The Builder Magazine 

January 1925 - Volume XI - Number 1 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Massachusetts Freemasonry in China - BY FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, Grand 
Secretary, Massachusetts 

The Grave of Brother Lafayette - BY BRO. ED TOWSE, HONOLULU, HAWAII 
MASONIC RELIEF AT ROCHESTER, MINN. 

ONIONS AND SHIBBOLETHS 

Man and Men - BY CASSIUS J. KEYSER ADRAIN PROFESSOR OF 
MATHEMATICS, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK 

High Purpose and Genius of Royal Arch Masonry - By BRO., THE LATE 
WILLIAM F. KUHN GENERAL GRAND HIGH PRIEST, GENERAL GRAND 
CHAPTER, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

The Fellowship of Masonry in Alaska - BY BRO. CHARLES E. NAGHEL 
SECRETARY, MT. JUNEAU LODGE, No. 147, ALASKA 

History of Masonry in China 

Shall Grand Lodge Become a Nursing Mother? - BY BRO. DONALD HUGHES, 
California 

STUDIES OF MASONRY IN THE UNTED STATES - BY BRO. H.L. 

HAYWOOD, EDITOR - PART V. FIRST GRAND LODGES IN PENNSYLVANIA 

Great Men Who Were Masons - Dr. James Milnor - By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, 
P. G. M., District of Columbia 


EDITORIAL 



Eternal Life Now 


Mark Twain’s Pessimism 

THE LIBRARY 

An Old Book on Symbolism 

Ashmole: Freemason, Occultist, Antiquarian 

First Steps in Egyptian 

What to Read In Masonry - “A Pig in a Poke” 

THE QUESTION BOX AND CORRESPONDENCE 

Wanted: Missing Volumes of “Masonic Review” 

Moore’s “Freemasons’ Magazine for Sale 

The Indian Brooches 

Jonathan Trumbull not a Mason 

The Church of England and the Masonic Craft 

Was Daniel Boone a Mason? 

Information about Webb’s Monitor 
“Knights Templar” is correct 
Old Book for Sale 


Missing since Nov. 10, 1924 



YE EDITOR’S CORNER 


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Massachusetts Freemasonry in China 


BY FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, Grand Secretary, Massachusetts 


THE activities of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in China date back sixty years. 
The founding of overseas lodges was no new experience for Massachusetts. Henry 
Price, Provincial Grand Master for North America, established the see of his 
Provincial Grand Lodge in Boston in 1733, and at the same time warranted The First 
Lodge in Boston. Only five years later, in 1738, he warranted a lodge in Antigua, 
B.W.I. From that time on Massachusetts has continually had more or less to do with 
Masonic work overseas. The oldest of these overseas lodges now in existence and 
under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts is Bethesda, of Valparaiso, Chile, dating from 
1853. 


Dec. 13, 1863, M.W. Bro. William Parkman, Grand Master, issued a dispensation to 
Charles E. Hill and sixteen others to form Ancient Landmark Lodge, U.D., in 
Shanghai. Communication was slower then than now, and the first meeting under the 
dispensation was not held until May 9, 1864. 


The letter of W. Bro. Hill making return on the dispensation and asking for a charter 
contains the following interesting passage with reference to a visit which had been 
received from R. W. the Hon. William Thomas Mercer, then District Grand Master 
for China, English Constitution: 



"Before leaving Shanghai he visited the three lodges under his jurisdiction and called 
their attention to the proficiency of the American Lodge, recommending the officers 
and members to often visit us, and ordered [italics in the original] them to adopt our 
course as to the examination of applicants for advancement." 


One does not wonder at the enthusiasm of the distinguished visitor. Elsewhere in the 
same letter W. Bro. Hill says that R. W. Bro. Mercer said that he had heard of the 
proficiency of the lodge and asked to see a Master Mason Degree. W. Bro. Hill sent 
out for a candidate who happened to be entitled to the Degree and ordered all the 
chairs vacated and filled them from the floor. He then had the Degree worked in full 
and proudly affirms that "the work was done without a single mistake." 


In its report recommending a charter the committee says: 


"Your committee feel that the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts can look with pleasure 
and pride upon this their offspring beyond the seas. This ancient Grand Lodge, true to 
her traditions, has ever been zealous in disseminating Masonic light to those residing 
in darkness, and is now performing a duty which it early learned, and has never 
ceased to practise, of sending to distant lands her messengers of peace. In her humble 
way she obeys the divine injunction, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel 
to every creature.' " 


The charter of Ancient Landmark Lodge was issued March 8, 1865. 


for nearly forty years Ancient Landmark was the one outpost of American 
freemasonry in China. 


In 1903, however, there was a great awakening of interest in American Masonry in 
China. The acquisition of the Philippine Islands, the declaration of the famous "open 
door policy" by John Hay, and the general renewal of interest in the Orient on the part 



of Europe and America caused a rapid increase of American population in China and 
a desire for American Freemasonry. English Freemasonry was solidly established in 
China, but the English lodges did not offer precisely what the Americans desired. 
Naturally, there was a tendency to turn to Massachusetts, as the American Grand 
Lodge with missionary experience and with an existing establishment in China. 


In 1903 four dispensations were issued for lodges in China. These were Pei-He, in 
Tientsin; and Orient, Cathay, and Shanghai in Shanghai. 


Pei-He had a brief and stormy existence. It started off well and a charter was voted it 
in 1904. When the time for constitution arrived, however, the hand of misfortune was 
heavy upon it. The Senior Warden had been called to a distant part of the country by 
business. The Junior Warden had been murdered by two natives. The Treasurer had 
died. The Secretary had been transferred to the Philippines. The Master proved 
himself entirely unfit for his position and incapable of dealing with the difficulties 
which faced him. The lodge struggled along for a couple of years and finally 
surrendered its charter in 1906. 


Orient never got to the point of receiving a charter. Cathay was chartered as Sinim, 
the original name being considered too near to Far Cathay, of Hankow, No. 2855, on 
the English roster. Shanghai also received its charter in due time and these two lodges 
are now in active, flourishing existence. 


No further changes in the situation in China occurred until 1915. In that year the 
overseas establishments of Massachusetts were organized into the District Grand 
Lodges of the Canal Zone, Chile and China, and District Grand Masters were 
appointed to govern them. 


INTERNATIONAL LODGE WAS FORMED 



Shortly after this a petition was received from thirteen Master Masons resident in 
Peking asking to be formed into a lodge to be known as International Lodge. Three of 
the petitioners were Chinese brethren who had received their degrees in Washington, 
D. C. It was clearly stated that the desire of the petitioners was to found a lodge in 
which East and West might meet on the common ground of Masonry. The petitioners 
believed that there were elements in Chinese society ready for Masonry, sympathetic 
with its fundamental ideas, and capable of assimilating and practicing them. It was 
believed that among these elements Masonry had a great field of most wonderful 
opportunity, and that nothing could do more to bring the Chinese and Americans into 
sympathetic understanding than such points of contact between the best in both races 
as could be furnished by Masonic lodges. 


The presentation of this petition was an epoch in our Massachusetts Masonry. It 
raised questions upon whose settlement depended the future of our Masonry in China 
and, by reaction, the future attitude of our Masonry at home. 


There are many religions in China. Should the new lodge be founded and opened to 
Chinese candidates, what should be our attitude toward those religions ? Should we 
continue to assume (there had never been any legislation on the subject) that the 
Volume of the Sacred Law meant only the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, or at least the Old, or should the phrase take on a wider meaning ? Could 
Massachusetts, without for one moment considering the abandonment of the first 
great Landmark— belief in the Supreme Architect of the Universe— show hospitality to 
many divergent forms of acceptance of that Landmark ? 


There was also the question of race to be considered. Was Massachusetts Masonry in 
China to continue, as it has been for fifty years, to be the fraternal home of Americans 
and Britishers only, or should it become cosmopolitan and universal? 


The original American Masons in China were business sojourners and seafaring men. 
The American lodges, all located in Shanghai, had grown up under the shadow of the 
old English lodges and were much influenced by them. England had a strong 
establishment and a District Grand Lodge. English influence predominated generally 



in the foreign portion of Shanghai. The English and the Chinese did not and do not 
meet socially. Chinese were not admitted to the English lodges nor had they been to 
the American lodges. Were the American lodges to continue this policy, or were they 
to move out from the sphere of dominating English influence and give American 
Masonry in China a character of its own? 


It came to this: Was Freemasonry in China to mean anything to the Chinese? 


REPORT MADE TO GRAND LODGE 


It is only necessary to say that Bro. Melvin M. Johnson was then Grand Master of 
Masons in Massachusetts to make it clear that the problem received the careful 
consideration of one of the finest Masonic minds in the United States. The Grand 
Master called upon the advice of the strongest committee he could raise in the Grand 
Lodge. The report of the committee was drawn by Bro. Roscoe Pound. [Published in 
THE BUILDER, October, 1916, page 302.] 


As a result of these deliberations International Lodge received its dispensation and, in 
due time, its charter. 


From that time Massachusetts Masonry in China has had a distinct individuality of its 
own and has meant something to the Chinese. Be it understood, there has been no 
breach and no antagonism with English Masonry. Not the slightest cloud dims the 
cordiality of our fraternal relations. Possibly some of the more conservative of our 
English brethren may in their hearts question the wisdom of our new policy, so 
different from their established ways of thinking, but they recognize its Masonic 
regularity, they acknowledge our unquestionable right to adopt it, and they continue 
to be our very dear brethren. 



The essentials of our policy in China are these. Of course no attempt will ever be 
made to coerce the older lodges, or any lodges, to accept unwelcome applications. As 
a matter of fact, four of our lodges in China, the three Shanghai lodges and Talien 
Lodge, of Dairen, Manchuria, have no Chinese members. Three-- International, of 
Peking, Hykes Memorial, of Tientsin, and Chin Ling, of Nanking— have Chinese 
members. New lodges are contemplated at other strategic points, and it will be 
understood that Massachusetts lodges in China are to be chartered with the 
understanding that they are not to be closed to Chinese who possess proper personal 
qualifications. There is no thought of establishing lodges made up wholly or even 
predominantly of Chinese, at least for many years to come. There is no thought of 
abandoning the English language, even for a single lodge, or of modifying the 
Massachusetts Ritual. Our Chinese brethren have no desire for any of these things. 
Every applicant must profess his belief in a Supreme Being, but he may be obligated 
upon the sacred writings of his own religion. We hold that this meets the 
requirements regarding the Volume of the Sacred Law. 


Ten years' experience in International Lodge, fortified by the shorter experience of 
Hykes Memorial and Chin Ling, strengthen our conviction of the wisdom of our 
policy. Our Chinese brethren are Masons of the highest type, both in and out of the 
lodge. Their Ritual is correct and impressive. International has had two Chinese 
Masters, Wor. Paonan Meinsang Whang, elected in 1917, and Wor. Ssu Pang Chen, 
now presiding. [See note.] Our Chinese brethren take their Masonry very seriously. 
They try fully as hard as any of us to practice it in their daily lives. They are most 
scrupulous in their investigations of Chinese applicants. In several cases Chinese of 
great wealth and even international reputation have had their applications declined 
because the Chinese members have said to the Master, "We could not call him 
brother." 


Chinese gentlemen of the highest standing have sought admittance. A Prime Minister 
and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court have taken their degrees. A President is 
understood to have withheld his application only because of his very slight 
knowledge of English. He granted an audience to Grand Master Prince when he 
visited our lodges in China in 1922, received him most graciously, and expressed his 
high appreciation of Masonry and his sense of its great value to the people. Three 
members of International Lodge were among the Chinese delegation at the making of 
the treaty of Versailles. 



Such, in brief, is the story of Massachusetts Freemasonry in China. We do not regret 
the time, effort and money our Grand Lodge is putting into it, for we believe that it 
has a great mission and a great future . 


[Note by Editor: For item concerning a Chinese W. M. in Hawaii see 


— o — 


The Grave of Brother Lafayette 


BY BRO. ED TOWSE, HONOLULU, HAWAII 


IT was one of the dozens of Sunday mornings that the sharp bow, high white sides 
and revised masts of the U.S.F.S. Philadelphia rested big and bright from the wharves 
of Honolulu. The handsome unit of "white squadron" architecture was a striking 
picture from Punchbowl, from Roundtop, Tantalus or Konahuanui, or from beneath 
the palms at Waikiki beach. Capt. Henry Cochrane, U.S.M.C. (later major with a 
Spanish War record), had seated himself with his guests in the shade of the shelter of 
one of the heavy pieces of the port battery. It was near the gangway. Out on the other 
side we looked upon the odd little lighthouse, with the reef and surf and sea beyond. 
Along the opposite bend of the bay were the homes of the local boat clubs— Myrtles, 
Healanis, Leilanis, Alohas. The young men were getting out shells and barges or were 
lounging or swimming. From a small wharf native men and women with shouts and 
laughter were making running jumps into the bay. 


Solely for the purpose of drawing out the veteran officer, one of his party had 
remarked that for even, full grace and genuine general charm the Hawaiian half-caste 
woman was the superior of the daintiest thoroughbred of any kind or clime. 



Just then a sergeant of marines, a fine, soldiery fellow, approached to make a report to 
his commander. As the man left the captain began: 


"That fellow is the complete ideal of a living Bertie Cecil, stepped from Ouida's 
Under Two Flags. He's a marine and was with me in Paris." 


Capt. Cochrane had a detail of thirty-two United States marines at the Eiffel Tower 
Exposition. 


I asked the captain what sort of a showing they made with samples of the other armies 
and navies. The captain now became unreserved, fluent and earnest; here is what he 
said, and how: 


"They were the best looking, best drilled, best dressed, best behaved, best paid, best 
fed and most intelligent lot of enlisted men there. Their allowance made them princes 
among their associates and I was proud of them and our country and its soldiery. 
Every wealthy American who saw them made them a present. They were in clover all 
the time and had furloughs and half a dozen honorable mentions in orders when they 
came home. I have a picture of the company taken at the grave of Lafayette. 


"It is certainly pardonable that I plume myself upon having instituted the custom of 
decorating the grave of Lafayette on the Fourth of July. 


"Some sort of a patriotic inspiration suggested the plan to me. This was in the month 
of April. I, of course, thought of May 30 as the appropriate day for the ceremony. Mr. 
Whitelaw Reid, then our envoy to France, was at once enthusiastic. He said he knew a 
Lafayette, a bachelor member of the deputies, or some other legislative body. 



"Mr. Reid, certain that his acquaintance was a relative of the man who made France 
and America such great friends, at once dictated a letter to him, setting forth fully the 
plan and indicating a day and hour at which both of us would call. 


"When we made the visit we were kept waiting perhaps an hour, when one of the 
most delightful of old gentlemen came in and offered in excellent English the excuse 
of detention on public business. Very pleasantly did he entertain us. He was the only 
living male descendent of the companion of Washington. 


"His widowed sister and her daughter were mentioned with the assurance that they 
would co-operate in the proposed exercises. M. Lafayette, on condition that we 
should assume entire control and direction and the management of all details, 
consented to make an address in English. 


"Mr. Reid was quite busy at this time and assigned me to the executive work, which 
included enlistment of a committee of prominent Americans. This was no trouble at 
all. Then, about May 5, 1 set out to have a look at the grave of Lafayette and mark a 
line of march and parade position. 


"It was a most astonishing thing, but an actual fact, that no one seemed to know 
where the remains of this noble and famous man had been placed. I hunted for days, 
being aided by volunteers and paid men. Mr. Reid communicated officially with the 
Government and we learned that his inquiry was being referred from one bureau to 
another. 


"Near the end of May all of us were well nigh hopeless. Then one day I ran across a 
young American resident who was married to a French woman. He was from 
Philadelphia, but was at home enough in Paris and with the language to be a very 
successful professional guide. Well, he knew where Lafayette's grave was. 



"He was a Freemason, was intimately acquainted with the circumstances of the visits 
of Lafayette to his own lodge and that of Washington at Alexandria, Va. This guide 
told me that I might have made the quest simplicity itself by consulting members of 
the Supreme Council of Thirty-third Degree Scottish Rite Masons of France or any 
brother of a subordinate body of that great organization. He began to describe the 
location of the grave, but I took him right along with me. 


"The tomb, very simply inscribed, was in a small cemetery in one of the most 
interesting sections or districts of old Paris. Near it was a large cemetery where there 
had been interred 1,300 victims of the Reign of Terror. This was told in a few lines on 
a weather-beaten sign over the broken gate. Overlooking both of these burial grounds 
was a convent made famous in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. One could study 
French history and literature in that vicinity for a month. 


"May 30 was now an impossible date for the ceremony and we fixed upon July 4. 
There was quite a gathering, though there was no intent to make it a general affair. 

We raised the Stars and Stripes and fired a salute. Then my men stacked arms and fell 
out. The color sergeant laid his flag on top of the rifles. The sister and niece of M. 
Lafayette, who were dressed in black, walked over to the line of arms, gently lifted a 
fold of Old Glory and kissed it reverently. That was a sweet and simple tribute to the 
United States and all were affected. 


"The floral offerings included some that I knew to be Masonic and of the Scottish 
Rite. There was a beautiful cross of red roses, a triangle with a Hebrew character in 
the center and an elaborate piece with a monogram displaying the letters 'L.F.E.' 
These, I was told, were for the initials of the words 'Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.' 
They surmounted the figures 33. Each Freemason present joined in a procession 
around the grave and at the final encircling of it dropped a sprig of green at the head. 


"M. Lafayette's speech was a success beyond our most sanguine hopes excepting, 
perhaps, the very last sentence. 



"He spoke of our country and his own, of our immortal forefather and of his own 
great ancestor, of our President and his President, of Mr. Reid and myself and of the 
occasion. 


"Then came his peroration and his accident from lack of practice with English. As 
nearly as I can recall, he said: 


"'It is peculiarly fitting that this recognition of the distinguished son of such a 
thriving, busy Republic as France has become, should be at the hands of citizens of 
that great model and time-tried Republic, that country of brave and brilliant and 
generous men, that country of such grand institutions and complete liberty, that 
country which leads the entire world in the march of scientific, mechanical and 
intellectual-mte-lectual-ah-ah go head.' 


"Of course 'achievement' was the word he was after. The Americans repressed their 
laughter and were ready with compliments to the speaker. A few evenings later most 
of us met him at dinner and he then told the joke on himself. The custom of 
remembering Lafayette's grave continues and I hope it endure." 


Afterwards Capt. Cochrane told of witnessing a Russian coronation and his recital of 
seeing two men guillotined in Paris gave at least one of his hearers more thrills than 
several legal hangings and a halfdozen lynchings witnessed in the Rocky Mountain 
country. 


— o — 


MASONIC RELIEF AT ROCHESTER, MINN. 



OWING to the fame of its physicians and hospitals this city has become a mecca for 
thousands of sick men and women from all parts of the world. Of late years the Grand 
Lodge of Minnesota has been carrying on among these unfortunates a magnificent 
relief work, the nature and extent of which is amply set forth in the report of the 
committee made to Grand Lodge at St. Paul at the Seventy-first Annual 
Communication, here republished by consent of Grand Secretary John Fishel: 


To the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Minnesota: 


Pursuant to the resolution of one year ago, whereby the Grand Lodge of Minnesota 
took over the matter of Fraternal Service at Rochester, Minn., the M. W. Grand 
Master appointed the following trustees to take charge of the work: W. N. Kendrick, 
P. G. M., Herman Held, P. G. M., and W. Bro. Guy Streator. S. G. S. The 
appropriation committee placed $3,000 in the hands of the committee to cover the 
expense. 


Your committee retained the service of Bro. Frank G. Warner as fraternal 
representative at a salary of $2,500 per year, placing in his hands five hundred dollars 
to be used as a revolving fund for the financial assistance of brethren who might be 
temporarily in need of money. 


From a small beginning a few years ago when the Master and brethren of Rochester 
Lodge, No. 21, carried on a splendid work as well as the limited means at their 
command would admit, this work has developed to such lengths that this year Bro. 
Warner has met and administered to the comfort of 1956 brethren and members of the 
O. E. S., making 5,471 calls during the year, besides doing a tremendous number of 
errands of various kinds and having an average of 163 persons on his list daily. Bro. 
Warner is present at this session of the Grand Lodge and will supplement this report 
with a statistical report of his work and a further explanation of what his work 
consists. 



In addition to the routine work required of your representative his presence in 
Rochester has been the means of saving thousands of dollars to the brethren coming 
there; the majority never having been in Rochester before, come there with a definite 
amount of money which they feel will cover their traveling expenses, examination at 
Clinic, operation, if necessary, and their hospital bills, not realizing that often their 
examination may take from a few days to two or three weeks. Being strangers, sick 
and often discouraged, and not knowing where to get accommodations within their 
means, they naturally drift to the easiest place, which is often an expensive hotel, so 
that by the time they are ready to go to the hospital their funds are seriously depleted. 
By getting in touch with these brethren upon their arrival your representative is 
enabled to furnish them with accommodations within their means and often to 
expedite their examination by seeing that they do not miss their regular appointments. 


Hitherto, Bro. Warner has received his list of brethren at the separate hospitals, but 
now, through the generous efforts and co-operation of Bro. Harry Harwick, financial 
manager of the Clinic, Bro. Dr. A. W. Adson, who has on former occasions 
represented the Clinic in our negotiations, and the Rev. Bunge their social service 
representative, all people are registered as to their fraternal affiliations at the Clinic 
and he receives his list there. He is thereby enabled to get in immediate touch with the 
brethren and members of the O. E. S., and the value of his services is greatly 
enhanced. To these men the Grand Lodge of Minnesota owes a debt of gratitude. 


The wisdom of providing the revolving fund of $500 has been thoroughly 
demonstrated by the feet that Bro. Warner has turned this fund over four times, or in 
other words has loaned $2,000 and the fund is now intact with the exception of a 
recent loan of $50. In every instance these loans have been promptly returned with 
expressions of gratitude and appreciation which amply repay the Grand Lodge for any 
expense which it may have been to and the committee feel that their time has been 
well spent. 


Your committee feels that the fund has been rather economcally administered in that 
the expense outside the salary and Wee expense of your representative has been less 
than $40, which covers the traveling expense of the members of the committee, 
telephones and correspondence. 



o 


ONIONS AND SHIBBOLETHS 


In commenting upon the use of picturesque phrases recently, The London Times 
asked: How many of those who talk glibly of shibboleths have before them the 
picture of the wretched Ephraimites at the ford striving frantically to frame the word 
which is going to be the arbiter for them of life and death? Rev. Walter Crick, of 
Oving Vicarage, in answer, mentions a striking repetition, not of the word, but of the 
facts which the word connotes, as related to him by Major-General Sir George 
MacMunn, who served at the Dardanelles and in Mesopotamia during the war: 


After Lord Allenby's final routing of the Turkish forces broken parties of fugitives 
arrived at the fords of Jordan. There were many Arabs and Syrians conscripted in the 
Turkish Army. The fords were held by our Arab allies, and when Turkish soldiers 
tried to pass they one and all said they were Syrians. So the Arab guards said, "Say 
now 'Bowel' " (onion), and they said, "Bossel," for no Turk could pronounce it right. 


History is said to repeat itself, adds Mr. Crick, and, if this is so, no more singular 
illustration of the feet could well be imagined than is presented by this picture of the 
Turkish soldiers "striving frantically to frame the word which is going to be the 
arbiter for them of life and death," just as did the Ephraimites 3,000 years ago, and 
probably at the self-same ford! - Toronto Globe. 


— o — 


Man and Men 



BY CASSIUS J. KEYSER ADRAIN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK 


DR. KEYSER is known to the country by virtue of a list of notable books, among 
which is "Mathematical Philosophy," a glorious triumph of right reason in a difficult 
field, reviewed in these pages, October, 1922, page 319. Count Korzybski's book, to 
which Dr. Keyser refers below, was reviewed in August of the same year, page 256. 
The reader will find it worth while to read "Man and Men" along with Bro. Sidney 
Morse's captivating apologue, "The Grand Vizier's Quest," in The Builder, November 
last, page 330; the general theme is identical. The present essay is based on an 
address delivered before the Bureau of Personnel Administration of New York in 
January, 1924. 


I CHOSE this subject— "Man and Men"— because I desired to discuss with you the 
most important subject that I or you or anyone else could think of. In our world there 
are many realities but they differ much in dignity or rank. Of all the realities with 
which you and I have to deal, with which it is our privilege and obligation to deal, the 
supreme one is not matter nor material energy nor space nor time, though the 
importance of these is very great. The supreme reality is Man. The supreme concrete 
realities of our world are human individuals— men, women, children. The supreme 
abstract reality of the world is man— the human race— Humanity. What do I mean by 
that term ? I mean, I suppose, what you mean. By Humanity I mean all mankind— not 
merely the living— but the living, the dead, and the unborn. By Humanity I mean, if I 
may answer abstractly, those propensities and powers in virtue of which humans are 
human. Have you ever considered what those propensities and powers are? I shall not 
tarry here, for it would detain us too long, to name them and analyze them. Being 
human, you have them in some measure. As intelligent humans, interested to 
understand your own nature, you are bound to ascertain what they are, if you can. 

And you can, if you will. There is a book that will greatly help you in the quest. I 
mean Count Korzybski's Manhood of Humanity. It is a work that you and every other 
man and woman ought to read open mindedly, re-read, and ponder. With its central 
idea I have dealt briefly in a chapter of my Mathematical Philosophy, but the reading 
of that chapter, though it may help, is far from sufficient. 



In the remaining minutes of the hour I wish to say a few things, by way of opening up 
an immense subject, about the relations of individual human beings to Humanity. I 
can hardly do more than drive into the wall, rather rudely, a few wooden pegs to 
which you may desire to attach some reading and reflection in the future. 


The diagram given herewith will help us. The mid-part represents the Present, 
occupied by the existing people of the world. On the left is our human Past, tenanted 
by the dead, a long backward stretch, perhaps a half million years. On the right is the 
wide strange Future, mysterious realm of the unborn. Humanity embraces the three— 
the Past, the Present, the Future the dead, the living, the unborn. Today you and I are 
among the living. Yesterday we were unborn. Tomorrow our bodies will have 
perished. In each estate we are members of Humanity— representatives, as W. K. 
Clifford might have said, of "Father Man." 


We are here tonight because it is the fortune of the living to have to deal with what 
we are wont to call "the problems of the world." Of these the so-called industrial 
problems, in which you are especially interested, are only some of the elements or 
aspects. All the problems are primarily and essentially human problems, problems 
about humans for humans to solve, and no such problem exists alone or admits of a 
lone solution. Each of them is in a network involving all the others. In this matter the 
mystic's contention is true— each is all and all is each. 


AS MAGGOTS IN A CHEESE 


I have no single formula for the solution of all your industrial problems, much less 
have I one for solving all the great problems of our troubled modern world. But it is 
my conviction that the chief source of trouble is this: We have been and are living in 
the midst of a great civilization like maggots in a cheese. 


That is not a conclusion arrived at in haste. It is very deliberate. Perhaps you will 
consider it carefully. 



We are living immersed in a civilization which, despite all its short-comings, is so 
vast and rich and manifold that we cannot measure its proportions nor assess its 
worth. The industrial and other social troubles of the world will be found, if we view 
them fundamentally, to have their roots in the fact that we have been living, and are 
still living, in and upon that civilization, without serious thought of our relations to it, 
without a sense of our indebtedness and obligations, like maggots in a cheese. 


And so the best formula I can think of for dealing with industrial and the other human 
problems of the world is this: Stop living in the midst of our great modern civilization 
as maggots in a cheese. 


How is that to be done? The first means thereto is to study civilization— its origin, its 
genesis, its essential nature, our human relations obligations. 


Where did our civilization come from? 


Let me intimate the answer by means of an example. 


Some months ago I was teaching a class in the calculus. The boys were dealing with 
problems in maxima and minima. Some of you know, and others do not know, what 
that means, but all of you will understand what I am about to say. We had one hour. 
The boys finished in forty-five minutes. "Boys," I said, "please be seated. I want to 
say something more important than the calculus. 


"You and I are probably quite ordinary people. It may be that some one among you is 
extraordinary but, if so, the happy fact is not yet manifest. So let us assume that our 
native gifts are ordinary. Yet you have just now readily solved problems of a kind that 
the greatest genius that ever lived on our planet could not solve without the 



instrument you have employed-an instrument you have been getting acquainted with 
during the last few weeks, namely, the calculus. Where did it come from?" 


"It was invented by Newton," said one of the boys. Another one said: "It was invented 
by Leibniz." 


I said: "Boys, both of those answers are commonly given and in a sense they are 
correct. But in a deeper sense both of them are false because Newton and Leibniz did 
but improve the mathematics of their immediate predecessors, and these did but 
improve the mathematics of their predecessors, and so on back till you come down 
here somewhere in the sharp angle of our diagram where our dear remote ancestors 
are engaged in the struggle of learning to count: the calculus was invented back there 
ages ago— I mean it started there. And so calculus was not created by Newton or 
Leibniz. It was produced, little by little, by many generations now in the state of those 
we are accustomed to call the dead." 


And I said: "Boys, they are not dead— that-must be evident to you. Their bodies are 
dead but the men are living and are here in this room— Newton and Leibniz and the 
rest are here— they are at work, working with us and through us as agents of 
Humanity, by means of ideas which they invented, which we inherited and which it is 
our privilege as humans, and our obligations, to use, to improve, and to transmit. I say 
'transmit', for the unborn are coming— if you will go to your cloister and there 
meditate in the silence, you can see them approach generation after generation of 
them, fellow children with us of 'Father Man'— they look to you and me and appeal to 
us as the present occupants and guardians of their future home, fol the kind of world 
they will find depends upon our loyalty as representatives of Humanity." 


THE PRINCIPLE IS UNIVERSALLY TRUE 


I have used the calculus, my friends, merely as an illustration. The calculus is but one 
element of our civilization. What I have said of the calculus is true of all the other 
elements— speech, the arts, the sciences, the inventions, the great literatures of East 



and West, the wisdoms of philosophy and law, the ways of social organization and 
order, and all the other kinds and forms of material and spiritual wealth. We, the 
people of this generation, were bom in the midst of an immense civilization. We may 
have improved it a little in some respects but we did not create it. It is of the utmost 
importance for us to grasp that fact and hold it fast and realize it keenly; for else we 
shall be as maggots in a cheese. Our civilization— the material and spiritual wealth of 
the world— was not produced by us. We have it as a gift. It is the fruit of the time and 
thought and toil of many generations of those whose bodies have indeed perished but 
whose spirits survive and are now active in the ideas and ideals and sentiments and 
aspirations embodied and transmitted to us in the form of instmmentalities and 
institutions, knowledges and arts. 


We must understand and not forget that there was a time when there were no human 
beings on this globe. There was a time when humans began to be. We must try to 
realize, for it is tme, that our remotest human ancestors did not know what they were 
nor where they were. They had no clothes nor houses— they were probably covered 
with hair and dwelt in caves. They had no language, no human history, not even 
human tradition, no knowledge of number, no guiding maxims, no tools nor 
craftmanship. But they had a marvelous thing— a gift that enabled them and impelled 
to start what we call civilization; and they were, moreover, the first of a race that had 
another equally marvelous and equally precious gift— a gift enabling them and 
impelling them to advance civilization. These are the gifts that make humans human. 


CIVILIZATION IS THE CREATURE OF MAN 


And so we see that civilization is the creature, not of men, but of Man. It is the 
product of Humanity. It is to the time and thought and toil of those remote rude 
ancestors, groping in the dark, and of the many generations of their descendants that 
you and I and our living fellows are indebted for the immeasurable riches— the 
material and spiritual wealth— of our present world. 


To receive that Human Inheritance as we habitually do receive it, taking it all for 
granted as we take the gifts of Physical Nature— land and light and sea and sky; not to 



realize in thought and in feeling that, though we are individuals, we are living organs 
of Humanity; not to realize in our heads and hearts and ways of living, and not to 
teach in home and school, our relations and obligations to the Dead and the Unborn: 
that is what I mean by "living in and upon our civilization like maggots in a cheese." 


But in proportion as we learn to understand and to feel those relations and 
obligations, we shall emancipate ourselves from the lower ideals dominant in the 
world and come under the sway of the higher ones. For, as Benjamin Kidd has justly 
insisted, there is a hierarchy of ideals and a hierarchy of emotions begotten of them. 
From the power of the emotion of the ideal of self-efficiency— causing us to live and 
kill and die for self; from the power of the emotion of the tribal ideal— causing us to 
live and kill and die for tribe; from the power of the emotion of the state ideal — 
causing us to live and kill and die for state: from the domination of these we shall 
emancipate ourselves and more and more come under the sway of the highest of all 
possible ideals, the ideal of Man— causing us to live and, without killing, to die for 
Humanity. 


— o — 


The Masonic Teaching 


"Masonry teaches man to practice charity and benevolence, to protect chastity, to 
respect the ties of blood and friendship, to adopt the principles and revere the 
ordinances of religion, to assist the feeble, guide the blind, raise up the downtrodden, 
shelter the orphan, guard the altar, support the Government, inculcate morality, 
promote learning, love man, fear God, implore His mercy and hope for happiness." 


— o — 


High Purpose and Genius of Royal Arch Masonry 



By BRO., THE LATE WILLIAM L. KUHN GENERAL GRAND HIGH PRIEST, 
GENERAL GRAND CHAPTER, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


DURING his term as General Grand High Priest Bro. Kuhn visited as many Grand 
Chapters as he could find opportunity to do, and at the same time accepted invitations 
to speak before other Grand Bodies. Such brethren as have been able to read the 
Proceedings of these various Grand Bodies must have been impressed with the 
vitality and resourcefulness of the speaker's mind, for while his theme was 
everywhere very much the same he managed to give it on each occasion a form and 
application appropriate to the occasion. One of the best reported of his addresses as 
Grand High Priest will be found in the Proceedings of the Seventy-sixth Annual 
Convocation of the Grand Chapter of Mississippi, held at Vicksburg, Feb. 21, 1924, 
here reproduced. 


AS General Grand High Priest, I am endeavoring to visit as many Grand Chapters as 
possible during my term of office, and I have but one theme: more dignified and 
impressive ritualism and a moral and educational value of the Capitular degrees. It is 
a lamentable fact that Royal Arch Masonry has not come into its own. Many 
Freemasons are proud of the fact that they are Master Masons, or Knights Templar, or 
Scottish Rite Masons, but seldom do they boast of being Royal Arch Masons. There 
must be a reason for this, and it lies in the fact that Capitular degrees have been 
conferred in an undignified manner, and the moral, historical and educational value 
have been entirely neglected. But a change is coming, and these degrees are receiving 
more attention and a more dignified rendition than ever before. It has been established 
beyond a doubt that even the most light-headed of men prefer dignified work and an 
occasional glimpse of the moral and intellectual values contained therein. 


Royal Arch Masonry will come to its own as soon as these facts are recognized. 
Freemasonry is a beautiful allegory which unfolds to the thinking Freemason the 
interesting story of the Loss, the Recovery and the practical application of that which 
we call the Word. This is all that the great text book, Freemasonry, contains. The 
Loss is symbolized in the lodge, and the Recovery, with its practical application to 
life, is symbolized in Royal Arch Masonry. Freemasonry has a golden thread, a 



central idea running through all of the degrees and around which all the symbolism of 
Freemasonry revolves. This central idea, or the goal of Freemasonry, upholds the 
entire fabric, and unless this is kept in mind, the whole structure falls to the ground. 
This center is the Master's Word. 


Freemasonry is not a lot of degrees piled one upon another without any connecting 
link, or a heterogeneous mass gathered together with the mere idea of fooling the 
candidate into taking many degrees. But there is this goal running through Ancient 
Craft Masonry of which the Capitular degrees are an important part thereof. The non- 
recognition of this fact has prevented Royal Arch Masonry from coming into its own. 
It has been misunderstood, misinterpreted and made a jest, instead of recognizing the 
greatest field for intellectual and moral development of anything in Freemasonry. 
This co-relation of the degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry was recognized by the 
United Grand Lodge of England when it stated that "Ancient Craft Masonry consists 
of the degrees of Entered Apprentice Fellow Craft, Master Mason, together with the 
Holy Royal Arch," and in section second, it declared "that the lodges may confer the 
Orders of Chivalry under their several constitutions." 


IT IS A PART OF ANCIENT CRAFT MASONRY 


This means that the Royal Arch Degree is a part of Ancient Craft Masonry, and the 
Orders of Chivalry were recognized as Masonic. This constitutes York Rite 
Freemasonry. It naturally follows that one degree is not higher than another, but is a 
part of the unfolding of an interesting story, and the Royal Arch is as much a part of 
Ancient Craft Masonry as the Master's Degree, and it may be truthfully stated that no 
one is in possession of all of Ancient Craft Masonry without the Royal Arch. In this 
interesting relation and co-relation we have the beautiful symbolism of the Loss, the 
Recovery and the interpretation of the Master's Word. If there is a Loss there must be 
a Recovery, and the Recovery is of little value unless you interpret the Recovery. It 
would be merely theoretical, philosophical nonsense to discover the Master's Word, 
and fail to interpret it in a practical application to our duties as Freemasons. 



The Royal Arch portrays this Recovery. That is, if you receive the degree in a manner 
that will enable you to recognize that you have made the Discovery. Unfortunately, 
many who have received the Royal Arch Degree did not receive anything and the 
whole thing was merely a joke. Many newly-made Master Masons have been 
disappointed in not receiving that which was promised them, and in the fact that they 
were put off with a substitute, although they received the promise that at the proper 
time the true Word should be discovered.... 


Originally, the Word may have been given in the Master's Degree, but the 
introduction of the legend of Hiram Abiff necessarily made a fourth degree possible. 
Not only made it possible but absolutely necessary to symbolize the Recovery. This is 
the story of Freemasonry. The candidate feels a disappointment in not receiving the 
Master's Word as had been promised him, but he fails to grasp the truth behind this 
denial, this disappointment, but when he analyzes the question from every angle and 
side he will invariably come to the conclusion that he w as unprepared and 
unqualified to receive it. Men are not qualified to receive great truths instantly. It has 
been stated that a great truth requires three hundred years before it is accepted. The 
philosophy and history of religion bear out this idea. It is a lamentable fact that great 
truths, throughout the ages, have found unqualified ears. This is true of ancient 
Babylon, of Persia and Egypt. It is true of the Hebrew nation. All have been searching 
for truth. They have been reaching out. They have been grasping for it. All the 
prophets of the Hebrew people, from Moses to Malachi, and even including many 
great men of modern times, have spoken words and taught truths that fell upon 
unqualified listeners and deaf ears. It is the old, old history, of rejection, because not 
understood. It requires years of discipline, research and intellectual toil before 
arriving at the stage of being qualified to comprehend great truths in their 
completeness. The Master Mason did not receive that which was promised him, 
because he was not qualified in those things that "Mark the perfect man." 


We are searching for the truth, the Master's Word, and this search is evolutionary, 
constantly rising to a higher and better conception. This is well illustrated in the 
conception of Jehovah from that of Abraham down to the time of Christ. Every 
prophet took an advanced step in his conception of Deity and the Tribal God of 
Moses became the Father Omnipotent and loving to all who worshipped Him. 



FREEMASONRY IS A GREAT SCHOOL 


Freemasonry is a great school in which every Freemason, if he desires, may educate 
himself. He will not only be a historian, but a Bible student. If he is a reader he will 
find the footprints of Freemasonry in all history, in the arts and sciences. 


The chapter degrees illustrate symbolically and teach four important and necessary 
lessons, which he who seeks that which was lost who would make the recovery, must 
have in his heart and soul. Without the possession of these attributes no recovery will 
ever be made and that which was lost will forever remain in darkness. 


Every Freemason is symbolically a workman, whether his place is in the quarries or 
shop. Every day finds him standing before the Overseers to test the work wrought by 
him, according to the design laid down in the "Great Trestle Board." These designs 
require good work, and square work, because only good work and square work can be 
used in the building of the temple. A square man, and a square man only; a man who 
stands foursquare to the world, not a trickster, a politician, a doughface, or a 
weathervane, is demanded. A man who can face the world unshaken, unashamed, a 
bold uncompromising man for all things right, is needed everywhere. In the great 
search for that which was lost, such a man has taken a long step on his journey. 


One of the great essentials today is to have an open mind. You and I are too bigoted 
in many things. We have our set ways, our set way of thinking. You remember that 
when a beautiful stone was presented, it was rejected because it did not fit the square 
of the Overseer, and they heaved it over among the rubbish. The trouble has been in 
the past, and is today, a great hindrance to progression, that we are all carrying about 
little dinky squares and every time anything new comes up we put our squares to it, 
our notion of the thing, not our reason, but chiefly a notion and conception, and if it 
does not fit the little squares of ours, we heave it among the rubbish. We do not stop 
to analyze the question. We have a preconceived notion, not an idea, hence we throw 
the new thing overboard. This is true in politics; it is true in religion, it is true in 
science. In fact it is true in everything that is new. This is the story of the Master's 
Word. Everything new that comes we meet it in a defensive manner. We do not 



canvass it and examine it, but without thinking about it, reject it. We are not open 
minded. 


I do not believe that any man can discover the Master's Word who is a bigot, who is 
not willing to weigh things. We know what bigotry has done in this world; that it has 
kept churches apart and has made partisan politics. A Freemason ought to be a man 
with an open mind, willing to analyze anything that comes along, from the humblest 
to the most scientific. We have heard a great deal about the fundamentalists and the 
liberals in religion. The fundamentalist backs up and says, "No, that is not according 
to my notion; I will reject it." The liberalist takes everything that comes along, fails to 
analyze it well enough to see whether it fits or not. You have heard of a distinguished 
citizen who was scared to death for fear that somebody would find that his 
grandfather was a monkey. It is being said that on account of science men are 
doubting the Bible and rejecting it. This is a purely unthinking, superficial view. My 
advice is, read all the scientists and all the higher criticism, then analyze them and 
think it over. I know where you will land. There is no danger to the thinking man of 
becoming an atheist. All the criticism and all the scientific books, all the theories of 
creation, when we apply them intelligently and correctly, make the Bible stronger 
than ever. That which was mere faith before now is substantiated by reason. Do not 
be afraid of higher criticism. Do not be afraid of the so-called sciences. If the religion 
you have cannot stand the test of true and proven science, it is not worth very much. 
Religion will meet all scientific truth and meet it in the proper spirit and in the proper 
way. It may change some of our preconceived notions, but laying aside these notions, 
your religion will come out stronger and better than ever. I am not afraid about 
evolution. I believe in evolution. I cannot see the flowers in the front yard without 
making me believe in the principles of evolution. These beautiful flowers were once 
weeds. The process of evolution has made them what they are now. So with 
everything. But evolution does not necessarily mean monkeyism at all. Even if it did, 
behind it all stands the fiat, created. We cannot get away from that. I do not care 
whether this world was made in seven days or whether it took billions of years. Back 
of it all stands the word, created. So far as the monkey is concerned, if we are evolved 
from the monkey then it is a fine type of evolution and we must congratulate the 
monkey. Of course, a great many people are afraid of having their ancestry exposed, 
and I do not blame them, but the world does not care a fig as to who your grandfather 
was, but it is asking, "Who are you, what are you going to do?" Even the monkey 
evolution is not nauseating, as I would rather have a good clean monkey for my great, 
great, great grandfather than some people I know. 



A Freemason ought to look things squarely in the face, lay aside his prejudice, and 
study the question carefully. There is nothing to be afraid of. Let us lay aside our 
dinky squares and recognize the beautiful and not heave it over among the rubbish 
because we do not understand it. There are many things that have been thrown in the 
rubbish heap that in after years were discovered as the most beautiful and important 
things. Men have lived, wrought hard, and died rejected. It took years before their 
work was recognized, and they stand today as remarkable men in the history of 
nations of the world. An open-minded man is never a partisan. It is all right to belong 
to a party; but it is all wrong to have a party own him, and he fail to exercise horse 
sense in analyzing questions. A Freemason ought to be an independent man, with no 
yoke about his neck. When Freemasons can analyze questions, consider them 
deliberately, come to a rational conclusion, they are coming closer to receiving the 
Master's Word. 


THE SECOND LESSON IS SELF-CONTROL 


The second lesson is that of self-control, obedience to constituted authority. This is 
taught in the Past Master's Degree. Of course, very few of you have seen this lesson 
in the degree. This degree is used chiefly in some Grand Jurisdictions as a means of 
making a fool of a man and, as conferred, is a disgrace to Freemasonry; yet it contains 
one of the fundamental principles of Freemasonry; that before a man will rule, he 
must first learn to obey; that before he would teach, he must first be a student; a 
Craftsman before he will be a Master of the Craft; a subject before he would be a 
king; and before he would enlighten others, he must become enlightened himself. 
These principles are fundamental, but the tendency of our present day is, that a man 
wants to be the boss before he is an Entered Apprentice; be Master of his lodge before 
he has been an obedient Craftsman. The world is suffering from unprepared men; 
unprepared for existing conditions; for an honest day's work; for adverse conditions 
that may arise, possessed of a mere smattering of everything, but little of anything; an 
expert in all things but an expert in nothing. Undisciplined men, men who lack self- 
control, are a curse of the age. A disregard of law, and incompetency to perform, is as 
prevalent among the better class as among the crooks. Bold defiance of law is 
everywhere present. Men wink at the violation of law, especially the eighteenth 
amendment. No Freemason will violate this law or wink at the violation thereof. If he 
does he will never find the Master's Word. A true Past Master has learned the lesson 
of obedience in the school of discipline, has become master of himself and is 
thoroughly prepared for the duties upon which he would enter. 



There must have been supreme satisfaction to King Solomon to erect the magnificent 
and costly Temple of Jehovah. It represented all that the Oriental mind could 
conceive as an offering to God. The inspiring display that marked the preliminary 
step to, and the dedication of, the Temple is one of sublimity and glory. The inspired 
writer depicted it so graphically, describing this scene, touched the theme with more 
than mortal pen. Picture the Temple reflecting its golden splendor under the noon-day 
sun; imagine the great choir chanting antiphonally that wonderful psalm, "Lift up 
your heads, oh ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and let the King of 
Glory come in." Listen to that inspiring prayer of the King, standing on the brazen 
scaffold in his rich and kingly robe, see the fire descend on the sacrificial altar, and 
the Temple illuminated by the Divine Presence, while the vast throng fall prostrate 
worshipping and praising. "For He is good, for His mercy endureth forever." Who 
would not like to have witnessed this wonderful scene? 


But, has not the same scene been re-enacted in many a human heart? It may not have 
had the external splendor; it may not have been that of a King or Prince, but that of an 
humble man, who toiled daily, yet this individual, personally dedicated, partook of 
the same splendor, heard the same choir, uttered the same prayer, and beheld the fire 
descend on his meager sacrifice, and felt the glory of the Divine Presence. We are, 
indeed, Temple Builders. Some are building a magnificent temple. Some are building 
the best temple they can. Men differ in ability. Men differ in opportunities. But it does 
not matter whether you are building a little temple, building of bricks rather than 
granite, or bricks without straw, yet the temple is being builded. You and I will have 
to complete our temple and the last stone must be put in position and may it receive 
the plaudits as of old, "Grace, grace be unto it." 


Companions, do you not think that if a man is independent, does square work, and 
square work only, controls himself and is obedient to constituted authority, who is 
building a temple in this world, do you not think he is getting pretty close to the 
Master's Word? 


HE DESCRIBERS PURPOSE OF THE WEARY SOJOURNERS 



I have often thought of those three weary sojourners coming out of Babylonian 
captivity, making their long and toilsome journey from Babylon to Jerusalem with 
only one purpose in mind, and that was to rebuild the city and the House of the Lord. 
These three Jews were heroes but, while just released from captivity, it should be 
remembered that the great age of the Jewish nation was not in regal splendor in its 
solidarity as a nation, in its armies, in its wealth, or its expansive boundaries, but its 
golden age was the seventy years of captivity. It was the literary age of Jewry. Out of 
it came its sacred writings, the collation of its remarkable history of her people, her 
prophetic literature and her psalter. Had the captivity never occurred the world might 
have been denied its greatest heritage, the Old Testament. From the school of 
captivity emerged a people immortal, a people who were the creators of the sacred 
and undying literature of the world, and the steadfast adherence to Jehovah. 


Note the purpose and aim of these three weary sojourners. A purpose that was never 
lost in their long and toilsome journey, on foot, over rough and ragged roads through 
desolation and amid ruins, but ever onward toward Jerusalem, the city of their fathers. 
The journey was not taken to secure ease, comfort, emolument or honor, but solely 
for the purpose of engaging in the noble and glorious work of rebuilding the city and 
House of the Lord. This truly was a noble purpose, but it did not embrace all, as they 
did not expect even "the hope of a fee or a reward." This was the climax of their noble 
purpose. It was unselfish. It was unstinted service, a service to their home, to their 
people and to their God. What greater encomium can be given to these faithful, 
devout, returning captives than to say they served? Any portion of the work, however 
humble, their willing hands were willing to perform. The keystone of the Royal Arch 
should bear upon it, "I Serve." Service, self-sacrifice, should be the battle cry of 
Freemasonry, and he who does not wish to serve or sacrifice, will never discover the 
Master's Word. 


These three zealous Jews discovered it. They did not discover it in a palace but in a 
vault. They found it after digging away the rubbish, away from the sight of men, not 
for worldly applause or honor, but for pure service, and they found it. 



This is the beautiful story of Freemasonry: The loss of the Master's Word and its 
recovery by men being fully prepared and qualified searching for it, and willing to 
make long and toilsome journey through life, with one end in view, to assist the noble 
and glorious work of building the House of the Lord, working for humanity without 
the hope of fee or reward. When Freemasonry grasps this idea, that it is a life service, 
a life of self-sacrifice, then will Royal Arch Masonry come to its own. When we 
grasp the idea of Royal Arch Masonry as I have tried to explain it, it will not any 
longer be a mere stepping stone from the lodge to the commandery, but we shall 
consider it an honor to be Royal Arch Masons, and no higher honor can come to any 
man than to appreciate and understand Royal Arch Masonry. 


Companions, many of you are High Priests of your chapters, candidates are coming 
into your chapters. Will you explain to them this story— that they are searching for 
eternal truth, or will you make these solemn ceremonies a scene of buffoonery? I 
sincerely hope not. These ceremonies are too sacred and it would be a sacrilege to 
introduce anything that is not in keeping with the dignity of Freemasonry. Shrine 
ceremonies have no place in Freemasonry and only the light-headed and the moron 
will indulge in it. 


THERE HAS BEEN TOO MUCH RUSH 


There was never a time in Freemasonry when this ought to be brought home with 
greater force. There has been a great rush into Freemasonry. There has been a hip and 
hoorah about it. Men have come having no conception of what Freemasonry is, but 
they are going to drop out. The tide is going out. Dimissions and suspensions for non- 
payment of dues will increase. What are you going to do with this vast amount of 
unthinking material? Among this material are many good men as well as a mass of 
driftwood. Many have come without qualifications. 


Let me tell you a little story. During the Civil War, Senator Vance of North Carolina, 
one of the most brilliant men of the Southern States, being an active Confederate, was 
disfranchised by the government. After the war he was elected to the United States 
Senate. He went to Washington with his certificate of election and was informed that 



his election was all right, but having been disqualified, and this disability not yet 
removed, he therefore could not be seated. He was informed that if he would remain 
in Washington a short time, Congress would doubtless pass a bill removing his 
disability. But Senator Vance determined to go home. In doing so he took an ordinary 
coach and a seat opposite two ministers, a Baptist and a Presbyterian. These two 
Dominies soon became engaged in a warm discussion on the question of 
foreordination and election. The war waged hotly between the Navy and Infantry of 
the Lord's Kingdom. After a while, the Presbyterian minister, noticing that Senator 
Vance was very much interested, said to him, "Stranger, you seem to be interested in 
our discussion. What is your opinion of election ?" Senator Vance said, "I have a very 
positive opinion. An election is not worth a damn until your disabilities are removed." 
This is a good Masonic as well as theological statement. Too many men have been 
and are still coming in whose disabilities have not been removed. They are here. 

What are you going to do about it? Are you going to educate them as Freemasonry 
ought to educate her young men, or are you going to let them drift and finally drop 
out by taking their dimits or by non-payment of dues? Every man is not fit to be made 
a Mason. There are some who naturally will drop out if Freemasonry is not congenial. 
We have moral morons as well as intellectual morons, and a moron is not fit to be 
made a Mason, whether he be one morally or intellectually. Will you help those that 
remain ? Are you going to have a circus out of it, or are you going to be sincere and 
teach these men the great central thought of Freemasonry? Now, Companions, as 
Royal Arch Masons, will you please consider these things: that the chapter means 
much. It is the great stepping stone to the central idea, the Master's Word, the 
Recovery of it and its interpretation and application. It is not foolishness. It is sincere, 
dignified work, just as much as the church itself. I sometimes thi nk that if we took 
Freemasonry sincerely, studied it, brought it out as I have tried to explain to you, it 
will lead every man to the door of the church . 


— o — 


Letter G 


By ROB MORRIS 



That Name! I learned it at a mother's knee When, looking up, the fond and tearful 
face Beaming upon my eyes so tenderly, She prayed that God her little son would 
bless! 


That Name! I spoke it when I entered here And bowed the knee, as each Freemason 
must; From my heart's center with sincerity I said, "In God, in God is all my trust!" 


That Name! I saw it o'er the Master's chair "The Hieroglyphic bright," and, bending 
low, Paid solemn homage at the emblem there That speaks of God, before whom all 
must bow! 


That Name! In silence I invoked its power When dangers thickened and when death 
was nigh! In solemn awe I felt the death clouds lower And whispered, "God be with 
me if I die!" 


That Name! the last upon my faltering tongue Ere death shall still it, it shall surely be 
The Password to the high celestial throng Whose Lord is God in truth and majesty ! 


That Name then, Brothers, always gently speak, Before your father's, mother's name 
revered! Such blessings from His gracious hand we take, O be His honor to our souls 
endeared! 


— o — 


The Fellowship of Masonry in Alaska 



BY BRO. CHARLES E. NAGHEL 

SECRETARY, MT. JUNEAU LODGE, No. 147, ALASKA 


THE Territory of Alaska is within the jurisdiction of the M. W. Grand Lodge of 
Masons of the State of Washington. The list given herewith of Alaska lodges shows 
the number of Master Masons on the respective rolls at the end of 1924: 


Lodge 

Location 

Master Masons 

White Pass Lodge, No. 113 

Skagway, Alaska 

119 

Gastineaux Lodge, No. 124 

Douglas 

104 

Anvil Lodge, No. 140 

Nome 

165 

Mt. Juneau Lodge, No. 147 

Juneau 

195 

Ketchikan Lodge, No. 159 

Ketchikan 

128 

Tanana Lodge, No. 162 

Fairbanks 

203 (The farthest north lodge) 

Valdez Lodge, No. 168 

Valdez 

97 

Mt. McKinley Lodge, No. 183 

Cordova 

111 

Seward Lodge, No. 219 

Seward 

82 

Anchorage Lodge, No. 221 

Anchorage 

219 

Petersburg, U. D 

Petersburg 

20 


There are small active Masonic clubs at Hanies and Sitka, Alaska. The brethren at the 
latter place have applied for dispensation, but still lack two dimits of having the 
requisite fifteen to obtain favorable action on their petition. 


At Juneau, Alaska, are located the following Scottish Rite bodies: Alaska Lodge of 
Perfection, No. 1; Alaska Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1; Alaska Council of Kadosh, 
No. 1, and Alaska Consistory, No. 1. 


There is an active Scottish Rite club located at Ketchikan, Alaska, and active Shrine 
clubs are located in all the larger cities of the territory. 




A chapter of Royal Arch Masons is located in Nome, and commanderies at 
Anchorage and Fairbanks. 


The several lodges and clubs throughout the territory have always been active in 
carrying on the work of the Fraternity and maintaining its high principles. 


The various lodges are visited by sojourning Masons from jurisdictions scattered 
throughout the world, and it is not uncommon to find a dozen or more Masonic 
jurisdictions, including a number of foreign countries, represented at our small 
Masonic meetings. Oftentimes two or more brethren will meet and make themselves 
known to each other in the most unexpected manner and in remote places, as while 
out on hunting or prospecting trips, and these meetings out in the vast researches of 
an undeveloped territory are quite illustrative of the universality of Freemasonry, for 
often the brother whom you meet thus unexpectedly hails from a lodge in some 
distant foreign country. 


I have experienced the pleasure of such meetings in a small way myself while out on 
hunting trips. In 19161 accepted an invitation from an acquaintance, whom I had met 
occasionally in Juneau when he was here on his infrequent visits to the city, to have 
my hunting trip with him that fall. I had been informed that he was a Mason and, after 
making part of the journey by the mail boat and finishing it by traveling in a row boat, 
I arrived at his little cabin where, by due examination, we established our fraternal 
relationship, and afterward he climbed up to the attic of the cabin and brought down 
his Knight Templar's uniform and sword, which he told me had not been out of their 
cases for many years. He held membership in a lodge and commandery in Idaho. 
However, we were not on common ground beyond the Blue Lodge, having traveled 
different routes. 


SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 



Several years later, while hunting with this brother, we were camped on the beach on 
the shore of a large inlet filled with reefs, rocks and small islands. We had finished 
the day's hunt, and just as night was falling, after we had washed the supper dishes 
and were cleaning up the arsenal of small arms in the tent, we heard the "put, put" of 
a small gas boat approaching the camp. I stepped outside the tent and called out to the 
boat's occupant the directions for making the anchorage in our small sheltered bay, 
but it was not until he had pulled almost to the shore in his tender that I recognized 
him as a Mason from Ukiah, Cal., whom I had sat in lodge with several times years 
previously in Juneau. He had been informed at a small settlement some miles away of 
my being in the inlet, and he searched about in his little launch until nearly dark 
before he located our camp. We had an enjoyable and interesting fraternal session in 
the tent until late into the night, disturbed by no sound outside the tent except the 
occasional call of a loon, duck or goose, which is music to the hunter; and often the 
volume of sound from the feathered tribe at night would prompt us to venture the 
prediction that wing shooting on the morrow would be more attractive than seeking 
the more toothsome venison. 


The very nature of our surroundings in Alaska brings members of the Fraternity 
together in a closer bond than is the case in the more thickly populated communities, I 
believe. If you ever have the leisure and inclination you should spend a few weeks on 
one of the most fascinating journeys to be had throughout the world, a trip to our 
Northland during the summer, and see our wonderful scenery, which has sufficient 
variety throughout the territory to always be pleasing to the eye as one journeys 
along. The trip can be made without much expense during the summer tourist season, 
which time is most attractive to many people, although I always maintain that winter 
is the most productive of beautiful sights, although not a good time for travel or to 
make good connections along the route. You would enjoy a visit to Alaska, viewing 
its attractive scenery and meeting the people that make this land their home. Besides, 
you would go back to your home with the knowledge that Alaska is a different land 
than you had conceived it to be at long range. 


— o — 


History of Masonry in China 



Republished from "Encyclopedia Sinica" BRO. I. V. GILLIS, Peking, China, called 
our attention to an illuminating article on the Craft in China in the "Encyclopedia 
Sinica." The Oxford University Press, American Branch, 35 West 32nd street, New 
York City, publishers of the "Encyclopedia," very graciously gave consent to our 
reprinting it here. We desire to give full credit to the Press, and to the estate of 
Samuel Couling, editor of the "Encyclopedia." This great reference work is one that 
may be heartily commended to any and all brethren that may have an interest in 
China. It may be purchased from the Oxford University Press at $14.00. The article, 
as here given, is taken from a photostat and printed exactly as it stands except for the 
sub-heads. It is signed by G.L. The "Cyclopaedia" was published in 1917. 


FREEMASONS claim the creation of the world as the starting point of their practical 
Craft. But an immediately following admission tells of the founding of the Original 
Grand Lodge of England, to which so much of modem Masonry may be traced, and 
places the origin of that at no earlier date than A. D. 1717. Ireland, Scotland and 
Massachusetts followed in order with like institutions of their own, the last named 
forming its Grand Lodge in 1792. Two classes of detractors base their criticisms on 
these facts, one ridiculing the claim of the ancient lineage, the other mnning down the 
institution on account of its modernity. Both are wrong. The claim that the first 
Mason was the Creator of the Universe need not be discussed, but historic research 
shows plainly enough that "a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and 
illustrated by symbols," has existed from time immemorial. 


China's own records— the finest, best and most complete in the world in some 
respects— prove that within her borders there was such a system known before the 
days of Confucius, hundreds of years B.C., and what is more interesting is the fact 
that the square and compasses were used then as emblems of morality much as they 
are being used now. We need not feel surprised that this should be so. The early 
connexion of the Chinese with our own Western ancestors is being slowly but 
inevitably traced. Similarity in words alone is sufficient to satisfy those who have 
gone into the matter that there must have been similarity, if not identity, in origin. 



When Chinese classics, therefore, speak in terms masonic, as, for example, when 
Mencius urges those in "pursuit of wisdom" to "make use of the compasses and 
square," we may well surmise that the germ of the idea was common to the 
progenitors of those who came east on the one side and went west on the other. 
Confucius at seventy congratulated himself that he could then "venture to follow the 
inclinations of his heart without fear of transgressing the limits of the square." 


That the Chinese Triad Society should have a ritual and practice in many respects 
almost identical with that of Freemasonry need not surprise us, for just as China has 
for many generations been the happy home of secret societies opposed to the 
government, so was it— and to some extent is still— in Continental Europe, where only 
here and there were governments and rulers wise enough to place themselves at the 
head of such movements. Nine out of ten of the many rebellions in China have been 
the work of secret societies connected more or less intimately with religious beliefs. 


When the first Freemasons of Shanghai built for themselves a home in which to meet, 
they applied to the then Consul for his advice as to the Chinese name which should be 
given to their hall. Mr. Medhurst had no great difficulty in meeting the request. He 
knew what has been said above respecting the use by the Chinese of the square and 
compasses, and advised accordingly. He suggested "Kweikeu-f ang," or "Compass 
and Square Hall"— the Chinese reverse the order of the implements— as a fitting title, 
and the designation being accepted, has continued till the present time to suggest to 
our native fellow residents, and to the few amongst them who have been accepted as 
"brethren," that the practices to which the building is dedicated are of that moral and 
reputable order known from of old and practised by their Great Sage himself. 


ITS FIRST HOME WAS IN HONGKONG 


Western Freemasonry on the China coast, however, found its first home, not in 
Shanghai, but in Hongkong, where the Royal Sussex Lodge, named after the Duke of 
that title, received its warrant in 1 844, and opened its meetings on the 3rd of April, 
1845. In 1848 it removed to Canton, where it remained for ten years and was then 
dormant until its resuscitation in Shanghai in 1863. The original number of the Royal 



Sussex Lodge was 735. It is now 501, and it is thus senior to the Northern Lodge of 
China, the first to be formed in Shanghai, whose number is 570. Both are under the 
English Constitution. 


The Northern Lodge warrant is dated Dec. 27, 1849, the lodge at first being No. 832. 
Its first place of meeting was in the Kiangsi road (then Church street), where it 
occupied a Chinese building, much as one of the Weihaiwei lodges did recently. 
Thence it migrated to a building of its own in the Nanking road (then Park lane). 
Outgrowing its accommodation, it was compelled to make a fresh move, and for 
some time used a building in the Foochow road. Meanwhile its second hall was being 
built in the Canton road, where it still stands. But, once again, developments 
necessitated a change, this time to the Bund, where the foundation stone of the new 
building was laid on the 3rd of July, 1865. Most unfortunate as to the circumstances 
which immediately followed, the new Masonic hall found itself one of two "white 
elephants" which the Shanghai community had on its hands. The other was Trinity 
Church, now the Cathedral. Shanghai had had its fat years during the late fifties and 
early sixties when the Taiping rebels were over-running the province. Its lean ones 
dated from the overthrow of those pests at Nanking in 1864, and for years the cost of 
the two big buildings was felt very severely by the small and comparatively 
impoverished community. The Northern Lodge, however, bore half the burden of the 
hall, the other half being carried by the Royal Sussex and the Tuscan Lodges in the 
ratio of 3 to 1 . 


The Tuscan Lodge warrant dates from Aug. 18, 1864. As a working lodge it has had 
its ups and downs, but during the course of its existence it has provided three District 
Grand Masters, Bros. Miller, Moore and Hough, for Freemasonry in the Far East, and 
is now reported to be in a highly flourishing financial condition. 


Royal Arch Freemasonry began in Shanghai in 1861 with the charter of the Zion 
Chapter, working under the Northern Lodge, No. 570, E. C. It continued alone till 
1869, when the Rising Sun R. A. Chapter, under the Scottish Constitution, was 
formed. The Zion Chapter has ever been one of the most successful of Far Eastern 
Masonic bodies, and its list of Past First Principals contains many names of men who 
made their mark in Shanghai history in other than Masonic circles. 



But it is now time to turn to constitutions other than the English. All three made their 
debut in Shanghai. The year 1864, the last of the fat years, was prolific of Masonic 
growth. We have seen that the Royal Sussex was re-constituted in Shanghai in 1863. 
On the very same day the Lodge of Assiduity was formed. It was on the 7th of March, 
1864, that the Lodge Cosmopolitan, working under the Scottish Constitution, was 
granted its warrant. The Tuscan immediately followed, as we have seen, and on the 
14th of December it was the turn of the American Constitution to come in with a 
warrant for the formation of the Ancient Landmark Lodge. 


It is not necessary here to dilate on the slight differences existing between the 
English, Scotch and Massachusetts Constitutions. They are all in the realm of detail, 
not of principle, and the consequences have almost without exception been very 
happy, for while unity in principle secures solidarity in essentials, diversity in 
working is always attractive to visiting brethren who delight in tracing similarities 
and contrasts in the differing rituals. 


COSMOPOLITAN LODGE BEGAN IN 1864 


The Cosmopolitan Lodge, No. 428, S. C., began working in 1864 under the 
mastership of one of the best known of the older Shanghai Masons, W. Bro. C. M. 
Donaldson. It has always been a strong lodge, and was long distinguished for its 
charitable work. The Saltoun Lodge, No. 936, S. C., dates from Dec. 23, 1902. 


The Ancient Landmark Lodge, acting under the Constitution of Massachusetts, began 
work on the 9th of May, 1864, and sprang rapidly into complete success. It was the 
outcome of the meeting of a few friends at the house of Dr. H. W. Boone, who, with 
Bro. Hill- -afterwards well known for his connexion with Gen. Ward of the "Ever 
Victorious Army"— and Bro. Blanchard, was one of the leading lights in Masonic 
circles for years after. Bro. Eames, learned in the law, and father of the great singer, 
Madame Emma Eames, was another of the little fraternity, as was the learned 
gentleman who in later years became Bishop of the American Episcopal Church in 
China, Bishop Schereschewsky. Amongst the list of Past Masters of this lodge will be 



found W. Bros. Hill, Eames, Jansen, the Rev. J. R. Hykes, D. D., and E. T. Williams, 
some time Charge d' Affaires for the United States in Peking. 


The Keystone Royal Arch Chapter may be looked on as an offshoot of the Ancient 
Landmark Lodge, as its mainstays were found amongst the stalwarts of that body. Its 
charter dates from the 20th of September, 1871. 


Other Masonic bodies founded in the early days of the settlement should be noted 
here, the first of which was the "Celestial Encampment," embodying Knight Templar 
and other degrees not officially recognised by the English Constitution. Its charter 
dates back to Oct. 3, 1862. In 1877 its name was changed to that of the "Celestial 
Preceptory," under which it was the only body in China conferring degrees of 
Masonic Knighthood. In 1900 it ceased to exist, but has since been resuscitated. The 
Cathay Rose Croix was another. It came into existence under a warrant dated May 18, 
1869, and conferred degrees following the Royal Arch to the 18th. It has long been 
extinct. 


The warrant for the construction of a Provincial Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of 
Scotland is dated Aug. 10, 1865, and W. Bro. C. M. Donaldson was appointed first 
P.G.M., an office held for life. This post he continued to fill till 1892, when, after his 
death, his mantle fell upon P.G.M. Bro. J. H. Osborne, who held it until 1916, when 
he resigned and was succeeded by Bro. M. E. H. Wells. The Royal Order differs from 
the degrees that precede it in being purely Christian in tendency. It embraces two 
parts, the second of which is a degree of Knighthood. 


A few other interesting occurrences in the olden days may be recorded. The first 
Masonic Ball was held in 1865, but it was not till 1874 that another provided a small 
surplus and so formed the nucleus of the Masonic Charity Fund, which has done so 
much good in Shanghai and elsewhere. In 1 866 the foundation stone of the present 
Cathedral was laid with fitting Masonic ceremonial. In 1867 the Masonic hall on the 
Bund was dedicated. It has since been rebuilt and adapted to modern requirements. In 
1868 Ningpo joined the fraternity by forming the "Star of Peace" Lodge, No. 1217, E. 
C. It lasted but two years, however. During the year following, Shanghai Scotsmen 



formed a new lodge, St. Andrew in the Far East, No. 493, S. C. Dr. Coghill was its 
first Master and it had every promise of a long and successful career. But its hopes 
were shattered and the lodge came to an end in 1874. The Hankow was next to try its 
hand with "The Star of Central China," No. 51 1, S. C. This was in 1871. 


The Hankow Lodge might have been known as the Tea Lodge, for its founders were 
mainly engaged in the great tea trade of the port as it then was. When that fell off, and 
regular residents became fewer, the lodge lapsed. Since 1901, however, its place has 
been supplied by the Far Cathay Lodge, No. 2,855, E. C. 


A GERMAN LODGE WAS INAUGURATED 


The year 1872 saw the inauguration of the Lodge Germania, which had a chequered 
career for some ten years and was then closed. Dr. Zachariae was one of its Masters, 
and the lodge was revived in 1895 by no less a celebrity than W. Bro. P. G. von 
Mollendorff, since which time it has been in regular working order. In this, as in all 
other cases, members of the English Constitution freely gave their aid wherever it was 
possible and necessary. 


In 1 909 an effort was made to start a lodge under the Dutch Constitution, and the 
English District Grand Lodge had the pleasure of performing the Consecration 
ceremony, but the experience of the following year proved that an insufficient number 
of resident members was forthcoming and the warrant was returned to the Hague. 


The story of the development of District Grand Lodges in China is one of 
considerable interest. The first W. M. of the Royal Sussex Lodge, Bro. J. H. Murray, 
was also the first Provincial Grand Master of the whole Masonic Province of China, 
and the W. M. who succeeded him in the chair of the Royal Sussex also succeeded to 
the honor of the Prov. Grand Mastership. This was Bro. S. Rawson. It was not till 
1877 that this immense "Province" was divided into two "Districts" of North and 
South China. Bro. Cornelius Thorne was the first D. G. M. of the Northern section 
and held the post for eight years. Leaving for home in 1885, he was succeeded by 



Bro. J. I. Miller, who in turn resigned in 1896, and was followed by Bro. L. Moore, 
who held the office till his death in 1903. Bro. W. H. Anderson was the next 
incumbent, and remained in office till his departure for home in 1908, Bro. R. S. Ivy 
filling the vacancy in the following year and still remaining in office, thus surpassing 
in length of service all his predecessors. 


A D. G. M. is entitled to Past Rank only after a service of three years. His office is by 
no means a sinecure. He has the appointment annually of a score or more of officers 
to serve under him in the District Grand Lodge, and he is in undisputed control of all 
the lodges— be they few or many— of his own Constitution in the district over which he 
rules. Territorially in China he may have to share his sway with D. G. M's of other 
Constitutions who, of course, rule only over lodges using their own ritual and having 
warrants granted by their own Grand Lodges. As matters stand at present [the 
Cyclopaedia was published in 1917], the lodges under the District Grand Lodge of 
Northern China, E. C., are as follows: 




Date of Warrant 

Situation 


501 

18-9-1844 

Shanghai 

Northern Lodge 
of China 

570 

27-12-1849 

Shanghai 

Tuscan 

1027 

18-8-1864 

Shanghai 

Doric 

1433 

5-4-1873 

Chinkiang 

Union Lodge of 
Tientsin 

1951 

16-11-1881 

Tientsin 

Northern Star of 
China 

2673 

7-9-1897 

Newchwang 


2855 

1-5-1901 

Hankow 

Coronation 

2931 

13-5-1902 

Tientsin 

Daintree 

2938 

1-9-1901 

Weihaiwei 


3001 

15-3-1904 

Tongshan 


The Kiukiang Lodge in consequence of constant removals from the port and an 
insufficient number of permanent residents found itself unable, in 1914, to carry on 
its regular meetings and so lapsed. The date given for the warrant of the Tongshan 
Lodge is actually the date of its consecration. This Lodge has had the peculiar 






































experience of losing its warrant by theft, and of being compelled in consequence to go 
into recess until a new one had been obtained. Some years ago the present writer paid 
a flying visit to this remarkable little community which was then the proud possessor 
of a racecourse, a club, a rifle association, a church and a Masonic Hall, with what 
other social centres is not recorded, while the census showed a total, including the last 
baby, of seventy-five souls only. 


This fact points to one of the causes of the spread of Masonry in the Treaty Ports of 
China. As it is now in such a place as Tongshan, so it once was in Shanghai, Tientsin, 
etc. Men formed lodges for companionship. Now, when social amenities in the larger 
settlements are multiplied, that particular attraction is not only lost, but is antagonised 
by endless other facilities provided by clubs of every description. It is only in the 
outports that the earlier conditions are repeated. 


AMERICAN D. D. G. M'S ARE NAMED 


From the earliest days the American lodges have had the advantage of a District 
Deputy Grand Master, the following being the list of worthy brethren who have held 
the post: Bros. C. E. Hill, first W. M. of the Ancient Landmark Lodge, W. C. 
Blanchard, J. B. Eames, D. C. Jansen, A. W. Danforth, J. R. Hykes, George A. Derby 
and Dr. Stacey A. Ransom, the present incumbent. But it was not till 1915 that the 
number of American lodges was sufficient to call for the formation of a regularly 
organized District Grand Lodge. Application then made to the Grand Master of the 
State of Massachusetts resulted in the issue of a charter, and the ceremony of 
installation of R. W. Bro. Dr. Ransom was conducted by the D. G. M. of the English 
Constitution, R. W. Bro. R. S. Ivy, assisted by the officers of the English D. G. 
Lodge. This interesting ceremony occurred on the 24th of November, 1915, and the 
new District Grand Lodge held its first annual meeting on the 27th of December, 
1916. 


For many years the Ancient Landmark was the only lodge under the rule of the 
American District Deputy Grand Masters, but on the 28th of January, 1904, the Sinim 
Lodge was organized, at first under the name of the Cathay Lodge, its first Master 



being Clinton, son of the late R. W. Bro. D. C. Jansen. Another, the Shanghai Lodge, 
has its charter dated Sept. 14, 1904. A provisional warrant was given to the Peiho 
Lodge of Tientsin, but the only occupant of the chair was W. Bro. L. C. Emery, the 
lodge finding itself incapable of carrying on. 


China's capital, curiously enough, held out longer against Masonic influences than 
any of the Treaty Ports of importance. It was not until the 2nd of October, 1915, that 
an International Lodge was established in Peking, which has since received its 
warrant from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and is thus under the control of the 
American D. G. Lodge. On the 4th of November, 1916, a Lodge of Perfection— 14th 
Degree— of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was also opened by Illustrious C. 
S. Lobingier, holding an Honorary 33rd Degree. No fewer than 17 Master Masons 
received higher degrees at the temporary Masonic Hall on the Austrian Glacis on that 
date, but the most interesting portion of the ceremony was an adjournment to the 
Temple of Heaven and the working of several degrees in the Emperor's Robing 
Chamber. W. Bro. Pettus was installed as first V. M., and amongst the officers was 
Bro. C. C. Wu, son of the well known Chinese diplomatist and statesman, Dr. Wu 
Ting-fang. 


The higher degrees just mentioned form part of the complete system known as the 
Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry (U. S. A.), which was established more 
than a century ago in Charleston, South Carolina. Its Shanghai members were 
consolidated on the 19th of September, 1901, into the following bodies: 


The Yangtze Lodge of Perfection, No. 4, under Bro. G. A. Derby. 

The Shanghai Chapter Rose Croix, No. 3, under Bro. G. A. Derby 
The Cathay Council of Kadosh, No. 2, under Bro. John Goodnow. 

The Orient Consistory, No. 1, under Bro. John Goodnow. 

The Ancient and Accepted Rite, under the "Supreme Council of England," is thought 
to have originated in France about the middle of the 18th century. As has already 



been remarked, the Grand Lodge of England concerns itself with none but the first 
three degrees with the Royal Arch, but it will be of interest to the Craft as well as to 
the general reader to have a list of the thirty-three degrees as recognised under the 
Ancient and Accepted Rite. They are the following: 

1. Entered Apprentice. 

2. Fellowcraft. 

3. Master Mason. 

4. Secret Master. 

5. Perfect Master. 

6. Intimate Secretary. 

7. Provost and Judge. 

8. Superintendent of the Buildings. 

9. Elected Knights of the Nine. 

10. Illustrious Elect of Fifteen. 

1 1 . Sublime Knights Elected. 

12. Grand Master Architect. 

13. Knight of the Ninth Arch. 

14. Grand Elect, Perfect and Sublime Mason. 

15. Knight of the Sword of the East. 

16. Prince of Jerusalem. 

17. Knight of the East and West. 

18. Sovereign Prince of Rose Croix. 



19. Grand Pontiff. 

20. Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges. 

21. Noachite or Prussian Knight. 

22. Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince of Libanus. 

23. Chief of the Tabernacle. 

24. Prince of the Tabernacle. 

25. Knight of the Brazen Serpent. 

26. Prince of Mercy, or Scotch Trinitarian. 

27. Sovereign Commander of the Temple. 

28. Knight of the Sun. 

29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew. 

30. Grand Elect Knight of Kadosh. 

3 1 . Grand Inspector, Inquisitor Commander. 

32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. 

33. Sovereign Grand Inspector General. 


One form of Masonic activity, the working of the Mark Degree in a separate lodge, 
has so far been left unnoticed. The District of N. China possesses but two of these 
lodges, the Orient Mark Lodge, No. 482, E. C., at Shanghai, and the Northern Lodge 
of China of Mark Masons, No. 583, E. C., at Weihaiwei. The former was established 
in 1894, its first Master being Bro. F. M. Gratton. The latter first saw the light in 
1906. The Mark Degree is conferred under other constitutions without the formation 
of separate lodges. 


CHINESE MASONRY HAS FINE RECORD FOR CHARITY 



Freemasonry has many claims to the honor and respect of the world, but none based 
on surer foundation than its first and foremost practice, the practice of charity. We 
have shown that the brotherhood dates its beginning on the China coast from the year 
1 844, but when we find that the first Charity Fund was not founded till thirty years 
afterwards, in 1 874, we must not jump to the conclusion that Craft benevolence 
slumbered all that time. It was not so. Whatever was required to minister to the needs 
of those in distress came freely from the pockets of individual brethren or the treasury 
of individual lodges. In 1874, however, a Masonic ball surplus of $529 formed the 
nest-egg of the first combined fund in which all Shanghai lodges of whatever 
constitution could find membership. At first a rather haphazard undertaking, the fund 
made but slow progress, working, so to speak, from hand to mouth. Bro. Gratton re- 
organized it under bye-laws in 1888, and since then its progress had been ever onward 
and upward. Its present invested funds amount to Tls. 32,500.00 and are supported by 
all lodges in the district. 


Tientsin and district has followed Shanghai's example and now has a thriving Charity 
Fund of its own. In times gone by it subscribed freely to the Shanghai Fund. 
Newchwang has done the like, and the volume of its fund is a telling tribute to the 
generosity of its small community. 


Much might be said of the high standing of prominent Masons in China in other 
walks of life. The list includes at least one Bishop, many high church dignitaries, 
many Consular officials, various Knights, a large body of representatives from the 
liberal professions, many heads of firms, and a vast body of "just and upright" men 
who have carried on the traditions of the Craft after the manner which, in all ages, has 
led monarchs themselves to become "promoters of the art." One of the most 
prominent of Masonic historians was Bro. R. F. Gould, once Secretary to the 
Shanghai Municipal Council, and a member of the Northern Lodge. 


The two public schools of Shanghai, for boys and girls, owe their origin to that 
founded by the Masonic Fraternity in 1886. For years the lodges provided a liberal 
prize fund which has now been consolidated and forms three valuable scholarships 
tenable for three years. The Craft hold in perpetuity the right to nominate four free 



scholars, boys or girls, in the Municipal Schools, in return for their outlay on the 
original institution. 


As a further outgrowth from the ranks of the Fraternity may be mentioned the 
Masonic Club at Shanghai. This institution dates from the 1st of April, 1882, has its 
quarters in the Masonic building on what is one of the very best sites in the Model 
Settlement, and has always filled a well recognised position in Shanghai clubdom. It 
is not likely that there exist many cities where Masonry is stronger, in proportion to 
its Western population, than it is in Shanghai. 


— o — 


The Old Tyler 


By ROB MORRIS 


God bless the Old Tyler! how long he has trudged, Through sunshine and storm, with 
his "summonses due!" No pain nor fatigue the Old Tyler has grudged To serve the 
great Order, Freemasons, and you. 


God bless the Old Tyler! how oft he has led The funeral procession from Lodge door 
to grave! How grandly his weapon has guarded the dead To their last quiet home 
where the Acacia boughs wave. 


God bless the Old Tyler; how oft he has knocked, When, vigilant, strangers craved 
welcome and rest! How widely your portals, though guarded and locked, Have swung 
to the signal the Tyler knows best! 



There's a Lodge where the door is not guarded nor tyled There's a Land without 
graves, without mourners or sin There's a Master most gracious, paternal and mild 
And He waits the Old Tyler, and bids him come in! 


And there the Old Tyler, no longer outside— No longer with weapon of war in his 
hand- A glorified spirit, shall grandly abide And close by the Master, high honored, 
shall stand. 


— o — 


Shall Grand Lodge Become a Nursing Mother? 


BY BRO. DONALD HUGHES, California 


BRO. HUGHES is a genial philosopher who has the knack of expressing his opinions 
with such good humor as to please even those who most violently disagree with him. 
We are hoping that he will let us publish three or four other essays about which he 
has been gossiping in a number of recent letters. 


LET'S philosophize a little! It is a harmless pastime with occasional utility, and 
seldomly does anybody serious harm, more especially if the so-called philosopher is 
as absent-minded and grandfatherly as myself. There is sometimes a little excitement 
to be had out of it, too; hardly anybody can ever tell what a philosopher is aiming at 
until he gets there, and then sometimes, as the Irisher said, it isn't the place at all but 
another. You remember Professor Huxley's gentle jibe at good Bishop Berkeley? He 
said the sainted metaphysician began his discourse with tar water and ended with the 
Trinity. Huxley added, it may be recalled irrelevantly for the sake of the fun, that the 
pages on tar water were much the better ! 



My friend The Editor has asked me to contribute to THE BUILDER a few of my 
lucubrations. I have warned him of my awful habit of digressing, of pausing by the 
way to gossip about this and that, of all my literary lapses, my ingrained 
garrulousness, and other faults, but he has insisted natheless; perhaps after I have 
once wandered all over the inside of the magazine he will recant. (Others have done 
as much.) Public taste in letters is all for speed and jazz. People want their literature 
served up in rapid little packages, like bullets. They have gazed so much on the face 
of the flapper that they have lost taste for gazing on the face of truth. The shop girl 
going to work attired in satin slippers, and a few other things, is setting the fashion for 
books. "Make it snappy!" is our motto. The bread of life has become gingerbread; the 
wine of life has become coca-cola. 


I am not comfortable in this atmosphere. To me it is a heresy to suppose that the 
history of the world can be crowded into an Outline, or that the poetry of existence 
can be expressed in five lines of vers libre, or that the drama of life can be presented 
in one act. I like the rigor of the game but, like Charles Lamb's Mrs. Battle, I prefer to 
play it with my friends in front of the open fire. The old-fashioned essay is my 
favorite literary form; its leisureliness pleases me, its winding in and about through its 
subject; the sense it conveys of plenty of time, as if the author knew well enough that 
we human beings may as well begin to practice the eternal life right now. You can 
make a machine as rapidly as you please, but you cannot make a human being that 
way; life grows, and growth takes time, under the patient sun and the unhurried rains, 
with time for doing nothing and for dreams. All that is as true in our lodge life as 
anywhere else. It grinds me to see the Third Degree rushed through, with candidates 
"initiated" in gangs, and everybody screwed up to the pitch of haste; we shall never 
teach our novices the lesson of immortality unless we take time for it. 


Let that pass ! What I started to philosophize about is history, among other things. 
Not history in general, in the sense of everything that has ever happened, but history 
as understood by Trevelyan, Wells, Robinson, Breasted, Macaulay, Greene, Hume, 
Hallam, Gibbon, Freeman, Bishop Stubbs, and all those disciples of Clio who write 
big books and organize themselves into learned societies. 



Do their labored disquisitions have any value above the literary pleasure they furnish 
bookworms like you and me ? Can one make any practical use of their chronicles ? 
Can history be applied ? Is there any method for plotting out the future on the strength 
of what we have learned about the past? Are Guglielmo Ferrero, Lathrop Stoddard 
and President Herbert Spencer Hadley warranted in telling us what America is 
coming to on the strength of what happened two thousand years ago in Rome ? What 
these queries amount to, I believe, may be jammed into one short question of four 
words— is history a science? 


HISTORY IS AN ART 


For myself I agree with Mr. Trevelyan in his Clio, a Muse, where he argues that 
history is an art rather than a science because it is of the essence of any real science to 
permit its devotee to foretell the future, whereas the historian can do nothing of the 
kind, as anyone knows from the sorry failure that has attended every well meant effort 
of an historian to don the mantle of the prophet. The astronomer can tell you to the 
second when Halley's Comet will next put in its appearance because he knows when 
it has been here before, but no historian on top of Mother Earth can make any similar 
prediction. A thing can occur ten thousand times in the historian's realm and then 
never occur again. 


There are obvious reasons for this, of course. Man is by nature an unpredictable 
being. The mere fact that he possesses such a thing as a history means that his world 
is always making new beginnings, new departures, new experiments; unforeseen 
factors irrupt into it; if it were everlastingly repeating itself there would be no news to 
tell about it, and hence no history, which is news about the past. Who foresaw the 
railway ? the automobile ? the aeroplane ? wireless ? What biologist can tell when 
human heredity will take a Mendelian leap into an utterly unexpected variety, with a 
new kind of blood, a new cast of human brain? Because the unexpected happens, 
nobody can tell what to expect, therefore there can be no prediction and consequently 
no science. 



The historian is an artist. Like every other practitioner of that gild he picks and 
chooses among his possible materials for those which suit him, leaving out of account 
what some other artist may consider of first value, for the purpose of shaping its 
plastic substance into impressive forms that please him and may possibly please his 
readers. 


In saying that the historian is an artist, I have in mind the large true sense of that word 
and not merely a painter of pictures. Now the one chief and all engrossing subject of 
all art is human nature. The artist's proper study is mankind. Even the art of 
architecture has man for its theme; a building takes its shape' and structure not in 
order to reveal the geological nature of the stones but to exhibit the purpose and 
aspirations of the men who will live or work inside it. Every artist, in any possible 
medium, is out to show man something about himself, to reveal him to himself, to put 
him into completer possession of himself, so that he can the better shape and govern 
and enjoy his own life. This is as true of those forms of art which seem farthest 
removed from us as of the more immediate and intimate forms, such as lyric poetry. 
Art is a history of human life presented through the forms of the imagination; it may 
ignore facts but it cannot ignore truths. Our Ritual, which as I believe is one of the 
masterpieces of the world's art, is a history of the human heart in some of its deeper 
moods and more tragical moments. 


I should like to say here that we shall never understand the art of fiction writing 
properly until we come to think of it as an attempt to give us this same kind of 
history. The notion that it is a novelist's business to construct frothy tales out of his 
fancy to furnish pastime to idle souls seems to me a libel on all the wise and true 
practitioners of that great art. Imagine a Conrad, a Willa Cather, a W. H. Hudson, a 
Balzac, a Henry James wasting his time at such petty stuff ! It is ridiculous! Those 
and all others like them have in view the serious purpose of telling the truth about 
human life; when they deceive us by telling lies about it they cease to be great 
novelists. And that is the trouble in chief with so many of the poor novels that often 
become so popular (no need to mention any names); they mis-represent man's nature, 
and therefore practice deception on the unwary minds that steep in their pages. 


CONRAD IS GIVEN AS AN EXAMPLE 



Consider as in point here Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. This admirable and heroic 
novelist cherished in his boyhood among the Polish plains far removed from salt 
water the dream of becoming a sailor on an English ship, and then lived out his dream 
against all the odds of race and language. That done he turned novelist and left behind 
him— he has recently passed into the Unseen— the most valuable body of fiction given 
us by any writer of this present day. The professional critic may value his books for 
the skillful managements of his themes, or for his sophisticated style, but others of us 
love them for their truth. Perhaps there was never a real Jim; never a young sailor 
who caved in when he believed his ship to be going down; never such a hidden and 
barbarous land as that in which he tried so nobly to bury his shame; but what does it 
matter ? The story of this young "Tuan" is a transcript of human nature, true and 
revealing, and every reader is the wiser for having read it; wiser, that is, not alone 
because he understands others better, and the world better, but for knowing his own 
nature better. And what a mystery is this nature of ours! It is our own, but at the same 
time not our own, much of it lying outside our own self-grasp as distantly and 
strangely as the Malay Archipelago or the Indian Ocean, so that to have it laid bare to 
ourselves, and interpreted, is a great gift to our wisdom, and enables us to know and 
therefore to manage our lives the better. To write a novel, such as this, is as much a 
feat as to write a great history; in either event the purpose is a truthful unveiling of 
human nature. The historian makes his interpretation by means of known facts about 
the past; the novelist by means of truths won through the imagination. One is as 
valuable, for "serious," or any other purposes, as the other. 


I have long believed that we make a great mistake in supposing that a historian is 
necessarily concerned with the so-called "dead past." For one thing, it is not a fact, as 
a rapid reading of the biographies of historians will prove. Some of them have been 
learned pundits completely divorced from the present, and more excited about the size 
of a stone in King Tut' s tomb than about the living world; but for the most part (one 
recalls Macaulay, Gibbon, Mommsen and a score beside) they have been moi e 
interested in present affairs than the majority of men are, and for that very reason 
have become historians. For another thing, the past is not "dead," not much of it 
anyhow, but very much alive, most of it quite busily at work in our present day. For 
time, as Bergson made us see with his persuasive eloquence, is a continuum, like the 
flow of a river, carrying with it into the future what it has gathered up in the past. 
Consider your own life ! The experiences of your boyhood have not been left behind 
you, like stones lying inertly on a road; they continue functioning inside you, 
influencing you as much now, perhaps, or even more than at the time they occurred. 



To condemn history, which is literature dealing with old events, in the name of the 
urgent needs of the present is to be peculiarly short-sided about that same present. 
Almost everything that lives and moves in our own immediate world derives its 
momentum and its vigor from past generations. 


With this understanding of the matter we can easily see in what sense history, the 
record of times past, can be put to the service of the present and of the future. By 
knowing what men have been in the past, how they have behaved in certain 
conditions, what motives have moved them, what inspirations have drawn them 
along, what hopes have animated them, we are the better enabled to understand what 
is going on about us, and what we may reasonably expect will grow from present 
conditions in the future. This is the truth of Goethe's profound saying, already quoted, 
I recall, several times in THE BUILDER, that "men change but man remains the 
same." There can be no predictions of matter of fact but there can be anticipations; 
anticipations of the future based on knowledge of men in the past. For these reasons 
and in this sense I believe that Ferrero, Stoddard, Hadley and the others are safely 
within their province in warning us — about the trends in the present world from their 
knowledge of how we humans have behaved under similar conditions in past 
generations. 


THE CITY IS A KEY TO OUR PROBLEM 


A rapid survey of a number of such books as are represented by those of these 
authors— I have a stack of them on the table before me as I write— shows that the thing 
which bulks largest in their troubled view of our modem world is the preponderant 
place of the large city in our life, and of the industrial and economic system that has 
brought these huge towns into existence. There is no need here to go into a detailed 
analysis of the problem of the city as envisaged by them, for space is limited; it will 
be sufficient to quote an utterance, already become familiar, of James Bryce, who was 
as keen a critic of his own times as he was a keen historian, and who succeeded better 
than most in bringing the lessons of the past to bear on the difficulties of the present. 
He said these words to a group of Americans about to leave London for home, and 
they were directed at American cities, but their application is general: 



"Go back to the splendid world across the sea; but don't you make a failure of it. You 
cannot go on twenty-five years more in your great cities as you have been doing. 
Don't you do it. If you do, you will set us liberals back in Europe five hundred years." 
(For this quotation, and for a striking work on the whole subject, see The Challenge 
of the City, by Josiah Strong; his statistics are now out of date, but his general 
treatment is as valid as ever.) 


This problem of the city is the key to a number of the most perplexing problems of 
government. For consider. In a stable rural community an individual is buttressed and 
supported by the whole neighborhood; he is linked to his neighbors by a lifetime of 
associations, and to many of them by ties of blood. If he is out of work he doesn't 
need to appeal to some stranger in an employment bureau; if he loses all his money he 
isn't thrown upon "organized charity, scrimped and iced, in the name of a cautious 
statistical Christ"; if he becomes ill the neighbors come in to help nurse him; and if he 
dies penniless he isn't buried in a Potter's Field. He has moral resources outside 
himself; his character has roots in the neighborhood. 


Put the same man in a great city to live among indifferent strangers and nobody will 
care much whether he lives or dies. He no longer wages the battle of life upheld and 
assisted by a neighborhood but goes it alone, and as a result may very well become 
economically morally and physically bankrupt. The time comes when he is 
overwhelmed by his own sense of isolated helplessness. 


And meanwhile the same industrial process that has thus herded him and his family 
into a roaring community of strangers has been reacting on those left in rural 
communities. A farmer no longer raises produce for a local market well understood 
by himself but for a distant city market over which he has no individual control; the 
mysterious juggling of prices by distant influences may cause it to turn out that a 
bumper crop will bankrupt him; and in the course of time he will very likely find 
himself mortgaged to money lenders sent out from the towns. What will men do 
under such circumstances? The historians tell us they will most probably do what 
they have nearly always done when similarly situated: they will begin to call loudly 
upon the government to help them out; they will ask it to guarantee wages for them, 
and prices; they will want all manner of subsidies and grants from the public purse. 
The national government will become more and more complicated, adding bureau to 



bureau, until finally it becomes a despotism; and meanwhile the dependent and 
helpless groups and blocs will have become pauperized, because it is as plain as the 
nose on your face that a man who accepts money from his government is indirectly 
accepting it as a gift from those classes that have money wherewith to pay taxes. 
Once this process gets under way it automatically perpetuates itself; the very 
subsidies create new reasons for further subsidies, and so on ad infinitum. It is an old, 
old story ! 


For purposes of offering tangible proof of these rather sweeping generalizations let 
me refer you to the last report of the Census Bureau, capitulated and summarized by 
Bradstreet's. In 1915 the average state in the Union increased its per capita tax on us 
from $4.66 in 1915 to $10.71 less than ten years later. In the same period the per 
capita net indebtedness for the average state increased from $4.31 to $8.12. The cost 
of government increased 158.7 per cent in the same years. There is only one possible 
interpretation of these stark figures: they mean that power, wealth and activity is 
rapidly pyramiding in government. It seems to me that this process is getting a 
strangle hold on our own government, and I am afraid that the deadly process has 
only just begun. So far as such things are concerned we face a melancholy future. We 
shall have not the "Great State" or the "Servile State" that so many publicists are 
writing about, but what is much worse, a Maternal State, a state that has become a 
mere nursing mother to its weak citizens. 


WHY BREED WEAKLINGS? 


It was this thing that poured so much rage into the sensitive soul of Nietzsche, who, 
whatever may have been his faults otherwise, saw into the core of this whole situation 
with clairvoyant clearness. "Why do we go on with a system," he demanded, "that 
automatically breeds classes of weaklings ? Do we not know that when these 
weaklings have become numerically powerful they will pull everything else down to 
their own level ? Strength will be submerged in weakness, and the foolish will govern 
the wise!" It perturbs me to see so many Masons swept into this habit of calling on 
their own central government, the Grand Lodge, in this selfsame manner. One might 
suppose, to judge from a dozen indications, that the individual Mason and the 
individual lodge had lost all power or ability, the way they ask Grand Lodge to 
become a nursing mother for them. They want Grand Lodge to manage their charities, 



to superintend their new building enterprises, to look after them as if they were 
helpless infants; they even become afraid to ask a man into lodge to give a speech 
without first creating a Grand Lodge bureau to do it for them. What has become of the 
old sturdy independence of character by which our early brethren went out into the 
wilds beyond the frontier where there were no Grand Lodges? Has it all leaked out of 
our natures? It is idle to justify this steady centralization of activity on the score that 
we need discipline and order; you can't have discipline among sheep ! 


When I was a young man I was so much oppressed by the various and sundry social 
evils about me that I almost became a professional reformer. It seemed to me that one 
could find no better way of investing his life than in an effort to help tidy up and 
clean up and better organize our communal life; and I believed that much of that work 
could be accomplished without impossible difficulty if only "the people" could be 
brought to recognize the evils and to accept the methods. Like other members of the 
group in which I worked I devoured barrels of books. They were good books, and 
they are still to be recommended: books by Henry Demarest Loyd, Josiah Strong, 
Professor Rauschenbusch, Elisha Mulford, and scores more like them. I distinctly 
recall what an excitement it caused when H. G. Wells first arrived on the scene; it 
seemed to some of us that we could never tire of his brilliant cataracts of words, his 
tireless preaching of a new "World Order." 


Well, I remained as much interested in seeing our social life made more sound and 
beautiful as ever I was but somehow I lost interest in most of the reforms specifically 
advocated. In analyzing them in after years, I have come to believe that I lost interest 
in them because at the core of the majority of them I found an unconfessed, or half 
confessed, scheme to throw all the problems upon the shoulders of the State or 
National Government. The same thing is true, as I understand them, of most of the 
schemes being proposed today. (I am not discussing politics.) Your typical radical 
wants things bettered but he usually wants them bettered by the State. He wants to 
shift the responsibility from the individual on Main street to some other individual in 
Washington. He loses sight of the patent fact that the individual in Washington has no 
more ability or wisdom or idealism than the individual on Main street; and that if the 
individual in Washington manages life for the individual on Main street, poor Main 
street will be worse off at the end than before. 



I am not trying to break any lances against national or united effort in Masonry, least 
of all in the field of Masonic education, or for the sake of such concerted relief work 
as the project of a National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanitarium; but 1 do believe that we 
need to be on our guard lest we become a Fraternity governed patemalistically, which 
is the last way any real man wishes to be governed. 


To my own way of thinking there is a very deep distinction to be made among all the 
programs of centralized Masonry. If such a program asks Grand Lodge to serve as a 
committee of the whole, and as an agency through which individual Masons and 
lodges can better perform their work, we can have general unity of action without 
pyramiding authority; unless I have misunderstood its methods the George 
Washington National Masonic Memorial project could be so described, for in most 
cases its money was raised locally and voluntarily, Grand Lodge being only a 
machinery of collection. But if in carrying out some such program Grand Lodge takes 
the place of the individual and of the local lodge; if it acts in lieu of men; if it takes 
money from its own treasury that should come from the member or his lodge; if, in 
short, it acts because individuals have failed to act, then it has become a paternalism. 


THE TRUE RADICAL IS DESCRIBED 


If I find myself in a quarrel with many of my Masonic brethren on our own Main 
streets, it is because they are falling into this habit. They may call themselves 
"radicals" but at bottom they are not radicals at all. A radical should be fearless and 
daring, willing to fight alone with his back to a wall. All the efforts to have Grand 
Lodge become a nursing mother are not of that character; it is the timid, nerveless, 
half- scared individual who wants to be nursed and chaperoned through life. I believe 
that we need a new radicalism in Masonry, a radicalism that will boldly place 
responsibility exactly where it belongs, asking for no charity, with each individual 
Mason willing to stand the gaff in his own right, and not begging for help from 
outside. For that reason I was rejoiced to come upon a paragraph or two in Bro. 
Ashley A. Smith's Report on Foreign Correspondence in the Grand Lodge 
Proceedings of Maine for 1924. His words cap off my argument better than my own: 



"The writer of this report would desire no higher praise than to be termed a Masonic 
conservator of the school of Josiah H. Drummond or a traditionalist of the type of 
Albro E. Chase, because in the truest meaning of the word these men of Maine were 
radicals of a vital type even though they are invariably termed conservatives. How far 
have we traveled from the original meaning of the word - radical, - may be seen when 
we consult the lexicon and find it to mean— one who goes to the roots of truth. Surely 
no one thinks of a radical today in that way. The usual meaning of the word is quite 
different in the minds of the majority of men, and the type which comes before our 
vision when we say— radical— is that of the superficial doctrinaire, the irresponsible 
social agitator, the long-haired type of fanatical reformer with an easy panacea for all 
social ills and international maladies and disorders. Masonry seems to have few of 
that type of radicals, and in this sense it is a kind of misnomer to use the term 'radical 
Freemasonry.' This is not to say, however, that there are many who seem to us to have 
overstepped the bounds of a wholesale and radical conservatism The whole point and 
purpose of this brief essay is to make clear that there is precisely this reality at the 
heart of Freemasonry, as we have this year and last year observed it throughout the 
world-a wholesome and radical conservatism. Several Grand Jurisdictions, which 
have our fraternal respect veneration and cordial good-will, incline in the matter of 
legislation, attitude and interpretation, rather too much toward the untried and even 
positively dangerous, while others no less devoted to the ideal and progress of the 
Fraternity veer the other way, toward the old and tested and tried principles and 
ancient landmarks of the Order. Maine would unquestionably belong to the latter 
class. It would be both invidious and fraternally ungracious to point out examples of 
the former. It may well be that those who are inclined toward the untried and 
dangerous will keep the conservative from crystallizing and becoming moribund and 
pull them ahead, while on the other hand, the old fogyism of the Masonic mossbacks 
(the alleged conservatives) may exert their influence in a no less wholesome way in 
holding the aggressively dangerous (the alleged radicals) from going too far away 
from the well-tried landmarks. In short, they may accomplish in this union, jarring as 
it often is what neither alone would do so well." 


— o — 


Sacred Asylum 



BY BRO. JOSEPH ROBBINS, Illinois 


Sacred Asylum! here we meet And tell our vows at Friendship's shrine Father! guide 
Thou our wandering feet, And make the hearts before Thee Thine. 


Beneath the bannered Cross we stand From worldly noise and strife apart, And, 
trusting, grasp the offered hand, That holds within its palm the heart. 


From off our pilgrim sandals brush The dust of busy, toiling day And here, in 
evening's quiet hush, Bending before the Master, pray— 


That in our hearts, without alloy May dwell the love that Christ hath shown, 
Responsive to a Brother's joy, And making all his griefs our own. 


With firm reliance on Thy name, May we the path of duty tread O'er frozen ways, or 
through the flame, Whence Molay's martyr-spirit fled. 


And when, at last, this mortal dust Shall put on Immortality; O, grant us then serenest 
trust In Thine unending verity. 


— o — 


STUDIES OF MASONRY IN THE UNTED STATES 
BY BRO. H.E. HAYWOOD, EDITOR 



PART V. FIRST GRAND LODGES IN PENNSYLVANIA 


AS already stated on page 314 of THE BUILDER for October, the Grand Lodge of 
England adopted in 1721 a regulation to the effect that no lodge could come into 
existence as duly and regularly constituted without a warrant from the Grand Master. 
This new law came into effect gradually. Such lodges as had existed from time 
immemorial, or as had been organized since 1717 and could show otherwise a clean 
bill of health were accepted as legitimate or duly regularized. 


"It is evident," writes Gould, in his History, Vol. IV (American edition), p. 240, "that 
brethren who had left the old world, and brought to their new homes a knowledge of 
the Craft, were as much within their rights in holding Lodges in Philadelphia, 
Portsmouth (New Hampshire), and elsewhere in America, as those who assembled in 
like manner in England and Scotland.... The Fraternity there in Philadelphia must be 
held to have been as much and as legally a Grand Lodge as that of 'All England at 
York.' " 


As also previously noted, the old St. John's Lodge at Philadelphia functioned at one 
and the same time as a "private" lodge and as a Grand Lodge. The records of this 
lodge, as given in Liber B, go back to February, 1731 (New Style), at about which 
time, so it is believed, it first perfected a formal organization, with William Button as 
Master. When Button left for Newfoundland William Allen was elected to take his 
place. On June 24, the brethren assembled as a Grand Lodge, and Allen was made 
Grand Master. It should be understood that this was a "Grand Lodge" according to the 
ancient customs, and not in the sense now used; this means that "Grand Lodge" was a 
general assembly of the brethren and that all Masons were permitted attendance, 
wherever their membership might be; it is probable that the officers were more or less 
nominal, and acted as such only at the feast on St. John's Day. 


The Grand Lodge thus working according to the ancient style was evidently not very 
powerful. Until 1757 it never had (so far as we know) more than three lodges on its 
roster; and the fourth lodge, organized under its authority in that year, later withdrew 
its allegiance, under circumstances to be described. Its membership was drawn from a 



restricted class, and the interest of these men appears to have waxed and waned with 
circumstances, as during the anti-Masonic flurry of 1737 in William Plumstead's 
Grand Mastership. During a period of fourteen years no notice of the Craft had 
appeared in a Franklin's Gazette; perhaps it was because the brethren preferred no 
publicity; but it may be also that interest had lapsed. If such was the case it took on a 
new lease of life in 1752, for in March of that year a movement was put under way by 
the Grand Lodge and the First Lodge to erect a Freemason's Hall to be used 
exclusively by the brethren. On March 13, 1754, a subscription list was passed around 
"with gratifying results", except that the lodge which met at Tun Tavern held out for a 
time, though it joined the enterprise later. A three-story brick building was erected on 
what is now Sansom Street, Philadelphia; in this the brethren assembled until 1782, 
some of the rooms meanwhile being used for general public purposes, as when in 
1777 a number of Quakers were incarcerated in it on suspicion of Royalist 
sympathies. It was popularly known as "Mason's Lodge" and was the first specifically 
Masonic building to be erected in the Colonies. 


GRAND LODGE DECAYED 


But alas ! As the Revolution approached the original Grand Lodge and its 
subordinates became stricken with decay; to some extent, no doubt, because so many 
of their members were on the Royalist side, and because so much of their life was 
transfused into the veins of a new set of lodges working under the Ancient Grand 
Lodge of England, of which more anon. The last official meeting of the brethren in 
Mason's Lodge was on Feb. 25, 1782. The title of the building had been vested in the 
trustees of the three lodges; the survivors, Bros. Shippen and Swift, were empowered 
by the Assembly to sell the property in 1785; two-thirds of the money realized was 
returned to individual Masons; the other third went to the First Lodge and by it was 
turned over, 500 pounds, to the City Corporation for charitable purposes. 


Of the various Grand Masters of this first Grand Lodge the most important was, next 
to Franklin, William Allen, closely associated with Franklin through a long course of 
years. He was a Philadelphian by birth, born there Aug. 5, 1704. After studying law at 
the Temple in London he returned to practice in the city and was soon one of its 
prominent leaders. He purchased the lots on which Independence Hall was built in his 
own name and paid for them with his own money; and while mayor opened that 



historic building with a banquet, as we may learn from Franklin's Gazette under date 
of Sept. 30, 1736. He served as member of the Assembly and in 1750 was made Chief 
Justice of the Province. Being, like so many of his friends, a confirmed Royalist, he 
returned to England at the advent of the Revolution and while there published a book 
to show how England might retain the Colonies. He returned to Philadelphia after the 
war and died there Sept. 6, 1780. According to Libel B he must have been Grand 
Master in 1731, because he is thus referred to under date of June 24 of that year; we 
know of a certainty that he was Grand Master in the following year, and that he 
appointed Franklin his Deputy. In 1750 he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of 
Pennsylvania by Lord Byron, Grand Master of England. 


Of Humphrey Morrey (or Murray), elected Grand Master June 28, 1733, less is 
known. He was a merchant of old Quaker stock, and evidently related to prominent 
Philadelphia families. He died in August, 1735. Franklin succeeded him in office and 
by virtue of a deputation from Henry Price, already referred to, figured as "Provincial 
Grand Master for the Province of Pennsylvania." After Franklin came James 
Hamilton, elected Grand Master July 3, 1735, born in Philadelphia in 1710, later 
residing at Lancaster for a while, in which town he lived during his incumbency. 
Hamilton was a brother-in-law of William Allen. In 1745 he was Mayor of 
Philadelphia, and in 1748 was commissioned Lieutenant Governor of the Province. 
His death occurred in New York, Aug. 14, 1783. 


THOMAS HOPKINSON WAS ELECTED 


On July 8, 1736, the Grand Lodge elected Thomas Hopkinson to succeed Hamilton. 
Hopkinson was born in London, April 6, 1709, studied law, and, after coming to 
Philadelphia, soon forged to the front, becoming a member of the Provincial Council, 
first president of the American Philosophical Society, and the incumbent of other 
positions equally important; he was the father of one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence; his grandson, Joseph. Hopkinson, was the author of "Hail 
Columbia." He died Nov. 5, 1751. The anti-Masonic scare, occasioned by a 
catastrophe incident to a mock initiation, came at the end of his administration; he 
issued a statement to the public in order to clear the Fraternity of any guilt in this 
most unfortunate occurrence and ridiculous misadventure. The Grand Master for 
1737/8 was also prominent in the larger affairs of the city. William Plumstead (or 



Plumbstead) was bom in Philadelphia Nov. 7, 1708. He held many offices of public 
trust, being Mayor in 1754, and was active in Masonic circles. Benjamin Franklin 
appointed him Grand Treasurer in 1749; and he was one of the Committee elected to 
build the "Mason's Lodge." His death occurred in Philadelphia, Aug. 10, 1765. 
Plumstead was succeeded by Joseph Shippen, Jr., born Nov. 28, 1706, a grandson of 
the first Mayor of Philadelphia under Penn's charter. It was his misfortune to reach 
the Grand Mastership in June, 1738, at the time when the anti-Masonic cmsade was 
so strong that the Craft apparently lapsed into more or less inactivity. One of his 
Grand Wardens was Dr. Thomas Cadwallader, associated with the Bell Letter 
episode. He was made Senior Grand Warden under Franklin in 1749 at the first Grand 
Lodge held under the Oxnard warrant. Shippen died at eightyseven years of age. 


These thumbnail sketches of the early Grand Masters, included here to show what 
manner of men governed the Philadelphia Craft in its early years, are given as being 
typical of the brethren who worked in, or under, the first Grand Lodge; they were, 
many of them, prominent in public affairs, belonged to the "best families" and moved 
in exclusive circles; and it is probable that all the lodges then in activity were 
similarly recmited from the same social strata. Bro. Sachse believes it was because of 
this fact that a great transformation was worked in Philadelphia Masonry, beginning 
about 1758, which it is now in order to describe. 


"ANCIENT" MASONRY APPEARED ON THE SCENE 


The reader will recall that in 1751 a new Grand Lodge sprang up in England as a rival 
to the original Grand Lodge organized in 1717. (See The Study Club, April, 1924, 
page 111.) The brethren behind the Grand Lodge of 1751 believed themselves to 
adhere more closely to the old working and regulations and therefore fell into the 
habit of dubbing themselves "Ancients"; the older Body they nicknamed "Moderns" it 
is most probable, as Henry Sadler has abundantly shown, that a social cleavage was 
also party responsible for this "schism," as Gould and others have not very happily 
described it, for the Ancients were made up, for the most part and at least in the 
beginnings, of Masons drawn from among workmen, many of them from Ireland; 
Laurence Dermott, their creative genius, was an Irish painter, and their Grand Lodge 
was organized to follow closely the pattern of the Irish Grand Lodge. 



In the middle of the eighteenth century Philadelphia was an important port to which 
came many seafaring men, along with laborers of all description; it was most natural 
for men of these classes, not in sympathy with the social exclusiveness of the 
"Modem" lodges, to prefer lodges under "Ancient" warrants. Furthermore, many of 
the brethren who migrated into Pennsylvania and its sister colonies were members of, 
or had been made Masons in, military lodges; and since it was the Ancient Grand 
Lodge and the Grand Lodge of Ireland that had discovered the device of issuing 
ambulatory warrants for lodges in the armies and navies, it naturally followed that 
these Masons newly come to Philadelphia were predisposed to favor the Ancient 
working. 


Owing to these causes, and to the fact already mentioned that many of the leading 
"Modems" of the city were Royalist in their sympathies, Modern Masonry gradually 
passed into the background so that by 1793 it had become entirely replaced by its 
rival. Under the original Grand Lodge there had been, until the middle of the century, 
three "subordinate lodges"— St. John's, warranted in 1731 or previously; Lodge No. 2, 
warranted by Franklin in 1749; and Lodge No. 3, warranted some time before 1749. 
In 1757, probably to meet the changed social conditions in the city, Lodge No. 4 was 
added to the list, opened in due form on July 2 of that year. It was in this last named 
lodge that the first definite defection appeared. A committee from Lodges Nos. 1 and 
2 accused its W. M. and two of his officers with being "Ancients"; this they did not 
deny. In the following January they showed their determination to remain Ancients 
by calling together a committee for the purpose of petitioning the Ancient Grand 
Lodge of England for a warrant. Such a warrant was issued (Blessington was Grand 
Master) under date of June 7, 1758, was given the number 1; and was listed on the 
Ancient Grand Lodge list as No. 69. Following the precedent set by the Ancient 
Grand Lodge and the Grand Lodge of Ireland, this lodge vacated the number 1 
position, and took for itself number 2, probably leaving the first number open for a 
Provincial Grand Lodge to be organized later. It began work under the new warrant, 
received in January, 1759, with forty members, and chose for itself the official name 
of "Lodge No. 1 of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in the City of Philadelphia, 
and Province of Pennsylvania." During the year this lodge divided itself into two 
sections, under two sets of officers, except for the treasurer, and met on different 
nights — a strange procedure not now possible to explain. 



These brethren determined to form a Provincial Grand Lodge. On Feb. 13, 1760, they 
elected William Ball to be their first Grand Master, and on the following day asked 
Grand Lodge at London to issue them a warrant therefor. This request was complied 
with in the course of time, and Grand Lodge issued a warrant July 15, 1761. The 
Philadelphia brethren learned of this but, for some reason, the document failed to 
arrive. A second warrant was issued but it also became lost. A third was made under 
date of June 20, 1764, and this time reached Philadelphia safely in 1764. William Ball 
was installed as Provincial Grand Master with solemn ceremony Feb. 2, 1764. 


One of the first official acts of this new Grand Body was to issue a warrant for the 
formation of Lodge No. 3, composed of members drawn from Lodge No. 2. In the 
following year Grand Lodge warranted a lodge in Cantwell's Bridge, Delaware, and 
later, lodges in Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, etc. It met with the difficulties 
usually incidental to new organizations, but these it surmounted, and in the course of 
time it solidly established itself as one of the Mother Grand Lodges of this country. 
The Revolution caused it to sever its official relations with the English parent body, 
and in 1786 it was dissolved, and a new Grand Lodge organized in its place, as 
remains to be described in later chapters; the present Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania 
dates without break in continuity from that year. 


Of the persons prominent in this Ancient Grand Lodge Bro. William Ball was easily 
first. He was raised in Lodge No. 2 under the original Grand Lodge in March 1750/1. 
He was again raised in the "Ancient way" in 1759 or 1760, but retained his 
membership in his mother lodge until 1763. As Provincial Grand Master he served 
continuously from 1761 to 1781, and then again, after Grand Lodge became 
independent from England, for the year 1795. He was born on his father's estate, now 
included within the city of Philadelphia, Oct. 6, 1729. He learned the goldsmith trade, 
and probably followed it in Philadelphia; but retired in middle life as one of the 
richest men in the Colony. He died May 30, 1810, and was buried with Masonic 
honors. 


NOTES AND REFERENCES 



On the general field covered by this article the most important literary source is 
Freemasonry in Pennsylvania 1727-1907, Barratt and Sachse; Philadelphia; 1908, 

Vol. I. Of almost equal importance is Old Masonic Lodges of Pennsylvania "Modems 
and Ancients" 1730-1801, Julius F. Sachse- Philadelphia; 1912- Vol. I. See also the 
following: History of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted 
Masons, Stillson, Hughan, etc.; Boston and New York ; 1891. History of 
Freemasonry in Rhode Island, Henry W. Rugg; Providence; 1895. History of 
Freemasonry, Robert Freke Gould; Cincinnati and Chicago; Vol. IV. History of 
Freemasonry in Canada John Ross Robertson; Toronto; 1900, Vol. I. History of 
Freemasonry in Maryland, Edward T. Schultz; Baltimore; 1844, Vol. I. Freemasonry 
in Michigan, Jefferson S. Conover; Coldwater; 1897, Vol. I. Mackey's Revised 
History of Freemasonry Robert I. Clegg; Chicago; 1921. Beginnings of Freemasonry 
in America, Melvin M. Johnson; New York; 1924. Benjamin Franklin as a Free 
Mason, Julius F. Sachse; Philadelphia 1906. History of Freemasonry in the State of 
New York Ossian Lang; New York; 1922. History of the Most Ancient and 
Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons in New York from the Earliest 
Date, Charles T. McClenachan; New York; 1888, Vol. I. History of Lodge No. 61, F. 
& A. M., Wilkesharre, Pennsylvania, Oscar Jewell Harvey; Wilkesbarre; 1897. Ars 
Quatuor Coronatomm, Vol. Ill, page 124- Vol. XVII, page 137- Vol. XXVIII, page 
270; Vol. XXIX, page 308. Origin of Masonry in the State of New Jersey, and the 
Entire Proceedings of the Grand Lodge, from Its First Organization, A. L. 5786, 
Joseph H. Hough; Trenton; 1870. Concise History of Freemasonry, Robert Freke 
Gould; New York; 1924. Militaiy Lodges, Robert Freke Gould; London; 1899. In 
above references consult index. 


On early Pennsylvania worthies in addition to above see the following on William 
Allen:— Pennsylvania: A Primer, Barr Ferree; New York; 1914, page 84. An 
Historical Account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, Frank M. Etting; 
Philadelphia; 1891, pages 12, 24, 35, 52, 58, 122, 132, 136, 147, 151. Pennsylvania 
Archives, Samuel Hazard; Philadelphia; 1852, page 362. James Hamilton:— 
Pennsylvania: A Primer, Barr Ferree; New York; 1914, pages 135, 140, 141. An 
Historical Account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, Frank M. Etting; 
Philadelphia; 1891, pages 16, 18, 25, 34, 39, 122, 136. Humphrey Morrey:— 
Pennsylvania: A Primer, Barr Ferree; New York; 1914, page 37. Thos. Hopkinson:— 
An Historical Account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, Frank M. Etting; 
Philadelphia; 1891 pages 25, 126. Wm. Plumstead:— An Historical Account of the 
Old State House of Pennsylvania Frank M. Etting; Philadelphia; 1891, pages 35, 151. 
Benjamin Franklin:— Pennsylvania: A Primer, Barr Ferree; New York 1914, pages 
79, 84, 111, 113, 139, 141, 142, 145, 163, 170, 174,214, 227, 229, 234, 235,236, 



241. An Historical Account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, Frank M. Etting; 
Philadelphia; 1891, pages 16, 25, 33, 38, 40, 41-44, 49, 53, 65, 81, 85-87 94, 97, 101, 
106 109, 118, 119, 124-126, 154. Pennsylvania Archives, Samuel Hazard; 
Philadelphia; 1852, pages 294, 295 297, 309, 274, 344, 467, 548, 766, 420. Joseph 
Shippen:— Pennsylvania Archives, Samuel Hazard; Philadelphia; 1852, pages 622, 
636. An Historical Account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, Frank M. Etting; 
Philadelphia; 1891, pages 7, 65. Much light is thrown on the Shippen family by a 
volume of correspondence entitled Letters and Papers Relating Chiefly to the 
Provincial History of Pennsylvania, edited by Thomas Balch; Philadelphia; 1855. 


On the general field see THE BUILDER: 1916, page 230; 1917, page 254; 1918, 
pages 165, 168; 1919, pages 35, 155. 


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 


What was the regulation adopted in 1721? When was it enforced in the American 
Colonies? In what sense was St. John's Lodge a Grand Lodge? Who was its first 
Grand Master? What was the first Masonic building erected in this country? When 
and by whom was it built? How was it disposed of? 


Give a brief sketch of the career of William Allen. Of Thomas Morrey. Of James 
Hamilton. Of Thomas Hopkinson. Of William Plumstead. Of Joseph Shippen. To 
what social class did these brethren belong? What eflfect did this have on the future 
of Philadelphia Masonry? 


Give sketch of the Ancient Grand Lodge. When was the first Grand Lodge organized? 
Why did the Grand Lodge of 1751 come into existence? 


How did Ancient Freemasonry come to be established in Pennsylvania? Tell what 
you know about Lodge No. 4. Why did it secede from the original Grand Lodge? 



How did it secure its warrant? Tell how the Ancient Provincial Grand Lodge was 
organized in Philadelphia. Who was its first Grand Master? In what states did it 
warrant lodges? Give a sketch of William Ball. What light does the history of 
Pennsylvania Masonry throw on Masonry of today? How many Grand Lodges use the 
word "Ancient" in their title? Do you know what influence Pennsylvania Ancient 
Masonry had on the American Ritual? 


HOW TO ORGANIZE A STUDY CLUB 


A pamphlet on "How to Organize and Maintain a Study Club" will be furnished free 
to those asking for it in any quantities up to fifty or one hundred. For further 
information address the National Masonic Research Society, 1950 Railway 
Exchange, St. Louis, Mo. The Society answers questions lends books, clippings, etc., 
free of charge to clubs. Text books recommended are "Symbolical Masonry" and 
"Great Teachings of Masonry," both by H.L,. Haywood, the former of which should 
be used in beginning. 


— o — 


Great Men Who Were Masons 


Dr. James Milnor 


By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, P. G. M., District of Columbia 


AMONG the notable Grand Masters of Pennsylvania in the early part of last century 
Bro. Dr. James Milnor held a distinguished position, alike for his magnificent 
character - he was in many ways, in appearance and spirit, very much like Phillips 



Brooks - and his unusual abilities. He had been made a Mason, in the twenty-second 
year of his age, at Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the old Lodge No. 31 of that town; 
this was in August, 1795. In the following year he transferred his membership to 
Lodge No. 3 in Philadelphia. During 1798-9-1800 he held the office of Senior Grand 
Warden; in 1801 and in 1803 he was Deputy Grand Master; in 1805 he was elected 
Grand Master and held that office to and including 1813, the longest term held by any 
Grand Master in the history of the present Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. 


Dr. Milnor was bom in Philadelphia June 20, 1773, of Quaker parentage. After a 
public school course and graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, he took up 
the study of law, and was admitted to the bar when only twenty-one years of age. He 
practiced first in Norristown, and later opened an office in Philadelphia. He fell into 
difficulties with his Quaker brethren when his marriage was solemnized by an 
Episcopalian clergyman. 


In a few years he arose to a position of prominence in Philadelphia. After serving as a 
member of the city council from 1805 to 1809 he was elected to Congress, in which 
he held a seat until 1813. It was during his political career that he began to experience 
a call to enter the Episcopalian ministry. After serving as assistant minister in the 
Associated Churches in Philadelphia he accepted an invitation to the rectorship of St. 
George's Church, New York City. This was in 1816. As a Christian minister he 
prominently identified himself with the Bible Society, the American Tract Society, 
and many important charities. In 1830 he went to England as a delegate of the 
American Bible Society, and while abroad traveled in France, Wales, Ireland and 
Scotland. 


Grand Master Milnor possessed a charming manner, a wonderful control of language 
and it is said was one of the gentlest leaders imaginable, an ideal Grand Master, one 
would say. He was a leader of men, not a driver. His religion was sincere, earnest and 
fervent. His portrait shows a benign handsome face. He was a prolific writer, always 
on religious or moral subjects: he published "An Oration on Masonry" delivered 
before the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1811; "A Plea for the American 
Colonization Society" in 1826; "A Sermon on the Death of De Witt Clinton" in 1828, 
etc. 



He died in New York City April 8, 1845. His funeral at St. George's Church was 
attended by an immense throng. Of his memorial his biographer, Mr. John S. Stone, 
says: 


"His remains repose beneath the chapel floor, from which he so often delighted to 
dispense the symbols of his Savior's love; while, in the recess on the body of the base 
rises a beautiful marble bust which, by its faithful likeness, speaks continually of the 
long lived feelings of love and emotion." 


The interest Grand Master Milnor took in disseminating the Holy Scriptures, that 
book of the law and the testimony so revered by Masons, endears him to us all. 
Perhaps he builded more wisely than he knew; for that book, the rule and guide of a 
Mason's faith, has had much to do with the preservation of our inherent rights. 


Nevertheless he was not a zealot, and did not fear that some breath of adverse wind 
would over-tum the ship of truth. During the height of the anti-Masonic craze, when 
some of the best heads inside and out the Craft became very much be-addled, and 
when Christian ministers led in a most unchristian attack on Freemasonry, Dr. Milnor 
remained as steadfast as a rock. A country clergyman asked of him if it would be wise 
for him (the country clergyman) to withdraw from the Order out of deference to 
popular clamor. Dr. Milnor's reply has been preserved for us by Sidney Haydon: 


"Do you wish to renounce Masonry ?" asked Dr. Milnor. 


"No," was the reply, "I love Masonry too well." 



"Then do as I do," was the rejoinder. "Put down your foot firmly, and say, 'I am a 
Mason, and am proud of it!' and if anyone asks you what Masonry consists in, tell 
them 'Love to God, and good-will to man !' " 


The whole man revealed himself in that reply! It was such men as he that built the 
ever enduring structure of the Craft in these states! 


— o — 


EDITORIAL 

BOARD OF EDITORS 
Editor-in-Chief - H.L. HAYWOOD 


ASSOCIATE EDITORS 

LOUIS BLOCK, Iowa 
ROBERT L. CLEGG, Ohio 
GILBERT W. DAYNES, England 
RAY V. DENSLOW, Missouri 
GEORGE H. DERN, Utah 
N.W.J. HAYDON, Canada 
C, C. HUNT, Iowa 



CHARLES F. IRWIN. Ohio 


A.L. KRESS, Pennsylvania 
R. J. MEEKREN, Canada 
JOSEPH E. MORCOMBE, California 
JOSEPH FORT NEWTON, New York 
ARTHUR C. PARKER, New York 
JESSE M. WHITED, California 
DAVID E. W. WILLIAMSON, Nevada 


To the Members of the National Masonic Research Society: 


Notice Is hereby given that on Monday, Feb. 2, 1925, a meeting of the National 
Masonic Research Society Jill be held at the Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, 
Iowa, at 7:30 p.m. 


This is an adjournment of the Annual Meeting of Oct. 2, 1924, and the annual report 
of the officers and election of members of the Board of Stewards will take place. 


The members of the Board of Stewards whose terms expire are: 


N. R. Parvin, Grand Secretary, Iowa, 
W. F. Kuhn, deceased, 

Jos. Fort Newton, New York City, 



Jesse M. Whited, California, 
Oliver Day Street, Alabama. 


Notice all also given that there will be presented for adoption an amendment to 
Article XI, Section 1, of the By-laws, changing the date of the annual meeting of the 
Society from the fret Thursday of October "to the first Monday of February in each 
year." 


Ernest A. Reed, President. 
C. C. Hunt, Secretary. 


* * * 


ETERNAL LIFE NOW 


BERNARD drew his hood down over his eyes while passing Lake Lucerne. He did 
not deem beauty a sin, but believed the enjoyment of loveliness should be postponed 
until after death. Some who scoff at this old saint because of his superstition may, if 
they examine their own minds as carefully as did he, discover themselves to be 
thinking in the same way - or shall one say, not thinking! Such men somehow believe 
that the solutions of our human problems will be found out in some distant time, 
where or when they know not. They live now without much happiness, without much 
success, with little knowledge, because they assume that the inner nature and 
explanation of things has been indefinitely reserved. They cease trying to develop 
themselves because they believe it of no use, thinking that, once death is behind them, 
such things will be granted them by a sudden revelation. Or they believe that the true 
knowledge of things is somehow hidden behind a veil, hung at the back of the. sky, 
accessible only to elect souls. This is a trick the human mind plays on itself, out of its 
habit of expectancy and its vice of postponement. All that exists, from the height of it 
to the bottom, and in all its breadth, is as eligible to us now as ever it can be. They 



who have found this out sometimes describe themselves as living the eternal life in 
the midst of time. 


* * * 


MARK TWAIN'S PESSIMISM 


FOR all his wit, his humor, his abundant humanity, Mark Twain was exceedingly 
unhappy. This was made evident throughout the latter portions of Albert Bigelow 
Paine's Mark Twain: A Biography (published by Harpers'), than which it would be 
difficult to recall a biography in which the subject himself is more tangibly present. In 
the Autobiography, edited by Mr. Paine, recently published by Harpers', this misery 
of soul is rendered more evident still, and in such manner as makes clear what were 
the causes of it. Mark Twain was an atheist. It became impossible for him after 
reaching maturity to believe or think that a Being exists that can be described as God 
in any sense of that name, or that human life itself is such as makes that faith 
possible. This incalculable misfortune came at last to take possession of his whole 
mind; no doubt he did not wilfully contrive to have it so, but it became so, and that 
because of certain deeds, or habits of thought, some of which may be traced to his 
early days. It made a pessimist of him in the absolute sense of the word, and 
contributed to all his humor a flavor of bitterness more easily felt than defined. 


He had too much honor and candor of mind to have any desire to conceal all this from 
the world, though it was doubtless responsible for his leaving some books to be 
published after his death. In his Autobiography he interrupts his long and loving 
account of the life of his daughter Susy to pen a diatribe against the whole scheme of 
existence, as bitter as any uttered by Schopenhauer or Dean Swift. It will sound 
almost blasphemous to many ears: 


"A myriad of men are born; they labor, sweat and struggle for bread; they squabble 
and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age 
creeps upon them; infirmities follow and humiliations bring down their prides and 



their vanities; those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to 
aching grief. The burden of pain, care and misery grows heavier year by year; at 
length ambition is dead, pride is dead, vanity is dead; longing for release comes in 
their place. It comes at last - the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them, and 
they vanish from the world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved 
nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they left no 
sign that they existed - a world which will lament them for a day and forget them 
forever. Then another myriad takes their place and copies all they did, and goes along 
the same profitless road, and vanishes as they vanished - to make room for another, 
and another, and a million other myriads, to follow the same arid path through the 
same desert and to accomplish what the first myriad, and all the myriads that came 
after it, accomplished - nothing!" 


This agonized utterance shows what atheism is made of. It is a complete misreading 
of plain facts, to which beliefs and unbeliefs are only incidental. The paragraph 
quoted makes that clear. "A myriad men are bom." In saying this he doubtless had in 
mind such creatures as gnats and flies; it was a favorite idea of his; but men are not 
creatures, or such things as gnats and flies, nor are they born in myriads. "They labor, 
sweat and struggle for bread." This is a wilful exaggeration, due to an ill-regulated 
habit of mind; men do labor, sweat and stmggle because they enjoy to do so, as did 
Mark Twain himself; but their lives are not wholly made up of such strivings, and 
there are countless goods for which they labor other than for bread. "They squabble 
and scold and fight." Some of them do, all of them do at times, but if they do it is 
because they choose to, not because the universe forces them. "They scramble for 
little mean advantages over each other." If Mark Twain did such things himself he 
made a mistake; there was no power outside himself compelling him to. If he 
attributed his own weakness, failure and hopelessness to the whole scheme of things, 
that also was a blunder. 


All this does not lessen the nation's admiring regard for the man or spoil its 
enjoyment of his mgged books, our legacy from his genius, in which, with a humor as 
wholesome as the sunlight and a humanity as strong and tender as father love, he lets 
us know what manner of man he really was, and what, with his misinterpretations out 
of mind, he knew human life to be. It was his own private misfortune that he did not 
understand his nature better than he did, of what there was in himself of greatness and 
power that should have made any form of atheism impossible. It is sad that one so 
noble should have suffered so deeply when no such suffering was necessary. 



This subject of atheism has long been held of primary importance in Freemasonry; it 
is dealt with in the Constitutions, has its place among the landmarks, and is to day the 
determining factor in all attempts to bring into fraternal union with American Grand 
Lodges those of other countries that at this point have lost their way. No atheist is 
eligible to membership in the Craft. There is no just or conceivable way in which he 
could be made eligible; all the realities of the case render it impossible. Every human 
being is perfectly equipped to live in this world with happiness and satisfaction. There 
is no. horrible mystery, like some lowering monster, hidden away behind the scenes. 
This world is not a vale of illusion, nor is man an orphaned child wandering 
helplessly in bewildering shadows. Birth is not a thing that can be despised, death is a 
thing that need not be feared. There is THAT at the basis of all things which renders 
pessimism a vain and useless error. The knowledge of these facts, the habits of 
thought and life developed out of them is indicated in Freemasonry by faith in the 
Sovereign Grand Architect of the Universe, a Builder that leaves no Temple 
incomplete. All that Masonry is or does comes by inevitable logic out of such a 
wisdom, stands in the light of it, moves by the power of it. Naturally the man who 
does not so think and work cannot be at home in the lodge, because his whole manner 
of thinking is necessarily incompatible with that human wisdom which it is the 
lodge's mission to teach. 


— o — 


THE LIBRARY 


AN OLD BOOK ON SYMBOLISM 


ANCIENT PAGAN AND MODERN CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. By Thomas 
Inman. Published by Eckler. For sale by National Masonic Research Society Book 
Department. Fourth Edition. Cloth, 200 illustrations, index, 147 pages. Price, post 
paid, ’; 1 .60. 



A SYMBOL is a conventional device intended to suggest some idea. If it stands for 
no idea the devise is an emblem, such as a nation's flag, which means one thing under 
one governmental regime, something else under another; or it is merely an 
ornamental figure such as printers use "to dress up a page," or architects sometimes 
employ, often for no "reason" at all. The devices employed by Freemasonry have the 
specific purpose of suggesting ideas, and all of these ideas together comprise the 
"system of Masonic teaching." Thus the "square" in Masonry is a symbol intended to 
suggest the idea of dealing "squarely" with one's fellows; the "compasses" are 
intended to stand for the idea that one must preserve his moral nature intact, so that 
no unruly passions will disrupt it. The thing that makes these symbols "Masonic" is 
the feet that they stand for ideas Freemasonry desires to teach to its members. The 
display of them in a lodge room serves to keep every brother in remembrance of all 
the Masonic ideals; it is as if the lodge said to him, "I cannot always be teaching these 
things with spoken or written language, therefore I say them by means of these 
symbols." 


Symbols have been in universal use. Many of those employed by the Craft are being 
used, or have hitherto been used, for all manner of purposes by all manner of 
organizations: the All-Seeing-Eye, the Swastika, the Circle, Triangle, Cross and 
scores beside. In each instance Masonry uses them for its own purposes, endows them 
with its own meanings, interprets them in its own way. To a Mason it matters very 
little for what purpose a symbol has been used outside the Craft; its Masonic meaning 
is that which the Craft intends it to have. For these reasons it is always futile to 
attempt to lug into the Masonic system the interpretation of a symbol borrowed from 
some nonMasonic source, Masonry is not a savage cult, an "Ancient Mystery," an 
Egyptian religion, an occult secrecy; it is Masonry. 


Nevertheless a student of Masonic symbols often finds it of great value to know how 
these same symbols, or others similar to them, have been used by groups other than 
Masonic. For such a purpose Thomas Inman's Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian 
Symbolism contains certain virtues that recommend it. In some ways it is not a 
pleasant book to read. The author appears to have been rabidly opposed to 
Christianity, at least in its orthodox forms, so that one detects a bias in much that he 
says. The book is old, the first edition having been published in 1869, and much water 
has gone under the mill since that time. The present edition has evidently been printed 
from plates used before; the illustrations are stiff old-fashioned line drawings. These 



facts, along with a certain emphasis on sex worship that must be distasteful to some 
readers, tell against it. 


However one can make allowances for such things and yet find much remaining of 
singular value. The author's method is to write a section or chapter to explain each 
picture. His explanation of a symbolical drawing of the Virgin and Child is typical: 


"In a copy of a medieval Virgin and Child, as painted in Della Robbia ware in the 
South Kensington Museum, a copy of which was given to me by my friend, Mr. 
Newton, to whose kindness I am indebted for many illustrations of ancient Christian 
art. It represents the Virgin and Child precisely as she used to be represented in 
Egypt, in India, in Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Etruria; the accident of dress 
being of no mythological consequence. In the framework around the group, we 
recognize the triformed leaf, emblematic of Asher; the grapes, typical of Dionysos; 
the wheat ears, symbolic of Ceres, l'abricot fendu, the mark of womankind, and the 
pomegranate rimmon, which characteries the teeming mother. The living group, 
moreover, are placed in an archway, delta, or door, which is symbolic of the female, 
like the vesica piscis, the oval or the circle. This door is, moreover, surmounted by 
what appear to be snails whose supposed virtue we have spoken of under Plate I. This 
identification of Mary with the Sacti is strong; by-and-by we shall see that it is as 
complete as it is possible to be made. 


Among the symbols thus treated are a number of especial interest to Masons: Adonis, 
Ahriman, Aleph, altar, anchor, arcane, architecture, ark, atheists, boundary stones 
(landmarks), box, candlestick, Ceres, circles, coins, crescent, cross, crux ansata, 
David and ark, delta, dualism in nature, east, Egyptian crosses, emblems, esoteric, 
feet, fetish, fire, five, four, Gnostics, goat, hammer, hand, Hiram, Masonic, Mason's 
Marks, etc., etc. 


* * * 


ASHMOLE: FREEMASON, OCCULTIST, ANTIQUARIAN 



ELIAS ASHMOLE: FOUNDER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD. By 
Dudley Wright. Published by The London Freemason. May be purchased through 
National Masonic Research Society Book Department, 1950 Railway Exchange, St. 
Louis, Mo. Paper, 35 pages. Price, postpaid, forty cents. 


BRO. DUDLEY WRIGHT has once again placed us all under obligation to his 
tireless pen. If his latest volume is not equal in bulk to its predecessors it suffers 
nothing from the fact, either in value or interest, for it tells us all we need to know 
about its subject and that is sufficient. 


Ashmole, to use an American cant expression of the day, "intrigues" us. He himself 
tells us in his famous Diary that on Oct. 16, 1645, he was "made a Free Mason at 
Warrington." In the same private record he says that on March 10, 1682, he "rec'd a 
Summons to appear at a Lodge to be held the next day at Masons' Hall." From these 
data questions arise. Ashmole was not an Operative Mason; what led him to unite 
with the Order ? What influence did he have on Masonry, if any, between 1 645 and 
1682 ? Was the lodge he visited at London the mysterious "Accepcon" of the Masons' 
Company of which Edward Conder has given us a history in his Hole Crafte' Bro. 
Wright has crowded into six pages such known facts about Ashmole and the lodges of 
his day as help to answer these questions. 


These questions lead to another. In the Masonic Ritual there are a number of elements 
undeniably occult. Ashmole himself was an occultist, more particularly an alchemist, 
and acquainted with Moore, Lilly, Booker, Wharton and Dr. Fludd; could he himself 
have grafted into the rites of the old builders the "golden bough" of hermetism ? 

Some have believed this, at least in part, as did George Fort and Albert Pike; others 
have suggested its possibility, as did Bro. A. E. Waite. In any event an examination of 
Ashmole's Masonic connections opens the question of Masonic occultism. It is a 
fascinating question, even if difficult or impossible to answer in the present state of 
knowledge. 



Occultism in Masonry is a fact. Wherever the occult elements originated, from 
whatever source they derived - gnosticism, alchemy, rosicrucianism, kabbalism - 
however they are to be interpreted, they are in the ritual, a challenge to the Masonic 
student. And as far as that it concerned, and more especially in this land, there is a 
vast deal of occultism still alive outside Freemasonry, multitudes of individuals 
continue to believe in omens, signs, horoscopes, dreams, mystic numbers, and all that, 
and possess the same right to such beliefs as any others. 


Occultism was the "science" of an earlier day, a matter of searching out the same kind 
of facts for which the modern sciences are seeking; a method for employing actual 
forces for practical purposes. In this it differed from mysticism, which was religious 
rather than scientific in its nature, and sought its ends in character and worship, 
although many men were occultists and mystics at the same time. A few of our 
sciences sprang from occultism - astronomy came from astrology, chemistry from 
alchemy, and physics, botany, anatomy were full of occultism in the beginning. The 
elimination of occultism from such sciences came as the result of an exceedingly 
slow process; even so late as 1 646 when Sir Thomas Browne, an alumnus of the best 
European universities of his time, wrote his Vulgar Errors as a blast against occultism 
in science his own mind was itself so steeped in it that his very arguments were 
themselves based on occultistic premises. 


The occultist of the present day feels that he has an ancient and respectable tradition 
behind him. He believes that facts not known to the modern sciences may be found in 
old books; that there are forces in nature not yet discovered by present day chemists 
and physicists; and that he has methods for employing them in behalf of practical 
purposes known only to those initiated in secret philosophies. Such men are as sincere 
and as intelligent as any others, and their views are deserving of the same respect. 


If this account of the ease be true it may suggest to us how to make the right approach 
to the understanding of the occultist elements in our Craft. The Masonic occultist is 
entitled to his own day in court, deserving of all the courtesies, with a right to state 
his own ease in his own way; there is no just way of ruling him out of order; and as 
for those who may deride him as a fool or a charlatan he has his own to quote ready to 
hand; he knows as well as anybody that men who live in glass houses should not 
heave bricks about. 



On the other hand those of us who may not be Masonic occultists have the same 
rights in the ease. If the occultist makes statements, we can ask him for his facts, 
authorities and credentials; if he challenges our beliefs, we have a right to challenge 
his; if he believes himself entitled to his own theory of Freemasonry, we have the 
same privilege; if he betrays a leek of logic in his arguments we have the right to 
point them out; and he has no more license to try to force his beliefs on the Craft, than 
have those who hold otherwise. In short, occultism need not be made a matter for 
controversy, as is often unhappily the ease; it is a question of fact, and all our 
prejudices and emotions are worse than useless while we are attempting to deal with 
such a thing. 


* * * 


FOR THE STUDENT OF THINGS EGYPTIAN 


FIRST STEPS IN EGYPTIAN. By Sir E. A. Wallis Budge. AMENISM-ATENISM 
AND EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM. WITH HIEROGLYPHIC TEXTS OF HYMNS 
OF AMEN AND ATEN AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION. By Sir E. A. Wallis 
Budge. Both books may be purchased through the National Masonic Research 
Society, the former at $3.85, the later at $5. 


THERE have recently come to notice two books bearing the above titles. Sir Wallis 
Budge is keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum and 
has spent a great deal of his own time and money in trying to keep people interested 
in those old kings and pyramid builders who have for so many thousand years rested 
in the rocky tombs situated along the banks of the Nile. The First Steps in Egyptian 
gives us a very helpful account of the manner in which the ancient inscriptions were 
read and translated. The author gives us the ancient texts of nearly all the most 
important inscriptions and furnishes us with so much information regarding phonetics 
that almost any fair student of languages should be able to pronounce the words and 
separate the phonetic elements of the hieroglyphic word from the signs which were 
simply ideographic. We do not say that a few hours' or a few days' study would 



enable the average student to read and translate Egyptian texts, but we do say that the 
average student could in that time acquire much that is worth while towards attaining 
that end. 


It is scarcely a century ago that travelers thought the cuneiform inscriptions on the 
garments of the carved statues of Darias were simply trimming and ornaments. It took 
some time before scholars could determine that the inscription was writing at all. For 
ages the most learned men could not translate the first letter or sound of Egyptian. We 
now know that the Egyptian alphabet does not differ materially from the Hebrew so 
far as the sounds go, though there are many different figures employed for the same 
sound under different circumstances and meanings. We also find that the Egyptian 
has the same habit of dropping out vowel sounds that the Hebrew had. The direction 
in which the inscriptions should be read, Sir Wallis makes clear. We are also forcibly 
struck with the fact of how little the Egyptian texts differ during the forty centuries of 
their history. An Englishman or American of today cannot read without a dictionary 
and grammar the English of King Alfred of blessed memory, but we see no reason 
why it would have been specially difficult for Cleopatra to read the hieroglyphic 
inscriptions of Queen Hattisue or Rameses, any more than the hieroglyphic writings 
of her own day. It may be quite possible that their spoken tongue changed from age to 
age, but their writing underwent very little alteration through the five or six thousand 
years of its prevalence. 


Regarding the Book of Tutankhamen, we must hold the impression that it was 
published before the tomb was thoroughly investigated and its inscriptions read. Most 
of the contents of the book are devoted to the inscriptions belonging to the age of 
Tutankhamen's father-in-law, Akhtenaten, who is known as the heretic king, because 
he withdrew his patronage from the priesthood and temples of Thebes and the 
worship of AMEN-RA and set up a city and worship of his own. Many writers have 
claimed that his reformation was a change from polytheism to monotheism. Sir 
Wallis' investigations fail to bear out any such claim. He says that when an ancient 
Egyptian invoked any particular deity in prayer, he was sure to address that deity as 
the one and only God in the universe, self-creating and selfexisting, and that when 
Akhtenaten addressed particularly the solar disk, he addressed it as the one Only God, 
though he might the same day address Osiris and Horns in the same way. 



It would seem that most of these names of deity used by the Egyptians referred to the 
sun under one or more aspects as regards time of year or situation in the heavens and, 
of course, they would address the sun as being the One and Only Living Diety. This 
practically destroys the theory of monotheism other than the theory of Solar 
Monotheism, which had existed for many centuries, and was a sensible and intelligent 
conception of Deity; that the sun is the source of life and light upon the earth is easy 
to see, and we have only to suppose the sun to be the dwelling place of Jehovah, to 
make it also the Divine Wisdom, the Divine Word, the Divine Power, or strength. We 
understand that all generations of solar worshippers in Egypt believed so far in 
monotheism and when they picture the Solar God as in the mural decorations of the 
tomb of Akhtenaten, showing every ray of light extending from the solar disk to the 
food on the king's table with a human hand attached to it, the Deity becomes personal 
enough to be addressed in prayer and praise. We have been much instructed and 
edified by these books. They are not specially adapted for children of any age; for 
students who have grown up they will be found helpful. 


R. C. Blackmer. 


— o — 


THE GREATEST OF UNIVERSITIES 


Masonry is essentially an educational institution. Its streams of learning are broad and 
deep, and they are richly freighted with the priceless wisdom of the wisest minds of 
all lands and all times. Masonry is the greatest of all universities. Men of diverse 
nationalities, faiths and opinions meet on the checkered floor on equality. Mutual 
respect, begotten of a common purpose, a desire to disseminate peace, kindliness and 
good will among men, becomes the chief desideration of those who are diligent in 
applying themselves to the study of the history, literature and philosophy of Masonry. 
Masons are learning that the mere knowledge of the ritual and work, while necessary 
and desirable, must, to be of any value, be based upon an understanding of the origin 
and meaning of the symbols, ceremonies allegories and traditions used and taught in 
Masonry. - American Tyler-Key stone. 



o 


What to Read in Masonry 


"A PIG IN A POKE” 


IT is our purpose to publish on this page for a few months a series of informal essays 
on what to read in Masonry. The need for this has been suggested by the increasing 
number of members of the N. M. R. S. who write that while they desire to read about 
Freemasonry in some of its countless phases they are at a loss where to begin, or how 
to lay out a course of reading to suit their own particular interests. It is to be hoped 
that the papers in the present series may be interesting in themselves, and that they 
will be lit up occasionally by sidelights on Masonic questions; but their main purpose 
will be to bring together under separate heads such of the thousand or more Masonic 
books in English as are most worth reading, and that in such a manner as to give a 
brother some idea of a book before he undertakes to read it. 


This is a large field to cover. Freemasonry has existed a long while, and in many 
lands; it has always been busy at many tasks, some of which have had their effect on 
general history; and at the present it is grown to be so huge in size, so worldwide in 
influence, and so complex in organization that nothing less than a great library can 
possibly hold all the volumes that to some extent or other contain records of its 
prolific life. 


Usually it is convenient to lay out the field as a whole in general departments, of 
which the chief are history, philosophy, jurisprudence, ritualism, symbolism, fiction, 
poetry and miscellaneous - the last named of which represents a variety of subjects 
not easily classified, such as poetry, music, architecture, orations, periodicals, Negro 
Masonry, Women in Masonry, Side Orders, and so on ad infinitum. 



Masonic history naturally includes all written records of the Craft's past activities up 
to a year or two ago; with such writings must also be included non-Masonic books 
that deal incidentally with Masonic themes: there are general histories of architecture 
from which one can learn much about Operative Masonry; histories of economics, 
containing chapters on various forms of gild life; treatises on symbolism, etc. The list 
might be almost endlessly extended. 


The philosophy of Masonry covers a field almost as large, for under that head are 
grouped religion, equality, liberty, toleration, democracy and a score of other subjects 
equally comprehensive. It will be seen at a glance that books more or less useful for 
reading on these matters are literally legion in number. Of course Freemasonry has its 
own peculiar philosophy and only such books as deal specifically with it are to be 
technically described as Masonic philosophy; nevertheless the well read student of 
that philosophy will find it necessary to read in literature outside the Craft. 


The same thing may be said of Masonic jurisprudence. For while it must confine 
itself to Masonic constitutions, laws, customs, regulations and landmarks each of 
these has its roots in the general ideas of law and of social order, so that the more one 
focuses his mind on Masonic jurisprudence per se the more he needs an auxiliary 
literature as a general foundation. It is a misfortune that some of our manuals on 
jurisprudence were written by laymen with little knowledge of law. 


When one turns to ritualism and symbolism he meets a similar condition. In some 
form or other ritual is as universal as the race, and so is symbolism, and the extant 
literature on both Subjects is enough to occupy a man for a lifetime, providing he is 
ambitious to get to the bottom of a subject that appears to have no bottom. 


It is not to be supposed that there will be many ambitious enough to take all 
knowledge for their province, as Humboldt did, and it will not be the purpose here to 
make any attempt to list books by the thousand. The above indication of the extent 
and richness of the general field were given to entice some brethren to enter it, or to 
persuade those who have had the misfortune to read a few Masonic books of no value 



to try again with the expectation that where there is so much to read there will be 
found something abundantly worth reading. 


"A PIG IN A POKE” 


One very widely read Mason - widely read, that is, in general literature - wrote us a 
little while ago that he considered the buying of books in general a pleasure, but, as 
he expressed it, "not Masonic books; they are too much of a risk; too few of them 
have any standing. It is like buying a pig in a poke." There was some justification for 
such an attitude some years ago, but not now, what with so many Grand Lodge 
educational committees, Masonic libraries and such organizations as the Masonic 
Service Association and the National Masonic Research Society willing and ready to 
give advice as to what is worth owning among Masonic books. 


But there is no need that a brother should lay out a lot of money before beginning to 
read on Masonry. 


However far he may be from the center of things he can almost always manage to 
borrow somehow, if only he will set his mind to it - a feet proved up years ago by the 
present writer. Most of the Masonic libraries in the country are very generous with the 
loan of their volumes, and always there are individual Masons here and there to help a 
brother along; a great many such exchanges of courtesy are carried on through the 
headquarters of this Society. 


Brethren who do purchase an occasional Masonic book sometimes complain of 
exorbitant prices and frequently have sound justification for their complaint. There is 
a reason for this. For consider! The greater number of Masonic books are published 
by private individuals or by small printing concerns; that means high costs of 
manufacture and distribution. Few of these books ever enjoy the possibility of a wide 
circulation, and that means a price in proportion. And then there are many books that 
must be imported, thereby adding to the original price the expenses incidental to long 
shipping and various import duties. Take it by and large, the prices on Masonic books 



are nearly always reasonable, and in a melancholy number of instances return very 
little profit at all to the publishers and none to the authors. 


IS AN AUTHOR A HUMAN BEING? 


It is a marvel that we have as many books as we do, considering that last item. It is 
sometimes forgotten that an author is also a human being. "Hash not an author eyes? 
bath not an author hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with 
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, Subject to the same diseases, healed by 
the same means, warm'd and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian 
is?" The answer is, if Shakespeare will forgive this paraphrase, that he is, even if 
some ultra-conservative brethren sometimes appear to believe that while it is perfectly 
ethical to pay rent for a Masonic hall, it is somehow unethical to pay for a. Masonic 
book, and that while Masonry may pay a man a salary for giving all his time to be a 
Grand Secretary for a year (may their salaries, as well as their tribe, increase) it iota 
traducing of all Masonic principles to pay a man for his time who devotes a year to 
writing a Masonic book! Masonry can never be a "science of morality" as long as it 
persists in thwarting the development of its own badly needed literature by any such 
reasonings. 


In spite of all the drawbacks and the handicaps both publishers and authors have 
persevered from generation to generation, content to work underground when not 
permitted a place in the sun, until now we have become the legatees of a rich heritage 
of noble books, good to read, pleasant to know, and not at all disgraceful to the Craft. 
It will be a privilege to recommend a number of lists of them in this page from month 
to month. 


— o — 


THE 



WANTED: MISSING VOLUMES OF "MASONIC REVIEW" 


I have a file of "Masonic Review," volumes six to thirty-one inclusive, and volumes 
thirty-three to forty-eight inclusive. I should like any information concerning the 
missing years, where they may be obtained, what they may cost, etc. 


T. J. Fitzpatrick, Bethany, Neb. 


* * * 


MOORE'S "FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE" FOR SALE 


Having noted a query in THE BUILDER'S Question Box for November, on Moore's 
"Freemasons' Magazine," I am prompted to say that I am trustee for the sale of a 
Masonic Library in which the "Freemasons' Magazine" is listed. There are for sale 
thirteen volumes of the magazine in all, from Vol. I, 1841, to and including 1853. 
This has been priced at $25 for the set. The books are bound in three-quarter 
morocco. 


Frank W. Chandler, Trustee, 

1611 Rucker Ave., Everett, Wash. 


* * * 


THE INDIAN BROOCHES 



On page 245 of the August BUILDER is a picture of some Indian silver brooches. 
You mention in the title that Dr. Orr (Bro. Orr) says that they were obtained from the 
Ojibways. 


Now the Ojibways did not make these brooches of Masonic motif, but obtained them 
from the Iroquois. There is no doubt of this. They did not come from "sailors or 
traders," for they are of Indian make. See my American Indian Freemasonry. I have 
collected many. 


Arthur C. Parker, N. Y. 


* * * 


JONATHAN TRUMBULL NOT A MASON 


Can you please inform me if Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., Governor of Connecticut 
1798-1809, was a member of the Craft ? 


M. W. T., Connecticut. 


Through Bro. James J. Tyler, of Warren, Ohio, we have received information from 
Bro. William B. Hall, Secretary, Masonic Veteran Association of Connecticut, 
Meridian, Conn., as follows: 



"Referring to the matter of Gov. Trumbull being a Mason. Bro. Brown, a Past Master 
of Trumbull Lodge, of New Haven, has searched the records of that lodge and cannot 
find any record to show that Gov. Trumbull was a Mason. 


"Bro. Goddard, who is Librarian of the Connecticut State Library, has also searched 
the records of Gov. Trumbull, as filed in the State Library, and cannot find any 
reference to his having been a Mason. It is, therefore, evident that he was not a 
Mason." 


* * * 


THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE MASONIC CRAFT 


1 . Has the Church of England ever, at any time in its history, anathematized Masonry 
or taken a position opposing it? 


2. Are there records of Archbishops of York and Canterbury having been Masons? 


3. Are the present Archbishops of York and Canterbury Masons ? 


4. 1 recall reading at one time in THE BUILDER of lodges in England composed 
exclusively of priests of the Church of England; Are there such lodges in existence 
now, and where? 


F. L. N., Colorado. 



1 . The Church of England at no time in its history has anathematized Masonry, or 
taken up a position opposing it. 


2 and 3. We are not aware of any Archbishops, whether of Canterbury or York, 
having been Masons, though it is possible some of them have been, but it is certain 
that the present Archbishops are not members of the Craft. 


4. There are no lodges in England composed exclusively of priests of the Church of 
England; but certain lodges are distinctly associated with church effort; and notably 
the Abbey Lodge, No. 2030, which is specially composed of clergymen and clerical 
officials of Westminster Abbey; and the Cathedral Lodge, No. 2741, which is 
similarly composed in relation to St. Paul's Cathedral. But these lodges do not stand 
alone in being specially associated with religious effort. The Epworth Lodge, No. 
3789, is to all intents and purposes Methodistic in its character, and embraces a great 
number of ministers as well as laymen of both the Wesleyan Methodist and Primitive 
Methodist Connexion. The Aretas Lodge, No. 4268, is a London offshoot of Epworth, 
as we think also is Peace and Concord Lodge, No. 3947, while there is a Manchester 
Epworth Lodge, No. 3921, which is plainly an offshoot of the original Epworth 
Lodge in London, having the same ideas and style of membership. The 
Congregationalist or Independent body likewise have a lodge, the Streatham Hill, No. 
3784, composed almost, if not entirely, of members of that denomination, including 
several ministers. But despite their apparent denominational character, these lodges 
work in the utmost amity with the lodges around them, and there is no sort of 
sectarian display or exclusiveness among them, while anything in the nature of 
associating denominational or sectarian propaganda with Masonry has never been 
attempted by these lodges, and if attempted would promptly be sternly deprecated by 
the authorities. 


* * * 


WAS DANIEL BOONE A MASON? 



I wish to ask if there is any evidence to show that Daniel Boone was a Mason? 


H. B., Ohio. 


Bro. Ray V. Denslow, Grand Secretary, Grand Chapter Royal Arch Masons of 
Missouri, has expressed to us his opinion that Boone was not a member of the Craft. 
However, he has added this: "I have a very good friend who lives in St. Charles and 
who is very familiar with early historical conditions who seems to be very positive 
that Daniel Boone was a Mason. So far as I can ascertain, if Boone was a Mason he 
was never affiliated with any Missouri Lodge. He died about 1819 and this was 
before our Missouri lodges had very much of a start. It is possible that he may have 
been a member in Virginia or North Carolina." 


Bros. Fred W. Hardwick, Grand Secretary of Kentucky, and Charles Comstock, 
Secretary, Historical Committee, Grand Lodge of Tennessee, have been unable to 
discover any proof of Boone's membership, but they refer to a resolution printed in 
the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, 1852, page 53, as follows: 


"Whereas, Daniel Boone, as the hardy, energetic, and indefatigable pioneer, rendered 
incalculable service to our state; and whereas, at much expense, and trouble, the 
citizens of Frankfort have removed his remains from the State of Missouri to the 
cemetery at Frankfort, where they now rest in a conspicuous and eligible position; 
and whereas, no monument marks his resting place. Therefore, 


"Resolved, That the sum of fifty dollars be appropriated by this Grand Lodge for the 
purpose of aiding in erecting some lasting monument over his grave, and that the 
treasurer of the Grand Lodge pay the same over to Bro. E. H. Taylor, treasurer of said 
company; provided the same shall not be paid until the monument be contracted for." 



Bro. Comstock has searched the Centennial History of the Grand Lodge - of 
Kentucky, by H. B. Grant, but has found no reference to Boone save to the above 
resolution. Bro. Comstock adds: "I recall seeing a picture of the burial of Daniel 
Boone, many years since, and one of the participants appeared to be wearing a 
Masonic collar.” 


* * * 


INFORMATION ABOUT WEBB'S MONITOR 


In the November issue, page 349, you have an inquiry from L. H. L., "Was Webb's 
Monitor published in more than one edition?" I have a record of the following 
editions: *1, New York, 1797. *2, New York, 1802. 53, Providence, 1805. 4, Boston, 
1808. *5, Salem, Mass., 1812. 6, Andover, 1816. *7, Boston and Salem, 1816. 8, 
Montpelier, 1816. 9, Salem, 1818 (published by Flagg). *10, Salem, 1818 (published 
by Cushing). *11, Salem, 1821. 12, Spanish only. There were no further editions as 
such; versions published over the name of Morris, Carson, etc., are revisions and not 
entitled to the title of Webb's Monitor any more than Webb's is entitled to be called 
Preston's. Of the editions listed, I have those marked * and they are available for use 
by any student. 


D. D. Berolzheimer, New York. 


* * * 


"KNIGHTS TEMPLAR" IS CORRECT 



Bro. H. E. Zimmerman's contribution to the Question Box in THE BUILDER, vol. X, 
No. 10 (October, 1924), contains, among others, the question, "If Masonry was 
justified in adopting a form that is wrong historically and philologically, when was 
the change made and why?" I cannot answer the question, but I wish to deny the quasi 
premise it contains. 


The plural form Knights Templar is not wrong, certainly not philologically. On that 
point I would take issue with even the editor or compiler of a dictionary. The 
publisher of a dictionary need not be either a scholar, grammarian or philologist, and 
his opinion, as publisher, merits no greater consideration than would that of any other 
business man with equal education. Notwithstanding the publishers' statement to the 
contrary, "Templar" is an adjective, as much so as is "apple" in the compound 
"appletree." Of all the trees growing in God's universe, high trees, low trees, 
spreading trees, scrubby trees, there is a group or family of them that we identify as 
appletrees. Though the word "apple," as commonly used, performs the functions of a 
noun and is, then, a noun, in the compound "appletree," it performs the function of an 
adjective and is an adjective; as much so as "high" or "low" are adjectives, as 
commonly used. In a phrase or sentence it is the use or the function of a word alone 
that determines what that word is. So "Templar" is an adjective in the phrase "Knight 
Templar." It tells us what particular kind of a knight the Knight Templar is. Among 
all the knights in the world, rich, poor, fat, lean, good, bad, each a member of a group 
with one or the other of these characteristics, there is also a group of knights who 
have the characteristic of being, each one of them, a Templar. In the phrase "Knight 
Templar" the adjective, instead of preceding the noun, as it generally does in the 
English language, follows its noun. In the French language the more common 
position for an adjective is after its noun and not preceding it. In neither language, 
however, is that position for the adjective with respect to its noun absolutely fixed or 
demanded. It depends somewhat upon the writer's mood whether "A young and 
charming maiden lightly skips across the green," or whether "A maiden, young and 
charming," does so. A Knight Templar might just as well be a Templar Knight and, in 
the German language, that is actually what he is, a "Tempelritter," joined into one 
word, even, exactly like our "appletree," where the adjective precedes its noun instead 
of following it. 


Historically there may have been Templars who had not the distinction of being also 
knights of this or that Order, and there undoubtedly were knights who were not 
Templars. But a member of the Order under discussion was a Knight Templar, and 



two of them were Knights Templar exactly the same as, in the present day, two 
knights of the Order of the Garter are not Knights of the Orders of the Garters. 
Dictionaries may and do say that "Knights Templars" is the correct plural, usage may 
establish it as being correct, but, logically and philologically and as a plural, Knights 
Templars is as wrong as would be "feetsteps," "spoonsfuls," or "cupsfuls." Horrors! 


B.A. Eisenlohr, Ohio 


* * * 


OLD BOOK FOR SALE 


I have for sale a copy of The Sufferings of John Coustos for Freemasonry, and for his 
refusing to turn Roman Catholic, in the Inquisition at Lisbon, etc. Part II, from page 
78 to 400 inclusive, is occupied by a history of the Inquisition. Bound in ornamented 
leather; covers loose. Published by Strahan, London, 1746. Offers will receive careful 
consideration. 


H. I. Schmits, 1124 Chestnut Ave. Flat, Minneapolis, Minn. 


* * * 


MISSING SINCE NOV. 10, 1924 



William Egge, age 35, 574 Hamilton avenue, North Bergen, N. j. About 5 feet 9 
inches tall, 167 pounds, medium built, fair complexion, smooth shaven, brown hair, 
blue eyes. Wore an old grayish suit with Masonic pin in coat. When last seen was 
driving a Daniels' sedan auto, license No. 124639, N. J. Carpenter and builder by 
trade. If found please notify Mystic Tie Lodge, No. 123, Union Hill, N. J. 


— o — 


YE EDITOR'S CORNER 


May you have a happy and prosperous New Year. 


* * * 


Sez the old feller, see he: "This evolution theory is funny monkey business." 


* * * 


Says George Bernard Shaw: "Democracy prefers second-bests always." It certainly 
did when it preferred George Bernard Shawl 


* * * 


Bro. Sir Alfred Robbins' now famous visit to this land attracted the attention of men 
in high places. President Coolidge wrote to congratulate him on his mission as having 



helped to cement Anglo-American friendship; Secretary Hughes asked the American 
Ambassador at the Court of St. James to congratulate Sir Alfred on "the splendid 
work he is doing to strengthen the ties which bind our countries together;" and Chief 
Justice Taft wrote to felicitate him on "the very fine and useful impression which your 
visit to the United States gave to American Masons." 


* * * 


York Grand Lodge of Mexico has published a chart showing the genealogy and other 
connections of all lodges now under its jurisdiction. The chart is accompanied by five 
pages of explanatory text. Thanks to the generosity of York Grand Lodge we have 
received, at our own request, a package of copies for free distribution. In asking for a 
copy please enclose stamp, and write your name and address plainly. 


* * * 


Here is a cross-word puzzle. What word contains three of itself ? No prizes are 
offered for the correct answer, because the correct answer is not anticipated. 


* * * 


If children should respect their parents it would naturally follow that parents should 
be respectable. Q. E. D. 



GENE SKINKLE'S HOLIDAY GREETINGS 


One of the Christmas and New Year's events for a wide circle of his friends each year 
is Bro. Gene Skinkle's holiday greetings, entitled "Treasures" this time. We pass it on 
to you for your "Golden Treasury" of friendly verse: 

Dame Fortune smiled on us, we will say, 

When she gave us you for a friend one day; 

To others she's given a golden hoard 
To be wontonly scattered, or miserly stored. 

But ours is the treasure that's cherished more 
Than gleaming gold, or the sparkling gem 
That graces the monarch's diadem. 

For gems may be lost and wealth takes wing, 

While friendship for aye to the heart cloth cling 
Cheering, uplifting the faltering soul 
'Long the rugged trail, toward the final goal. 

So we thank Dame Fortune, and tender to you 
Our friendship, as kindly and loving and true 
As yours has been through the passing years 
The friendship we cherish and love that cheers.