The Builder Magazine

November 1923 - Volume IX - Number 11

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FRONTISPIECE - F.H. LITTLEFIELD

PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES AND DANGERS IN FREEMASONRY - By Bro. Louis Block, Iowa

STANDING FOR DEFINITE THINGS - By Bro. George H. Dern, Utah

THE STORY OF FREEMASONRY IN NEW JERSEY - By Bro. Ernest A. Reed, New Jersey

THE LOST WORD - By Bro. Arthur C. Parker, New York

THE GRAND MASTER OF ENGLAND - By Bro. Dudley Wright, England

GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS - LOUIS KOSSUTH - By Bro. Geo. W. Baird, Dist. of Columbia

THE CABLE TOW - By Bro. Henry Taylor, Missouri

THE STUDY CLUB - Chapters of Masonic History - Part VII, Freemasonry and the Gild System - By Bro. H. L. Haywood

IN WHAT SENSE INFALLIBILITY IS CLAIMED FOR THE POPE

 

EDITORIAL

Introducing Bro. F. H. Littlefield

Salutatory

A Temple of Light

 

THE LIBRARY

A Valuable Contribution to Masonic History

A Book of Knowledge and Wisdom

 

THE QUESTION BOX

Masonry's Oldest Recorded Date

Luther Burbank a Mason

Grand Lodge Statistics

The Democracy of Death

"If Within the First Square or Angle of My Work"

Secrecy as Regards Lodge Business

 

CORRESPONDENCE

Musical Setting for "Every Year"

The Scottish Rite in the Hawaiian Islands

Magnus Johnson Not a Mason

Secretary for Fifty-two Years

Scottish Rite Fees in China

 

YE EDITOR'S CORNER

 

----o----

 

Present Day Tendencies and Dangers in Freemasonry

 

By Bro. LOUIS BLOCK, P.G.M., Iowa

 

We are living in an age when it takes but little urging to spur a man to follow Paul's scriptural injunction to "Prove all things".  In fact, there never was a time when people were so ready to submit all things "the acid test" even going so far as to jump at  conclusions, and discard a thing before the test is half done.

 

Not only are materials, machinery and methods being tried in rapid succession, but the probe is being pushed into parties, governments, societies, institutions, churches and fraternities.  Nor can the Masonic institution hope to escape trial along with the rest.

 

Has Masonry today any real excuse for its continued existence?

 

Has it any solution to offer of the trying problems that vex and harass not only the individual soul, but the soul of the world as well, till one questions whether the game is worth the candle, or life worth living at all?

 

Masonry can no more escape standing up to answer this question than can any of the rest of human institutions that the modern world is putting on trial.

 

Nothing does us quite so much good as to now and then take stock of our institutions, to find out what they mean, and what they really stand for.

 

To do that we must go back to first principles.  We must dig down to the foundation and find out upon what the thing is bottomed.  The world just now is showing a perfect passion for this sort of thing.

 

In the field of religion a great controversy is raging between the "modernists" and the "fundamentalists".  The former are for a freer interpretation, for the loosening; of creedal chains, while the latter claim that in going back to the ancient creeds they have gone down to the foundation, although one is often tempted to wonder whether the true Foundation does not lie far deeper than all the clashing creeds in a Great Life and a Great Love that gave birth to a new Commandment, requiring not so much that we have belief, but far more that we love one another.

 

Let us now go down to the foundation of Masonry, and find, if we can, upon what sort of footing our building is based.  We have been taught from time immemorial that the design of the Masonic Institution was to make its votaries wiser and better and consequently happier, that we should receive none knowingly into our ranks but such as were moral and upright before God and of good repute before the world.  This was on the theory that such men when associated together would naturally seek each other's welfare and happiness equally with their own.  In order that they might not become weary in well-doing it furnished them with a great common platform upon which they might "meet upon the level, act by the plumb, and part upon the square." It obliged them to that great "Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves; that is, to be good men and true, or men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes the Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remain'd at a perpetual Distance."

 

That, we must all admit, is just about the broadest creed to be found in all history, and it is upon the broad foundation of this "Ancient Charge" that our beloved Institution is based.  It is upon such a foundation and in the spirit of Him, who said "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" that we are taught to labour incessantly, making a persistent and proper use of the Trowel, an Instrument used for the "noble and glorious purpose of spreading the cement of brotherly love and affection, that cement which unites us into one sacred band or society of friends and brothers among whom no contention should ever exist, but that noble contention, or rather emulation, of who best can work and best agree".

 

The question is whether an institution so conceived and so founded has any part to play, any worthwhile function to perform amid the perplexities that pursue us at this present day.

 

Let us see.

 

But first let us take a look at modern life.  What's the matter with it? Very, very much.

 

In the first place, we have allowed the plain and simple life of the pioneer days to drift into a thing so infernally intricate, so infinitely involved, so confoundedly complex, that the human mind stands appalled at the thought of it.  No longer are our wants few, and plain and simple, but many and multiplex.  We want so many things in such great variety and in such quick succession that half the time we don't know what we want.  Our houses, our minds and our lives are so gorged with many things that we are able to digest and assimilate scarcely any of them.  From the cradle to the grave it is the same.  Our children have it put upon them early in life.  Where once a little sister cuddled a rag-doll to her heart, she must now perforce pet a Parisian puppet festooned with fashionable furbelows.  Little Bobbie must be denied his hobby-horse and must get mixed up in a meccano set.  Where once the little red school house did the business we now have the kindergarten, the primary school, the secondary school and the high school, and these with all sorts of fads and frills fastened upon them.  We must get into everything, and have everything, and "put on" a whole kennel full of "dog", even if we have to cheat our creditors and betray our friends to do it.  A mortgage goes on the home so we can grab a graphonola, an auto, or a radio.  Corned beef and cabbage have given away to camembert and caviar.  Dad can no longer sit down to "supper" in his shirt sleeves, but must climb into dress clothes before he can be "served with dinner".  We no longer dare to have a plain and simple bellyache, but must get along with gastritis, or colitis, or appendicitis. We dare not even go simply and: plainly crazy, but must be cursed by a "complex".  And when at last it comes to the matter of making an escape from this mundane sphere we realize that the simple business of dying has become so elaborate a piece of procedure, that it were far cheaper had we kept walking around instead of trying to meet the "mortician's" bill.  Once we might have been simply and plainly planted by an under taker, but "them days is gone forever!"

 

WE LUST FOR SPEED

 

In the midst of all this and making the muddle worse, we have been bitten by the speed-bug, and have fallen a victim to the skidding-sickness.  We have developed a perfect passion for rapid motion. Nothing can go fast enough to suit us.  Express trains rush us from Chicago to New York, ocean greyhounds scoot us from New York to London in a few short days, and high-speed cars hurl us to hell in a jiffy.  We can't be patient or deliberate about anything.  We are rabidly restless and can't bear to sit still.  We must keep in motion.  "Where do we go from here?"  is the common cry. "We don't know where we are going, but we are on our way!" We want what we want when we want it. Ready-built houses and ready-to-wear clothing are the rule.  We are willing to wait for nothing.  Everyone is on the jump.  We hurry here and there, chasing first this thing, and then that, darting about like wild  water-bugs at a sewer's mouth.  We are ready to "try anything once", and always crazy to try something new. When jazz fails to give us joy, then our madness manifests itself in the Marathon dance.

 

Realizing that something is wrong society tries to find a cure in new laws.  Then we have such perfect pestilence of law-making that humanity heaves a great sigh of relief the moment Congress or the Legislature adjourns. We have too much government in business and far too little business in government.  We have a cataclysm of class-legislation, each crowd crazy to hog things for its particular class, and "to hell with the other fellow". We have a whole raft of radical legislation, and less respect for law than ever before. Russia may have her Soviet slaughters, but poor America, God pity the day! has her Mer Rouge murders and her Herrin massacres.  These things menace the land with dissension and disunion, disruption and disaster, with everything that divides and destroys.

 

And what have we as Masons to do with all this? What can we do about it?

 

 

Well, in the first place, we can awake to a realization that it is high time we no longer rested content with a mere recitation of our ritual, rules and regulations. That there is coming to us, now as never before, a clarion call to promptly and persistently put our precepts into practice.  To realize again that

 

"A man of words and not of deeds,

Is like a garden full of weeds."

 

For Masonry, from time immemorial, has been ever sternly and soberly and seriously conservative and never riotously radical.  Masonry has always had in her heart a withering contempt for things frantic and foolish, and has ever firmly stood for these things that make for stability and order, for strength and establishment.

 

WHAT DOES MASONRY STAND FOR

 

The trouble with far too many of us is that we don't know what our Masonry really stands for.

 

How many of us, I wonder, have ever truly realized that when the Master in the East has charged us saying "In the State, you are to be a quiet and peaceful subject, true to your government and just to your country.  You are not to countenance disloyalty or rebellion, but patiently submit to legal authority and conform with cheerfulness to the government of the country in which you live", there was then and there laid upon our shoulders the performance of a duty as sacred, as solemn and as binding as anything contained in the obligation taken at the altar?

 

We cannot practice our Masonry until we have first learned to know it.  Once we have learned to know it we will clearly see that there is not one of our modern perplexities but what can be solved by a faithful application of Masonic principles and precepts.

 

But there can be no salvation if the principles are merely preached and practised.  Yet if they are practised untold good will be done.

 

It would simply transform the world, if, for a single year, each and every one of us would simply live up to our ancient religion "to be good Men and true - Men of Honour and Honesty."

 

If we are the sort of men we have prided ourselves upon being the sort who seek each other's welfare and happiness equally with our own, we will help one another to know what our Masonry means - do this by admonition, discussion, debates, study and lectures.  Here is where our study clubs, our research societies and our service associations come in.

 

But above all else we must help each other to live the life, in the shop and the market-place, in the office and the factory, in the home and on the street, so that the blessed influence of "good men and true" may be met with everywhere.

 

For at the bottom the fault of the present state of things is not legal or economical, but personal and individual.  It is not the system that is wrong, but the men who run it.  It's high time we quit blaming a system for our own shortcomings.

 

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

 

Our Republic is "one made of many" and if each one of the many does his duty then, and only then, will the "Temple of our Liberties" endure.  It will not do for any one of us to wait for the other to do his duty.  Each one must be up and doing, acting of his own volition, sweeping before his own door, hosing his own row.  It is the old question of Hiram Abiff over again; the question of individual moral responsibility, of individual fidelity, regardless of personal loss or sacrifice.

 

There is no need for new laws, new systems, new forms of government.  There is a crying need for plain old-fashioned individual performance of duty.

 

"Honour and Fame from no condition rise,

Act well your part - there all the honour lies!"

 

Otherwise all our preaching of precepts, all our ritualizing, will be as

 

"A thing full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

 

Masonry has a glorious gospel, as we her votaries well know, but glorious as that gospel may be, there is another far more vitally important and that is the gospel of the individual Mason as shown in his individual life.

 

"THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YOU"

 

"There's a sweet old story translated for man,

But writ in the long, long ago-

The Gospel according to Mark, Luke and John-

Of Christ and His mission below.

 

Men read and admire the gospel of Christ,

With its love so unfailing and true;

But what do they say, and what do they think,

Of the gospel according to you?

 

'Tis a wonderful story, that gospel of love,

As it shines in the Christ-life divine;

And, oh, that its truth might be told again

In the story of your life and mine!

 

Unselfishness mirrors in every scene;

Love blossoms on every sod;

And back from its vision the heart comes to tell

The wonderful goodness of God.

 

You are writing each day a letter to men;

Take care that the writing is true;

'Tis the only gospel that some men will read-

The gospel according to you."

 

THE MENACE WITHIN

 

When a candidate seeks admission into our fraternity we compel him to sign a petition in which he solemnly states that "he is prompted to solicit this privilege by a sincere wish of being serviceable to his fellow citizens".

 

Is that pure "bunk", or does it really mean something?

 

We are prompted to put this question by reason of the fact that there have arisen in recent years a number of organizations pretending to be Masonic that are anything but serviceable to mankind.

 

They pretend to be "Masonic" by reason of the fact that they permit no one to join them who is not a Master Mason because of the fact that their membership is composed of Masons only, the thoughtless Mason and the uninformed non-Mason, alike, conclude that these societies are Masonic, despite the fact that none of them have been either recognized or ratified by any governing Masonic body.

 

They are thus practically parading under false pretences and practising a fraud upon the innocent and unwary, thereby putting Masonry in a false light before the world.

 

We say parading advisedly, for their votaries seem set upon strutting the streets clad in gay, gaudy and garish garments, flaunting flaming banners, tearing the public peace to tatters with the blare of the trombone and the boom of the bass-drum.

 

Seeing which the citizen on the sidewalk cries, "See, there go the Masons!" The Masons, forsooth! These devotees of dazzle and din!

 

And the newspapers, who hate things hidden, to whom nothing secret is sacred, who persecute privacy and pray to the god of Publicity, help him to believe that Masonry is just that!

 

And, my brethren, unless we are awake to the danger that threatens us, Masonry is apt to degenerate into just that.

 

These institutions are growing in number.  The other day the writer counted up fourteen of them.  Grand Masters and Grand Lodge Correspondents have assailed them in no uncertain terms, and not without reason, for they are a real menace to Masonry.

 

They could gain no lasting foothold among men were it not for their pretended holding of a Masonic certificate of good character.  In the past, to say that a thing was "Masonic" was to certify to its high standing.  The story of Masonry's devotion to the great doctrines of friendship, morality and brotherly love, of the relief of the down-trodden and distressed, and her dispelling of the darkness of ignorance by the light of truth, has placed her upon the topmost pinnacle in the esteem and respect of men.  These "side organizations" well know this, and they seek to slip into places of power and influence by means of their alleged Masonic passports.  But unless this menace is soon curbed, the day is not distant when a certificate of Masonic membership will have lost all its meaning and value.

 

These nefarious organizations are a menace to Masonry in many ways.

 

One of the queer things about them is that the zealots who espouse the cause of these side organizations seem to have so little respect or reverence for the very institution, membership in whose ranks they make a prerequisite for joining their own order.  Their candidate chasers invade the sanctity of the lodge room, interfere with the workers, make the candidate feel that the degree work is but of passing importance, a matter of mere incident on the way to the "real thing".  Treating the Blue Lodge degrees as mere stepping stones, they tread beneath ruthless feet the beautiful flowers of the ritual, in a mad effort to rush the candidate into their fold.  Before the apprentice is dry behind the ears he is harangued and pestered, brow-beaten and bulldozed, into joining their gang and "having a good time".  The immemorial dignity and decorum of the lodge is disturbed, its noble lessons and high doctrines are discounted and disparaged, its high ideals are trailed in the dust, and the bewildered candidate comes to think that the Order exists for frivolity and not for service.

 

MASONRY IS SANE, STEADY, SOBER

 

Now Masonry has endured down the ages, solely because of its serious and earnest character, because of the sane, steady and sober quality of its aims and ideals. These "side-orders" strive to slur over all these and to substitute in their place a silly seeking for pleasure and a light-headed lust for excitement.  Their rituals far too often savour of vulgarity and their horse-play verges at times even upon the obscene.

 

It is upon this sort of thing that these side-orders seek to have set the stamp and seal of Masonic approval, and we seem content to stand complacently by and let them get it.

 

They drag their "politics", their petty piques and quarrels, their disappointed ambitions to have high-sounding titles, and wear resplendent robes, into the sacred precincts of the lodge-room, disturb the work of the builders and destroy the peace and harmony of the Craft.

 

The sort of men who are won to the Order by this sort of thing do it no good, for they are not worth having - are not fit material for the building "of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens".

 

Time was when Masonry was known as "a system of morality veiled in allegory".  If this thing is not checked, how long will it be before it comes to be called a frenzy of frivolity, fed by folly"?

 

These "side-orders" scatter Masonry's force. They lower its aims and purposes, destroy its ancient dignity and blur the vision of its lofty ideals.  They tend inevitably to wreck its power and influence by destroying its solidarity, and threaten to take away wholly its power to serve mankind.

 

We are coming to have far too many "play-grounds in Masonry", too much of a rush for "refreshment" in an institution anciently dedicated to "labour".  Masonry is in a mighty poor business when it feeds modern society's already overwrought passion for passing pleasures.  If there ever was a day when men needed to quit dallying with delights and attended to business, it is now.  For the popular call nowadays seems to be for the man who will be "a good fellow", who will forget his business, let it slide, and in the end make of himself an object of Masonic charity.

 

We are taking far too many men into the Order who do not know what an earnest thought means, and who care less.  Far too many who have neither the brains nor the desire to seek back of the symbol to the great idea thereby symbolized.  These men lie within the belly of the Order like leaden lumps that will not be digested, and they are not an asset, but a liability.

 

And it is these very "side-orders" that lure these light-headed liabilities within our fold-bad cess to them! and at a time when, God knows! we don't need them, but do need earnest men.

 

If by any chance this mushroom growth of these Masonic side-shows results in any way from a reaction against a humdrum and lifeless recital of the ritual by mechanical Masons who have no idea of the meaning of the words that glide so glibly from their lips, then the remedy is not far to seek.

 

For, as Brother Weston of Vermont has so clearly pointed out, all the lodges need to do is to make the ritual interesting by means of lectures, readings, discussions and debates, tending to make its meaning clear; for a man simply cannot put life and force into the words he utters unless his soul is first set all aglow with their meaning.

 

That immortal meaning is there, hidden, buried, concealed within the ritual, and our very salvation depends upon our working it out.

 

Perhaps if we will do this we will be pouring Paris-green upon these parasites.

 

But if that doesn't work we may need a new set of Masonic police regulations that will put these bums in the bastile where they belong.

 

----o----

 

Standing for Definite Things

 

By Bro.  GEORGE H. DERN, P. G. M., Utah

 

Bro. Dern, a Nebraskan by birth, was made a Mason at Salt Lake City, in Utah, in 1897, and received the high honour of the Grand Mastership in that jurisdiction in 1913.  Readers will recall a memorable article of his in THE BUILDER, December, 1921, on "Monitorial Symbolism of the Third Degree and its Application to Every Day Life"; a comparison of that fine piece of interpretation with the discussion below will show how full-orbed is his comprehension of Freemasonry.  An explanation of why the Towner-Sterling Bill did not pass was contributed to THE BUILDER, May, 1923, by Bro.  Senator Simeon D. Fess; in the same number appeared a report of the attitude of Grand Lodges toward that bill.  In connection with these studies the reader should review the special Public School Number of August, 1922.

 

 

Doubtless it has occurred to many Masons as somewhat strange that Masonry generally throughout the United States has until lately been advocating a specific piece of legislation, namely the Towner-Sterling Bill.  Perhaps some good brethren may think this a violation of the section in most if not all Masonic codes which provides that "the discussion of political, sectarian or other subjects not strictly of a Masonic character is prohibited in every lodge in this Grand Jurisdiction." In the hope of clearing up any such doubts or misgivings the following observations are presented:

 

It sometimes happens in the lives of men that they are in the midst of a great change or evolution without realizing it.  They are so engrossed with their immediate personal affairs, so bound by custom and established routine, or regard their old views and opinions as so obvious, that they do not see or comprehend the big movements that are carrying mankind along with them.  When such tendencies become perceptible they may be deplored by persons of a conservative cast of mind who venerate the past as the repository of all wisdom and are shocked when "God lets loose a thinker in the world" who proposes something new to meet new conditions.  But progress is the law of all nature, and the world moves forward, not backward, despite our puny efforts to check it.

 

There are signs of a change in the attitude of Freemasonry. Those of us who have been Masons long enough to have become thoroughly indoctrinated know that it has always been deemed improper to commit Masonry to any specific program except the program of brotherly love.  It has been the rule that in all public matters Masons, though imbued with and guided by Masonic precepts and ideals, should act as individuals, each according to his own judgment, and never as a united organization.

 

 

MASONRY SHOULD STAND FOR DEFINITE THINGS

 

During the past few years, however, many Masonic leaders have been laying particular stress upon the necessity of Masonry standing for definite things, and presenting a united front in advancing those things.  Very many Masons who do not pretend to be leaders in the Craft complain that it is hard for one who is not an officer to keep up an active interest in Masonry because we do not stand for anything concrete.  They say that merely coming to lodge and seeing the same old degrees conferred over and over and over again be comes tiresome to a man with an active intellect; that for gathering in social functions to reiterate what fine thing Masonry is and what fine fellows Masons are does not result in any real accomplishment, and that we ought to be more than a mere mutual admiration society; that Masonry is a great, big, clumsy animal that does not know what to do with itself nor how to use its strength.

 

The average Mason will readily agree with these sentiments; but as for having Masonry stand for definite things, that is a delicate matter and must be handled discreetly.  The oldtimers who put in our codes the provision that political, sectarian or other subjects not strictly of a Masonic character should not be discussed in lodge were very wise, and assuredly it is not proposed by anybody to abandon that time honoured policy, upon which our fellowship rests, and which is our strength and support.

 

About strictly Masonic principles there can be no difference of opinion among us, and they may be safely discussed with the utmost freedom, as well as their application to our every day problems.  But when we get into public questions we at once plunge into controversial matters, about which Masons will differ as widely and as violently as outsiders.  I cannot attack a man's pet opinions without hurting his self-esteem, and when I do that I make him angry.  If I assail his political or religious beliefs he gets just as angry as he does when I make slighting remarks about his children or his automobile.  Our opinions are our property, and the most natural thing in the world is to defend what belongs to us, and to resent any attempt to destroy or belittle it.  For example, suppose someone in a Masonic meeting should undertake to make a speech against the protective tariff, which many good Masons sincerely consider as sacred as the holy Grail.  Immediately peace and harmony would beat a hasty retreat, and the meeting would blow up with a loud report.  Suppose we should declare against the right of working men to strike.  Many good, sincere Masons might think such a declaration right and proper, whilst many other equally good and sincere Masons would regard it as a vital blow at their fundamental human rights.  And so our unanimity and concord would vanish, and we should speedily be divided into wrangling, jangling cliques and factions.  Clearly we must be careful to do nothing that might destroy us from within.

 

 

WE DON'T WANT MASONRY TO RUN THE COUNTRY

 

But the danger of disintegrating Masonry itself is not the only objection.  We do not want to see Masonry, as an organized body, undertake to run the whole country, any more than we want to see the Roman Catholic Church or the Ku Klux Klan run the country, because it would be unamerican.  In a democracy all the people should rule, not a select class or sect, even though that class be so high-minded a body of men as the Masons.  Furthermore, no organization whose sessions and deliberations are secret, as ours are, has any right to try to dominate public affairs, because "popular government moves in the light of day, not in dark and secret places; it appeals to the whole mass of people for support, not merely to the members of a particular society; and it values power only for public ends, not for the aggrandizement and glorification of any single institution." And so it would be a gross perversion of our lofty pretensions as upright, liberty-loving Americans if we were to organize as a national body for the purpose of dictating or controlling the affairs of the nation, no matter how pure our intentions might be.

 

However, it is a proper function of Masonry to fight against other organizations doing this very thing, and that is one of the reasons why Masons are always interested in progressive educational legislation; but let us be very careful about building up a powerful machine that would be certain sooner or later to abuse its power.

 

And so this suggestion of standing for something definite has its pitfalls, and we cannot afford to be too definite.  Or perhaps it would be better to say we ought to be very definite in limiting the scope of our united action.  But there are plenty of things in the fundamental Masonic principles that have a direct and broad public significance, and in the support of which all Masons can afford to unite and battle side by side.

 

As Masons we are seekers after Light-that is, knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment.  If Light is good for us it is good for everybody, and we can engage in no greater work than the diffusion of Light amongst all the people - that is, public education.  So when Masonry interests itself in education it is interesting itself in a subject that is not and should not be political in the sense of being controversial; a subject that is not and should not be sectarian, and never will be so long as Masons can prevent it; a subject strictly of a Masonic character, since it is of the very essence of Masonry.

 

Moreover, one of the primary teachings of Freemasonry is good citizenship, and we have not only a right but a duty to be interested in anything that promotes good citizenship.  What is the real purpose of our free public school system but to train the children for citizenship? What other justification is there for taxing me to educate my neighbor's children?

 

 

So there you have the syllogism:

 

Masonry stands for good citizenship.

Education promotes good citizenship.

Therefore, Masonry stands for education.

 

He would be a captious critic indeed who would deny a Masonic lodge the right to discuss public education, or even a single concrete phase of it, as expressed in a specific piece of legislation.

 

----o----

 

The Story of Freemasonry in New Jersey

By Bro. ERNEST A. REED, P. G. M., New Jersey

 

To tell the story of Masonry in the State of New Jersey one must go back to the beginning of duly constituted Masonry in the New World.  All available records seem to show that modern Freemasonry was formally introduced into the American colonies by Daniel Cox, or Coxe, who on June 5, in the year 1730, received a deputation from the Duke of Norfolk, Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of England, appointing him Provincial Grand Master of the Provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in America.

 

The original deputation, which is on file in the archives of the Grand Lodge of England, gives Brother Coxes residence as New Jersey; and of this there can be no doubt for the histories and records of our state also bear witness of this fact.  Moreover, Provincial Grand Master Coxe was an important personage in the province.  He was the son of Dr. Coxe of London, one of the great proprietors.  He was a member of the old New Jersey assembly and at one time its speaker.  He served for many years as Chief Magistrate and upon his death was buried at Burlington, New Jersey.

 

Just what steps Coxe took to establish lodges in America is not very clear.  The records of the Grand Lodge of England do not show the appointment of any Deputy Grand Master or other officers of a Provincial Grand Lodge, nor the congregating of Masons into lodges; but records were not very well kept in those days, nor was it the custom to report all proceedings to the Grand Lodge, and it is possible that some of the old lodges in Pennsylvania were instituted by him.  Perhaps his failure to establish lodges in the province of New Jersey may have been due in a measure to the Provincial Governor, Lord Cornbury, whose unpopularity in America led to his recall.  Yet Coxe was known throughout the province as an eminent lawyer and upon his return to England in 1731 he was received in the Grand Lodge of England as "The Right Worshipful Grand Master of North America."

 

English records show in addition to Coxes appointment as Provincial Grand Master in 1730, Richard Riggs appointed in 1737 and Francis Goelet in 1751.  There were other Grand Lodges in England at this time and other Provincial Grand Masters were sent by them to America.  In 1753 George Harrison became Provincial Grand Master of New York and from him the first lodge in New Jersey got its charter.  In May, 1761, an application for a lodge was made to Provincial Grand Master Harrison by a number of Masons residing in what was then the town of Newark.  William Tukey, Esq., was appointed the first Worshipful Master and the lodge was to meet at the Rising Sun tavern, a tiny inn near what is now the heart of a great city.

 

The original minutes of this famous lodge for the years from its institution are still in existence in the archives of St. John's Lodge, No. 1, of Newark.  From 1764 till 1768 the minutes were suspended.  In 1769 they were reopened again, continuing till 1772.  During the darkness of the Revolution they ceased altogether.  When the Grand Lodge of New Jersey was formed St. John's Lodge was represented and a warrant was given to it which was numbered 2 on the New Jersey register, a lodge at Bedminster which had been warranted by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1767 being given No. 1. The lodge at Bedminster became extinct, however, and St. John's Lodge was allowed to assume its number.  St. John's Lodge is still active and known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the oldest lodge in New Jersey and one of the oldest in America.  In 1762 the Provincial Grand Lodge of Massachusetts gave a warrant for a lodge in Elizabeth Towne, New Jersey (now Elizabeth) and in 1763 a warrant was given by the same Grand Lodge for a lodge at Prince Towne (now Princeton), but both of these lodges have become extinct and their records lost.

 

MANY MILITARY LODGES EXISTED

 

Many lodges were in existence in the armed forces of the Revolution. New Jersey lying as it did between two greater fields of operation, New York and Philadelphia, became a concourse across which the contending armies marched, sometimes in victory, often in retreat.  The Lecestershire Regiment, or the British 17th Regiment of Foot, as it was commonly  called, had a famous lodge known as Unity Lodge.  During Washington's hasty retreat across New Jersey following the abandonment of Fort Lee on the Hudson River he was closely followed by the British, and this regiment was a part of the pursuing force.  Washington's march led through Newark, Elizabeth, New Brunswick, Princeton to Trenton, where he crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.  The British 17th Regiment stopped at Princeton, occupying the college town.  The rest of the British Army, including Rall's regiment of Hessians, marched on to Trenton.

 

Washington's recrossing of the Delaware on Christmas night and his thrilling victory over the Hessians at Trenton needs no recital here; nor does that other exploit when, the British believing they had him cornered, rested for the night, and awoke to the sound of cannon and musket fire at Princeton, twelve miles away, and realized that Washington had escaped.

 

The British had waited the arrival of reinforcements.  These included in part the 17th Regiment of Foot, which had received orders to march from Princeton to Trenton at dawn.  As they filed out of town over a little bridge, they saw Mercer's Division of Washington's army moving up the opposite bank of the stream.  Both forces tried to reach and hold the top of a small hill nearby, which became the scene of the battle.  The advance was led by General Hugh Mercer, a member of Washington's own lodge, Fredericksburg Lodge, No. 4, of Fredericksburg, Va.  In the fighting General Mercer was knocked from his horse by a blow from the butt of a British musket; but he defended himself until mortally wounded.  He died in a farm house near by.

 

In the confusion of the fighting and British retreat an American soldier, one of four men left of Major Haslett's command from Delaware, picked up on the battlefield  the warrant which had been granted to Unity Lodge in the British 176 Regiment of Foot by the Grand Lodge of Scotland.  The warrant was carried back to Delaware and reposes in the archives of Union Lodge of Middletown.  In this engagement the gallant captain of the 17th Regiment, Brother William Leslie, was wounded.  By order of Washington he was cared for by the American surgeons and placed with the American wounded in the farm wagons which served for ambulances in those days.  As the little army after its victory wound its way through the hills of western New Jersey, Leslie died and was buried with military honours, and, as tradition tells us, with Masonic ceremonies in the graveyard in the little town of Pluckamin.

 

A new warrant to replace the one lost in battle was later given the British regiment by a Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and this in turn fell into the hands of the forces of General Wayne, "Mad Anthony," at the time of the surprise and capture of Stony Point, New York, the British regiment at that time forming a part of the garrison; but the warrant was courteously returned by General Samuel H. Parsons, a member of American Union Lodge of the Connecticut Line.

 

There were lodges among the American troops and three at least among the forces that made up the New Jersey line.  Perhaps the best known military lodge on the American side was American Union Lodge of the Connecticut Line, as its name indicates, a lodge formed among the troops from Connecticut.  The warrant and minutes of this lodge are preserved among the records of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut; but at the time this lodge came into being there was no Grand Lodge of Connecticut and the warrant was granted by Deputy Grand Master Gridley of Massachusetts, the same Gridley who laid out the breastworks at Bunker Hill and who was acting Grand Master on account of the death in battle of Grand Master Joseph Warren.  The minutes are well kept and show every location of the Connecticut troops.

 

LAFAYETTE VISITS A LODGE

 

This lodge is referred to here because of its famous session of Dec. 27, 1779, while the American Army lay in winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey.  It was a celebration of the old Masonic festival, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist.  The minutes of the lodge give every detail of this meeting.  The records show sixty-nine persons present, one of whom was Washington, the Commander-in-Chief.  There was a procession, banquet, addresses and a general good time.  Some of the lodge paraphernalia used on this occasion was borrowed from St. John's Lodge of Newark, and the old minute book of St. John's Lodge, No. 1, has a record of the fact that "Sundrie articles were taken out of the lodge chest and lent to Brother Thomas Kinney and Brother Jerry Brewin to carry as far as Morris Towne, etc." There has always been a tradition that Lafayette was made a Mason on this occasion and a well-known history of New Jersey as well as a recently published and popular work on Masonry state this as a fact.  There is no record to substantiate it, however, and the list of those present, while including the names of many prominent persons in the armed forces of the Revolution, does not include the name of the distinguished Frenchman; moreover, the statement made by Lafayette himself on the occasion of his visit to the Grand Lodge of Delaware as related in the memoirs of the beloved Dr. Chaytor, who was present on that occasion, seems to prove beyond question that Lafayette was made a Mason in a military lodge in the American Army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

 

Unfortunately, many of the old lodge records have been lost, but those that remain reveal interesting details of Colonial life.  The old minute book of Burlington Lodge shows that the Masons of Burlington paid the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for the warrant of Burlington Lodge a fee of "2,160 Doll's Cn'l Curr'y", which seems an enormous sum to pay for a warrant; but when we note it is to be paid in Continental currency we realize that this is simply an evidence of the extraordinary depreciation of the currency of the time.  Later on we find that the lodge reimbursed the members for the amount advanced to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and an appropriation of six pounds was sufficient to meet the need.

 

On Dec 18, 1796, a convention was called at New Brunswick for the purpose of establishing a Grand Lodge in the state of New Jersey.  The officers selected on that occasion included the following, whose names and titles are given as they appear on the old record:

 

"The Hon. David Brearly, Esq., Chief Justice of New Jersey: Right Worshipful Grand Master.

 

"The Hon. Robert Lettis Hooper, Vice-President of New Jersey: Deputy Grand Master.

 

"William Leedle, Esq., late High Sheriff of Morris: Senior Grand Warden.

 

"Daniel Marsh, Esq., Representative in the Assembly of New Jersey: Junior Grand Warden.

 

"John Noble Cumming, Esq., late Colonel in the Army of the United States: Grand Secretary.

 

"Maskell Ewing, Jun., Esq., Clerk of the General Assembly of New Jersey: Deputy Grand Secretary.

 

"Joshua Corshon, Esq., High Sheriff of Hunterdon: Grand Treasurer."

 

The second session of this body convened at New Brunswick on Jan. 30, 1787, and at this time the present Grand Lodge of New Jersey came into being.  Hon.  David Brearly was elected Grand Master, an office to which he was re-elected for three successive years.  At the session of July, 1787, the Grand Master was absent; but a letter from him was read which shows that he was at the time representing New Jersey in the Federal Convention at Philadelphia.  Brearly had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the army of the Revolution and was a warm personal friend of Washington.  He was a member of the state and federal conventions, and his signature appears on the Constitution of the United States.  For nine years he was Chief Justice of New Jersey.

 

The history of Masonry in New Jersey under the Grand Lodge of New Jersey has been devoid of events of unusual interest; peace and harmony have prevailed.  Masonry has grown numerically till the Grand Master of New Jersey presides today over nearly 75,000 members of our Craft congregated into some 240 lodges.  A number of years ago the Grand Lodge purchased a handsome estate near Burlington for the purpose of providing a home for feeble and indigent Masons and their wives, or their widows or orphans.  The buildings have been added to from time to time, and at present extensive alterations and additions are in progress which will add greatly to the comfort and convenience of our aged and youthful guests.  Our present family consists of about 130 persons, one-third of whom are boys and girls.  Additional property has been purchased from time to time and today the home includes a farm of 150 acres, all under cultivation.

 

Masons in New Jersey are deeply interested in all activities of the Craft throughout the land, and have entered wholeheartedly and substantially into the great national Masonic movements; the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association, the National Masonic Research Society, and the Masonic Service Association.

 

----o----

 

The Lost Word

 

By Bro. ARTHUR C. PARKER, New York

 

There are many who can kindle the emotions, and more still who can arouse the passions, but few who know how to set the mind aglow.  Brother Parker, who contributed a memorable article to THE BUILDER last May, is one of these.  The present article is one of a series of three bearing the general title "Secrets of the Temple," and is here printed by permission of Brother George K. Staples, 33 degree, Commander of Buffalo Consistory, who arranged to publish the series in book form.  The same series has been translated into Italian and is now appearing under the imprint of the Grand Lodge of Italy.  The two companion studies will appear in these pages in due time, and will be followed by a discussion of the Swastika, now being written especially for THE BUILDER.  The Scottish Rite, Northern Jurisdiction, has signalized its appreciation of Brother Parker's services in leading his brethren to think Masonically by electing him to receive the 33 degree next September.  Brother Parker is now an associate editor of THE BUILDER.

 

UPON a clay tablet found amid the ruins of an ancient city upon the Euphrates was found the words of a hymn - a hymn about a Word.  The song is old, five thousand years old, and perhaps twenty-five centuries older than any Hebrew scripture, and, in any event, it antedates the final development of those writings.  Shall we pause to listen?

 

The Word that causes the heavens on high to tremble,

The Word that makes the world below to quake,

The Word that bringeth destruction to the Annunakis,

His Word is beyond the diviner, beyond the seer!

His Word is a tempest without a rival.

 

The Word of the Lord the heavens cannot endure,

The Word of Enlil the earth cannot endure,

The heavens cannot endure the stretching forth of His hand,

The earth cannot endure the setting forth of His foot!

 

Here we have an ancient hymn of Babylon in which the wise priesthood of a great religion sang praises to a word.  But what this word is we are not told, yet the word is mighty.  The adjustment and the readjustment of the Babylonian pantheon was nothing else than an effort to discover the key-word of the world.  Nor was the effort of Egypt with its grotesque procession of zoomorphic deities anything less.

 

And so religions have come and gone, through darkness, superstition and ignorance, striving to find the great secret of welfare and the magical potence that once possessed should be the secret that would unlock the doors of the invisible.

 

The mystic's search for the great name that shall open all things is as old as man.  The mystic still believes that there is a divine mystery concealed in some word, and all through the ages he has thought that he should discover that name.  The Hindoo sage pronounces the word AUM, and in it feels that he has a key-word to paradise.  Even when, by revelation, the gods tell their names, man has believed that the real name was concealed either totally or within the enigma of the name or in its numerical value.  Thus within the name Elohina (Elhim) the mystic finds the number 3.1415, and asserts that Elhim is the master word by which the circle of eternity may be measured.

 

All ancient names are studied by the Kabbalists for their esoteric numerical value.  The letters of the alphabet are also given values in other terms.  Thus the sacred word spelled Aleph-Vau-Mem (AUM) would mean: A = Man + Power; U = Creation + Passage; M = Woman + Mother.  This word is a mystic triad by which creative energy is invoked, but in a spiritual sense.

 

The mystic name makers, therefore, in making names sought to choose letters that had certain values and certain numbers.  Now the numbers of a name might be added so as to produce another number, for example: Solomon would in Graeco-Egyptian have the literal value of S-L-M-N.  S=60; L=30; M=40; N=50.  These numbers added give 180.  This reduced becomes a series of 20 nines.  Nine is the perfect number and is three times three.  "The sound of the voice" - such is the meaning of 180, but nine means "My shield and protection".  Again let us interpret each letter of this word S-L-M-N.  S=60, means a circle commenced.  L=30, means the expansion of the circle.  M=40, means an uninterrupted continuation (feminine passivity).  N-50, means a final extension, a conclusion.

 

Let us still further examine this mystical name of Solomon.  The word plainly says, I am a circular line, extended, continued and concluded.  It says, moreover, that it consists of four parts, of the following measures: 60, 30, 40, 50.  These total 180, or the number of degrees in a half circle.  Therefore, the circle is divided into the number of degrees indicated; i.e., 60+30=90; 40+50=90.  Whether this is geometrical or astronomical matters little, for from a study of these angles we can work out, if we have the taste, a whole scheme of Solomonic wisdom.  The best interpretation is that the word represents the rising of the sun in the east (Sol), that it passes the morning of S and L and arrives at zenith between L and M (OM), and sets in the west beyond M and N, or ON, and ON is the city or abode of the Sun, the Egyptian name for Heliopolis.

 

This example is not introduced to mystify or to create the idea that some mysterious doctrine lies behind every name, for most names are so corrupted from the original forms that they cannot easily be analyzed Kabbalistically now. We merely introduce this name to emphasize that the ancients had meanings back of names, and that these meanings might often be discovered.  Yet, if a mystical name of a god did conceal a secret, it was so devised that a key-name was used before the real name could be discovered.  Thus a man named Solomon might have hidden his name under a substitute word and called himself Davidson, Wiseman, or Jedidiah or some similar name, by which it might be harder to divine the mystery of his "Word" or to "get his number".

 

Masons are given a new name at the beginning of their initiation into the mysteries, but this name only suggests the real new name that they are to have.  The real name comes only to him who overcometh and who hath eaten of the hidden manna.  It is then that he receives a white stone and in the stone a "new name" written. (Rev. ii, 17.) Nor must it be thought that there are not those who have eaten of the "hidden manna" and who know their new  names.

 

Veneration of names has not entirely ceased even in civilization.  Each of us desires to keep his name "good", for "a good name is rather chosen than fine ointment", "but the name of the wicked shall rot".

 

Many men labour "to make their names known".  Men are willing to expend millions of dollars to spread their names over the face of the globe, as advertisers do, while others by doing great deeds are pleased to see their names become household words.

 

Our names are a art of our personality, and this extends even to our signatures.  This is true to such an extent that there are those who pretend to read the character of a man by his handwriting. 

 

But, how vain it is to strive for the immortality of our names to the neglect of the immortality of our souls.

 

And still the search for the unknown Word goes on, and man seeks to discover his Deity by name.  How easily the truth might be known if we would but interpret aright the text: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.  The nations of the earth since the first awakening of man's religious instinct have turned their minds toward heaven and inquired, "Who is it that has made the earth and all things thereon?" And likewise men have inquired, "Who shall protect me and give me power, who shall deliver me, and whom shall I call upon for favour?"

 

To answer this men evolved names of spirits, of gods, of duads and triads, and sought by means of these names to discover Deity.  Thus it is that man's great quest is to find God and to know Him.  To depict this quest is a task that tempts the author's pen, for it is a subject of thrilling interest.

 

Before going far afield, let us look toward the Hebrew Bible, to see how these scriptures depict the search.  Let us scan the first line of Genesis and read from the Hebrew, itself, "In the beginning Gods created-".  But let us be more specific; the word translated here "gods" is the Hebrew plural word Elohim (Alohim). Let us pause; why should the scriptures say "gods"? The answer is not afar off; the ancient Hebrews had more than one god!

 

Every critical scholar admits this and seeks to enlighten us upon the ancient Hebrew pantheon.  But we need not go afar to see that even the scriptures as we have them also admit this.

 

But in this word El (o) him we have the root Al, El, Il, and in that word we have the whole religious history of Babylon and Semitic Asia Minor of antiquity.

 

This word al means "turning toward" and further elucidation, as suggested by Professor Delitzch, shows that it means "that which a man, turns toward as a goal."

 

The ancient thought of their gods as dwelling up above in the place toward which man turns his eyes  in and above the sky.  A Babylonian hymn calls the sun-god "the goal toward which all the eyes of the inhabitants are turned". (Cf.  Job xxxvi, 25.) So, following this idea, the oldest of Semites gave to the God-one who dwelt above and ruled the sky world the name il or el.  It was He to whom they looked.

 

The worship of Il or El by the early North Semitic tribes as well as to the south was an established fact as early as 2500 B.C., 1300 years before the rise of the religion of Yahwe [Jehovah].

 

In later times these Els or Elohim were conceived as plural beings, duads and triads and more.  Suffice to relate that the names of the early Hebrew gods were many and all of the local gods or baals, and particularly Ashtar and Yerahme'el.  These to the Hebrews were all Elohim, just as to the northern Semites of Palestine they were Baalhim or baals.  The word El, or Al, was a far-spread name and from it the Arabians took the name of their Deities, and later the Mohammedans used it in constructing their word for God - Allah.

 

Cheyne points out an interesting origin for the name El and ascribes it to the Phoenician alm.  This word was used as the title of the chief god of the Phoenician trinity who was Yerahme'el.  The title may have been thus applied but as a word it was used far earlier than this special application of it.

 

In the historical fragments that we have given we have only indicated the world search, age-long, for the "lost word".  In the new dispensation we are given a clear vision of how we may discover that word and apply it.  Lost? Why should it ever have been lost? In all ages there have been those who possessed that word, but these have been the few who had paid the price of learn.  It was folly, to think that this "word" could ever be communicated by word of mouth or by outward sign, for it can be known only from one source and by one means.

 

In ancient Freemasonry under the old operative system there were three masters sitting in the west, "thereby better enabling them to observe the rising of the sun in the east".  Each master bore a rod as the symbol of his office.  Each rod was of different length, as follows: Solomon's rod was five units in length, Hiram of Tyre's four units, and Hiram Abiff's three units.

 

According to Masonic tradition upon each rod was a name, just such sort of names as Chapter Masons use, though not the same names by any means.

 

By the use of the rods, placed end to end, a right angle triangle can be formed.  For example, rods of three inches, four inches and five inches placed end to end in the form of a triangle will form a perfect right angle at the point where rod 4 meets rod 3. Rod 5 makes the hypotenuse.

 

Now according to our ancient traditions upon the slain Hiram's rod was the full name of Deity, or perhaps the first and most important syllable.  His rod was essential not only in forming the ineffable word but in completing the right angle.

 

It was Hiram Abiff's rod for which the Craftsmen were instructed to search, and not a square.  The early ritual makers have erred, I think, in making a square the implement discovered.

 

Thus is explained the calamity that is depicted in our third degree, but the ritual as evolved since 1717 has obscured and even mutilated the secrets as well as the meanings of more ancient rites.

 

An actual word was lost and with it one of the three standards of Solomon's system of mensuration.  Little wonder that Andonairarn received a place of honour succeeding Hiram, for only Adonairam could make another metal rod equal to that which was lost, but oven he could not engrave upon it the lost syllable Yah or word Yabweh.

 

It is the philosopher who points the way by which we may recover that word, for it is the real word and not any substitute that makes men and Masons good men and true.  And when we have given ourselves as the price, the name enters our hearts; and when it so enters it becomes an impulse that translates itself in the expression of a life.

 

----o----

 

The Grand Master of England

 

By Bro. DUDLEY WRIGHT, England

 

The Grand Master of England, reigning as he does over the United Grand Lodge and all its dependencies, is the most widely known and influential individual, no doubt, in the Masonic world, a brother of whom Masons everywhere delight to hear and to honor, as much for his record as statesman and soldier as for the high place he holds in the Craft. Thinking that readers of THE BUILDER would be interested to see a biographical sketch of England's Grand Master, we asked Bro. Wright to contribute the article given herewith.

 

It is in order in this same connection to say that Bro. Wright himself is becoming more and more taxed to respond to the demands being made on his pen. His name appears in journals here, there and everywhere over the English speaking world with amazing frequency, and always in connection with a solid contribution to Masonic literature. How he manages to do it all is a mystery to his fellow scribes. May he be spared to keep at it for many a year to come!

 

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Earl of Sussex in the Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Saxony and Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was born at Buckingham Palace, London, on the 1st of May, 1850.

 

He entered the Army in 1868, was promoted Captain in 1871, Major in 1875, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1876, Colonel in 1880, Major-General in the same year, Lieutenant-General in 1889, General in 1893, and Field-Marshal in 1902. He is Colonel-in-Chief of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, the Highland Light Infantry, the Rifle Brigade, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and the Supply and Transport Corps. He is also Colonel of the Grenadier Guards and the Army Service Corps, Honorary Colonel of the South Irish Horse, the Royal East Kent Yeomanry, the Duke of Connaught's Own Sligo Royal Field Reserve Artillery, 6th Battalion Hampshire Regiment, 3rd Battalion the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 3rd and 4th Battalions Highland Light Infantry, the 18th County of London Battalion, and the London Regiment (London Irish Rifles). His Royal Highness is also Colonel-in-Chief of the following regiments of the Indian Army: The 13th Duke of Connaught's Lancers, the 31st Duke of Connaught's Own Lancers, the 7th Duke of Connaught's Own Rajputs, and the 129th Duke of Connaught's Own Baluchis. He was Brigade-Major at Aldershot in 1873-4; Brigade-Major, Cavalry Brigade, Aldershot, 1875; Assistant Adjutant-General, Gibraltar, 1875-6; Brigadier-General, Aldershot, 1883; Major-General Bengal, 1883 to 1886; Lieutenant-General, Bombay, 1886-1890; Lieutenant-General, Southern District, 1890-1896; Lieutenant-General Commanding in Troops at Aldershot, 1893-1896; General Commanding the Forces in Ireland, 1900-1904; General Commanding the 3rd Army Corps, 1901-1904; Inspector General of the Forces and President of the Selection Board, 1904-1907; Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief and High Commissioner in the Mediterranean, 1907-1909, and was appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Dominion of Canada in 1911, which position he held until 1916.

 

The Duke of Connaught saw service in Canada during the Fenian Raid in 1870 and received the Medal and Clasp. He commanded the Brigade of Guards in the Egyptian War of 1882, and was present at the battles of Mahuta and Tel-el-Kebir, when he was mentioned in dispatches and was thanked by both Houses of Parliament, receiving the Medal with Clasp, the Bronze Star, Second Class Order and the Medjidie, and the C. B. He had the Royal Victorian Chain and is a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of the Most Noble Order of the Thistle, of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick, Grand Master and Principal Knight of the Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. He is also a Knight of the Golden Fleece of Spain, Knight of Saint Andrew of Russia, of the Annunciata of Italy, of the Elephant of Denmark, of the Legion of Honor of France, of the Chrysanthemum of Japan, of the Seraphim of Sweden, of the Tower and Sword of Portugal and of the Spanish Military Order of Merit.

 

Oxford has conferred upon him the Doctorate of Civil Law, while Cambridge and the Cape Universities gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and the Punjab University gave him the Doctorate of Literature.

 

HIS MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

 

On the 13th of March, 1879, His Royal Highness married Princess Louise Margaret Alexandra Victoria Agnes of Prussia, third daughter of the late Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, and brethren will remember his grief at her death on 14th March, 1917. There were three children of the marriage, the eldest, Brother Prince Arthur Frederick Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T., P.C., who was appointed Past Grand Warden in 1914, was born on the 13th of January, 1883. He married the Princess Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise, Duchess of Fife, on 15^th October, 1913. The elder of the two daughters, Princess Margaret Victoria Augusta Charlotte Norah, married in 1905 H. R. H. Prince Gustavus Adolphus, Crown Prince of Sweden, and her sudden death, on the seventieth anniversary of her father's birth, came as a terrible blow to the Grand Master. The marriage of the younger daughter to Commander Ramsay, in the spring of 1919, when, of her own free will, she abandoned the rank and title of Princess, preferring to be known as Lady Patricia Ramsay, is well within the memory of all.

 

The occurrence of the seventieth anniversary of the birth of the Duke of Connaught gave an opportunity for a display on the part of the press, all over the world, as the representative of public opinion, to bear testimony, not only to his popularity, but also to the eminent services he had rendered to the nation throughout the whole of this public career. A writer in The Times said:

 

"The Duke of Connaught was born on May Day, 1850, seventy years ago. Not only in the United Kingdom, but in many distant parts of the Empire, large numbers of the King's subjects will join this morning with real sincerity in the good wishes of his family and near kinsmen. For longer than most of us can remember, during the reigns of his mother, his brother and his nephew, the Duke has been a well-known and most popular figure in the life of the country, and both as a man and a soldier has won for himself an abiding place in its affections.

 

"The great interest of his life has always been the Army. From its guns to its gaiter-buttons, from the standpoint of a Woolwich cadet to that of a Field-Marshal, he knows it through and through. He has served in turn as engineer, gunner, rifleman, Dragoon and Hussar. At Tel-el-Kebir he commanded the Brigade of Guards, and during the campaign was three times mentioned in despatches; in 1886 he was appointed to the post of Commander-in-Chief at Bombay, and afterwards commanded the troops at Aldershot, in Ireland, and in the Mediterranean, where he was also High Commissioner; from 1904 to 1907 he held the post of Inspector-General of the Forces, and during the war was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the Volunteers and Inspector of Oversea Troops. He would certainly have succeeded the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief if that dignified office had not been abolished. As it is, he remains a Field-Marshal, a real friend to the Army, and a practical and devoted soldier who for fifty-two years has worthily upheld the military - but never militarist - traditions of his godfather, the great Duke of Wellington.

 

“That, however, is only one side of his life and character. He is deeply interested in the social welfare of the! people, as well as of the Army, and is a generous supporter of charitable and benevolent schemes for the benefit of his fellow citizens in the Home Country. As for the Empire, he has always shown himself its loyal and hard-working servant, more especially in South Africa and Canada. His work in Canada as Governor-General was of particular value, and the fruits of it were plainly visible during the Prince of Wales' tour in the Dominion. When he went there, fears were expressed in certain quarters as to the wisdom of the appointment of a Royal Duke. It was felt that some independent spirits might regard the establishment of a reign of Court etiquette as an unwelcome innovation. But when the Royal Duke was found to be human, Canada took him and his family to her heart, and his unfailing tact and tireless interest in all the problems and activities of the Dominion soon made him a general favorite. In consenting to an extension of his term of office during the war, when his experience as a soldier was of so much service to those who were engaged in the enrollment and training of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, he put his own feelings in the background, in spite of his consideration for the delicate health of the Duchess, and so added to the debt which the Dominion as well as the Mother Country already owed him.

 

"He is, above all, a man of unfailing energy, who always must be doing something. No sooner has one appointment or one journey come to an end than he has embarked on another. Not only during the war, when, like the whole of the Royal Family, from King and Queen downwards, he set a fine example of unswerving and unselfish devotion to duty, but throughout his life he has constantly been at the disposal of his country. He has still, we may hope, in all human probability, many years of happy and useful life in front of him, and he is today what he has always been, a fine pattern of an upright and honourable English gentleman, who has well earned the feelings of respect and affection with which his fellow-countrymen regard him."

 

On the same day many other tributes appeared in the daily press all over the world. The Westminster Gazette wrote:

 

"All good wishes will go with the Duke of Connaught today on the attainment of his seventieth birthday. In the Army, in public life, as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, and still more in his later period as Governor-General of Canada, the Duke has done whatever duty has fallen to him with a zeal and thoroughness that have won him a place in the affection of the people of the Empire. Quietly and efficiently he has illustrated the real service that can be given to the State by a member of the Royal Family not in the direct line of succession who brings brains and good will to his tasks. His career in the Army was fruitful of much good, but we think today less of the soldier than of the great gentleman whose whole life has been one of devoted service. It was a happy chance that the Duke of Connaught was Governor-General of Canada when war broke out. The Dominion required no stimulus to exertion, but was much in need of the expert guidance that the Duke could give from his long experience in the Army, and that he placed at the disposition of the Canadian Government whole-heartedly."

 

HIS INTEREST IN FREEMASONRY

 

Those who have been privileged to attend any of the many Masonic gatherings at which the Grand Master was present can bear willing witness to his deep interest in all Craft doings, over whose affairs in England he has presided with such distinction for so many years, but the Grand Master was at his best, perhaps, when presiding over one of the lodges of which he was the permanent Master. An incident of a very homely character took place a few years since, on the occasion of the installation of the Duke of Connaught as Worshipful Master of the Royal Colonial Institute Lodge, No. 3556, at Freemasons' Hall. He not only invested his Deputy Master, to whom it was thought he would delegate the investiture of the other officers, but insisted on his right to invest all his officers, Tyler included, to their great pride and delight.

 

Right from the time of his initiation the Duke of Connaught has taker the keenest interest in all matters appertaining to the Craft. His initiation took place in the Prince of Wales Lodge, No. 259, on 24th March, 1874, the ceremony being performed by his royal brother, H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, then Worshipful Master of the lodge, afterwards King Edward VII. He passed on to the next degree on 22nd June, 1874, and completed the steps of his admission into the Craft on 27th April of the following year, the day immediately preceding that on which the Prince of Wales was installed as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, at which ceremony the Duke of Connaught had the honor and privilege of being present. He became an active member of other lodges, notably the Royal Alpha Lodge, No. 16, of which he was Master in 1881; the Aldershot Army and Navy Lodge, No. 1971; the Navy Lodge, No. 2612; the Jubilee Masters' Lodge, No. 2712; the Nil Sine Labore Lodge, No. 2736; the Old Wellingtonian Lodge, No. 3404, and the Royal Colonial Institute Lodge, already mentioned, of most of which he is the permanent Master.

 

In 1877 the Duke was invested Senior Grand Warden of England, and his younger brother, the late Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, was at the same time appointed Junior Grand Warden, but the only occasion on which the three royal brothers were present at the same time at a communication of the Grand Lodge was at an Emergency Meeting held on 15th March, 1882, to congratulate H. M. Queen Victoria on her escape from the hands of the assassin. The next important- event in the Duke's career was his appointment, in 1878, to the office - which he still holds - of Great Prior of the Order of the Temple in Ireland, and then, after the lapse of a few years, he was, in 1886, appointed and installed Provincial Grand Master of Sussex. The installation ceremony took place on 22nd June of that year, in the Dome of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, in the presence of one of the largest gatherings of Freemasons ever held in Sussex. The Installing Master was again the Prince of Wales, who was assisted by the late Lords Herschell and Beresford.

 

HE LEAVES FOR INDIA

 

Not long afterwards the Duke of Connaught left England for India, where he had previously been in command of the Meerut District, to take over the command of the forces in the Presidency of Bombay, but he was fortunately able to return to England to take part in the state functions connected with the celebration of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria as Sovereign of the British Dominions. He was among the Masonic dignitaries of the Order who attended the memorable meeting in the Royal Albert Hall, under the auspices of his brother, the Prince of Wales, Grand Master, on 13th June, 1887, when an Address of Congratulation was voted to Queen Victoria. Meanwhile the Duke of Connaught had been appointed to the vacant position of District Grand Master of Bombay, and had graciously taken charge of the dutiful Address of Congratulation to the Queen on the attainment of her Jubilee, voted by the Bombay District Grand Lodge, and he personally presented it to Her Majesty, it being the only Address, save that voted by Grand Lodge, which was thus honored.

 

Since 1901 the Duke of Connaught has held the appointment of First Grand Principal of Royal Arch Masonry and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of England and Wales and the Colonies and Dependencies of the British Crown. He is Permanent Soverign of the Connaught Chapter of the Antient and Accepted Rite, meeting at Aldershot, as well as a member of the 33rd degree of that body, of which he is also the Grand Patron. In Knight Templary he was installed in the Duke of Connaught and Strathern Preceptory, No. 153, in the United Provinces, India, and in 1901 he became affiliated with the Connaught Preceptory, No. 172, meeting at the Officers' Club House, Aldershot, of which he is the permanent Preceptor. He is also Grand Master of the United Orders of the Temple and Hospital.

 

His interest in the various Masonic Institutions is no less keen. In 1878 he presided at the eighteenth anniversary Festival of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys; in 1892 he acted in the same capacity for the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls at the 104th anniversary Festival, while in 1897 he was pleased to preside at the annual Festival of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution. He is Patron of all three Institutions. He has taken a very deep interest in the formation of the Freemasons' War Hospital, and when this Institution reverted to its original purpose of a Masonic Hospital and Nursing Home, in 1920, he was the first to welcome the patients and to express a hope and desire for their well-being.

 

His first and only personal appeal to the Craft as Grand Master was on the occasion of the memorable Masonic Peace Celebration, in the Royal Albert Hall, in 1919, when he originated the appeal for funds to raise a Central Home for Freemasonry in the metropolis, which should be worthy not only of the Craft in England, as the Mother Grand Lodge, but be a fitting memorial to the many hundreds of brethren who gave their lives as a sacrifice in the Great War.

 

In 1920 the Duke of Connaught took the place of his nephew, Bro. H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, and went to India as the representative of his King and country. While there he found time to grant audience to the brethren of the several District Grand Lodges in India, and thus cemented bonds in the world-wide fraternity. On his return to England he lost no time in paying a visit to they communication of the United Grand Lodge of England, when he gave an exceedingly interesting account of his travels. In the course of his remarks he said:

 

"I had the very greatest pleasure in visiting the District Grand Lodge of Madras, of Bengal, of the Punjab and of Bombay and I am sure you would all have felt very proud and very much touched with the splendid welcome they gave me in each of those cities. The Masons there were very keen and alert. They were doing their duty, and were following the great precepts of our Craft. Besides that, they were steadily increasing in numbers. I know of no part of the British Empire where Masonry can be of greater use in cementing these good feelings which should exist among the different nationalities, castes and creeds than the great Empire of India. I am certain, from all I saw, and you may be gratified to learn it, that everything was in good working order, and everywhere I found zealousness and keenness. I found that charity was ever thought of, and that the great precepts of Freemasonry were understood and carried out in the best possible manner. It was a great satisfaction to me as Grand Master, to meet the brethren of India again. You will remember that I was District Grand Master of Bombay for five years, and I found that they had never forgotten me. They had remembered the different occasions on which I had been with them, and I can assure you that I was very much touched by the warmth of their reception. Each lodge insisted on presenting me with a highly valued memento of my visit to their respective District Grand Lodges.”

 

----o----

 

Great Men Who Were Masons

 

Louis Kossuth

 

By Bro. GEO. W. BAIRD, P.G.M., District of Columbia

 

LUJOS, or Louis, Kossuth, the celebrated Hungarian patriot and liberator, was born in Monok, Hungary, in 1802, being Slavic in decent and Lutheran in religion. Through his father, a lawyer, he obtained a good education, including classic instruction in the Piarists school at Ujhely, followed by a course at Eperies, completing with a legal and philosophical training at the college of Patak, in the last named of which he was fostered in a spirit of hatred for Austria.

 

Kossuth became well read in history and also in language, knowing the various Magyar dialects well, and Slovak, German, French and Latin; in later life he became very proficient in English. After leaving college he rose from one position to another, early becoming noted as a liberal, was popular with the middle class and was, for a period, manager of the large estates of the Countess Szapary in Zemplein. In the diet of 1832-6 he was proxy for a member in the upper house, possessing in that capacity a voice but no vote. This experience was of some importance in his career because the diet ranked among the more important assemblies of modern Hungary; and its debates, following close upon the Polish tragedy of 1831, were watched with great interest by the populace, especially by patriots, although any publication of them was hindered by severe restrictions. The liberals, the party in opposition, were persuaded by Kossuth to resort to the extraordinary means of a lithographed newspaper which they called Orszaggyalesi tudosositasoz, meaning Parliamentary Communications. Extracts and communications were dictated by Kossuth to a number of copyists who lithographed the same, and this crude sheet obtained no little circulation. Kossuth later became connected with another organ, but this venture fell through when the government prohibited its publication, whereupon he had it placed under the protection of the County of Pesth; but even so the government again prohibited it. On May 2, 1837, Kossuth was tried for treason and sentenced to four years in prison. On account of this move, great agitation developed among the populace so that the liberals carried the elections for the next diet of 1839-40. Because of this rise in power they were able to secure the release of Kossuth and some of his fellow prisoners, a victory for liberal principles which met with many popular demonstrations and rejoicings.

 

Kossuth was invited to use the columns of the Pesth-Hirlap (Pesth Journal), a liberal venture started in January, 1841, with fewer than one hundred subscribers. Within a very short time he had made this paper so popular that its circulation increased by thousands and that in spite of the opposition of the aristocracy and the clergy.

 

Count Stephen Szechenyi, of an old and aristocratic family, denounced Kossuth as a dangerous agrarian and demagogue, in a book called Relet Nepe (The Prople of the East). This Count, who was a kind of half liberal, wished to give the people their liberty as a gift from above; Kossuth demanded it as an inherent right and threatened to extort it by force if necessary. With public opinion behind him, and encouragement from some powerful newspapers, Kossuth was able to swing the election of 1843; but trouble developed in connection with his own paper, the result of which was his removal from the editor's chair, and the paper was transformed into an organ of the opposition. The affair was what we would now call a "double cross."

 

Hungary was exhausted by a tariff cunningly devised to keep it dependent on various German provinces; this was one of the principal grievances of the mass of the people. Assisted by some of the nobility who for family or other reasons were opposed to the Germans, Kossuth formed the Vedegylet (a protective union) the members of which (both men and women) bound themselves to use only home-made products when possible. Other societies took a hand in it, and soon a general boycott was declared against German goods.

 

When the influences set loose by the French Revolution of 1848 were at their height, Kossuth proposed an address to the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria urging the restoration of Hungary to its former independence. The move was at last successful and Kossuth was received in the capital with the honors of a liberator. Ferdinand entrusted Louis Batthyanyi with the forming of an independent Hungarian Ministry in which Kossuth was made minister of finance. To this office he directed all his energies, created a treasury, organized a militia, formed many new battalions of-national soldiery, established armories and generally aroused the spirit of the nation by proclamations, speeches and articles, many of which he published in a new organ called Kossuth Hirlapja. But dangers lay ahead. The south of Hungary was torn by racial struggles, also by religious. As a result of these internal dissensions, the nation became engaged in a quarrel with Italy, and Jellachich, with a large army, crossed the River Drave with intent to subdue the country. Many members of the Hungarian ministry resigned and others fled as the enemy approached the capital.

 

Russia and Austria joined in so that their combined forces swept all resistance before them, although Kossuth created an army, raised money and called upon the people to rally to the defense of their homes. On August 11, 1849, Kossuth resigned his powers in favor of Gorgey, who surrendered to Russia two days afterward. Kossut