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:'''Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry''' | :'''Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry''' | ||
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A organization planned to sow the seeds of love, law, religion, patriotism, and service in the hearts of the girlhood of America for harvest in the coming years. These sentiments prompted a Brother, the Rev. William Mark Sexson, McAlester, Oklahoma, then the Grand Chaplain of his State, to write the ritual and lay the foundations of the Order of the Rainbow for Girls. | A organization planned to sow the seeds of love, law, religion, patriotism, and service in the hearts of the girlhood of America for harvest in the coming years. These sentiments prompted a Brother, the Rev. William Mark Sexson, McAlester, Oklahoma, then the Grand Chaplain of his State, to write the ritual and lay the foundations of the Order of the Rainbow for Girls. | ||
− | The first exemplification of the ritual wee on April 6, 1922, when a class of more than seventy-five girls was initiated. In the four following years the Order was extended to thirty-one States of the Union and grew to a membership of forty thousand The Order of the Rainbow is not Freemasonry nor is it Eastern Star, but it is very dear to each one off these fraternities. | + | |
− | + | The first exemplification of the ritual wee on April 6, 1922, when a class of more than seventy-five girls was initiated. In the four following years the Order was extended to thirty-one States of the Union and grew to a membership of forty thousand The Order of the Rainbow is not Freemasonry nor is it Eastern Star, but it is very dear to each one off these fraternities. | |
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+ | Local Lodges or Bodies are called Assemblies, and before an Assembly can be instituted it must be sponsored by a Masonic or an Eastern Star organization that will promise to look after its welfare. Its members, girls from 13 to 18, must be children of Masonic or Eastern Star families, or the friends and chums of such children. This is the only relationship it has to Freemasonry though it has no secrets from Freemasons or Stars and they are free to attend the meetings of any Assembly. | ||
*RAINBOW, THE MOST ANCIENT ORDER OF THE | *RAINBOW, THE MOST ANCIENT ORDER OF THE | ||
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To summarize the matter:—In the case of your Lodge, a Mohammedan gentleman being a candidate, your procedure should be as follows: The English Bible will remain open, being removed for convenience sake to the Eastern part of the Lodge the Koran will then be placed on the Altar and the candidate obligated, after which it will be removed and the Bible replaced. | To summarize the matter:—In the case of your Lodge, a Mohammedan gentleman being a candidate, your procedure should be as follows: The English Bible will remain open, being removed for convenience sake to the Eastern part of the Lodge the Koran will then be placed on the Altar and the candidate obligated, after which it will be removed and the Bible replaced. | ||
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+ | As however the matter is of great importance, a reference on the subject will be made to England. Pending a reply the above must be accepted as the law on the subject. | ||
District Grand Master, Major M. Ramsay in December of that year obtained the following comment from Grand Secretary John Hervey at the headquarters in London: I am in receipt of your favor of the 9th Oetober, with copies of correspondence with the Worshipful Master of the Lodge Ravee, No. 1215, on the subject of obligating candidates not professing the Christian faith, and beg to say that I fully coincide in your answers, which I do not think could have been better expressed. | District Grand Master, Major M. Ramsay in December of that year obtained the following comment from Grand Secretary John Hervey at the headquarters in London: I am in receipt of your favor of the 9th Oetober, with copies of correspondence with the Worshipful Master of the Lodge Ravee, No. 1215, on the subject of obligating candidates not professing the Christian faith, and beg to say that I fully coincide in your answers, which I do not think could have been better expressed. | ||
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To give the movement unity, the pastors of a region were brought under the leadership of an over-pastor, or, as later called, bishop (episcopos). Just as the religion grew more rapidly in some areas than in others, so did a few bishops come to be more powerful than others; the paramount bishoprics were at Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Athens and Rome. | To give the movement unity, the pastors of a region were brought under the leadership of an over-pastor, or, as later called, bishop (episcopos). Just as the religion grew more rapidly in some areas than in others, so did a few bishops come to be more powerful than others; the paramount bishoprics were at Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Athens and Rome. | ||
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+ | After the Christian religion had become the official state religion it reorganized itself on the pattern of the Roman political government (into parishes, etc.); and because Rome was the Capital of the Empire, the Bishop of Rome grew to be the most influential bishop; but he did not become a Pope, or bishop of bishops, until about the time of Charlemagne, did not become the chief authority in all matters until after the Tenth Century, and was not declared infallible until 1870. It had always been held that a General Council had in matters of doctrine and discipline authority superior to a Pope; in 1870 this was reversed, and the Pope usurped the final authority which for centuries had belonged to the Councils. | ||
By the beginning of the Fourth Century the Roman Empire developed two great lines of expansion; one eastward through Greece, up through the Balkans, and into Russia; one westward, toward Paris, and northward toward Germany, which was then a generic name for the northern half of Europe. Under this centrifugal pressure the Empire divided into two empires, the Western with its capital at Rome (though often the real capital was Paris, for Rome at one time was but a small village); the Eastern with its capital at Constantinople. The word "catholic" meant nothing more than the general religion; it was a synonym for Christianity, and "Roman Catholicism was Christianity in the Western Empire. Greek (or Eastern, or Orthodox) Catholicism, headed by the Patriarch (or chief bishop, or pope) of Constantinople, w as the Christianity of the Eastern Empire. | By the beginning of the Fourth Century the Roman Empire developed two great lines of expansion; one eastward through Greece, up through the Balkans, and into Russia; one westward, toward Paris, and northward toward Germany, which was then a generic name for the northern half of Europe. Under this centrifugal pressure the Empire divided into two empires, the Western with its capital at Rome (though often the real capital was Paris, for Rome at one time was but a small village); the Eastern with its capital at Constantinople. The word "catholic" meant nothing more than the general religion; it was a synonym for Christianity, and "Roman Catholicism was Christianity in the Western Empire. Greek (or Eastern, or Orthodox) Catholicism, headed by the Patriarch (or chief bishop, or pope) of Constantinople, w as the Christianity of the Eastern Empire. | ||
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These Brother mariners wear in Lodge time a broad sash ribbon, representing a rainbow, with an apron fancifully embellished with an ark, dove, etc. Among other rules of this society is one that no Brother shall be permitted to enter as a mariner on board a Royal Ark vessel for any less sum than ten shillings and sixpence, of which sum sixpence shall be paid to the Grand and Royal Ark vessel for his registry, and the residue be disposed of at the discretion of the officers of the vessel. | These Brother mariners wear in Lodge time a broad sash ribbon, representing a rainbow, with an apron fancifully embellished with an ark, dove, etc. Among other rules of this society is one that no Brother shall be permitted to enter as a mariner on board a Royal Ark vessel for any less sum than ten shillings and sixpence, of which sum sixpence shall be paid to the Grand and Royal Ark vessel for his registry, and the residue be disposed of at the discretion of the officers of the vessel. | ||
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+ | Their principal place of meeting in London was at the Surry Tavern, Surry Street, in the Strand. The writer gives the following verse from one of their songs written by Dr. Ebenezer Sibley. | ||
:They entered safe—and lo! the Deluge came | :They entered safe—and lo! the Deluge came |
Aktuelle Version vom 20. Juni 2016, 15:27 Uhr
MACKEY – R
- Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
- R
The Hebrew letter is 7, pronounced Resh. The eighteenth letter in the English and other Western alphabets- The word Resh signifies forehead and in the Phenician and hieroglyphic character is presented as in the illustration. Compare this with the Hebrew letter. Its numerical value is 900, and the equivalent as a name of God is Rahum, signifying clemency.
- RABBANAIM
The word off, is Rabbinical Hebrew, and signifies the Chief of the Architects. A significant word in the advanced Degrees.
- RABBINISM
The system of philosophy taught by the Jewish Rabbis subsequent to the dispersion, which is engaged in mystical explanations of the oral law. With the reveries of the Jewish teachers was mingled the Egyptian, the Arabic, and the Grecian doctrines. From the Egyptians, especially, Rabbinism derived its allegorical and symbolic mode of instruction. Out of it sprang the Therapeutists and the Essenian9; and it gave rise to the composition of the Talmud, many of whose legends have been incorporated into the mythical philosophy of Speculative Freemasonry. This it is that makes Rabbinism an interesting subject of research to the Masonic student.
- RABBONI
Literally, My Master, equivalent to the pure Hebrew, Adoni. As a significant word in the advanced Degrees, it has been translated a most Excellent Master, and its usage by the later Jews will justify that interpretation. Buxtorf (Talt mudic Lexicon) tells us that about the time of Christ this title arose in the School of Hillel, and was given to only seven of their wise men who were preeminent for their learning.
Jahn (Biblical Archeology, page 106) says that Gamaliel, the preceptor of Saint Paul, was one of these. They styled themselves the children of wisdom, which is an expression very nearly corresponding to the Greek. The word occurs once, as applied to Christ, in the New Testament (John xx, 16), "Jesus said unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master." The Masonie myth in the Most Excellent Master's Degree, that it was the title addressed by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon on beholding the magnificence and splendor of the Temple, lacks the element of plausibility, inasmuch as the word was not in use in the time of Solomon.
- RAGON, J. M.
One of the most distinguished Masonic writers of France. His contemporaries did not hesitate to call him "the most learned Freemason of the nineteenth century." He was born in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, most probably at Bruges, in Belgium, where in 1803 he was initiated in the Lodge Réunion des Amis du Nord, and subsequently assisted in the foundation of the Lodge and Chapter of Vrais Amis in the same city. On his removal to Paris he continued his devotion to Freemasonry and was the founder in 1805 of the celebrated Lodge of Les Trinosophes. In that Lodge he delivered, in 1818, a course of lectures on ancient and modern initiations, which twenty years afterward were repeated at the request of the Lodge, and published in 1841, under the title of Cours Philosophique et Interpratif ales Initiations Anciennes et Moderns.
This work was printed with the express permission of the Grand Orient of France, but three years after that body denounced its second edition for containing some additional matter Rebold charges this act to the petty passions of the day, and twenty-five years after the Grand Orient made ample reparation in the honor that it paid to the memory of Ragon. In 1818 and 1819, he was editor-in-chief of the periodical published during those years under the title of Hermes, on Archives Maçonniques. In 1853, he published Orthodoxie Maçonnique, a work abounding in historical information, although some of his statements are inaccurate. In 1861, he published the Tuileur Général de la Franc-Maçonnerie, ou Manuel de l'Initié: a book not merely confined to the details of Degrees, but which is enriched with many valuable and interesting notes. Ragon died at Paris about the year 1866.
In the preface to his Orthodoxie, he had announced his intention to crown his Masonic labors by writing a work to be entitled Les Fastes Initiatiques, in which he proposed to give an exhaustive view of the Ancient Mysteries, of the Roman Colleges of Architects and their successors, the building corporations of the Middle Ages, and of the institution of Modern or Philosophic Freemasonry at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This was to constitute the first volume.
The three following volumes were to embrace a history of the Order and of all its Rites in every country. The fifth Volume was to be appropriated to the investigation of other secret associations, more or less connected with Freemasonry; and the sixth and last volume was to contain 3 General Tiler or Manual of all the known rites and Degrees. Such a work would have been an inestimable boon to the Masonic student, but Ragon unfortunately began it too late in life. He did not live to complete it, and in 1868 the unfinished manuscript was purchased, by the Grand Orient of Franee, from his heirs for a thousand francs.
It was destined to be quietly deposited in the archives of that Body, because, as it was confessed, no Freemason could be found in France who had ability enough to supply its lacunae or missing material and prepare it for the press. Ragon's theory of the origin of Freemasonry was that its primitive idea is to be found in the initiations of the Ancient Mysteries, but that for its present form it is indebted to Elias Ashrnole, who fabricated it in the seventeenth century.
- RAGOTZKY, CARL AUGUST
A German who was distinguished for his labors in Freemasonry, and for the production of several works of high character, the principal of which were Der Freidenker in der Maurerei oder Freimüthige Briefe über wichtige Gegenstände in der Frei-Maurerei, that is, The Free-thinker in Freemasonry, or Candid Letters on important subjects in Freemasonry, published at Berlin, in 1793, in an octavo volume of three hundred and eleven pages, of which a second edition appeared in 1811; and a smaller work entitled Ueber Maurerische Fresher fur eingeweihte und uneingeweihte, that is, An Essay on Masonic Liberty, for Initiated and Uninitiated Readers, published in 1792. He died on January, 1823.
- RAINBOW FOR GIRLS, ORDER OF
A organization planned to sow the seeds of love, law, religion, patriotism, and service in the hearts of the girlhood of America for harvest in the coming years. These sentiments prompted a Brother, the Rev. William Mark Sexson, McAlester, Oklahoma, then the Grand Chaplain of his State, to write the ritual and lay the foundations of the Order of the Rainbow for Girls.
The first exemplification of the ritual wee on April 6, 1922, when a class of more than seventy-five girls was initiated. In the four following years the Order was extended to thirty-one States of the Union and grew to a membership of forty thousand The Order of the Rainbow is not Freemasonry nor is it Eastern Star, but it is very dear to each one off these fraternities.
Local Lodges or Bodies are called Assemblies, and before an Assembly can be instituted it must be sponsored by a Masonic or an Eastern Star organization that will promise to look after its welfare. Its members, girls from 13 to 18, must be children of Masonic or Eastern Star families, or the friends and chums of such children. This is the only relationship it has to Freemasonry though it has no secrets from Freemasons or Stars and they are free to attend the meetings of any Assembly.
- RAINBOW, THE MOST ANCIENT ORDER OF THE
A secret association existing in Moorfields in 1760
- RAINS
It was a custom among the English Freemasons of the middle of the eighteenth century, when conversing together on Freemasonry, to announce the appearance of a profane by the warning expression It rains. The custom was adopted by the German and French Freemasons, with the equivalent expression, Es regnet and II pluie. Baron Tschoudy, who condemns the usage, says that the latter refined upon it by designating the approach of a female by II neige, the French for It snows. Doctor Oliver says (Revelations of a Square, page 142) that the phrase It rains, to indicate that a Cowan is present and the proceedings must be suspended, is derived from the ancient punishment of an eavesdropper, which was to place him under the eaves of a house in rainy weather, and to retain him there till the droppings of water ran in at the collar of his coat and out at his shoes.
- RAISED
When a candidate has received the Third Degree, he is said to have been raised to the sublime Degree of a Master Mason. The expression refers, materially, to a portion of the ceremony of initiation, but symbolically, to the resurrection, which it is the object of the Degree to exemplify.
A curious sidelight upon the use of the expression is that obtained by considering the word as also meaning the acceptance or adoption of the candidate officially by the Fraternity. There is an ancient and striking parallel for this understanding. Among the Roman customs connected with the birth of children that was the most remarkable which left it to the arbitrary will of the father whether his new-born child should be preserved or left to perish. The midwife always placed the child on the ground. If the father wished to preserve its life he raised it from the ground and this was said to be tollere infantem, the raising of the child. This was an intimation of his purpose to acknowledge and educate it as his own If the father did not choose to do this, he left the child on the ground, and thus expressed his wish to expose or abandon it, exponere. This exposing of a newborn child was an unnatural custom borrowed from the Greeks by which children were left in the streets and abandoned to their fate (see Fiske's Classical Antiquities, page 287).
Some highly significant pictorial instances of resurrection are found in old churches. The altar picture from Holyrood at Edinburgh, Scotland (see illustration), is a good example. Here the First Person of the Trinity supports or raises the Son. Usually the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, is also represented symbolically in such cases, the dove being as a rule selected to indicate the complete threefold unity of the Godhead. The altar symbolism from Holyrood is therefore a typical specimen of the Trinity portrayal and of the resurrection occurrence.
Brother J. E. Barton discusses the symbolism of the other illustration, the Trinity Boss in the West Porch of Peterborough Cathedral in England. This porch is from architectural details dated about 1375. Old writers would call the porch a "Galilee," a ritualistic provision for such occasions as Palm Sunday, and for processions generally on the Sabbath. The promise to the disciples, that the risen Christ should go before them into Galilee, is no doubt the origin of the name; for the chief ecclesiastical dignitary, who brought up the rear of the procession, here went first, and entered the porch through the ranks of his subordinates, as a Master in taking his seat in the Lodge.
Three probabilities are to be taken into account in considering this boss. It is the central ornament of a porch having special reference to the feast of the Resurrection. It was designed by a Gild—itself probably dedicated to the Holy Trinity, as at the Newark Parish Church, which would naturally wish the porch dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Its designers were inspired by a desire to connect, in a manner not unnatural to Freemasons with their own grades and ritual, the two ideas of the Holy Trinity and of the Resurrection.
Presumably the Masonic Gild, perhaps the chief Gild in Peterborough, was about to vault the porch it had given, and looked about for a suitable composition for its main boss. The first and inevitable suggestion was a Trinity subject, so common in sculptures stained glass, and on monumental brasses The usual Trinity is a design of God the Father sups porting the Son upon the Cross, with the Holy Spirit added in the form of a Dove. Next it was suggested that the Trinity should here be modified in form, so as to deplete a Risen, not a Crucified Lord, as being suitable to a Galilee Porch.
Last came the unifying suggestion that by the use Of a Masonic symbol the Resurrection of Christ, in the Trinity subject, should be marked at the point where Our Lord is about to be raised to Heaven by the hands of the Father; one hand gripping, and the other blessing. Hence the Second Person in the Trinity, who has already passed from the earthly Incarnation, is here at a singular position. His pierced hands show Him already crucified and rising from the grave, with the attitude common to medieval paintings of the Resurrection and the loin cloths still about Him. He is about to be raised to the sublime Degree, and God the Father, in order more expressly to note the Masonic idea, is figured like the Sun at its meridian.
What more appropriate than two figures typical of the Elect, redeemed by Christ, and raised and crowned with Him? Hence the two crowned figures, one apparently an ecclesiastic with an amice, whose diadems have the Trinity symbol of the trefoil, like the Father's crown in the Chester boss. In this Peterborough boss, indeed, each foil of the trefoil is itself trefoiled, as if to insist on the threefold notion.
- RANDOLPH, PEYTON
First president of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Born 1721; died October 2, 1775. He received a Warrant from Lord Petrie, Grand Master of England, on November 6, 1773, constituting him Master of Williamsburg Lodge No. 6, Williamsburg Virginia. Provincial Grand Master of Virginia in 1774 and until his death (see Washington zhe Man and the Mason, Charles H. Callahan, page o54, etc.; New Age, November, 1924; Masonry in the Formation of our Government—1761-1,99, Philip A. Roth, page 31).
- RAPHAEL
The Hebrew interpretation is the Sealing of God. The title of an officer in a Rose Croix Chapter- The name of the angel, under the Cabalistieal system, that governed the Planet Mercury. A messinger.
- RATISBON
A city of Bavaria, in which two Masonic Congresses have been held. The first was convoked in 1459, by Jost Dotzinger, the Master of the Works of the Strasburg cathedral. It established some new laws for the government of the Fraternity in Germany. The second was ealled in 1464, by the Grand Lodge of Strasburg, principally to define the relative rights of, and to settle existing difficulties between, the Grand Lodges of Strasburg, Cologne, Vienna, and Bera (see Stone Masons of the Middle Ages).
- RAWLINSON MANUSCRIPT
In 1855, the Rev. J. S. Sidebotham, of New College, Oxford, published in the Freemasons Monthly Magazine a series of interesting extracts from a manuscript volume which he stated was in the Bodleian Library, and which he described as seeming "to be a kind of Masonic album, or commonplace book, belonging to Brother Richard Rawlinson, LL.D. and F.R.S., of the following Lodges: Sash and Cocoa-tree, Moorfields, 37; Saint Paul's Head, Ludgate Street, 40; Rose Tavern, Cheapside, and Oxford Arms, Ludgate Street, 94; in which he inserted anything that struck him either as useful or particularly amusing. It is partly in manuscript, partly in print, and comprises some ancient Masonic Charges, Constitutions, forms of summons, a list of all the Lodges of his time under the Grand Lodge of England, whether in London, the country, or abroad; together with some extracts from the Grub street Journal, the General Evening Post, and other journals of the day. The dates range from 1724 to 1740" (Freemasons Monthly Magazine, 1855, page 81). A later inquiry as to his membership disclosed that Richard Rawliason was a member of four Lodges, the one held at Sash and Cocoa-tree, the one at Saint Paul's Head, the Barbican, and the Oxford University Arms~ He served as Grand Steward in 1734.
Among the materials thus collected is one which bears the following title: The Freemasons Constitution, Copied from an Old Manuscript in the possession of Doctor Rawlinson. This copy of the Old Constitutions does not differ materially in its contents from the other old manuscripts, but its more modern spelling and phraseology would seem to give it a later date, which may be from 172S50. In a note to the statement that King Athelstan "caused a roll or book to be made, which declared how this science was first invented, afterwards preserved and augmented, with the utility and true intent thereof, which roll or book he commanded to be read and plainly recited when a man was to be made a Freemason," Doctor Rawlinson says: "One of these rolls I have seen in the possession of Mr. Baker, a carpenter in Moorfields." The title of the manuscript in the scrap-book of Rawlinson is The Freemasons' Constitution, Copied from an Old Manuscript in the possession of Doctor Rawlinson. The original manuscript has not yet been traced, but possibly if found would be of about the end of the seventeenth century.
Richard Rawlinson, LL.D., was a celebrated antiquary, who was born in London about 1689, and died April 6, 1755. He was the author of a Life of Anthony Wood, published in 1711, and of The English Topographer, published in 1720. Doctor Rawlinson was consecrated a Bishop of the conjuring communion of the Church of England, March 25, 1728. He was an assiduous collector of old manuscripts, invariably purchasing, sometimes at high prices, all that were offered him for sale. In his will, dated June 2, 1752, he bequeathed the whole collection to the University of Oxford. The manuscripts were placed in the Bodleian Library, and still remain there. In 1898, Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley published in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume xi), a full account of the Rawlinson manuscripts, in which he shows (page 15) that the collection was not reallv made by Doctor Rawlinson, but by one Thomas Towl.
- RAWLINSON, RICHARD
An English scholar, Doctor of Civil Law and Fellow of the Royal Society, noted for his large and valuable collections of old manuscripts anal books on Freemasonry and other subjects. Born at London in 1689, initiated about 1726 his name appearing in rosters of four London Lodges. Grand Steward in 1734. He was nonjuring bishop of the Church of England, consecrated March 95, 1728. His Masonic literature is now deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, many interesting old documents being included, one Copy of the Old Constitutions said to be as old as 1700 and the original of which has never been found. Brother Rawlinson died April 6, 1755. There is an interesting letter from Doctor Rawlinson to Mr. Thomas Towl at AGr. Heath's near the Black Dog in Shoreditch. The letter is as follows:
Dear Sir: As you preserve all relating to the Subjeet of Masonry I send you this from Mr. Whitfields Continuation of his Journal, London. 1739, October, page 6. Saavannah in Georgia Friday 24th June, 1738
To the great surprise of myself and people was enabled to read Prayers and preach with power before the Free Masons, with whom I afterwards dined, and was used with the utmost Civility. May God make therm Sertants of Christ, and then, and rzot tic then wig thev be free indeed What notions this Gent has of the craft you may guess by his surprise and wish. I am, sir, yours to command, 13 January, 1738/9. R. R.
Brother W. Wonnacott, late Grand Librarian of United Grand Lodge of England, has called our attention to the two dates given in this letter from Doctor Rawlinson to his Vriend. They do not harmonize and evidently some mistake has been made in the figures. Another error as to the actual day is commented upon by Brother Crawley: Opportunity may here be taken to draw attention to the singular error in Dr. Richard Rawlinson's letter to Towle. in which the Freemasons' hospitality is quoted from George Whitfield's Dxarv; the 24th June, 1738, did not fall on a Friday but on a Saturday. The misdating Of the entry is probably due to a clerical exTor, for there is not wanting contemporary evidence that the incident occurred on Saturday, June 24th, 1738. (See foot-note, Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley's article on Reverend John Wesley and the Lodge at Downpatrick, in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xv, page 105.)
- RAYMOND, EDWARD ASA
Born February 6, 1791, in Golden, Massachusetts, and died in Brookline, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1864. For more than forty years Brother Ravmond was an active member of the Masonic Order, having become a Freemason January 15, 1816, in Amicable Lodge, Cambridge and being admitted a member of Saint Johns Lodge, Boston, April 2, 1836. He affiliated with the Massachusetts Lodge in 1843 on November 24. In the course of his Masonic career, Brother Raymond, who was the possessor of a large fortune, acted as Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter, Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts, and Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States. The period during which he served as Grand Master of Massachusetts dated from December 27, 1848, and ended December 30, 1851. The Memorial Volume of the 125th Anniversary of the Massachusetts Lodge is dedicated in honor of Brother Raymond.
- RECEIVED AND ACKNOWLEDGED
A term applied to the initiation of a candidate into the Sixth or Most Excellent Master's Degree of the American Rite (see Acknowledged).
- RECEPTION
The ceremony of initiation into a Degree of Freemasonry is called a reception.
- RECIPIENT
The French call the candidate in any Degree the Racipiendaire, or Recipient.
- RECOGNITION, MODES OF
Smith says Use and Abuse of Masonry, page 46) that at the institution of the Order, to each of the Degrees "a particular distinguished test was adapted, which test, together with the explication, was accordingly settled and communicated to the Fraternity previous to their dispersion, under a necessary and solemn injunction to secrecy; and they have been most cautiously preserved and transmitted down to posterity by faithful Brethren ever since their emigration." Hence, of all the landmarks, the modes of recognition are the most legitimate and unquestioned. They should admit of no variation, for in their universality consist their excellence and advantage.
Yet such variations have unfortunately been admitted, the principal of which originated about the middle of the eighteenth century, and were intimately connected with the division of the Fraternity in England into the t vo conflicting societies of the Ancient and the Moderns; and although by the reconciliation in 1813 uniformity was restored in the United Grand Lodge which was then formed, that uniformity did not extend to the subordinate Bodies in other countries which had derived their existence and their different modes of recognition from the two separated Grand Lodges; and this was, of course, equally applicable to the higher degrees which sprang out of them.
Thus, while the modes of recognition in the York and Scottish Rites are substantially the same, those of the French or Modern Rite differ in almost everything. In this there is a Password in the First Degree unrecognized by the two other Rites, and all afterwards are different.
Again, there are important differences in the York and American Rites, although there is sufficient similarity to relieve American and English Freemasons from any embarrassment in mutual recognition. Although nearly all the Lodges in the United States, before the Revolution of 1776, derived their existence from the Grand Lodges of England, the American Freemasons do not use the multitude of signs that prevail in the English system, while they have introduced, in the opinion of Brother Mackey, through the teachings of Webb, the Due Guard, which is totally unknown to English Freemasonry. Looking to these differences, the Masonic Congress of Paris, held in 1856, recommended, in the seventh proposition, that "Masters of Lodges, in conferring the degree of Master Mason, should invest the candidate with the words, signs, and grips of the Scottish and Modern Rites." This proposition, if it had been adopted, would have mitigated, if it did not abolish, the evil; but, unfortunately, it did not receive the general concurrence of the Craft.
As to the antiquity of modes of recognition in general, it may be said that, from the very nature of things, there was always a necessity for the members of every secret society to have some means for recognizing a Brother that should escape the detection of the uninitiated. We find evidence in several of the classic writings showing that such a custom prevailed among the initiated in the pagan mysteries. Livy tells us (xxxi, 14) of two Acarnanian youths who accidentally entered the temple of Ceres during the celebration of the mysteries, and, not having been initiated, were speedily detected as intruders, and put to death by the managers of the temple. They must, of course, have owed their detection to the fact that they were not in possession of those modes of recognition which were known only to the initiated.
That they existed in the Dionysiac rites of Bacchus we learn from Plautus, who, in his Miles Gloriosus (act iv, scene ii), makes Misphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, Cedo signum si harunc Baccharum es, that is, Give the sign, if you are one of these Bacchae.
Jamblichus (On the Pythagorean Life) tells the story of a disciple of Pythagoras, who, having been taken sick, on a long journey, at an inn, and having exhausted his funds, gave, before he died, to the landlord, who had been very kind to him, a paper, on which he had written the account of his distress, and signed it with a symbol of Pythagoras. This the landlord affixed to the gate of a neighboring temple. Months afterward another Pythagorean, passing that way, recognized the secret symbol, and, inquiring into the tale, reimbursed the landlord for all his trouble and expense.
Apuleius, who was initiated into the Osirian and Isiac Mysteries, says, in his Defenno, "if any one is present who has been initiated into the same secret rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with such care." But in another place he is less cautious, and even gives an inkling of what was one of the signs of the Osirian Initiation. For in his Golden Ass (book xi) he says that in a dream he beheld one of the disciples of Osiris, "who walked gently, with a hesitating step, the ankle of his left foot being slightly bent, in order, no doubt, that he might afford me some sign by which I could recognize him." The Osirian Initiates had then, it seems, like the Freemasons, mystical steps.
That the Gnostics had modes of recognition we learn from Saint Epiphanius, himself at one time in early life a Gnostic, who says in his Pananum, written against the Gnostics and other heretics, that "on the arrival of any stranger belonging to the same belief, they have a sign given by one to another. In holding out the hand, under pretense of saluting each other, they feel and tickle it in a peculiar manner underneath the palm, and so discover if the newcomer belongs to the same sect. Thereupon, however poor they may be, they serve up to him a sumptuous feast, with abundance of meats and wine."
We do not refer to the fanciful theories of Doctor Oliver—the first one is most probably a joke, and therefore out of place in his Symbolical Dictionary founded on passages of Homer and Quintus Curtius, that Achilles and Alexander of Macedon recognized the one Priam and the other the High Priest by a sign. But there are abundant evidences of an authentic nature that a system of recognition by signs, and words, and grips has existed in the earliest times, and, therefore, that they were not invented by the Freemasons, who borrowed them, as they did much more of their mystical system, from antiquity.
- RECOMMENDATION
The petition of a candidate for initiation must be recommended by at least two members of the Lodge. Preston requires the signature to be witnessed by one person; he does not say whether the witness must be a member of the Lodge or not, and that the candidate must be proposed in open Lodge by a member.
Webb says that "the candidate must be proposed in form, by a member of the Lodge, and the proposition seconded by another member." Cross says that the recommendation glib to be signed by two members of the Lodge," and he dispenses with the formal proposition.
These gradual changes, none of them, however, substantially affecting the principle, have at last resulted in the present simpler usage, which is, for two members of the Lodge to affix their names to the petition, as recommenders of the applicant.
The petition for a Dispensation for a new Lodge, as preliminary to the application for a Warrant of Constitution, must be recommended by the nearest Lodge. Preston says that it must be recommended "by the Masters of three regular Lodges adjacent to the place where the new Lodge is to be held." This is also the language of the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The Grand Lodge of Scotland requires the recommendation to be signed "by the Masters and officers of two of the nearest Lodges." The modern Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England requires a recommendation "by the officers of some regular Lodge," without saying anything of its vicinity to the new Lodge. The rule now universally adopted is, that it must be recommenced by the nearest Lodge (see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).
- RECONCILIATION, LODGE OF
When the two contending Grand Lodges of England, known as the Ancient and the Moderns, resolved, in 1813 under the respective Grand Mastership of the Dukes of Rent and Sussex, to put an end to all differences and to form a United Grand Lodge, it was provided in the fifth Article of Union, that each of the two Grand Masters should appoint nine Master Masons to meet at some convenient place; and each party having opened a just and perfect Lodge in a separate apartment, they should give and receive mutually and reciprocally the obligations of both Fraternities and being thus duly and equally enlightened in both forms, they should be empowered and directed to hold a Lodge, under the Warrant or Dispensation to be entrusted to them, and to be entitled the Lodge of Reconciliation.
The duty of this Lodge was to visit the several Lodges under both Grand Lodges, and to instruct the officers and members of the same in the forms of initiation, obligation, etc., in both, so that uniformity of working might be established. The Lodge of Reconciliation was constituted on the 27th of December, 1813, the day on which the Union was perfected. This Lodge was only a temporary one, and the duties for which it had been organized having been performed, it ceased to exist by its own limitation in 1816. (For a full account of this Lodge and its work see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xxiii, 1910.)
- RECONSIDERATIONS MOTION FOR
A motion for reconsideration can only be made in a Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, or other Grand Body, on the same day or the day after the adoption of the motion which it is proposed to reconsider. In a Lodge or other subordinate body, it can only be made at the same meeting. It cannot be moved by one who has voted in the minority.
It cannot be made when the matter to be reconsidered has passed out of the control of the body, as when the original motion was for an appropriation which has been expended since the motion for it was passed. A motion for reconsideration is not debatable if the question proposed to be reconsidered is not. It cannot always be adopted by a simple majority vote. It may be postponed or laid upon the table.
If postponed to a time definite, and when that time arrives is not acted upon, it cannot be renewed. If laid upon the table, it cannot be taken up out of its order and now second motion for reconsideration can be offered while it lies upon the table, hence to lay a motion for reconsideration on the table is considered as equivalent to rejecting it. When a motion for reconsideration is adopted, the original motion comes up immediately for consideration, as if it had been for the first time brought before the body, in the form which it presented when it was adopted.
- RECONSIDERATION OF THE BALLOT
When the petition of a candidate for initiation has been rejected, it is not permissible for any member to move for a reconsideration of the ballot. The folloWing four principles set forth in a summary way the doctrine of Masonic parliamentary law on this subject:
- REFORMED MASONIC ORDER OF MEMPTIIS, OR RITE OF THE GRAND LODGE OF PHILADELPHES
See Memphis, Rite of
- REFORMED RITE
This Rite was established in 1872, by a Congress of Freemasons assembled at Wilhelmsbad, in Germany, over whose deliberations Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, presided as Grand Master. It was at this Convention that the Reformed Rite was first established, its members assuming the title of the Beneficent Knights of the Holy City because they derived their system from the French Rite of that name. It was called the Reformed Rite, because it professed to be a reformation of a Rite which had been established in Germany about a quarter of a century before under the name of the Rite of Strict Observance. This latter Rite had advanced a theory in relation to the connection between Freemasonry and the Order of Knights Templar, and traced the origin of our institution to those Knights at the Crusades This hypothesis the Convention at Wilhelmsbad rejected as unfounded in history or correct tradition. By the adoption of this Rite, the Congress gave a death-blow to the Rite of Strict Observance.
The Reformed Rite is exceedingly simple in its organization, consisting only of five Degrees, namely:
- 1. Entered Apprentice;
- 2. Fellow Craft;
- 3. Master Mason;
- 4. Scottish Master;
- 5. Knight of the Holy City.
The last Degree is, however, divided into three sections, those of Novice, Professed Brother, and Knight, which really gives seven Degrees to the Rite.
- REFRESHMENT
In Masonic language, refreshment is opposed in a peculiar sense to labor. While a Lodge is in activity it must be either at labor or at refreshment. If a Lodge is permanently closed until its next eommunication, the intervening period is one of abeyance, its activity for Masonic duty having for the time been suspended; although its powers and privileges as a Lodge still exist, and may be at any time resumed. But where it is only temporarily closed, with the intention of soon again resuming labor, the intermediate period is called a time of refreshment, and the Lodge is said not to be closed, but to be called from labor to refreshment. The phrase is an old one, and is found in the early rituals of the eighteenth Century. Callingfrom labor to refreshment differs from closing in this, that the ceremony is a very brief one, and that the Junior Warden then assumet the eo trol of the draft, in token of which he erects his column on his stand or pedestal, while the Senior Warden lays his down. This is reversed in caging on, in which the ceremony is equally brief.
The word refreshment no longer bears the meaning among Freemasons that it formerly did. It signifies not necessarily eating and drinking, but simply cessation from labor. A Lodge at refreshment may thus be compared to any other society when in a recess During the whole of the eighteenth century, and part of the next, a different meaning was given to the word arising from a now obsolete usage, which Doctor Oliver (Masonic Jurisprudence, page 210) thus describes:
The Lodges in ancient times were not arranged according to the praetise in use amongst ourselves at the present day. The Worshipful Master, indeed, stood in t he East, but both the Wardens were plaeed in the West the South was occupied by the senior Entered Apprentiee, whose business it was to obey the instructions of the Master, and to welcome the visiting Brethren, after has ing duly ascertained that they were Freemasons. The junior Entered Apprentice was placed in the north to present the intrusion of cowans and eavesdroppers; and a long table, and sometimes two, where the Lodge was numerous, were extended in paraUel lines from the pedestal to the place where the Wardens sat, on which appeared not only the emblems of Freemasonry, but also materials for refreshments—for in those days every section of the lecture had its peculiar toast or sentiment and at its conclusion the Lodge was called from labour to refreshment by certain ceremonies, and a toast, teellnieallv called "the Charge," was drunk in a bumper xvitll the bonours, and not unfrequently aceonlpanied ivy an appropriate song. After which the Lodge M as caned from refreshment to labour, and another section was delivered with the like result. At the present day, the banquets of Lodges, When they talie place, are alxvays held after the Lodge is closed; although they are still supposed to be under the charge of the Junior Warden. When modern Lodges are called to refreshment, it is either as a part of the ceremony of the Third Degree, or for a brief period; sometimes extending to more than a day when labor, which had not been finished, is to be resumed and concluded.
The mythical history of Freemasonry says that high twelve or noon was the hour at Solomon's Temple when the Craft were permitted to suspend their labor, which was resumed an hour after. In reference to this myth, a Lodge is at all times supposed to be called from labor to refreshment at "high twelve," and to be called on again "one hour after high twelve."
- REGALIA
Strictly speaking the word regalia from the Latin, regalia, meaning royal things, signifies the ornaments of a king or queen, and is applied to the apparatus used at a coronation, such as the crown, scepter, cross, mound, etc. But it has in modern times been loosely employed to signify almost any kind of ornaments. Hence the collar and jewel, and sometimes even the apron, are called by many Freemasons the regalia. The word has the early authority of Preston. In the second edition of his Illustrations (1775), when on the subject of funerals, he uses the expression, "the body, with the regalia placed thereon, and two swords crossed." And at the end of the service he directs that "the regalia and ornaments of the deceased, if an officer of a Lodge, are returned to the Master in due form, and with the usual ceremonies." Regalia cannot here mean the Bible and Book of Constitutions, for there is a place in another part of the procession appropriated to them.
It might have been supposed that, by regalia, Preston referred to some particular decorations of the Lodge, had not his subsequent editors, Jones and Oliver, both interpolated the word "other" before ornaments, so as to make the sentence read "regalia and other ornaments," thus clearly indicating that they deemed the regalia a part of the ornaments of the deceased. The word is thus used in one of the headings of the modern Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England. But in the text the more correct words "clothing and insignia" (Rule 282) are employed. There is, however, so great an error in the use of the word regalia to denote Masonic clothing, that it would be better to avoid it.
- REGENERATION
In the Ancient Mysteries the doctrine of regeneration was taught by symbols: not the theological dogma of regeneration peculiar to the Christian church, but the philosophical dogma, as a change from death to life—a new birth to immortal existence. Hence the last day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the initiation was completed, was called, says Court de Gebelin (Monde Primitive analyst et compare avec be Monde Moderne, the Primitive World anslysed and compared with the Modern World iv, page 322) the day of regeneration. This is the doctrine in the Masonic mysteries, and more especially in the symbolism of the Third Degree. We must not say that the Freemason is regenerated when he is initiated, but that he has been indoctrinated into the philosophy of the regeneration, or the new birth of all things—of light out of darkness, or life out of deathof eternal life out of temporal death.
- REGENT
The Fourth Degree of the Lesser Mys eries of the llluminati.
- REGHELLINI, M.
A learned Masonic writer, who was born of Venetian parents on the Island of Scio, whence he was usually styled Reghellini de Scio. the date of 1750, at which his birth has been placed, is certainly an error. Michaud supposes that it is twenty or thirty years too soon. The date of the publication of his earliest works would indicate that he could not have been born much before 1780. After receiving a good education, and becoming especially proficient in mathematics and chemistry, he settled at Brussels, where he appears to have spent the remaining years of his life, and wrote various works, which indicate extensive research and a lively and, perhaps, a rather ill-directed imagination. In 1834 he published a work entitled Examen du Mosaisme et du Christianisme, Examination of Mosaicism and of Christianity, whose bold opinions were not considered as very orthodox. He had previously become attached to the study of Masonic antiquities, old and in 1826 published a work in one volume, entitled esprit du dogne de la Franc-Maçonnerie. recherches sur son origine et celle de ses différents rites, Spirit of the Dogma of Freemasonry, Studies on its origin and theses of its various Rites.
He subsequently still further developed his ideas on this Subject, and published at Paris, in 1833, a much larger work, in three volumes, entitled, La Maçonnerie, considérée comme le résultat des Religions Egyptienne, Juive et Chrétienne, Freemasonry considered as the result of Egyptian, Jewish, and Christian Religions. In this work he seeks to trace both Freemasonry and the Mosaic religion to the worship that was practised on the banks of the Nile in the time of the Pharaohs. Whatever may be thought of his theory, it must be confessed that he has collected a mass of learned and interesting facts that must be attractive to the Masonic scholar.
From 1822 to 1829 Reghellini devoted his labors to editing the Annales Chronologiques, Litteraires et Historiques de la Maçonnerie des Pays-Bas, Literary and Historical Chronological Record of Freemasonry in the Low Countries, a work that contains much valuable information. However, Brother Woodford was not as assured as was Doctor Mackey that this work may as certainly be accredited to Reghellini, the evidence as to his editorship being less positive than the other particulars here cited.
Outside of Freemasonry, the life of Reghellini is not well known. It is said that in 1848 he became implicated with the political troubles which broke out that year in Vienna, and, in consequence, experienced some trouble. His great age at the time precluded the Likelihood that the statement is true. In his later days he was reduced to great penury, and in August,1855, was compelled to take refuge in the House of Mendicity at BrusseLs, where he shortly afterward died.
- REGIMENTAL LODGE
An expression used by Doctor Oliverin his Jurisprudence, to designate a Lodge attached to a regiment in the British Army. The title is not recognized in the English Constitutions, where such a Lodge is always styled a Military Lodge, which see.
- REGISTER
A list of the officers and members of a Grand or Subordinate Lodge. The registers of Grand Lodges are generally published in this country annually, attached to their Proceedings. The custom of publishing annual registers of subordinate Lodges is almost exclusively confined to the Freemasonry of the Continent of Europe. Sometimes it is called a Registry.
- REGISTRAR, GRAND
The term has two meanings:
1. An officer of the Grand Lodge of England, whose principal duty it is to take charge of the seal, and attach it, or cause it to be attached by the Grand Secretary, to documents issued by the Grand Lodge or Grand Master. He also superintends the records of the Grand Lodge, and to take care that the several documents issued be in due form (Constitutions, Rules 31-2).
2. An officer in a Grand Consistory of the Aneient and Accepted Scottish Rite, whose duties are those of Grand Secretary.
- REGISTRATION
The modern Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England require that every Lodge must be particularly careful in registering the names of the Brethren initiated therein, and also in making the returns of its members; as no person is entitled to partake of the general charity, unless his name be duly registered, and he shall have been at least five years a contributing member of a Lodge, except in the following cases, to which the limitation of five years is not meant to extend, namely, shipwreck, or capture at sea, loss by fire, or blindness or serious accident fully attested and proved (see Rule 234).
To prevent injury to individuals, by their being excluded the privileges of Freemasonry through the neglect of their Lodges in not registering their names any Brother so circunwstanced, on producing sufficient proof that he has paid the full fees to his Lodge, including the register fee, shall be capable of enjoying the privileges of the Craft. But the offending Lodge shall be reported to the Board of General Purposes, and rigorously proceeded against for withholding moneys which are the property of the Grand Lodge (see Rule 237). An unregistered member in England is therefore equivalent, so far as the exercise of his rights is concerned, to an unaffiliated Freemason. In the United States of Ameriea the same rule exists of registration in the Lodge books and an annual return of the same to the Grand Lodge, but the penalties for neglect or disobedience are neither so severe nor so well defined.
- REGISTRY
The Roll or list of Lodges and their members under the obedience of a Grand Lodge. Such registries are in some cases published annually by the Grand Lodges of the United States at the end of their printed Proceedings.
- REGIUS MANUSCRIPT
See Halliwell Manuscript
- REGULAR
A Lodge working under the legal authority of a Warrant of Constitution is said to be regular. The word was first used in 1723 in the first edition of Anderson's Constitutions. In the eighth General Regulation published in that work it is said: "If any set or number of Freemasons shall take Upon themselves to form a Lodge without the Grand Master's Warrant, the regular Lodges are not to countenance them." Ragon says (Orthodoxie Maçonnique, page 72) that the word was first heard of in French Freemasonry in 1773, when an Edict of the Grand Orient thus defined it: "A regular Lodge is a Lodge attached to the Grand Orient, and a regular Freemason is a member of a regular Lodge."
- REGULATIONS
See Old Regulations.
- REHUM
Called by Ezra the Chancellor. He was probably a Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Judea, who, with Shimshai the Scribe, wrote to Artaxerxes to prevail upon him to stop the building of the second Temple. His name is introduced into some of the advanced Degrees that are connected in their instructions with the seemed Temple.
- REINHOLD, KARL LEONHARD
A German philosopher, who was born at Vienna in 1758, and died in 1823. He was associated with Wieland, whose daughter he married, in the editorship of the Deutschen Merkur, German Mercury. He afterward became a professor of philosophy at Kiel, and published Letters on the Philosophy of Kant. He was much interested in the study of Freemasonry, and published, under the pseudonym of Decius, at Leipsic, in 1788, two lectures entitled Die Hebräischen Mysterien oder die älteste religiöse Freimaurerei, that is, The Hebrew Mysteries, or the Oldest Religious Freemasonry. The fundamental idea of this work is, that Moses derived his system from the Egyptian Priesthood. Eichhorn attacked his theory in his Universal Repository of Biblical Literature. Reinhold delivered and published, in 1809, An Address on the Design of Freemasonry, and another in 1820, on the occasion of the reopening of a Lodge at Kiel. This was probably his last Masonic labor, as he died in 1823, at the age of sixty-five years. In 1828, a Life of him was published by his son, a Professor of Philosophy at Jena.
- REINSTATEMENT
See Restoration
- REJECTION
Under the English Constitutions (Rule 190) three black balls must exclude a candidate; but the by-laws of a Lodge may enact that one or two shall do so. In the United States of America one black ball will reject a candidate for initiation. If a candidate be rejected, he can apply in no other Lodge for admission. If admitted at all, it must be in the Lodge where he first applied. But the time when a new application may be made never having been determined by the general or Common Law of Freemasonry, the rule has been left to the Special enactment of Grand Lodges, some of which have placed it at six months, and some at from one to two years. Where the Constitution of a Grand Lodge is silent on the subject, it is held that a new application has never been specified, so that it is held that a rejected candidate may apply for a reconsideration of his ease at any time. The unfavorable report of the Committee to whom the letter was referred, or a withdrawal of the letter by the candidate or his friends, is considered equivalent to a rejection (see Unanimous Consent).
- REJOICING
The initiation of the Ancient Mysteries, like that of the Third Degree of Freemasonry, began in sorrow and terminated in rejoicing. The sorrow was for the death of the hero-god, which was represented in the sacred rites, and the rejoicing was for his resuscitation to eternal life. "Thrice happy," says Sophocles, "are those who descend to the shades below when they have beheld these rites of initiation." "The lesson there taught was," says Pindar, 'the Divine origin of life, and hence the rejoicing at the discovery of this eternal truth."
- RELIEF
One of the three principal tenets of a Freemason's profession, and thus defined in the lecture of the First Degree:
To relieve the distressed is a duty incumbent on all men, but particularly on Freemasons, who are linked together by an indissoluble chain of sincere affection. To soothe the unhappy, to sympathize with their misfortunes, to compassionate their miseries, and to restore peace to their troubled minds, is the great aim we have in view. On this basis we form our friendships and establish our connections.
Of the three tenets of a Freemason's profession, which are Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth, it may be said that Truth is the Column of Wisdom, whose rays penetrate and enlighten the inmost recesses of our Lodge; Brotherly Love, the Column of Strength, which binds us as one family in the indissoluble bond of fraternal affection; and Relief, the Column of Beauty, whose ornaments, more precious than the lilies and pomegranates that adorned the pillars of the porch, are the widow's tear of joy and the orphan's prayer of gratitude.
- RELIEF ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, MASONIC
See Masonic Relief Association of the United States and Canada.
- RELIEF, BOARD OF
The liability to imposition on the charity of the Order, by the application of imposters, has led to the establishment in the larger cities of the United States of America of Boards of Relief. These consist of representatives of all the Lodges, to whom all applications for temporary relief are referred. The members of the Board, by frequent consultations, are better enabled to distinguish the worthy from the unworthy, and to detect attempts at imposition. A similar organization, but under a different name, was long ago established by the Grand Lodge of England, for the distribution of the Fund of Benevolence (see Fund of Benevolence). In New Orleans, Louisiana, the Board of Relief, after twentyfive years of successful operation, was chartered in July, 1854, by the Grand Lodge as Relief Lodge, No. 1, to be composed of the Masters and Wardens of all the Lodges who were united in the objects of the Board (see Masonic Relief Association of the United States and Canada).
- RELIGION OF FREEMASONRY
There has been a needless expenditure of ingenuity and talent, by a large number of Masonic orators and essayists, in the endeavor to prove that Freemasonry is not a religion. This has usually arisen from a well-intended but erroneous view that has been assumed of the connection between religion and Freemasonry, and from a fear that if the complete disseverance of the two was not made manifest, the opponents of Freemasonry would be enabled successfully to establish a theory which they have been fond of advancing, that the Freemasons were disposed to substitute the teachings of their Order for the truths of Christianity.
Now we have never for a moment believed that any such unwarrantable assumption, as that Freemasonry is intended to be a substitute for Christianity, could ever obtain admission into any well-regulated mind, and, therefore, us are not disposed to yield on the subject of the religious character of FreemasonrY, quite so much as has been yielded by more timid Brethren. On the contrary, we contend, without any sort of hesitation, that Freemasonry is, in every sense of the word, except one, and that its least philosophical, an eminently religious institution—that it is indebted solely to the religious element it contains for its origin as well as its continued existence, and that without this religious element it would scarcely be worthy of cultivate on by the wise and good. But, that we may be truly understood, it will be well first to agree upon the true definition of religion. There is nothing more illogical than to reason upon undefined terms. Webster has given four distinct definitions of religion:
1. Religion, in a comprehensive sense, includes, he says a belief in the being and perfections of God—in the revelation of His will to man—in man's obligation to obey His commands—in a state of reward and punishment, and in man's accountableness to God; and also true godliness or piety of life, with the practise of all moral duties.
2. His second definition is, that religion, as distinct from theology, is godliness or real piety in practise, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow-men, in obedience to divine command, or from love to food and His law.
3. Again, he says that religion, as distinct from virtue or morality, consists in the performance of the duties we owe directly to God, from a principle of obedience to His will.
4. Lastly, he defines religion to be any system of faith or worship and in this sense, he says, religion comprehends the belief and worship of Pagans and Mohammedans as well as of Christians—any religion consisting in the belief of a superior power, or powers, governing the world, and in the worship of such power or powers. It is in this sense that we speak of the Turkish religion, or the Jewish religion, as well as of the Christian.
Now, it is plain that, in either of the first three senses in which we may take the word religion, and they do not very materially differ from each other, Freemasonry may rightfully claim to be called a religious institution. Closely and accurately examined, it will be found to answer to any one of the requirements of either of these three definitions. So much does it "include a belief in the being and perfections of God," that the public profession of such a faith is essentially necessary to gain admission into the Order. No disbeliever in the existence of a God can be made a Freemason. The "revelation of his call to man" is technically called the "spiritual, moral, and Masonic Trestle-Board" of every Freemason, according to the rules and designs of which he is to erect the spiritual edifice of his eternal life.
A "state of reward and punishment" is necessarily included in the very idea of an obligation, which, without the belief in such a state, could be of no binding force or efficacy. And "true godliness or piety of life" is inculcated as the invariable duty of every Freemason, from the inception of the first to the end of the very last Degree that he takes. So, again, in reference to the second and third definitions, all this practical piety and performance of the duties we owe to God and to our fellow men arise from and are founded on a principle of obedience to the divine will. Else whence, or from what other will, could they have arisen?
It is the voice of the G. A. O. T. U. symbolized to us in every ceremony of our ritual and from every portion of the furniture of our Lodge, that speaks to the true Freemason, commanding him to fear God and to love the Brethren. It is idle to say that the Freemason does good simply in obedience to the Statutes of the Order. These very Statutes owe their Sanction to the Masonic idea of the nature and perfections of God, a belief that has come down to us from the earliest history of the Institution, and the promulgation of which idea was the very object and design of its origin.
But it must be confessed that the fourth definition does not appear to be strictly applicable to Freemasonry. It has no pretension to assume a place among the religions of the world as a sectarian "system of faith and worship," in the sense in which we distinguish Christianity from Judaism, or Judaism from Mohammedanism. In this meaning of the word we do not and can not speak of the Masonic religion, nor say of a man that he is not a Christian, but a Freemason. Here it is that the opponents of Freemasonry have assumed mistaken ground in confounding the idea of a religious Institution with that of the Christian religion as a peculiar form of worship, and in supposing, because Freemasonry teaches religious truth, that it is offered as a substitute for Christian truth and Christian obligation. Its warmest and most enlightened friends have never advanced nor supported such a claim. Freemasonry is not Christianity, nor a substitute for it. It is not intended to supersede it nor any other form of worship or system of faith. It does not meddle with sectarian creeds or doctrines, but teaches fundamental religious truth— not enough to do away with the necessity of the Christian scheme of salvation, but more than enough to show, to demonstrate, that it is, in every philosophical sense of the word, a religious Institution, and one, too, in which the true Christian Freemason will find if he earnestly seeks for them, abundant types and shadows of his own exalted and divinely inspired faith.
The tendency of all true Freemasonry is toward religion. If it make any progress, its progress is to that holy end. Look at its ancient landmarks, its sublime ceremonies, its profound symbols and alle gories—all inculcating religious doctrine, commanding religious observance, and teaching religious truth, and who can deny that it is eminently a religious Institution? But, besides, Freemasonry is, in all its forms, thoroughly tinctured with a true devotional spirit. We open and close our Lodges with prayer; we invoke the blessing of the Most High upon all our labors; we demand of our neophytes a profession of trusting belief in the existence and the superintending eare of God; and we teach them to bow with humility and reverence at His awful name, while His Holy Law is widely opened upon our altars. Freemasonry is thus identified with religion; and although a man may be eminently religious without being a Freemason, it is impossible that a Freemason can be "true and trusty" to his Order unless he is a respecter of religion and an observer of religious principle.
But the religion of Freemasonry is not sectarian It admits men of every creed within its hospitable bosom, rejecting none and approving none for his peculiar faith. It is not Judaism, though there is nothing in it to offend a Jew; it is not Christianity, but there is nothing in it repugnant to the faith of a Christian. Its religion is that general one of nature and primitive revelation—handed down to us from some ancient and Patriarchal Priesthood—in which all men may agree and in which no men can differ. It inculcates the practise of virtue, but it supplies no scheme of redemption for sin. It points its disciples to the path of righteousness, but it does not claim to be "the way, the truth, and the life." In so far, therefore, it cannot become a substitute for Christianity, but its tendency is thitherward; and, as the handmaid of religion, it may, and often does, act as the porch that introduces its votaries into the temple of divine truth. Freemasonry, then, is indeed a religious institution; and on this ground mainly, if not alone, should the religious Freemason defend it.
To the above observations by Doctor Mackey we may add that the religion of Freemasonry was examined at. some length in a book bearing that title by Brother Josiah Whymper, Past Deputy District Grand Master, Punjab, India. Brother Whymper's purpose was to draw the attention of Freemasons to the circumstance that the original religious principles of Freemasonry were based on Christian Catholicity. He believed that in a well-meant but, in his judgment, mistaken effort to let Freemasonry be all things to all men this principle had been forgotten. In fact, he had found that some Freemasons denied it altogether, asserting that all distinct profession of Christianity was abandoned in 1717 when the Grand Lodge was founded. Colonel J. J. Boswell raised a question in the Masonic Record of India, 1878, under what authority the Koran was used in Lodges working under the English Constitution. Soon thereafter Brother J. J. Davies, the Worshipful Master of Lodge Ravee at Lahore, in the Punjab, addressed the following letter (see Religion of Freemasonry, page 1) to the Grand Secretary of that District: Allow me to invite your attention to a correspondence which very lately appeared in a Masonic Journal, the Record of Western India, regarding the alleged practice in some Lodges of obligating persons on other than the Sacred Seriptures of the Christian Dispensation. From the correspondence you may observe that opinion on the subject is divided: one Brother who signs himself "P. M. 1215" alleging that the practise is in accordance with the spirit of Masonic law, whilst another Brother, a "W. M." on the contrary, considers that it is in direct violation of Masonic law: in letter, in spirit, and the practice of antiquity.
As it has hitherto been the practise of Lodge Ravee 1215, English Constitution, to obligate Mohammedan and Hindu candidates respectively on the " Koran" and " Shastrass," and Christians on the " Bible," I beg to refer the question and should feel greatly obliged if you would kindly obtain the opinion of the Right Worshipful the District Grand Master, whether, or not, in this respect the conduct of Lodge Ravee is consistent with Masonic principles and Masonic law. In intuiting your attention to the subject, I would respectfully mention that in my opinion the meaning of the words, "Volume of the Saered Law," is not confined to the Saered Law of the Christian Dispensation; but have a bearing fuller and deeper: a meaning as broad as Masonry itself.
As Masonry is universal, and combines persons of every clime and creed, the "Volume of the Sacred Law" should be adapted to the different nations, and be the law held sacred by them, subject to the ancient landmarks of the Order: a belief in the G. A. O. T. U.— otherwise the binding influence of the oath would appear to be nil. I beg the favour of an early reply, as at our next meeting on the 21st current, it is intended to raise a Mohammedan Brother to the High and Sublime Degree of Master Maçon, and it is very desirable that the obligation be administered in proper order, on the volume sanctioned by Masonic law. I may add, that in the 1st and 2nd degrees, this Mohammedan Brother was obligated on the Koran: the Sacred Scriptures of the Christain Dispensation lying open the whole time on the pedestal.
District Grand Secretary, George Davies, in answer to the above inquiry sent the following decision:
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated 7th instant, requesting a ruling from the Right Worship ful District Grand Master on the following points:
1. Whether it is correct for a Worshipful Master to obligate a Mohammedan candidate on the Christian Bible or on the "Volume of the Saered Law" as accepted by him, namely, the Koran.
2. In the case of a Hindu or other Theïst, what should be considered the Sacred Law in their respective cases?
Your queries have been duly laid before the Right Worshipful District Grand Master, and I am directed to reply as follows:
1. Masonry being universal, men of every creed are eligible for membership, so long as they accept the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
2. As all candidates for Masonry are obligated, to render that engagement a solemn and binding one, the candidate should be obligated on the "Volume of the Sacred Law" which he accepts as such, in the case of a Mohammedan gentleman, the Koran, in the case of a Hindu the Shastras, a Parsee the Zoroastrian code; in other words, it is the duty of the Worshipful Master to ascertain before obligating the candidate which Revels tion from God to Man he accepts as that most binding upon his eonscienee, and the obligation should be given accordingly.
In the case of lodges working under the English Constitution, and of which Europeans are members, the English Bible must remain open, and be used in the Lodge; the other books being used for the obligations of the candidates only.
To summarize the matter:—In the case of your Lodge, a Mohammedan gentleman being a candidate, your procedure should be as follows: The English Bible will remain open, being removed for convenience sake to the Eastern part of the Lodge the Koran will then be placed on the Altar and the candidate obligated, after which it will be removed and the Bible replaced.
As however the matter is of great importance, a reference on the subject will be made to England. Pending a reply the above must be accepted as the law on the subject.
District Grand Master, Major M. Ramsay in December of that year obtained the following comment from Grand Secretary John Hervey at the headquarters in London: I am in receipt of your favor of the 9th Oetober, with copies of correspondence with the Worshipful Master of the Lodge Ravee, No. 1215, on the subject of obligating candidates not professing the Christian faith, and beg to say that I fully coincide in your answers, which I do not think could have been better expressed.
Lodges in India working under the Grand Lodge of Scotland have recognized the Zendavesta, the Koran, and the Shastras by appointing official bearers of these volumes. brother George W. Speth, who edited the book by Brother Whymper, received a letter from D. Murray Lyon, dated at Freemasons Hall, Edinburgh, December 21, 1887, in which he says: The statement to which you refer is correct. I cannot say when the arrangement was originally authorized, but the By-laws of the District Grand Lodge of India, in which the duties of Bible Bearer, Zend Avesta Bearers and Koran Bearer are given, were sanctioned and confirmed by Grand Committee in August, 1885, as per Certificate of Grand Secretary of date.
Brother Whymper favored separate Jewish, Parsee, Hindu, and Mohammedan Lodges. He says, "It is impossible for any man, no matter what his former religion may have been, to become a Fellow Craft Mason in English Masonry and refuse to accept both the Old and New Testaments."
But in Brother William James Hughan's Introduction to the Religion of Freemasonry (pages v to vii) he replies:
How then would these distinctive combinations provide of such a contingency? If we cannot do with these religionists in our Lodges, I do not see how we can do without them—that is, in separate Lodges. We meet on the Level or not at all, and therefore, if we cannot as votaries of various Faiths become members together in Lodge, and thus illustrate the "Brotherhood of Man," better far to refrain from all attempts at Universality, and revert to an exclusively Christian Constitution, as in the olden time.
I am anxious to look at the question ill all its aspects, and do not mention difficulties because of any fondness of them, but simply to suggest that if a return to the old system is to be recommended, and primarily because it prevailed prior to the inauguration of Grand Lodges, it is well we should understand what is involved in such a course. At all events, it seems to me that we are at the present time observing the old rule of 1723, in promoting the " Relwfon in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves," as well as respecting some of the usages and customs of our Grand Lodge. Besides which, by thus extending the scope of our Ancient and Honorable Society, we are adding immensely to its beneficial influence and practical usefulness, especially abroad.
Holding this view, and bearing in mind the esteemed brethren who hold and advocate otherwise, I am prepared to accept the opinion and advice of the revered brother, the Reverend A. F. A. Woodford, M. A., Past Grand Chaplain, who maintained that " the Christian School and the Universal School can co-exist in Freemasonry. Though their views are necessarily antagonistic, yet they need not be made the subject of contention they can be held in peace and consideration, and all fraternal goodwill.
Indeed, we think, upon the whole, that Freemasonry has, curiously enough, a twofold teaching in this respect." According to Brother Whymper's convictions, the spread of the Craft in India amongst Parsees, Hindoos, and Mohammedans calls for serious consideration, and increasingly so when Brethren of each of those Faiths become sufficiently numerous to support Lodges composed mainly of members of their own persuasion. Should difficulties arise in consequence, we may yet have to try the ingenious suggestion of chartering Lodges for each particular Faith, subject to the rights of mutual visitation, but I confess to the feeling that, should ever such be deemed requisite, an element religious distinction and classification will be of necessity introduced, which will considerably modify or Weaken the unsectarian character of the Institute.
The subject is also discussed by Brother Roscoe Pound, Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 916 (pages 821-3) and his Masonic Jurisprudence, 920 (page 35), and in Doctor Mackey's revised jurisprudence of Freemasonry, 1927.
- RELIGIOUS QUALIFICATIONS
See Qualifications
- REMOVAL OF LODGES
On January 25, 1738, the Grand Lodge of England adopted a regulation providing that no Lodge should be removed without the Master's knowledge; that no motion for removing it should be made in his absence; and that if he was opposed to the removal, it should not be removed unless two-thirds of the members present voted in the affirmative (Constitutions, 1738, page 157). But as this rule was adopted subsequent to the General regulations of 1722, it is not obligatory as a law of freemasonry at present. The Grand Lodges of England and of New York have substantially the same rule.
But unless there be a local regulation in the Constitution of any particular Grand Lodge to that effect, there would seem to be no principle of Masonic law set forth in the Ancient Landmarks or Regulations which forbids a Lodge, upon the mere vote of the majority, from removing from one house to another in the same town or city; and unless the Grand Lodge of any particular Jurisdiction has adopted a regulation forbidding the removal of a Lodge from one house to another without its consent, there is no law in Freemasonry of universal force which would prohibit such a removal at the mere option of the Lodge. This refers, of course, only to the removal from one house to another; but as the town or village in which the Lodge is situated is designated in its Warrant of Constitution, no such removal can be made except with the consent of the Grand Lodge, or, during the recess of that Body, by the Dispensation of the Grand Master, to be subsequently confirmed by the Grand Lodge.
- RENOUNCING FREEMASONS
During the anti-Masonic excitement in the United States, which began in 1828, and lasted for a few years, many Freemason left the Order, actuated by various motives, seldom good ones, and attached themselves to the Anti-Masonic Party. It is not singular that these deserters, who called themselves Renouncing Freemasons, were the bitterest in their hatred and the loudest in their vituperations of the Order. But, as may be seen in the article Indelibility, a renunciation of the name cannot absolve anyone from the obligations of a Freemason.
- REPEAL
As a Lodge cannot enact a new by-law without the consent of the Grand Lodge, neither can it repeal an old one without the same consent; nor can anything done at a stated meeting be repealed at a subsequent extra or emergent one.
- REPORT OF A COMMITTEE
When a Committee, to which a subject had been referred, has completed its investigation and come to an opinion, it directs its Chairman, or some other member, to prepare an expression of its views, to be submitted to the Lodge. The paper containing this expression of views is called its Report, which may be framed in three different forms: It may contain only an expression of opinion on the subject which had been referred; or it may contain, in addition to this, an express resolution or series of resolutions, the adoption of which by the assembly is recommended; or, lastly, it may contain one or more resolutions, Without any preliminary expression of opinion. The Report, when prepared, is read to the members of the Committee, and, if it meets with their final Sanction, the Chairman, or one of the members, is directed to present it to the Lodge. The reading of the Report is its reception, and the next question will be on its adoption. If it contains a recommendation of resolutions, the adoption of the Report will be equivalent to an adoption of the resolutions, but the Report may, on the question of adoption, be otherwise disposed of by being laid on the table, postponed, or recommitted.
- REPORTORIAL CORPS
A name recently given in the United States to that useful and intelligent body of Freemasons who write, in their respective Grand Lodges, the reports on Foreign Correspondence. Through the exertions of Doctor Corson, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Correspondence of New Jersey, a convention of this Body was held at Baltimore in 1871, during the session of the General Grand Chapter, and measures were then taken to establish a Triennial Convention. Such a Convention would assume no legislative powers, but would simply meet for the intercommunication of ideas and the interchange of fraternal greetings.
- REPRESENTATIVE OF A GRAND LODGE
A Brother appointed by one Grand Lodge to represent its interest in another. The Representative is generally, although not necessarily, a member of the Grand Lodge to whom he is accredited, and receives his appointment on its nomination, but he is permitted to wear the clothing of the Grand Lodge which he represents. He is required to attend the meetings of the Grand Lodge to which he is accredited, and to communicate to his constituents an abstract of the proceedings, and other matters of Masonic interest. But it is doubtful whether these duties are generally performed. The office of Representative appears to be rather one of honor than of service. In the French system, a Representative is called a gage d'amitié, a pledge of friendship.
- REPRESENTATIVES OF LODGES
In the General Regulations of 1721 it was enacted that "The Grand Lodge consists of and is formed by the Masters and Wardens of all the regular particular Lodges upon record"; and also that "The majority of every particular Lodge, when congregated, shall have the privilege of giving instructions to their Master and Wardens before the assembling of the Grand Chapter or Lodge, at the three quarterly communications hereafter mentioned and of the Annual Grand Lodge too; because their Master and Wardens are their Representatives and are supposed to speak their mind" (Constitutions, 1723, page 61). A few modern Grand Lodges have disfranchised the Wardens also, and confined the representation to the Masters only. But Brother Hawkins asserts further that this is evidently an innovation, having no color of authority in the Old Regulations.
- REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM
The system of appointing Representatives of Grand Lodges originated years ago with the Grand Lodge of New York. It at first met with much opposition, but has gradually gained favor. Although the original plan intended by the founders of the system does not appear to have been effectually carried out in all its details, it has at least been successful as a means of more closely cementing the bonds of union between the Bodies mutually represented.
- REPRIMAND
A reproof formally communicated to the offender for some fault committed, and the lowest grade, above censure, of Masonic punishment. It can be inflicted only on charges made, and by a majority vote of the Lodge. It may be private or public. Private reprimand is generally communicated to the offender by a letter from the Master. Public reprimand is given orally in the Lodge and in the presence of the Brethren. A reprimand does not sheet the Masonic standing of the person reprimanded.
- REPUTATION
In the technical language of Freemasonry, a man of good reputation is said to be one who is "under the tongue of good report"; and this constitutes one of the indispensable qualifications of a candidate for initiation.
- RESIDENCE
It is the general usage in the United States of America, and may be considered as the Masonic law of custom, that the application of a candidate for initiation must be made to the Lodge nearest his place of residence. There is, however, no express law upon this subject either in the ancient landmarks or the Old Constitutions, and its positive sanction as a law in any Jurisdiction must be found in the local enactments of the Grand Lodge of that Jurisdiction. Still there can be no doubt that expediency and justice to the Order make such a regulation necessary, and accordingly many Grand Lodges have incorporated such a regulation in their Constitutions; and of course, whenever this has been done, it becomes a positive law in that Jurisdiction.
It has also been contended by some American Masonic jurists that a nonresident of a State is not entitled, on a temporary visit to that State, to apply for initiation. There is, however, no landmark nor written law in the ancient Constitutions which forbids the initiation of nonresidents. Still, as there can be no question that the conferring of the Degrees of Freemasonry on a stranger is always inexpedient, and frequently productive of injury and injustice, by foisting on the Lodges near the candidate's residence unworthy and unacceptable persons, there has been a very general disposition among the Grand Lodges of the United States to discountenance the initiation of nonresidents. Many of them have adopted a specific regulation to this effect, and in all Jurisdictions where this has been done, the law becomes imperative; for, as the landmarks are entirely silent on the subject, the local regulation is left to the discretion of each Jurisdiction. But no such rule has ever existed among European Lodges.
- RESIGNATION OF MEMBERSHIP
The spirit of the law of Freemasonry doers not recognize the right of any member of a Lodge to resign his membership, unless it be for the purpose of uniting with another Lodge. This mode of resignation is called a dimission (see Dimit).
- RESIGNATION OF OFFICE
Every officer of a Lodge, or rather Masonic organization, being required at the time of his installation into office to enter into an obligation that he will perform the duties of that office for a specified time and until his successor is installed, it has been repeatedly held by the Masonic jurists of this country that an officer once elected and installed cannot resign his office; and this may be considered as a well-established law of American Freemasonry.
- RESOLUTION
In parliamentary law, a proposition, when first presented, is called a motion; if adopted, it becomes a resolution. Many Grand Lodges adopt, from time to time, in addition to the provisions of their Constitution, certain resolutions on important subjects, which, giving them an apparently greater weight of authority than ordinary enactments, are frequently appended to their Constitution, or their transaction, under the imposing title of Standing Regulations. But this weight of authority is only apparent. These standing resolutions having been adopted, like all other resolutions, by a mere majority vote, are subject, like them, to be repealed or rescinded by the same vote.
Even a steadfast resolution, expressive as the term may sound, may not mean exactly the same thing to everybody. .A quaint example is recorded in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume xi, page 85). A Lodge at Dublin, Ireland, had passed a resolution that only one jug of punch should be placed on the table after supper as some of the brothers had not observed due moderation. Brother Richard Bayly, the Worshipful Master, did not approve of this proceeding and yet he wished to observe the law as strictly as he could and still not show it to interfere with his desires. He had a gigantic pitcher made, a Masonic jug holding eighteen quarts, and presented this to the Lodge in his term of office in 1797.
- RESPECTABLE
A title given by the French, as worshipful is by the English, to a Lodge or Brother. Thus, La Respectable Loge de la Candeur is equivalent to The Worshipful Lodge of Candor. It is generally abbreviated as R. L. or R.(square)
- RESPONSE
In the liturgical services of the Church an answer made by the people speaking alternately with the clergyman. In the ceremonial observances of Freemasonry there are many responses, the Master and the Brethren taking alternate parts, especially in the funeral service as laid down first by Preston, and now very generally adopted. In all Masonic prayers the proper response, never to be omitted, is, "So mote it be."
- RESTORATION
The restoration, or, as it is also called, the reinstatement of a Freemason who lad been excluded, suspended, or expelled, may be the voluntary act of the Lodge, or that of the Grand Lodge on appeal, when the sentence of the Lodge has been reversed on account of illegality in the trial, or injustice, or undue severity in the sentence. It may also, as in the instance of definite suspension, be the result of the termination of the period of suspension, when the suspended member is, ipso facto, by the fact itself, restored without any further action of the Lodge.
The restoration from indefinite suspension must be equivalent to a reinstatement in membership, because the suspension being removed, the offender is at once invested with the rights and privileges of which he had never been divested, but only temporarily deprived. But restoration from expulsion may be either to membership in the Lodge or simply to the privileges of the Order.
It may also be ex gratia, or an act of mercy, the past offense being condoned; or ex debit justitia, through faulty justice, by a reversal of the sentence for illegality of trial or injustice in the verdict.
The restoration ex gratia, or mercifully, may be either by the Lodge or the Grand Lodge on appeal. If by the Lodge, it may be to membership, or only to good standing in the Order. But if by the Grand lodge, the restoration can only be to the rights and privileges of the Order. The Freemason having been justly and legally expelled from the Lodge, the Grand lodge possesses no prerogative by which it could enforce a Lodge to admit one legally expelled any more than it could a profane who had never been initiated.
But if the restoration be ex debit justitia, as an act of justice, because the trial or verdict had been illegal, then the Brother, never having been lawfully expelled from the Lodge or the Order, but being at the very time of his appeal a member of the Lodge, unjustly or illegally deprived of his rights, the restoration in this case by the Grand Lodge must be to membership in the Lodge. Any other course, such as to restore him to the Order but not to membership, would be manifestly unjust. The Grand Lodge having reversed the trial and sentence of the subordinate Lodge, that trial and sentence become null and void, and the Freemason who had been unjustly expelled is at once restored to his original status (see this subject fully discussed in Doctor Maekey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry, 1927).
- RESURRECTION
The doctrine of a resurrection to a future and eternal life constitutes an indispensable portion of the religious faith of Freemasonry. It is not authoritatively inculcated as a point of dogmatic creed, but is impressively taught by the symbolism of the Third Degree. This dogma has existed among almost all nations from a very early period. The Egyptians, in their mysteries, taught a final resurrection of the soul. Although the Jews, in escaping from their Egyptian thraldom, did not carry this doctrine with them into the desert—for it formed no part of the Mosaic theology—yet they subsequently, after the captivity, borrowed it from the Zoroastrians.
The Brahmans and Buddhists of the East, the Etruseans of the South, and the Druids and the Scandinavian Skalds of the West, nursed the faith of a resurrection to future life. The Greeks and the Romans subscribed to it; and it was one of the great objects of their mysteries to teach it. It is, as we all know, an essential part of the Christian faith, and was exemplified, in His own resurrection, by Christ to His followers. In Freemasonry, a particular Degree, the Master's, has been appropriated to teach it by an impressive symbolism. "Thus, " says Hutchinson (Spirit of Masonry, page 164), "our Order is a positive contradiction to Judaic blindness and infidelity, and testifies our faith concerning the resurrection of the body."
We may deny that there has been a regular descent of Freemasonry, as a secret organization, from the mystical association of the Eleusinians, the Samothracians, or the Dionysians. No one, however, who carefully examines the mode in which the resurrection or restoration to life was taught by a symbol and a ceremony in the Ancient Mysteries, and how the same dogma is now taught in the Masonic initiation, can, without absolutely rejecting the evident concatenation of circumstances which lies patent before him, refuse his assent to the proposition that the latter was derived from the former.
The resemblance between the Dionysiac Legend, for instance, and the Hiramic cannot have been purely accidental. The chain that connects them is easily found in the fact that the Pagan Mysteries lasted until the fourth century of the Christian era, and, as the Fathers of the Church lamented, exercised an influence over the secret societies of the Middle Ages.
- RETURNS OF LODGES
Every subordinate Lodge is required to malice annually to the Grand Lodge a statement of the names of its members, and the number of admissions, demissions, and expulsions or rejections that have taken place within the year. This statement is called a return. A neglect to make the annual return causes a forfeiture of the right of representation in the Grand Lodge. The sum due by the Lodge is based on the return, as a tax is levied for each member and each initiation. The Grand Lodge is also, by this means, made acquainted with the state of its subordinates and the condition of the Order in its Jurisdiction.
- REUBEN
The eldest son of Jacob. Among the Royal Arch banners, that of Reuben is purple, and bears a man as the device. It is appropriated to the Grand Master of the Second Veil.
- REUNION ISLAND
Formerly Ile de Bourbon, or Bourbon's Island, and is in the Indian Ocean, east of the Island of Madagascar. There is one Lodge here under the Grand Orient of France. It was established at St. Denis, the capital.
- REVELATION
The following is an extract from Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia upon this subject: With infinite learning and patience the author of The Book of God, who preserves strict anonymity, has endeavored to show that the work, Apocalypse, was originally revealed to a primaeval John, otherwise Cannes and identical with the first messenger of God to man;. This theory is sufficiently remarkable to be mentioned here. The messengers, twelve in number, are supposed by the author to appear at intervals of years. Thus:
- 1, Adam, 3000 A. M.
- 2, Enoch, 3600 A.M.
- 3, Fohi, 4200 A. M.
- 4, Brigoo, 4800 A. M.5, Zaratusht 5400 A. M.
- 6, Thoth, 6000 is A. M.
- 7, Amosis or Moses 6600 A. M.
- 8, Laotseu, 7200 A. M.
- 9, Jesus, 7800 A..M.
- 10, Mohammed, 8400 A. M.
- ll, Chengiz-Khan A.9000 A. M., and
- 12, the twelfth messenger yet to be revealed, 9600 A. M.
With the aid of this theory, the whole history of the world, down to our own days, is shown to be foretold in the Apocalypse, and although it is difficult to agree with the accomplished writer's conclusions, supported by him with an array of learning and a sincere belief in what is stated, no one with any taste for these studies should be without this wonderful series of books. The same author has published, in two volumes, a revised edition of the Book of Enoch, with a commentary, and he promises to continue, and, if possible, complete his design.
- REVELATIONS OF FREEMASONRY
see Expositions
- REVELS, MASTER OF THE
An officer attached to the royal or other eminent household, whose function it was to preside when the members and guests were at refreshment, physical and intellectual, to have charge of the amusement of the court or of the nobleman to whose house he was attached during the twelve Christmas holidays. In Masonic language, the Junior Warden.
- REVEREND
A title sometimes given to the Chaplain of a Masonic Body.
- REVERENTIAL SIGN
The second sign in the English Royal Arch system, and thus explained: We are taught by the Reverential Sign to bend with submission and resignation beneath the chasting hand of the Almighty, and at the same time to engraft His law in our hearts. This expressive form, in which the Father of the human race first presented himself before the face of the Most High, to receive the denunciation and terrible judgment, was adopted by our Grand Master Moses, who, when the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush on Mount Horeb, covered his face from the brightness of the divine presence.
- REVERE, PAUL
American patriot, noted for several daring exploits during the Revolutionary War, an engraver, and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, from December 12, 1794, to December 27, 1797. Revere, or Rivoire, as his ancestors wrote the name, born in Boston, January 1, 1735, became a goldsmith and silversmith in his father's shop and here developed his natural talents by designing and executing all sorts of engraving. In 1756 he took part in the expedition against Crown Point, his rank being Second Lieutenant of Artillery. Initiated in Saint Andrews Lodge, September 4, 1760. He was Raised January 27, 1761; elected Senior Warden in November, 1764, and Master, November 30, 1770.
During this time he conducted a copper-plate engraving shop, and, while a member of a club of young men formed to watch the movements of the British troops in Boston, engraved several anti-British caricatures. He was one of the grand jurors who refused to serve in Boston in 1774 because the justices had been made independent of the people by Parliament- He was a leader of the Boston Tea Partly and in 1774 went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to urge that military stores there be seized by the Colonists, whom he encouraged in their attack and capture of Fort William and Mary, one of the first military acts of the Revolutionary War. Paul Revere, as the man whose midnight ride from Charlestown to Lexington, April 18-9, 1775, gave warning to the Colonists of the approach of the Writ troops from Boston, was immortalized by Longfellow's poem, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
He set up a powder mill at Canton which he operated successfully for the Colonists, although the only previous knowledge was when he was sent in 1775 by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to Philadelphia to study the one powder mill in the Colonies and through it he was permitted to pass but once, but the information thus snatched proved invaluable. He was commissioned a Major of Infantry, April, 1776; and in November, same year, promoted as Lieutenant Colonel of Artillery, stationed at Castle William to defend Boston Harbor and finally given command there. Served the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts as Junior Grand Warden from 1777 until 1779; from 1780 to 1783 as Senior Grand Warden; from 1784 to 1791 as Deputy Grand Master.
After the war he engaged in the manufacture of gold and silver ware; successfully erected and operated an air-furnace in which he cast bells and brass cannon; was a pioneer in America in making copper plate and did much to promote this industry. He was the first President of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, founded in 1795. In this year he, as Grand Master, laid the cornerstone of the State House at Boston.
He was a Royal Arch Mason. Paul Revere's name appears on the records of Saint Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter at Boston, Massachusetts, on January 9, 1770. There is no doubt he was a member at this early period, for he was Junior Warden of the "Royal Arch Lodge" in the year 1770. He was Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1782, and Grand Master in 1795, 1796 and 1797 (see Bylaws of Saint Andrews Royal Arch Chapter, Boston, 1866, page 82). Proceedings, Grand Lodge, Massachusetts, 1916, page 216, has sketch of career, and page 218 contains references; first volume, Proceedings, has many references. Brother Paul Revere died at Boston, May 10, 1818.
Grand Master Paul Revere inspected a Lodge in his time with a care well worthy of our admiration. His record here given is taken from the rough notes lade by Brother Paul Revere and an effort has been made to reproduce with precision the verbal peculiarities of the original handwriting preserved by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The reader will please not overlook the probabilities that this document was never intended for print. Copies of addresses made by Paul Revere to his Brethren show that while, as has often been said, "New occasions teach new duties," the problems confronting the draftsmen of the past were like unto those of the present day. This address was made at a formal visit by Grand Master Paul Revere to Washington Lodge. The inspection was in the fall of 1797 or in 1797. The Grand Secretary of Massachusetts, brother Frederick W. Hamilton, kindly verified the sates for us. Washington Lodge was chartered on March 17, 1796, and Brother Paul Revere went out of office at the end of 1797.
The formal salutation at the commencement of the address deserves critical attention. The famous Diary of Samuel Pepys furnishes a similar instance under date of August 4, 1661. A clergyman in Pepys presence addressed his congregation as "Right Worshipful and dearly beloved." This was in the Parish of "My cousin Roger," Member of Parliament for The town of Cambridge. The presence ' these persons of distinction doubtless led to the adoption of the peculiar form of salutation. Notice rill be taken of the method of addressing the Wardens. But the whole address is well worth careful Leading.
Right Worshipful Master, Worshipful Wardens, & Respected Brethren. The Grand Lodge ever Anxious for the prosperity of all the Lodges under the Jurisdiction, have set apart this Evening to Visit Washington Lodge.—You will permit us the favor of perusing your Bye Laws & Records, after which we will thank the Right Worshipful Masters or some Brethren by his appointment, to go through the usual lectures.
Respected Brethren I am happy to find your Bye Laws so well digested. Your Records so well preserved the Order & decorum of Your Lodge so well directed.
You will permit me Brethren to impress on your minds the necessity of a strict and careful examination of the Characters, of every person who offer themselves Candidates to be initiated into our Society; You ought carefully to examine whether they have ever been rejected in other Lodges; and if they have, what were the cause: For nothing is more discouraging to our laudable motives nor is any thing more destructive of Harmony and brotherly Love than our being imposed upon by wicked and unfaithful Brothers.
The Worshipful Master will permit me to remind him that this Lodge is placed under his immediate Care and under the direction of Him, & his Officers, where we have every reason to expect, that the true principles of Free Masonry, will be cultivated, & cherished; and that in due time we shall gather Laurels of Virtue, & Benevolence. The wardens, & Brethren, will be careful to remember that the Honor, & reputation of the Craft, in a great measure depends on a Strict conformity to the Bye Laws and regulations, and that it is highly necessary that an early and punctual attendance is paid to the duties, & business of the Lodge, that the Master may be enabled to Call the Laborers from their work to refreshment in due time,—that He may direct the paying them their wages, and Closing the Lodge at an early Hour.
The Master & wardens will permit me to remind them that a Constant, & punctual attendance. on the quarterly Communications is absolutely necessary, they being the only legal representatives their absence cannot be dispensed with.
The Secretary will be careful to remember that it is his duty, to transmit to the Grand Lodge annually, a list of the officers; and quarterly, a list of the new initiated Brothers, that their names may be recorded in the Grand Lodge Books.
The following excellent Installation Charge was also the work of Most Worshipful Paul Revere, 1795, when Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts:
Worshipful Master,—This Worshipful Lodge having chosen you for their Master and Representative, it is now incumbent upon you, diligently and upon every proper occasion, to inquire into the knowledge of your fellows, and find them daily employment, that the Art which they profess may not be forgotten or neglected. You must avoid partiality, giving praise where it is due and employing those in the most honorable part of the work who have made the greatest advancement of the Art. You must preserve union, and judge in all cases amenably and mildly, preferring peace.
That the Society may prosper, you must preserve the dignity of your office, requiring submission from the perverse and refractory—always acting and being guided by the principles on which your authority is folded. You must, to the extent of your power, pay a constant attendance on your Lodge, that you may see how your work flourishes and your instructions are obeyed. You must take care that neither your words nor actions shall render your authority to be less regarded, but that your prudent and careful behavior may set an example and give a sanction to your power. And as Brotherly Love is the cement of cur Society, so cherish and encourage it that the Brethren may be more willing to obey the dictates of Masons than you have occasion to command.
And you, the officers of this Worshipful Lodge, must carefully assist the Master in the discharge and execution of his office—diffusing light and imparting knowledge to all the fellows under your care, keeping the Brethren in just order and decorum, that nothing may disturb the peaceable serenity, or obstruct the glorious effects of harmony and concord. And that this may be the better preserved, you must carefully inquire into the character of all candidates to this Honorable Society, and recommend none to the Master who, in your opinion, are unworthy of the privileges and advantages of Masonry —keeping the CYNlC far from the Ancient Fraternity where harmony is obstructed by the superstitious and morose. You must discharge the Lodge quietly, encouraging the Brethren assembled to work cheerfully that none, when dismissed, may go away dissatisfied.
And you, Brethren of this Worshipful Lodge, learn to follow the advice and instructions of your officers, submitting cheerfully to their amicable decisions, throwing by all resentments and prejudices toward each other. Let your chief care be to the advancement of the Society you have the honor to be members of. Let there be a modest and friendly emulation among you in doing good to each other. Let complacency and benevolence flourish among you. Let your actions be squared by the rules of Masonry. Let friendship be cherished, and all advantages of that title by which we distinguish each other, that we may be Brothers not only in name, but in the full import, extent, and latitude of so glorious an appellation.
Finally, my Brethren, as this association has been carried on with so much unanimity and concord (in which we greatly rejoice), so may it entitle to the latest ages. May your love be reciprocal and harmonious. While these principles are uniformly supported, this Lodge will be an honor to Masonry, an example to the world, and, therefore, a blessing to mankind. From this happy prospect I rest assured of your steady perseverance, and conclude with wishing you all, my Brethren, joy of your Master, Wardens, and other officers, and of your Constitutional union as Brethren.
- REGIUS MS. ON GOOD MANNERS
Since it is the oldest of known manuscript versions of the Old Charges (or Old MSS., or Old Constitutions), written about 1390 A.D., or possibly 1400 A.D., the Regius MS. would be everywhere known among Freemasons were it not written in an English so nearly obsolete that it may almost as well be a foreign tongue. Bro. Roderiek H. Baxter, a Past Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, has put Masons in his debt, and American Masons especially so—for they are farther from the Middle Ages than are their Brethren in England—by making a careful transliteration of it into modern English, beautifully done, and as close to the original as any transliteration can be. It is in a brochure entitled The Masonic Poem of l.q90, Circa (a poem because the original is in rhymed verse; Wallasey; Wallasey Printers Ltd.; 1927.)
But to American Masons a further difficulty in understanding the Regius MS. is the last section of it, because the contents of that section, or any mention of it, are never heard in a Masonic Lodge, and appear to have only a remote connection with Speculative Freemasonry. It is a disquisition on the theme, "Good manners make the man." In Bro. Baxter's transliteration it begins with line 694: "When thou comest before a lord," etc. This section was lifted bodily from an anonymous poem written about 1460 which usually is entitled Urbanitatis, but which Professor F. J. Furnivall edited for the Early English Text Society as Reprint: The Babees Book. The whole section is a set of instructions issued to a young man on how to behave with manners and grace when at table, when in a fine house, when meeting persons of quality, etc.
According to tables and statistics included here and there in a number of works on Medieval population, on population in country, villages, towns, etc., and as applied to the Mason Craft, the supposition is that some ninety per cent of the boys of twelve to fourteen who came as Masonic apprentices were from the country, many of them from peasants' homes.
Such boys had never been in fine houses, had never associated with persons of quality, possessed no etiquette or table manners, had handled no silver, or ever sat in hall or bower. But the Freemasons who worked for years on cathedrals, abbeys, priories, etc. were associated with persons of the highest rank, with barons and prelates and clerics, and at the same time had to work in a brotherhood with other workmen of education, often of eminence, and perhaps famous, and who would not tolerate uncouthness, vulgarity, gaucheries, and profanity from those about them. Therefore along with being taught his art the boy had to be taught and polished in speech, clothing, manners, and etiquette. In effect, the last section of the Regius was a stern injunction to such apprentices and a warning to them that the severe rules of the Craft which governed the etiquette of Masons would be enforced upon them.
NOTE. As bearing on a question concerning Degrees and ceremonies in Operative Lodges the inclusion of these admonitions would suggest that the Old Charges in part were read, or at least addressed to the apprentices. On the other hand, other Rules, Regulations, Points are evidently addressed to Master Masons. If the oath or pledge was taken "on" the Old Charges perhaps the Lodge's copy was used twice over, once for Apprenticed once at the end of apprenticeship, seven, or so, years afterwards.
The Remus .MS. and the Cooke M S. are printed together, compared, and annotated in The Two Earliest Masonic MSS., by Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones, and Douglas Hamer, Manchester University Press; 1938; cloth; index; glossary; 216 pages.
- REGULATIONS
The Old Charges contain a set of regulations by which Freemasons were governed when at work, and when outside the Lodge. Although the oldest existing copy was written about 1390 A.D. to 1400 A.D. it is certain that the regulations had been in force long before; at least regulations of a similar kind. It is also certain that though these regulations belonged to the Craft, they were accepted by non-Masonic, civil authorities as having a legal status.
Thus, in a Fabric Roll of St. Peter's at York, dated 1355, a written contract between the Freemasons and the building administration agrees that the latter shall respect "the ancient customs [regulations] which the Masons use," etc.; a similar entry is found in a Roll dated in 1370. The regulations as now in use by the Speculative Fraternity are altered out of recognition, many of them, in form and language; but in substance and principle are the same as those in use according to the ancient "customs." (On York regulations see: History of the Metropolitan Church of St. Peter, Yor.tc, by John Browne; Longuans & Co.; London; 1847.)
- RELIGION AND FREEMASONRY
During its earliest period Christianity devoted itself to establishing its centers in southern Europe. There it found itself among a large number of religions, some of which had spread northward from Egypt, or had worked down out of Mesopotamia countries through Greece into Italy, or were powerful nature cults which had infiltrated from the mountain and forest lands of the north—there was nowhere a single organized religion called paganism. One of these religions, Mithraism, w as especially powerful because it u as the cult of the Imperial army, and for generations m-as virtually the state religion.
The religions which came out of Greece were even more difficult to oppose because like everything else of Greek origin they were highly intelligent, were saturated with the Greek feeling for culture, especially of the plastic arts, and were supported by the philosophers and scientists who for centuries were the acknowledged teachers of the Romans. Beyond the frontier, in Russia and the far north and among powerful Teutonic tribes, were other religions which would be encountered afterwards. Throughout the period as a u hole, the religion of Judaism also was in southern Europe, and like Christianity possessed within itself a powerful missionary enthusiasm.
For a period, each small Christian settlement had a leader. This leader came in due course to give his full time to his office, and was called a pastor (he was not transformed into a priest for centuries afterwards).
To give the movement unity, the pastors of a region were brought under the leadership of an over-pastor, or, as later called, bishop (episcopos). Just as the religion grew more rapidly in some areas than in others, so did a few bishops come to be more powerful than others; the paramount bishoprics were at Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Athens and Rome.
After the Christian religion had become the official state religion it reorganized itself on the pattern of the Roman political government (into parishes, etc.); and because Rome was the Capital of the Empire, the Bishop of Rome grew to be the most influential bishop; but he did not become a Pope, or bishop of bishops, until about the time of Charlemagne, did not become the chief authority in all matters until after the Tenth Century, and was not declared infallible until 1870. It had always been held that a General Council had in matters of doctrine and discipline authority superior to a Pope; in 1870 this was reversed, and the Pope usurped the final authority which for centuries had belonged to the Councils.
By the beginning of the Fourth Century the Roman Empire developed two great lines of expansion; one eastward through Greece, up through the Balkans, and into Russia; one westward, toward Paris, and northward toward Germany, which was then a generic name for the northern half of Europe. Under this centrifugal pressure the Empire divided into two empires, the Western with its capital at Rome (though often the real capital was Paris, for Rome at one time was but a small village); the Eastern with its capital at Constantinople. The word "catholic" meant nothing more than the general religion; it was a synonym for Christianity, and "Roman Catholicism was Christianity in the Western Empire. Greek (or Eastern, or Orthodox) Catholicism, headed by the Patriarch (or chief bishop, or pope) of Constantinople, w as the Christianity of the Eastern Empire.
If the division of the one Empire into two Empires broke Christianity's territorial jurisdiction into two jurisdictions, the Barbarian invasions from the north and from the east, cut its history in two. The religion which emerged from the Dark Ages was scarcely recognizable as the religion it had been before. Early Christianity had been spiritual, full of moral passion, humane, apostolic, a New Testament faith; the religion which took its place after the Dark Ages was a system of sacerdotalism, with a liturgy in place of a pulpit, and professionalized, celibate priests in place of pastors; saint worshiping, relic worshiping, full of superstitions, an advocate of poverty and illiteracy, and openly in league with political powers. But though this new sacerdotal Roman Catholicism was one side of the shield of the Carlovingian political system, and therefore had a formal, external unity protected by law, inwardly, in men's genuine religious faith or lack of it, it was divided into as many denominations and sects as it is now. There never was "an age of faith" or an era of unity.
Any religion, even a religion as monopolistic, unchallenged, absolutistic, possessive as Thibetan Lamaism, can control the world up to a certain point only. No religion can control the weather, the seasons, the 80il, the ocean or the streams, rock or sand, animals, or plants; nor can it alter the skilled crafts and trades, or the Arts and Sciences. Under a Medici Pope in the Vatican these were the same as when Aristotle had taught zoology more than 2000 years before. Black smithing, pottery, carpentry, stone-masonry, war, the art of medicine, navigation, astronomy, mathematics, agriculture, engineering, painting, sculpture, physics, chemistry, these are the same in Boston as in Peking, and are not subject to theological jurisdictions. So it was under the Roman Catholic Church from Charlemagne to the Reformation. Its General Councils could not alter the theorems of Euclid; they could destroy a geometrician, they could not destroy geometry. They had no authority over the Arts and Sciences.
Architecture, out of the midst of which Freemasonry arose, mas one of these non-theological arts which everlastingly lie beyond religious control. It had nothing to say about theology, for it, or against it; nor did theology have anything to say to it, because the principles and skills of building are non-responsible to theology, and theology is irrelevant to them—as well talk about a Roman Catholic or a Protestant mathematics ! Freemasons themselves could believe personally in what religion they chose, Orthodox Catholicism in Athens, Mohammedanism in Belgrade; could be Waldensians, or Huguenots, or Anabaptists, or Gallicans, or Anglicans, or Copts; but the Craft's art, its customs and leans of organization, its skills and sciences, its formulas and principles, its standards and Landmarks and purposes, were neither for nor against, nor in nor out, of any one of these creeds, because it stood apart from them, and has done so ever since.
The Medieval Freemasons in England from whom modern Freemasonry descended were, as men, in the English Catholic Church, but as Masons it mattered nothing to them whether they were building a cathedral or a castle, a monastery or a fortress, a chapel or a wall, or a bridge. After England severed itself from the Papacy under Henry VIII, Masons, as men, became English Catholics; after the denominations began to multiply in the Eighteenth Century they might be Methodists, Presbyterians, Puritans, Quakers, or Anglicans. Today Masons carry on the work of their Lodges with men belonging to almost every religion or denomination in the world—taking it that atheism is not a religion. Belief in God, the future life, the brotherhood of man, and morality belong to no one religion; but to man at large. The historical changes never involved a break of continuity in Freemasonry, no 'change of faith" and no compromise; the Fraternity has never been a religion or an arm of a church, but like medicine, engineering, and mathematics has always been an art; and like them, and like the soil, seasons, plants, animals, and the oceans, has been universal, and for the same reasons.
NOTE. See page 846 ff. The ancient Landmarks and the Ritual are on this subject both the first authority and the final court of appeal. See also the section under "- Old Charges " in the 1723 Book of Constitutions. The Obligations which are the sanction for private discipline and law in Masonry, contain no theological commitments or tests.
- RENAUD, THE TALE OF
In his Inaugural Address as Worshipful Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076, on November 8, 1941, W.. Bro. Lewis Edwards led Masonic research a step forward by incorporating in an illuminating account of early Operative Freemasonry in France 3 summary of two of the old Masonic romances which in that period (Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries) were circulated orally among Craftsmen everywhere. Those romances, of which there may have been a hundred, have never been searched out and collected; they ought to be, because the first form of the story of HA. . is more likely to have been among them than elsewhere.
The materials are present, and to a large extent are indexed, in the Iowa and other large Masonic Libraries; it only requires that some student shall collect them into a book, along with their settings in the history and customs of the Fraternity—who does so (as who can tell!) may win for himself that chiefest crown of research which still awaits the clearing up of the origin of the central rite in the Third Degree. (Bro. Dudley Wright collected some of these old romances, but only a few. The story of the 'Prentice Column and of Solomon and the Blacksmith are two of them.)
One of the old tales to which Bro. Edwards adverts is the romance of Renaud, one of the Four Sons of Aymon. (Was Aymon the same as Aynon? possibly; see page 113. Or the word may originally have meant "a man"; or the tale may be a remote form, or echo, of the legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs.) Renaud went to the church building of St. Peter at Colognes and found work. Because he was holy, and therefore possessed miraculous powers, he did the work of ten men; and at the end of the day after the Master had given each Craftsman five pence, he offered to pay Renaud any sum he asked, but that hero refused to accept more than a penny.
His fellow laborers were so filled with envy of this workman's great power and honors that (in characteristically Medieval fashion) they conspired against him, and while Renaud lay asleep in a crypt, they took "a great Mason's hammer," or maul, and drove it "deep into his brain." They put his body in a sack and threw it into the Rhine, but by another miracle of the fishes, the carp and the trout bore up his body until it was found, and placed in a cart, whereupon the cart moved of itself out to the tomb the archbishop had prepared for the body.
- RESEARCH, SOURCES FOR MASONIC
Professional, full-time Masonic Research on an adequate and permanent basis has not thus far been undertaken by American Grand Lodges, individually or collectively. Out of professional research Grand Lodges can find clear directives for their future policies, solid grounds for their Jurisprudence which at some points is now in confusion, and a means to protect the Craft against the pressure of Anti-Masonic activity, covert or overt, which pressure is sure to be increased during the latter half of the century; and Masons can obtain a reliable, unambiguous knowledge of Freemasonry and an understanding of the Craft's activities and purposes. Grand Lodges thus far have kept their attentions focused within and upon themselves, neglecting the Ancient Landmark whereby they are the Stewards of the whole Fraternity and propagators and guardians of it throughout the world; in consequence of World War II a new, and farther-seeing statesmanship is likely to be developed, not looking toward international Masonic organizations, which are never desirable, but rather looking toward the planting and care of Lodges over the earth, for the doing of which it is as much their duty and function as is the administration of a home Jurisdiction.
English-speaking Masons, with many thousands of American Masons among them, will live permanently in scores of remote outposts; they will ask for Charters, as they have an inherent right to do, and from their Lodges will come local Provincial or District Bodies, out of which may in turn develop, in some countries (as in great China), a vigorous native Freemasonry. To carry on that far flung statesmanship Grand Lodges will require far more data, knowledge, information, and literature than a few amateur students, each one at his own time and expense, can ever give them, and it needs to be of a professional reliability and completeness.
Any Grand Lodge can establish such a foundation for itself for less money than it costs to build one new temple. The means to do so already are in use abroad, and are therefore not visionary or experimental. For funds, a Grand Lodge itself may set up an endowment, or a foundation may be financed by wealthy Brethren so many of whom would respond if Grand Lodges led the way, or endowments may be established jointly by both Grand Lodges and private Brothers—after the manner by which the Washington Memorial was financed.
A separate, endowed Foundation may be set up, expressly for their purpose; or a Grand Lodge may endow a full-time Lodge of Research, with a salaried staff; or a Grand Lodge Department within itself. Universities are graduating hundreds of men specially trained in historical, legal, and literary research: from the many Masons among these posts graduate scholars it would not be difficult to draw a salaried staff of two or three professional specialists. Such a Foundation could publish its own findings; or could print them in Grand Lodge publications; and it could work according to directives laid down by the Grand Lodge or by the governing Board of the Foundation. Such specialists, with their professional standards, would not fritter away their time loafing in the by-ways of Masonic curios, as so many amateurs do, but would serve the Grand Lodge in a capacity similar to that of the Civil Service in a government.
All Masonic research must be grounded in the history of the Craft or it ends in guesswork. Even now, the sources of knowledge of American Masonic history have not been tapped, even those which lie closest at hand. In general these sources are in America, to a lesser extent in Canada, to a large extent, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and for the High Grades are in France. Professional men in research would do work abroad.
In America are many such sources: Genealogical Societies, with their archives. Special libraries of genealogy. Genealogical departments of the large Public Libraries (enough data on early New York Masonry lies buried in the New York Public Library to fill a large volume). Transactions and archives of the oldest Patriotic societies such as G. A. R. and D. A. R. Libraries of Universities specializing in early Americana. Files of the earliest newspapers. Historical Societies, State by State, such as the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in 1781; and the New York Historical Society which began publications of its collections in 1811. Many State Societies are financed from general taxes. The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec has been publishing its Transactions since 1829. Many military Lodges came into America and Canada in the French-Indian War; with genealogical clues to guide him a researcher could uncover many Masonic facts in the Jesuit Relations.
More valuable still are the archives of civil documents kept by each of the States, and the extraordinarily huge (five and one-half million cubic feet) Federal Archives building at Washington—Bro. MacGregor made his Coxe discoveries among civil archives in New Jersey. The Congressional Library, destined to rival Moscow and Paris in size, is in part an inexhaustible collection of archives. In England are unrivaled Imperial Archives, the British Museum, scores of very old private Societies, and special archives in the Universities in which lie unstudied no man can guess how many documents about Colonial America. If a genealogist working there, and assisted by a skilled archivist, were to track down only a few of the old Masonic families, the Oglethorpes, Wesleys, etc., he would find their trails leading to America.
It is known that private collectors here in America have rare Masonic material (oftentimes without their recognizing it) which thus far remains unexamined, as in the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif., and the Morgan Library in New York City. Even the Masonic Libraries in America, the larger of them, have never been run through the researchers' sieve; it is safe to estimate that in the Iowa Grand Lodge Library alone lie a hundred or more "discoveries (For a survey, guide, and hand-book on historical research see (with its bibliographies) The Gateway to History, by Allan Nevins; D. Appleton; New York 1938; Chapter 3 in especial.)
Nothing in this disparages amateur research, or is to discourage amateur researchers, they w ho "for the love a Mason have to ye Craft" spend themselves and their money at Masonic study, for the place reserved for them in the Grand Lodge Above is inalienable and will ever shine with a more than professional brightness.
If by chance such an amateur is looking for a specialty ideally suited for amateur erudition one not already threshed to death, sufficiently remote to possess the necessary lure, and yet loaded with enough of the authentic ore, he is recommended to spend his next ten years of avocation on one of these books: Polychronycon (eight books), by Ranulf Higden (See under HIGDEN elsewhere in this Supplement Anacalypsis (that extraordinary book!), by Godfrey Higgins (a member of Prince of Wales Lodge). Gierke's History of Mediaeval Law, translated and edited by Maitland. Better still: the canon of writings written and published in Alexandria, Egypt, published as a book entitled Hertnes Trtsmegistus (on which see Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch). To architects are recommended the writings of Palladio, Inigo Jones and Bro. Christopher Wren.
Contributors to Ars Qustuor Coronotarum have for more than half a century specialized in minute examinations of old texts, manuscripts, documents, records, archives, belonging in one way or another to architecture, of which there are so many in England and so few in America. In their Harulbook of Masonic Documents, Brothers Knoop & Jones (56 pages) give a descriptive list of such sources:
- 1. Masons' Contracts.
- 2. Orders and Commissions to Impress Masons.
- 3. Fabric Rolls and Building Accounts.
- 4. State Regulations of Labor.
- 5. Masonic Regulations Imposed by the Craft.
- 6. Masons' Companies Records.
- 8. Lodge Records.
- 9. The MS. Constitutions.
- 10. The MS. Catechisms.
- 13. Lists of Lodges.
- 14. Miscellaneous.
- RESEARCH LODGES AND ASSOCIATIONS
Among Lodges and Associations for Masonic re search are:
Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research, No. 2076, London, England. Dorset Masters Lodge, No. 3366, Poole, England Manchester Association for Masonic Research, Bury England Merseyside Association for Masonic Research, Birkenhead, England. The Lodge of Reaearch, Leiceater, North Leiceater, England. Somerset Masters Lodge, No. 3746, Shenstone, England Installed Masters' Association, Leeds, England. Lodge of Research, No. 200, Dublin, Ireland. Norfolk Installed Mastery Lodge, No. 3905, Norwich England. Installed Masters Lodge, No. 2494 Hull England Authors' Lodge, No. 3456, London Engiand. (Confined to members of Authors' Club.) The North Carolina Lodge of Research, No. 666, Monroe N. Carolina. Constituted in February. 1931. American Lodge of Researeh, Masonie Hall, New York N. Y. Constituted May 7, 1931 Oregon I,odge of Researeh, Portland, Oregon. Constituted in 1931. Toronto Society for Masonic Study and Research, Toronto, Canada.Missouri Lodge of Research, Masonic Temple, St. Louis, Mo. It received its Dispensation on May 1, 1941 from Harry S. Truman, Grand Master, Grand Lodge of Missouri. Research Lodge, No. 281, F.& A. M. of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
(Corrigenda—In Masonic Papers, published by Research Lodge, No. 281, the late Bro. Jacob Hugo Tatsch writes on page 69 of Vol. I that this Encyclopedia "is sadly in need of augmentation, revision, and corrections in places."
It is, it ever has been, it ever will be. Before the first book of the first edition of 1844 was off the presses, Dr. Albert G. Mackey began augmenting and correcting and revising it, and continued to do so until his death, after which Robert Macon, William James Hughan, Edward L. Eawkins, and Robert I. Clegg continued to augment and revise it; it is here and now being augmented and revised, and in another twenty-five years another encyclopedist will be augmenting and revising it again. On page 70 the same writer says that The Builder in its years of existence from 1915 to 1930+ "aided in promoting educational work in the Masonic Service Association of the United States"; there was no connection "between the M.S.A. and the National Masonic Research Society, publisher of The Builder, at any time; the M.S.A. published for a few years a magazine of its own called The Master Mason, edited by Joseph Fort Newton.
(The geography of the State of Washington being what it is, the facilities for state-wide Grand Lodge work, including educational work, have never been easy. In one of his Foreign Correspondence Reports of about 1927 or 1928 Bro. J. Edward Allen, of North Carolina, reviewing Washington, made a disparaging statement about the Educational Committee of that Grand Lodge, which was in error; in the same paragraph he stated that the editor of this Supplement had been employed by that Committee, which was not true. Complete credit for the pioneering of the Masonic educational work in Washington early in the 1920's, of which one of the fruits or end-results is the Research Lodge, goes to Bro. Colonel Howard A. Hanson,.M.-.W.-.Walter F. Meier, andt heir colleagues.)
- REVESTIARY
The wardrobe, or the place for keeping sacred vestments. Distinctive costumes in public worship formed a part not only of the Jewish, but of almost all the ancient religions. The revestiary was common to them all. The Master of the Wardrobe became a necessity.
- REVIVAL
The occurrences which took place in the City of London, in the year 1717, when that important Body, which has since been known as the Grand Lodge of England, was organized, have been always known in Masonuc history as the Revival of Freeenasonroy. AndersoD, in the first edition of the Constitutions, published in 1723 (page 47), speaks of the freeborn Blitish nations having revived the drooping Lodges of London; but he makes no other reference to the transaction. In his second edition, published in 1738, he is more diffuse, and the account there given is the only authority we possess of the organuzation made in 1717: Preston and all subsequent writers have of course derived their authority from Anderson. The transactions are thus detailed by Preston (Illustrations, 1792, page 246), whose amount is preferred, as contain ng in a more sueeinet form all that Anderson has more profusely detailed.
On the accession of George I, the Masons in London and its environs, finding themselves deprived of Sir Christopher Wren and their annual meetings discontinued, resolved to cement themselves under a new Grand Master, and to revive the eommunications and annual festivals of the Society.
With this view, the Lodges at the Goose and Gridiron, in Saint Paul's Church-Yard; the Crown, in Parker's Lane, near Drury Lane; the Apple-Tree Tavern, in Charles Street, Covent Garden; and the Rummer and Grapes Tavern, in Channel Row, Westminster, the only four Lodges in being in the South of England at that time, with some other old brethren met at the AppleTree Tavern, above mentioned, in Februar" 1717; and, having voted the oldest Master Mason then present into the chair, constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, pro tempore, in due form. At this meeting it was resolved to revive the Quarterly Communications of the Fraternity, and to hold the next annual assembly and feast on the 24th of June at the Goose and Gridiron, in Saint Paul's Chureh-Yard, in compliment to the oldest Lodge, which then met there, for the purpose of electing a Grand Master among themselves, till they should have the honor of a noble brother at their head.
Accordingly on Saint John the Baptist's day, 1717, in the third year of the reign of King George I, the Assembly and Feast were held at the said house- when the oldest Master Mason and the Master of a Lodge having taken the chair, a list of proper candidates for the office of Grand Master svas produced; and the names being separately proposed, the Brethren, by a great majority of hands, elected Mr. Anthony Sayer Grand Master of Masons for the ensuing year- who was forthwith invested by the said oldest Master, installed by the Master of the oldest Lodge, and duly congratulated by the assembly, who paid him homage. The Grand Master then entered on the duties of his office, appointed his Wardens, and commanded the Brethren of the four Lodges to meet him and his Wardens quarterly in Communication; enjoining them at the sasne time to recommend to all the Fraternity a punctual attendance on the next annual Assembly and Feact.
This claim, that P'reemasonry was not for the first time orgariized, but only revived in 1717, has been attacked by some of those modern iconoclasts who refuse credence to anything traditional, or even to any record which is not supported hy other eontemporary authority. Chief among these is Brother W. P. Buchan, of England, who, in his numerous articles in the London Freemason (1871-2), has attacked the antiquity of Freemasonry, and refuses to give it an existence anterior to the year 1717.
His exact theory is that "our system of degrees, words, grips, signs, ete., was not in existence until about 1717 A.D." He admits, however, that certain of the "elements or groundwork" of the Degrees existed before that year, but not confined to the Freemasons being common to all the Gilds. He thinks that the present system was indebted to the inventive genius of Anderson and Desaguliers. And he supposes that it was simply "a reconstruction of an ancient society, namely, of some form of old Pagan philosophy. " Henee, he contends that it was not a revival, but only a renaissance, and he explains his meaning in the following language:
before the eighteenth century we had a renaissance of Pagan architecture; then, to follow suit, in the eighteenthcentury we had a renaissance in a new dress of Pagan mysticism, but for neither are we indebted to the Operative Masons, although the Operative Masons were made use of in both cases (London Freemason, September 23, 1871).
Buchan's theory has been attacked by Brothers William J. Hughan and Chalmers I. Paton. That he is right in his theory, that the three Degrees of Master, Fellow Craft, and Apprentice were unknown to the Freemasons of the seventeenth century, and that these classes existed only as gradations of rank, will be very generally admitted.
But there is unquestionable evidence that the modes of recognition, the method of government, the legends, and much of our ceremonial of initiation, were in existence among the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, and were transmitted to the Speculative Freemasons of the eighteenth century. The work of Anderson, of Desaguliers, and their contemporaries, was to improve and to enlarge, but not to invent. The Masonic system of the present day has been the result of a slow but steady growth. Just as the lectures of Anderson, known to us from their publication in 172.S were probably modified and enlarged by the suecessive labors of Clare, of Dunekerley. of Preston and of Hemming, did he and Desaguliers submit the simple ceremonial, which they found at the reorganization of the Grand Lodge in 1717, to a similar modifieation and enlargement.
- REVOKE
When a Dispensation is issued by a Grand Master for the organization of a Lodge, it is granted "to continue of force until the Grand Lodge shall grant a Warrant, or until the Dispensation is revoked by the Grand Master or the Grand Lodge." A Dispensation may therefore be revoked at any time by the authority which issued it, or by a higher authority. Charters are arrested, forfeited, or declared null and void; Dispensations are revoked.
- RHETORIC
The art of embellishing language with the ornaments of construction, so as to enable the speaker to persuade or affect his hearers. It supposes and requires a proper acquaintance with the rest of the liberal arts; for the first step toward adorning a discourse is for the speaker to become thoroughly acquainted with its subject. and hence the ancient rule that the orator should be acquainted with all the arts and seiences. Its importance as a branch of liberal education is recommended to the Free mason in the Fellow Craft's Degree. It is one of the seven liberal arts and sciences, the second in order (see Liberal Arts and Sciences), and is described in the ancient Constitutions as "retorieke that teacheth a man to speake faire and in subtill terms" (see Harleian Manuscript, Number 1942).
- RHODE ISLAND
Tradition states that Freemasonry in Rhode Island began as early as the Seventeenth Century but the first Lodge known to exist was Saint John's at Newport, warranted December 27, 1749, by Saint John's Provincial Grand Lodge of Boston, Mass. A second Warrant was issued May 14, 1753, because for some reason Caleb Phillips, the Master, witheld its Charter from the Lodge. Authorized only to confer the First and Second Degrees the new Lodge took no account of the restriction and on being questioned made out so strong a case that a Charter conferring the additional powers was granted to it.
On June 27, 1791, the day of the celebration of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, representatives of Saint John's Lodge, Newport, and King David's Lodge of the same place, met in the State House and organized a Grand Lodge. Moses Seixas presided and installed the officers who had been elected. A service as afterwards held at Trinity Chureh and a collection of eleven pounds, nine shillings and four pence was given to purchase wood for the poor in the coming winter.
Washington Chapter of New York chartered Providence Royal Arch Chapter on September 3, 1793. this Body was among the Chapters which on March 12, 1798, met and organized a Grand Chapter of Rhode Island, which later helped to organize the General Grand Chapter and continued a member of it antil the Civil War of 1861-5. After some years ' interval it again sent representatives in 1897.
Companion Jeremy L. Cross chartered a Council in 1819 at Providence which had been established by a meeting of Royal Masters on March 28, 1818. During the Morgan excitement meetings were not held and the Council lay dormant until 1841. On October 30, 1860, a Grand Council was organized.
The first Knights Templar Body in Rhode Island was Saint John's Encampment at Providence, formed on August 23, 1802, at Masons Hall in the Board of Trade Building. It was founded by Sir Thomas Smith Webb who remained in office from 1802 until 1815. A Convention held on May 6, 1805, opened a Grand Encampment for Massschusetts and Rhode Island, which is claimed by the Massachusetts authorities to have been the first Grand Encampment in the United States. Pennsylvania, however, ataches this distinction to the Grand Encampment opened in Philadelphia in 1797, but it is thought probable that the ritual used by that Body was different from that in use in the Massachusetts Encampment.
The Charters of Solomon's Lodge of Perfection and Rhode Island Consistory, both issued in 1849, were destroyed by fire and new ones were issued on September 17, 1896, by the Supreme Council, Northen Masonic Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. On December 14, 1849, were established, also at Providence, Rhode Island Council of princes of Jerusalem and Rhode Island Chapter of Rose Croix. On the same day the Van Rensselaer lodge of Perfection was chartered at Newport.
- RHODES
An island in the Mediterranean Sea, which, although nominally under the government of the Emperor of Constantinople, was in 1308 in the possession of Saracen pirates. In that year, Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalers, having landed with a large force, drove out the Saracens and took possession of the island, which became the seat of the Order, who removed to it from Cyprus and continued to occupy it until it was retaken by the Saracens in 1522, when the knights were transferred to the Island of Malta. Their residence for over two hundred years at Rhodes caused them sometimes to receive the title of the Knights of Rhodes.
- RHODESIA
A territory in South Africa. There have been Lodges in this State under the control of the Grand Lodge of Scotland at the following places: Bulawayo, Gwelo, Salisbury, Sinoia, Umtali, Umvuma, and Victoria. Several Lodges have also been constituted by England and one by the Grand Orient of the Netherlands.
- RHODES, KNIGHT OF
See Knight of Rhodes
- RIBBON
The use of a ribbon, with the official jewel suspended and attached to a buttonhole instead of the collar, adapted by sorne Arnerican Lodges, is a violation of the ancient customs of the Order. The collar cut in a triangular shape, with the jewel suspended from the apex, dates from the earliest time of the revival, and is perhaps as old as the apron itself (see Collar).
- RICHARD, THE LION
Richard I (1157 A.D. - 1199 A.D.), King of England, known as Coeur de Lion, was the hero and model of the Crusaders just as Sir Philip Sidney, four centuries later, was to become the hero and model of chivalry. Two men less alike it would be difficult to imagine, and the fact that each was a beau ideal of chivalry shows how much knighthood was altered between the Twelfth Century and the Sixteenth Century. Richard was more French that English, a great, powerful fellow, with red-gold hair to his shoulders, a French beard, with arms of prodigious strength, wild, moody, untamed, and almost completely ignorant. His mother was Eleanor of Guinnee divorced wife of Louis who had abandoned the crusade of 1149 because of her; her second husband was Henry of Anjou, who had been adjudged guilty of the murder of Thomas a Becket. Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, but neglected her as long as he lived. He went off as a crusader to the Holy Land after he became King of England; he had no reason to do so, he had no just right to bankrupt his country to pay the expenses for so harum scarum an adventure, and he betrayed his complete lack of any sense of the realities by leaving his treacherous brother John behind in England. When Richard arrived at Acre where the Crusaders were in the midst of their long siege of the city he was ill in bed, but he had himself carried within sight of the walls; and as soon as he was able to stay on his feet went into the thick of the unmerciful fighting. From then until the evening of the time for the attack on Jerusalem he flashed everywhere like a meteor, of suicidal courage and with miraculous skill, tore into the Moslem lines alone, fought in water to his neck, ambushed a caravan in the night after it had traveled from Egypt and captured the whole of it, tore Acre apart, won impossible battles, and became a hero even to his enemies, including Saladin, who named him Malik Ric. Historians can never agree on Richard because he was a bundle of contradictions—even to himself. He was the world's best warrior yet self-admittedly was a failure as a general. He could face twenty-five Saracens single-handed yet trembled if he lost a goodluck charm. No punctilio of chivalry was too small for him to observe, yet he slaughtered hundreds of civilians peaceably leading their caravan in the dark. On one day he cold-bloodedly massacred hundreds of unarmed prisoners for whose safety he had pledged his word; the next he sent to ask of Saladin a personal favor. He risked his life a hundred times to rescue the Holy Sepulcher, yet proposed to marry off his sister Joanna to a Saracen general. After leading his army to the walls of Jerusalem he abruptly stopped and went back home. On his return voyage he suddenly, and out of whim, decided to go back overland through Hungary; it is believed that he was captured there and was for long held a prisoner, but the facts of the matter have never been discovered, and probably never will be. Not long after his return to England he was killed in a castle brawl. Was he by nature and at bottom a brawler? Did he owe his fame to his large and handsome physique? Scott's picture of the jousting Richard in Ivanhoe is wholly fiction; but a historian cannot help but fear that sny other pieture of this Christianized barbarian may be equally a fiction. He is the complete enigma. (King Richard was called Richard the Lion. In later generations, and possibly by the Freneh in their old tales of chivalry, he nvas given the nickname of Richard the Lion-Hearted, or Coeur de Lion.)
- RICHARDSON, JAMES DANIEL
Born, March 10, 1843, Rutherford County, Tennessee, making his home at Murfreesboro though in Washington, District of Columbia, a large part of a busy career. An enlisted soldier at eighteen, after a year's service he became Adjutant, May 20, 1862, and served throughout the Civil War. Speaker of the Tennessee Legislature, 1871, at twenty-eight years of age; State Senator, 1873; nominated for Congress, August 14, 1884, and served continuously for twenty years, declining further political offiee to give from 1905 his entire energies to the Scottish Rite. Elected Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction four years previously he concluded to make a choice between the two occupations. Raised, October 12, 1867, in Moriah Lodge No. 18, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; served as Master, then Grand Master, 1873-4; exalted, June 23, 1868, Pythagoros Chapter; a mernber of Murfreesboro Council; and knighted in Baldwin Commandery No. 7, Lebanon, Tennessee, June 7, 1869, and was Eminent Commander, Murfreesboro Commandery No. 10. Received the Ineffable Seottish Rite Degrees from General Albert Pike and Deputy Pitkin C. Wright, October 9, 1881; the Rosc Croix on October 11, at Nashville; the Kadosh from Brother Wright at Murfreesboro, October 24, 1881, and from this Brother the Thirty-first and Thirtysecond Degrees were at the same place also communicated on October 27. Elected Knight Commander, Court of Honor, October 23, 1884; coroneted Honorary, December 29, 1884; an Active Member of the Supreme Council, October 23, 1885. Sueeeeded Brother O. S. Long, of West Virginia, as Lieutenant Grand Commander, and in October 1901, elected Grand Commander, following Judge Thomas H. Caswell who died November 13, 1900. He presided at the International Conference of Supreme Councils at Washington, October, 1911; gave liberally of time and energy to the planning and construction of the magnificent House of the Temple, and was also an author of several scholarly historical books. His prompt and continued encouragement of the writer of these lines is a treasured memory and a gladly acknowledged fraternal service. Deputy Provincial Grand Master, Royal Order of Scotland, 1901, he became Provincial Grand Master, 1903. His death occurred on July 24, 1914.
- RIDDICK AWARD
A medal awarded annually by the Grand Lodge of Missouri to the Freemason of that Masonic Jurisdiction who during the preceding twelve months has rendered the most conspicuous constructive service to his Country, State or Community. The award is named in honor of Past Grand Master Thomas Fiveash Riddick who was elected to preside over the Grand Lodge at its organization in 1821, and who contributed notable service to the public school system of Missouri. The reason for so naming the award is because of the service rendered by Brother Riddick who rode overland to Washington, District of Columbia, and returned without fee or reward with the sole idea of securing for the State title to all unclaimed land within the State, which land was turned over to the school fund.
- RIDEL, CORNELIUS JOHANN RUDOLPH
Born at Hamburg, May 25, 1759, and died at Weimar, January 16, 1821. He was an active and learned Freemason, and for many years the Master of the Lodge Amalia at Weimar. In 1817, he published in four volumes an elaborate and valuable work entitled Versuch eines Alphabetischen Verzeichnisses, u. s. w., that is, An essay toward an Alphabetical Catalogue of important nts, for the knowledge and history of Freemasonry and especially for a critical ezamination of the origin and growth of the varwus rituals and systems from 1717-1817.
- RIGHT ANGLE
A right angle is the meeting of two lines in an angle of ninety degrees, or the fourth part of a eirele. Each of its tines is perpendicular to the other; and as the perpendicular line is a symbol of uprightness of conduct, the right angle has been adopted by Freemasons as an emblem of virtue Such was also its signification among the Pythagoreans. The right angle is represented in the Lodges by the square, as the horizontal is by the level, and the perpendicular by the plumb.
- RIGHT EMINENT
An epithet prefixed to the title of the Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Knights Template of the United States, and to that of the Grand Commander of a State.
- RIGHT EXCELLENT
The epithet prefixed to the title of all superior officers of a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry below the dignity of a Grand High Priest.
- RIGHT HAND
The right hand has in all ages been deemed an important symbol to represent the virtue of fidelity. Among the ancients, the right hand and fidelity to an obligation were almost deemed synonymous terms. Thus, among the Romans, the expression faZlere deItram, that is to betray the right hand, also signified to violate faith; and jungere deztras, meaning to join right hands, and thereby to give a mutual pledge. Among the Hebrews, tar, iamin, the right hand, was derived from aman, to be faithful. The practise of the ancients was conformable to these peculiarities of idiom. Among the Jews, to give the right hand was considered as a mark of friendship and fidelity. Thus Saint Paul says (Galatians ii, 9), "when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hunds of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision." The same expression, also, occurs in Maccabees. We meet, indeed, continually in the Scriptures with allusions to the right hand as an emblem of truth and fidelity. Thus in Psalm cxliv, it is said, "their right hand is a right hand of falsehood," that is to say, they lift up their right hand to swear to what is not true. This lifting up of the right hand was in fact, the universal mode adopted among both Jews and Pagans in taking an oath. The custom is certainly as old as the days of Abraham, who said to the King of Salem,"I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take anything that is thine." Sometimes among the Gentile nations, the right hand, in taking an oath, was laid upon the horns of the altar, and sometimes upon the hand of the person administering the oblization. But in all cases it was deemed necessary, to the validity and solemnity of the attestation, that the right hand should be employed. Since the introduction of Christianity, the use of the right hand in contracting an oath has been continued, but instead of extending it to heaven, or seizing with it a horn of the altar, it is now directed to be placed upon the Holy Scriptures, which is the universal mode at this day in all Christian countries. The antiquity of this usage may be learned from the fact, that in the code of the Emperor Theodosius, adopted about the year 438, the placing of the right hand on the Gospels is alluded to; and in the Code of Justinian (book ii, title 53, law i), whose date is the year 529, the ceremony is distinctly laid down as a necessary part of the formality of the oath, in the words tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis, meaning the Holy Gospels being touched. This constant use of the right hand in the most sacred attestations and solemn compacts, was either the cause or the consequence of its being deemed an emblem of fidelity. Doctor Potter (Greek Archeology, page 229) thinks it was the cause, and he supposes that the right hand was naturally used instead of the left, because it was more honorable, as being the instrument by which superiors give commands to those below them. Be this as it may, it is well known that the custom existed universally, and that there are abundant allusions in the most ancient writers to the junction of right hands in making compacts. The Romans had a goddess whose name was Fides, or Fidelity, whose temple was first consecrated by Numa. Her symbol was two right hands joined, or sometimes two human figures holding each other by the right hands, whence, in all agreements among the Greeks and Romans, it was usual for the parties to take each other by the right hand, in token of their intention to adhere to the compact. By a strange error for so learned a man, Doctor Oliver mistakes the name of this goddess, and calls her Faith. "The spurious Freemasonry," he remarks, "had a goddess called Faith." No such thing. Fides, or as Horace calls her, incorrupta Fides, or incorruptible Fidelity, is very different from the theological virtue of Faith. The joining of the right hands was esteemed among the Persians and Parthians as conveying a most inviolable obligation of fidelity. Hence, when King Artabanus desired to hold a conference with his revolted subject, Asineus, who was in arms against him, he despatehed a messenger to him with the request, who said to Asineus, "the king hath sent me to give you his right hand and security," that is, a promise of safety in going and coming. And when Asineus sent his brother Asileus to the proposed conference, the king met him and gave him his right hand, upon which Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, book xviii, chapter ix) remarks: "This is of the greatest force there with all these barbarians, and affords a firm security to those who hold intercourse with them; for none of them will deceive, when once they have given you their right hands, nor will any one doubt of their fidelity, when that is once given, when though they were before suspected of injustice." Stephens (Travels in Yucatan, volume ii, page 474) gives the following account of the use of the right hand as a symbol among the Indian tribes: In the course of many spears' residence on the frontiers including various journeyings among the tribes, I have had frequent occasion to remark the use of the right hand as a symbol, and it is frequently applied to the naked body after its preparation and decoration for sacred or festive dances. And the fact deserves further consideration from these preparations being generally made in the arcanum of the secret Lodge, or some other Private place, and with all the skill of the adept's art. The mode of applying it in these cases is by smearing the hand of the operator with white or colored clay, and impressing it on the breast, the shoulder, or other part of the body. The idea is thus conveyed that a secret influence, a charm, a mystical power is given, arising from his sanctity, or his proficiency in the occult arts. The use of the hand is not confined to a single tribe or people. I have noticed it alike among the Dacotahs, the Winnebagoes, and other Western tribes, as among the numerous branches of the red race still located east of the Mississippi River, above the latitude of 42 degrees, who speak dialects of the Algorlquin language. It is thus apparent that the use of the right hand a token of sincerity and a pledge of fidelity, is as ancient as it is universal; a fact which will account for the important station which it occupies among the symbols of Freemasonry (see North, Hand, and Oath, Corporal, also Obligation).
- RIGHT HAND
In addition to the facts drawn from the history of religion which are given in the article beginning at page 856, it is interesting to note that general philology, and etymology in particular, have been contributing new data to a subject which has become as engrossing to psychologists, physiologists, and specialists in education as it always has been to symbologists. The etymology of the oldest words in our language is a tricky and uncertain branch of scholarship, and long has been one in which it is fatal to dogmatize, but the origins of 'right' and 'left' have been worked out with what may be accepted as reliability. To the Latin-speaking Romans the name for 'right' in 'right hand' was dezzer, whence we have 'dexterity'; it in turn was probably derived from the Sanskrit daksh which meant 'to the strong, skilled, able', so that the right hand was believed to be the more skilled of the two. The word 'ambidextrous' therefore means literally 'two right hands' in the sense that one is as skilled as the other. The Latin name for the left hand as sinister. The English word 'left' is derived from a group of Teutonic words with the general meaning of 'weak'. In the French the word describing the left hand was gauche, from which comes our 'gawky,' meaning awkward, and our 'gaucherie' meaning 'awkward and clumsy in manners.' Because Latin-speaking peoples looked upon the left hand as the lower or more awkward, 'sinister' came to denote anything questionable, back-handed, threatening, treacherous; something of that old meaning is preserved in such phrases as 'left-handed compliment,' 'left-handed marriage' (morganatic), etc.; and the opposite is preserved in 'right-hand man,' 'good right arm,' etc. In the Sanskrit rju mas 'straight'; from it came the Latin rectus, as in 'direct,' 'correct,' 'rectitude,' etc., and the German recht, from which last was derived our 'right.' The French droit came from the Latin directus, went back through diestre to deltera, or 'right'; thus in modern French Droit becomes 'the law,' and is so named because law (or government) compels men to do that which is 'right.' In Greek the nord for 'right' was orthos, and is preserved in 'orthodoxy' ('right teaching') and a constellation of words with a similar prefix. In the beginnings of parliamentary government a chief or ruler sat before his council. Those who were favored by him, or u ho supported him against critics, he placed on his right; those who criticized him, or were in opposition, he placed on his left. This old political use of 'right' and 'left' came back into popularity between World Wars I and II during which time socialist, communistic, and radical politicians were 'of the left,' conservatives, defenders of the status quo, and reactionaries, were 'of the right.' In the emblems of the Third Degree clasped hands are the sign of fidelity, but it is nowhere apparent that the ancient ideas associated with the right hand are embodied in it. The symbolism of the 'right' or dexter side is found elsewhere in the Degree, w here the Worshipful Master extends his right hand to the Candidate, and in doing so calls the latter's attention to the fact that it is his right hand; but the symbolism in it does not refer back to the leing and his council, rather, as the language makes plain, it is a sign of fellowship, and there is no suggestion there (or elsewhere) that the membership in a Lodge ever is, or can be, divided into 'right' and 'left'; for where the lying extended his right hand only to his own friends and favorites, the Master extends his to each and every Candidate without exception. Man is by virtue of his anatomy right-handed. Statistics compiled by psychologists appear to prove that about ten percent of children are left-handed 'from birth' but anatomy makes this impossible to believe; it is almost certain that what occurs is that babies begin more to less accidentally to 'favor' the left hand over the right, and continue with the habit in later life. It is not only in his lands that he is righthanded; a man's whole body is so constituted as to make it the normal thing for him to use his right side, right arm and shoulder, and right leg and foot to do that which calls for more skill, although it does not follow that the left is unskilled—it is skilled in a different way, and its function is to support the right side.
- RIGHT SIDE
Among the Hebrews, as well as e Greeks and Romans, the right side was considered perior to the left; and as the right was the side of ad, so was the left of bad omen. Dexter, or right, signified also propitious, and sinister or left, unlucky. In the Scriptures we find frequent allusions to this supriority of the right. Jacob, for instance, called his youngest and favorite child, Ben-jamin, the son of his right hand, and Bathsheba, as the king's mother, was placed at the right hand of Solomon (see Left Side).
- RIGHT WORSHIPFUL
An epithet frequently applied in many Jurisdictions of the United States to all Grand Officers below the dignity of a Grand Master. Pennsylvania is an exception to the general male in this respect. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania is addressed as Right Worshipf ul and this is also applied to the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, Senior Grand Warden, Junior Grand Warden, Grand Treasurer, Grand Secretary, Past Grand Masters and Past Deputy Grand Masters. The Ahiman Rezon, or Book of Constitutions, gives the official title of the Grand Lodge as The Right Worshipful Grand Lodge of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania, and Masonic Jurisdiction Thereunto Belonging.
- RING, LUMINOUS
See Academy of Sublime Masters of the Luminous Ring.
- RING, MASONIC
The ring, as a symbol of the Covenant entered into with the Order, as the wedding ring is the symbol of the Covenant of Marriage, is worn in some of the higher Degrees of Freemasonry. It is not used in Ancient Craft Masonry. In the Order of the Temple the Ring of Profession, as it is called, is of gold, having on it the cross of the Order and the letters P. D. E. P., being the initials of Pro Deo et Patria, For God and Country. It is worn on the index finger of the right hand. The Inspectors General of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite wear a ring. Inside is the motto of the Order, Deus meumque jus, God and my right. In the Fourteenth Degree of the same Rite a ring is worn, which is described as "a plain gold ring," having inside the motto, Virtus junxit, mors non separabit, What virtue joins, death cannot separate. The use of the ring as a symbol of a covenant may be traced very far back into antiquity. In this connection (note, Genesis xli, 42). The Romans had a marriage ring, but according to Swinburne, the great canonist, it was of iron, with a jewel of adamant "to signify the durance and perpetuity of the contract. " In reference to rings worn in the higher Degrees of Freemasonry, it may be said that they partake of the double symbolism of power and affection. The ring, as a symbol of power and dignity, was worn in ancient times by kings and men of elevated rank and office.. Thus Pharaoh bestowed a ring upon Joseph as a mark or token of the power he had conferred upon him, for which reason the people bowed the knee to him. It is in this light that the ring is worn by the Inspectors of the Ancient and Aeeepted Scottish Freemasonry as representing the Sovereigns of the Rite. But those who receive only the Fourteenth Degree, in the same Rite, wear the ring as a symbol of the Covenant of Affection and Fidelity into which they have entered. Up until and including the 1921 Statutes, the rings in the Southern Masonie Jurisdietion, of both the Fourteenth Degree and the Thirty-third Degree, were worn on the right hand. This was the usage in the Southern Jurisdiction always from early lays. At the 1923 Session of the Supreme Council, a new set of Statutes was adopted, which provided among other things that the Fourteenth Degree ring should be worn on the third finger of the left hand and a Thirty-third degree ring on the little finger of the left hand. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, a Fourteenth Degree ring is similarly worn, but the Thirty-third Degree ring is also placed on the third finger of the left hand. While on the subject of the ring as a symbol of Masonic meaning, it will not be irrelevant to refer to the magic ring of King Solomon, of xvhieh both the Jews and the Mohammedans have abundant traditions. The latter, indeed, have a book on magic rings, entitled Scalcuthal, in which they trace the ring of Solomon from Jared, the father of Enoch. It was by means of this ring, as a talisman of wisdom and power, that Solomon was, they say, enabled to perform those wonderful acts anal accomplish those vast enterprises that have made his name so celebrated as the wisest monarch of the earth.
- RIPEN, LORD
George Frederick Samuel Robin son was born in 1827, son of the first Earl of Ripon He was elected to the House of Commons in 1852 became Secretary of War, Secretary of State for India, Lord President of the Council, Viceroy of India, Lord Privy Seal in Asquith'6 Cabinet. He died in 1908. He was made a Mason in 1853, and from the first became so absorbed in the Craft that he went through the chairs of his Lodge; after working in his Provineial Grand Lodge he was elected Deputy Grand Master Grand Lodge of England, in 1861; and in 1870 mas elected Grand Master. The following year he vas sent by his government to Washington, D. C., to negotiate the American Government's claims against the British Government for damage done by The Alabama, a raider built, fitted, and munitioned bv the British for use by the Confederate States in violation of both treaty and international law. While here, Lord Ripon, the first Grand Master to visit America while in office, u as guest of honor at what until that date was the most brilliant function in American hIa sonry, a reception tendered him by the Grand Lodge, District of Columbia, attented by delegates from every other Grand Lodge, including Southern Grand Lodges. When the Grand Lodge of England met on September 2, 187A, an unusually large throng awaited the Grand Master's appearance; instead of his coming he sent a letter, Mhich left the assembly stunned: "I am sorry to inform you that I find myself unable any longer to discharge the duties of Grand Master ... etc." The people of England were as greatly stunned as the Masons when it transpired that Lord Ripon had become a convert to Roman Catholicism, and had retired from the Fraternity upon orders from his priestly adviser. The London Times n as always cautious about mentioning the Craft but in this instance it could not remain quiet; after suggesting some hitherto hidden weakness of character it went on to discuss how un-English Roman Catholicism was. Provincial Grand Master Tew expressed surprise that a Grand Master should leave the Craft "because of a change in his religions opinions." Although Lord Ripon confided in nobody his private reasons for his defections, a guess can be hazarded: after Cardinal John Henry l! Tewman had been guilty of a similar defection from the Church of England, he became a Romanist missionary to the educated and cultured upper classes, and with his famous book Apologia Pro l ita Sua had insinuated the Romanist notions into a number of English aristocrats in pages of one of the most beautiful styles of English prose ever written; the course followed by Lord Ripon in his conversion was typically a "Newman conversion." He was followed in the office of Grand Master by the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. Two of England's previous Grand Masters had been Roman Catholics, Lords Petre and Montague, but in the Eighteenth Century and before the Roman Church had dared to enforce her rules of excommunication. Lord Ripon's Brethren forgave him, indulged in no recriminations, but they felt that he should have taken them into his confidence beforehand instead of sending a brusque bolt out of the blue. The Roman Church based its condemnation of the Craft on the ground that Freemasonry is morally corrupt, atheistic, and is conspiring to destroy government; with a convert of stainless moral character on their hands who for four years had been Grand Master and with their own prospective King installed as his successor, the English priests could not help but know how false their own charges were, and yet were helpless to undo in London the folly of excommunication committed by an Italian Pope in Rome; they were in a curious moral dilemma. (See English-Speaking Freemasonry, by Sir Alfred Robbins; consult index. Freemasonry and Roman Catholicism, by H. L. Haywood; Masonic History Co.; Chicago; 1944.) NOTE. Freemasonry had yet another reason to remember the famous ease of the Alabama claims. In 1848 Michael Flanagan was initiated in Phoenix Lodge No. 94, at Sunderland. He was a sea captain, ran a hardware store and was a very popular gentleman." About every three months he made "a little sail" out into the Atlantic; why nobody could guess, after the Civil War it came out that his "little sail" was into mid-ocean to carry instructions to the Alabama! He had kept them hidden in his hardware store. The Alabama had carried on so devastating a series of raids that the British Government had to settle damages for no less than three million pounds. Lord Ripon was the first English Grand Master to visit America while in office; others had been here before or after their Grand Mastership, the Earl of London among them.
- RISING SUN
The rising Sun is represented by the Master, because as the sun by his rising opens and governs the day, so the Master is taught to open and govern his Lodge with equal regularity and precision.
- RITE
The Latin word ritus, Whence we get the English Rite, signifies an approved usage or custom, or an external observance. Vossius derives it by metathesis, a transposition of letters or sounds, from the Greek whence literally it signifies a trodden path, and, metaphorically, a long-followed custom As a Masonic term its application is therefore apparent. It signifies a method of conferring Masonic light by a collection and distribution of Degrees. It is, in other words, the method and order observed in the government of a Masonic system. The original system of Speculative Freemasonry consisted of only the three Symbolic Degrees, called, therefore, Ancient Craft Masonry. Such was the condition of Freemasonry at the time of what is called the Revival in 1717. Hence, this was the original Rite or approved usage, and so it continued in England until the year 1813, when at the union of the two Grand Lodges the Holy Royal Arch was declared to be a part of the system; and thus the English Rite was made legitimately to consist of four Degrees.
But on the Continent of Europe, the organization of near systems began at a much earlier period, and by the invention of what are known as the advanced degrees a multitude of Rites was established. All of these agreed in one important essential. They were built upon the three Symbolic Degrees, which, in every instance, constituted the fundamental basis upon which they were erected. They were intended as an expansion and development of the Masonic ideas contained in these Degrees. The Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master's Degree were the porch through which every initiate was required to pass before he could gain entrance into the inner temple which had been erected by the founders of the Rite. They were the tent and the advanced degrees the commentary.
Hence arises the law, that whatever may be the constitution and teachings of any Rite as to the advanced Degrees peculiar to it, the three Symbolic Degrees being common to all the Rites, a Master Mason, in any one of the Rites, may visit and labor in a Master's Lodge of every other Rite. It is only after that Degree is passed that the exclusiveness of each Rite begins to operate.
There has been a multitude of these Rites. Some of them have lived only with their authors, and died when their parental energy in fostering them ceased to exert itself. Others have had a more permanent existence, and still continue to divide the Masonic family, furnishing, however, only diverse methods of attaining to the same great end, the acquisition of divine Truth by Masonic light Ragon, in his Tuilier General, Supplies us with the names of a hundred and eight, under the different titles of Rites, Orders, and academies But many of these are un-masonic, being merely of a political, social or literary character. The following catalogue embraces the most important of those which has e hitherto or still continue to arrest the attention of the Masonic student:
- 1. York Rite.
- 2. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite
- 3. French or Modern Rite.
- 4. American Rite.
- 5. Philosophic Scottish Rite.
- 6. Primitive Scottish Rite.
- 7. Reformed Rite.
- 8. Reformed Helvetica Rite.
- 9. Fessler's Rite.
- 10. Schröder's Rite.
- 11. Rite of Grand Lodge of Three Globes.
- 12. Rite of the Elect of Truth.
- 13. Rite of the Vielle Bru.
- 14. Rite of the Chapter of Clermont.
- 15. Pernetty's Rite.
- 16. Rite of the blazing Star.
- 17. Chastanier's Rite.
- 18. Rite of the Philallethes
- 19. Primitive Rite of the Philadelphians.
- 20. Rite of Martinism.
- 21. Rite of brother Henoch.
- 22. Rite of Mizraim.
- 23. Rite of Memphis.
- 24. Rite of Strict Observance.
- 25. Rite of Lax Observance.
- 26. Rite of African Architects.
- 27. Rite of Brothers of Asia.
- 28. Rite of Perfection.
- 29. Rite of Elected Cohens.
- 30. Rite of Emperors of East and West.
- 31. Primitive Rite of Narbonne.
- 32. Rite of the Order of the Temple.
- 33. Swedish Rite.
- 34. Rite of Swedenborg.
- 35. Rite of Zinnendorf.
- 36. Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro.
- 37. Beneficent Knights of the Holy City.
These Rites are not here given in either the order of date or of importance. The distinct history of each will be found under its appropriate title.
- RITE DES ELUS COENS, OU PRETRES
The Freneh for Rite of Elect Cohens, or Priests. A system adopted in 1750, but which did not attain its full vigor until twenty-five years thereafter, when Lodges were opened in Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. The devotees of Martinez Pasqualis, the founder, were called Martirlistes, and were partly Hermetic and partly Swedenborgian in their teachings. Martinez was a religious man, and based his teachings partly on the Jewish Cabala and partly on Hermetic supernaturalism.
The grades were as follows in French:
- 1. Apprenti
- 2. Compagnon
- 3. Maitre
- 4. Grand Elu
- 5. Apprenti Coen
- 6. Compagnon Coen
- 7. Maitre Coen
- 8. Grand Architecte
- 9. Grand Commandeur
- RITE OF THE GRAND LODGE OF PHILADELPHES
See Memphis, Rite of
- RITTER
German for Knight, as Der Preußische Ritter, meaning the Prussian Knight. The word is not, however, applied to a Knight Templar, who is more usually called Tempelherr; although, when spoken of as a Knight of the Temple, he would be styled Ritter vom Tempel.
- RITUAL
The mode of opening and closing Lodge, of conferring the Degrees, of installation, and Other duties, constitute a System of ceremonies which are called the Ritual. Much of this Ritual is esoteric, and, not being permitted to be committed to writing, is communicated only by oral instruction. In each Masonic Jurisdiction it is required, by the superintending authority, that the Ritual shall be the same; but it more or less differs in the different Rites and Jurisdictions But this does not affect the universality of Freemasonry.
The Ritual is only the external and extrinsic form. The doctrine of Freemasonry is everywhere the same. It is the Body which is unchangeable—remaining always and everywhere the same. The Ritual is but the outer garment which covers this Body, which is Subject to continual variation It is right and desirable that the Ritual should be made perfect, and everywhere alike. But if this be impossible, as it is, this at least will console us, that while the ceremonies, or Ritual, have varied at different periods, and still vary in different countries, the science and philosophy, the symbolism and the religion, of Freemasonry continue, and will continue to be the same wherever true Freemasonry is practiced.
Little can be added to the above paragraph lay brother Mackey without perhaps saying too much. The reader must fill in between the lines. But the pages of the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati and particularly the papers by Brother E. L. Hawkins are well worth study. The National Masonic Research Society has in every volume of the Builder had Something of highly suggestive value on the subject, especially the essays by Brothers Silas H. Shepherd (volume 1, page 166); Roscoe Pound (volume 3, page 4); Louis H. Fead, R. J. Meekren, A. L. Cress, Ray V. Denslow, H. L. Haywood, C. C. linnt, Ernest E. Thiemeyer, and others. Brother Lionel Vibert in MiscelZanea Latow Zoruwn, Bath, l gland, has had many noteworthy comments; also brother C. C. Hunt, Iowa Masonic Bulletin (No. 4, 1922, and No. 1, 1923). Brother Melvin M. Johnson, New England Craftsman (April, 1923) has a most cresting commentary on Masonic Ritual in America before l750.
An able address by Brother Roscoe Pound on The Causes of Divergence in Ritual was delivered before the Harvard Chapter of the Acacia fraternity during the school year, 1911-2, and was also submitted to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts (see Proceedings, 1915, page 143; also Builder, November, 1917, page 74). This valuable lecture was based on a critical study of various rituals and of the proceedings of Grand Lodges from the beginning. brother Shepherd, Notes on the Ritual, March 1914, published by the Wisconsin Grand Lodge Committee on Masonic Research, deals with the tradition, the simple ceremonies, the introduction of the work into the United States, Webb's participation, and the development of standards—a study of great importance and merit. Among Causes of divergence, a topic frequently arousing inquiry, Brother Pound mentions these:
Masonry was transplanted to this country (United States) while the ritual was still formative in many respects in England.
There were several foci, and, as it were, several subloci of Masonry in the United States, from each of which was transmitted its own version of what it received.
The schism of ancients and moderns which obtained in England in the last half of the eighteenth century, led to two rituals in this country during the formative period of America Masonry, and later these were fused in varying degrees in different Jurisdictions.
It was not until the end of the eighteenth century in England, and not until the first quarter of the nineteenth century in this country, that literal knowledge of the work was regarded as of paramount importance. Moreover, complete uniformity of work does not obtain in England, where two distinct schools perpetuate the work as taught by ancient Masonic teachers of the first part of the Last century.
New Grand Lodges were formed in this country by the union of lodges chartered from different States, and these unions gave rise to all sorts of combinations. Each Jurisdiction, when it established a Grand Lodge, became independent and preserved its ritual as it had received it or made it over by way of compromise, or worked it out, as a possession of its own.
As to the origin of the Ritual, there are many allusions elsewhere in this work to the Mysteries. The reader will also note various other sources of consequence and upon which he may further pursue research, as in the curious resemblance of certain ceremonies still found in religious observances of such bodies as the Benedictines (see account of ceremonial forms in English Black Monks of Saint Benedict, E. L. Taunton, 1898, Appendix). Also note Brother W. Simpson (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge. 1889, volume 22, page 17) says:
On the first of January, 1870, I saw in the great basilica of Saint Paul's without the walls at Rome, the ceremony known as the Profession of a Benedictine, that is the phrase meaning the reception of a monk into the Benedictine Order. At one point of the ceremony a black cloth was laid on the floor in front of the altar; on this the noviciate lay down and was covered with a black pall with silver lace on it.
A large candle stood at his head and another at his feet. There the man lay in semblance of death. The Abbot of the Order celebrated Mass, which occupied about half an hour. At the end of this the Deacon of the Mass came near to the prostrate figure, and reading from a book in his hand in Latin some words which were to this effect, " oh, thou that steepest arise to everlasting life." The man rose up and, if I remember right, received the sacrament. He then took his place amongst the Brethren of the Order, kissing each of them as he passed along. The proof that he is supposed to leave one state of existence and become a new individual is supplied by the fact that when I asked his name it was refused to me. I was told that henceforth he would be known as Jacobus—his old name went with the former existence. It is the same with nuns.
They all receive a new name and they also go through the semblance of death as a final ceremony of the Order. I have an amount of a ceremony that took place in the Monastery Church of Llanthony Abbey in Wales, of which Father Ignatius is the Superior and in which he took a leading part. A Sister was to receive the Blacks Veil. She entered the church dressed in white, as a bride, to be married to Christ. This Rite was celebrated by cutting off her hair, putting on the robes of a Benedictine Nun, including the Black Veil, and the marriage ring was put on her finger. The newly wedded bride was then led to a bier, covered with a pall and carried out of the church, while the burial service, "I am the resurrection and life," and "earth to earth, ashes to ashes," was uttered and the great bell of the Abbey tolled, while the chant for the dead was solemnly sung. This was in 1882 and on the Octave (Latin, applied to the eighth day of a festival) of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
There is at the Island of Caldey, off the Welsh coast, less than three miles from Tenby, a household of Benedictine Monks, who on every Friday during Lent give a Passion Play, lasting about two hours for its rendition, and similar in purpose, though original in arrangement and musical accessories, to the famous one exhibited at Oberammergau in Germany, while markedly unlike all others, and difficult to explain its appeal and power, let it be said that among the special features described for us are these:
Each character is represented by a monk—at other Passion Plays there are male and female actors. The monks are dressed in their habits, voluminous and of milk-white wool, all alike except the young Religious who represents the Christus, who is clad in a girded alb of white linen, reaching to the ground, and long stole, the emblem of priesthood. No character speaks. Thero is no scenery.
The action is not represented on a stage. On the contrary, the stage of the hall, in which the Passion Play is given, is occupied by the audience, who look down into what would (at any other representation) be the auditorium, in which the fourteen actions of the play take place. In place of dialogue there is this— behind curtains a group of chanters. To one falls throughout the function of recitative. He sings, to a plain, quick, even monotonous chant each scripture as it is called for describing the passage in the Redemption Tragedy which is at the moment being enacted. One chanter gives only the words of Peter, another those of Judas, or Pilate, or Caiaphas, the whole group sing when the multitude speak, and the chant is then harmonized. So of the words used by Christ; they are sung by an unseen singer. The lighting of the fourteen scenes is amazingly skillful and is also another instance of that amazingly perfect restraint.
There is light just enough, barely enough. and yet quite enough. Whence or how it comes does not appear. It is there, with no betrayal of mechanical throwing of it there. In the supreme scene of all it fades, absolutely imperceptibly, to complete darkness, till only the Crucified Himself is visible through the gloom, soundless, motionless, utterly alone. The words chanted are those of the Gospels only, without addition or paraphrase, and they are given in English, except that in certain scenes (as in that of the Entombment), where the characters are, by force of the narrative itself, silent, a few verses of the Stabat Slater (Latin hymn on the seven loves of Mary, so-called from opening words) are chanted to the solemn tones. At certain places, too, the audience, between the risings of the curtain, almost whisper one or other of the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary.
Let the student in seeking ritualistic light read also particularly the Gospels, beginning at Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 23, and John 20, and continuing to the ascension. He will understand according to his ability to receive and little or nothing more need be said by way of instruction here. Ceremonially, textually and permanently the Bible has so large a place in our ritualism that we cannot mine too deeply its contents in our search. Operative, we have advanced to speculative and there is much of the former in our Masonic system. Of this and its possibilities the pamphlet on Ancient Trade Guilds and Companies; Free Masons Guilds, Clement E. Stretton, and the Guild Charges, John Yarker, both of 1909, published by William Tait, Belfast, Ireland, are suggestive and have evoked much controversy over old operative customs still favored by Lodges of the kind working in Great Britain and the United States.
There is also a curious comparison of Masonic forms and customs with those of the Jesuits in Les Jesuits Chassés de la MaMonnerie et leur Poignard brisé par les Masons, 1788, and in this connection one notes with attention the reference in Loyola ard the Educational System of the Jesuits, Rev. Thomas Hughes, S. J. (chapter iv, page 232), the repeated reference to the Lion's Paw, "The paw shows the lion," "You can tell a lion by his paw," "Ex ungue leonem," etc., in a discourse are somewhat suggestive, but the other work is much more elaborate and detailed.
Here we may also in considering any lesson upon immortality mention the search for the body of the slain Osiris which was placed in a coffin and thrown into the sea. Thence it was east up later upon the shores of the Phenicia at the foot of a tamarack tree Here it was discovered through the search by Isis and brought back to Egypt for ceremonious burial. Of the same sort is the allusion in the third book of the Aeneid by Vergil. Here the hero, Aeneas, by means of a message given to him by the uprooting of a plant on the hillside, discovers the grave of a lost prince. A free translation is given as follows of this interesting story by the ancient Roman poet:
Near at hand there chanced to be sloping ground crested by trees and with a myrtle rough with spear like branches. Unto it I came. There I strove to tear from the earth its forest growth of foliage that the altars I might cover with the leafy boughs. But at that I saw a dreadful wonder, marvelous to tell. That tree first torn from the soil as its rooted fibers were wrenched asunder, black blood distilled in drops and gore stained the ground. My limbs shook with cold terror and the chill veins froze with fear.
Again I essayed to tear off one slender branch from another and thus thoroughly search for the hidden cause. From the bark of that one there descended purpled blood. Awaking in my mind many an anxious thought, I reverently beseeched the rural divinities and father Mars who presides over these Thracian territories, to kindly bless the vision and divert the evil of the omen. So a third time I grasped the boughs with greater vigor and on my knees struggled again with the opposing ground. Then I heard a piteous groan from the depths of the hill and unto mine ears there issued forth a voice. "Aeneas, why dost thou strive with an unhappy wretch? Now that I am in my grave spare me. Forbear with guilt to pollute thy pious hands To you Troy brought me forth no stranger. Oh, flee this barbarous land, flee the greedy shore. Polydore am I. Here an iron crop of darts hath me overwhelmed, transfixed, and over me shoots up pointed javelins."
Then indeed, depressed with perplexing fear at heart, was I stunned. On end stood my hair, to my jaws clung my tongue. This Polydore unhappy Priam formerly had sent in secrecy with a great weight of gold to be stored safely with the king of Thrace when Priam began to distrust the arms of Troy and saw the city blocked up by close siege.
The King of Thrace as soon as the power of the Trojans was crushed and gone their fortune, he broke every sacred bond, killed Polydore and by violence took his gold. Cursed greed of gold, to what dost thou not urge the hearts of men! When fear left my bones I reported the warnings of the gods to our chosen leaders and especially to my father, and their opinion asked. All agreed to quit that accursed country, abandon the corrupt associations, and spread our sails to the winds. Thereupon we renewed funeral rites to Polydore. A large hill of earth was heaped for the tomb. A memorial altar was reared to his soul and mournfully bedecked with grey wreaths and gloomy express. Around it the Trojan Patrons stood with hair disheveled according to the custom. We offered the sacrifices to the dead, bowls foaming with warm milk, and goblets of the sacred blood. We gave the soul repose in the grave, and with loud voice addressed to him the last farewell.
There is still another direction of inquiry. This relates to the possible influence of that buoyancy of spirit or exuberance of play that evolves rituals that are usually thought of as Side Degrees. Of these there are many, not a few old of evolution and even associated with the crafts. One of these is the old morality play, the Deposisio Cornuti Typographi, of which there are before us the particulars of the 1621 edition reprinted by William Blades, London, 1885, version credited to a German, John Rist, born 607, died 1667, and is an initiatory ceremony in which such instruments as the compasses had a part. Blades gives several comparisons with other trade and colleges and church customs. Of the latter there are still a number of old Churches well equipped for dramatically presenting the lessons of immortality ad these sepulchers have been employed for the deceit of the Cross about Easter and on that day to e lifted out in memory of the Lord and with rejoicing over the successful climax of the seared
- RITUAL, OPERATIVE MASONS AND
From the beginning of Medieval (or Operative) Freemasonry and almost to the Renaissance, the Roman church enforced a rigid censorship over, and control of, the use of ceremonies, rituals, symbols, emblems, sculptures, images, and pictures, even, in most instances, when not used in the Church or for religious purposes. It was not only matters of theological doctrines and ecclesiastical rules that the General Councils decided or the Popes enforced; the Councils also decided those other things as well, and including the authoring, illustrating, and copying of manuscripts; and a man could be declared a heretic for using an un-permitted ceremony as easily as for believing an unorthodox doctrine.
Thus, to give one example, for centuries the orthodox Crucifix was carved or modeled or painted with the two feet of the figure held apart; this required four nails; some unknown artist, with a sense for form, made a crucifix with the feet crossed, and therefore used only three nails. For years a controversy raged between the three nails school and the four nails school. A German bishop, finding that one of his churches had received a costly three-nail crucifix, was so indignant that he formed a procession and carried the unorthodox image out into the country, dumped It into a hole, and forbade any man ever to look at it. Painters were instructed by written rules what costumes a saint should wear, its color, what other figures could be included in the picture, etc.
Each Masonic student who is piecing together the external and internal evidence in an endeavor to discover what the ceremony or ritual of the early Operative Freemasons must have been, finds it necessary to keep the above facts in mind, just as he must keep in mind the fact that the General Council at Avignon forbade secret societies. Either the ceremonies and symbols were orthodox, in which case it becomes difficult to know why they were kept in such secrecy; or they were not orthodox, which explains the secrecy. And yet an Apprentice, as we know from the Old Charges, swore to be obedient and loyal to Holy Church! If so, how could such a pledge be asked in the midst of a ceremony which had to be walled in by secrecy, the door protected by a guard with a sword? The facts appear to complicate the question with one paradox on top of another; we can be certain that the builders of the cathedrals were not heretical we can also be certain that they held their assemblies behind closed doors!
The most likely answer is that their ceremonies, symbols, and truths (and no Mason should ever hesitate to call them truths) were neither heretical nor orthodox, but of a character so unlike any other ceremonies and symbols that the words "heretical" and "orthodox" were irrelevant; and that the Freemasons, than whom there were in the Middle Ages no men more intelligent, sincere, or better educated, knew them to be irrelevant and therefore had no scruples about them, one way or another.
They had constantly before them in their work and in their minds a set of arts and sciences which also were irrelevant to theology; for geometry, engineering, chemistry, and the physics of a building are self-same the world over, and cannot be made to conform to any one theological system. They called their own art by the name of "geometry" oftener than by any other name; since so it is reasonable to believe that they included their Freemasonry in the same species as geometry, something outside the spheres of the Church; and that they kept it secret for many sound and righteous reasons, among them being the danger that an art so mysterious to outsiders might be misunderstood and thereby occasion trouble.
- RITUALS USED BY ANCIENT GREEKS
The Ancient Mysteries of Greece, the Greater and the Lesser Mysteries of the Eleusinia in particular, have received attention from Masonic historians, because rituals of initiation were employed in them, and many symbols and emblems. But the Greek use of ritual w as not confined to the Mysteries; on the contrary the Mysteries employed but a fraction of the rituals, for the Greek people were fond of them, employed them for a hundred purposes, and as was their way, made of them a work of art; nothing in any of their classics, not even in Homer, is more beautiful than, to give but one instance, the lovely and haunting ritual of the Garden of Adonis. From them a modern Freemason can learn more than facts about the backgrounds of the Masonic Ritual, the masterpiece of existing rituals; he can learn that ritualism is an art; is, in its own right, comparable with music and the drama.
(The literature is of overflowing abundance. See Ancient Art and Ritual, Primitive Athens, Religion of Ancient Greece, and Prole S Jomena to the Study of Greek Religion, each by Jane Ellen Harrison. Six Stages of Greek Religion, a great and brilliant book, by Gilbert Murray, famous for his translation of Euripides. The Golden Bough [the complete editions by J. G. Frazer.)
- ROBELOT
Formerly an advocate of the parliament of Dijon, a distinguished French Freemason, and the author of several Masonic discourses, especially of one delivered before the Mother Lodge of the philosophic Scottish Rite, of which he was Grand orator, December 8, 1808, at the reception of Askari Khan, the Persian Ambassador, as a Master Mason. this address gave so much satisfaction to the Lodge, hat it decreed a medal to M. Robelot, on one side of which was a bust of the Grand Master, and on the other an inscription which recounted the valuable services rendered to the Society by M. Robelot as its Orator, and as a Masonic author. Robelot held the theory that Freemasonry owed its origin to the East, and was the invention of Zoroaster.
- ROBERT I
Commonly called Robert Bruce. He was crowned King of Scotland in 1306, and died in 1329. After the turbulence of the early years of his reign had ceased, and peace had been restored, he devoted himself to the encouragement of architecture in his kingdom.
His connection with Freemasonry, and especially with the advanced Degrees, is thus given by Doctor Oliver (Landmarks ii, page 12): "The only high degree to which an early date can be safely assigned is the Royal Order of H. R. D. WI., founded by Robert Bruce in 1314. Its history in brief refers to the dissolution of the Order of the Temple. Some of those persecuted individuals took refuge in Scotland, and placed themselves under the protection of Robert Bruce, and assisted him at the battle of Bannoekburn, which was fought on Saint John's day, 1314. After this battle the Royal Order was founded; and from the fact of the Templars having contributed to the victory, and the subsequent grants to their Order by King Robert, for which they were formally excommunicated by the Church, it has, by some persons, been identified with that ancient military Order. But there are sound reasons for believing that the two systems were unconnected with each other."
Thory (Acta Latomorum I, 6), quoting from a manuscript ritual in the library of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite, gives the following statement: "Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, under the name of Robert I, created on the 24th of June, after the battle of Bannockburn, the Order of Saint Andrew of the Thistle, to which he afterwards united that of H. R. D., for the sake of the Scottish Freemasons who made a part of the thirty thousand men with whom he had fought an army of one hundred thousand English. He reserved forever to himself and his successors the title of Grand Master. He founded the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of H. R. D. at Kilwinning, and died, covered with glory and honor, on the 9th July, 1329." Both of these statements or legends require for all their details authentication (see Royal Order of Scotland).
- ROBERTS MANUSCRIPT
This is the first of those manuscripts the originals of which have not yet been recovered, and which are known to us only in a printed copy. The Roberts Manuscript, so called from the name of the printer, J. Roberts, was published by him at London, in 1722, under the title of The Old Constitutions belonging to the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons. Taken from a Manuscript wrote above fife hundred years since. Of this work, which had passed out of the notice and knowledge of the Masonic world, Richard Spencer, of London, being in possession of a copy, published a second edition in 1870. On a collation of this work with the Harleian Manuscript, it is evident that either both were derived from one and the same older manuscript, or that one of them has been copied from the other; although, if this be the ease, there has been much carelessness on the part of the transcriber.
If the one was transcribed from the other, there is internal evidence that the Harleian is the older exemplar. The statement on the title-page of Roberts' book, that it was "taken from a manuscript wrote over five hundred years since," is contradicted by the simple fact that, like the Harleian Manuscript, it contains the regulations adopted at the General Assembly held in 1663. There is a reprint of the work in the Constitutions of the Freemasons, 1871, a compilation by the Rev. J. E. Cox, also published by Brother Richard Spencer. The Spencer sale in 1875 resulted in the Grand Lodge of Iowa acquiring the printed version of which there was then known to be but the one specimen.
Since then another copy has appeared which, passing through the hands of Messrs. Fletcher of Bayswater, England, is now privately owned. An excellent reprint was published by courtesy of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, in 1917, at Anamosa, Iowa, then the headquarters of the National Masonic Research Society, and having a foreword by Brother J. F. Newton. Discussions of this version of the old Constitutions have appeared in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry (page iii), Gould's History of Freemasonry (I, page 75); W. J. Hughan's Old Charges (page 121); Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (1909, page 185) .
- ROBERTSON, JOHN ROSS
Born December 28, 1841, Toronto, Canada. Educated at Upper Canada College, giving much of his time, however, to the study of the printing trade and editing a small college paper from his father's home during three years, from 1857 to 1860.
Every stage in the development of this paper was handled by John Robertson personally—literary, mechanical and clerical. Thus he naturally cultivated journalism, editing in turn Young Canada, the Grumbler, Sporting Life, and Canadian Railway Guide. By 1863 he was city editor of the Toronto Globe and founder, 1866, of the Daily Telegraph. March 14, 1867, made a Freemason in King Solomon's Lodge No. 22, Toronto. Brother Robertson spent several years in England for the Toronto Globe. Returning to Canada, he managed the Nation in 1875 and in April, 1876, founded the Evening Telegram. He found time to devote his talents to Freemasonry. In 1879 he was elected Junior Warden; in 1880, Worshipful Master. He had served as Worshipful Master of Mimico Lodge No. 369, 1879; Grand Steward, Grand Lodge of Canada, 1880, and two years later was Senior Grand Warden. In 1886 Brother Robertson was Deputy Grand Master of the Toronto District.
In 1888 the Grand Lodge of Canada unanimously elected him Deputy Grand Master and he was re-elected In 1890 he was elected Grand Master and was re-elected the following year. Elected a full member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076, May 6, 1904. Brother Robertson's Masonic writings included Talk's with Craftsmen, 1893; History of the Cryptic Rite, 1888 and 1890; History of the Knights Templar of Canada , 1890, and History of Freemasonry in Canada, 1899. Brother Robertson was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for Sick Children and for thirty-five years furthered this worthy cause and is said to have visited the hospital every day. He personally equipped and presented to the Charity the Hospital buildings in College Street and Elizabeth Street, built and founded the Lakeside Home for Little Children, Toronto Island, built a Nurses' Hostel, a Pavilion for tubercular treatment and established the pasteurizing of milk in the Hospital grounds at Toronto.
Many civic and public benefits in Toronto are due to him, improvements in the ambulance service, health department, and supplying free medical inspection and aid in schools. He made many public gifts in the way of books, pictures, and so forth. He three times declined to he candidate for Mayor of Toronto. In 1902 he also gratefully declined a Knighthood and a Senatorship. For many years Brother Robertson was President of the Canadian Copyright Association; he served as Vice-President and President of the Canadian Associated Press, and was Honorary President of the Toronto Press Club at his death. His own statement as an editor was: "I am not a party politician; my aim is to keep both parties right." Brother Robertson died May 31, 1918, a last act of benevolence being to donate $111,000 on May 20 to the Children's Hospital (see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume iii, page 137, and volume xxxi, page 178).
- ROBES
A proposition was made in the Grand Lodge of England, on April 8, 1778, that the Grand Master and his officers should be distinguished in future at all public meetings by robes. This measure, Preston says in his Illustrations, 1792 edition (page 332), was at first favorably received; but it was. on investigation, found to be so diametrically opposed to the original plan of the Institution, that it was very properly laid aside. In no Jurisdiction are robes commonly used in Symbolic Freemasonry. In many of the advanced Degrees, however, they are employed. In the United States and in England they constitute an important part of the paraphernalia of a Royal Arch Chapter (see Royal Arch Rolves).
- ROBIN, ABBE CLAUDE
A French litterateur, and Curate of Saint Pierre d'Angers. In 1776 he advanced his views on the origin of Freemasonry in a lecture before the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris. This he subsequently enlarged, and his interesting work was published at Paris and Amsterdam, in 1779, under the title of Recherches sur les Initiatiolls Anciennes et Modernes. Studies on Ancient and Modern Initiations. A German translation of it appeared in 1782, and an exhaustive review, or, rather, an extensive synopsis of it, was made by Chemin des Pontes in the first volume of his Encyclopedia Maçonnique. In this work the Abbe deduces from the ancient initiations in the Pagan Mysteries the Orders of Chivalry, whose branches, he says, produced the initiation of Freemasonry.
- ROBINSON, SIMON WIGGIN
Grand Master of Massachusetts, December 27, 1845, to December 27, 1848, a Thirty-third Degree Freemason, was born at New Hampton, New Hampshire, February 19, 1792. At twenty was Adjutant, stationed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during the War of 1812.
For a year he served as a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts. Initiated November 29, 1819, in Mount Lebanon Lodge, Boston. Received Fellow-Craft Degree the same day and on January 20, 1820, his Master's Degree. For several years served as Worshipful Master and from 1828 to 1843 as Treasurer. Grand Scribe of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Massachusetts in 1834 and 1835; Grand King in 1836; and in 1837, 1838 and 1839 acted as Grand High Priest. Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1840. Presided over the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Supreme Council awarded Brother Robinson the Thirty-third Degree at Boston in 1851; Grand Treasurer in 1859, and Lieutenant Grand Commander from 1861 to 1865; Sovereign Grand Commander, 1865. Died October 16, 1868.
- ROMAN EAGLE
See Golden Fleece
- ROMAN KNIGHTHOOD
See Stukely, Doctor
- ROME
In the Hiramic Legend of some of the advanced Degrees, this is the name given to one of the assassins of the Third Degree. This seems to be an instance of the working of Stuart Freemasonry, in giving names of infamy in the legends of the Order to the enemies of the House of Stuart. For we cannot doubt the correctness of Brother Albert Pike's suggestion, that this is a manifest corruption of Cromwell. If with them Hiram was but a symbol of Charles I, then the assassin of Hiram was properly symbolized by Cromwell.
- ROSAIC SYSTEM
The system of Freemasonry taught by Rosa in the Lodges which he established in Germany and Holland, and which were hence sometimes called Rosaic Lodges. Although he professed that it really was the system of the Clerrnont Chapter, for the propagation of which he had been appointed by Baron von Printzen, he had mixed with that system many alchemical and theosophic notions of his own. The system was at first popular, but it finally succumbed to the greater attractions of the Rite of Strict Observance, which had been introduced into Germany by the Baron von Hund.
- ROSA, PHILIPP SAMUEL
Born at Ysenberg; at one time a Lutheran clergyman, and in 1757 rector of the Cathedral of Saint James at Berlin. He was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge of the Three Globes, and Von Printzen having established a Chapter of higher Degrees at Berlin on the system of the French Chapter of Clermont, Rosa was appointed his Deputy, and sent by him to propagate the system.
He visited various places in Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. In Denmark and Sweden, although well received personally on account of his pleasing manners, he made no progress in the establishment of the Rite; but his success was far better in Germany and Holland, where he organized many Lodges of the advanced Degress, engrafting them on the English system,which alone had been theretofore known in those countries. Rosa was a mystic and a pretended alchemist, and as a Masonic charlatan accumulated large sums of money by the sale of Degrees and decorations. Lenning does not speak well of his moral conduct, but some contemporary writers describe him as a man of veryattractivemanners, to which indeed may be ascribed his popularity as a Masonic leader. While residing at Halle, he, in 1765, issued a protestation against the proceedings of the Congress of Jena, which had been convoked in that year by the impostor Johnson. But it met with no success, and thenceforth Rosa faded away from the knowledge of the Masonic world. We can learn nothing of his subsequent life, nor of the time or place of his death.
- ROSE
The symbolism of the rose among the ancients was twofold. First, as it was dedicated to Venus as the goddess of love, it became the symbol of secrecy, and hence came the expression "under the rose," to indicate that which was spoken in confidence. Again, as it was dedicated to Venus as the personification of the generative energy of nature, it became the symbol of immortality. In this latter and more recondite sense it was, in Christian symbology, transferred to Christ, through whom "life and immortality were brought to light." The "Rose of Sharon" of the Book of Canticles is always applied to Christ, and hence Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, calls IIim "that prime rose and lily." Thus we see the significance of the rose on the cross as a part of the jewel of the Rose Croix Degree.
Reghellini (volume i, page 358), after showing that anciently the rose was the symbol of secrecy, and the cross of immortality, says that the two united symbols of a rose resting on a cross always indicate the secret of immortality. Ragon agrees with him in this opinion, and says that it is the simplest mode of writing that dogma. But he subsequently gives a different explanation, namely, that as the rose was the emblem of the female principle, and the cross or triple phallus of the male, the two together, like the Indian lingam, symbolized universal generation. But Ragon, who has adopted the theory of the astronomical origin of Freemasonry, like all theorists, often carries his speculations on this subject to an extreme point.
A simpler allusion will better suit the character and teachings of the Degree in its modern organization. The rose is the symbol of Christ, and the cross, the symbol of His death—the two united, the rose suspended on the cross—signify Allis death on the cross, whereby the secret of immortality was taught to the world. In a word, the rose on the cross is Christ crucified. W. B. Yeats says beautifully in his poem,
The Secret Rose,
- Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
- Enfold me in my hour of hours, where those
- Who sought Thee in the Holy Sepulchre
- Or in tho wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
- And tumult of defeated dreams.
- ROSE AND TRIPLE CROSS
A Degree contained in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Réunis at Calais.
- ROSE CROIX
A French term, meaning, literally, Rose Cross and applied to a series of ceremonial grades:
- 1. The Seventh Degree of the French Rite
- 2. The Seventh Degree of the Philalethes.
- 3. The Eighth Degree of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophie Scottish Rite.
- 4. The Twelfth Degree of the Elect of Truth.
- 5. The Eighteenth Degree of the Mother Scottish Lodge of Marseilles.
- 6. The Eighteenth Degree of the Rite of Heredom, or of Perfection.
- ROSE CROIX, BRETHREN OF THE
Thory says in his Foundation of the Grand Orient (page 163), that the Archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite at Paris contain the manuscripts and books of a secret society which existed at The Hague in 1622, where it was known under the title of the Freres de la Rose Croix, Brothers of the Rose Crox, which pretended to have emanated from the original Rosicrucian organization of Christian Rosenkreuz. Hence Thory thinks that the Philosophic Rite was only a continuation of this society of the Brethren of the Rose Croix.
- ROSE CROIX, JACOBITE
The original Rose Croix conferred in the Chapter of Arras, whose Charter was said to have been granted by the Pretender, was so called with a political allusion to King James III, whose adherents were known as Jacobites.
- ROSE CROIX, JEWEL OF THE
Although there are six well-known Rose Croix Degrees, belonging to as many systems, the jewel has invariably remained the same, while the interpretation has somewhat differed. The usual jewel of a Rose Croix Knight and also that of the Most Wise Sovereign of an English Chapter are illustrated.
- ROSE CROIX, KNIGHT
The French title is Chevalier Rose Croix. The Eighteenth Degree of the Rite of Perfection. It is the same as the Prince of Rose Croix of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
- ROSE CROIX, MAGNETIC
The Thirty-cighth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.
- ROSE CROIX OF GERMANY
A Hermetic Degree, which Ragon says belongs rather to the class of Elus than to that of Rose Croix.
- ROSE CROIX OF GOLD, BRETHREN OF THE
In French the title is Freres de la rose Croiz d'Or. An Alchemical and Hermetic Society, which was founded in Germany in 1777. It promised to its disciples the secret of the transmutation of metals, and the panacea or art of prolonging life. The Baron Gleichen, who was Secretary for the German language of the Philalethan Congress at Paris in 1785, gives the following history of the organization of this society:
The members of the Rose Croix affirm that they are the legitimate authors and superiors of Freemasonry, to all of whose symbols they give a hermetical interpretation. The Masons, they say, came into England under King Arthur. Raymond Lully initiated Henry IV. The Grand Masters were formerly designated, as now, by the titles of John I, II III, IV, etc.
Their jewel is the goiden compasses attached to a blue ribbon, the symbol of purity and wisdom. The principal emblems on the ancient Tracing-Board were the sun, the moon, and the double triangle having in its centre the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Brethren wore a silver ring on which were the letters I. A. A. T., the initials of Ignis, Aer, Aqua, Terra, or Fire, Air, Waler, Earth.
The Ancient Rose Croux recognized only three Degrees; the Third Degree, as we now know it, has been substituted for another more significant one.
The Baron de Westerode, in a letter dated 1784, and quoted by Thory (Acta Latomorum i, page 336) gives another mythical account. He says:
The disciples of the Rose Croux came, in 1188, from the East into Europe, for the propagation of Christianity after the troubles in Palestine. Three of them founded in Scotland the Order of the Masons of the East— Knights of the East, to serve as a seminary for instruetion in the most sublime sciences. This Order wan in existence in 1196. Edsvard, the son of Henry III, was received into the Society of the Rose Croix by Raymond Lully. At that time only learned men and persons of high rank there admitted.
Their founder was a seraphic priest of Alexandria, a Magus of Egypt named Ormesius, or Ormus, who with six of his companions was converted in the year 96 by Saint Mark. He purified the doctrine of the Egyptians according to the precepts of Christianity and founded the Society of Ormus, that is to say, tile Sages of Light, to the members of which he gave a red cross as a decoration. About the same time the Essenes and other Jews founded a school of Solomonic wisdom to which the disciples of Ormus united themselves. Then the society was divided into various Orders known as the Conservators of Mosaic Secrets, of Hermetic Secrets, etc. Several members of the association haling yielded to the temptations of pride, seven Masters united, effected a reform, adopted a modern Constitution and collected together on their Tracing-Board all the allegories of the Hermetic Work.
In this almost altogether fabulous narrative we find an inextricable confusion of the Rose Croix Freemasons and the Rosicrucian philosophers. Dr. Bernhardt Meyer, Librarian of the Grand Lodge Zur Sonne at Beyreuth, Germany, has collected most industriously much information in his book Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold—und Rosenkreuzer (Pansophic-Verlag, Leipzig-Berlin, 1925) with curious details of the several grades, the private alphabets and ciphers, etc. (see Rosicrucianism).
- ROSE CROIX OF HEREDOM
The First Degree of the Royal Order of Scotland, the Eighteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Eighteenth of the Rite of Perfection, the Ninetieth of the Rite of Mizraim, and some others affix to the title of Rose Croiz that of Heredom, for the signification of which see the word.
- ROSE CROIX OF THE DAMES
In French, Rose Croiz des Dames. This Degree, called also the Ladies of Beneficence, or in French the Chevalieres de la Bienfaisance, is the Sixth Capitular or Ninth Degree of the French Rite of Adoption. It is not only Christian, but Roman Catholic in its character, and is derived from the ancient Jesuitical system as was perhaps, as Doetor Mackey believed, first promulgated in the Rose Croix Chapter of Arras.
- ROSE CROIX OF THE GRAND ROSARY
In French, Rose Croiz du Grand Rosaire. The Fourth and highest Rose Croix Chapter of the Prirnitive Rite.
- ROSE CROIX, PHILOSOPHIC
A German Hermetic Degree found in the collection of M. Pyron. and in the Archives of the Philosophic Scottish Rite. It is probably the same as the Brethren of the Rose Croix, of whom Thory thinks that Rite is only a continuation.
- ROSE CROIX, PRINCE OF
This in French, Souverain Prince Rose Croiz, and in German, Prinz vom Rosenkruz. This important degree is, of all the advanced grades, the most widely diffused, being found in numerous Rites. It is the Eighteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Seventh of the French or Modern, the Eighteenth of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, the Third of the Royal Order of Scotland, the Twelfth of the Elect of Truth, and the Seventh of the Philalethes. It was also given, formerly, in some Encampments of Knights Templar, and was the Sixth of the Degrees conferred by the Encampment of Baldwyn at Bristol, in England. It must not, however, be confounded with the Rosicrucians, who, however, similar in name, were only a Hermetie and mystical Order.
The degree is known by various names: sometimes its possessors are called Sovereign Princes of Rose Croix, sometimes Princes of Rose Croix de Heroden, and sometimes Knights of the Eagle and Pelican. In relation to its origin, Masonic writers have made many conflicting statements, some giving it a much higher antiquity than others; but all agreeing in supposing it to be one of the earliest of the advances Degrees.
The name has, undoubtedly, been the cause of much of this confusion in relation to its history; and the blasonic Degree of Rose Croix has, perhaps, often been confounded with the Cabalistical and alchemical sect of Rosierueians, or Brothers of the Rosy Cross, among whose adepts the names of such men as Roger Bacon, Paracelsus, and Elias Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, are to be found. Notwithstanding the invidious attempts of Barruel and other foes of Freemasonry to confound the two Orders, there is a great distinction between them. Even their names, although somewhat similar in sound, are totally different in signification.. The Rosicrucians, who were alchemists, did not derive their name, like the Rose Croix Freemasons, from the emblems of the rose and cross—for they had nothing to do with the rose—but from the Latin ros, Signifying dew, which was supposed to be of all natural bodies the most powerful solvent of gold, and crux, the cross, a chemical hieroglyphic of light.
Baron de Westerode, who wrote in 1784, in the Acta Latomorum (i, page 336), gives the earliest origin of any Masonic writer to the Degree of Rose Croix. He supposes that it was instituted among the Knights Templar in Palestine, in the year 1188, and he adds that Prince Edward, the son of Henry III of England, was admitted into the Order by Raymond Lully in 1296. De Westerode names Ormesius, an Egyptian priest, who had been converted to Christianity, as its founder.
Some have sought to find its origin in the labors of Valentine Andrea the reputed founder of the Rosicrucian fraternity But the Rose Croix of Freemasonry and the Hermetic Rosicrucianism of Andreä were two entirely different things; and it would be difficult to trace any connection between them, at least any such connection as would make one the legitimate successor of the other. J. G. Buhle, in a work published in Göttingen in 1804, under the title of Ueber den Ursprung und die vornehmsten Schicksale per Orden der Rosenkreutzer und Freimaurer, on the Origin and Principal Purpose of the Order of Rosicrucians and the Freemason, reverses this theory, and supposes the Rosicrucians to be a branch of the Freemasons.
Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis (ii, page 388), thinks that the "modern Templars, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons are little more than different dodges of one Order," all of which is only a confusion of history in consequence of a confounding of names. It is thus that Inge has written an elaborate essay on the Origine de la Rose Croix (Globe, volume iii); but as he has, with true Gallic insouciance (indifference) of names, spoken indiscriminately of Rose Croix Freemasons and the Rosicrucian Adepts, his statements supply no facts available for history. The Baron de Gleichen, who was, in 1785, the German Secretary of the Philalethan Congress at Paris, says that the Rose Croix and the Freemasons here united in England under King Arthur (Acta Latomorum i, page 336).
But he has, undoubtedly, mixed up Rosicrucianism, with the Masonic legends of the Knights of the Round Table, and his assertions must go for nothing. Others, again, have looked for the origin of the Rose Croix Degree, or, at least, of its emblems, in the ,Symbola divina et humana pontifical, imperatorum, regum of James Typot, or Typotius, the Historiographer of the emperor Rudolph II, a work which was published in 1601; and it is particularly in that part of it which is devoted to the Symbol of the Holy Cross that the allusions are supposed to be found which would seem to indicate the author's knowledge of this Degree. But Ragon refutes the idea of any connection between the symbols of Typotius and those of the Rose Croix. Rohison (Proofs of a Conspiracy, page 72) also charges Von Hund with borrowing his symbols from the same work, in which, however, he declares "there is not the least trace of Masonry or Templars."
Clavel, with his usual boldness of assertion, which is too often independent of facts, declares that the Degree was invented by the Jesuits for the purpose of eountermining the insidious attacks of the freethinkers upon the Roman Catholic religion, but that the philosophers parried the attempt by seizing upon the Degree and giving to all its symbols an astronomical signification.. Clavel's opinion is probably derived from one of those sweeping charges of Professor Robison, in which that systematic enemy of our Institution declares that, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Jesults interfered considerably with Freemasonry, "insinuating themselves into the Lodges, and contributing to increase that religious mysticism that is to be observed in all the ceremonies of the Order."
But there is no better evidence than these mere vague assertions of the connection of the Jesuits with the Rose Croix Degree. Brother Oliver (Landmarks ii, page 81) says that the earliest notice that he finds of this Degree is in a publication of 1613, entitled La Réforzeation universelle do monde entier at~ec la fama fraSerrtilatis de l'Qrdre respectable de la Rose Croix, Universal Reformation of the Whole World with the famous Fraternity of the Respectable Order of the Rose Croix. But he adds, that "it was known much sooner, although not probably as a Degree in Masonry; for it existed as a cabalistic science from the earliest times in Egypt, Grecee, and Rome, as well as amongst the Jews and Moors in times more recent." Doctor Oliver, however, undoubtedly, is the latter part of this paragraph, confounds the Masonic Rose Croix with the alchemical Rosicrucians; and the former is singularly inconsistent with the details that he gives in reference to the Rosy Cross of the Royal Order of Scotland.
There is a tradition, into whose authenticity we shall not stop to inquire, that after the dls.solution of the Order, many of the Knights repaired to Seotland and placed themselves under the protection of Robert Bruce; and that after the hat.tle of Bannoskburn, which took place on Saint John the Baptist's Day, in the year 1314, this monarch instituted the Royal Order of Heredom and Knight of the Rosy Cross, and established the chief seat of the Order at Kilwinning. From that Order, it seems to us by no means improbable that the present Degree of Rose Croix de Heroden may have taken its origin.
In two respects, at least, there seems to be a very elose connection between the two systems: they both claim the kingdom of Scotland and the Abbey of Kilwinning as having been at one time their chief seat of government, and they both seem to have been instituted to give a Christian explanation to Ancient Craft Masonry. There is, besides, a similarity in the names of the Degrees of Rose Croiz de Heroden, and Heredom and Rosy Cross, amounting almost to an identity, which appears to indicate a very intimate relation of one to the other.
The subject, however, is in a state of inextricable confusion, and Doctor Mackey confessed that, after all his researches, he was still unable distinetly to point to the period when, and to the place where, the present Degree of Rose Croix received its organization as a Masonic grade. We have this much of history to guide us. In the year, 1747, the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, is said to have established a Chapter in the town of Arras, in France, with the title of the Chapitre Primordial de Rose Croix. The Charter of this Body is now extant in an authenticated copy deposited in the departmental archives of Arras. In it the Pretender styles himself "King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, and, by virtue of this, Sovereign Grand Master of the Chapter of H. known under the title of the Eagle and Pelican, and, since our sorrows and misfortunes, under that of Rose Croix."
From this we may infer that the title of Rose Croiz was first known in 1747; and that the Degree had been formerly known as Knight of the Eagle and Pelican, a title which it still retains. Hence it is probable that the Rose Croix Degree has been borrowed from the Rosy Cross of the Scottish Royal Order of Heredom, but in passing from Scotland to France it greatly changed its form and organization, as it resembles in no respect its archetype, except that both are eminently Christian in their design. But in its adoption by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, its organization has been so changed that, by a more liberal interpretation of its symbolism, it has been rendered less sectarian and more tolerant in its design. For while the Christian reference is preserved, no peculiar theological dogma is retained, and the Degree is made cosmopolite in its character.
It was, indeed, on its first inception an attempt to Christianize Freemasonry, to apply the rites, and symbols, and traditions of Ancient Craft Masonry to the last and greatest Dispensation; to add to the first Temple of Solomon and the second of Zerubbabel a third, that to which Christ alluded when He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days will I raise it up."
The great discovery which was made in the Royal Arch ceases to be of value in this Degree; for it another is substituted of more Christian application; the Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty which supported the ancient Temple are replaced by the Christian pillars of Faith, Hope and Charity; the Great Lights, of course, remain, because they are of the very essenee of Freemasonry; but the three lesser give way to the thirty-three, which allude to the years of the Messiah's sojourning on earth. Everything, in short, about the Degree, is Christian; but, as we have already said, the Christian teachings of the Degree have been applied to the sublime principles of a universal system, and an interpretation and illustration of the doctrines of the Master of Nazareth, so adapted to the Masonic dogma of tolerance, that men of every faith may embrace and respect them. It thus performs a noble mission. It obliterates, alike, the intolerance of those Christians who sought to erect an impassable barrier around the sheepfold, and the equal intolerance of those of other religions who would be ready to exclaim, "Can any good thing come out of -Nazareth?"
In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, whence the Rose Croix Freemasons of the United States have received the Degree, it is placed as the eighteenth on the list. It is conferred in a Body called a Chapter, which derives its authority immediately from the Suprelne Couneil of the Thirty-third, and w hieht confers with it only one other and inferior Degree, that of Knights of the East and West. Its principal officers are a Most Wise Master and two Wardens. Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday are two obligatory days of meeting. The aspirant for the Degree makes the usual application duly recommended; and if accepted, is required, before initiation, to make certain declarations which shall show his competency for the honor which he seeks, and at the same time prove the high estimation entertained of the Degree by those who already possess it.
The jewel of the Rose Croix is the golden compasses, extended to an arc to the sixteenth part of a circle, or twenty-two and a half Degrees. The head of the compasses is surmounted by a triple crown, having three series of points arranged by three, five and seven.
Between the legs of the compasses there is a cross resting on the arc; its center is occupied by a full-blown rose whose stem twines around the lower limb of the cross; at the foot of the cross, on the same side on which the rose is exhibited, is the figure of a pelican wounding its breast to feed its young which are in a nest surrounding it, while on the other side of the jewel is the figure of an eagle with wings displayed. On the arc of the circle, the P .·. W .·. of the Degree is engraved in the cipher of the Order. In this jewel are included the most important symbols of the Degree. The Cross, the Rose, the Pelican, and the Eagle are all important symbols, the explanations of which will go far to a comprehension of what is the true design of the Rose Croix Order. They may be seen in this work under their respective titles.
- ROSE CROIX, RECTIFIED
The name given by F. J. W. Schröder to his Rite of Seven magical, theosophical, and alchemical Degrees (see Schroeder, Friederich Joseph Wilhelm).
- ROSE CROIX, SOVEREIGN PRINCE OF
Because of its great importance in the Masonic system, and of the many privileges possessed by its possessors, the epithet of Sovereign has been almost universally bestowed upon the Degree of Prince of Rose Croix. However, the Mother Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite at Charleston has discarded this title, and directed that the word Sovereign shall only be applied to the Thirty-third Degree of the Rite; and this is now the usage in the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.
- ROSE, KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF THE
See Knight of the Rose
- ROSE, KNIGHTS AND NYMPHS OF THE
See Knights and Nymphs of the Rose
- ROSENKREUZ, CHRISTIAN
Doctor Mackey believed this to be an assumed name, invented, it is supposed, by John Valentine Andrea, by which he designated a fictitious person, to whom he has attributed the invention of Rosicrucianism, which see.
- ROSE, ORDER OF THE
A Masonic adventurer, Franz Rudolph Van Grossing, but whose proper name, Wadzeck says, was Franz Matthaus Grossinger, established, as a financial speculation at Berlin, in 1778, an androgynous, both sexes, society, which he called Rosen Order, or the Order of the Rose. It consisted of two Degrees: 1. Female Friends, and 2. Confidants; and the meetings of the society were designated as Holding the Rose. The society had but a brief duration, and the life and adventures of the founder and the secrets of the Order were published in 1789, by Friederich Wadzeck, in a work entitled Leben und Schicksale des berüchtigten F. R. Van Grossing, Life and Lot of the Notorious Or. R. Van Grossina.
- ROSICRUCIANA IN ANGLIA, SOCIETAS
A society whose objects are of a purely literary character, and connected with the sect of the Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages. It is secret, but not Masonic, in its organization; although many of the most distinguished Freemasons of England take great interest in it, and are active members of the society (see Rosicructanism) .
- ROSICRUCIANA IN SCOTIA, SOCIETAS
See Rosicruzanism
- ROSICRUCIANISM
Many writers have sought to discover a close connection between the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons, and some, indeed, have advanced the theory that the latter are only the successors of the former. Whether this opinion be correct or not, there are sufficient coincidences of character between the two to render the history of Rosicrucianism highly interesting to the Masonic student.
There appeared at Cassel, in the year 1614, a work bearing the title of Allgemeine und General-Reformation der Hansen beiten Welt. Benebst der Fama Fraternitatis des Löblichen Ordens des Rosencreuzes an alle Gelehrte und Häupter Europa geschrieben, Universal and General Reformation of the Whole Wide World, together with the Noted Fraternity of the Praiseworthy Order of the Rosy Cross, inscribed to all the Learned and Rulers of Europe.
A second edition appeared in 1615, and several subsequent ones; and in 1652 it was introduced to the English public in a translation by the celebrated adept, Thomas Vaughan, under the title of Fame and Confession of Rosie-Cross. This work has been attributed, although not without question, to the philosopher and theologian, John Valentine Andrea, who is reported, on the authority of the preacher, M. C. Hirschen, to have confessed that he, with thirty others in Wurtemberg, had sent forth the Famn Fraternitatis; that under this veil they might discover who were the true lovers of wisdom, and induce them to come forward.
In this work Andrea gives an account of the life and adventures of Christian Rosenkreuz, whom he makes the founder of the pretended Society of Rosicrucians.
According to Andrea's tale, Rosenkreuz was of good birth, but, being poor, was compelled to enter a monastery at a very early period of his life. At the age of one hundred years, he started with one of the monks on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher.
On their arrival at the island of Cyprus, the monk was taken sick and died, but Rosenkreuz proceeded on his journey. At Damaseus he remained for three years, devoting himself to the study of the occult sciences, taught by the sages of that eity. He then sailed for Egypt, where he continued his studies; and, having traversed the Mediterranean, he at length arrived at Fez, in Morocco, as he had been directed by his masters of Damaseus. He passed two years in acquiring further information from the philosophers of Africa, and then crossed over into Spain. There, however, he met with an unfavorable reception, and then determined to return to Germany, and give to his own countrymen the benefit of his studies and researches, and to establish there a society for the cultivation of the sciences which he had acquired during his travels.
Accordingly, he selected three of the monks of the old convent in which he was educated. To them he imparted his knowledge, under a solemn vow of secrecy. He imposed on them the duty of committing his instructions to writing, and forming a magic vocabulary for the benefit of future students. They were also taught the science of medicine, and prescribed gratuitously for all the sick who applied to them. But the number of their patients soon materially interfering with their other labors, and the new edifice, the House of the Holy Spirit, being now finished, Father Christian, as he was called, resolved to enlarge his society by the initiation of four new members. The eight Brethren being now thoroughly instructed in the mysteries, they agreed to separate -- two to remain with Father Christian, and the others to travel, but to return at the end of each year, and mutually to communicate the results of their experience.
The two who had remained at home were then relieved by two of the others, and they again separated for another year.
The Society thus formed was governed by a code of laws, by which they agreed that they would devote themselves to no occupation except that of physic, which they must practise without pecuniary reward; that they would not distinguish themselves from the rest of the world by any peculiar style of costume; that each one should annually present himself at the House of the Holy Spirit, or send an excuse for his absence; that each one should, during his life, appoint somebody to succeed him at his death; that the letters R. C. were to be their title and watchword; and that the Brotherhood should be kept a secret for one hundred years.
At the age of one hundred and six years Father Christian Rosenkreuz died, and was buried by the two Brethren who had remained with him; but the place of his burial remained a seeret to all of the rest—the two carrying the mystery with them to the grave.
The Society, however, continued, notwithstanding the death of the founder, to exist, but unknown to the world, always consisting of eight members. There was a tradition among them, that at the end of one hundred and twenty years the grave of Father Rosenkreuz was to be discovered, and the Brotherhood no longer remain a secret.
About that time the Brethren began to make some alterations in their building, and attempted to remove to a more fitting situation the memorial table on which was inscribed the names of those who had been members of the Fraternity.
The plate was of brass, and was affixed to the wall by a nail driven through its center; but so firmly was it attached, that in tearing it away, a portion of the plaster came off and exposed a secret door. Upon removing the incrustation on the door, there appeared written in large letters the Latin words Post cxx Annos Patebo-- after one hundred and twenty years I will open.
Returning the next morning to renew their researches, they opened the door and discovered a heptagonal vault, each of its seven sides being five feet wide, and in height eight feet. The light was received from an artificial sun in the roof, and in the middle of the floor there stood, instead of a tomb, a circular altar, on which was an inscription, importing that this apartment, as a compendium of the univcrse, had been erected by Christian Rosenkreuz. Other Latin inscriptions about the apartment—such as Jesus mihi omnta; Legis jugum; Libertas Evangelii: meaning Jesuz is my all; the yoke of the law; the liberty of the Gospel—indicated the Christian character of the builder. In each of the sides was a door opening into a closet, and in these closets they found many rare and valuable articles, such as the life of the founder, the vocabularly of Paracelsus, and the secrets of the Order, together with bells, mirrors, burning lamps, and other curious articles. On removing the altar and a brass plate beneath it, they came upon the body of Rosenkreuz in a perfect state of preservation.
Such is the sketch of the history of the Rosierucians given by Andrea in his Fama Fraternitatis. Doctor Mackey says it is evidently a romance, and scholars generally assent to the theory advanced by Nicolai, that Andrea, who, at the time of the appearance of his book, was a young man full of excitement, seeing the defects of the sciences, the theology, and the manners of his time, sought to purify them; and, to accomplish this design, imagined the union into one Body of all those who, like himself, were the admirers of true virtues. In other words, that Andrea wrote this account of the rise and progress of Rosicrucianism for the purpose of advancing, by a poetical fiction, his peculiar views of morals and religion.
But the fiction was readily accepted as a truth by most people, and the invisible Society of Rosenkreuz was sought for with avidity by many who wished to unite with it. The sensation produced in Germany by the appearance of Andrea's book was great; letters poured in on all sides from those who desired to become members of the Order, and who, as proofs of their qualifications, presented their claims to skill in Alchemy and Cabalism. No answers, of course, having been received to these petitions for initiation, most of the applicants were discouraged and retired; but some were bold, became impostors, and proclaimed that they had been admitted into the society, and exercised their fraud upon those who were credulous enough to believe them. There are records that some of these charlatans, who extorted money from their dupes, were punished for their offense by the magistrates of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and some other German cities.
There was, too, in Holland, in the year 1722, a Society of Alchemists, who called themselves Rosicrucians, and who claimed that Christian Rosenkreuz was their founder, and that they had affiliated societies in many of the German cities But Doctor Mackey holds that it is not to be doubted that this was a selfcreated society, and that it had nothing in common, except the name, with the imaginary brotherhood invented by Andrea. Des Cartes, indeed, says that he sought in vain for a Rosicrucian Lodge in Germany.
But although the Brotherhood of Rosenkreuz, as described by Andrea in his Fama Fraternitatis, his Chemical Nuptials, and other works, may never have had a real tangible existence as an organized society, the opinions advanced by Andrea, took root, and gave rise to the philosophic sect of the Rosierueians, many of whom were to be found, during the seventeenth century, in Germany, in France, and in England. Among these were such men as Michael Maier, Richard Fludd, and Elias Ashmole. Nicolai even thinks that he has found some evidence that the Fama Fraternitatis suggested to Lord Bacon the notion of his Instauratio Magna. But, as Vaughan says (Hours unity the Mystics ii, page 104), the name Rosicrucian became by degrees a generic term, em. bracing every species of doubt, pretension, areana elixirs, the philosophers' stone, theurgie ritual, symbols, or initiations.
Higgins, Sloane, Vaughan, as well as several other writers have asserted that Freemasonry sprang out of Rosierueianism. But this is a great error. Between the two there is no similarity of origin, of design, or of organization. The symbolism of Rosicrucianism is derived from a Hermetic Philosophy; that of Freemasonry from an Operative Art. The latter had its cradle in the Stone-Masons of Strasburg and the Masters of Como long before the former had its birth in the inventive brain of John Valentine Andrea.
It is true, that about the middle of the eighteenth century, a period fertile in the invention of advanced Degrees, a Masonic Rite was established which assumed the name of Rose Croix Freemasonry, and adopted the symbol of the Rose and Cross. But this was a coincidence, and not a consequence. There was nothing in common between them and the Rosierucians, except the name, the symbol, and the Christian character. Doubtless the symbol was suggested to the Masonic Order from the use of it by the philosophic sect; but the Freemasons modified the interpretation, and the symbol, of course, gave rise to the name. But here the connection ends. A Rose Croix Freemason and a Rosicrucian are two entirely different persons.
The Rosicrucians had a large number of symbols, some of which were in common with those of the Freemasons, and some were peculiar to themselves. The principal of these were the globe, the circle, the compasses, the square—both the working-tool and the geometrical figure, the triangle, the level, and the plummet. These are, ho vever, interpreted, not like the Masonie, as symbols of the moral virtues, but of the properties of the philosopher's stone. Thus, the twenty-first emblem of Michael Maier's Atlanta Fugiens gives the following collection of the most important symbols: A Philosopher is measuring with a pair of compasses a circle which surmounts a triangle. The triangle encloses a square, within which is another circle, and inside of the circle a nude man and woman, representing, it may be supposed, the first step of the experiment. Over all is this epigraph: Fac en mare et femina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, Sac circulum et habebis lapidem Philosophorum. That is, Make of man and woman a circle; thence a square; thence a triangle; form a circle, and you will hatse the Philosopher's Stone.
But it must be remembered that Hitchcock, and some other recent writers, have very satisfactorily proved that the labors of the real Hermetic philosophers outside of the charlatans, were rather of a spiritual than a material character; and that their "great work" symbolized not the acquisition of inexhaustible wealth and the infinite prolongation of life, but the regeneration of man and the immortality of the soul.
As to the etymology of the word Rosicrucian, several derivations have been given. Peter Gassendi (Examination of Philosophy of Fludd, section 15), first, and then Mosheim (Ecclesiastical History iv, i), deduce it from the two words ros, deto, and crux, a cross, and thus define it: Dew, according to the Alchemists, was the most powerful of all substances to dissolve gold; and the cross, in the language of the same philosophers, was identical with light, or LVX, because the figure of a cross exhibits the three letters of that word.
But the word lux was referred to the seed or menstruum of the Red Dragon, which was that crude and material light which, being properly concocted and digested, produces gold. Hence, says Mosheim, a Rosicrucian is a philosopher, who by means of dew seeks for light, that is, for the substance of the philosopher's stone. But notwithstanding the high authority for this etymology, Doctor Mackey held it to be untenable, and altogether at variance with the history of the origin of the Order, as will be presently seen.
Another and more reasonable derivation is from rose and cross. This was undoubtedly in accordance with the notions of Andrea, who was the founder of the Order, and gave it its name, for in his writings he constantly calls it the Fraternitas Roseae Crucis, or the fraternity of the Rosy Cross. If the idea of dew had been in the mind of Andrea in giving a name to the society, he would have called it the Fraternity of the Dewy Cross, not that of the Rosy Cross. Fraternitas Roscidae Crucis, not Roseae Crucis. This ought to settle the question.
The man who invents a thing has the best right to give it a name. The origin and interpretation of the symbol have been variously given. Some have supposed that it was derived from the Christian symbolism of the rose and the cross. This is the interpretation that has been assumed by the Rose Croix Order of the Masonic system; but it does not thence follow that the same interpretation was adopted by the Rosicrucians. Others say that the rose meant the generative principle of nature, a symbolism borrowed from the Pagan mythologers, and not likely to have been appropriated by Andrea. Others, again, contend that he derived the symbol from his own arms, which were a Saint Andrew's cross between four roses, and that he alluded to Luther's well-known lines:
Des Christen Herz auf Rosen geht Whenn's mitten untertn Kreutze steht.
The heart of the Christian goes upon roses when it stands close beneath the cross.
But whatever may have been the effect of Luther's lines in begetting an idea, the suggestion of Andrea's arms must be rejected. The symbol of the Rosicrucians was a single rose upon a passion cross, very different from four roses surrounding a Saint Andrew's cross.
Another derivation may be suggested, namely: That, the rose being a symbol of secrecy, and the cross of light, the rose and cross were intended to symbolize the secret of the true light, or the true knowledge, which the Rosicrucian Brotherhood were to give to the world at the end of the hundred years of their silence, and for which purpose of moral and religious reform Andrea wrote his books and sought to establish his sect. But the whole subject of Rosicrucian etymology is involved in confusion. The Rosicrucian Society, instituted in the fourteenth century, was an extraordinary Brotherhood, exciting curiosity and commanding attention and scrutiny. The members delved in abstruse studies; many became Anchorites, and were engrossed in mystic philosophy and theosophy. This strange Fraternity, asserted by some authorities to have been instituted by Roger Bacon near the close of the thirteenth century, filled the world with renown as to their incomprehensible doctrines and presumed abilities. They claimed to be the exponents of the true Cabala, as embracing theosophy as well as the science of numbers. They were said to delve in strange things and deep mysteries; to be enwrapped in the occult sciences, sometimes vulgarly termed the Black Art; and in the secrets of magic and sorcery, which arc looked upon by the critical eyes of the world as tending to the supernatural, and a class of studies to be avoided.
These mystics, for whom great philanthropy is claimed, and not without reason, are heard of as early as the commencement of the fourteenth century, in the person of Raymond Lully, the renowned scholars and metaphysical chemist, who proved to be an adept in the doctrines taught at the German seat of Hermetic learning in 1302, and who died in 1315 Fidelity and secrecy were the first care of the Brotherhood. They claimed a kinship to the ancient philosophies of Egypt, the Chaldeans, the Magi of Persia, and even the Gymnosophist of India.
They were unobtrusive and retiring in the extreme. They were learned in the principles and sciences of chemistry, hermeticism, magnetism, astrology, astronomy, and theosophy, by which they obtained great powers through their discoveries, and aimed at the universal solvent—the Philosopher's Stone—thereby striving to acquire the power of transmuting baser metals into silver and gold, and of indefinitely prolonging human life. As a Fraternity they were distinct from the Cabalists, Illuminati, and Carbonari, and in this relation they have been largely and unpleasantly misrepresented. Ignorance and prejudice on the part of the learned as to the real purposes of the Rosicrucians, and as to the beneficence of that Fraternity, has wrought them great injustice.
Science is infinitely indebted to this Order. The renowned reviver of Oriental literature, John Reuchlin, who died in 1522; the famous philosopher and classic Scholar, John Pieus di Mirandola, who died in 1494; the celebrated divine and distinguished philosopher, Cornelius Henry Agrippa, who died in 1535; the remarkable chemist and physician, John Baptist Von Helmont, who died in lfi44; and the famous physician and philosopher, Robert Fludd, who died in 1637, all attest the power and unquestioned prominence of the famous Brotherhood. It is not the part of wisdom to disdain the Astrological and Hermetic Association of Elias Ashmole, author of the Way to Bliss.
All Europe was permeated by this secret organization, and the renown of the Brotherhood was pre-eminent about the year 1615 pressers Fama Fraternitatis, the curious work Secretioris Philosophiae Consideratis, and Cum Confessione Fraternitatis, by P. A. Gabella, with Fludd's Apologia, the Chemische Hochzeit of Christian Rosenkreuz, by Valentine Andrea; and the endless number of volumes, such as the Fama Ramissa, establish the high rank in which the Brotherhood was held. Its curious, unique, and attractive Rosaic Doctrines interested the masses of scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With the Rosicrucians worldly grandeur faded before intellectual elevation. They were simple in their attire, and passed individually through the world unnoticed and unremarked, save by deeds of benevolence and humanity.
The Modern Society of Rosicrucians was given its present definite form by Robert Wentworth Little of England, in 1866; it is founded upon the remains or the embers of an old German association which had come under his observation during some of his researches. Brother Little Anglicized it, giving it more perfect system.
The purpose of Robert Wentworth Little was to create a literary organization, having in view a base for the collection and deposit of archeological and historical subjects pertaining to Freemasonry, secret societies in general, and interesting provincial matter; to inspire a greater disposition to obtain historical truth and to displace error; to bring to light much in relation to a certain class of scientists and scholars, and the results of their life-labors, that were gradually dying away in the memories of men.
To accomplish this end he called about him some of his most prominent English and Scottish Masonic friends inclined to literary pursuits, and they awarded their approval and hearty co-operation. The aims, as officially declared, of the Rosicrucian Society of England and America are to afford mutual aid and encouragement in working out the great problems of life, and in searching out the secrets of nature; to facilitate the study of the system of philosophy founded upon the Cabalah, and the doctrines of Hermes Trismegistus, which was inculcated by the original Fratres Rosae-Crucis of Germany; and to investigate the meaning of symbolism of all that now remains of the wisdom, art, and literature of the ancient world.
The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was founded in England in 1865 by Frater Robert Wentworth Little, who was Secretary of the Province of Middlesex, and Secretary of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls, an eminent Freemason with much literary talent, and Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, who had received Rosicrucian initiation in Austria and had also secured authority there to form an English Rosicrucian Society. Frater Little had rescued some Rituals and other manuscripts from the storerooms of Freemasons Hall and, with these as a basis, he called together some of his most prominent English and Scottish Masonic friends who were inclined to literary pursuit.
The Metropolitan College was established by these Brethren in 1866. R. W. Little was chosen Supreme Magus, William James Hughan the Masonic Historian, and W. H. Hubbard as Substitute Magi.16 Herald The Right Honorable Lord Kenlis became Honor able President in England and Dr. William Robert Woodman the Secretary-General. At about the same time the Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia was founded though a previous organization was in existence before 1867.
The College of Manchester, Liverpool, and the Northern Counties was formed in 1871, and in 1877 the Order was planted in the Dominion of Canada. Dominican College, No. 1, was instituted on March 16, 1878. In 1877 the Yorkshire College was formed but was re-formed as the Yorlc College in 1879 under Thomas Bowman Whytehead as Chief Adept. Frater R. W. Little died in 1878 and Dr. William Robert Woodman became Supreme Magus. During his rule the Province of Northumbria and College of Neweastle were consecrated with Frater Charles Fendelow as Chief Adept,. At this time also the Demiurgus College at Wielbourne R Australia, was formed. The Continental Rosicrucian Lodges were reformed under a revised Constitution in 1890; the Woodman College, Bradford, consecrated in 1908; Robert Fludd College, Bath, 1909; Hallamshire College, Sheffield, 1910; Laneashire College, 1910; Birmingham College, 19l5, and others in South America, India, and other British Colonies.
A group of American Brethren in July, 1878, received admission to the York College in England, and later obtained a Warrant from the Society in Scotland. An organization was effected in the United States and was officially recognized by the Supreme Magus in Anglia, June 1880. Four Colleges were consecrated, Philadelphia, under the then Supreme Magus, Charles E. Meyer; New York, under Albert G. Goodall; Massachusetts, under Alfred F. Chapman, and Baltimore, under Thomas J. Shryoek. In 1887 Charles E. Meyer was Supreme Magus; Charles Roome and A. F. Chapman, Substitute Magi, and Charles T. McClenaehan, Secretary General. The Colleges, in 1912, for example, were six, each one dominating a State and located at Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Burlington in Vermont, and Duluth, Minnesota. Among pioneer officers in the United States were Thomas J. Shryoek, Baltimore, Supreme Magus; Eugene A. Holton, Boston, Senior Substitute Magus; Trevanion W. Hugo, Duluth, Junior Substitute Magus; Joseph W. Work, Boston, Treasurer General, and Benjamin W. Rowell, Boston, Secretary General. Frater Holton later became the Supreme Magus.
The governing Body is the High Couneil comprising the following officers, the Supreme Magus being elected for life:
- 1. Supreme Magus, Master General
- 2. Senior Substitute Magus
- 3. Junior Substitute Magus
- 4. Treasurer General
- 5. Secretary General
- 6. Primus Ancient
- 7. Secondus Ancient
- 8. Tertius Ancient
- 9. Quartus Ancient
- 10. Quintus Ancient
- 11. Sextus Ancient
- 12. Septus Ancient
- 13. Precentor
- 14. Conductor of Novices
- 15. Torch Bearer
- 17. Guardian of Caverns
- 18. Medallist
The officers of a College are in title, and take rank as follows:
- 1. Chief Adept
- 2. Celebrant
- 3. Suffragan
- 4. Treasurer
- 5. Secretary
- 6. Primus Ancient
- 7. Secondus Ancient
- 8. Tertius Ancient
- 9. Quartus Ancient
- 10. Conductor of Novices
- 11. Organist
- 12. First Herald
- 13. Second Herald
- 14. Torch Bearer
- 15. Guardian of Caverns
- 16. Medallist.17. Acolyte
The several grades are arranged in three sets, the First Order being:
- First Grade............................Zelator
- Second Grade........................Theoricus
- Third Grade ..........................Practicus
- Fourth Grade ........................Philosophus
The Second Order of the grades is as follows:
- Fifth Grade.............................Adeptus Junior
- Sixth Grade ...........................Adeptus Senior
- Seventh Grade.......................Adeptus Exemptus
The Third Order comprises two grades which are conferred only in a High Council and are of an official character, the Chief Adept, for instance, by virtue of an appointment being a Provincial Magus:
- Eighth Grade ..........................Magister Templi
- Ninth Grade ............................Chief Adept
These particulars as to offices and grades are taken from the Constitution adopted in the United States of America on September 18, 1882; October 7, 1908, and June 14, 1912.
"The name Rosicrucian" says Frater William Wynn Westcott, whose historical notes are freely used in the compiling of these paragraphs, "has suffered greatly from the pretensions of men, who falsely claiming membership, have made exaggerated, false and unreasonable statements recording the powers and possessions of the Fratres of the Rosy Cross." No true Rosicrucian has asserted his power to make Gold at will, or to possess such an Elixir of life as could enable men to avoid death altogether, or indefinitely, as charlatans have asserted. Poets and writers of romance have also shed a halo of unreality about the Rosicrucians, as we find in the volume called the Count de Gabalis, in the Urldine of La Motte Fouqué, and Pope's Rape of the lock.
- ROSY CROSS
One of the Degrees conferred in the Royal Order of Scotland, which see.
- ROUGH ASHLAR
See Ashlar
- ROUMANIA
In 1859 the Grand Orient of France opened a Lodge at Bucharest. A National Grand Lodge of Roumania was established on September 8, l 880, and four years later it controlled some 23 Lodges, but little is known of its subsequent history. A Grand Lodge and a Supreme Council were established in 1921.
- ROUND TABLE, KING ARTHUR'S
The old English legends, derived from the celebrated chronicle of the twelfth century known as the Brut of England, say that the mythical King Arthur, who died in 542, of a wound received in battle, instituted a company of twenty-four, or, according to some, twelve, of his principal knights, bound to appear at his court on certain solemn days, and meet around a circular table, whence they were called Knights of the Round Table. Arthur is said to have been the institutor of those military and religious orders of chivalry which afterward became so common in the Middle Ages. Into the Order which he established none were admitted but those who had given proofs of their valor; and the knights were bound to defend widows, maidens, and children; to relieve the distressed, maintain the Christian religion, contribute to the support of the church, protect pilgrims, advance honor, and suppress vice.
They were to administer to the care of soldiers wounded in the service of their country, and bury those who died, to ransom captives, deliver prisoners, and record all noble enterprises for the honor and renown of the noble Order. King Arthur and his knights have been very generally considered by scholars as mythical; notwithstanding that, many years ago Whittaker, in his History of Manchester, attempted to establish the fact of his existence, and to separate the true from the fabulous in his history. The legend has been used by some of the fabricators of irregular Degrees in Freemasonry.
- ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND
Edifices, sixty-two in number, varying in height from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet, which are found in various parts of Ireland. They are cylindrical in shape, with a single door eight or ten feet from the ground, and a small aperture near the top. The question of their origin and design has been a source of much perplexity to antiquaries. They have been supposed by Montmorency to have been intended as beacons; by Vallanecy, as receptacles of the sacred fire; by O'Brien, as temples for the worship of the sun and moon; and more recently, by Petrie, simply as bell-towers, and of very modern date.
This last theory has been adopted by many; while the more probable supposition is still maintained by others, that, whatever was their later appropriation, they were, in their origin, of a phallic character, in common with the towers of similar construction in the East. O'Brien's work on the Round Towers of Ireland, which was somewhat extravagant in its arguments and hypotheses, led some Freemasons to adopt, many years ago, the opinion that they were originally the places of a primitive Masonic initiation. But this theory is no longer maintained as tenable.
- ROWERS
See Knight Rower
- ROYAL AND SELECT MASTERS
See Council of Royal and Select Masters
- ROYAL ARCH, ANCIENT
See Knight of the Ninth Arch
- ROYAL ARCH APRON
At the triennial meeting of the General Grand Chapter of the United States at Chicago, in 1859, a Royal Arch apron was prescribed, consisting of a lambskin, silk or satin being strictly prohibited, to be lined and bound with scarlet, on the flap of which should be placed a triple tau cross within a triangle, and all within a circle.
- ROYAL ARCH BADGE
The triple tau, consisting of three tau crosses conjoined at their feet, constitutes the Royal Arch badge. The English Freemasons call it the Emblem of all Emblems, and the Grand Emblems of Royal Arch Masonry. The English Royal Arch lecture thus defines it: "The triple tau forms two right angles on each of the exterior lines, and another at the center, by their union; for the three angles of each triangle are equal to two right angles. This, being typified, illustrates the jewel worn by the Companions of the Royal Arch, which, by its interceptor forms a given number of angles that may be taken in five several combinations." It is used in the Royal Arch Masonry of Scotland, and has, for years, been adopted officially in the United States.
- ROYAL ARCH BANNERS
See Banners Royal Arch
- ROYAL ARCH CAPTAIN
The sixth officer in a Royal Arch Chapter according to the American system. He represents the Sar Hatabahim, or Captain of the King's Guards. He sits in front of the Council and at the entrance to the fourth veil, to guard the approaches as is his duty. He wears a white robe and cap, is armed with a sword, and bears a white banner on which is inscribed a lion, the emblem of the tribe of Judah. His jewel is a triangular plate of gold inscribed with a sword. In the preliminary Lodges of the Chapter he acts as Junior Deacon.
- ROYAL ARCH CLOTHING
The clothing or regalia of a Royal Arch Mason in the American system consists of an apron, already described, a scarf of scarlet velvet or silk, on which is embroidered or painted, on a blue ground, the words, Holiness to the Lord, and if all officer, a scarlet collar, to which is attached the jewel of his office.. The scarf, once universally used, has been very much abandoned Every Royal Arch Mason should also wear at his buttonhole, attached by a scarlet ribbon, the jewel of the Order.
- ROYAL ARCH COLORS
The peculiar color of the Royal Arch Degree is red or Scarlet, which is symbolic of fervency and zeal, the characteristics of the Degree. The colors also used symbolically in the decorations of a Chapter are blue, purple, scarlet, and white, each of which has a Symbolic meaning (see Vezls, Symbolism of the).
- ROYAL ARCH DEGREE
The early history of this Degree is involved in obscurity, but in the opinion of the late Brother W. J. Hughan, its origin may be ascribed to the fourth decade of the eighteenth century.
The earliest known mention of it comes in a contemporary amount of the meeting of a Lodge, No. 21, at Youghal, in Ireland, in 1743, when the members walked in procession and the Master was preceded by "the Royal Arch carried by two Excellent Masons' (see Excellent Master). Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley published in his Caementaria Hibernica (Fasciculus 1, 1895) the following reference: "The earliest known occurrence of the words Royal Arch is met with in the report of the procession of the Youghal Lodge on Saint Johns Day, December 27, 1743."
The next mention of it is in Doctor Dassigny's A Serious and Impartial Enquiry into the cause of the present Decay of Freemasonry in the Kingdom of Ireland, published in 1744, in which the writer says that he is informed that in York "is held an Assembly of Master Masons under the title of Royal Arch Masons, who, as their qualifications and excellencies are superior to others, receive a larger pay than working Masons."
He also speaks of: A certain propagator of a false system some few years ago, in this city (Dublin), who imposed upon several very worthy men, under a pretense of being Master of the Royal Arch, which he asserted he hail brought with him from the city of York, and that the beauties of the Craft did principally consist in the knowledge of this valuable piece of Masonry.
However, he carried on his scheme for several months, and many of the learned and wise were his followers, till, at length, his fallacious art was discovered by a Brother of probity and wisdom, who had some small space before attained that excellent part of Masonry in London, and plainly proved that his doctrine was false: whereupon the Brethren justly despised him, and ordered him to be excluded from all benefits of the Craft, and although some of the Fraternity have expressed an uneasiness at this matter being kept a secret from them, since they had already passed through the usual Degrees of probation, I cannot help being of opinion that they have no right to any such benefit until they m eke a proper application, and are received with due formality, and as it is an organized body of men who have passed the chair, and given undeniable proofs of their skill in architecture, it cannot be treated with too much reverence, and more especially since the character of the present members of that particular Lodge are untainted, and their behavior judicious and unexceptionable, so that there cannot be the least hinge to hang a doubt on, but that they are most excellent Masons.
This passage makes it plain that the Royal Arch Degree ovals conferred in London before 1744, say about 1740, and would suggest that York was considered to be its place of origin. Also as Laurence Dermott became a Royal Arch Mason in 174X it is clear that he could not have been, as is sometimes asserted, the inventor of the Rite.
Our old friend, Brother William Tait of Belfast, Ireland, promptly advised us when he made the happy discovery of what to this time is the earliest reference to the Royal Arch in a Lodge Minute Book, but the earliest Minute Book of the Degree actually being conferred is that of the Fredericksburg Lodge in Virginia on December 22, 1753. Vernon Lodge No. 123, Coleraine, County Derry, was warranted by the Grand dodge of Ireland May 8, 1741. Two of the old Minute Books of this Lodge, running from 1749-83, have been preserved. In the first of these under date of April 16, 1752, we find: "At this Lodge room.
Thos. Blair proposed Samson Moore a Master & Royal Arch Mason to be admitted a member of our Lodge." Hitherto the earliest reference to the Decree in a Minute Book was the Grand Committee of the Ancient, September 2, 1752; while the earliest Minute of the Degree actually being conferred is still that of the Fredericksburg Lodge, December 22, 1753. The second book of Vernon Lodge contains a record dating the Degree to an even earlier period than 1752. This occurs in a list of the members of a Lodge drawn up in 1767, where after each name is put the date at which he was made Royal Arch. The earliest date given of a Royal Arch reception is March 11, 1745, and the latest June 25, 1765.
Brother John Heron Lepper, contributing this information to Miscellanea Latomorum (1925, volume ix, pages 138-9) says: "A glance at the map will show how far Coleraine lies from Dublin, and to find the Royal Arch degree known in the former place within a year of Dassigny's famous reference in 1744, makes one wonder whether it could have been such a recent introduction into Ireland as his text claims."
(See also pages 99-100, volume 1, History, Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ireland, by Brothers J. H. Lepper and Philip Crossle, and Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1923, volume xxxvi, pages 1934, where Brother Tait, among other items of interest relating to these records, points out with good reason that "even at this early date the Royal Arch must have been widely spread when we find it practiced in places so far apart as York and Virginia—Lonclon and Stirling—Youghall in the South and Coleraine in the North of Ireland.")
A mention of the Degree occurs in the Minutes of the Ancient Grand Lodge for March 4, 1752, when A formal complaint was made by several Brethren against Thos. Phealon and John Macky, better known as " leg of mutton Masons " for clandestinely making Masons for the mean consideration of a leg of mutton for dinner or supper. Upon examining some Brothers whom they pretended to have made Royal Arch men the parties had not the least idea of that secret. The Grand Secretary had examined Macky, and stated that he had not the least idea or knowledge of Royal Arch Masonry but instead thereof he had told the people he had deceived a long story about twelve white marble stones, &c., &e., and that the rainbow was the Royal arch, with many other absurdities equally foreign and ridiculous.
The earliest known record of the Degree being actually conferred is a Minute of the Fredericksburg Lodge, Virginia, United States of America, stating that on December 22, 1753, three Brethren were raised to the Degree of Royal Arch Mason (a facsimile of this entry is in the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume iv, page 222, also in Brother Hughan's Origin of the English Rite of Freemasonry), while the earliest records traced in England are of the year 1758, during which year several Brethren were "raised to the degree of Royal Arch" in a Lodge meeting at the Crown at Bristol
This Lodge was a Modern one and its records therefore make it abundantly clear that the Royal Arch Degree was not by any means confined to the .Ancient, though it was not officially recognized by the Grand Lodge of the Moderns, whose Secretary wrote in 1759, "Our Society is neither Arch, Royal Arch or Ancient." However, at the Union of Ancient and Moderns, in 1813, it was declared that "pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degrees, and no more, namely, those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch."
This lends color to the idea that at some time or other the Royal Arch had formed part of the Master Mason's Degree, though when and by whom it was separated from it no one has yet discovered, for we may dismiss as utterly uncorroborated by any proof the assertion that Ramsay was the fabricator of the Royal Arch Degree, and equally unsupported is the often made assertion that Dunckerley invented it, though he undoubtedly played a very active part in extending it.
The late Brother W. J. Hughan, in his Origin of the English Rite of Freemasonry (1909, page 90), favors "the theory that a word was placed in the Royal Arch prominently which was previously given in the sections of the Third Degree and known 'as the ancient word of a Master Mason," and considers that "according to this idea, that which was once lost, and then found, in the Third Degree, in one of the sections, was subsequently under the new regime discovered in the 'Royal Arch,' only much extended, and under most exalted and dignified surroundings."
In England, Scotland, and the United States, the legend of the Degree is the same, though varying in some of the details, but the ceremony in Ireland differs much, for it has nothing to do with the rebuilding of the Temple as narrated by Ezra, but with the repairing of the Temple by Josiah, the three chief Officers, or Principals, being the King, Josiah, the Priest, Hilkiah, and the Scribe, Shaphan, not as in England, Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Jeshua, or as in America, High Priest, King, and Scribe.
At one time in England only Past, Masters were eligible for the degree, and this led to a system called Passing the Chair, by which a sort of Degree of Past Master was conferred upon Brethren who had never really served in the chair of a Lodge; now a Master Mason who has been so for four weeks is eligible for Exaltation.
In Scotland, Royal Arch Masonry is not officially recognized by the Grand Lodge, though the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for Scotland was formed in 1817.
Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley, in his Caementaria Hibernica, Fasciculus I, says of the Royal Arch Degree, "It is not is. separate entity, but the completing part of a Masonic legend, a constituent ever present in the compound body, even before it developed into a Degree . . . if the Royal Arch fell into desuetude, the cope-stone would be removed, and the building left obviously incomplete."
- ROYAL ARCH, GRAND
The Thirty-first Degree of the Rite of Mizraim. It is nearly the same as the Thirteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
- ROYAL ARCH GRAND BODIES IN AMERICA
The first meeting of delegates out of which arose the General Grand Chapter was at Boston, October 24, 1797. The Convention adjourned to assemble at Hartford, in January, 1798, and it was there the Grand Chapter of the Northern States of America was organized. Again, on the 9th of January, 1799, an adjourned meeting was held, whereat it was resolved to change its name to that of General Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern States of America. On January 9, 1806, the present designation was adopted, to wit: "The General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masonry for the United States of America." New York was determined upon as the place for the first Convocation, September, 1812, and the sessions to be made sentential, every seventh year. It failed to meet at the appointed time, but an important Convocation was held in New York City, on June 6, 1816.
Joseph K. Wheeler, Grand Secretary, in his introduction to the Records of Capitular Masonry in the State of Connecticut, says, after mentioning the names of the Chapters represented at the organization of the Grand Chapter in 1798: "In tracing their history it will be observed that all of these Chapters obtained their authority from a Washington Chapter in the city of New York, with the exception of Vanderbroeck, No. 5," chartered at an early date, by the Grand Chapter of New York, after which no more Chapters were established by any authority outside the Jurisdiction of Connecticut except Lynch Chapter, No. 8, located at Reading and Weston, which was chartered by the Grand Chapter of New York, August 23, 1801, which charter was signed by Francis Lynch, High Priest, Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons; James Woods, King; and Samuel Clark, Scribe; which was admitted to membership in Grand Chapter of Connecticut, May 19, 1808.
It is of interest here to note that the oldest Chapter in New York State is Ancient, No. 1, whose date of origin is lost, its records up to 1804 having been destroyed by fire, but tradition fixes the year 1763. For years it wielded the powers of a Grand Chapter, and until 1799 was known as the Old Grand Chapter. It granted Charters for Chapters in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In this last named State it issued a Charter to Lynch Chapter See above) which was received into full fellowship by the Grand Chapter of Connecticut although the Grand Chapter of New York had been in existence some time before the Charter was issued.
On the formation of the Grand Chapter of the State of New York, the numbers 1 and 2 were left vacant for the acceptance of Old and Washington Chapters, which latter was an offspring of the former, who at that time refused to place themselves under its Jurisdiction. In 1808, Old Chapter enrolled itself as Ancient under the State Grand Body, accepted the number one, and was further honored by having its High Priest, tames Woods, elected Deputy Grand High Priest. The organization of the General Grand Chapter is explained at length in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry.
- ROYAL ARCH JEWEL
The jewel which every Royal Arch Mason is permitted to wear as a token of his connection with the Order. In America it is usually suspended by a scarlet ribbon to the button. In England it is to be worn pendant from a narrow ribbon on the left breast, the color of the ribbon varying with the rank of the wearer. It is of gold, and consists of a triple tau cross within a triangle, the whole circumscribed by a circle.
This jewel is eminently symbolic, the tau being the mark mentioned by Ezekiel (ix, 4), by which those were distinguished who were to be saved from the wicked who were to be slain; the triple tan is symbolic of the peculiar and more eminent separation of Royal Arch Masons from the profane; the triangle, or delta, is a symbol of the sacred name of God, known only to those who are thus separated; and the circle is a symbol of the eternal life, which is the great dogma taught by Royal Arch Masonry. Hence, by this jewel, the Royal Arch Mason makes the profession of his separation from the unholy and profane, his reverence for God, and his belief in the future and eternal life. In the United States of America, the emblem worn by Royal Arch Masons without the Chapter is a Keystone, on which are the letters H. T. W. S. S. T. K. S. arranged in a circle and within the circle may or should be his mark.
- ROYAL ARCH MASONRY
That division of Speculative Freemasonry which is engaged in the investigation of the mysteries connected with the Royal Arch, no matter under what name or in what Rite. Thus the mysteries of the Knight of the Ninth Arch constitute the Royal Arch Masonry of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite just as much as those of the Royal Arch of Zerubbabel do the Royal Arch of the American Rite.
- ROYAL ARCH MASONRY, MASSACHUSETTS
A statement of the origin and record of Saint Andrew's Chapter in Boston is to trace early Royal Arch Masonry in Massachusetts. The following is extracted from Companion Thomas Waterman's admirable history of Saint Andrew's Royal Arch Chapter, the result of much earnest research: "The first meeting recorded of this Chapter was held on the 28th of August, 1769, and was then styled the Royal Arch Lodge, of which R. W. James Brown was Master." Presumably this Lodge derived its authority from the Grand Lodge, Ancient of England, as did that of the same name in Philadelphia, whereby it was authorized to confer the Holy Royal Arch Degree, as also did Independent Royal Arch, No. 2, of New York, but surrendered the right to confer the Royal Arch Degree when it joined the Grand Lodge of New York. Companion Waterman adds: "It appears by the record that the Degrees of 'Excellent, Super-Excellent, and Royal Arch' were conferred in the Royal Arch Lodge." Winthrop Gray, on April 17, 1770, was elected Master.
On the succeeding May 14th, "Most Worshipful Joseph Warren, Esq.," was made a Royal Arch Mason. No record appears between March 26, 1773, and March 20, 1789. In an old register-book, dated April 1, 1789, is found "Original members, April 1, 1789, M. E. William McKeen, H. P." The next recorded election, October 21, 1790, gives William McKeen, R. A. Master. "On November 28, 1793, the Degree of Mark Master was connected with the other Degrees conferred in the Chapter."
"January 30, 1794, the words 'Royal Arch Chapter' are used for the first time in recording the proceedings of tile Chapter." "The Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Massachusetts was organized by delegates from Saint Andrew's Chapter, Boston, and King Cyrus' Chapter, Newburyport, who assembled at Masons Hall, in the Green Dragon Tavern, Boston, on Tuesday, the 13th of March, 1798 A.D.22.
- ROYAL ARCH OF ENOCH
The Royal Arch system which is founded upon the legend of Enoch (see Enoch).
- ROYAL ARCH OF SOLOMON
One of the names of the Degree of Knight of the Ninth Arch, or Thirteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
- ROYAL ARCH OF ZERUBBABEL.
The Royal Arch Degree of the American Rite is so called to distinguish it from the Royal Arch of Solomon in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
- ROYAL ARCH ROBES
In the working of a Royal Arch Chapter in the United States, great attention is paid to the robes of the several officers.. The High Priest wears, in imitation of the High Priest of the Jews, a robe of blue, purple, scarlet, and white linen, and is decorated with the breastplate and miter. The King wears a scarlet robe, and has a crown and scepter. The Scribe wears a purple robe and turban. The Captain of the Host wears a white robe and cap, and is armed with a sword. The Principal Sojourner wears a dark robe, with tessellated border, a sleuthed hat, and pilgrim's staff. The Royal Arch Captain wears a white robe and cap, and is armed with a sword. The three Grand Masters of the Veils wear, respectively, the Grand Master of the third veil a scarlet robe and cap, of the second veil a purple robe and cap, of the first veil a blue robe and cap. Each is armed with a sword. The Treasurer, Secretary, and Sentinel wear no robes nor peculiar dress. All of these robes have either a historical or symbolical allusion.
- ROYAL ARCH TRACING-BOARD
The oldest Royal Arch Tracing-Board extant is one which was formerly the property of a Chapter in the City of Chester, and which Doctor Oliver thinks was "used only a very few years after the degree was admitted into the system of constitutional Masonry. " He has given a copy of it in his work on the Origin of the English Royal Arch. The symbols which it displays are, in the center of the top an arch scroll, with the words in Greek, EN APXH HN O AOrO2, that is, In the beginning was the Fork; beneath, the word Jehovah written in Cabalistic letters; on the right side an Arch and keystone, a rope falling in it, and a sun darting its rays obliquely; on the left a pot of incense beneath a rainbow; in the center of the tracing-board, two interlaced triangles and a sun in the center, all surrounded by a circle; on the right and left of this the seven-branched candlestick and the table of shewbread. Beneath all, on three scrolls, are the words, Solomon, Ring of Israel; Hiram, King of Tyre; Hiram, the Widow's Son, in Hebrew and Latin. Doctor Oliver finds in these emblems a proof that the Royal Arch was originally taken from the Master's Degree, because they properly belong to that Degree, according to the English lecture, and here afterward restored to it. But the American Freemason will find in this board how little his system has varied from the primitive one practiced at Chester, since all the emblems, with the exception of the last three, are still recognized as Royal Arch symbols according to the American system.
- ROYAL ARCH WORD
See Tetragrammaton
- ROYAL ARCH WORKING-TOOLS
See Working-Tools
- ROYAL ARK MARINERS
A Degree in England conferred on Mark Master Masons, and worked under the authority of the Grand Master of Mark Masons, assisted by a Royal Ark Council. The language of the Order is peculiar. The Supreme Body is called a Grand Ark; subordinate Lodges are vessels; organizing a Lodge is launching a vessel; to open a Lodge is to f oat an ark; to close the Lodge is to moor. All its references are nautical, and allude to the Deluge and the Ark of Noah. The Degree seems to have been invented in England about the end of the eighteenth century. A correspondent of the London Monthly Magazine for December, 1798 (volume vi, page 424), calls it "one of the new degrees in Freemasonry," and thus describes the organization:
They profess to be followers of Noah, and therefore call themselves Noachidae, or Sons of Noah. Hence their President, who at present is Thomas Boothby Parking Lord Rancliffe, is dignified with the venerable title of Grand Noah, and the Lodge where they assemble is called the Royal Ark Vessel.
These Brother mariners wear in Lodge time a broad sash ribbon, representing a rainbow, with an apron fancifully embellished with an ark, dove, etc. Among other rules of this society is one that no Brother shall be permitted to enter as a mariner on board a Royal Ark vessel for any less sum than ten shillings and sixpence, of which sum sixpence shall be paid to the Grand and Royal Ark vessel for his registry, and the residue be disposed of at the discretion of the officers of the vessel.
Their principal place of meeting in London was at the Surry Tavern, Surry Street, in the Strand. The writer gives the following verse from one of their songs written by Dr. Ebenezer Sibley.
- They entered safe—and lo! the Deluge came
- And none were protected but Masons and wives;
- The crafty and knavish came floating along,
- The rich and the beggar of profligate lives:
- It was now in woe
- For mercy they call
- To old Father Noah
- And loudly did bawl
- But Heaven shut the door and the ark was afloat
- To perish they must, for they were found out.
Now the Degree is in England conferred under the Grand Mark Lodge and also has considerable popularity under the control of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland. In the United States the Decree has not prospered in numbers. The College of Rites in its series of ceremonies included the Royal Ark Mariners and a few Bodies were set at work but the only one that seems to have continued activities was the Lodge at Masonic Hall, New York City. The Degree is, as has been intimated, based on the Bible account of the Ark of Noah, the Deluge, and the Dove, and has much interest and significance for thoughtful Brethren.
- ROYAL PRIEST
The Fifth Degree of the Initiated Brothers of Asia, also called the True Rose Croix.
- ROYAL SECRET, SUBLIME PRINCE OF THE
See Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret
- ROYAL SOMERSET HOUSE AND INVERNESS LODGE
One of the four old Lodges establishing the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. Doctor Anderson states that this Lodge met at the "Rummer and Grapes Tavern, in Channel Row, Westminster." The date of its origin is unknown but in 1723 a List of Lodges appeared which gave the name of this Lodge as "Horn Tavern," Westminster. At that time, according to the Grand Lodge records, it was probably the largest and most aristocratic of all English Masonic Lodges. It became designated as No. 3 in 1729 and in 1740 it was known as No. 2. It was erased from the Grand Lodge List on April 3, 1747, the reason being given as "not attending according to the order of the last Quarterly communication.
It was restored, however, in 1751 and in 1767 it officially took the name of "Old Horn Lodge." It united with and took the name of the Somerset House Lodge" in 1774 which was then known as No. 279, becoming then No. 4. This Lodge had been established in 1762 by Dunckerley on board the English ship P7once, being removed from there to the ship known as Guadeloupe and from there to Somerset House. The new combination known as the Somerset House Lodge absorbed the Royal Inverness Lodge November 25, 1828, which had been known as No. 648 and which had been the first Lodge warranted by the United Grand Lodge of England and named after the then Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex, who had officiated at the consecration February 2, 1815, when the Lodge was first instituted at the Freemasons Tavern. After November 25, 1828, the united Lodges were styled the "Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge No. 4, of Time Immemorial Constitution."
This Lodge is the holder of the Freemasons Hall Medal as well as a special Medal granted in 1858 bearing the arms of Scotland with a reference to the King's son. This is surmounted by the Coronet of a Prince of the Blood Royal borne by the Duke of Sussex. On the reverse side the inscription appears, "Immemorial Constitution. United with the Old Horn Lodge, No. 2, January 10, 1774." On the rim the following is engraved: "Royal Inverness Lodge, No. 648. The First Lodge consecrated under the United Grand Lodge by Right Worshipful His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, 1814" (see also An Introduction to the History of the Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge; Rev. Arnold Whitaker Oxford, published at London in 1928).
- ROBBINS, JOSEPH, ORATION BY
American Masons behind the tiled doors of their Lodges and Grand Lodges during the past one and one-half centuries have listened to orations which would be everywhere famous had they been delivered in public, for there has ever been an unbroken succession in the Craft of orators, of great tribunes, of great speech makers—John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, down to Thomas Riley Marshall, William J. Bryan, and Dr. Parkes Cadman. Among these have been a number of orations which have helped to make Masonic history: Clare's Oration before Grand Lodge; Preston's Oration before Grand Lodge; Ramsay's Oration in Paris; Drake's Oration before the York Grand Lodge; Paul Revere's Orations; Joseph Tew's famous Provincial Grand Lodge speeches (published in two volumes); etc. It is unfortunate that most of them have not been preserved, and that such of them as lie in old Grand Lodge Proceedings are not collected and published.
In the opinion of literary critics, and applying the canons of eloquence rather than the criteria of Masonic scholarship, the most perfect eloquence of American Masonry is found in Dr. Joseph Robbins' oration, delivered by him to the Grand Lodge of Illinois, a Grand Lodge which was to number among its future Grand Orators Governor Frank Lowden. Dr. Robbins was born in Leominster, Mass., September 12, 1834; was made a Mason in Wyoming Lodge, Mass., Dec. 28, 1856. He transferred his membership to Quincy Lodge, No. 296, Quincy, Ill., where he removed in 1858, and where he lived until he died July 19, 1909. He was elected T. M., and re-elected twelve successive times. He was Grand Master for two terms, in 1876 and 1877; and had been Grand Orator in 1868. His Oration remained famous and familiar for half a century; the complete text was published in The Builder.
- ROME, A LODGE AT
The Jacobite Lodge at Rome came without announcement, worked a few years, vanished and left scarcely a trace, and was always small enough to meet in a private room; yet, like the Rosetta Stone, it has a significance out of proportion to its age or its size because of a number of unique features in its organization and its work; so much so, that William James Hughan, and at the request of the Grand Master of Masons in Scotland, wrote a book about it: The Jacobite Lodge at Rome: 1736-7; Torquay; printed for Lodge of Research, No. 2429, Leicester, England; 1910.
The Lodge met at the Three Kings, Strada Paolina, Rome. Its by-laws were written in Latin, and consisted of twelve rules, each of one sentence. The earliest date in the still-existing Minutes is August 16, 1735; the last is August 20, 1737; including first and last there are Minutes of twelve meetings. John Cotton was Master to and including March 19, 1736; from then on the Right Honorable the Earl of Winton (also spelled Wintown) was Master. The title of the Master is variously given as Master, Maitre, Great Master, Grand Master. In a list of founding members written by hand in the Minute Book William Howard is named as Master; his name is followed by two Wardens, and thirteen members; this means that the Lodge had held at least one meeting before Aug. 16, 1735.
Andrew Lumisden made a gift of the Minute Book to the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1799. In a memorandum which he wrote to accompany the gift he said, among other things: "Pope Clement XII, having published a most severe edict la Bull] against Masonry, the last Lodge held at Rome was on the 20th August, 1737, when the Earl of Wintown was Master. [The Bull was dated in 1738.] The Officer of the Lodge [sometimes used as title for the Tiler], who was a servant of Dr. James Irvin, u as sent, as a terror to others prisoner to the Inquisition, but was soon released (This exemplary, or token, punishment was doubtless visited on the servant, instead of on the responsible head of the Lodge, because he was a servant, which is an interesting commentary on the morals of the Vatican.)
Bro. Hughan proves that Prince Charles Stuart the Roman Catholic pretender to the English throne, w as not in this Lodge, and that there is no trace of any connection with him. After having studied the biography of each member Bro. Hughan BTote: "Evidently the membership of the Lodge was mainly, if not exclusively, composed of Jacobites...." He believes that the founders were members of Scottish Lodges. Bro. Wintown was Master before he had taken the Third Degree, but it is very significant that he became a Master Mason in 1736; it may indicate that the Lodge at Rome had three Degrees at that period.
- ROYAL ARCH WORLD DISTRIBUTION
In 1942 the Grand Chapter, Royal Arch Masons of Missouri, published a Baedeker for Royal Arch Masons in the armed forces which showed the number and distribution of regular Chapters and Grand Chapters as of that date. The data are such as to deserve permanent record. Unless otherwise specified numbers refer to Chapters. Capital letters following numbers denote jurisdiction according to the following key: GGC= General Grand Chapter of United States; S = Scottish, I = Irish, E = English. Alaska- 4(GGC). Arabia: 1(S). Argentine: 8(E). Australia: there are Six Grand Chapters. Barbados: 2(S). Bermuda: 3(E)- 3(S). Brazil: 2(E). British Guiana: 2(E); 2(S). Canada: has nine Grand Chapters and 311 Chapters. Canal Zone: 2(GGC). Cape of Good Hope: 28(E); 1(I)- 15(S). Chile: 3(S), 1(GGC). China: 10 (EGC); 3(Sj; 1(GGC). Cuba: 1(GGC). Egypt: 6(E); 1 (S) . In England are 1644 Chapters, 438 in London alone. Fiji Islands: 2(S). Gibraltar: 3(E)- 1(S), 1(I). Gold Coast: 7(E); 1(S). Hawaii: 1(GGC). India: 29(E); 1(I); 3(S). Bombay: 24(E); 19(S). Burma: 7(E); 1(S). Ceylon: 6(E); 1(S). Madras: 16(E),3(S). Northwestern: 1(E); 1(S). Punjab: 20(E); 4(S). Rajputana; 1(S); 1(E). Iraq: 2 (E) . Ireland: 342 Chapters. Antigua: 1 (E) . Malta: 3(E)- 1(S). St. Helena: 1(E). Cyprus: 1(E). Isle of Man: 5(E). Isle of Mauritius: 1(S). Isle of Pines: 1(S). Isle of Wight: 6(E). Jamaica: 4(E); 1(S). Japan (Whites) 4(E). Jersey: 3(E). Kenya: 1(E)- 3(S). Malay States : 11 (E); 3(S) . Mesopotamia : 1 (E) . Mexico : 3(GGC). Military Chapters: 2(S). Monte Carlo: 1(E). Morocco: 1(S). Natal: 10(E); 1(I) • 6(S). New South Wales: Gr. Ch. of N. S. W. has 74; Ireland 1; Scotland 144. New Zealand: G. C. of N. Z. has 68,2(I)10(Ep 13(S). Nigeria: 6(E)- 1(I)- 2(S). Northern Rhodesia: 1(E). Nyasaland: 1(S). Orange Free State: 4(E)- 5(S). Palestine: 1(E). Peru 2(S). Philippine Islands: 1(GGC)- 1(S). Porto Rico: 1(GGC). Quebec: 23 under G. C. of I.; 1 (E) . Queensland: G. C. of I. has 95; 1(E)- 4(S). Scotland: 541 and G. C. of S. Siam: 1(S). Sierra Leone: 1(E); 1(S). South Australia: G. S. of S. A. has Chapters in majority of cities and tows. South Rhodesia: 3(E); 2(I); 2(S); Sudan: 1(E). Syria: 1(S). Tanganyika: 4(E). Tasmania: 6(S). Transvaal: 18(S); 16(E); 4(I). Trinidad: 4(S). Turkey: 1(E) at Constantinople. Uganda:1(AS) Uruguay:1(E). Victoria, Australia G. C. of V. has 65. Virgin Islands: 1 (E) . Western Australia: Chapters in most towns under G. C. of VENT. ant-; 7(S).
- ROYALTY AND ENGLISH MASONRY
Queen Anne's children had died before her; and when she passed, two descendants of the original Stuart family had an almost equal genealogical claim to the throne: George, the Elector of Hanover; and James Stuart, Son of the exiled James II. The latter was a Roman Catholic; the former was a Protestant. The Tories were divided between the two, but the Whigs were determined that once and for all England should become officially a Protestant country, and therefore culled George to the throne. He was a middle-aged Germans coarse and arrogant, and personally never Texas popular; even so, James Stuart, and contrary to a romantic tradition in novels, was equally coarse and arrogantly so that his adherents in England and Scotland, the Jacobites, gained no strength for their cause from his personality.
The new king was crowned George I in 1714, and was to reign for thirteen years. The New Grand Lodge of Speculative Masonry was erected in London three years after his coronation, but when the Duke of Wharton undertook to swing it over to the Jacobite side it threw him out and wrote into its Book of Constitutions a law to forbid any political activity by Lodges or Masons. Masons were to be peaceable citizens, loyal to the government. At the time, this meant in effect loyalty to the Hanoverian Dynasty, which is still the Royal House of Britain.
Almost from the first, members of the new Royal Family came into Freemasonry, and with them members of the old nobility and of the high aristocracy in England, Ireland, and Scotland; and not as members in name only but as active workers in Grand Lodge, Provincial Grand Lodges, and Lodges. A non-Masonic British nobleman was an exception. Their relatives by blood and marriage on the Continent were brought in by them; and the fact partly explains the extraordinary spread of the Fraternity over Europe and as far east as Moscow during the first twenty-five years after the erection of the Mother Grand Lodge.
American Masons have never realized how completely the Grand and the Provincial Grand Lodges of Britain have been officered by members of the Royal Family and the nobility, and even now, and in spite of the great amount of inter-visitation which went on during the Second World War, it continues to be difficult of full realization.
The City of Derby was far from London, the Court, and from its social circles; the home city of scientists, inventors (Watt and Arkwright among them), and capitalists, it became the cradle of the Industrial Revolution; these facts make it the more striking that the records of one of its Lodges, Tyrian No. 953, in its minutes from 1766 to 1885, are studded with titled names: the Duke of Cumberland, Brother of George III, granted its Warrant, which also was signed by the Earl of E5ingham. In 1798 the Lodge contributed A:42 toward a jewel which was presented to the Earl of Aloira, Grand Master of the Ancient when he became Governor General of India. Daniel Coke, a member of Parliament, was twice W.-. M.-.. The Sixth Duke of Devonshire was W. . M.-. in 1813 and in 1814, and was Provincial Grand Master from 1814 to 1858, when he was succeeded by the Marquis of Hartington, Secretary for War. Viscount Tamworth was made a Mason in Tyrian in 1810; and the second Lord Scarsdale in the same year. Both Augustus and Edvard Curzon mere initiated in 1815; Francis Curzon was NV. M. in 1826. Earl Howe, Augustus Stanhope, and Earl Ferrers were entered between 1815 and 1848.
Among its visitors were scores of men of the nobility who carried titles among the oldest in Britain. Two Hundred Years of Freemasonry; A History of the Britannic Lodge, No. 55 (Kening & Son; London; 1930), one of the most brilliant of the smaller Lodge histories, home Lodge of the famous John Coustos, had so many members of British and other royal families between 1773 and 1817 that it is called "the Royal period." On the membership list at the same time were two foreign kings, three Hanoverian kings and five royal Dukes. The Earl of Moira was "perpetual Master."
But the most remarkable instance of Royalty in Lodges was No. 259, of which Prance of Wales Lodge, by Thomas Fenn, privately printed in 1890, is the history. It was instituted in 1787 by his Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. "The Lodge was originally intended to consist only of those who were honored with appointments under H. R. H. or men firmly attached to his person and interest.... Amongst the earliest initiated in this Lodge, were twenty of H. R. H.'s footmen and household servants. They were not admitted as members, but were initiated by order of H. R. H. as serving Brethren without payment of fees."
Among its long list of Royal and otherwise most eminent persons (come in by Royal invitation) were: Duke of York, Duke of Clarence, Lord Lake, Thomas Dunckerley, Major St. Leger (cousin of Elizabeth St. Leger, the Irish "lady Freemason"), General Bowles (afterwards appointed to be "Provincial Grand Master" to the Creek Indians in America!), General Paoli, the Corsican patriot, Earl of Zetland, Duke of Roxburgh, Prince of Moliterno, Prime Minister George Canning, Sir David Pollock, Godfrey Higgins (author of the stupendous monument of erudition, The Anacolypsz a second Earl of Zetland, Lord Monson, Earl of Yarborough, Duke of Beaufort, Lord Rendlesham, Lord Catthorpe, the Maharajah Duleep Singh of India, Viscount Lake, Youssuff Aziz Effendi, Earl of Wigtown, Duke of Sussex (Grand Master from 1813 to 1843), Lord Churchill, Lord Monson, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, Prince of Wales (Edward VII), W. . M.-. from 1874, Grand Masterfrom 1875, etc., etc.
In the list of Worshipful Masters five are preceded by The Modern Grand Lodge of England from 1717 to 1813 was with the exception of the lowest bracket of officers, staffed by men of the nobility and of the aristocracy, as were also, to a scarcely lesser degree, the Provincial Grand Lodges. The second part of Bro. Albert F. Calvert's The Grand dodge of England (Herbert Jenkins Ltd.; London; 1917) consists of 3 gallery of portraits in which appear, among others, the following: John, Duke of Montague Earl of Chesterfield, Duke of Wharton, Duke of Richmond, Duke of Lorraine, Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Crawford, Sir Cecil Wray, Sir Thomas De Veil (one of the personages in Hogarth's "Night"), Viscount Harcourt, William, Duke of Cumberland, Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales (this eldest son of King George II was first King's son to be made a Mason; Nov. 5, 1737; the ceremony was performed by Dr. Desaguliers.
Grand Lodge was exactly 20 years old), Lord Raymond, Sir James Thornhill, Marshal James Keith, Frederick III, King of Prussia, Sir Richard Glynn (Lord Mayor), Lord Blayney, Duke of Beaufort, Edward, Duke of York, Frederick, Duke of York, Thomas Harley (Lord Mayor. Sat for his portrait with his hands in a large fur muff), Admiral Sir Peter Parker, Robert Edward, Lord Petre (like one or two others, Lord Petre was a Roman Catholic. While the Marquis of Ripon was Grand Master he became a convert of Roman Catholicism, resigned his Masonic offices, and his membership), Duke of Manchester, Sir Watkin Lewes (Lord Mayor of London), Col. John St. Leger, Duke of Cumberland, G. M. in 1782-1790, Charles Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Duke of York, William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, Earl of Moira (this G. M. was in 1806 also G. M. of Scotland), Francis, Earl of Moira, Prime Minister George Canning, C. T. Hunter (Lord Mayor), Duke of Sussex (once lived in Canada where he was a Prov. G. M.; was G. M. of England 181S1843), Prince of Wales (King George IV), Duke of Kent (also lived in Canada for years; G. M. of Ancient; father of Queen Victoria, who, after her coronation, and as an honor to him, announced herself Patroness of Freemasonry), Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Clarence (King William IV), Earl of Zetland, Fifth Duke of Richmond, Earl of Carnarvon, Earl of Lathom, Duke of Connaught, Duke of Clarence, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, (Edward VII), Lord Ampthill, John, Earl of Atholl, etc.
With only a few exceptions these men of title, who usually were also men of large affairs and of great responsibilities in the State, were good and true Masons in every sense, as members and Brothers, and as officers; but their titles were born with them, their authorities went with them, their privileges were continuous, so that a Prince or a Duke continued to be a Prince or a Duke while sitting in the Grand East (called "throne"), which is in contrast to the American practice, where if a President, Governor, or Senator (the importance of whose of lice is as "high" and even more responsible than that of King, Prince, or Duke) sits in the East or Grand East it is in his capacity only as a Mason—his "titles are left outside the tiled door."
The Modern Grand Lodge between 1721 and 1751 became top-heavy with aristocracy, and many Lodges, especially in London, became exclusive and snobbish; this was in violation of the Landmark of "meeting upon the level" which in Freemasonry was centuries older than the House of Hanover or the House of Stuart; and it was this violation, far more than the violation of two or three customs of ceremony, which in Grand Master Byron's time ("the wicked Lord Byron," who once murdered a man in a drunken brawl) was the reason for so many Lodges going over to the Ancient Grand Lodge. The Ancient Grand Lodge had been erected in 1751 by Irish Masons living in London who could neither visit nor affiliate with London Lodges because they were "mechanics," that is, like the fathers and founders of the Craft, were "workers," or were men in small business. The majority of English writers on Masonic history aide Gould, Calvert, etc.) never fail to quote anything "coarse" that Laurence Dermott ever said about the Moderns; but they never quote the stinging and snobbish things said by the Moderns about Dermott; and never permit a reader to forget that Dermott (God help him!) was a house painter!
And yet, so strange are the ways of men, so Upside down their hearts, the Masons who "made" the Grand Lodges of England and, after 1813, the United Grand Lodge—the ritualists, the hard-working lower officers, and the writers—were commoners: Desaguliers was a doctor; Anderson a dissenting minister; Preston a printer; Dermott a painter (though an extraordinarily well-educated man of genius); Gilkes a grocer; Pine an engraver; and so on; and regardless of how aristocratic the Modern Grand Lodge itself may ever have been its members gave great honor to these men.
The manly, upright, brainy men of the Lodge at Aberdeen, Scotland, who with such great care wrote out the Work Book in 1670, appended it to a solemn address to Masons who might come after them in their ancient Lodge, which for weight and a sincere eloquence can scarcely be rivaled by any utterance that ever came out of Freemasonry: "So ends the names of us all who are authors of this Book and the Mason's box [charity] in order, according to our ages as we were made fellow craft, from which we reckon our age; so we entreat all our good successors in the Mason Craft to follow our rule as your patterns, and not to strive for place, for here ye may see above written and amongst the rest of our names persons of a mean degree insert before great persons of quality.
The history of the Tyrian Lodge, No. 253, of Derby, referred to in an earlier paragraph, is set forth with great compactness in The Centenary Celebration of the Tynan Lodge, No. 253; printed by W. Bacon; Derby; Second Edition; 1885. (The name is from the Latin tyriorum, or trireme.) It is one of the most significant of the early Lodge histories because Derby was in the center of so much of national importance at the time of the French Revolution. Beginning on page 14 the undesignated author gives a number of pages about men of title, fame, eminence who were in the Lodge, connected with it, or then in the Craft. On page 14 he writes: "Francis, Duke of Lorraine, afterwards Emperor of Germany, husband of Maria Theresa, and father of Marie Antoinette, whose beauty and whose cruel fate inspired the glowing eloquence of Burke, was initiated at The Hague as early as 1731." This one small Lodge history alone, in its 74 pages, gives documentary proof of the falseness of those books which set out to show that Freemasonry was a conspiracy which plotted the French Revolution, such as were written by Prof. Robinson, Abbe Barruel, Nesta Webster, Bernard Fay, etc., because it shows that there was as large a number of Masons among the kings, princes, dukes, etc., on the side against the Revolution, as among the leaders on the side in favor of the Revolution—it was there as it was in our own American Revolution; the Fraternity was on both sides and therefore on neither.
Burke, the great antagonist of the Revolution, would certainly not have been a Freemason himself had Freemasonry plotted Louis XVI's overthrow; and he would have known it had such been the fact because the British Government at the time had day-by-day, detailed knowledge of events in Paris from 1787 to 1791.
- RUFFIANS, NAMES OF THE
Theosophical and occultist writers have argued that the combined endings of the three names of the Ruffians form together the mystical, Brahmin AUM, as noted on pace 111; and from this they argue that Freemasonry conceals mysteries from the Far East, etc. Historians have found that Speculative Freemasonry arose in England and developed out of Operative Freemasonry which was for some four or five centuries spread over Britain and Europe; an argument composed of speculations about so slight a fact as the endings of three names is not sufficient to overthrow the massive accumulation of data collected by those historians.
Equally disastrous to the theory is the fact that at one time or another the Ruffians have had other names, and have differed in number; also, the a, u, m endings became crystallized in the Ritual after the founding of Speculative Freemasonry. In the old catechism called The Whole Institutions of Freemasons Opened, a short document published in Dublin in 1725, occur these curious sentences: "Your first word is Jachin and Boaz is the answer to it, and Grip at the forefinger joint.—Your 2nd word is Magboe and Boe is the answer to it, and Grip at the Wrist. Your 3rd word is Gibboram, Esimbrel is the answer."
The origin of the Ruffians themselves is undiscovered; perhaps when the Ritual came to be enacted, instead of being largely composed of a set of drawn symbols with verbal explanations, they were introduced and given their names; if so, the endings may be nothing more than a form of verbal symmetry. (The subject of the many instances of verbal symmetry in the Work, along with other forms of symmetry such as 3, 5, 7, etc., awaits research; if the research were conducted according to the canons of literary analysis, in addition to historical analysis, it might yield light on the origin of the form of the Work now in use. Symmetry cannot be either coincidental or accidental, but must imply redaction, or editorship, or authorship. Bro. and Prof. David Eugene Smith has suggested that the three names are suspiciously like certain old variations on the Hebrew word for "jubilee.")
- R. S. Y. C. S.
An abbreviation of Rosy Cross in the Royal Order of Scotland.
- RUCHIEL
In the old Jewish Angelology, the name of the angel who ruled the air and the winds. The angel in charge of one of the four tests in Philosophic Freemasonry.
- RUFFIANS
The traitors of the Third Degree are called Assassins in Continental Freemasonry and in the advanced Degrees. The English and American Freemasons have adopted in their instructions the more homely appellation of Ruffians. The fabricators of the high Degrees adopted a variety of names for these Assassins (see Assassins of the Third Degree), but the original names are preserved in the instruetions of the York and American Rites. There is no question that has so much perplexed Masonic antiquaries as the true derivation and meaning of these three names. In their present form, they are confessedly uncouth and without apparent signification.. Yet it is certain that we can trace them in that form to the earliest appearance of the legend of the Third Degree, and it is equally certain that at the time of their adoption some meaning must have been attached to them. Brother Maekey was convinced that this must have been a very simple one, and one that would have been easily comprehended by the whole of the Craft, who were in the constant use of them.
Attempts, it is true, have been made to find the root of these three names in some recondite reference to the Hebrew names of God. But there is in Doctor Mackey's opinion, no valid authority for any such derivation. In the first place, the character and conduct of the supposed possessors of these names preclude the idea of any congruity and appropriateness between them and any of the divine names. And again, the literary condition of the Craft at the time of the invention of the names equally precludes the probability that any names would have been fabricated of a recondite signification, and which could not have been readily understood and appreciated by the ordinary class of Freemasons who were to use them. The names must naturally have been of a construction that would convey a familiar idea would be suitable to the incidents in which they were to be employed, and would be congruous with the character of the individuals upon whom they were to be bestowed.
Now all these requisites meet in a word which was entirely familiar to the Craft at the time when these names were probably invented. The Ghiblim are spoken of by Anderson, meaning Ghiblim, as stonecutters or Masons; and the early amounts show us very clearly that the Fraternity in that day considered Giblim as the name of a Mason; not only of a Mason generally, but especially of that class of Masons who, as Drummond says, "put the finishing hand to King Solomon's Temple"—that is to say the Fellow Crafts. Anderson also places the Ghiblim among the Fellow Crafts; and so, very naturally, the early Freemasons, not imbued with any amount of Hebrew learning, and not making a distinction between the singular and ph1ral forms of that language, soon got to calling a Fellow Craft a Giblim.
The steps of corruption between Giblim arid Jilbelum were not very gradual; nor can anyone doubt that such corruptions of spelling and pronunciation were common among these illiterate Freemasons, when he reads the Old Manuscripts, and finds such verbal distortions as Nembroch for Nimrod, Eaglet for Euclid, and Aymon for Hiram. Thus, the first corruption was from Giblim to Gibalim, which brought the word to three syllables, making it thus nearer to its eventual change.
Then we find in the early works another transformation into Chibbelum. The French Freemasons also took the work of corruption in hand, and from Giblim they manufactured Jiblime and Jibulum and Habmlum. Some of these Freneh corruptions eame back to English Freemasonry about the time of the fabrication of the advanced l)egrees, and even the French words were distorted. Thus in the Iceland Manuscript, the English Freemasons made out of Pytagore, the French for Pythagoras, the unknown name Peter Gower, which is said so much to have puzzled John Locke.
So we may through these mingled English and French corruptions trace the genealogy of the word Jubelum; thus, Ghiblim, Giblim, Gibalim, Chibbelum, Jiblime, Jibelum, Jabelum, rind, finally, Jubelum. It meant simply a Fellow Craft, and was appropriately given as a common name to a particular Fellow Graft who vas distinguished for his treachery. In other words, he was designated, not by a special and distinctive name, but by the title of his condition and rank at the Temple.
He was the Fellow Craft, who was at the head of a eonspiraey. As for the names of the other two Ruffians, they were readily constructed out of that of the greatest one by a simple change of the termination of the word from am to a in one, and from uoz to o in the other, thus preserving, by a similarity of names, the idea of their relationship, for the old works said that they were Brothers who had come together out of Tyre. This derivation to Doctor Mackey seems to be easy, natural, and comprehensible. The change from Giblim, or rather from Gibalim to Jubelum, is one that is far less extraordinary than that which one half of the Masonic words have undergone in their transformation from their original to their present form (see Ritual).
- RULE
An instrument with which straight lines are drawn, and therefore used in the Past Master's Degree as an emblem admonishing the Master punctually to observe his duty, to press forward in the path of virtue, and, neither inclining to the right nor the left, in all his actions to have eternity in view. The twenty-four-inch gaffe is often used in giving the instruction as a substitute for this working-tool. But they are entirely different; the twenty-four-ineh gaffe is one of the working-tooLs of an Entered Apprentice, and requires to have the twenty-four inches marked upon its surface; the rule is one of the working-tools of a Past Master, and is without the twenty-four divisions. The rule is appropriated to the Past or Present Master, because, by its assistance, he is enabled to lay down on the Trestle-Board the designs for the Craft to use.
- RULE OF THE TEMPLARS
The code of regulations for the government of the Knights Templar, called their Rule, was drawn up by Saint Bernard, and by him submitted to Pope Honorius II and the Council of Troyes, by both of whom it was approved. It is still in existence, and consists of seventy-two articles, partly monastic and partly military in eharaeter, the former being formed upon the Rule of the Benedietines. The first articles of the Rule are ecelesiastical in design, and require from the Knights a strict adherence to their religious duties. Article twenty defines the costume to be worn by the Brotherhood. The professed soldiers were to wear a white costume, and the serving Brethren were prohibited from wearing anything but a black or brown cassock. The Rule is very particular in reference to the fit and shape of the dress of the Knights, so as to seevre uniformity.
The Brethren are forbidden to receive and open letters from their friends without first submitting the-n to the inspection of their superiors. The pastime of hawking is prohibited, but the nobler Sport of lion-hunting is permitted, because the lion, like the devil, goes about continually roaring, seeking whom he may devour. Article fifty-five relates to the reception of married members, who are required to bequeath the greater portion of their property to the Order.
The fifty-eighth article regulates the reception of aspirants, or secular persons, who are not to be received immediately on their application into the society, but are required first to submit to an examination as to sincerity and fitness. The seventy-second and concluding article refers to the intercourse of the Knights with females. No brother was allowed to kiss a woman, though she were his mother or sister. "Let the soldier of the cross," says Saint Bernard, "shun all ladies' lips." At first this rule was rigidly enforced, but in time it was greatly relaxed, and the picture of the interior of a house of the Temple, as portrayed by the Abbot of Clairvaux, would scarcely have been appropriate a century or two later.
- RULERS
Obedience to constituted authority has always been inculcated by the laws of Freemasonrys Thus, in the installation charges as prefixed to the Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England, the incoming Master is required to promise "to hold in veneration the original rulers and patrons of the Order of Freernasonry, and their regular successors, supreme and subordinate, according to their stations. "
- RUSSIA
Captain John Phillips was appointed in 1731 Provincial Grand Master of Russia by Lord Lovel, Grand Master of England (Constitutions, 1738, page 194) but it does not follow that there were any Lodges in Russia at that time. General Lord James I(eith arrived in Russia in 1728 and he probably founded the Lodge there of which he beeame Worshipful Master, and in 1740 he was appointed Provincial Granal Master. However, the first notiee that we have of Lodges meeting openly is that of Silence, established at St. Petersburg, and the North Star at Riga, both in 1750. Thory says that Freemasonry made little progress in Russia until 1763 when the Empress Catherine II deelared herself Proteetress of the Order.
The Rite of Melesino was introduced by a Greek of that name in 1765, and there were also the York, Swedish and Strict Observance Rites practised by Lodges. Twelve of these Lodges united and formed the National Grand Lodge on September 3, 1776. There was also a Swedish Provincial Grand Lodge in 1779.
For a time Freemasonry flourished but about the year 1794 the Empress alarmed at the political eondition of France, persuaded that members of some Lodges were opposed to the Government, withdrew her protection from the Order. She did not direct the Lodges to close but most of them ceased to meet. The few that continued to work were under police supervision and languished, holding their eommunications only at long intervals. Paul I, 1797, instigated by the Jesuits whom he had recalled, forbade the meetings of secret societies and especially in Masonic Lodges.
Johann V. Boeber, Counselor of State and Director of the School of Cadets at St. Petersburg, obtained an audience of the Emperor in 1803 and sueeeeded in removing his prejudices against Freemasonry. The edict was revoked, the Emperor himself was initiated in one of the revived Lodges, and the Grand Orient of all the Russias was established, of which Brother Boeber was deservedly elected Grand Master (Acta Latomomm i, page 218). Pelican Lodge was revived in 1804 as Alexander of the Crowned Pelican and divided into three parts and elected a Grand Master. Internal dissensions, however, were the cause of its downfall.
Another Grand Lodge, Astrea, controlled the first three Decrees and by 1815 claimed jurisdiction over 24 Lodges. A Grand Chapter was set up to control the remaining degrees in 1818, and there was also a Provincial Grand Body working under the Swedish System. A curious incident brought to an end Freemasonry in Russia.
The Emperor Alexander, instigated in part it is said by the political condition of Poland, received at this time two communications, one from Egor Andrevich Kushelev of the Grand Lodge Astrea, and the other from a Prussian Freemason, Count Gaugwitz, the latter heartily in favor of elosing all the Lodges, both agreeing that the spirit of the times would not permit of secret organizations, sand therefore on August 1, 1822, an Imperial Edic decreed the Closing of all secret societies (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Loclge, volume xxxviii, pages 35-50). The order was quietly obeyed by the Freemasons of Russia (see Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry, also Freemasonry in Russia, Dr. Ernest Friedrichs, Berlin, 1904, and Berne, 1903).
A prominent member of the group of Russian Masonic Bodies on the Continent, exiles from Russia, has prepared for us some particulars of the development of Russian Freemasonry from which we make the following extract:
There is a well-established tradition that the first Russian Freemason was Peter the Great and that he was initiated by Sir Christopher Wren in an English Lodge at Amsterdam. There are, however no documents to prove this. The history of Russian Freemasonry may be divided into three periods. First, 1731-71. Membership confined to foreigners residing in Russia; a few officers, the guard, and a few statesmen. The tendency is mystical and the influence negligible . Second, 1772-94. There are three Masonie Bodies at work.
1. Yelaguine's group at St. Petersburg. Work; self preservation, moral uplift, struggle against the ideas of Voltaire. This organization disappears about 1780.
2. Swedish Rite at St. Petersburg headed by Prince Gagarine as Grand Master. This Body Unites with the preceding one and shares its fate.
3. The National Grand Lodge at Moseow, lead by Novickoff and Schwarz working under a strong influence of the Moscow Rosy Cross Fraternity and of the Order of the Martinists. This group exercised a powerful influence during this period and for the future in Russian Freemasonry, and was a potent and intellectual factor in contemporary society. This group chiefly engaged in educational and charitable work and carried these on freely until it fell under the general ban on Freemasonry imposed by Catherine II in 1794.
Third, 1801-22. An irregular Russian Grand Lodge named Vladimir to Order which in 1810 became subject to Swedish Jurisdiction. This Grand Lodge had little influence but counted many prominent persons amongst its members.
As a reaction against the influence of higher Degrees there was founded in 1814 at Paris, under the auspices of the Grand Orient of France and out of the federation of five military Lodges, a New Grand Lodge Astrea. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars and with the return of the army to Russia this Masonic Body grew to the extent of having forty Lodges under their jurisdiction. These Lodges under French influence turned their attention to polities, and ended their career in the turmoil of the attempted Revolution in December, 1825.
During the whole of the nineteenth century, Russian Freemasonry if not dormant was at least hidden and entirely negligible. The revival of interest in spiritual matters which coincided with the beginning of the twentieth century brought about a revival of interest in Freenlasonry. A few prominent Russian intellectuals joined French Lodges. Professor Bajenoff joined at Paris the Scottish Rite Lodge Les Amis Reunis. Paul Jablochkov, world-famous electricians founded the Lodge Cosmos under the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite at Paris where in 1906 about fifteen Russian publicists joined French Lodges. These Brethren on their return to Russia organized two Lodges. one in St Petersburg, the Polar Star, and a Lodge at Moscow These Lodges were instituted with great ceremony in May, 1908, by two representatives of the Grand Orient of France and up to 1909 six Lodges were organized There was an interval in their activity over poliee restrictions and then these Lodges were reopened in 1911, working under the Grand Orient of France, with practically no ritual and having an avowedly political aim in view, namely, that of the overthrow of autoeraey There was what was known as a Supreme Couneil, an exclusively administrative Body whose members were elected for three years. This organization had no regularity and enjoyed no recognition abroad. In 1913 and 1914 the organization nevertheless had about fortytwo Lodges chiefly composed of members of the cadet party. The first Revolution in March 1917 is said to have been inspired and operated from these Lodges and all the members of Kerensky's Government belonged to them. After the Bolshevik Revolution most members of these Lodges emigrated, and after a long inactivity they were successful in forming under the auspices of the Grand Orient of France a new Polar Star Lodge at Paris. Four other Lodges working in Russia have been organized under the Grand Lodge of France, and there is also a Lodge of Perfection and a Rose Croix (chapter working in Russian at Paris the rituals of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite finder the Supreme Council.
The volume of the Sacred Law is always on the altar at the meetings of these four Lodges and the work is said to be usually a study of the deeper meanings of Freemasonry. The four Craft Lodges work with a committee which in fact represents what the Brethren believe to be the future Grand Lodge of Russia The Supreme Council has sanctioned a temporary committee in the higher Degrees which represents the nucleus of the future Supreme Couneil for Russia of the Aneient and Aeeepted Scottish Rite. On February 10, 1927, a Russian Consistory, caned Rossia, wan formed.
Russian Brethren have freely written upon Freemasonry. Brother Boris Telepneff has published pamphlets on Freemasonry in Russia, Rosicrucians in Russia, Some Aspects of Russian Freemasonry during the Reign of Emperor Alexander I (Transaclions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xxxvui, page 6) and essays as in the Masonic Record, 1925.
- RUSSIA, SECRET SOCIETIES OF
First, the .Skopzis, founded about 1740, by Seliwanoff, on the ruins of an anterior sect, the Chlysty, which was originated by a peasant named Philippoff, in the seventeenth century. The Skopzis practised selfmutilation and other horrors. They were rich, and abound throughout Russia and in Bulgaria. Second, the Montainists, who declared that they have a "living Christ," a "living Mother of God," a "living Holy Spirit," and twelve "living Apostles." Their ceremonies were peculiar and but little resembling those of Freemasonry. A society of Martinists has had some vogue and other imported Rites have been instituted.
See also
- En:Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
- En:Albert Mackey
- Albert Mackey
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Links
- Phoenixmasonry http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/mackeys_encyclopedia/r.htm