The body of the building is cubical, as is appropriate in a structure which is to serve as an altar of Freemasonry. The roof is a series of stone terraces which rise to an apex. The decorative work around the cornice is as beautiful as was ever seen on a Grecian Temple.

 

The building is much larger than it first appears, especially when seen from a distance. One approaches it up a series of three, five, seven and nine steps; the platforms between these series are so wide that one could set a large building on each one. At either side stands a huge sphinx, dreaming and brooding with level eyes, as though it were still standing on the banks of Mother Nile.

 

My mind still lay under the hush of these eternal watchers when I knocked at the door and was received by a guide who is there to take care of the hundred or more visitors who enter the portals every day. He stowed my umbrella away in a safe place and told me to feel at home. But one couldn't very well feel at home home in that magnificent, but subdued, atrium in which I found myself. Far overhead was a carved and gilded ceiling, like a dream of beauty in the upper twilight; on either side was a row of giant monoliths, pillars of the house, of green Vermont granite, their sides fluted. Behind each of these stood a seat, also of granite; in the center was a table of Cavanazza marble. At the further end was the curving stairway which leads to the council chamber of the Supreme Council; to break the coldness of its white marble, John Russell Pope had set in a band of dark marble; it is one of the boldest strokes of architectural genius about the entire building. Keeping watch at the foot of this stairway were two Egyptian figures, a further reminder, were one needed, that Masonry is as old as the world.

 

On both sides of this atrium, or lobby, are the doors leading into the offices of Grand Commander, the Secretary General and the library; at the left side is the entrance into the executive chamber of the Supreme Council; these walnut doors are so hidden away in the shadows at the side that they do not disturb the unity or serenity of the great chamber itself.

 

From Secretary General Brother John H. Cowles I received a welcome as warm as the cheerful fire which blazed in the wide fireplace near his desk. He introduced me to the Librarian, Brother William L. Boyden, who "showed me around" the library. Being something of a bibliomaniac I have been privileged to see many libraries but none that I have ever entered has left quite the same impression. It is dignified but homelike and the atmosphere about it was almost as conducive to prayer as to study. The library room proper lies in a corner of the building; it opens into a semi-circular series of stack-rooms which stretch across the end of the building that lies opposite to the entrance.

 

The center of interest in the library (stack-rooms) is the collection of mementoes of Albert Pike. Here were several photographs, one of his body lying in a casket; here was one of the quill pens with which he wrote; the scrap of paper containing his last words before death; badges and ribbons which once decorated his breast; family albums; his family Bible, and a ritual which he wrote. There was also a collection of pipes, one of them valued at $600, a prize winner at the Paris Exposition. Brother Boyden told me that the General had used every one of them; the size of two or three gave me an added respect for the General's powers. One of them looked as though it would have held enough tobacco for a week's smoke.

 

The center of the Pike collection, it needs not be said, was in the cases full of his original manuscripts. He had written all of these by hand, with meticulous care, so that one might look through several pages without seeing so much as one misformed letter; the writing was not in the usual flowing script but more like a page of copperplate, the letters being shaped like print. Of these manuscripts, all of them bound like books, there were, I believe, about eighty: "Maxims of Roman Law" in thirteen volumes; "Maxims of Military Science and Art" in six volumes; "Vocabulary of Indian Language" in one volume; materials for a history of France in six volumes (part of this has been published); "Commentaries of the Kabbala" in two volumes; Masonic Rituals in twelve volumes; moreover there was also a volume of biography written by his secretary from notes dictated by Pike himself. There were many volumes of Eastern Philosophy which he had translated. These evidences of the man's titantic intellect impress one almost more than the size and grandeur of the building in which they are preserved.

 

In addition to all this there was a compass which he had used in the Southwest; his set of chess men; a chair which he had constructed for himself, with a patent, spring in it for raising and lowering the back; his ring for the fourteenth degree, and much of his Masonic Regalia. It may be added that the last words before mentioned were addressed to Brother Frederick Webber, Secretary General at that time, and read as follows:

 

"Shalom: Peace --that comes with blessing to carefretted men, when death's dreamless sleep ends all suffering and sorrow."

 

One of the rare mementoes in the library is a signature of Albert Mackey made in January, 1859. Among the 85,000 volumes in the library, 40,000 are on Masonic subjects. There is also a collection of rare old Scottish Rite patents and many other documents of almost priceless value. About the room stand some six busts, one of them of Pike; these faces of past leaders, and the thousands of volumes ranged about them, brought home to one's mind how vast has been the intellectual labor devoted to Masonry.

 

On the same floor with the library is the executive chamber of the Supreme Council. Honorary members of the Council are permitted to attend when meetings are held in the great chamber on the second floor but only "active Thirty-Thirds" are ever admitted to the executive chamber while the Supreme Council is in session there. The room is so beautiful as to defy description. It is the most beautiful room that I ever saw. An altar stands in the center; seats for the members are built against the wall, and each seat is furnished with an accoustic apparatus which enables the hard-of-hearing to catch every word that is uttered. Needless to say, there is a complete telephone service in this and in every room in the building. It would be hard to find anything that is lacking in that marvelous structure.

 

The floor immediately beneath this is mainly devoted to the banquet room, albeit there are a number of committee rooms around the side. In the banquet room are twelve tables which will seat ninety-six men; chairs and tables are in fumed quartered oak, ivory finish; carpets, hangings and walls would make a king proud. Behind the banquet room is a serving room, completely tiled, and furnished with every imaginable convenience.

 

Immediately underneath is a kitchen that would make any housewife green with envy. I shall not describe that kitchen lest every woman who chances to read this will apply for a position there the next time the Supreme Council meets. It is a dream of a-kitchen. On this same floor is a heating plant, with capacity for four hundred tons of coal; also a ventilating plant that cost $80,000.00, and actually ventilates.

 

Somewhere on one or the other of these two lower floors (I do not remember just where) I ran across the office of that genial and well-read Mason, Brother Horace P. McIntosh, the editor of The New Age. He told me many strange things about Masonry in foreign parts, all of which were true, for, though Brother McIntosh was once a sailor, he is also a Scotchman. He showed me a complete file of The New Age with a great deal of pride, as was fitting, because The New Age is the best Masonic magazine in the world with the exception of one; what that one is I am too modest to say.

 

The heart and soul of the House of the Temple is the Supreme Council Chamber which occupies the floor just above the entrance floor. The door leading into the chamber is itself a supreme work of art; it is of oak covered with leather. Just inside is a high wooden screen which shuts off the view of the interior when the door is opened; in a concealed room above this door is the pipe organ, not a sign of which is anywhere visible in the chamber itself. I shall not attempt to describe the chamber itself; I don't know how.

 

At the center stands an altar of black marble, round the bottom of which runs this legend:

 

"From the light of the Divine Word, the Logos, comes the wisdom of life and the goal of initiation."

 

As a frieze about the room runs another sentence, also selected by Brother George F. Moore, Grand Commander:

 

"Unto the Divine Light of the Holy Altar, from the outer darkness of ignorance, through the shadow of our earth life, runs the beautiful path of initiation."

 

Above the Grand Commander's station is a vast window, round which coils a huge serpent which symbolizes, one may suppose, wisdom. Along the two sides of the room are twenty-six desks for the active members; behind these are seats for the honorary members. There are great windows at the side hung with massive curtains, and at the top are sky-light windows, the shades over which are operated electrically. The furniture is in Circassian walnut. This sounds as if the room might appear luxurious, but it is not so; the effect is one of quiet dignity and grace, as befits the council chamber of a Scottish Rite.

 

At one corner of the room, behind a small door, is a spiral stairway leading down to the bottommost floor. One look down that dizzy well of space helps one to understand the total height of the building, which is more than four stories, though it does not appear so high from the street.

 

Everything about the building was especially designed for it; nothing was used out of stock. The entire structure, it may be said for those who are curious about such matters, cost more than two million dollars. Some fifteen or more employed in the building all of the time.

 

The erection of the House of the Temple was under the direction of an executive committee of five, the chairman of which was Brother Charles E. Rosenbaum, of Little Rock, Arkansas, General Pike's old home. The architect was John Ruessell Pope, whose design for the building won the national architectural prize in 1916.

 

The House of the Temple is the Headquarters of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite; it is also a monument to the memory of General Albert Pike whose genius made the Scottish Rite what it is. As one walks through it he feels as if the heroic, scholarly, eloquent spirit of that great character were hovering about him.

 

----o----

 

THE MASON'S HOLY HOUSE

(By Albert Pike)

 

We have a Holy House to build,

A Temple splendid and divine

To be with glorious memories filled;

Of Right and Truth to be the Shrine;

How shall we build it strong and fair--

This Holy House of praise and prayer

Firm set and solid, grandly great?

How shall we all its rooms prepare

For use, for ornament, for State?

 

Our God hath given the wood and stone

And we must fashion them aright,

Like those who toiled on Lebanon,

Making the labor their delight;

This House, this palace, this God's Home,

This Temple with its lofty dome,

Must be in all proportions fit

That heavenly messengers may come

To lodge with those who tenant it.

 

Build squarely upon the stately walls

The two symbolic columns raise,

And let the lofty courts and halls

With all their golden glories blaze

There, in the Kadosh Kadoshim

Between the broad-winged cherubim,

Where the Shekinah once abode

The heart shall raise its daily hymns

Of gratitude and love to God.

 

----o----

 

SPECULATIVE MASONRY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

 

BY BRO. OSSIAN LANG. GRAND HISTORIAN. GRAND LODGE OF NEW YORK

 

PART II

 

CENTRAL TENETS OF THE BRETHREN OF THE ROSY CROSS

 

FLUDD and Frisius agree in essential points. As the "Summum Bonum" supplies all we need for our present purpose, we may gather from this work whatever information is desired for our inquiry. The central symbolism turns around the stone, Aben, (1) and the building of the House of Wisdom. There is an abundance of allegorical uses of the word stone or stones, in the Old and New Testaments, which are made use of by Frisius to justify the philosophy of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross.

 

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways Go up to the hill-country and bring wood and build the house." --Haggai I, 78.

 

"They that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord." --Zechariah VI, 15.

 

"Wisdom hath builded a house, She hath hewn out her seven pillars." --Proverbs IX, 1.

 

"Through wisdom is a house builded,  "And by understanding it is established;  "And by knowledge are the chambers filled  "With all precious and pleasant riches." --Proverbs XXIV, 3-4.

 

"The wise man buildeth his house upon a rock. The rains may descend and the floods come; the winds may blow and beat upon that house: it will not fall; for it is founded upon a rock." --St. Matthew VII, 24-25.

 

Aben, Frisius argues, is the cabalistic stone. In it, we have the Holy Trinity. For in Hebrew, Ab means Father and Ben Son; but where the Father and the Son are present there the Holy Ghost must also be.

 

Aben is then explained as the foundation stone of the universe, the macrocosm. ("The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof ?"--Job XXXVIII, 1, 4, 6.)

 

The macrocosmic Aben, then, is the foundation stone of all and for all. It was laid in Zion, and all the prophets and apostles built upon it, though the ignorant and wicked builders rejected it as a stumbling block and stone of contention:

 

"Thus saith the Lord God: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, "A tried stone, a costly corner-stone of sure foundation. "He that believeth shall not make haste. "And I will make justice the line, "And righteousness the plummet." --Isaiah XXVIII, 16-17.

 

"According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise Master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.... For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." --St. Paul, 1; Cor. III, 10-11.

 

"The stone which the builders rejected "Is become the chief corner-stone." --Psalm CXVIII, 22.

 

"As it is written in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth in him shall not be confounded.

 

"Unto you, therefore, which believe, he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient." --I Peter II, 6-7-8.

 

If we consider the significance of Aben for the individual man (the microcosm, or the universe on a small scale), we find we are parts of the same spiritual stone, "cut out of that catholic (universal) rock":

 

"Coming to Christ, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious: Ye also, as living stones, be ye built up a spiritual house." --I Peter II, 4-6.

 

In other words: Build yourselves upon Christ, as the foundation stone, as living stones, to a house of God.

 

"We are labourers together with God: Ye are God's husbandry, Ye are God's building." --I Cor. III, 9.

 

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile this temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy which temple ye are." --I Cor. III, 16-17.

 

 Nor are those excluded who are-not of our faith. The temple of God is built up of all men who seek Him and strive to know Him. Quoting John, the Baptist: "Say not within yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father': for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."

 

The plan of the building which the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross is seeking to establish is given in the words of Hebrews XIII, 1: "Let brotherly love continue."

 

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." --Psalm CXXXIII, 1.

 

An example of the mystic, allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures, met with everywhere in Rosy Cross literature, is the following:

 

As Christ was hidden in that Rock or Stone, before the days of Moses, since the spiritual is usually concealed in the physical, so also does Moses conceal in his writings the spiritual Aben; that is why we say he wrote under a veil, i. e. mystically. That is why the Apostle Paul says (II Cor. III, 6) "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

 

"The Lord said unto Moses, Behold, I will stand before thee, there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shall smite the rock, and  there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink." --Exodus XVII, 6.

 

"Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; "And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; "And did all eat the same spiritual meal; "And did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that went with them: and that Rock was Christ."     --I Cor. X, 1-4.

 

Alchemistically expressed, the water which sprang from the Rock was potable gold, the word of God, words of Wisdom.

 

That suggests also what we Alchemists mean when we speak of producing gold. It is not the gold the multitude hankers for. Ours is living gold, the gold of God, that which the Psalmist calls silver:

 

"The words of the Lord are pure words, "As silver tried in a crucible on the earth,  refined seven times." --Psalm XII, 7.

 

The Rosy Cross alchemy in the transmutation of base metals into gold, is not that of the spurious Rosicrucians who deceive the avaricious by false promises; it takes the base, natural man and turns him by its art into a new, spiritual man, through the Word of God and the practice of charity.

 

In the same manner the rough ashlar is turned into a perfect ashlar.

 

As God has promised to dwell among men, to have his tabernacle among them, we must with all our strength and with spiritual tools strive for Aben. As the prophet Isaiah says: "Ye that seek the Lord, Look unto the rock whence ye were hewn." (Isaiah LI, 1.)

 

The first step toward finding this Rock (the Philosopher's Stone) is to look for it within yourself; hence begin to know thyself. If you desire help from the writings of the Alchemists, remember that these wrote them in a veiled, mystic manner. Thus Darnaeus says "Change--oh! change yourselves from dead stones into living philosophical stones !"

 

In order to realize the chemical steps of progression, we must first seek to discover the true sense of the Alchemists through careful insight. Then it will be found that they wrote differently and wanted to be understood differently. (Masonically speaking, one must first possess "the key of a fellowcraft" to interpret correctly.)

 

We summarize, as follows; always following the "Summum Bonum":

 

The human body is a temple. Christ is its cornerstone. When we raise this corner-stone, His temple is also raised, as was the Temple of Solomon, when his players were fulfilled and the glory of the Lord descended.

 

"Similarly, Kephas and Aben were at one time only dead stones, now become living stones through an actual transmutation, in that from the condition of Adam after his fall from grace they transformed themselves into Adam's original state of innocence and perfection; just as if there had been effected a transmutation from ordinary dirty lead into the purest gold. And this transmutation took place by the intermediation of that living gold as of the mystic stone of the Philosophers, which to us represents the divine emanation of wisdom. This wisdom, however, is the gift of God, and nothing else."

 

MORE LIGHT FROM THE "SUMMUM BONUM"

 

The study of true Magic, the Cabala and chemistry are the sciences called the three principal columns of the house of wisdom. By Magic is meant the art of wisdom practised by the Magi who came to worship the new born Christ. Cabala stands for mystic mathematics (or strength). Chemistry is explained as the study of nature (beauty). The true Brethren of the Rosy Cross are called architects who build the house of God, after the manner already explained.

 

Why did the Brethren adopt the name of the Rosy Cross? There is an order of the Holy Cross. The Knights who went to war against the Saracens bore on their cloaks the emblem of a deep red cross. The Brethren have chosen the true and living cross of Christ as the emblem of wisdom, that mystic wisdom which the Bible calls the Tree of Life whose root is the Word of Light.

 

The color of the cross is that of blood or as that of red roses mixed with lilies.

 

(We omit all mystic elaboration of the ideas here briefly indicated nor do we include other matters which have no bearing on the development of the Freemasonry of the Symbolic Lodge.)

 

R. C. BRETHREN AS MASTER BUILDERS AND FORM OF THE LODGE

 

Finally, the Brother is to labor at the perfecting of this work in the character of an architect, or master builder. (I Cor. III, 10-11).

 

In order that the structure may be firmly established, in order that we may arrive at the rosy blood of the cross hidden within the foundation stone, we must dig from the surface to the center, we must seek and knock; unless we pursue our work with zeal, all our efforts will be wasted. All bodies have manifest height, occult depth and intermediate breadth. From the manifest form of a body we can only conjecture what its occult form must be, when we destroy the manifest to advance to the revelation of its occult form. The truth of this is found when we contemplate the depth of the geometric cube.

 

The wise artist and the true religious philosopher must penetrate the earth and labor in every particle of the threefold dimension, if he wants to find the true rectangular foundation stone which God has laid in the foundation of the earth (Job 38, 4-6). Then he will know that "the love of Christ passeth knowledge, and that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." (Eph. III, 19).

 

Then knock and strike zealously and strenuously, for "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." (Heb. XII, 4). Here the Apostle teaches us occultly that a transgression here, something foreign there, not emanating from the pure truth which is Christ Jesus, is present, which must be broken off and gotten rid of, from the human or soul-endowed stone; then truth will illumine the master builder and true Brother, and it will gleam in a rose-red or blood-colored glow, and he will see in this divine light his own light and receive and enjoy at last the wages of his labors. Then he shall be justly called a Brother of the Rosy Cross and he shall be called a member of the true Fraternity.

 

THE ROYAL ART

 

Everything thus far has been gathered from the "Summum Bonum," arranged so as to serve best our present purpose and in language more suitable to our times, without however changing the essence and the spirit. I shall add no extended comment. The brethren who are at home in the language, the symbols and the spirit of Freemasonry can gather their own conclusions. What has been gleaned from the work of Frisius, together with the notes on the symbolism of the Alchemists, would seem to be quite sufficient to explain why the Brethren of the Rosy Cross should have been considered the forebears of the Accepted Free Masons. Before offering a brief concluding summary, we must give a moment's attention to the development of the idea of the Royal Art which is the true name of Freemasonry.

 

First let us take another word from the "Summum Bonum," which describes the Rosy Cross view of the Royal Art:

 

There were in antiquity, four renowned schools of natural Magic, to-wit, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Chaldaic and the Egyptian. From the Persians came those three Kings (Magi, Wise Men) who were seeking the new born "King of the Jews," to present gifts unto Him and to worship Him. The sons of Persian Kings, as Plato has related in his "Alcibiades," were initiated into Magic that they might learn from the study of the pattern of the universe how best to govern their own dominions and to preserve order and administer justice therein. Cicero, too, speaks of this, in his "De Divinatione," saying that no one was crowned among the Persians with the royal diadem until after he had been fully instructed in Magic. That is why Oriental kings were so well grounded in wisdom and coveted the name of Magi or Wise Men. Hence those who came from the far East to worship the Christ child, were called by the Holy Spirit "Magi."

 

Recalling that in the early days of the Grand Lodge of England we met repeatedly with the declaration, "There have been Kings that have been of this sodality," we shall have another clue to the genealogy of Freemasonry, as it was conceived by the organizers of the speculative craft.

 

Or take this quotation from "The Master's Song" of the premier Grand Lodge:

 

Thus mighty Eastern Kings, and some  Of Abram's Race, and Monarchs good  Of Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.  True Architecture understood.

 

Who can unfold the ROYAL Art?  Or sing its Secrets in a Song?  They're safely kept in Mason's heart  And to the ancient Lodge belong.

 

Those familiar with the Constitutions of 1723 know what changes were made to make the ancient "Charges" conform to the newly established ideals of the Fraternity. What was there said regarding the attitude toward the "old Gothic Constitutions," applies also to the religious tenets of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross. The changes gave a simplified definition of the "Royal Art," though the spirit remained what it had been in the "Summum Bonum." Indicating the new meaning in the briefest form, I would answer:

 

What is the Royal Art? The practice of the Royal Law. And the Royal Law?

 

"If ye fulfill the Royal Law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well." So wrote St. James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, the same who declared that "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

In conclusion, I beg to submit a summary statement embodying findings based on many years of search to arrive at some sort of satisfactory solution of the puzzling question as to the derivation of the substance of Freemasonry. This summary is not complete and is intended to serve merely as a supplement to my paper on "Freemasonry and the Medieval Craft Gilds."

 

The establishment of Christianity was accomplished chiefly by the marvelous rise of the power of the Church and the rigid application of this power. The first need and therefore the first care was to establish catholic unity in the faith.

 

The disintegration of that which had been the Roman Empire had sounded the death knell for pagan civilization. An era of confusion followed. The most extravagant teachings were in circulation. Passions and vices ran riot because of the prevailing anarchy. A cult of a thousand years had been dispossessed by a young cult which had the promise of eternity but had not then been established firmly enough to compel respect. People hesitated between the creed of the yesterday and the creed of the tomorrow. There was one giant among men, who had the courage to choose, and having chosen, to battle for his creed without weakening. That was St. Augustin, the great Doctor of the Church, mystic and man of action, philosopher and master organizer and administrator. He united in himself the genius of the Semitic race with the wisdom of the Latins, the Greeks and the Alexandrians. He may well be called the establisher of the Roman Church which became, and for a thousand years thereafter remained, the supreme ruler of Western Europe. (2)

 

One indirect but quite logical effect of St. Augustin's war upon heresies was the suppression of every form of free speculation in philosophy. Unity of creed must be established at any cost. The apostasy of the Emperor Julian had convinced doubting ecclesiastics of the danger lurking in an unbridled freedom of study. Three years after the death of St. Augustin, the Fourth Council of Carthage (in 398) formally prohibited the reading of secular books even by the bishops. In 529, the philosophical schools were abolished by decree of Emperor Julian. (3)

 

Freedom of thought cannot be suppressed by decrees. But a check may be put on the expression of thought. And it was put on. Then there sprang up secret ("invisible") Colleges, Academies, Lodges, etc., for meetings of independent seekers after truth. In Italy, particularly, these secret associations-displayed great activity, hiding their real purposes under names, auspices and forms selected to mislead the watchful spies of the hierarchy. (4)

 

Members of the Academy of the Trowel, for example, would wear builders' aprons and display builders' tools, presenting the appearance of a gild of operative Masons. By giving mystic meanings to emblems of a seemingly operative character, they could freely discuss prohibited topics in a manner only understood by trusted initiates. If they wished to be regarded as men engaged in architectural subjects, they would try to have those present who were generally reputed to be interested in such matters. The membership was made up largely of scientists, philosophers, architects, musicians, painters, sculptors and poets.

 

In spite of their camouflage, the brethren of these "invisible" lodges were occasionally discovered. Yet so well were their secrets guarded that practically no first hand knowledge of them has come down to us, though we can obtain information enough from Roman Catholic sources, if we make proper allowances for always unmistakable prejudices. Thus Pastor in his famous "History of the Popes" refers to the "invisible" Roman Academy founded by Julius Pomponius Laetus, professor in the University of Rome, in the fifteenth century, as "the center of meetings for all discontented and pagan Humanists." We are told that the initiates adopted religious usages, regarded themselves as a college of priests, with Pomponius as Grand High Priest. Gregovorius who is quoted with approval, calls the Academy "a classical Freemasons Lodge."

 

The Brethren of the Academy of Pomponius were accused, under Pope Paul II (1464-1471), as having conspired to kill the Holy Father, that they were pagans and materialists, etc. Imprisonment and death threatened the Brethren. "Safety first" in those days meant punishing the accused first and investigating afterward. Most of the Academicians fled. Ultimately all were, on the principle of Scotch verdict, absolved from the charge of heresy. Owing to the intervention of the scholarly and liberal Cardinal Bessarion, Pomponius and the others were allowed the freedom of the city, under close surveillance.

 

The Academicians were predominantly Platonists. So were the members of most of the other forbidden secret societies (or occasional gatherings), while the Church officially upheld Aristotle and for a long time sought to suppress Plato to whom religion consisted essentially in the practice of justice.

 

In the Teutonic countries, speculative philosophers were to be found largely among the mystic Alchemists who are often spoken of as "Hermetic Philosophers," in Masonic writings. They had no central organization. Wherever two or three of them met together, they formed a lodge for mutual intercourse and the initiation of worthy candidates who, after a period of probation more or less extended, would be put in possession of the secret symbols and traditions whereby they might obtain a key to the literature of all the mystics.

 

In Great Britain, the Rosicrucian Alchemists were, as has been indicated, essentially Christian theosophists. They studied nature, but not for purely scientific purposes; they sought rather to discover in nature the traces of the mystic Supreme Architect of the Universe, revealed as well as concealed in and by the visible and discoverable phenomena.

 

The predominance of religious speculation led to the separation from the mystic Alchemists of those who preferred to specialize in the experimental study of nature. The philosophical reform work of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was probably the chief cause of the change.

 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, through the influence of Robert Fludd (1574-1671), the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross arose in Great Britain. This Fraternity represented the mystic portion of the Alchemists whose practices they followed. "Heresy" had been no safer under the Protestant "Bloody Bess" than it had been in Pre-Reformation times; the only difference being in the kind of "heresy" for which men were hanged or burned by the executioner of the power which happened to be in control at the time. That, together with the predilection for symbols having to do with house and temple building, no doubt accounts for the appearance of the names of reputed Rosicrucianism the membership lists of the operative gild of Masons. The Alchemists of an earlier day are supposed also to have been identified with this particular gild. The inference is that they formed occasional lodges of their own and were the "secret brotherhood" in the bosom of the Masons Company referred to in the records of that Company. This would account for the presence among the "Accepted" Masons of Elias Ashmole, Sir Robert Moray, Dr. Thomas Wharton, Sir George Wharton, William Oughtred, Dr. John Hewitt, the astronomer and astrologist, William Lily and Sir Christopher Wren, all of them distinguished scientists interested in the Rosy Cross program.

 

And now a word to account for the statement in the Constitutions of 1738, at a time when there were many alive who would have objected to it if it had not been true, that the decay of the lodges of Accepted Freemasons, shortly after 1708, was due to Sir Christopher Wren's neglect of the office of Grand Master. Gould's insistence that Wren was not a Freemason and never could have been Grand Master, in spite of trustworthy evidence which should have caused him not to be so positive, is easily explained. Gould is usually very careful, content with nothing but the original sources but it is quite evident here that he had never given serious consideration to the possibility of Rosy Cross relationships.

 

Sir Christopher Wren was a speculative Mason, nevertheless, and may have been known as Grand Master of the "Accepted" circle. His "neglect of the office" shortly after 1708 appears quite natural to me. That which had attracted him into the "Acceptation" was no doubt the calibre of the men who were associated with it and who were active in it. But, in 1662, there had been incorporated in London the Royal Society, which as time went on, absorbed more and more the spare time of the men more directly interested in scientific progress. After the close of the seventeenth century, "acceptation" of men of this stamp in the Masonic fraternity ceased altogether. The lodges became mere convivial clubs and for these Sir Christopher had no time.

 

This leads me to advance a conclusion for which I hope to have prepared the ground. I believe that the Royal Society and Freemasonry both sprang from the same original source or sources.

 

"Alchemy" which comprised in Pre-Reformation days all pursuits in science and philosophy had passed into Rosicrucianism. Bacon's "Novum Organum," in 1620, having established the necessity for specialization in experimental science, Rosicrucianism was doomed to final extinction. Bacon's "New Atlantis" (1624) set up a new ideal for men eager to enlist in the service of mankind by the advancement of civilization. (5)

 

"The New Atlantis" was written, as Diderot pointed out in the prospectus of the French Encyclopedistes, "at a time when, so to say, neither sciences nor arts existed." The twilight efforts of the Alchemists no longer sufficed. More light was wanted. Day was at hand. "Solomon's House, that beautiful dream of the philosopher, began to be realized less than forty years after his death." (6) The picture of Solomon's House drawn by Bacon in "The New Atlantis" was the model from which the Royal Society was built. (7) The historian of this Society, Dr. Thomas Sprat (1636-1713) Bishop of Rochester, made acknowledgment of this when he wrote: "I shall only mention one great man who had the true imagination of the whole extent of this enterprise, as it is now set on foot, and that is Lord Bacon." (8)

 

Professor Nichol sums up the established testimony of all authorities on the subject, in these words: (9) "It is admitted that the suggestion of the College of Philosophy instituted in London (1645) and after the Restoration extended into the Royal Society (1662) was due to the prophetic scheme of Solomon's House in the New Atlantis. Wallis, one of the founders of the Society, exalts him by name, along with Galileo, as heir master. Sprat says "It was a work becoming the largeness of Bacon's wit to devise and the greatness of Clarendon's prudence to establish." Boyle invokes for its inauguration "that profound naturalist * * * one great Verulam."

 

The spirit that animated the whole conception of Solomon's House was "the love of man and the honoring of God." The Royal Society limited its membership quite naturally to men considered capable of rendering eminent service to the advancement of scientific discovery. Thereby it assured the progress of the great work it had undertaken, but it limited, at the same time, the realization of the ideal pictured in the "New Atlantis." The consciousness of this fact, together with the remembrances of the derivation from the true seekers after truth among the earlier Alchemists, were, I am persuaded, the chief reasons which prompted many of the members of the Royal Society to join the "revived" Society of Freemasons, shortly after the establishment of the Grand Lodge of England. In Freemasonry they hoped for the complete and universal realization of the whole ideal of the "New Atlantis," with the Royal Society as the scientific center of Solomon's House.

 

This is, briefly and summarily told, my conclusion regarding the evolution of "Speculative" Freemasonry, more particularly during the seventeenth century, for "the love of man and the honoring of God." Imperfectly as the result of my researches is placed before you, my brethren, I hope to have at least suggested where to look for traces of the origins of our beloved Fraternity founded upon the Fatherhood of God, the mystic foundation stone of the universe, and the practice of the Royal Art which is the fulfilment of the Royal Law according to the Scripture: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'

 

POSTSCRIPT

 

I trust I have not given the impression that the substance of modern Freemasonry was derived from the Rosicrucians. An organized Fraternity of the Rosy Cross probably never existed outside of books. The writings of Fludd and Frisius formulated for Great Britain a body of Rosy Cross tenets differing in essential points from the teachings of the Rosicrucians of Continental Europe. English and Scottish Alchemists followed Fludd and Frisius. Their attempts to translate the plans of these leaders into practice, appears to have induced some of them to form occasional lodges, either independently under the designation of Freemasons--the name of Rosicrucian having fallen into disrepute--or in the bosom of Masonic craft gilds, as a separate "secret brotherhood" of Accepted Freemasons. Read in connection with "Freemasonry and the Medieval Craft Gilds," the suggestion will be clearly understood.

 

Freemasonry, as established by the Constitutions of 1722-3, represents the confluence of two streams, each having many tributaries: The sources of the one stream must be looked for in the Anglo-Saxon gyld, and its name is democracy; the sources of the other must be looked for in the earliest academies of philosophers searching for the One Living God, Father of all men, and its name is liberty of conscience.

 

(1) Aben or Eben (as in Ebenezar) is Hebrew for stone.

(2) For a vivid picture of life in the fourth century, the period so trying for men's souls, I refer those who read French to the charming, wonderful book of Louis Bertrand on "St. Augustin."

(3) See Laurie's "Rise of Universities," first two chapters.

(4) Especially from the fourteenth century onward.

(5) "Doubtless it was one of Bacon's highest hopes that from the growth of true knowledge would follow in surprising ways the relief of man's estate; this, as an end, runs through all his yearning after a fuller and surer method of interpreting nature." --Dean Church.

(6) M.C. Adam's "Philosophie de F. Bacon," Paris, 1890, p. 328. Bacon died on April 9th, 1626. The London "College of Philosophy" which became the Royal Society, was instituted in 1645.

(7) G.C. Moorr Smith, in his edition of "The New Atlantis,' (Pitt Press Series) Cambridge, 1900, page 28.

(8) "History of the Royal Society," edition of 1667, page 35.

(9) "Francis Bacon; His life and Philosophy," (Blackwood's Phil. Classics) 1889, vol. II, p. 136.

 

----o----

 

SYMBOLISM OF THE THREE DEGREES

 

BY BRO. OLIVER DAY STREET, ALABAMA

 

PART III THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MASTER MASON DEGREE

 

MANY of the lessons of the third degree are obvious to the most superficial mind, but others (and these the most important) are grasped only after long and patient study. I shall not attempt anything original, but only lay before you in an imperfect way a few of the reflections and conclusions of some of our most trustworthy Masonic scholars.

 

I believe it susceptible of the clearest proof that Freemasonry, viewed in the aggregate, is an elaborate allegory of human life, that the three degrees considered collectively, symbolically epitomize man's existence both here and in the hereafter. My excuse for recurring to this idea is that in my judgment Speculative Masonry can not be otherwise adequately explained. The lodge is emblematical of the world; initiation, of birth; the Entered Apprentice, of the preparatory stage of life, or youth; the Fellow Craft, of the construction stage, or manhood; the Master Mason, of the reflective stage, or old age, death, the resurrection, and the everlasting life. This explanation of the three degrees is briefly given in our lecture on the "Three Steps" delineated on the Master's Carpet. Any symbol or any meaning attributed to a symbol which does not legitimately contribute to this allegory may be discarded as nonMasonic.

 

THE ANTIQUITY OF MASONIC SYMBOLISM

 

The age of our symbolism is an important question in this connection, because upon it to a great extent depend the meanings that must be assigned to our symbols. While some of them may be of comparatively modern origin, many of them are older than the oldest written language.

 

Says Brother Robert Freke Gould, one of the most cautious of our historians:

 

"The symbolism of Masonry, or at all events a material part of it, is of very great antiquity, and in substance the system of Masonry we now possess, including the three degrees of the Craft, has come down to us in all its essentials from times remote to our own." (1)

 

Another of our historians of the most exacting school, Brother William J. Hughan, declares that "symbolism in connection with Freemasonry antedates our oldest records."

 

Even this cautious statement would date our symbolism back more than five hundred years, and Brother Gould is on record as declaring that, if it can be put back that far, there is practically no limit backward to which its beginning must be assigned. (2)

 

Another distinguished Masonic scholar, Brother George William Speth, records his belief that "the greater part of our symbolism (including all essentials) is undoubtedly medieval at least, and probably centuries older than that." (3)

 

Still another, Brother William Simpson, distinguished as an orientalist, says:

 

"The more important Masonic symbols are ancient and their true meanings can only be found by tracing them back into the past. This will be found to be particularly the case with the third degree; its true meaning can only be realized by the study of similar rites which appear to go far back into the history of our race." (4)

 

These are the opinions of men who, noted for their scholarship, have disregarded our Masonic traditions and studied the question from the purely historical viewpoint.

 

Following them, (and if they cannot be followed there are none who can be,) our symbolism has come down to us from ancient times.

 

Of some of these symbols we know a part at least of their meanings, but of some we know nothing at all. We get a hint from Brother Pike that much of our symbolism has been forgotten, and Brother Gould asserts the same and declares that "to a considerable portion of the symbolism of Freemasonry, even at this day, no meaning can be assigned which is entirely satisfactory to the intelligent mind." (5)

 

Heckethorn, a non-Mason, says that many of the mystical figures and schemes of very ancient times are preserved in Masonry though their meaning is no longer understood by the Fraternity. (6)

 

It should therefore be obvious that if we are ever to reacquire this lost knowledge, we must have recourse to the records and institutions of ancient times.

 

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

 

Do we find any institutions in ancient times similar to our own and employing our symbols for like purposes? I answer at once that we do.

 

In all periods from the dawn of history till about the fifth century, A. D., there is recorded the existence in nearly every known country of secret societies which, so far as our knowledge of them enables us to judge, were strikingly like Freemasonry in all except name. Our foremost Masonic historian, Brother Gould, says that they taught precisely the same doctrines in precisely the same way. These ancient societies bearing different names in different countries, yet appearing everywhere to have been the same thing, are generally termed "The Ancient Mysteries."

 

In Egypt they were known as the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis, and these appear to have been the model for all others. They prevailed in Egypt, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, and many other countries. The most ancient of these were certainly in existence as early as 3000 B. C., and some of them were still flourishing in Western Europe, in a corrupted state, it is true, as late as the fourth century of the Christian era.

 

Notwithstanding their differences in name, it does not admit of a doubt that they were all substantially the same; "so much so," it has been said by high Masonic authority, "that we may conclude either that they were all independent copies from a great original or that they were propagated one from another." Brother Gould, than whom no more judicious historian has ever written on any subject, thinks they were only differentiated types of one original form of worship, the object of which was in every instance the God of Light and of Truth and of Beneficence. The Osiris of Egypt, the Brahma of India, the Mithras of Persia, the Bacchus (or Dionysius) of Greece, the Bel (or Baal) of the Chaldeans, the Belenus of Gaul, the Baldur of Scandanavia, the Adonis of Phoenicia, and the Adonai of the Jews were all the same god; each, to his own people, was the Supreme One, the Creator, the Enlightener, Lord and Master. All the mysteries taught a more or less pure system of monotheism, though coupled with the idea of a Trinity, or one God in three persons. Their Trinity differed from ours, however, in that they conceived it to be a male, female and off'spring, or Father, Mother and Son. They taught also the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul. (7)

 

Cicero tells us that in the Elusinian Mysteries they were taught to live virtuously and happily and to die in the hope of a blessed futurity. (8)

 

"The great doctrine of immortality of the soul," says Brother Gould, "and the teachings of the two lives, the present and the future, are to be found in the Ancient Mysteries, where precisely the same doctrines were taught in precisely the same way" that they are now taught by the Freemasons.

 

It seems that among pagan people of ancient times a few superior minds and spirits were found who did not accept the idolatrous notions of the populace as an adequate conception of the Deity and who searched constantly in the great book of nature in the effort to find out and understand him aright. To have openly proclaimed their beliefs and their rejection of the popular gods and popular religion would have but called down upon themselves contempt and ridicule and doubtless persecutions. They, therefore, chose to drift along with the common herd to all outward appearances, reserving the contemplation and discussion of their cherished beliefs for secret communication with those of kindred mind in societies where they were secure from observation and the interference of the outside world. Such seems to have been the occasion of the origin of these ancient fraternities.

 

These societies were characterized by fixed forms of initiation, successive steps or degrees, oaths of secrecy, a symbolical system of teaching, and the possession of emblems and perhaps of grips, signs and words of recognition. (9) Their rites were usually celebrated at night in chambers securely guarded against intrusion and arranged similarly to our lodges, often with the three chief officers seated in the South, West and East.

 

With all of them the East was an object of peculiar veneration as the source of light and knowledge.

 

Initiation was an allegorical search for light and knowledge and consisted of prescribed physical and moral preparations of the candidate, lustrations, purifications and the administrations of oaths of secrecy; the ushering from darkness to light symbolizing a transformation from ignorance to knowledge, from corruption to moral and spiritual purity; the investiture with an emblem of this purity consisting sometimes of a white apron, sometimes of a white sash or robe; the encountering of trials and dangers sometimes mock and sometimes real. In the Mithraic Mysteries the candidate was received into the place of initiation upon the point of a sword piercing his naked left breast. Many of their symbols were identical with those that can now be seen in any Masonic lodge.

 

To each of the Ancient Mysteries pertained a characteristic legend, which w as made the instrumentality of teaching with great impressiveness the doctrines of the resurrection and immortality.

 

The legend of Osiris, probably the oldest and the model for all the others was as follows:

 

Osiris, meaning the soul of the Universe, the Governor of nature, was at once king and god of the Egyptians. The name appears as far back as 3000 B. C. Having taught civilization, the arts and agriculture to his own people, he magnanimously resolved to spread in person their benign influence throughout the world. Leaving his kingdom in charge of his wife, Isis, he departed upon his beneficent mission. After an absence of three years he returned, but meanwhile his brother Typhon had organized a conspiracy to murder him and seize the throne. At a grand banquet given in honor of his return, Typhon provided a magnificent chest which exactly fitted the body of Osiris. All the other guests being in the conspiracy, they feigned great admiration of the chest and finally Typhon announced that he would give it to the one whose body it would most neatly contain. Osiris, trying the box, was no sooner in it than the lid was clapped down and securely fastened and the whole thrown into the river Nile. It was borne out to sea by the current and in course of time was cast ashore at Byblos, in Phoenicia, at the foot of an acacia tree. The tree grew up rapidly and completely encased the chest containing the body of Osiris.

 

No sooner had Isis learned of the fate of her husband than, weeping, she set out in search of his body and on her way interrogated every one she met for information concerning its whereabouts. Virgins accompanied her who dressed and combed her hair.

 

She finally discovered the body in the acacia tree, but the king of that country, struck with the tree's beauty caused it to be cut down and a column made of it for his palace. Isis thereupon engaged herself to the king as a nurse for his children and asked and received for her pay this column. The column was broken and the body released and at once borne back to Egypt, but before it could be properly interred it was again seized by Typhon and cut into fourteen pieces and these hidden in as many places. After long search Isis succeeded in finding and bringing together all the parts except the phallus, and the body was embalmed and buried in due form. It will be borne in mind that according to ancient Egyptian ideas there could be no resurrection in the absence of the body; hence, the great care with which they embalmed their dead. As soon as the body of Osiris had been recovered and buried, it was announced that he had risen from the dead and had resumed his place among the gods.

 

The ceremonies of initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries dramatically represented the death of Osiris, the search for his body, its discovery in the acacia tree, and its burial and resurrection, the murdered god being personated by the candidate.

 

Pertaining to each of the Mysteries was a counterpart of this legend. In Greece, Osiris becomes Bacchus, (not the drunken Bacchus of later ages,) who is slain by the Titans and his limbs torn asunder. Isis becomes Rhea, who after long and bitter search finds and inters his body, and in due course he takes his place among the gods. In the Dionysian Mysteries celebrated in his honor an effigy was stretched upon a couch, as if dead, while his votaries bitterly bewailed his decease. After a proper time the figure was quickly removed and the announcement made that the god had risen from the dead. Likewise in some of the Mysteries of India the candidate underwent an allegorical death, burial and resurrection. Those celebrated in Phoenicia during the time of Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre and Hiram Abif were obvious copies of those of Egypt. Adonis and Venus became substitutes in the legend for Osiris and Isis. During the course of these Mysteries, with which our three ancient Grand Masters must have been familiar, an image was laid upon a bier as if it were a dead body. During a momentary darkness the figure was invisibly removed, after which it was announced that the god had risen from the dead. The substantial identity with each other of all these Mysteries and doctrines they were intended to inculcate is obvious.

 

It is claimed by students of ancient mythology, that this legend of the Mysteries and the ceremonies based on it were all prophetic of the coming of a Messiah, who should triumph over death and the grave, and thereby demonstrate to mankind for a certainty that there is a life after death. That this was common belief, not merely among the Jews, but the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Hindus, Greeks and Romans is now generally conceded.

 

The teachings of the Mysteries have been thus summarized:

 

"They diffused a spirit of unity and humanity, purified the soul from ignorance and pollution; secured the peculiar aid of the gods; the means of arriving at the perfection of virtue; the serene happiness of a holy life; the hope of a peaceful death and endless felicity in the Elysian fields; whilst those not initiated therein should dwell after death in places of darkness and horror."

 

Thus did these ancient societies seek by means of the dramatic presentation of a legend to teach the great Masonic doctrines of the resurrection and the life after death.

 

There were lectures explanatory of the Mysteries but the crowning ceremony of initiation was the communication to the candidate of an ineffable name which it was lawful to speak only on certain occasions and in a certain manner. Among the Egyptians, Persians and Hindus, notwithstanding their pride separation, this was the mysterious AUM, pronounced OM. I have purposely mingled things dissimilar with things similar to Freemasonry but the intelligent Master Mason will be able to detect the points of resemblance.

 

Brother Robert F. Gould, whom I have already several times quoted, without venturing to pronounce Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries identical, says:

 

"It is a well known fact that these Mysteries offer striking analogies with much that is found in Freemasonry; their celebration in grottoes or covered halls, which symbolized the Universe, and which in disposition and decoration presented a distinct counterpart to our lodge; their division into degrees conferred by the initiatory rites wonderfully like our own; their method of teaching through the same astronomic symbolism the highest truths then known in Philosophy and Morals; their mystic bond of secrecy, toleration, equality and brotherly love."

 

He intimates strongly his belief that Freemasonry is a development out of the Mysteries of Mithras, which, originating in Persia, spread to Greece, Rome and Western Europe and lingered there until the fourth or fifth century, A. D.

 

Enough has been said on this point to make it plain that anyone who would understand our Masonic symbolism must at least make a study of what these same symbols meant to these ancient societies.

 

THIRD DEGREE SYMBOLS

 

I shall not lengthen this paper and tax your patience by repeating explanations laid down in our monitors and lectures. I shall for the most part confine myself to things that are not explained at all, or that are explained inadequately.

 

Many of the symbols of the Master's degree are common to the preceding degrees and these I shall touch upon very briefly. There is, however, discoverable in their use as the degrees progress, an increasing seriousness and depth of meaning.

 

For instance, in the first two degrees, the lodge symbolizes the world, the place where all workmen labor at useful avocations and in the acquisition of human knowledge and virtue. But in the Master's degree it represents the Sanctum Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies of King Solomon's Temple, which was itself a symbol of Heaven, or the abode of Deity. It was there that nothing earthly or unclean was allowed to enter; it was there that the visible presence of the Deity was said to dwell between the Cherubim. In the Master's lodge, therefore, we are symbolically brought into the awful presence of the Deity. The reference here to death and the future life is obvious and is a further evidence that this degree typifies old age and death.

 

But there is even a deeper symbolism in the Master's lodge. The allusion is not only to the sacred chamber of Solomon's physical temple, it alludes also to the sacred chamber of that spiritual temple we all are, or should he, namely, a pure heart, and admonishes us to make of it a place fit for Deity himself to dwell.

 

The likening of the human body to a temple of the Deity is an ancient metaphor. Jesus said, in speaking of the temple of his body, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." Again, Paul says, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, and such arc ye." I quote these passages, not as a Christian doctrine, but as a beautiful expression of Jewish thought far older than Christianity. We can with difficulty conceive the extreme sacredness of the Temple in the eyes of the Jew. It far exceeded the veneration with which we now regard our churches and synagogues. This idea once comprehended shows how greatly this figure of speech ennobles the human body. It declares it a fit dwelling place for Deity himself.

 

In the Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft degrees, Light typifies the acquisition of human knowledge and virtue; in the Masters degree it typifies the revelation of divine truth in the life that is to come.

 

In the first two degrees the square and compasses denote the earth and inculcate and impress upon us the desirability of curbing our passions; in the third degree the compasses symbolize what is heavenly, because to our ancient brethren the visible heavens bore the aspect of circles and arches, geometrical figures produced with the compasses.

 

In some of the monitors we are told that "the compasses are peculiarly consecrated to this degree," but the reasons there given are not satisfying. In ancient symbolism the square signified the earth, while the circle, a figure produced with the compasses, signified the sun or the heavens. The square therefore symbolized what is earthly and material while the compasses signified the heavenly and the spiritual. It is not without significance, therefore, that in the Entered Apprentice degree, both points of the compasses are beneath the square; that in the Fellow Craft degree one point is above the square, while in the Master's degree both points are above, signifying that in the true Master, the spiritual has obtained full mastery and control over the earthly and the material. (10)

 

DISCALCEATION

 

Discalceation, or the plucking off of one's shoes, was in the Entered Apprentice degree, as we there learned, a symbol of fidelity to our fellow man. In this degree, however, it alludes to an ancient act of homage paid by man to Deity, namely, the Eastern custom that prevailed among both Jews and Gentiles of entering only barefooted into any sacred place or upon any holy ground. In the one case, this practice was a testimony of man to man; in the other, it is a testimony of man to his Creator.

 

Pythagoras taught his disciples in these words, "offer sacrifice and worship with thy shoes off." Adam Clarke includes the universality of this custom among his thirteen proofs that all mankind has descended from common ancesters. A Master Mason's lodge represents, as we have seen, the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple into which the High Priest alone entered only once yearly, and then with bare feet. The lodge in some of the old rituals is said to stand on holy ground. God said to Moses at the burning bush: "Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (11)

 

Note also the deeper significance of the shock of reception as the degrees progress. In the first, the appeal is to the sense of fear, in other words, purely physical. In the second, appeal is made to the moral sense and inculcates fair dealing with men, but in the third it is not merely to our sense of justice towards our fellow man, but to our brotherly love for him and to those higher reflective elements of our nature whose proverbial seat is the breasts.

 

It is a mistake to limit the "Brotherly Love" of this degree to members of the Masonic fraternity. If the lodge symbolizes the world, as it undoubtly does, so should its members symbolize all the inhabitants thereof. The love that should prevail among the members of the lodge, therefore, typifies the love that should prevail among all mankind. In the highest sense all men are our brothers precisely as we are so strikingly taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan that all men are our neighbors.

 

CIRCUMAMBULATION

 

Circumambulation, from the Latin word "circumambulare," to walk around, is a very ancient rite, one common to all the Ancient Mysteries. The sun, the fructifier and giver of life, in his daily course across the heavens, appears to those living in the Northern Hemisphere, where the ancient world dwelt, to proceed from the East by the way of the South to the West, and thence through the darkness of the night via the North back to the East again. Vegetation was seen to spring up, animal life to be aroused from slumber and take on increased energy, as the King of Day moved with dignity across the heavens. To the untutored mind of primeval man it is not strange that the sun should appear to be the giver of life, the very Creator himself. His apparent course, therefore, from East through the South to the West and back to the East by way of the North became the "course of life", as the ancients expressed it.

 

The ancients in their ceremonies when representing life pursued this course, and we Masons follow their example. To proceed in the reverse direction typified death, and as every Master Mason knows at one important point in our ceremonies we take this reverse course. At the grave of a deceased brother, however, contrary to what might be expected, we still follow the course of life as a token of our belief in the life that follows death. (11)

 

THE WORKING TOOLS

 

With us in America the especial working tool of a Master Mason is said to be the Trowel. In England, this symbol is almost obsolete, and they employ the Skirrit, Pencil and Compasses.

 

Of the Trowel, Dr. Oliver, a noted but somewhat discredited Masonic authority, says:

 

"The triangle, now called the Trowel, was an emblem of very extensive application and was much revered by ancient nations as containing the greatest and most abstruse mysteries that it signified equally Deity, Creation and Fire." (12)

 

We will learn directly something more of the symbolical signification of the triangle.

 

The Skirrit, the Pencil and the Compasses are not enumerated in America among the working tools of a Master Mason. The Skirrit is an instrument working on a center pin and used by the Operative Mason to mark out on the ground the foundation of the intended structure. The Pencil is employed in drafting the plans and the Compasses in determining the limit and proportions of its several parts. Symbolically they are explained in English (Emulation) working in the following words:

 

"The Skirrit points out to us that straight and undeviating line of conduct laid down for our guidance in the volume of the sacred law. The Pencil teaches us that all our words and actions are not only observed, but are recorded by the Most High, to whom we must render an account of our conduct through life. The Compasses reminds us of his unerring and impartial justice, which having defined for our instruction the limits of good and evil will either reward or punish us, as we have obeyed or disregarded his divine commands." (13)

 

We must admit that the trowel would seem more properly to belong to the Fellow Craft, who in Operative Masonry puts the stones in place, rather than to the designer and overseer who corresponds to our Master Mason.

 

Brother John Yarker in his Arcane Schools says that the Skirrit as a hieroglyphic signifies the origin of things. (14)

 

DEITY AND IMMORTALITY

 

There are a few who feign that they believe nothing that cannot be experienced through the five senses of the body. Wonderful as are these faculties, I am persuaded that we are possessed of a sixth sense which is higher and finer even than those of the body. By this sense we perceive though we see not; we feel though we touch not; we understand though we hear not; we know though we neither taste nor smell. By it, also, we are aware of all the higher aspirations of the mind and soul; by it alone are we conscious of our own existence. Seeing is not thinking. Nor is hearing, or feeling, or tasting, or smelling. These five senses are but ministers to this sixth sense. The five senses of human nature we were concerned with in a former degree, but we are here concerned with something far superior to them, whatever we call it, whether consciousness, faith, mind, soul or spirit. Are the testimonies of this sixth sense any less real or any less reliable than those of the five senses of the body? By it mankind has always, in every age and in every condition, felt intuitively that there was a God and that we shall live again. These beliefs are so strong and so ever present with us that we never doubt them until we begin to argue about them.

 

There is nothing in Masonry so constantly pressed upon our thoughts as these two great doctrines. Signs, symbols, and legends are all repeatedly employed to emphasize them.

 

In the Master's degree, the Pot of Incense, the All-Seeing Eye, the Three Grand Masters, the Triangle, and the legends of the Temple and of Hiram Abif are all employed for this purpose, as I shall attempt to show.

 

We read with incredulity that men could ever bow down to, and worship, idols. Doubtless the thoughtful and intelligent ones have never done so even in pagan countries. They looked beyond and viewed the idol as merely a symbol. As the idol among pagan people usually assumed a human form, the Jews as well as other believers in monotheism of ancient times, forbade the employment of the human effigy as a symbol of Deity. To supply the need so keenly felt by the ancients of a symbol to represent every idea, conventional figures such as squares, circles, triangles, etc., were adopted by the ancient monotheists to symbolize the Deity. Thus perhaps it is that the being which alone is said to have been made in the image of his Creator is nowhere employed in our symbolism to represent the G. A. O. T. U.

 

THE HIRAMIC LEGEND

 

The most important series of symbols in Freemasonry is the legend concerning Hiram Abif and the other symbolic allusions connected therewith. For obvious reasons, I do not attempt to narrate the story of this legend. Nor shall I undertake to make any systematic or exhaustive study of it, but only to discuss in a disconnected way those symbols associated with it that are most important or whose meaning is least obvious.

 

As we have already seen, the Ancient Mysteries employed a legend dramatically presented to teach the great doctrines of the existence of Deity, the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul. Among Freemasons, the legend of Hiram, the builder, is employed in a strikingly similar way to teach the same truths. It is not permissible, even if it were necessary, to enter further into details in order to demonstrate this parallel, but the points of resemblance will be sufficiently obvious to the intelligent Mason.

 

A few observations upon the name Hiram Abif will not be out of place. Abif is certainly not a surname as our use of it would seem to indicate. It is translated in the English Bibles "Hiram, my father's" and "Hiram, his father." This scarcely makes sense; and hence the general consensus of opinion among Masonic scholars is that "Abif" is a Hebrew idiom indicating superiority in his Craft and may therefore, in a general sense, be said to be synonymous with "Master." (15)

 

The name "Hiram" itself has been supposed by many to bear a symbolic meaning. In Kings it is written "Hiram" but in Chronicles it is written "Huram." Brother Albert Pike contends that the proper form is "Khirum" or "Khurum." The former Khirum is from the Hebrew word "Khi" meaning "living", and "ram" meaning "was or shall be raised or lifted up." Hence Khirum means "was raised or lifted up to life." The other form, Khurum, means nearly the same, "raised up noble or free." Brother Pike shows this name to be synonymous with the Egyptian Her-ra, and the Phoenician Heracles, the personification of Light and the sun, the Mediator, the Redeemer and the Savior.

 

But do not be mislead into supposing that the reference is here Christian. The idea of a Mediator, Redeemer or Savior is far older than Christianity and by no means confined to the Jews. It is a concept that seems to have been almost universal in the ancient world.

 

Again, it is said that Hiram, in its pure and original form, literally meant Light or the sun. His murder by the three ruffians is by many scholars believed to have symbolic reference to the declension of the sun towards the south during the three winter months with its accompanying temporary death of many forms of vegetable and animal life; the discovery and raising of his body, to the return of spring with its manifestations of newness of life in its thousands of forms. There is no doubt that this astronomical phenomenon, so typical of both death and a new life, was extensively employed by the ancients to teach the doctrines of resurrection and immortality.

 

Those who attach an astronomical signification to this legend of Hiram Abif believe the fifteen Fellow Craft to be a faulty symbol; that the true number is twelve, corresponding to the twelve signs of the Zodiac through which the sun apparently passes every year; that the number of those who conspired and the number who recanted have been confused; that name, typifying those who recanted, fill the spring, summer and autumn with their seasons of planting, growth and harvest, while the three who persisted typify winter, when all nature, if not dead, appears to be dormant. It has been pointed out as corroborating this interpretation of this legend that our two festival seasons, June 24th and December 27th, the birthdays respectively of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, very nearly coincide respectively with the summer and winter solstices; that is to say that when the sun is at its greatest intensity, and, when in the dead of winter, having reached his furthermost limit to the South, he begins his fructifying and vivifying journey towards the North again.

 

I can but touch upon this abstruse symbolism, and invite the serious student of Freemasonry to its study. It cannot be covered in an evening; volumes have been and may still be written upon the subject without exhausting it. (16)

 

In nearly all the ancient systems of religion, Deity was regarded as a triad or trinity, by whom, acting conjointly only, could anything be done that was done. Our own doctrine of the Trinity is but a mere spiritualized modification of this ancient trinitarian conception. The secrets known only to our Three Grand Masters typify divine truth known only to this trinitarian Deity, and which is not to be communicated and made known to man, the Fellow Craft, the workman, until he has completed his spiritual temple. Then, according to divine promise, if found worthy, if this temple he nobly and worthily built and made a fit dwelling place for divine truth, these secrets will be communicated to him. He can then travel into that foreign country whither we all are bound and there obtain the wages of the master, that is to say, the reward of a righteous and well spent life. But he who would force or steal this knowledge or obtain it other than by faithful labor and effort to prepare himself for its understanding and enjoyment is no better than a murderer and robber. It is the same allegory as that of Adam eating of the tree of knowledge. For a like offense, stealing the sacred fire of the gods and bestowing it upon man, was Prometheus bound to the rock, his body torn open and his liver fed upon by the vultures of the air.

 

THE THREE RUFFIANS

 

One having the least familiarity with the religions of the East cannot fail to recognize in the names of the three ruffians the name of the gods of Palestine, Phoenicia and Egypt, Jah, Bel and Om, spelled AUM. This will be even more striking to the Royal Arch Mason. Whether this is a mere coincidence or the result of design, or if designed, what is the significance, are unknown. (17)

 

LOW TWELVE In ancient symbolism, the number twelve denoted completion. Whether this meaning arose from the fact that twelve months completed the year, or twelve signs of the Zodiac, or whether from the fact that what was regarded as the most stable geometrical figure known, the cube, is marked by twelve edges, opinions differ. At any rate, it denoted a thing fulfilled. It was, therefore, an emblem of a human life. Death followed immediately after life; the number thirteen immediately after twelve; it is for this reason that thirteen has long been regarded as an unlucky number. With us the solemn stroke of twelve marks the completion of human existence in this life.

 

THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH

 

The Lion from most ancient times has been a symbol of might or royalty. It was blazoned upon the standard of the tribe of Judah, because it was the royal tribe. The kings of Judah were, therefore, called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and such was one of the titles of Solomon. Remembrance of this fact gives appropriateness to an expression employed at one point in our ceremonies which is otherwise obscure, not to say absurd. Such is the literal meaning of this phrase, but it also has a symbolical one.

 

The Jewish idea of a Messiah was of a mighty temporal king. He was also designated as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; in fact this title was regarded as peculiarly belonging to him. The expression does not, as many Masons suppose necessarily have reference to Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian Mason is privileged to so interpret it, if he so likes, but the Jew has equal right to understand it as meaning his Messiah. Indeed, every great religion of the world has contained the conception in some form, of a Mediator between God and man, a Redeemer who would raise mankind from the death of this life and the grave, to an everlasting existence with God hereafter. The Mason who is a devotee of one of these religions, say Buddhism, Brahmanism or Mohammedanism, is likewise entitled to construe this expression as referring to his own Mediator.

 

In an ancient Egyptian inscription is depicted a lion seizing by the wrist a man lying in front of an altar, prostrate upon his back as if dead. The lion seems to be raising the man up and to symbolize that power by which the dead are brought to newness of life. Near the altar stands a man with his left arm elevated in the form of a square.

 

(To be continued)

 

(1) Ars Quatuor Coronatorum vol. III, p. 10.

(2) Idem, p. 24.

(3) Idem, p. 27.

(4) Idem, p. 26.

(5) Idem, p. 23.

(6) Idem, p. 24.

(7) Gould's Concise History, pp. 24, 25

(8) Mackey's Symbolism, p. 36.

(9) Yarker's Arcane Schools 113.

(10) Morals and Dogma. pp. 850, 854.

(11) Mackey's Symbolism, pp. 124, 129.

(12) Oliver's Signs and Symbols, p 10; Universal Masonic Library, p. 14; Transactions Lodge of Research 1909-10, p. 42.

(13) Aiken, p. 80.

(14) Yarker's Arcane Schools, pp. 33, 220.

(15) Mackey's Encyclopedia, p. 3: Morals and Dogma, p. 81.

(16) Festival of Mal-Karth, Morals and Dogma, p. 78.

(17) Morals and Dogma, pp. 80, 82, 448, 488: Tyler Keystone, Aug. 20, 1908, pp. 77, 78.

(18) Portal, p. 30; Masonic Magazine, p. 328: Morals and Dogma, pp. 79, 254, 461.

 

----o----

 

READY TO BE TRIED AGAIN

 

'Tis no matter how much work we have done ere dawned today

'Tis no matter how we've striven on an upward, onward way;

There are duties ever new falling due each day to men,

And the one who does them best waits but to be tried again.

 

Though we have been tried as came duties new upon the way,

Though the storm obscured the sun that was bright as dawned the

day;

Though the yesterdays are past 'tis no matter what they've been,

'Tis today that we must be ready to be tried again.

 

There's no wage can come to us only as our work is done,

There's no premium to life save as are its triumphs won;

Recompense comes with the toil e'en as we the task begin,

E'en as we report to self, ready to be tried again.

 

And as Masons we are taught that while we've been often tried

We are never by the Craft of the privilege denied

Of the trying for the work that it makes so clear and plain,

And for which we all should be ready to be tried again.

 

And the fact that we're in wait may unlock the mystic door

To the findings in the Art that may prove a golden store;

'Tis an inspiration e'en if there's not a moment when

We're not in the firing line, ready to be tried again.

 

And by trial comes the glow of a brighter, keener joy--

That real something that we know in the mystic Arts employ;

Tis the thought unfolding to the ideal it gives to men

That the trial is in being ready to be tried again.

 

And the thought is larger still, 'tis a trial now and here

For and in and as the task as each day's new claims appear,

Trial measured by the TRUTH as it may respond amen

As we ever DO and DARE, READY TO BE TRIED AGAIN.

--Bro. L. B. Mitchell, Michigan.

 

----o----

 

MEMORIALS TO GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS

BY BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, P. G. M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 

BENJAMIN RUSH

 

THERE is a bronze statue of Dr. Rush in front of the United States Naval Hospital, in Washington, not erected by a grateful Republic, to a famous patriot and signer of the Declaration of Independence, but by the Medical Societies of the United States, more than a century after the War of the Revolution.

 

Out of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration there are but three memorialized in the Capital City; not one by the Government, but all by private subscription. To Medical Director A.L. Gihon, U.S.N., more than to any other one man, the subscription for this monument and its location are due. Unfortunately it is in a part of the city not frequently visited by tourists.

 

Dr. Rush, a signer of the Declaration, was born in Philadelphia in 1746, and died there in 1813. He was the first American Alienist; the first Surgeon-General of the U.S. Army; a Member of Congress, and the author of a number of books on medical subjects. He was descended from one of Cromwell's officers. An orphan at the age of six years he was educated by his uncle, the Rev. Dr. Finley, and was graduated at Princeton College. Dr. Rush kept a diary, which proved to be of great use to his successors in the medical profession, particularly in his notes on the yellow fever epidemic in 1762.

 

Dr. Rush was ever warmly patriotic, but he disliked politics. He was a quick and ready debater, which led his friends to put him forward in politics. He was a consistent and conscientious Christian, a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and though a Freemason, was probably never active in it. Records, however, in his day, were not carefully kept nor preserved, which may have obscured his activity. In the Masonic History, Vol. IV, he is recorded by that Prince of Masonry, Gould.

 

The statue shown in the cut was modeled by R. Hinton Perry and Lewis R. Metcalf, and was unveiled on the 11th day of June, 1904, with all the eclat, eulogy and honor the American Medical Association could give it, and but for the presence of the uniformed medical officers of the Navy and the Army there would have been an absence of Nationalism. The Government authorized the placing of the statue on the lawn, in front of the buildings of the Navy Medical School and Hospital. It is a beautiful piece of work.

 

Dr. Rush left one son who was held in high esteem, and a grandson, a Commander in the Navy, whom the writer has ever held in close friendship and memory.

 

The American people, so full of patriotic oratory, have sadly lacked a practical proof of that highly commendable quality.

 

----o----

 

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. - Sir Thomas Browne.

 

----o----

 

The fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself. - Carlyle.

 

----o----

 

FOR THE MONTHLY LODGE MEETING

 

CORRESPONDENCE CIRCLE BULLETIN--NO. 21 DEVOTED TO ORGANIZED MASONIC STUDY 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 a 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.