En: MACKEY - W

MACKEY – W

Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

• W

An abbreviation of Worshipful, of Wrest, of Warden, and of Wisdom .

• WAECHTER, EBERHARD, BARON VON

Lord of the Chamber to the King of Denmark, and Danish Ambassador at Ratisbon; was born in 1747. He was at one time a very active member of the Rite of Strict Observance, where he bore the characteristic Knighthood name of Eques a ceraso, and had been appointed as Chancellor of the German Priories of the 7th Province.

When the spiritual schism of the Order made its vast pretensions to a secret unaccountably derived from unknown superiors, whose names they refused to divulge, Von Waechter was sent to Italy by the old Scottish Lodge of which Duke Ferdinand was Grand Master, that he might obtain some information from the Pretender, and from other sources, as to the true character of the Rite. Von Waechter was unsuccessful, and the intelligence which he brought back to Germany was unfavorable to Von Hund, and increased the embarrassments of the Strict Observance Lodges. But he himself lost reputation.

A host of enemies attacked him. Some declared that while in Italy he had made a traffic of Freemasonry to enrich himself; others that he had learned and was practicing magic; and others again that he had secretly attached himself to the Jesuits. Von Waechter stoutly denied these charges; but it is certain that, from being in very moderate circumstances, he had, after his return from Italy, become suddenly and unaccountably rich. yet Mossdorf says that he discharged his mission with great delicacy and judgment.

Thory, quoting the Beytrag zur neuesten Geschicte, or the Bearer of New History (page 150) says that in 1782 he proposed to give a new organization to the old Templar system of Freemasonry, on the ruins, perhaps, of both branches of the strict Observance, and declared that he possessed the true secrets of the Order. His proposition for a reform was not accepted by the German Freemasons because they suspected that he was an agent of the Jesuits (ActaLatomorum i, page 152).

Kloss (Bibliographie, No. 622b) gives the title of a work published by him in 1822 as Worte der Wahrheit an die Menschen, meine Brüder, Word of Truth on Humanity, my Brethren. He died May 25, 1825, one, perhaps, of the last actors in the great Masonic drama of the Strict Observance.

• WAGES

The whole period of the Middle Ages in England was in one aspect of it a struggle of barbarism against civilization, but on the question of wages it would be paying them a tribute to describe them as barbaric; wages were savage, savagely low and savagely cruel, and next only after war were the ruling class's most brutal weapon of subjugation, and that remains true after every possible allowance is made between the purchasing power of a shilling then and a shilling now. A bookkeeper in the reign of Edward I records "that one Master Mason was paid 6d per day, and five Masons were paid 4d per day."

Bro. Edward Conder, from whose Hole Craft these figures are being taken, notes that in 1336 a Mason received one shilling a day. In 1342-1400 typical wages for Freemasons working on Westminster Abbey ran 4d; 10/6 for two Masons for 21 days; two Masons at 2 shillings per week; two for two weeks 6 shillings; for "Master Yevele Chief Mason, " one of the greatest of architects, "100 shillings per annum"; etc.

In 1402 Henry IV forbade Masons to work by the week, or to receive pay on feast days, and ordained that on a day before a holiday when they stopped at 3 P.M. they were to receive only one-half day's pay—"in ye name of Godde." One Royal Act forbade Freemasons to be paid more than 5' shillings per day. In 1495 a statute fixed visages for Freemasons at 4d with meals furnished, 6d without meals during the long-day half of the year, 3d and 5d respectively during the other half; the fad a day began at 5 A.M. In Henry VIII's time a Master received 12d a day; a Warden 5d a week; setters 3 8d per week; clerk of the works, 8d per day; under-clerks, 6d per day. At page 93 of his Gleanings Frown Westminster (Oxford London; 1861) George Gilbert Scott prints a number of specimens of the Westminster Fabric Rolls, the oldest being for 1253 A.D. In that year the average wage for Masons was 1 10d per week. In 1271 an expert Master Mason received 2' 6d per week.

• WAGES OF A MARK MASTER

See Mark Master's Wages

• WAGES OF A MASTER MASON, SYMBOLIC

See Foreign Country

• WAGES OF OPERATIVE MASONS

In all the Old Constitutions praise is given to Saint Alban because he raised the wages of the Freemasons. Thus the Edinburgh-Kilwinning Manuscript says: "Saint Albans loved Masons well and cherished them much, and made their pay right good, standing by as the realm, did, for he gave them iis. a week, and 3d. to their cheer; for before that time, through all the land, a Mason had but a penny a day and his meat, until Saint Alban amended it."

We may compare this rate of wages in the third century with that of the fifteenth, and we will be surprised at the little advance that was made.

In Grosse and Astle's Antiquarian Repertory (iii, page 58), will be found an extract from the Rolls of Parliament, which contains a Petition, in the year 1443, to Parliament to regulate the price of labor. In it are the following items:

And from the Fest of Mighelmasse unto Ester, a free Mason and a maister carpenter by the day iiiid. with mete and drynk, withoute mete and drink iiid., ob.

Tyler or Sclatter, rough mason and meen carpenter, and other artificers concernyng beldyng, by the day iiid., with mete and drynk, and withoute mete and drynke, iiid., ob. And from the Fest of Mighelmasse unto Sister, a free Mason and a maister carpenter by the day iiid with mete and drynk, without mete and drink, iiid., ob.

Tyler, meen carpenter, rough mason, and other artificers aforesaid, by the day iid., ob, with mete and drynk, withoute mete and drynk iiid.., and every other werkeman and laborer by the day id., ob, with mete and drynk and withoute mete and drink iiid., and who that lasse deserveth, to take lasse.

• WAGES OF THE WORKMEN AT THE TEMPLE

Neither the Seriptures, nor Josephus, give us any definite statement of the amount of wages paid, nor the manner in which they were paid, to the workmen who were engaged in the erection of King Solomon's Temple. The cost of its construction, however, must have been immense, since it has been estimated that the edifice alone consumed more gold and silver than at present exists upon the whole earth; so that Josephus very justly says that "Solomon made all these things for the honor of God, with great variety and magnificence, sparing no cost, but using all possible liberality in adorning the Temple."

We learn, as one instance of this liberality, from the Second Book of Chronicles, that Solomon paid annually to the Tyrian Freemasons, the servants of Hiram, "twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil." The bath was a measure equal to seven and a half gallons wine measure; and the cor or chomer, which we translate by the indefinite word measures contained ten baths; so that the corn, wine, and oil furnished by King Solomon, as wages to the servants of Hiram of Tyre, amounted to one hundred and ninety thousand bushels of the first and one hundred and fifty thousand gallons each of the second and third. The sacred records do not inform us what further wages they received, but we elsewhere learn that King Solomon gave them as a free gift a sum equal to more than thirty-two millions of dollars. The whole amount of wages paid to the Craft is stated to have been about six hundred and seventy-two millions of dollars; but we have no means of knowing how that amount was distributed; though it is natural to suppose that those of the most skill and experience received the highest wages.

The Harodim, or chiefs of the workmen, must have been better paid than the Ish Cabal, or mere laborers. The legend-makers of Freemasonry have not been idle in their invention of facts and circumstances in relation to this Subject, the whole of which have little more for a foundation than the imaginations of the inventors. They form, however, a part of the legendary history of Freemasonry, and are interesting for their ingenuity, and sometimes even for their absurdity (see Penny).

• WAHABITES

A Mohammedan sect, established about 1740, dominant through the greater part of Arabia. Their doctrine was reformatory, to bring back the observances of Islam to the literal precepts of the Koran. Mecca and Medina were conquered by them. The founder of Ibn-abd-ul-Wahab, son of an Arab Sheila, born in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and died 1787. Their teachings were received by the Mussulrnan population of India, and much uneasiness has been feared therefrom.

• WAITE, ARTHUR EDWARD

Arthur Edward Waite: A Check list of his Writings, by Harold V. B. Voorhis, privately printed; Red Bank, New Jersey; 1932, is an exhaustive but not wholly complete list of works possessed by Voorhis of which Waite was "either the author, the compiler, the translator, the editor, or the writer of the preface or foreword. " Bro. Waite himself assisted Bro. Voorhis to make the collection as complete as possible; after Bro. Waite's death Bro. Voorhis installed his collection in the Iowa Masonic Library, Cedar Rapids, Ia., where it is housed in a special case and named the Waite Collection; the magnanimity of that act is genuinely appreciated by Bro. Voorhis many American friends and colleagues.

In the Check List the titles are: Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly. Azoth, or the Star in the East. Belle and the Dragon. Book of Black Magic and of Pacts. Book of the Holy Grail. Braid on IIypnotism—Neurhynology. Brotherhood of the Rosv Cross. Cloud Upon the Sanctuary. Collectanea Chemica. Collected Poems Compendium of Alchemical Processes. Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism. Devil Worship in France Doctrine and Literature of the Rat balah. Elfin Music: An Antholog-v of English Fairy Poetry. Emblematic Freemasonry General Bool; of the Tarot. Gift of the Spirit. Gift of Understandings Golden and Biessed Casket of Nature's Marvels. Golden Stairs. Harmonical Philosophy. Hermetic and Alchemical M Writings of Paracelsus. Hermetic Museum.

Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. History of Magic. Holy Kabbalah. Horlich's Magazine. Israfel, Letters Visions and Poems. Key to the Tarot. Lamps of Western Mvstieism. Lexicon of Alchemy. Life of Louis Claude de Saint-Martin. Lives of Alchemvstical Philosophers. Lucasta, Parables and Poems. Lumen de Lumine. Lyric of the Fairyland. Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan. Mysteries of hIagie. New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. View Pearl of Great Price. Obermann. Occult Sciences. Ode to Astronomy and Other Poems. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Prentice Mulford's Story. Prince Starbeam Psyche.

Quest of the Golden Stairs. Raymond Lully. Real History of the Rosicrucians. Saint-Martin. Secret Doctrine in Israel. Secret Tradition in Alchemy. Secret Tradition in Freemasonry. Some Characteristics of the Inner Church. Songs and Poems of the Inner Church. Songs and Poems of Fairyland. Soul's Comedy. Steps to the Crown. Strange Houses of Sleep. Studies in Mysticism. Tarot of the Bohemians. Transcendental Magic. Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.

Turba Philosophorum. Unknown World. Way of Divine Union. Works of Thomas Vaughan. World's Great Religious Poetry. Zodiac of Life. Magazine articles in Horliek's Magazine; Psyche; The Master Mason; The Builder (five); Light; Occult Review; Transactions of the Society Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Waite was not interested in Masonic History properly so called, and as represented by Mackey, Gould and Hughan; in fact, as his private correspondence and his published works prove, he was wholly mis taken about the point and purpose of it, as when he insisted that Gould had tried to prove that a few illiterate stone-masons had fathered Speculative Freemasonry. Moreover when his specifically Masonic writing is sifted out of the mass of his writings it is of surprisingly slender volume even his New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry is less about Masonry than about occultism; and the amount of history in his Emblematic Masonry is scarcely more than a trifle. His theory was that a few occultists like Ashmole and Fludd were bearers of the "Secret Tradition," brought it into Masonry, and by means of doing so were the instruments by which the Operative Craft was made over into the Speculative Fraternity. He gives very little data and no proof for this theory, which has not been accepted; and it has made so little impression that in Ars Quauor Coronatorum and the Transactions of other Lodges of Research his name is seldom referred to, and his theory is not discussed.

It is in the fields of occultism and of mysticism and in the borders between the two that his massive and permanent fame will always rest; his works on the Rose Cross and on the Grail are his own masterpieces, and at the same time are masterpieces of the whole literature which they dominate. (American Masons Will find a surprise in this paragraph from Bro. Voorhis's brochure, page 1: "Born in Brooklyn, New York~ U. S. A., in the year 1857, of Connecticut paternal ancestry, his English mother took him to England at the age of two, following the death of his father, and he has never returned to America. ")

• WALES

The earliest Lodges in Wales were two at Chester and one at Congelton, all three established in 1724, and Doctor Anderson records that Grand Master Inchiquin granted a Deputation, May 10, 1727, to Hugh Warburton, to be Provincial Grand Master of North Wales, and another, June 24th in the same year, to Sir Edward Mansel, to be Provincial Grand Master of South Wales (Constitutions, 1738, page 191). Wales forms a part of the Masonic obedience of the Grand Lodge of England, and the Fraternity there has been directly governed by four Provincial Grand Lodges, namely, North Wales, South Wales, Eastern Division, and Western Division.

• WALES, PRINCES OF

From 1737 no less than nineteen princes of Great Britain and Ireland have been admitted as Freemasons, four being Princes of Wales:

Frederick Lewis, 20th Prince of Wales, was initiated at the Palace of Kew, November 5, 1737 by Doctor Desaguliers, and the Book of Constitutions of 1737 was dedicated to him. February 6, 1787, George Augustus Frederick, 22nd Prince of Wales, was made a Freemason in London by the Most Worshipful Grand Masters the Duke of Cumberland. The Prince of Wales was elected Grand Master in 1790. There is in the museum at Washington, District of Columbia, of the Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted ,Scottish Rite, a copper medal or token bearing the date November 24, 1790, and the inscription "Prince of Wales was elected G. M." with the motto "Amor, Honor et Justicia" (Love, Honor and .Justice) commemorating the election of the Prince of Wales as Grand Master. He was installed in 1792; but on assuming the Regency, 1812, the office was vacated, and he became Patron. As George IV, he accepted the title of Grand Patron from 1820; and whilst Prince of Wales, 1787-1820, was Worshipful Master of the Prince of Wales Lodge, London, Sir Samuel Hulse being the Deputy Master for that period.

Albert Edward, 23rd Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, was initiated at Stockholm by the King of Sweden, in 1868. The rank of Past Grand Master of England was conferred upon him in 1870, but on the resignation of the Marquis of Ripon, he accepted the chair, and was installed as Most Worshipful Grand Master at the Albert Hall, London, by the Earl of Carnalaron, April 28, 1875 idle served as Worshipful Master in the Apollo University Lodge, Oxford, the Royal Alpha Lodge, London, and from 1874 was Worshipful Master of the famous Prince of Wales Lodge, No. 259. In the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland he was a Patron and all honorary member of the Lodge of Edinburgh, No. 1, and also a member and Patron of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for England, as well as Grand Master of the Convent Central of Knights Templar.

On Clay 2, 1919, H. R . Edwald A. C. G. 24th Prince of Wales, was initiated at an Emergency Meeting of the Household Brigade Lodge No, 2614, London, and raised a Master Mason on June 24, 1919, installed as Senior Grand Warden of the United Grand Lodge of England, October 25, 1922, and as Provincial Grand Master of Surrey, July, 1924.

• WALLACE, GENERAL LEWIS

American writer and soldier in the Mexican and Civil Wars. Corn April 10, 1827; died February 15, 1905. Member of Montgomery Lodge No. 50, Crawfordsville, Indiana (see New Age Magazine, February,1924) . Author of the famous novel, Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ. Governor of New Mexico, 1880; Minister to Turkey, 1881-5.

• WALLACE KEATON MANUSCRIPT

Brother Wallace Keaton of London in 1926 discovered this manuscript, of the period from 1695 to 1715, which bears his name and is now possessed by the Grand Lodge of England. A description of it by brother H. Poole was published in the Masonic Record, beginning July, 1927 (page 192). There are six strips of parchment sewn into a roll about fourteen feet long and some seven inches wide. The text is in the main of normal style but Brother Poole notes a most interesting feature in that this version contains the peculiar variations of the Dowland Manuscript

• WALLACHIA, GRAND SCOTTISH DEGREE OF

Found in Fustier's lists

• WALLERS AS MASONS

Operative Freemasonry had in the large a uniform system of organization, grades, customs, but this is a generalization against which must be charged a long list of exceptions or provisoes, and it is never safe to generalize about the whole of Masonry from any one record, set of rules, or lodge. This proviso holds of the subject of wailers. According to a set of still-existing records wallers were Masons who hewed and laid stone in walls; in contrast to them, the Masons who could work in finer stone, or free-stone, could shape and carve it, were called free-stone Masons—one of the origins, probably, of the name Freemason. A set of rules were set up for Masons in London in 1356; they were compiled by a commission of six free-stone Masons and a commission of six wailers in a joint conference. This indicates a recognized distinction between the two types of Masons, and suggests that they may have had separate organizations. Such a distinction would be in consonance with the records of the incorporated City Companies; in them Masons often were put into the same Company with trades having no connection with building, although each trade would usually maintain its own organization as a fraternity, association, or society apart from the Company.

• WANAMAKER, JOHN

Famous American merchant, giving employment in two stores to more than 12,000 people. Born July 11, 1838; died December 12, 1922. U. S. Postmaster-General, 1889-93. He was made a Freemason "at sight" on March 30, 1898, by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and later received the Thirty-third Degree (see New Age, March 1925).

• WANDERING SCHOLARS, MINSTRELS, ETC.

Even as early as the Twelfth Century there were a few universities in Europe, and by the Thirteenth these had grown to such a number, including Oxford and Cambridge in England, and also in size (one or two might have as many as 35,000 students enrolled), that their faculties ranked in power and intrust in the general intellectual life second only to the Church. With few roads and fewer ships to travel by, students had to walk for weeks or months through the country to reach a desired school; and since many students, young men or grown men, would go to one school to sit under one or two famous masters and then to another, and usually distant, school to sit under others, any given student might pass one-third or one-half his time on the roads, begging or working his way along, or earning a week's lodging in some manor or castle by tales, recitations, and songs.

These wandering scholars, as they came to be called, developed in time an esprit de corps, had their unwritten rules, and by the end of the Middle Ages had become almost an organized fraternity. Like the Fellowship of Freemasons they had their legend, the core of which was a set of tales about a certain Golias, or Goliath, who was a sort of Paul Bunyan of scholarship, and very possibly was the germ out of which Rabelais's abounding fancy developed the first idea for his tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel. For this reason the wandering scholars called themselves "Disciples of Golias," or Goliards, or Gollerds, or Gollyers (the name is spelled in many forms); and they were often called vagans, though, as paragraphs below will show, that cognomen properly belonged to another fraternity

The Goliardi reached their apogee about 112S1130 A few scholars among them became famous not only as scholars in their own right but as heroes among the Disciples of Golias; Hugh, whom they called their Primate (they tended to be derisive of the Church hierarchy), was a canon of Orleans about l 14U; their "Archpoet was in the court of Frederiek Barbarossa (that Medici before the Medicis), was a knight, and was author of a literary masterpiece entitled Confession of Goluls (circa 1161-65). The great name of Walter Map, an Arehdeacon at Oxford under Henry II, occurs in many Goliardi MSS.

Men who have pictured the Middle Ages as a block of orthodox belief, solid with saints and a somewhat self-abasing piety, and without any Lucian or Voltaire anywhere in sight, will take a second thought after reading a history of the Goliardi, they and their writings together. They were free minds, witty, ironic, scornful of saints miracles, disgusted by relic worship, and arrogant to priests, monks, and other illiterates. They carried Latin over Europe and Britain; composed masterpieces in verse and prose: kindled a love for the other fine arts; were among the first to spread the good news of the new style of Gothic art and architecture at Paris; lit in remote places a lamp of learning; and helped to knit together the disrupted communities of Europe.

Helen Waddell, one of the most brilliant of modern women scholars, wrote a now famous book about them entitled Wandering Scholars in which her translations of Goliardi poems and songs are gem-like. For a shorter history and a fuller bibliography see chapter VI, in The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, by Charles Homer Haskins, one of the ripest works of American scholarship.

Also, it is rewarding to trace down references to the wandering scholars in the many works on the Middle Ages by the present doyen on that subject, Professor G. G. Coulton, whose autobiography, being published as these lines are written, it is a pious duty of every student of Medievalism to read: certainly, every Masonic student, because no Mason can ever quite fully understand the shape and color of the Fraternity when it first emerged in the early Middle Ages without a knowledge of such forces and influences as were at work in and around it as the Goliardi.

There was also in the Middle Ages another and different kind of society of wanderers. The old Latin vagus, wandering, appears in English speech as a root from which a constellation of words have had their rise, vagabond, vagary, vagrant, and Vwhmc among them; and other languages, also of Sanskrit-Latin origins, have the same words in their corresponding forms, and have had them for thousands of years, suggesting that always there is here and there a man who chooses to live on the road, not as a highway but as home and as a means of livelihood. The road was more of a temptation in the Middle Ages than now. Villages were isolated, towns were walled in; to the men in one community, men in another center only five miles away were "foreigners," and were viewed with suspicion, sometimes with alarm, we with our papers, telephone, radio, and automobiles do not suffer from village claustrophobia, and therefore cannot picture to ourselves how often a Medieval man was seized by a craving, almost a craze, to get away, to take to the road, to see the world. In consequence there arose that strangely romantic Society of Beggars, or Vagrants, who move and appear and reappear in Medieval romances and legends for a thousand years.

It became in time an organized secret society, with officers, assemblies, and (usually three) degrees, along with modes of recognition and a language, or patois, of its own.

This last was called " cant"; sometimes, "thieves' Latin." It had female side orders (what large and permanent society ever has not!), and like the Goliardi belongs to that mileu in which early Freemasonry took its shape. The Vagantes were the heroes, and points of reference, for Gay's great "Beggars' Opera." Cervantes wrote his novel Rinconete y Costidilla about them (Spain was a homeland of the Vagantes as it was of the Gypsies because they went along with the Spanish Church's worship of poverty and theological virtue of almsgiving). A modern Spaniard, Ibanez, wrote La Barraca about them.

They have a large role in Victor-Hugo's Notre Dame. A clear and concise account of them is available, for short reference, in Famous Secret Societies, by John Herron Lepper; Sampson, Low, Marston & Co.; London. Almost every one of the many, and often many-volumed, histories of the social life of the Middle Ages has at least one chapter about them.

A lawyer student will find them much in evidence among Medieval statutes, so many of which were so wrathfully butso ineffectually aimed at the liquidation of "sturdy beggars." (Adolf Hitler was a "house vagante" in Vienna for some three years.)

Men, women, and children of the Middle Ages were so fond of music, dancing, games, and feasts that they took (depending on the district) as many as from 50 to 150 holidays every year for merry-making, for processions, for which they had a passion, and for social occasions which called for musicians. Out of this developed the craft, or mystery, or profession of trained musicians. But since in any one small town or village there was not enough work to support a troupe of them they also, like the Goliardi, were gentlemen and ladies of the road, who went here and there upon invitation.

They must have become organized as early as the Twelfth Century, and had gilds, officers, and rites, traditions, rules and an apprenticeship of their own; they even had oaths, constitutions, and non-operative members, the last named being gentlemen who did not practice the calling for a livelihood but sought to be accepted because of the honor, or because they were patrons or students of the art. The oldest existing written charter is dated 1469.

For a detailed and charming history see The Worshipful Company of Musicians (2nd Edition); private circulation, London; 1905. (Worshipful was in almost as common and as familiar use throughout Medieval times as our own Mr. or Sir; it meant "respectable; accepted; recognized; entitled to respect," and in its early use by Freemasons had no significance peculiar to the Fraternity.)

Readers who belong to the senior brackets of age will recall the learned, brilliant, and much-loved J. J. Jusserand, France's Ambassador to Washington during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, and his work on pilgrims and wanderers of the Middle Ages; it is no longer as fresh as it was, nor is it as sparkling as the books by Waddell and Haskins and Coulton, but for all that is the best all-round story of the people of the Medieval highway. (See also The Medieval Mind, by Henry Osborn Taylor; II Idol Macmillan; 1927. Medieval Europe, by Lynn Thorn dike; George G. Harrap & Co.; London; 1920. Medieval Italy, by H. B. Cotterill; also published by Harrap; 1915.)

• WANDS

Doctor Oliver, under this title in his Dictionary, refers to the three scepters which, in the Royal Arch system of England, are placed in a triangular form beneath the canopy in the East, and which, being surmounted respectively by a crown, an All-seeing eye, and a miter, refer to the regal, the prophetical, and the sacerdotal offices.. In his Landmarks he calls them scepters. But rod or wand is the better word, because, while the scepter is restricted to the insignia of Kings, the rod or wand was and still is used as an indiscriminate mark of authority for all offices.

• WAR AND FREEMASONRY

In the Middle Ages a "war" was a personal or family quarrel, with small forces officered by a few knights and composed of retainers and peasants. In the period of the Renaissance, armies were a form of private business, like a factory, which would sign a contract to fight for the highest bidder, and according to agreed rules; collusion among private armies, as among modern managers of prize fighters, was common, and oftentimes the decision was agreed on beforehand— Machiavelli's appeal to Florence to stop this farce, in which not one man would be killed in "battle," and substitute for it an army of citizens, stirred Europe far more than his mephistophelean theory of government.

When the countries became nationalized, so did armies; they were composed of local levies of men, or cadres, or of impressed or conscripted troops, and a man could buy his way into or out of an officership —the Ironmongers Company in London was twice levied for money by each side in the English Civil War. As in China, common soldiers were looked down on as belonging to the lowest order, and sailors were treated with even more contempt. Back of the system was the idea that an army was a nation's champion; while the English champion was fighting the French champion, the English and French peoples went about their affairs as usual, willing to abide by the verdict of a remote contest. Our own Civil War was the first "modern war"; in it the army no longer was a champion but was the people itself, and the home front was as much a part of the struggle as the military front; carried to its inevitable outcome this became the present-day total war in which two or more whole peoples are conscripted into a single armed effort with themselves, their property, and their country at stake.

In articles on other pages of this supplement on RELIGION AND FREEMASONRY and on POLITICS AND FREEMASONRY it is shown that Freemasonry is among those arts and sciences which are inalterable by theological and political doctrines, and therefore it stands apart and unaffected by alterations in them. This is equally true as regards war; just as the old arts of farming, or the old sciences of physics and astronomy, or the old disciplines of mathematics, or philosophy, or history, or the plastic arts, cannot commit themselves to war, or be altered or revolutionized by war, so a Masonic Lodge has nothing in its Landmarks or its purposes which can take part in armies as men, its members may tremble with apprehension or flame with patriotism or may seize arms; as Masons they are, like Christianity or medicine or education, non-belligerent; even if in any given war, as in the war between the Government of Spain and the Id Phalangist rebels, the future existence of the Frater city lies in the balance, still it has in itself no means to arm itself; and as it is not so organized as to take any place in an army neither is it organized to take any part in the diplomatic activities which precede a war, or write a peace, or act to prevent wars.

A Mason's one interest (as a Mason) is at the point where the history of Masonry intersects the history Of Near. In Medieval Freemasonry one large and important branch of Craftsmen specialized in military architectures in building castles, fortresses, and fortified city walls—castle building was so specialized that it almost comprised a separate species of Masonry. During the hundreds of wars in Britain and on the Continent during the long period of Operative Masonry, there is no evidence that the Masonic fraternities gilds, or lodges ever took part in them as such; in the midst of war the gilds went on with their work as best they could, as farmers, sailors, teachers, churches did. In 1732 the Grand Lodge of Ireland hit upon the expedient of granting Warrants for military Lodges (or regimental, or naval, or sea and field) under ambulatory or traveling Charters.

As one Grand Lodge after another adopted the custom these military bodies multiplied into the hundreds, and helped to carry Freemasonry about the world; but this was not a war measure, made to support one side as against another, but was for the sole purpose of according the privileges of the Craft to men away from home; the same Grand Lodge Chartered Lodges in two or three armies, as in America where there were military Lodges in both conflicting armies and under the same Grand Lodge! During that war, as they were to do so again in 1812 and in 1861-5, Masons from both sides oftentimes attended the same Lodge, and did so not out of "the emotions of the battle field" but because they knew that Lodges stand outside the militant struggle.

NOTE. In his article on page 1089 Bro. Robert I. Clegg discusses the action taken by Scottish Lodges in 1777, in offering bounties to men who would enlist for the war in America. The action taken by the Grand Lodge of Scotland the following year to condemn this un-Masonic practice bears out what was said in the above paragraphs. _ The majority of those Scottish Lodges at the time had patrons in tact is not in name; it is probable that they ware urged on by the patrons. The same thing had been attempted years before when patrons made use of a few Lodges as recruiting centers for immigrants willing to move to the Colonies. One act was as un-Masonic as the other.

• WAR II, WORLD, AND FREEMASONRY IN EUROPE

After he declared a world-wide war on Freemasonry Pope Leo XIII set up the headquarters of his international anti-Masonic bureaus in France, in 1896, as described on another page of this Supplement in an article on Leo Taxil, and utilized for the purpose the machinery of persecution and accusation which already had long been in operation against the Jews: Masons were accused of being devil-worshiper, atheists, enemies of the family, humanitarians, democrats, Protestants, etc. This anti-Masonry was consolidated with the Church's attack on the Republic of France, which it had carried on since the Franco-Prussian war in an attempt to restore the monarchy to the country. French Masonry never was large, having from 300 to 400 Lodges, and from 30,000 to 40,000 members under a Grand Lodge and a Grand Orient, but it more than made up in influence and prestige what it lacked in numbers. As against Roman Catholicism it continued a more-or-less passive resistance, but as against the schemes to destroy the French Republic it worked in the open, not as a member or champion of any one of the numerous political parties, but on the ground that freedom in state, society, and religion and the maintenance of a public school system are right and just.

The paramount social purpose of French Masonry mas to help establish a permanent peace in Europe. Long before Woodrow Wilson's presidency it held conferences for discussing a League of Nations. Early in 1914, the first year of World War I, it sponsored a conference of German and French parliamentarians at Berne, Switzerland. Between the two Wars it worked continuously to establish a friendlier feeling between French and German peoples. It became identified in the public mind with liberty, education, and peace, and so much so that when on December 28, 1935, a clique of Roman Catholic members of the House of Deputies introduced an amendment to abolish Freemasonry they were defeated by a vote of 370 to 91, which in the tangle of the many political parties was tantamount to a unanimous defeat.

When the Nazis set up their Fifth Column in France under Otto Abetz at about that time, they provided for a special division to plan means to undermine and destroy the Fraternity, that work being placed under the direction of Bernard Fa. This brought the Roman Catholics, royalists, and Nazis (or Fascists) into a single front against a Fraternity which had no army, possessed no governmental offices or powers, had no newspapers, no gendarmerie, and no hundreds of millions of francs,—a tribute to the power and vitality of the Masonic ideal! This combined anti-Masonic bloc also was used as under-cover machinery for attacking the United States and explains why upon the fall of France, Americans there were shocked to discover so much hatred of themselves; and why in his last radio address to the nation before he fled from Paris, Premier Renaud laid the blame for "France's defeat" on President Roosevelt!

Upon their entrance into Paris the Germans confiscated Masonic property, looted Lodge funds, burned Masonic buildings, carried the great Masonic Library off to Berlin, opened up a derisive "Masonic exposition" (which fell flat, and was a pitiable spectacle in which grown men who had graduated from the German universities acted and tallied like morons), shot some hundreds of Masons, imprisoned thousands of others, and sent other thousands to labor camps in the Reich. Almost as soon as he took control of Unoccupied France at Vichy, Pétain announced over the radio in one of his mumbled speeches that no Masonic dignitary (from a Worshipful Master up) could hold office or retain army commissions.

He removed some forty or more generals for having been Masons, and took the Legion of Honor away from many other Masons prominent in the army and in public life, among the latter being Pierre Comert, Alexis Leger, and Col. Charles Felix Pijeard, and denounced a number of members of the House of Deputies. He ordered Masonic property to be auctioned. Freemasonry was introduced into Italy about 1733, began to work under the best of auspices, and was led by men most eminent in the nation.

After the Popes began their crusade against it with the Bull by Clement XII in 1738, it had an honorable though checkered career, and in the Regiment numbered such Masons in its membership as Cavour, Mazzini, and Garibaldi, the last named a Grand Master. But Freemasonry was disturbed by the rise of the Carbonari with its endless branches and off-shoots, and often found itself compromised in the public eye by political secret societies falsely calling themselves Masonic. In self-defense some Lodges engaged in political work, thereby cutting themselves off from English-speaking Freemasonry; others refused to. The confusion became more confounded after World War I, and it was only when Torrigiani gained leadership, aided by the moral support of the Grand Lodge of New York (interested because of its own large Italian membership), that the Italian Craft began to regularize itself and to weed out false and clandestine bodies.

A short time before the so-called March on Rome (it had the King's knowledge and consent; Mussolini traveled in a Pullman sleeper) the Grand Fascist Council on February 13, 1923, resolved, among other things, that since "Freemasons pursue a program and employ methods contrary to those which inspire the whole activity of Fascism, the Council calls upon those Fascists who are Freemasons to choose between membership of the National Fascist Party and Freemasonry." Only a few days before, the Grand Orient, with Grand Master Torrigiani presiding, had proclaimed "that Freemasonry can never become a political party, and that, in the interests of national thought, it must be above all parties." Among the Masonic leaders who chose Freemasonry as against Fascism was General Luigi Capello. Among those who deserted Masonry were Rossi, Balbo, and Acerbo.

Late in 1923 young Fascist toughs began to burn, loot, and destroy Lodge rooms and their furniture— even in Milan. On January 10, 1925, the Parliament outlawed the Fraternity. In a debate on the Bill, Mussolini thundered: "The Bill will demonstrate that Freemasonry is out of date and no longer has the right to exist in the present century." For the sake of national peace Torrigiani declared the cessation of Masonic activity in Italy.

Then, about Nov. 5, 1926, the great bombshell exploded ! on a trumped-up charge manufactured out of the whole cloth, General Capello was arrested and accused of conspiring to assassinate Mussolini. This charge against a national hero who had given fifty years of his life to the Italian army covered the whole nation with gloom, because everybody knew he was innocent and his "trial" therefore showed the people by what means the Fascists would rule. He was brought to "trial" in the Spring of 1927, and sentenced to an imprisonment of thirty years, the first six to be in solitary confinement. Almost immediately secret police arrested Grand Master Torrigiani, "tried" him in secret court, and banished him to starve to death on one of the Lipari islands, to be followed later by some hundreds of other Masons. Torrigiani first went blind, or nearly 80, and then dsessene attempt after another was made from New York City to send food and medicines to those men on the little rock islands in the Mediterranean, but without much success. How many died from hunger and exposure may never be known. By the time Mussolini opened World War II with the rape of Abyssinia, Italian Freemasonry had become completely obliterated—for the time being.

General Ludendorff and his wife began the Nazi crusade against the Fraternity in Germany immediately after the end of World War I, and in the beginning tool; over enbloc the technique of anti-Masonry which had been used in France, which was character assassination coupled with a device for transferring to Masons the century-old Roman Catholic hatred of the Jews. (Ludendorff was a Nazi before Hitler was, and marched in the punch at hiunich )

In Mein Kamp Hitler wrote that the pacification of men and nations, that is, their civilization, which would destroy Germany's "Germanness," had been "introduced into the circles of the so-called 'intelligentsia' by Freemasonry," and from them "is transmitted to the great masses but above all to the bourgeoisie, by the activity of the great press, which today is always Jewish." (Hitler was startlingly ignorant, one of the most ignorant of a line of despots which always has hated "intellectuality"—and with good reason; he borrowed "bourgeoisie" at second hand from Karl Marx and often used it, but never understood its meaning.) Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, the "philosopher" of the Nazi Party (not a German, but a Balt, and psychopathic throughout his life), wrote at greater length in his Masonic Work Polmes, and with equal ignorance, even to the extent, and in defiance of his own claim to great learning, of accepting and promulgating the fable of the Protocol of the Elders of Zion.

In 1933, and in almost one of his first utterances as Prime Minister of Prussia, Hermann Goering declared that "in National Socialist Germany there is no place for Freemasonry." In 1927 Joseph Goebbels set up an "exposition" in Berlin to display regalia, furniture, books, etc., taken from Masonic Lodge rooms. At the outbreak of the war in 1939 there were (or had been) about 700 Lodges in Germany, with some 100,000 members. (In a Brown Shirt Berlin street parade so an eye-witness reported in a letter to the writer—Masons were hauled through the streets in a cage like animals.) How many Masons were mobbed, beaten to death, murdered, executed, or sent to concentration camps in Germany may never be know.

In Spain the sufferings of Masons were more terrible than in any other country. What was called Fascism in Italy, Naziism in Germany, Vichyism in France, was called The Falange, or Falangism, there. It was headed by the hierarchy of the Roman Church, the landlords, the higher officers in the army, by royalists, by local representatives of international finance, and was armed, accounted, and financed by Italy and Germany. Under Falangist rule membership in a Lodge automatically called for imprisonment for ten years, later changed to twelve years. In one town during the Franco Rebellion 80 men were garroted on six scaffolds for being Masons; in another 50 were made to dig a trench and then were shot and buried in it.

Savages from Morocco were turned loose on Masons' families; thousands of Masons were hanged shot, stabbed, burned, beaten to death for no other crime than Masonry; not in a Nazi crematory in Poland was there such an amount of savagery, bloodlust, brutality, murder, and unbelievable cruelty. (See an eye-witness account in Pierre van Paasen's The Days of our Years.) Prior to the Franco Rebellion Spain had two Grand Lodged some 175 Lodges, and a membership of about 10,000.

Freemasonry in Austria had a very old and proud history but by 1938, the year of the annexation of Austria it was reduced to one Grand Lodge, some 20 Lodgers and 1500 members. Hitler immediately abolished it and sent some 9000 of the Masons to the concentration camp at Dachau, or had them shot.

Belgium had one Grand Lodge, 24 Lodges, and 4000 members, but possessed an influence out of proportion to its size. Immediately the Germans entered Belgium in April, 1940, the Lodges were closed, their properties were confiscated, and their members, most of them, were imprisoned.

Before 1938 Czechoslovakia had two Grand Lodges, 60 Lodges, and 2600 members—Masaryk and Benes both were Masons. Hitler closed the Lodges, confiscated the property, imprisoned Masons, and shot many leaders.

Greece had before the War one Grand Lodge, 70 Lodges, 6000 members. King George was a Past Masters The Germans obliterated the Fraternity— perhaps the Greeks suffered more frightfully than any other Masons except in Spain.

Freemasonry was strong in Holland before the War with one Grand Lodge, 151 Lodges, and 10,000 members. In April, 1940, the Germans closed the Lodges, confiscated real estate, used jewels and leather aprons for making military goods, and arrested hundreds of Masons, among whom a number of Grand Officers committed suicide under torture.

Norway had one Grand Lodge, 30 Lodges, 11,500 members; Quisling and the Germans obliterated the Craft, following the usual program. Poland had one Grand Lodge, 12 Lodges, and 1,000 members. Roumania had two Grand Lodges, 40 Lodges, 1700 members. Yugoslavia had one Grand Lodges, 20 Lodges, 800 members. Denmark had one Grand Lodge (the King is Grand Master), 30 Lodges, 8,000 members. In each of these countries the Germans carried out the same program of suppression, confiscation, imprisonment, torture, execution, and the terrorism often was extended to Masons' families. As with the Germans so with the Japanese: in Japan, China, Philippine Islands, Singapore, Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and Indo China they destroyed Masons and Masonic buildings with the same ferocity as their Teutonic allies.

Within a space of less than five years more than 200,000 men overt martyred for being Masons, their properties confiscated, their families broken, themselves tortured, imprisoned, or shot. The Masonic Fraternity has a long memory, as long a memory as has the Roman Church; but it has nowhere in its memory any martyrdom such as that of those years; and it is hoped it never will have again; but it will carry a long memory into the future also, and a thousand years from now it will not have forgotten Spain, and Greece, and Holland, and France, and Italy of 1940 A.D.

• WAR, FREEMASONRY IN

The question how Freemasons should conduct themselves in time of war, when their own country is one of the belligerents, is an important one. Of the political Course of a Freemason in his individual and private Capacity there is no doubt. The Charges declare that he must be "a peaceable subject to the civil powers, and never be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the nation" (Constitutions, 1723, page 50). But so anxious is the Order to be unembarrassed by all political influences, that treason, however discountenanced by the Craft, is not held as a crime which is amenable to Masonic punishment.

For the same Charge affirms that "if a Brother should be a rebel against the State, he is not to be countenanced in his rebellion, however he may be pitied as an unhappy man; and if convicted of no other crime, though the loyal brotherhood must and ought to disown his rebellion and give no umbrage or ground of political jealousy to the government for the time being, they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and his relation to it remains indefeasible."

The Freemason, then, like every other citizen, should be a patriot. He should love his country with all his heart; should serve it faithfully and cheerfully; obey its laws in peace; and in war should be ever ready to support its honor and defend it from the attacks of its enemies. But even then the benign principles of the Institution extend their influence, arid divest the contest of many of its horrors. The Freemason fights, of Course, like every other man, for victory; but when the victory is won, he will remember that the conquered foe is still his Brother.

On the occasion, of a Masonic banquet given immediately after the close of the Mexican War to General Quitman by the Grand Lodge of South Carolina that distinguished soldier and Freemason remarked that, although he had devoted much of his attention to the nature and character of the Masonic Institution, and had repeatedly held the highest offices in the gift of his brethren, he had never really known what Freemasonry was until he had seen its workings on the field of battle.

But as a collective and organized body—in its Lodges and its Grand Lodges—it must have nothing to do with war. It must be silent and neutral. The din of the battle, the cry for vengeance, the shout of victory, must never penetrate its portals. Its dogmas and doctrines all teach love and fraternity; its symbols are symbols of peace; and it has no place in any of its rituals consecrated to the inculcation of human contention.

Brother C. W. Moore, in his Biography of Thomas Smith Webb, the great American ritualist, mentions a Circumstance which occurred during the period in which Webb presided over the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island, and to which Moore, in the opinion of Doctor Mackey, inconsiderately has given his hearty commendation. The United States was engaged at that time in a war with England. The people of Providence having commenced the erection of fortifications the Grand Lodge volunteered its Services; and the members, marching in procession as a Grand Lodge to the southern part of the town, erected a breastwork, to which was given the name of Fort Hiram (see Fort Masonic). Doctor Mackey doubted the propriety of the act. While, to repeat what has been just said, every individual member of the Grand Lodge as a Freemason, was bound by his obligation to be "true to his government " and to defend it from the attacks of its enemies, it was, says Doctor Mackey, unseemly, and contrary to the peaceful spirit of the Institution, for any organized body of Freemasons, organized as such to engage in a warlike enterprise. But the patriotism, if not the prudence of the Grand Lodge, Cannot be denied.

Since writing this paragraph, Doctor Mackey met in brother Murray Lyon's History of the Lodge of Edinburgh (page 83) with a record of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, which in his judgment sustained the view that he has taken. In 1777, recruits were being enlisted in Scotland for the British army, which was to fight the Americans in the War of the Revolution, which had just begun. Many of the Scotch Lodges offered, through the newspapers, bounties to all who should enlist But on February 2, 1778, the Grand Lodge passed a resolution which was published on the 12th, through the Grand Secretary, in the following circular:

At a quarterly meeting of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, held here the Second instant, I received a charge to acquaint all the Lodges of Scotland holding of the Grand Lodge that the Grand Lodge has seen with concern advertisements in the public newspapers, from different Lodges in Scotland, not only offering a bounty to recruits who may enlist in the new levies, but with the addition that all such recruits shall be admitted to the freedom of Masonry.

The first of these they consider as an improper alienation of the funds of the Lodge from the support of their poor and distressed Brethren, and the second they regard as a prostitution of our Order, which demands the reprehension of the Grand Lodge What ever share the Brethren may take as individuals in aiding these levies, out of zeal to serve their private friends or to promote the public service, the Grand Lodge considered it to be repugnant to the spirit of our Craft that any Lodge should take a part in such a business as a collective Body.

For Masonry is an Order of Pease ant it looks on all mankind to be Brethren as Masons, whether they be at peace or at war with each other as subjects of contending countries The Grand Lodge therefore strongly enjoins that the practice may be forthwith discontinued. By order of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. W. Mason, Gr Sec.

Of all human institutions, Freemasonry is the greatest and purest Peace Society. And this is because its doctrine of universal peace is founded on the doctrine of a universal brotherhood

• WARDENS

In every Symbolic Lodge, there are three principal officers, namely, a Master, a Senior Warden, and a Junior Warden. This rule has existed ever since the revival, and for some time previous to that event, and is so universal that it has been considered as one of the landmarks. It exists in every country and in every Rite The titles of the officers may be different in different languages, but their functions as presiding over the Lodge in a tripartite division of duties, are everywhere the same. The German Masons call the two Wardens erste and zweite Aufseher; the French, premier and second Surveillant; the Spanish, primer and segundo Vigilante; and the Italians, primo and secondo Sorvegliante.

In the various Rites, the positions of these officers vary. In the American Rite, the Senior Warden sits in the West and the Junior in the South. In the French and Scottish Rites, both Wardens are in the West, the Senior in the Northwest and the Junior in the Southwest; but in all, the triangular position of the three officers relatively to each other is preserved; for a triangle being formed within the square of the Lodge, the Master and Wardens will each occupy one of the three points.

The precise time when the presidency of the Lodge was divided between these three officers or when they were first introduced into Freemasonry, is unknown. The Lodges of Scotland, during the Operative regime, or era, were governed by a Deacon and one Warden. The Earl of Cassilis was Master of Kilwinning in 1670, though only an Apprentice. This seems to have been not unusual, as there were cases of Apprentices presiding over Lodges. The Deacon performed the functions of a Master, and the Warden was the second officer, and took charge of and distributed the funds. In other words, he acted as a Treasurer.

This is evident from the Minutes of the Edinburgh Lodge, published by Brother Lyon. But the head of the Craft in Scotland at the same time was called the Warden General. This regulation, however, does not appear to have been universal even in Scotland, for in the Mark Book of the Aberdeen Lodge, under date of December 27, 1670, which was published by Brother W. J. Hughan in the Voice of Masonry, February, 1872, we find there a Master and Warden recognized as the presiding officers of the Lodge in the following Statute: "And likewise we all protest, by the oath we have made at our entry, to own the Warden of our Lodge as the next man in power to the Master, and in the Master's absence he is full Master."

Some of the English manuscript Constitutions recognize the offices of Master and Wardens. Thus the Harleian Manuscript, No. 1942, whose date is supposed to be about 1670, contains the "new articles" said to have been agreed on at a General Assembly held in 1663, in which is the following passage: "That for the future the said Society, Company and Fraternity of Free Masons shall be regulated and governed by one Master & Assembly & Wardens, as ye said Company shall think fit to chose, at every yarely General Assembly."

As the word Warden does not appear in the earlier manuscripts, it might be concluded that the office was not introduced into the English Lodges until the latter part of the seventeenth century. Yet this does not absolutely follow. For the office of Warden might have existed, and no statutory provision on the subject have been embraced in the general charges which are contained in those manuscripts, because they relate not to the government of Lodges, but the duties of Freemasons. This of course, is conjectural; but the conjecture derives weight from the fact that Wardens were officers of the English Gilds as early as the fourteenth century. In the Charters granted by Edward III, in 1354, it is permitted that these companies shall yearly elect for their government "a certain number of Wardens "

To a list of the Companies of the date of 1377 is affixed what is called the Oath of the Wardens of Crafts, of which this is the commencement: "Ye shall Were that ye shall wele and treuly oversee the Craft of— whereof ye be chosen Wardeyns for the year. It thus appears that the Wardens were at first the presiding officers of the Gilds.

At a later period, in the reign of Elizabeth, we find that the chief officer began to be called Master; and in the time of James I, between 1603 and 1625, the Gilds were generally governed by a Master and Wardens.

An ordinance of the Leather-Sellers Company at that time directed that on a certain occasion "the Master and Wardens shall appear in state."

It is not, therefore, improbable that the government of Masonic Lodges by a Master and two Wardens was introduced into the regulations of the Order in the Seventeenth century, the "new article" of 1663 being a statutory confirmation of a custom which had just begun to prevail.

Senior Warden. He is the second officer in a Symbolic Lodge, and governs the Craft in the hours of labor. In the absence of the Master he presides over the Lodge, appointing some brothers not the Junior Warden, to occupy his place in the attest. His jewel is a level, a Symbol of the equality which exists among the Craft while at labor in the Lodge. His seat is in the West, and he represents the column of Strength. He has placed before him, and carries in all processions, a column, which is the representative of the right-hand pillar that stood at the porch of King Solomon's Temple. The Junior Warden has a similar column, which represents the left-hand pillar. During labor the Column of the Senior Warden is erect in the Lodge, while that of the Junior is recumbent. At refreshment, the position of the two columns is reversed.

Junior Warden. The duties of this officer have already been described (see Junior Warden). There is also an officer in a Commandery of Knights Templar, the fifth in rank, who is staled Senior Warden. He takes an important part in the initiation of a candidate. His jewel of office is a triple triangle, the emblem of Deity.

• WARDENS' COLUMNS

See articles on Columns and Columns, The Wardens'

• WARDENS, GRAND

See Grand Wardens

• WARDER

The literal meaning of Warder is one who keeps watch and ward. In the Middle Ages, the Warder was stationed at the gate or on the battlements of the castle, and with his trumpet sounded alarms and announced the approach of all comers. Hence the Warder in a Commandery of Knights Templar bears a trumpet, and his duties are prescribed to be to announce the approach and departure of the Eminent Commander, to post the sentinels, and see that the Asylum is duly guarded, as well as to announce the approach of visitors. His jewel is a trumpet and crossed swords engraved on a square plate.

• WARLIKE INSTRUMENT

In the ancient initiations, the aspirant was never permitted to enter on the threshold of the Temple in which the Ceremonies were conducted until, by the most solemn warning, he had been impressed with the necessity of secrecy and caution Thus the use, for this purpose, of a Warlike Instrument in the First Degree of Freemasonry, is intended to produce the same effect A sword has always been employed for that purpose; and to substitute the point of the compasses, taken from the altar at the time, is an improper sacrifice of Symbolism to the convenience of the Senior Deacon The Compasses are peculiar to the Third Degree In the earliest instructions of the eighteenth century it is Said that the entrance is "upon the point of a sword, or spear, or some warlike instrument"

Krause (Kurlsturkunden ii, page 142), in commenting on this expression, has completely misinterpreted its signification He supposes that the sword was intended as a sign of jurisdiction now assumed by the Lodge. But the real object of the ceremony is to teach the neophyte that as the sword or warlike instrument will wound or prick the flesh, so will the betray al of a trust confided wound or prick the conscience of him who betrays it

• WARRANT OF CONSTITUTION

The Document which authorizes or gives a Warrant to certain persons therein named to organize and constitute a Lodge, Chapter, or other Masonic Body, and which ends usually with the formula, "for which this shall be your sufficient Warrant "

The practice of granting Warrants for the Constitution of Lodges, dates only from the period of the Revival of Freemasonry in 1717 Previous to that period "a sufficient number oƒ brethren," says Preston (Illustrations, edition of 1792, page 248), "met together within a certain district, had ample power to make Masons, and discharge every duty of Masonry without a Warrant of Constitution " But in 1717 a regulation was adopted "that the privilege of assembling as Masons, which had been hitherto unlimited, should be vested in certain Lodges or assemblies of Masons convened in certain places; and that every Lodge to be hereafter Convened, except the four old Lodges at this time existing, should be legally authorized to act by a Warrant from the Grand Master, for the time being, granted to certain individuals by petition, with the Consent and approbation of the Grand Lodge in communication; and that without such Warrant no Lodge should be hereafter deemed regular or Constitutional "

Consequently ever Since the adoption of that regulation, no Lodge has been regular unless it is working under such an authority The Word Warrant is appropriately used, because in its legal acceptation it means a document giving authority to perform some Specified act In England, the Warrant of Constitution emanates frown the Grand Master; in the United states from the Grand Lodge in America, the Grand Master grants only a dispensation to hold a Lodge, which may be revoked or confirmed by the Grand Lodge; and in the latter case, the Warrant will then be issued The Warrant of Constitution is granted to the Master and Wardens, and to their successors in office.

It continues in force only during the pleasure of the Grand Lodge, and may, therefore, at any time be revoked, and the Lodge dissolved by a vote of that Body, or it may be temporarily arrested or suspended by an edict of the Grand Master This will, however, never be done, unless the Lodge has violated the ancient landmarks or failed to pay due respect and obedience to the Grand Lodge or to the Grand Master At the formation of the first Lodges in a number of the States in the South and Middle West, the Grand Lodges of other States granted both Dispensations and Charters When a Warrant of Constitution is revoked or recalled, the jewels furniture, and funds of the Lodge revert to the Grand Lodge

Lastly, as a Lodge holds its communications only under the authority of this Warrant of Constitution, no Lodge can be opened, or proceed to business, unless it be present if it be mislaid or destroyed, it must be recovered or another obtained; and until that is done, the Communications of the Lodge must be suspended; and if the Warrant of Constitution be taken out of the room during the session of the Lodge, the authority of the Master instantly ceases Some pertinent Comments upon the early use of Significant and frequently employed words to be found in the documents of Freemasonry are discussed by Brother W J Chetwode Crawley (see Caementaria Hiberica, Fasciculus ii). we condense these herewith on the word Warrant, Constitution, Deputation, and Regular. The earliest mention of the word Warrant in connection with Grand Lodge is found in Number VIII of the General Regulations of 1721, comprised in doctor Anderson's Constitutions, 1723, where the Brethren are warned that "they must obtain the Grand Master's Warrant to join in forming a new Lodge, and that he must approve of them by his Warrant, which must be signified to the other Lodges " The provision is in the first Irish Code, 1730, hut condensed by the Grand Secretary, Brother John Pennell.

The Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Munster for John the Baptist's Day, 1730, show that Grand Lodge considered the petitions of Brethren at Waterford and Clonmell "to have a Warrant from our Grand Lodge for assembling and holding Regular Lodges " Both passages and context allow no doubt that the word Warrand is used in its etymological Sense of permission, and not in its secondary sense of a permanent document embodying that authorization. This permission was involved in the formal Constitution of the Lodge by the Grand Master, or, failing him, by a brothers to whom he issued a written Deputation for the purpose This document has often and mistakenly been called the Warrant, or Charter, by brethren familiar with the legal qualities that form a Charter, and who were unable to distinguish between a Warrant or general authorization of 1723, and Warrant or permanent documents of today.

The words Constitution and Deputation had similar development The Constitution and Deputation of 1723 meant a ceremony; the Constitution of fifty years later often, not always, meant a document. The Deputation of 1723 meant entrusting duties to one who stood for the Grand Master; the Deputation displayed today, with just pride, in certain old Lodges, is a document delegating those temporary duties.

The word Regular, too, has had a modern connotation attributed to it that has helped to increase the confusion. It simply meant, in the first instance, that the Lodge to which it was applied had come under the jurisdiction—sub regula —of the Grand Lodge, in contradistinction to Lodges which had not so submitted themselves. These latter Lodges were not necessarily clandestine or irregular. They were only non-regular in that they were outside the jurisdiction of the recently formed Grand Lodge but many, with hasty judgment, have assumed that all Brethren who, in those early days, were not regular, must be irregular a judgment far from truth. Evidence of the existence of legitimate non-regular Lodges has multiplied of late years.

The Lodge at Warrington, in which Elias Ashmole was initiated in 1646, once stood well-nigh alone as an accredited example. Today we have even more striking examples in the Lodge discovered by Brother Edward Condor to have been held in 1636 under the auspices of the Masons Company, in London, and in the Lodge at Chester, to which Randle Holme belonged in l688, and which Brother W. H Rylands has proved to have been a Speculative Lodge. The Irish Lodge, traditionally held at Donneraile, in which the honorable Elizabeth Saint Leger was initiated before 1713, belonged to the same category.

The old Lodge at Alnwick, apparently an Operative survival, has left By-laws dated 1701, and Minutes dated 1703 The Lodge at Swalwell, in Durham, possessing records from 1725, did not become Regular by exhibiting a Constitution from the Grand Lodge of England until 1735 Evidence is not wanted of similar neighboring Lodges which failed to follow the Lodge at Swalwell even in this tardy submissions to the Grand Lodge in London. When we passed in review the series of Masonic Manuals published by Brother William Smith in 1735 and 1736, we find a flourishing Lodge at Hexhan mentioned in the Book M (see introduction to the Pocket Companion, 1735) This Lodge according to Brother John Lane, never became Regular by coming under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of England Similarly, Doctor Stukely's Lodge at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, never became Regular, though we knew from his Diary that it existed under his tutelage from 1796 to 1730.

As a matter of history all Lodges before 1717 existed under like conditions Those Time Immemorial Lodges continuing work after Grand Lodge was founded, came gradually and voluntarily under its jurisdiction, if they did so at all. Such of them as remained aloof did not forfeit their right to be regarded as Lodges of Freemasons.

They were Non-Regular Lodges. Reference to the ecclesiastical use of the word Regular will help to make its original Masonic use clear. In the Roman Catholic Church the clergy were divided into two great sections—the Monastic and the Parochial. The Monastic clergy are alone entitled to be styled Regular, as being under the Rule— sub regula—of their special Order. Parochial clergy are styled Non-Regular, or Secular It would be the height of inconsequence to style them Irregular. Each of these verbal misconceptions is trifling in itself, and obvious when pointed out in the aggregate, they have generally helped to obscure the origin of the now universal practice of holding no Lodge to be Regular unless it possesses a permanent Charter embodying its rights This is the Irish use.

We have seen that the issuing of permanent Warrants or Charters to its supporting Lodges formed no part of the theory of Constitution contemplated by the Grand Lodge of England When the first Warrant was issued by the Grand Lodge of Ireland, the step was along a new path .No precedent could be discerned in the Sister Grand Lodge of England for either the theory or the practice The growth of our mother tongue has been almost imperceptible during the generations that have passed since the first book of Constitutions was published by Brother James Anderson Yet the interval has been long enough to impart confusion into the terminology of our history. No student can afford to be ignorant or careless of the ceaseless changes of meaning in the words of a living language The words Warrant, Constitution and Regular connote many things today which our forefathers had not in view at the Revival of 1717

• WAR RELIEF ASSOCIATION, MASONIC

An early organized Body inspired by Brother William B. Melish, Cincinnati, Ohio, who during the World War, November 14, 1914, to June 1, 1920, collected $140,011 29 for the relief of widows and orphans of Freemasons of the foreign nations and disbursed the fund through the Masonic authorities in France, England, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, and Greece, and mainly to Masonic orphanages of France, Belgium and Serbia The cost of administration was less than the savings bank interest earned and the officers and trustees served without salaries From this fund was contributed $5,000 to the rebuilding of a public hospital at Jerusalem, to which a like sum was given by the Grand Priory, Order of the Temple, England. American Knights Templar while expending $150,000 on foreign orphans, also contributed $20,783 91 to Brother Melish's fund, twenty-seven Grand Lodges gave $52,120.61; Royal Arch Masons, $27,363.68; Mystic Shrine, $29,557.91, and others were also generous (see Proceedings, Imperial Council, 1920, page 284).

• WARREN, GENERAL JOSEPH

Grand Master of Massachusetts from December 27, 1759, to June 17, 1775, a statesmen of foresight and judgment, President of the Provincial Congress and Major General in the Revolutionary War. Born June 11, 1741, Roxbury, Massachusetts; graduated from Harvard College in 1759; began the practice of medicine in 1763, noted for his success in the smallpox epidemic at Boston in 1764. In 1774, sent to the Provincial Congress to represent the City of Boston and elected President in 1775. This Provincial Congress offered him the appointment of Surgeon General, which he declined. He accepted a Commission as Major General, which was dated three days before the Battle of Bunker Hill. General Warren presided at the meeting of the Colonial Congress, June 16, 1775, which lasted almost the entire night and immediately left for Charlestown, arriving just a few moments before the first attack of the British troops at Bunker Hill.

Here Putnam and Prescott offered him command but he, refusing, seized a musket and fought in the ranks. During this encounter he received a bullet in the head and was instantly killed, being buried in a hastily prepared grave on the battle-field. Joseph Warren was Initiated September 30, 1761, in Saint Andrew Lodge of Boston; Passed, November 2, but no record is extant of his being Raised. Earl of Dalhousie, Grand Master of Masons in Scotland, sent Brother Warren a Commission, dated May 30, 1769, appointing him Grand Master of Masons in Boston and within one hundred miles of the same. This communication was received in December of 1769. He received another Commission, 1773, from the Earl of Dumfries, then Grand Master of Scotland. This Commission was dated March 3, 1772, and extended Brother Warren's Jurisdiction to the entire Continent of America.

He was assiduous in his Masonic duties, giving constant attendance to the Committees of the Fraternity and taking care of manifold duties with a minute attention remarkable, considering his activity in public causes. The Masonic Brotherhood removed Brother Warren's body from the shallow grave in the battle-field as soon as possible after the evacuation of Boston, April 6, 1776; held a Masonic funeral service over it and placed it in a tomb in the Granary Burying Ground. Since then the body has been moved several times and now lies in Forest Hills Cemetery. King Solomon's Lodge, then of Charlestown, erected and dedicated a monument to his memory and later voted to present the land and monument to the Bunker Hill Monument Association and an exact model in marble of the original is now placed within the Bunker Hill Monument.

The completion of the monument was celebrated June 17, 1843, King Solomon's Lodge, then of Charlestown, conducting the Masonic funeral rites. On this occasion the Masonic Apron of Brother Warren was worn by Past Grand Master Benjamin Russell, a soldier of the Revolution. A statue of General Warren was inaugurated lacy the Brethren June 17, 1857, in the presence of the Grand Officers. See Bylaws of Saint Andrews Royal Arch Chapter, Boston (1866, page 85)

Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1916 (page 246); also Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry, volumes v and vi (pages 1572, 1573, 1669, 2016, 2022 and 2025), and Leaflets of Masonic Biography, by C. Moore, 1863 (pages 9 to 48).

• WASHING HANDS

See Lustration

• WASHINGTON, A MARK MASON

Norton Sketch of the Lodge of Antiquity, A. F. V. A. M., I. G. R. C., by J. Beamish Saul, Past Master, Past D. D. G. M. (Montreal, 1903), quotes on page 8 a letter from Lieutenant Colonel W. Lacy, who subsequently was Master of the Lodge, which was "Formerly Lodge of Social and Military Virtues, No. 227 G. R. I., Instituted 4th March, 1752, in the 46th British Regiment, now the 2nd Battalion Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry."

"Soon after my initation, being a member of the mess committee [of the regiment], I found in the store rooms a bullock trunk with brass mountings, engraved N o. 227 L. S. M. V. I learned that it belonged to the Masons of the corps, and, being permitted to remove it to my bungalow, I found the lock had been broken, some of the jewels lost. It contained the Record book, some jewels, several books of the by-laws, the Bible and Charter, almost dilapidated. On the fly-leaf of the books of By-laws was printed: 'This Bible belonging to Lodge No. 227, was that on which Washington received a degree of Masonry, That during the war of Independence in America it was taken by the enemy, w ho returned it with a flag of truce, and again it was taken by the French in their attack on the island of Dominica, together with the Lodge jewels and mess plate of the officers, who returned it with the Lodge jewels under a {lag of truce, keeping the mess plate."' The Lodge was then in India.

Brother Beamish Saul summarizes another entry from the Lodge Minutes: "The bullock trunk containing the lodge's regalia and other effects accompanied the regiment when practical, but in some cases, for want of transport it, with other baggage had to follow. On one of these occasions the trunk fell into the hands of the Americans, but this fact coming to the knowledge of Washington, he immediately ordered it to be returned under 3 flag of truce and escorted by a guard of honor; it being also stated the regiment opened up its ranks, the guard of honor marching in, to the cheering music of the pipe and drum band. "

In 1833 Captain Lacy carried the Lodge chest with him when the 46th returned to England from India. The Lodge then went to Ireland; in 1846 it returned to Canada. In 1857 the Lodge affiliated with the Grand Lodge of Canada! changing its name to Lodge of Antiquity; in 1869 it affiliated with the Grand Lodge of Quebec.

"Of the precious volume of the Sacred Law already spoken of," writes Bro. Beamish, "the Lodge now possesses a bound photo zincographic copy [presented by Col. Lacy of the title page and about a dozen other principal pages, and containing also certain records of the West family and others who lived in the Jersevs at that time. The Bible itself is now kept in the officers mess room at Newsby in a walnut case on which is engraved: 'On this Sacred Volume Washington received a Degree of Masonry . . . Washington having been made, passed, and raised in Fredericksburg Lodge, in Virginia, at a much earlier date than when the 46th was in winter quarters near Philadelphia, tradition and the general consensus of opinion says it was the Mark Degree which was conferred. "

It is most reasonable to take it that the Degree was the Mark, since Washington already had been exalted to the Royal Arch at Fredericksburg in 1753; and that it was conferred at Philadelphia in or near 1777 at a time of truce, when Lodges were opened and visited by Masons from both sides of the line. "The Bible had been the property of the West family, who lived in Jerseys in 1776, many of the names of the births and deaths being` recorded up to 1769. The 46th were in the Jerseys in 1776."

• WASHINGTON AT CHARLES TOWN

To the data in the article on George Washington beginning at page 1093 should be added the tradition that he once attended and presided over Lodge meetings held in a cavern at Charles Town, W. Va. This tradition has been preserved in the Washington family, and there is no ground for questioning it.

Charles Town, then in Virginia, was a secondary home of the Washingtons when George Washington was living at Mt. Vernon. It was named after his brother Charles, who built there a home called Maudington. Samuel, another brother, built Hareyrood, which is still owned by descendants (James and Dolly Madison were married in it.) The population of about 2500 contains more descendants of the Washington and Custis families than any other American community.

• WASHINGTON

Washington was separated from Oregon by Act of Congress on March 2, 1853. There were at the time four chartered Lodges in the new Territory, all of which gave allegiance to Oregon, namely, Olympia, No. 5, chartered in 1853 and the first Lodge to be established north of the Columbia River and west of the Rocky Mountains; Steilacoom, No. 8; Grand Mound, No. 21, and Washington, No. 22. A Convention was held on December 6, 1858, at which Brother Charles Byles presided to consider the formation of a Grand Lodge of Washington. At a meeting held on December 8, 1858, a Constitution was adopted and a Lodge of Master Masons was opened. Grand Officers were elected as follows; Grand Master, T. F. McElroy; Deputy Grand Master, James A. Graham; Senior Grand Warden, James Byles; Junior Grand Warden, Levi Farnsworth; Grand Treasurer, J. M. Bachelder, and Grand Secretary, Thomas M. Reed. The Grand Master was then installed and on the following day the Grand Lodge was opened with due ceremony in Ample Form.

Seattle Chapter, No. 1, was granted a Dispensation November 1, 1869, but did not have a prosperous career and its Charter was declared forfeited on August 27, 1880. Its number was given to Walla Walla Chapter which had been given a Dispensation February 13, 1871, and a Charter at the same time as Seattle Chapter on September 20, 1871. By authority of the General Grand High Priest a Convention was held at Walla Walla on October 2, 1884, by the three Chapters, Walla Walla, No. 1; Spokane, No. 2; Seattle, No. 3, and arrangements for a Grand Chapter were completed.

Tacoma Council, No. 1, at Tacoma was warranted on February 9, 1891, and chartered July 21, 1891. By Dispensation of the General Grand Master, dated May 31, 1895, a Convention was held at Tacoma to organize a Grand Council. It met on June 5, adopted a Constitution and elected Grand Officers who were installed by the Special Deputy, Elijah M. Beatty. Washington Commandery, No. 1, was organized by Dispensation issued April 19, 1882, at Walla Walla. Its Charter was dated August 23, 1883. This, with three other constituent Commanderies, Seattle, No. 2; Cataract, No. 3, and Ivanhoe, No. 4, came under the control of the Grand Commandery of the Territory when it was organized on June 2, 1887. On March 13, 1872, three Charters were granted to Bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, at Seattle, namely, Washington Lodge of Perfection, No. 1; Washington Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1, and Washington Council of Kadosh, No. 1. Lawson Consistory, No. 1, was chartered, also at Seattle, on November 11, 1883.

• WASHINGTON, CONGRESS OF

A Congress of American Freemasons was convoked at the City of Washington, in the year 1822, at the call of several Grand Lodge, for the purpose of recommending the establishment of a General Grand Lodge of the United States. The result was an unsuccessful one.

• WASHINGTON, GEORGE.

Born at Bridges Creek, Westmorland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732, of the present calendar, but February 11, 1731/2 of the birth record and on December 14, 1799, he died at Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia, about fifteen miles from Washington, District of Columbia. At sixteen he became surveyor on the estate of Lord Fairfax, then joined the army and later was on the staff of General Braddock.

Delegate to First and Second Continental Congresses. Unanimously chosen in 1775 as Commander-in-Chief of Colonial Army and his Yorktown campaign ended the war on October 19, 1781, with the surrender of Lord Comwallis and his British Army. Washington presided at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia, May, 1787, for the framing of the Constitution, and then was elected President, and in 1792 reelected, refusing a third term. He was recalled from his retirement in 1798 to again serve as Commander-in- Chief but the prospect of war with France did not w materialize.

The Oath of office as President of the United States was administered on April 30, 1789, New York City, to General Washington, by Brother Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the State of New York, and who was also the Grand Master of Free and Accepted Masons.

The name of Washington occupies a prominent place in Masonic biography, not perhaps so much because of any services he has done to the Institution either as a worker or a writer, but because the fact of his connection with the Craft is a source of pride to every American Freemason, at least, who can thus call the "Father of his Country" a Brother. There is also another reason. While the friends of the Institution have felt that the adhesion to it of a man so eminent for virtue was a proof of its moral and religious character, the opponents of Freemasonry, being forced to admit the conclusion, have sought to deny the premises, and, even if compelled to admit the fact of Washington's initiation, have persistently asserted that he never took any interest in it, disapproved of its spirit, and at an early period of his life abandoned it. The truth of history requires that these misstatements should be met by a brief recital of his Masonic career.

Washington was initiated, in 1752, in the Lodge at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the records of that Lodge, still in existence, present the following entries on the subject. The first entry is thus: "Nov. 4th. 1752. This evening Mr. George Washington was initiated as an entered Apprentice", receipt of the entrance fee, amounting to £2 3s., was acknowledged, F.C. and M.M. March :3 and August 4, 1753.

On March 3 in the following year, "Mr. George Washington" is recorded as having been passed a Fellow Craft; and on August 4, same year, 1753, the record of the transactions of the evening states that "Mr. George Washington," and others whose names are mentioned, have been raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.

Curiously enough each of the days when Washington attended Lodge was Saturday, the dates already mentioned falling on that day, and he was last in the Lodge at Fredericksburg on Saturday, January 4, 1755. Brother Franklin Stearns, Past Master of Fredericksburg Lodge, says that Washington paid his fees November 6, 1752 and that no further fees appearing in this connection he has arrived at the conclusion that £2 3s was paid for all three Degrees.

For five years after his initiation, he was engaged in active military service, and it is not likely that during that period his attendance on the communications of the Lodge could have been frequent. Some English writers have asserted that he was made a Freemason during the old French War, in a military Lodge attached to the 46th Regiment. The Bible on which he is said to have been obligated claimed to be still in existence, although the Lodge was many years ago dissolved, at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The records of the Lodge are, or were, extant, and furnish the evidence that Washington was there, and perhaps received some Masonic Degree. It is equally clear that he was first initiated in Fredericksburg Lodge, for the record is still in possession of the Lodge.

Three methods have been adopted to reconcile this apparent discrepancy. Brother Hayden, in his work on Washington and his Masonic Compeers (page 31), suggests that an obligation had been administered to him as a test-oath when visiting the Lodge, or that the Lodge, deeming the authority under which he had been made insufficient, had required him to be healed and reobligated. Neither of these attempts to solve the difficulty appears to have any plausibility. Brother C. W. Moore, of Massachusetts in the Freemasons Monthly Magazine (volume xi, page 261), suggests that, as it was then the custom to confer the Mark Degree as a side Degree in Masters' Lodges, and as it has been proved that Washington was in possession of that Degree, he may have received it in Lodge No. 227, attached to the 46th Regiment.

Brother C. C. Hunt, Grand Secretary of Iowa, has prepared an article dealing with the probable initiation of Washington into Royal Arch Masonry. The first mention in the Minutes of a Lodge to the Royal Arch Degree being actually worked is the reference in the records of Frederieksburg Lodge for December 22, 1753. In that Virginian Lodge on August 4, 1753, George Washington was raised a Master Mason, the Royal Arch Degree being worked four months and eighteen days previously. When he was initiated Washington was twenty years old; six feet three inches tall; a Major and Adjutant-General for the Colony. By the time he had taken the Master Mason's Degree he had been appointed a Colonel. He was Commander of the Northern Military District of Virginia at the outbreak of the French and Indian War, in May, 1754. Brother Cyrus Field Willard points out that an examination of this record would indicate that this wealthy young man must have gone on and taken his Royal Arch Degree as others did who were initiated in the Lodge with him and appear later as officers of the Royal Arch.

Naturally Washington would follow this example so far as receiving the Degree was concerned in order that he might be fully prepared for his military career, many Brethren having done exactly the same thing for a like purpose, as one may readily eat to mind in thinking over the initiation in the days of War. Brother Willard has made a study of the precedence of the various Brethren upon the records of the Lodge, which precedence does not seem to be determined altogether by the dates when they were given the three first Degrees of the Lodge, and he says that it is hard to determine what occasioned this precedence if it were not membership in the Royal Arch. He explains the fact that the Secretary does not mention the conferring of the Royal Arch Degree upon Washington as this probably took place before Secretary Woodrow had himself received that Degree.

However, the Worshipful Master of the Lodge at Fredericksburg said in a speech of welcome to Lafayette on November 28, 1824 "Our records assure us that on the 4th day of November, A. L. 5752, the light of Masonry here first burst upon his (Washington's) sight, and that within the pale of this Lodge he subsequently sought and obtained further illumination" (see pages 33-34 Historical Sketch of Fredencksburg Lodge by Brother S. J. Quinn, Past Master, 1890). Of course this may refer simply to the further illumination of the Second and Third Degrees. A more significant reference is the one stressed by Brother Hunt. He calls particular attention to the presentation by General Lafayette in August, 1784, forty years previous to the occasion of the above address of welcome to Brother Lafayette on his second visit to the United States. Brother Hunt is especially impressed with the Masonic Apron presented by General Lafayette to Brother Washington, a gift embroidered in colored silks by Madame La fayette with the emblems of the Holy Royal Arch.

On the flap of the apron are the letters H.T.W.S.S.T.

K.S. arranged in the form of a circle familiar to Chapter Freemasons. Within the circle is a beehive seemingly indicating the Mark selected by the wearer. As this apron was made especially for Brother Washington it is pointed out by Brother Hunt that it is not likely that General Lafayette would have had this emblem placed on the apron had the facts been otherwise, and that certainly the beehive as an emblem of industry was a proper mark for Washington to select. We must also remember that at this time the Royal Arch Degree was conferred in Masters Lodges and under a Lodge Warrant.

There is ample evidence that during the Revolutionary War, while he was Commander-in-Chief of the American armies, he was a frequent attendant on the meetings of military Lodges. Years ago, Captain Hugh Maloy, a revolutionary veteran, then residing in Ohio, declared that on one of these occasions he was initiated in Washington's marquee, the chief himself presiding at the ceremony.

Brother Scott, a Past Grand Master of Virginia, asserted that Washington was in frequent attendance on the Communications of the Brethren. The proposition made to elect him a Grand Master of the United States, as will be hereafter seen, affords a strong presumption that his name as a Freemason was familiar to the Craft. In 1777, the Convention of Virginia Lodges recommended Washington as the most proper person to be elected Grand Master of the Independent Grand Lodge of that Commonwealth. Brother Dove has given in his Text-Book the complete records of the Convention; and there is therefore no doubt that the nomination was made. It was, however, declined by Washington. Soon after the beginning of the Revolution, a disposition was manifested among American Freemasons to dissever their connection, as subordinates, with the Masonic authorities of the mother country, and in several of the newly erected States the Provincial Grand Lodges assumed an independent character.

The idea of a Grand Master of the whole of the United States had also become popular. On February 7, 1780, a Convention of delegates from the military Lodges in the Army was held at Morristown, in New Jersey, when an address to the Grand Masters in the various States was adopted, recommending the establishment. of "One Grand Lodge in America, " and the election of a Grand Master. This address was sent to the Grand Lodges of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia; and although the name of Washington is not mentioned in it, those Grand Lodges were notified that he was the first choice of the Brethren who had framed it.

While the proceedings were in progress, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania had taken action on the same subject. On January 13, 1780, it had held a session, and it was unanimously declared that it was for the benefit of Freemasonry that "a Grand Master of Masons throughout the United States" should be nominated; whereupon, with equal unanimity, General Washington was elected to the office. It was then ordered that the Minutes of the election be transmitted to the different Grand Lodges in the United States, and their concurrence therein be requested. The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, doubting the expediency of electing a General Grand Master declined to come to any determination on the question and so the subject was dropped.

This will correct the error into which many foreign Grand Lodges and Masonic writers have fallen, of supposing that Washington was ever a Grand Master of the United States. The error was strengthened by a medal contained in Merzdorf's Medals of the Fraternity of Freemasons, which the editor states was struck by the Lodges of Pennsylvania. This statement is, however, liable to great doubt. The date of the medal is 1797. On the obverse is a likeness of Washington, with the device, "Washington, President, 1797." On the reverse is a tracing-board and the device, "Amor, Lelonor, et Justitia, or Love, Honor and Justice. G. W., G. G. M."

French and German Masonic historians have been deceived by this medal, and refer to it as their authority for asserting that Washington was a Grand Master. Leaning and Thory, for instance, place the date of his election to that office in the year in which the medal was struck. More recent European writers, however, directed by the researches of the American authorities, discovered and corrected the mistake.

We next hear of Washington's official connection in the year 1788. Lodge No. 39, at Alexandria, which had hitherto been working under the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, in 1788 transferred its allegiance to Virginia. On May 29 in that year the Lodge adopted the following resolution: "The Lodge proceeded to the appointment of Master and Deputy Master to be recommended to the Grand Lodge of Virginia, when George Washington, Esq., was unanimously chosen Master; Robert McCrea, Deputy Master; Wm. Hunter, Jr., Serliur Warden; John Are, Junior Warden. It was also ordered that a committee should wait on general Washington, "and inquire of him whether it will be agreeable to him to be named in the Charter." What was the result of that interview, we do not positively know. But it is to be presumed that the reply of Washington was a favorable one, for the application for the Charter contained his name, which would hardly have been inserted if it had been repugnant to his wishes. And the Charter or Warrant under which the Lodge is still working is granted to Washington as Master.

The appointing clause is in the following words:

"Know ye that we, Edmund Randolph, Esquire, Governor of the Commonwealth aforesaid, and Grand Master of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Freemasons within the same, by and with the consent of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, do hereby constitute and appoint our illustrious and well beloved Brother, George Washington, Esquire, late General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the United States of America, and our worthy Brethren Robert McCrea, William Hunter, Jr., and John Allison, Esqs., together with all such other Brethren as may be admitted to associate with them, to be a 'first, true, and regular Lodge of Freemasons, by the name, title, and designation of the Alexandria Lodge, No. 22."'

In 1805, the Lodge, which continued in existence, was permitted by the Grand Lodge to change its name to that of "Alexandria Washington," in honor of its first Master.

The evidence, then, is clear that Washington was the Master of a Lodge. Whether he ever assumed the duties of the office, and, if he assumed, how he discharged them, we know only from the testimony of Timothy Bigelow, who, in a Eulogy delivered before the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, two months after Washington's death; eleven years after his appointment as Master, made the following statement:

"The information received from our Brethren who had the happiness to be members of the Lodge over which he presided for many years, and of which he died the Master, furnishes abundant proof of his Persevering zeal for the prosperity of the Institution Constant and punctual in his attendance, scrupulous in his observance of the regulations of the Lodge, and Solicitous, at all times, to communicate light and instruction, he discharged the duties of the Chair with uncommon dignity and intelligence in all the mysteries of our art. "

There is also a very strong presumption that Washington accepted and discharged the duties of the Chair to the satisfaction of the Lodge. At the first election held after the Charter had been issued, he was elected, or we should rather say reelected, Master. The record of the Lodge, under the date of December 20, 1788, is as follows: "His Excellency, General Washington, unanimously elected Master; Robert McCrea, Senior Warden; Wm. Hunter, Jr., Junior Warden; Wm. Hodgson, Treasurer; Joseph Greenway, Secretary; Doctor Frederick Spanbergen, Senior Deacon; George Richards, Junior Deacon."

The subordinate officers had undergone a change: McCrea, who had been named in the Petition as deputy Master, an officer not recognized in the United States, was made Senior Warden; Wm. Hunter, who had been nominated as Senior Warden, was made Junior Warden; and the original Junior Warden, John Allison, was dropped. But there was no change in the office of Master. Washington was again elected. The Lodge would scarcely have been so persistent without his consent; and if his consent was given, we know, from his character, that he would seek to discharge the duties of the office to his best abilities. This circumstance gives, if it be needed, strong confirmation to the statement of Brother Bigelow. Grand Secretary James M. Clift of Virginia says the records of blle Lodge show that during his year as Worshipful Master he presided at several meetings.

But incidents like these are not all that are left to us to exhibit the attachment of Washington to Freemasonry. On repeated occasions he has announced, in his letters and addresses to various Masonic Bodies, his profound esteem for the character, and his just appreciation of the principles, of that Institution into which, at so early an age, he had been admitted. And during his long and laborious life, no opportunity was presented or which he did not avail himself to evince his esteem for the Institution.

Thus, in the year 1797, in reply to an affectionate address from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, he says: "My attachment to the Society of which we are members will dispose me always to contribute my best endeavors to promote the honor and prosperity of the Craft." Five years before this letter was written, he had, in a communication to the same Body, expressed his opinion of the Masonic Institution as one whose liberal principles are founded on the immutable laws of "truth and justice," and whose "grand object is to promote the happiness of the human race."

Answering an address from the Grand Lodge of South Carolina in 1791, he says: "I recognize with pleasure my relation to the Brethren of your Society," and "I shall be happy, on every occasion, to evince my regard for the Fraternity." And in the same letter he takes occasion to allude to the Masonic Institution as "an association whose principles lead to purity of morals, and are beneficial of action."

Writing to the officers and members of Saint David's Lodge at Newport, Rhode Island, in the same year, he uses this language: "Being persuaded that a just application of the principles on which the Masonic fraternity is founded must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interests of the Society, and to be considered by them as a deserving Brother."

And lastly, for we will not further extend these citations, in a letter addressed in November, 1798, only thirteen months before his death, to the Grand Lodge of Maryland he has made this explicit declaration of his opinion of the Institution: "So far as I am acquainted with the doctrines and principles of Freemasonry, I conceive them to be founded in benevolence, and to be exercised only for the good of mankind. I cannot, therefore, upon this ground, withdraw my approbation from it."

So much has been said upon the Masonic career and opinions of Washington because American Freemasons love to dwell on the fact that the distinguished patriot, whose memory is so revered that his unostentatious grave on the banks of the Potomac has become the Meeca of America, was not only a Brother of the Craft, but was ever ready to express his good opinion of the Society. They feel that under the panoply of his great name they may defy the malignant charges of their adversaries. They know that no better reply can be given to such charges than to say, m the language of Clinton, "Washington would not have encouraged an Institution hostile to morality, religion, good order, and the public welfare."

Brother Charles U. Callahan, Past Grand Master of Virginia, has written a splendid story of Washington, The Man and the Mason, 1913, for the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association; Brother Sidney Hayden wrote Washington and his Masonic Coxnpeers, 1866; Julius F. Sachse, for the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, dealt with the Masonic Correspondence of Washington, 1915, as found among the papers in the Library of Congress; Brothers C. C. Hunt and B. Shimek of the Research Committee, Grand Lodge of Iowa, compiled a useful and stimulating pamphlet, George Washington, the Man and the Mason, 1921, and there are numerous other references, Brother August Wolfstieg, Bibliography, 1913, listing nearly fifty of them.

• WASHINGTON MEMORIAL

The full name is The George Washington Masonic National Memorial and this is also the title of a pamphlet by Brother Louis Arthur Watres, Past Grand Master of Pennsylvania, and President of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Association. General Washington was the only President of the United States, who, while Chief Executive, was Worshipful Master of his Lodge.

That Lodge was Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22, at Alexandria, Virginia The chair he sat on, the implements he used, the apron he wore, and many relics that are filled with interest are still carefully cherished by Alexandria-Washington Lodge. The Brethren of Alexandria, Virginia, bought and paid for a site on the Potomac River for a Memorial Temple. An interesting fact in connection with the location is that Jefferson chose it for our national capitol building but Washington vetoed the selection because he owned the surrounding land and feared that his motives might be misunderstood were this site to be selected. There met in 1910 at Alexandria, Freemasons from several Grand Jurisdictions. Sitting in the Lodge room of Alexandria-Washington Lodge the Brethren resolved that the Freemasons of the United States should erect at Alexandria a suitable memorial to Brother Washington. The assembled Brethren decided to become incorporated under the laws of the State of Virginia and Brother Thomas J. Shryock who was Grand Master of Maryland for thirty-three years was elected President, a position he occupied until his death in 1917. Brother Watres says:

We are to erect this memorial not because we can add to the renown of Washington, but because he was one of the brightest luminaries in the Masonic constellation; not because we can add to his fame by brick and mortar but because in the world s strife he stands serene as the great American whom we are all proud to hail and revere as a great Mason, neither are we to build it to add to his greatness; but because in the lofty attributes which made hum great we clearly discern the ideals of Masonry. Were our memorial as enduring as the pyramids it could not exceed our esteem for him who embodied in himself the attributes of a true Mason and a great patriot.

• WATCHWORDS

Used in the Thirty-second Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite because that Degree has a military form, but not found in other Degrees of Freemasonry.

• WATERFALL

Used in the Fellow Craft's Degree as a symbol of plenty, for which Doctor Mackey held the word waterford is sometimes improperly substituted (see Shibboleth).

• WAYFARING MAN

A term used in the legend of the Third Degree to denote the person met near the port of Joppa by certain persons sent out on a search by King Solomon. The part of the legend which introduces the Wayfaring Man, and his interview with the Fellow Crafts, was probably introduced into the American system by Webb, or found by him in the older ceremonies practiced in the United States. It is not in the old English instructions of the eighteenth century, nor is the circumstance detailed in the present English lecture. A wayfaring man is defined by Phillips as "one accustomed to travel on the road." The expression Ls becoming obsolete in ordinary language, but it is preserved in Scripture—"he saw a wayfaring man in the street of the city" (Judges xix, 17)—and in Freemasonry, both of which still retain many words long since disused elsewhere.

• WAYNE, GENERAL ANTHONY

Born at East town, Pennsylvania, January 1, 1745, died at Erie, Pennsylvania, December 15, 1796. A surveyor in native State and in Nova Scotia, he recruited and led a Pennsylvanian regiment in the American Revolution and became a Brigadier-General in 1777. His bravery earned the name of "Mad Anthony" and he was in 1792 appointed by Washington the Major General in command of the regular army and by his military victories and successful negotiations with the Indians, opened the Northwestern United States to civilization. Reputed to be a Freemason but his Lodge not identified with certainty. Brother Julius F. Sachse in General Lafayette's Fraternal Connections, 1916, page 5, alludes to "Brothers A. Saint Clair, William Irving and General Anthony Wayne." Brother Phil A. Roth, Masonry in the Formation of Our Government, 1927, page 82, says "He was a member of Winchester Lodge No. 12, according to some statements but they do not mention the State. We believe he was a member, having often been mentioned

• WEARY

in toasts in Masonic Lodges in the East at that time. There is a monument over his grave, placed there by the Grand Lodge."

• WEARY SOJOURNERS

Spoken of in the American legend of the Royal Arch as three of the captives who had been restored to liberty by Cyrus, and, after sojourning or remaining longer in Babylon than the main body of their Brethren, had at length repaired to Jerusalem to assist in rebuilding the Temple.

While the workmen were engaged in making the necessary excavations for laying the foundation, and while numbers continued to arrive at Jerusalem from Babylon, these three worn and weary sojourners, after plodding on foot over the rough and devious roads between the two cities, offered themselves to the Grand Council as willing participants in the labor of erection. Who these sojourners were, we have no historical means of discovering; but there is a Masonic tradition, entitled, perhaps, to but little weight, that they were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, three holy men, who are better known to general readers by their Chaldaic names of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, as having been miraculously preserved from the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. Their services were accepted, and from their diligent labors resulted that important discovery, the perpetuation and preservation of which constitutes the great end and design of the Royal Arch Degree.

Such is the legend of the American Royal Arch. It has no known foundation in history, and is therefore altogether mythical. But it presents, as a myth the symbolic idea of arduous and unfaltering search after truth, and the final reward that such devotion receives.

• WEBB-PRESTON WORK

The title given by Doctor Rob Morris to a system of lectures which he proposed to introduce, in 1859, into the Lodges of the United States, and in which he was partly successful. He gave this name to his system because his theory was that the lectures of Thomas Smith Webb and those of Preston were identical. But this theory is untenable, for it has long since been shown that the lectures of Webb were an abridgment, and a very material modification of those of Preston. In 1863, and for a few years afterward, the question of the introduction of the "Webb-Preston Work" was a subject of warm, and sometimes of intemperate, discussion in several of the Western Jurisdictions. It has, however, at least as a subject of controversy, ceased to attract the attention of the Craft. One favorable result was, however, produced by these discussions, and that is, that they led to a more careful investigation and a better understanding of the nature and history of the rituals which have, during the nineteenth century, been practiced in America. The bitterness of feeling has passed away, but the knowledge that it elicited remains.

• WEBB, THOMAS SMITH

No name in Freemasonry is more familiar to the American Freemason than that of Webb, who is generally credited with being really the inventor and founder of the system sf work which, under the appropriate name of the American Rite, although often improperly called the York Rite, is universally practiced in the United States. The most exhaustive biography of him that has been written is that of Brother Cornelius Moore, in his Leaflets of Masonic Biography, and from that, with a few additions from other sources, the present sketch is derived.

Thomas Smith Webb, the son of parents who a few years previous to his birth had emigrated from England and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, was born in that city, October 13, 1771. He was educated in one of the public schools, where he acquired such knowledge as was at that time imparted in them, and became proficient in the French and Latin languages.

He selected as a profession either that of a printer or a bookbinder, his biographer is uncertain which, but inclines to think that it was the former. After completing his apprenticeship he removed to Keene, in New Hampshire, where he worked at his trade, and about the year 1792, the precise date is unknown, was initiated in Freemasonry in Rising Sun Lodge in that town.

While residing at Keene he married Miss Martha Hopkins, and shortly afterward removed to Albany, New York, where he opened a bookstore. When and where he received the advanced Degrees has not been stated, but we find him, while living at Albany, engaged in the establishment of a Chapter and an Encampment.

It was at this early period of his life that Webb appears to have commenced his labors as a Masonic teacher, an office which he continued to fill with great influence until the close of his life. In 1797 he published at Albany the first edition of his Freemasons Monitor; or Illustrations of Masonry It purports to be "by a Royal Arch Mason, K. T., K. M., etc." He did not claim the authorship until the subsequent edition; but his name and that of his partner, Spencer, appear in the imprint as publishers.

He acknowledges in the preface his indebtedness to Preston for the observations on the first three Degrees. But he states that he has differently arranged Preston's distributions of the sections, because they were "not agreeable to the mode of working in America." This proves that the Prestonian system was not then followed in the United States, and ought to be a sufficient answer to those who at a later period attempted to claim an identity between the lectures of Preston and Webb. About the year 1801 he removed to Providence, Rhode Island, where he engaged in the manufacture of wall-paper on a rather extensive scale. By this time his reputation as a Masonic teacher had been well established, for a committee was appointed by Saint John's Lodge of Providence to wait upon and inform him that this Lodge, for his great exertions in the cause of Freemasonry, "wish him to become a member of the SarAe." He accepted the invitation, and passing through the various gradations of office was elected, in 1813, Grand Master of the Frees masons of Rhode Island.

But it is necessary now to recur to preceding events. In 1797, on October 24th, a Convention of Committees from several Chapters in the Northern States was held in Boston for the purpose of deliberating on the propriety and expediency of establishing a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for the Northern States. Of this convention Webb was chosen as the chairman. Previous to this time the Royal Arch Degrees had been conferred tn Masters Lodges and under a Lodge Warrant. It is undoubtedly to the influence of Webb that we are to attribute the disseverance of the Degree from that Jurisdiction and the establishment of independent Chapters. It was one of the first steps that he took in the organization of the American Rite. The circular addressed by the Convention to the Chapters of the country was most probably from the pen of Webb.

The Grand Chapter having been organized in January, 1798, Webb was elected Grand Scribe, and reelected in 1799, at which time the Body assumed the title of General Grand Chapter. In 1806 he was promoted to the office of General Grand King, and in 1816 to that of Deputy General Grand High Priest, which he held until his death.

During all this time, Webb, although actively engaged in the labors of Masonic instruction, continued his interest in the manufacture of wall-paper, and in 1817 removed his machinery to the West, Moore thinks, with the intention of making his residence there. In 1816 he visited the Western States, and remained there two years, during which time he appears to have been actively engaged in the organization of Chapters, Grand Chapters, and Encampments. It was during this visit that he established the Grand Chapters of Ohio and Kentucky, by virtue of his powers as a General Grand Officer.

August, 1818, he left Ohio and returned to Boston. In the spring of 1819, he again began a visit to the West, but he reached no farther than Cleveland, Ohio, where he died very suddenly, it is supposed in a fit of apoplexy, on July 6, 1819, and was buried the next day with Masonic honors. The body was subsequently disinterred and conveyed to Providence, where, on the 8th of November, it was reentered by the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island. Webb's influence over the Freemasons of the United States, as the founder of a Rite, was altogether personal. In Masonic literature he has made no mark, for his labors as an author are confined to a single work, his Monitor, and this is little more than a syllabus of his lectures. Although, if we may judge by the introductory remarks to the various sections of the Degrees, sand especially to the second one of the Third Degree.

Webb was but little acquainted with the true philosophical symbolism of Freemasonry, such as was taught by Hutchinson in England and by his contemporaries in this great country, Harris and Town; he was what Carson properly calls him, "the ablest Masonic ritualist of his day—the very prince of Masonic workmen," and this was the instrument with which he worked for the extension of the new Rite which he established in American Rite would have been more preferred as a system had its founder entertained profounder views of the philosophy and symbolism of Freemasonry as a science; but as it is, with imperfections which time, it is hoped, will remove, and deficiencies which future researches of the Masonic scholar will supply, it still must ever be a monument of the ritualistic skill, the devotion, and the persevering labor of Thomas Smith Webb.

The few odes and anthems composed by Webb for his rituals possess a high degree of poetic merit, and evince the possession of much genius in their author.

• WEDEKIND GEORGE CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB BARON VON

A German physician and Professor of Medicine at Metz, and a medical writer of reputation. He was born at Göttingen, January 8, 1761. As a Freemason, he was distinguished as a member of the Eclectic Union, and labored effectually for the restoration of good feeling between it and the Directorial Lodge at Frankfort. His Masonic works, which are numerous, consist principally of addresses, controversial pamphlets, and contributions to the Altenburg Journal of Freemasonry. He died in 1831.

• WEEPING VIRGIN

The Weeping Virgin with disheveled hair, in the Monument of the Third Degree used in the American Rite, is interpreted as a symbol of grief for the unfinished state of the Temple. Jeremy Cross, who is said to have fabricated the monumental symbol, was not, we are satisfied, acquainted with Hermetic Science. Yet a woman thus portrayed, standing near a tomb, was a very appropriate symbol for the Third Degree, whose dogma is the resurrection. In Hermetic Science, according to Nicolas Flammel {Hieroglophica, chapter xxxii), a woman having her hair disheveled and standing near a tomb is a symbol of the soul (see Broken Column, and Monument).

• WEISHAUPT, ADAM

He is celebrated in the history of Freemasonry as the founder of the Order of Illuminati of Bavaria, among whom he adopted the characteristic or Order name of Spartacus. He was born in February 6, 1748, at Ingoldstadt, and was educated by the Jesuits, toward whom, however, he afterward exhibited the bitterest enmity, and was equally hated by them in return. In 1772 he became Extraordinary Professor of Law, and in 1775, Professor of Natural and Canon Law, at the University of Ingoldstadt. As the professorship of canon law had been hitherto held only by an ecclesiastic, his appointment gave great offense to the clergy. Weishaupt, whose views were cosmopolitan, and who knew and condemned the bigotry and superstitions of the Priests, established an opposing party in the University, consisting principally of young men whose confidence and friendship he had gained. Thev assembled in a private apartment, and there he discussed with them philosophic subjects, and sought to imbue them with a liberal spirit. This was the beginning of the Order of the Illuminati, or the Enlightened —a name he bestowed upon his disciples as a token of their advance in intelligence and moral progress.

At first, it was totally unconnected with Freemasonry, of which Order Weishaupt was not at that time a member. It was not until 1777 that he was initiated in the Lodge Theodore of Good Counsel, at Munich. Thenceforward, Weishaupt sought to incorporate his system into that of Freemasonry, so tilat tine latter might become suDservient to nis views and with the assistance of the Baron Knigge, who brought his active energies and genius to the aid of the cause, he succeeded in completing his system of Ilhlminism. But the clergy, and especially the Jesuits, who, although their Order had been abolished by the government, still secretly possessed great power, redoubled their efforts to destroy their opponent, and they at length succeeded. In 1784, all secret Associations were prohibited by a royal decree, and in the following year Weishaupt was deprived of his professorship and banished from the country. He repaired to Gotha, where he was kindly received by Duke Ernest, who made him a Counselor and gave him a pension.

There he remained until he died in 1811.

During his residence at Gotha he wrote and published many works, some on philosophical subjects and several in explanation and defense of Illuminism. Among the latter were A Picture of the Illuminati, 1786; A Complete History of the Persecutions of the Illuminati in Bavaria, 1786. Of this work only one volume was published; the second, though promised, never appeared. An Apologyfor the Illuminati, 1786; An Improved System of the Illuminati, 1787, and many others.

No man has ever been more abused and vilified than Weishaupt by the adversaries of Freemasonry. In such partisan writers as Barruel and Robinson we might expect to find libels against a Masonic reformer. But it is passing strange that Doctor Oliver should have permitted such a passage as the following to sully his pages (Landrnarks u, page 26): "Weishaupt was a shameless libertine, who compassed the death of his sister-in-law to conceal his vices from the world and as he termed it, to preserve his honor."

To charges like these, founded only in the bitterness of his persecutors, Weishaupt has made the following reply; "The tenor of my life has becn the opposite of everything that is vile; and no man can lay any such thing to my charge."

Indeed, his long continuance in an important religious professorship at Ingoldstadt, the warm affections of his pupils, and the patronage and protection, during the closing years of his life, of the virtuous and amiable Duke of Gotha, would seem to give some assurance that Weishaupt could not have been the monster that he has been painted by his adversaries.

Illuminism, it is true, had its abundant errors, and no one will regret its dissolution. But its founder had hoped by it to effect much good: that it was diverted from its original aim was the fault, not of him, but of some of his disciples; and their faults he was not reluetant to condemn in his writings.

His ambition was, Doctor Mackey believed, a virtuous one; that it failed was his, and perhaps the world's misfortune. He says, My general plan is good, though in the detail there may be faults. I had myself to create. In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an Order would never have eome into my head. But I would have executed mueh better things, if the government had not always opposed my exertions, and placed others in situations which suited my talents. It was the full conviction of this, and of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature, and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illuminism.

What he really wished Illuminism to be, we may judge from the instructions he gave as to the necessary qualifications of a candidate for initiation. They are as follows: Whoever does not close his ear to the lamentations of the miserable, nor his heart to gentle pity; whoever is the friend and brother of the unfortunate; whoever has a heart capable of love and friendship, whoever is steadfast in adversity, unwearied in the carrying out of whatever has been once engaged in, undaunted in the overeoming of difficulties; whoever does not mock and despise the weak; whose soul is susceptible of conceiving great designs, desirous of rising superior to all base motives, and of distinguishing itself by deeds of benevolenee whoever shuns idleness whoever considers no knowiedge as unessential whiei he may have the opportunity of acquiring, regarding the knowledge of mankind as his chief study; whoever, when truth and virtue are in question, despising the approbation of the multitude, is sufficiently courageous to follow the dictates of his own heart,—such a one is a proper candidate.

The Baron von Knigge, who, perhaps, of all men, best knew him, said of him that he was undeniably a man of genius, and a profound thinker; and that he was all the more worthy of admiration because, while subjected to the influenees of a bigoted Roman Catholic education, he had formed his mind by his own meditations, and the reading of good books. His heart, adds this companion of his labors and sharer of his secret thoughts, was excited by the most unselfish desire to do something great, and that would be worthy of mankind, and in the accomplishment of this he was deferred by no opposition and discouraged by no embarrassments. The truth is, Doctor Mackey says, that Weishaupt has been misunderstood by Masonic authors and slandered by un-Masonic writers. His success in the beginning as a reformer was due to his own honest desire to do good. His failure in the end was attributablc to coclesiastical persecution, and to the faults and follies of his disciples. The Master worked to elevate human nature; the Scholars, to degrade. Weishaupt's place in history should be among the unsuccessful reformers and not among the profligate adventurers.

• WELCOME

In the American instructions, it is said to be the duty of the Senior Deacon "to welcome and clothe all visiting Brethren." That is to say, he is to receive them at the door with all courtesy and kindness, and to furnish them, or see that they are furnished, with the necessary apron and gloves and, if they are Past Masters, with the appropriate collar and jewel of that office, with an extra supply of which all Lodges were in the olden time supplied, but not now. He is to conduct the visitor to a seat, and thus carry out the spirit of the Old Charges, which especially inculcate hospitality to strange Brethren. These customs are no longer practised and the instructions prescribe other well-known duties.

• WELL FORMED, TRUE, AND TRUSTY

A formula used by the Grand Master at the laying of a Corner-stone. Having applied the Square, Level, and Plumb to its different surfaces and angles, he declares it to be "well formed, true, and trusty." Borrowed from the technical language of Operative Masonry, it is symbolically applied in reference to the character which the Entered Apprentiee should sustain when, in the course of his initiation, he assumes the place of a typical Corner-stone in the Lodge.

• WELLINGTON, DUKE OF

The Hero of Waterloo, and the renowned, General, was initiated in Lodge No. 494, Ireland, about December, 1790. Brother Hedley Williams, of Hastings (England), has just presented to the Wellington Lodge, No. 341, Rye, the Knight's spurs belonging to the Duke of Wellington, who was an initiate of the Trim Lodge under the Irish Constitution (Freernason, Mareh 14, 1925). Wellington's name appears in a subscription fund for his Lodge, in 1795 according to Brother Woodford's Cyclopedia of Freemasonry, and other interesting particulars are in the Masonic Magazine, January, 1875, contributed by Brother J. H. Neilson, Dubfin,Ireland.

• WESLEY, REVEREND JOHN

On many occasions the claim has been made that John Wesley, born June 17, 1703, died March 2, 1791, founder of Methodism, was a member of a Lodge at Downpatrick, Ireland. These assertions were carefully examined by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley in volume xv, 1902, Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, and his opinion is as follows: "Reviewing the circumstances of the supposed initiation of the Reverend John Wesley in the Lodge at Downpatrick, we are driven to the eonclusiou that the idea is altogether illusory, and based on a palpable confusion of identity.

Equally convincing is the truth that the veritable John Wesley had not been admitted to the Craft at any time previous to his visit to Ballymena, in June, 1773, and that, up to the seventieth year of his age, he entertained but a dubious opinion of Freemasonry and its secrets. This last consideration compels us to the further inference that he did not join the Craft at any subsequent period of his life. Otherwise, the surprising change of opinion involved would not fail to have been chronicled in his copious Wand accurate journals and diaries" (see also Wesley's Journal, authorized edition, volume in, page 500).

• WESLEY, SAMUEL

At one time the most distinguished organist of England, and called by Mendelssohn "the father of English organ-playing." He was initiated as a Freemason on December 17, 1788, and in 1812, the office of Grand Organist of the Grand Lodge of England being in that year first instituted, he received the appointment from the Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex, and held it until 1818. He composed the anthem performed at the union of the two Grand Lodges in 1813, and was a composer of many songs, glees, etc., for the use of the Craft. He was the son of the Rev. Charles Wesley, and nephew of the celebrated John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Born February 24, 1766, at Bristol, England, and died October 11, 1837. He was well entitled to the epithet of the Great Musician of Freemasonry. Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, page 107, volume xv, 1902), writes of him thus:

Samuel Wesley was the second son of the Reverend Charles Wesley, a former Captain of Westminster School, who after declining Garrett Wesley's heritage had blossomed into the most melodious hymn writer that has ever graced the Christian Church. He was born in 1766, so that he was twenty-two years of age when initiated on December 17, 1788, in the famous Lodge of Integrity, then No. 1 on the Register of the Grand Lodge of the Moderns. It is beside our purpose to speak of his marvelous musical abilities, further than to relate that he placed them unreservedly at the service of the Craft.

He was appointed Grand Organist on May 13 1812, being the first to hold that office. In truth, the post appears to have been created for him, in recognition of his professional services to Grand Lodge, for Brother Henry Sadler has found reason to believe that he presided over the musical ceremonies of Grand Lodge before 1812. He was in his place as Grand Organist at the Grand Assembly which ratified the Articles of Union, December 1, 1813 and at the inaugural Communication of the United Grand Lodge which was happily established by these Articles. He was appointed annually until 1818 when he was succeeded by a Brother of equal musical renown, Sir George Smart. Wesley's withdrawal from the office was caused by a collapse into acute mental depression, from which he had Suffered at intervals and from which he only recovered temporarily. Samuel Wesley's morbid fits of depression were the result of an injury to the head received in early life by an accidental fall.

He died in 1837, after prolonged retirement from public life. Brother Samuel Wesley earned the thanks of three great institutions which do not often concur in returning thanks. In 1813, he composed and conducted a Grand Anthem for Freemasons in honor of the Union of the Grand Lodges of England, and received the enthusiastic commendations of his Brethren. A few years later he composed a Grand Mass for the Chapel of Pope Pius VI, and received an official Latin letter of thanks from the Supreme Pontiff. As a sort of counter-balance, he composed for the Church of England, a complete set of Matins and Evensong which at once took rank among our most esteemed Cathedral Services.

• WEST

Although the West, as one of the four Cardinal Points, holds an honorable position as the station of the Senior Warden, and of the pillar of Strength that supports the Lodge, yet, being the place of the sun's setting and opposed to the East, the recognized place of light, it, in Masonic symbolism, represents the place of darkness and ignorance.

The old tradition, that in primeval times all human wisdom was confined to the eastern part of the world, and that those who had wandered toward the West were obliged to return to the East in search of the knowledge of their ancestors, is not confined to Freemasonry.

Creuzer (Symbolik) speaks of an ancient and highly instructed Body of Priests in the East, from whom all knowledge, under the veil of symbols, was communicated to the Greeks and other unenlightened nations of the West.

And in the Legend of the Craft, contained in the old Masonic Constitutions, there is always a reference to the emigration of the Freemasons from Egypt eastward to the "land of behest," or Jerusalem. Hence, in the modern symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry, it is said that the Freemason during his advancement is Traveling from the West to the East in search of light.

• WEST AUSTRALIA

A state of the Commonwealth of Australia. Saint John Lodge, No. 712, was established at Perth in 1842. In all eight Hodges were formed of which only one became extinct. They reported direct to the Grand Lodge of England, with the exception of one other Lodge opened by the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1896. A Grand Lodge of Western Australia was organized and has since had a very successful career.

• WESTCOTT, WILLIAM WYNN

Born on December 17, 1848, he was an orphan at ten years of age, trained by a bachelor uncle, a surgeon. He obtained the diplomas of the College of Surgeons and of the Society of Apothecaries at twenty-one. Initiated in 1871, his Masonic career was diligent and distinguished, becoming Worshipful Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1893 and author of many valuable contributions. Doctor Westcott was in 1883 elected Secretary General of the Societies Rosicruciana in Anglia and in 1889 founded the Library of the High Council at London. Elected Supreme Magus in 1892, he occupied the position for thirty-three years, dying at Durban, Natal, on July 30, 1925.

• WESTMINSTER AND KEYSTON

The name of the third of the three oldest warranted Lodges in England, having been chartered in 1722. The first is Friendship, No. 6, and the second the British, No. 8. Those assembling without Warrants are only two and are numbered two and four, Antiquity and the Royal Somerset House and Inverness.

• WESTPHALIA, SECRET TRIBUNALS OF

The Vehmgerichte, or Fehmgerichte, were secret criminal Courts of Westphalia in the Middle Ages. The origin of this institution, like that of Freemasonry has been involved in uncertainty. The true meaning of the name even is doubtful. Vaem is said by Dreyer to signify holy in the old Northern languages; and, if this be true, a Fehmgericht would mean a Holy Court. But it has also been suggested that the word comes from the Latin Mama, or rumor, and that a Fehm gericht was so called because it proceeded to the trial of persons whose only accuser was common rumor, the maxim of the German law, "no accuser, no judge," being in such a case departed from. They were also called Tribunals of Westphalia, because their Jurisdiction and existence were confined to that country.

The Medieval Westphalia was situated within the limits of the country bounded on the West by the Rhine, on the East by the Weser, on the North by Friesland, and on the South by Westerwald. Render (Tour through Germany, page 186), says that the tribunals were only to be found in the Duchies of Gueldres, Cleves, and Westphalia, in the principal cities of Corvey and Minden, in the Landgravate of a Hesse, in the Counties of Bentheim, Limburg, Lippe, Mark, Ravensberg, Rechlinghausen, Rietzberg, Sayn, Waldeck, and Steinfort, in some Baronies, as Gehmen, Neustadt, and Rheda, and in the free imperial city of Dortmund; but these were all included within the limits of Medieval Westphalia. It has been supposed that the first secret Tribunals were established by the Emperor Charlemagne on the conquest of Saxony. In 803 the Saxons obtained, among other privileges, that of retaining their national laws, and administering them under imperial judges who had been created Counts of the Empire.

Their Courts, it is said, were held three times a year in an open field, and their sessions were held in public on ordinary occasions; but in all cases of religious offense, such as apostasy, heresy, or sacrilege, although the trial began in a public session, it always ended in a secret tribunal.

It has been supposed by some writers that these Courts of the Counts of the Empire instituted by Charlemagne gave origin to the secret tribunal of Westphalia, which were held in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There is no external evidence of the truth of this hypothesis. It was, however, the current opinion of the time, and all the earlier traditions and documents of the courts themselves trace their origin to Charlemagne.

Paul Wigand, the German jurist and historian, who wrote a history of their Tribunals (Fehmgelicht Westfdlens, Hamburg, 1826), contends for the truth of these traditions; and Sir Francis Palgrave, in his Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, says unhesitatingly, that "the Vehmic Tribunals can only be considered as the original jurisdictions of the old Saxons which survived the subjugation of their country."

The silence on this subject in the laws and capitularies of Charlemagne has been explained on the ground that these Tribunals were not established authoritatively by that monarch, but only permitted by a tacit sanction to exist. The author of the article on the Secret Societies of the Middle Ages, published in the Lybrary of Erderklining Knowledge, who had written somewhat exhaustively on this subject, says that the first writers who have mentioned these Tribunals are Henry of Hervorden in the fourteenth, and Aeneas Sylvius in the fifteenth century; both of whom, however, trace them to the time of Charlemagne; but Jacob (Recherches Historiques sur les Croisades et les Templiers, page 132), cites a Diploma of Count Engelbert de la Mark, of the date of 1267, in which there is an evident allusion to some of their usages. Render says that they are first generally known in the year 1220. But their absolute historical existence is confined to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The secret Westphalian Tribunals were apparently created for the purpose of preserving public morals, of punishing crime, and of protecting the poor and weak from the oppressions of the rich and powerful. They were outside of the regular Courts of the country, and in this respect may be compared to the modern Vigilance Committees sometimes instituted in the United States for the protection of the well-disposed citizens in newly settled territories from the annoyance of lawless men. But the German Tribunals differed from the American Committees in this, that they were recognized by the Emperors, and that their decisions and executions partook of a judicial character. The Vehmic Tribunals, as they are also called, were governed by a minute system of regulations, the strict observance of which preserved their power and influence for at least two centuries.

At the head of the institution was the Emperor, for in Germany he was recognized as the source of law. His connection with the association was either direct or indirect. If he had been initiated into it, as was usually the case, then his connection was direct and immediate. If, however, he was not an initiate, then his powers were delegated to a lieutenant who was a member of the Tribunal.

Next to the Emperor came the Free Counts. Free Counties were certain districts comprehending several parishes, where the judges and counselors of the secret band exercised jurisdiction in conformity with the Statutes. The Free Count, who was called Stuhlherr, or tribunal lord, presided over this free County and the Tribunal held within it. He had also the prerogative of erecting other Tribunals within his territorial limits, and if he did not preside in person, he appointed a Freigraf, or free judge, to supply his place. No one could be invested with the dignity of a Free Judge unless he were a Westphalian by birth, born in lawful wedlock of honest parents; of good repute, charged with no crime, and well qualified to preside over the County. They derived their name of Free Judges from the fact that the Tribunals exercised their jurisdiction over only free men, serfs being left to the control of their own lords.

Next in rank to the Free Judges were the Schöppen, as Assessors or Counselors. They formed the main body of the Association, and were nominated by the Free Judge, with the consent of the Stuhlherr, and vouched for by two members of the Tribunal. A Schöppe was required to be a Christian, a Westphalian of honest birth, neither excommunicated nor outlawed, nor involved in any suit before the Fehmgericht and not a member of any monastic or ecclesiastical Order. There were two classes of these Assessors or Schöppen: a lower class or grade, called the Ignorant, who had not been initiated, and were consequently not permitted to be present at the secret session; and a higher grade, called the Knowing who were subjected to a form of initiation.

The ceremonies of initiation of a Free Judge were very solemn and symbolic. The candidate appeared bareheaded before the Tribunal, and answered certain questions respecting his qualifications. Then, kneeling with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand on a naked sword and halter, he pronounced the following oath:

I swear by the Holy Trinity that I will, from henceforth, aid, keep, and conceal the holy Fehrns from wife and child, from father and mother, from sister and brother, from fire and wind, from all that the sun shines on and the rain covers, from all that is between sky and earth, especially from the man who knows the law; and will bring before this Free Tribunal, under which I am sitting, all that belongs to the secret Jurisdiction of the Emperor, whether I know it to be true myself or have heard it from trustworthy men, whatever requires correction or punishment, whatever is committed within the Jurisdiction of the Fehm, that it may be judged, or, with the consent of the accuser, be put off in grace; and will not cease so to do for love or for fear, for gold or for silver, or for precious stones; and will strengthen this Tribunal and Jurisdiction with all my five senses and power; and that I do not take on me this office for any other cause than for the sake of right and justice. Moreover, that I will ever advance and honor this Free Tribunal more than any other free tribunals, and what I thus promise will I steadfastly and firmly keep; so help me God and his Holy Gospel.

He further swore in an additional oath that he would, to the best of his ability, enlarge the Holy Empire, and with unrighteous hand would undertake nothing against the land and people of the Stuhlherr, or the Lord of the Trtbunal. His name was then inserted in the Book of Gold. The secrets of the Tribunal were then communicated to the candidate, and with them the modes of recognition by which he could be enabled to discover his fellow-members. The sign is described as having been made by placing, when at table, the point of their knife pointing to themselves, and the haft away from them.

This was also accompanied by the words Stock Stein, Graas Grein, the exact ritualistic meaning of which phrase is unknown. The duties of the initiated were to act as Assessors or Judges at the meetings of the Courts, to constitute which at least seven were required to be present; and also to go through the country, serve citations upon the accused, and to execute the sentences of the Tribunals upon criminals, as well as to trace out and denounce all evil-doers.

The punishment of an initiate who had betrayed any of the secrets of the Society was severe. His tongue was torn out by the roots, and he was then hung on a tree seven feet higher than any other felon. The ceremonies practiced when a Fehm Court was held were very symbolic in their character. Before the Free Count stood a table, on which were placed a naked sword and a cord of withes. The sword, which was cross-handled, is explained in their ritual as signifying the Cross on which Christ suffered for our sins, and the cord the punishment of the wicked. All had their heads uncovered, to signify that they would proceed openly and fairly, punish in proportion to guilt, and cover no right with a wrong.

Their hands also were uncovered, to show that they would do nothing covertly and underhand; and they wore cloaks, to signify their warm love for justice for, as the cloak covers all the other garments and the body, so should their love cover justice.

Lastly, they were to wear neither armor nor weapons, that no one might feel fear, and to indicate that they were under the peace of the Empire. They were charged to be cool and sober, lest passion or intoxication should lead them to pass an unjust judgment. Writers of romance have clothed these Tribunals with additional mystery.

But the stories that they were held at night, and in subterranean places, have no foundation save in the imagination of those who have invented them. they were held, like other German Courts, at break of day and in the open air, generally beneath a tree in the forest, or elsewhere. The Public Tribunals were, of course, open to all. It was the secret ones only that were held in private. But the time and place were made known to the accused in the notification left at his residence, or, if that were unknown, as in the case of a vagabond, at a place where four roads met, being affixed to the ground or to a tree, and the knowledge might be easily communicated by him to his friends.

The Chapter-General met once a year, generally at Dortmund or Arensburg, but always at some place in Westphalia. It consisted of the Tribunal Lords and Free Counts, who were convoked by the Emperor or his lieutenant. If the Emperor was an initiate, he might preside in person; if he was not, he was represented by his lieutenant. At these Chapters the proceedings of the various Fehm Courts were reviewed, and hence these latter made a return of the names of the persons initiated, the suits they had commenced, the sentences they had passed, and the punishments they had inflicted..

The Chapter-General acted also as a Court of Appeals. In fact, the relation of a Chapter-General to the Fehm Courts was precisely the same as that of a Grand Lodge of Freemasons to its subordinates. The resemblance, too, in the symbolic character of the two institutions was striking. But here the resemblance ended, for it has never been contended that there was or could be any connection whatever between the two institutions.

But the coincidences show that peculiar spirit and love of mystery which prevailed in those times, and the influence of which was felt in Freemasonry as well as in the Westphalian Tribunals, and all the other secret societies of the Middle Ages.

The crimes over which the Fehmgericht claimed a jurisdiction were, according to the Statutes passed at Arensburg in 1490, of two kinds: those cognizant by the Secret Tribunal, and those cognizant by the Public Tribunal. The crimes cognizant by the Secret Tribunal were, violations of the secrets of Charlemagne and of the Fehmgericht, heresy, apostasy, perjury, and witchcraft or magic. Those cognizant by the Public Tribunal were sacrilege, theft, rape, robbery of women in childbirth, treason, highway robbery, murder or manslaughter, and vagrancy. Sometimes the catalogue of crimes was modified and often enlarged. There was one period when all the crimes mentioned in the decalog were included; and indeed there was no positive restriction of the Jurisdiction of the Tribunals, which generally were governed in their proceedings by what they deemed expedient for the public peace and safety.

In the early history of the institution, its trials were conducted with impartiality, and its judgments rendered in accordance with justice, being constantly restrained by mercy, so that they were considered by the populace as being of great advantage in those times of lawlessness. But at length the institution became corrupt, and often aided, instead of checking, oppression, a change which finally led to its decay.

When anyone was accused, he was summoned to appear before the Tribunal at a certain specified time and place. If he was an initiate, the summons was repeated three times; but if not, that is, if any other than an inhabitant of Westphalia, the summons was given only once. If he appeared, an opportunity was afforded him of defense. An initiate could purge himself by a simple oath of denial, but any other person was required to adduce sufficient testimony of his innocence. If the accused did not appear, nor render a satisfactory excuse for his absence, the Court proceeded to declare him outlawed, and a Free Judge was delegated to put him to death wherever found.

Where three Free Judges found anyone flagrante delicto, or in the very act of committing a crime, or having just perpetrated it, they were authorized to put him to death without the formality of a trial. But if he succeeded in making his escape before the penalty was inflicted, he could not on a subsequent arrest be put to death.

His case must then be brought for trial before a Tribunal. The sentence of the Court, if capital, was not announced to the criminal, and he learned it only when, in some secret place, the executioners of the decree of the Fehmgericht met him and placed the halter around his neck and suspended him to a neighboring tree. The punishment of death was always by hanging, and from a tree. The fact that a dead body was thus found in the forest, was an intimation to those who found it that the person had died by the judgment of the Secret Tribunal.

It is very evident that an institution like this could be justified, or even tolerated, only in a country and at a time when the power and vices of the nobles, and the general disorganization of society, had rendered the law itself powerless; and when in the hands of persons of irreproachable character, the weak could only thus be protected from the oppressions of the strong, the virtuous from the aggression of the vicious.

It was in its commencement a safeguard for society; and hence it became so popular that its initiates numbered at one time over one hundred thousand, and men of rank and influence sought with avidity admission into its circle:

In time the institution became demoralized. Purity of character was no longer insisted on as a qualification for admission. Its decrees and judgments were no longer marked with unfaltering justice, and, instead of defending the weak any longer from the oppressor, it often became itself the willing instrument of oppression. Efforts were made from time to time to inaugurate reforms, but the prevailing spirit of the age, now beginning to be greatly improved by an introduction of the Roman law and the spread of the Protestant religion, was opposed to the self-constituted authority of the Tribunals.

They began to dissolve almost insensibly, and after the close of the sixteenth century we hear no more of them, although there never was any positive decree of dissolution enacted or promulgated by the State. They were destroyed, not by any edict of law, but by the progressive spirit of the people.

• WEST INDIES, THE

When George III was confronted by the possibility of rebellion in his Thirteen American Colonies he was for a long time undecided whether to let those Colonies go by default in order to maintain hold on his West Indian islands, or to let the islands go in order to keep hold of the Colonies; he and Lord Bute believed that they could not hold both. George was personally in favor of holding the islands because he received a larger revenue from them, and like many other Englishmen considered them a more valuable possession than the Colonies. We find it impossible now to understand that point of view, because in histories of the United States the West Indies are almost wholly ignored, which is strange because they were in 1775 a Golconda for Europe, and in them the three great Powers, Britain, France, and Spain, had an American base in which each grew rich and from which each expected to launch out in campaigns for seizing the whole continent. (So many Londoners came to the West Indies for a few years and then returned home that at one period the old Lodge of Antiquity was named West Indies Lodge, and had to incorporate in its by-laws a provision to limit the number of decisions from that region.)

Historians of American Freemasonry also omit the West Indies from their panorama of origins and events, and with even less justification, because the West Indies played a larger role in the beginnings of the Craft in America than any other influence second only after Britain (including Ireland)—among other things we might never have had the Scottish Rite had it not been for them! In his Ancient Documents relating to the A. and A. Scottish Rites (Philadelphia; 1915; page 2) Bro. Julius F. Sachse writes:

"This intercourse with the French Brethren in St. Domingo increased to such an extent that after several Lodges had been erected under the Jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania a Provincial Grand Warrant was issued to govern the Lodges in the West India Islands. This was the only warrant of this kind ever issued by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania." It was through connection with these and other Lodges in the West Indies that 80 large a number of French Masons visited Lodges in America or demitted to them, bringing their ideas of French Masonry with them oftentimes among which was the idea of an Adoptive Rite, of which the Order of the Eastern Star is an echo. On the same page Bro. Sachse continues:

"Shortly after receiving his patent in Paris, Stephen Morin sailed for America and established a Lodge of Perfect and Sublime Masons at St. Domingo. It is from this body that our certificate [i.e., one in possession of the G. L. of Pennsylvania bearing Morints named emanates and through whom the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established in the Western world. " This certificate was dated October 26, 1764. Morin's patent from the Council of the Emperors of the East and West at Paris was dated August 27, 1761. It empowered him to confer 25 Degrees in seven classes, beginning with Entered Apprentice and extending to Sovereign Prince of Masonry.

(NOTE if the Degrees which the French described as "Scottish" be compared with Masonry as it was being practiced in Scotland at a corresponding period date by date, it will be seen how un-Scottish the "High Grades; were. The control, pressure, and influence of the ancient Operative craft Masonry lasted longer in Scotland than in either England or Ireland. The "Scottish" Degrees are French in their inception practices, titles spirit. Once it was translated to America which is the cradle of the A. & A. S. R. as (now is, the Rite did not seek to exercise any control over the first three Degrees.)

Louisiana was another gate-way through which West Indies Masonry came into America. The first Lodge was founded by French refugees, mostly from Guadeloupe, who organized Parfaite Union, No. 29, under a South Carolina Charter in 1794.

In the same year another group of French refugees obtained a Charter from the Provincial Grand Lodge at Marseilles (the Grand Orient was temporarily suspended); it was dated in 1796; the Lodge was constituted as La Parfaite Sincerite in 1798. It was reconstituted as Polar Star Lodge by the Grand Orient in 1804, and worked the French Rite. A Lodge was Chartered by Pennsylvania in 1804. Refugees from Santo Domingo organized a Lodge in 1806. In 1807 Polar Star Lodge opened a chapter of Rose Croix. Refugees from C:uba opened a Lodge in 1805. Another, and a refugee Loge, was opened by the French in 1809. (A detailed account is given by Bro. F. Gayle in Gould's History of Freemasonry; 1936; Vol. V; page 238.)

For almost a half century after 1775 the influence of West Indies Masonry (of American, French, British, or Scottish origin) made itself felt through personal visits and through the channels of trade along the east coast from Philadelphia south, and from New Orleans east in the Gulf of Mexico. ID the same period there was always a center of West Indies Masonry (mostly French) in Stew York City, and the fact helps to explain the rapid spread of Cerneauism. The Masonry of the islands also made itself felt among seamen, especially among sea captains, of whom 60 many were made Masons in both American and English port Lodges and who were so often on regular duty runs in the Caribbean. (For subsequent Masonic history of the Islands see Gould's History; 1936; [consult index]; and the Foreign Correspondence Reports in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of New York from 1920 to 1940.)

• WHITE

White is one of the most ancient as well as most extensively diffused of the symbolic colors. It is to be found in all the ancient Mysteries, where it constituted, as it does in Freemasonry, the investiture of the candidate. It always, however, and everywhere has borne the same signification as the symbol of purity and innocence. In the religious observances of the Hebrews, white was the color of one of the curtains of the Tabernacle, where, according to Josephus, it was a symbol of the element of earth; and it was employed in the construction of the ephod of the High Priest, of his girdle, and of the Breastplate.

The word laban, which in the Hebrew language signifies to make white, also denotes to purify; and there are to be found throughout the Scriptures many collisions to the color as an emblem of purity. "Though thy sins be as scarlet," says Isaiah, "they shall be as white as snow." Jeremiah, describing the once innocent condition of Zion, save, "her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk." "Many," says Daniel, "shall be purified and made white."

In Revelation, a white stone was the reward promised by the Spirit to those who overcame; and again, "he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white garments;" and in another part of the same book the Apostle is instructed to say that fine linen, clean and white, is the righteousness of the saints. The ancient prophets always imagined the Deity clothed in white, because, says Portal (Des Couleurs Symboliques, Concerning Symbolic Colors, page 35), "white is the color of absolute truth, of Him who is; it alone reflects all the luminous rays; it is the unity whence all the primitive colors emanate." Thus Daniel, in one of his prophetic visions, saw the Ancient of days, "whose garment was white as snow, and the flair of his head like pure wool." Here, says Doctor Henry (Ezposition), the whiteness of the garment "noted the splendor and purity of God in all the administrations of his justice."

Among the Gentile nations, the same reverence was paid to this color. The Egyptians decorated the head of their deity, Osiris, with a white tiara. In the school of Pythagoras, the sacred hymns were chanted in white robes. The Druids clothed their initiates who had arrived at the ultimate Degree, or that of perfection, in white vestments. In all the Mysteries of other nations of antiquity, the same custom was observed. White was, in general, the garment of the Gentile as well as of the Hebrew priests in the performance of their sacred rites. As the Divine Power was supposed to be represented on earth by the Priesthood, in all nations the Sovereign Pontiff was clad in white. Aaron was directed to enter the Sanctuary only in white garments; in Persia, the Magi wore white robes because, as they said, they alone were pleasing to the Deity; and the white tunic of Ormuzd is still the characteristic garment of the modern Parsees.

White, among the ancients, was consecrated to the dead, because it was the symbol of the regeneration of the soul. On the monuments of Thebes the manes or ghosts are represented as clothed in white; the Egyptians wrapped their dead in white linen; Homer (Iliad xviii, 353) refers to the same custom when he makes the attendants cover the dead body of Patroclus, with a white pall; and Pausanias tells us that the Messenians practiced the same customs, clothing their dead in white, and placing crowns upon their heads, indicating by this double symbolism the triumph of the soul over the empire of death. The Hebrews had the same usage. Saint Matthew (xxvii, 59) tells us that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the dead body of our Lord "in a clean linen cloth." Adopting this as a suggestion; Christian artists have in their paintings of the Savior after His resurrection, depicted Him in a white robe.

And it is with this idea that in the Apocalypse white vestments are said to be the symbols of the regeneration of souls, and the reward of the elect. It is this consecration of white to the dead that caused it to be adopted as the color of mourning among the nations of antiquity. As the victor in the games was clothed in white, so the same color became the symbol of the victory achieved by the departed in the last combat of the soul with death. "The friends of the deceased wore," says Plutarch, "his livery, in commemoration of his triumph." The modern mourning in black is less philosophic and less symbolic than this ancient one in white.

In Speculative Freemasonry, white is the symbol of purity. This symbolism commences at the earliest point of initiation, when the white apron is presented to the candidate as a symbol of purity of life and rectitude of conduct. Wherever in any of the subsequent initiations this color appears, it is always to be interpreted as symbolizing the same idea. In the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Sovereign Inspector has been invested with a white scarf as inculcating that virtuous deportment above the tongue of all reproach which should distinguish the possessors of that Degree, the highest in the Rite.

This symbolism of purity was most probably derived by the Freemasons from that of the primitive church, where a white garment was placed on the catechumen who was about to be baptized, as a token that he had put off the lusts of the flesh, and, being cleansed from his former sins, had obliged himself to maintain an unspotted life. The ancient symbolism of regeneration which appertained to the ancient idea of the color white has not been adopted in Freemasonry; but would be appropriate in an Institution having a chief dogma in the resurrection.

• WHARTON, PHILIP, DUKE OF

See Philip, Duke of Wharton

• WHEAT

An emblem of plenty under the name of Corn (see Corn, Wine, and Oil).

• WHITE BALL

In Freemasonry, equivalent to a favorable or affirmative vote. The custom of using white and black balls seems to have been derived from the Romans, who in the earlier days of the Republic used white and black balls in the judicial trials; the balls were cast into an urn, the former acquitting and the latter condemning the accused.

• WHITE CROSS KNIGHTS

A title sometimes applied to the Knights Hospitaler of Saint John, from the color of their cross. Porter (History of the Knighis of Malta i, page 166) says: "Villiers hastily assembled a troop of White Cross Knights, and, issuing from the city by a side gate, made a circuit so as, if possible, to fall upon the flank of the foe unperceived."

• WHITE MANTLE, ORDER OF THE

The Teutonic Knights were so denominated in allusion to the color of their cloaks, on which they bore a black cross.

• WHITE MASONRY

The French term is Mançonnerie blanches A title given by French writers to Female Freemasonry, or the Freemasonry of Adoption.

• WHITE SHRINE OF JERUSALEM, ORDER OF

Founded by Charles D. Magee, at Chicago, Illinois, in 1894. The Order comprises both men and women, who must be members in good standing of the Order of the Eastern Star. The White Shrine was not recognized, however, as a branch of the l)rder of the Eastern Star. During the term of her office as Most Worthy Grand Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star, 1892 to 1895, Mrs. Mary C. Snedden refused her approval and this position was endorsed by the General Grand Chapter in 1895 and in 1898 Resolutions were adopted as follows:

Resolved, that there are no Degrees connected in any way or manner with our Order other than those provided for and taught in our Ritual. Any member vfilfully representing to any one that there are Side Degreesj or Higher Degrees, or any Degrees other than those taught and provided for by our Ritual, shall he guilty of conduct unbecoming a member of the Order, and upon conviction thereof, shall be suspended or expelled from the Order.

• WHITE STONE

A symbol in the Mark Degree referring to the passage in the Apocalypse (ii 17) "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." In this passage it is supposed that the Evangelist alluded to the stones or tesserae which, among the ancients and the early Christians, were used as tokens of alliance and friendship. Hence in the Mark Degree, the white stone and the new name inscribed upon it is a symbol of the Covenant made between the possessors of the degree, which will in all future time, and under every circumstance of danger or distress, secure the kind and fraternal assistance of all upon whom the same token has been bestowed. In the symbolism of the degree the candidate represents that white stone upon whom the new name as a Mark Master is to be inscribed (see Mark and Tessera Hospitalis).

• WHITE, WILLIAM

Father of William Henry White, which see. He was Grand Secretary of the Moderns, with James Heseltine, from November 1, 1780, and was sole Grand Secretary for many years following 1784. May 9, 1810, his son was appointed Junior or Adjoint Grand Secretary, father and son working together for several years. William White, Senior, was initiated in the Royal Somerset House and Iverness Lodge, Mareh 8, 1770, and was Senior Warden of the Emulation Lodge, December 21, 1770, and Master of Lodges, 1771, 72, 74 and 77, founding a Lodge of Instruction in Emulation Lodge during the term of his office. He was Worshipful Master of the Grand Stewards Lodge in 1780, and previously, 1775, Seeretary of the Board of Grand Stewards.

• WHITE, WILLIAM HENRY

Distinguished for his services to the Craft of England, whom he served as Grand Seeretary for the long period of forty-seven years. He was the son of William White, who was also Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of England for thirty-two years, the office having thus been held by father and son for seventy-nine years. William Henry White was born in 1778. On April 15, 1799, he was initiated in Emulation Lodge, No. 12, now called the Lodge of Emulation, No. 21, having been nominated by his father. December 15, 1800, he was elected Master of the Lodge, and presided until 1809. In 1805 he was appointed a Grand Steward, and in 1810 Grand Secretary, as the assistant of his father.

The office was held by them conjointly for three years. In 1813, at the union of the two Grand Lodges, he was appointed, with Edwards Harper, Joint Grand Seeretary of the United Grand Lodge of England, and in 1838 sole Grand Secretary. In 1857, af ter a service of nearly half a century, he retired from the office, the Grand Lodge unanimously voting him a retiring pension equal in amount to his salary. On that occasion the Earl of Zetland, Grand Master, said, "I know of no one, and I believe there never was anyone who has done more, who has rendered more valuable services to Masonry than our worthy Brother White."

In view of the great names in Masonic literature and labor which preceded him, the eulogium will be deemed exaggerated; but the devotion of the Grand Seeretary to the Order. and his valuable services during his long and active life, cannot be denied. During the latter years of his official term, he was charged with inactivity and neglect of duty, but the fault has been properly attributed to the increasing infirmities of age. A service of plate was presented to him by the Craft, June 20, 1850, as a testimonial of esteem. He died April 5, 1866.

• WIDE AWAKES

See Free and Accepted Americans

• WIDOW, SONS OF THE

A Society founded in the third century, by a Persian slave, Manes, who had been purchased and adopted by a widow. It consisted of two Degrees, Auditor and Elut. The expression is also frequent in some countries, as in France, to mean Freemasons, Hiram Abif being the Son of a Widow.

• WIDOW'S SON

In Ancient Craft Masonry, the title applied to Hiram, the architect of the Temple, because he is said, in the first Book of Kings (vu, 14) to have been "a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali." The Adonhiramite Freemasons have a tradition which Chapron gives (Nécessaire Maçonnique, page 101) in the following words: "The Freemasons call themselves the widow's sons, because, afte the death of our respectable Master, the Freemasons took care of his mother, whose children they called themselves, because Adonhiram had always considered them as his Brethren. But the French Freemasons subsequently changed the myth and called themselves Sons of the Widow, and for this reason.

'As the wife of Hiram remained a widow after her husband was murdered, the Freemasons, who regard themselves as the descendants of Hiram, called themselves Sons of the Widow."' But this myth is a pure invention, and is without the Seriptural foundation of the York myth, which makes Hiram himself the widow's son. But in Freneh Freemasonry the term Son of the Widow is synonymous with Freemason.

The claim has often been made that the adherents of the exiled House of Stuart, seeking to organize a system of political Freemasonry by which they hoped to secure the restoration of the family to the throne of England, transferred to Charles II the tradition of Hiram Abif betrayed by his followers, and called him the Widow's Son, because he was the son of Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles I. For the same reason they presumably subsequently applied the phrase to his brother, James II.

• WIFE AND DAUGHTER, FREEMASON'S

See Freemason's Wife and Daughter

• WILHELMSBAD, CONGRESS OF

At Wilhelmsbad, near the city of Hanau in Hesse-Cassel, was held the most important Masonic Gongress of the eighteenth century. It was convoked by Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, Grand Master of the Order of Strict Observance, and was opened July 16, 1782. Its duration extended to thirty sessions, and in its discussions the most distinguished Freemasons of Germany were engaged. Neither the Grand Lodge of Germany, nor that of Sweden, was represented; and the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, at Berlin, sent only a letter: but there were delegates from Upper and Lower Germany, from Holland, Russia, Italy, France, and Austria; and the Order of the Illuminati was represented by the Baron von Knigge.

It is not therefore surprising that the most heterogeneous opinions were expressed. Its avowed object was the reform of the Masonic system, and its disentanglement from the confused mass of Rites and advanced Degrees with which Freneh and German pretenders or enthusiasts had been for years past overwhelming it. Important topics were proposed, such as the true origin of Speeulative Freemasonry, whether it was merely conventional and the result of modern thought, or whether it was the offspring of a more ancient order, and, if so, what was that order; whether there were any Superiors General then existing and who these unknown Superiors were, etc.

These and kindred questions were thoroughly discussed, but not defined, and the Congress was eventually closed without coming to any other positive determination than that Freemasonry was not essentially connected with Templarism, and that, contrary to the doctrine of the Rite of Striet Observance, the Freemasons were not the successors of the Knights Templar. The real effect of the Congress of Wilhelmsbad was the abolition of that Rite, which soon after drooped and died.

• WILL

In some of the Continental Rites, and in certain advanced Degrees, it is a custom to require the recipiendary to make, before his initiation, a will and testament, exhibiting what are his desires as to the distribution of his property at his decease. The object seems to be to add solemnity to the ceremony, and to impress the candidate with the thought of death. But in the opinion of Brother Mackey it would seem to be a custom which would be "more honored in the breach than the observance." It is not practised in the York and American Rites.

• WILLIAM I, EMPEROR OF GERMANY

Born 1797, died 1888. An honorary member of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and Protector of Freemasonry in Germany, his son, the Crown Prince, later Emperor Frederick III, being Deputy-Protector.

• WILLIAM IV, KING OF ENGLAND

Raised a Freemason on March 9, 1786, in Lodge No. 86, Plymouth, England (see New Age, March, 1925).

• WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM

See Wykeham, William of

• WILSON, GAVIN

Poet, published some Masonic songs in 1788

• WILSON MANUSCRIPT

In the marginal notes to the ManiJesto of the Lodge of Antiquity, published in 1778, there is reference to an "O. (probably meaning old or original) Manuscript in the hands of Mr. Wilson of Broomhead, near Sheffield, Yorkshire written in the reign of King Henry VIII." It seems, from the context, to have been cited as authority for the existence of a General Assembly of the Craft at the city of york.

• WILSON, STEPHEN BARTON

Masonic Ritualist. Head of Emulation Lodge of Improvement, London, thirty years; Junior Grand Deacon in 1857; died, 1866.

• WINDING STAIRS

In the First Book of Kings (vi, 8) it is said: "The door for the Middle Chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the Middle Chamber, and out of the middle into the third." From this passage the Freemasons of the eighteenth century adopted the symbol of the Winding Stairs, and introduced it into the Fellow Craft's Degree, where it has ever since remained, in the American Rite. In one of the higher Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite the Winding Stairs are called cochleus, which is a corruption of cochlis, a spiral staircase.

The Hebrew word is lulim, from the obsolete root lug, to roll or wind. The whole story of the Winding Stairs in the Second Degree of Freemasonry is a mere myth, without ansr other foundation than the slight allusion in the Book of Kings which has been just cited, and it derives its only value from the symbolism taught in its legend (see Middle Chamber and Winding Stairs, Legend of the).

• WINDING STAIRS, LEGEND OF THE

Doctor Mackey says that he formerly so fully investigated the true menmllg of the Legend of the Winding Stairs, as taught in the Degree of Fellow Craft, that he could later find nothing to add to what he had already said in his work on The Symbolism of Freemasonry. He might, in writing a new article, change the language, but he could furnish no new idea. He did not, therefore, hesitate to transfer much of what he had said on this subject in that work to the present article. It is an enlargement and development of the meager explanations given in the ordinary lecture of Webb.

In an investigation of the symbolism of the Winding Stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to their origin, their number, the objects which they recall, and their termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an ascent upon them was intended to accomplish. The steps of this winding staircase commenced, we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Shekinah, or the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a Freemason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light are all synonymous and convertible terms. Here then, the symbolism of the Winding Stairs begins.

The Apprentice, having entered within the porch of the Temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the First Degree in Freemasonry, like the lesser mysteries of the ancient systems of initiation, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Freemasonry. The lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding Degrees.

As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the Degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins.

And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a Winding Stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, and the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labor—here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of Divine Truth.

The Winding Stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty that is placed before him. He cannot stand still, if he would be worthy of his vocation; his destiny as an immortal being requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him.

The number of these steps in all the systems has been odd. Vitruvius remarks—and the coincidence is at least curious—that the ancient Temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; and he assigns as the reason, that, commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshiper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the Temple, which Palladio considers a fortunate omen.

But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the Freemasons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd slumbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers; and while three, five, seven, nine, fifteen, and twenty-seven, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, eight, or ten. The odd number of the stairs was therefore intended to symbolize the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.

As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. Tracing-Boards of the eighteenth century have been found, in which only live steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The Prestonian lectures, used in England in the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave the whole nun ber as thirty-six, dividing them into series of one, three, five, seven, nine and eleven.

The error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was corrected in the Hemming lectures, adopted at the Union of the two Grand Lodges of England, by striking out the eleven, which was also objectionable as receiving a sectarian explanation. In the United States the number was still further reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven. Doctor Mackey adopted this American division in explaining the symbolism; although, after all, the particular number of the steps, or the peculiar method of their division into series, will not in any way affect the general symbolism of the whole legend.

The candidate, then, in the Second Degree of Freemasonry, represents a man starting forth on the journey of life, with the great task before him of selfimprovement. For the faithful performance of this task, a reward is promised, which reward consists in the development of all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual elevation of his character, and the acquisition of Truth and knowledge. Now, the attainment of this moral and intellectual condition supposes an elevation of character, an ascent from a lower to a higher life, and a passage of toil and diffieulty, through rudimentary instruction, to the full fruition of wisdom.

This is therefore beautifully symbolized by the Winding Stairs, at whose foot the aspirant stands ready to climb the toilsome steep while at its top is placed "that hieroglyphic bright which none but Craftsmen ever saw," as the emblem of Divine Truth. And hence a distinguished writer has said that "these steps, like all the Masonic symbols, are illustrative of discipline and doctrine, as well as of natural, mathematical, and metaphysical science and open to us an extensive range of moral and speculative inquiry."

The candidate, incited by the love of virtue and the desire of knowledge, and withal eager for the reward of Truth which is set before him, begins at onee the toilsome ascent. At each division he pauses to gather instruction from the symbolism which these divisions present to his attention. At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organization of the Order of which he has become a disciple. But the information here given, if taken in its naked, literal sense, is barren, and unworthy of his labor. The rank of the officers who govern, and the names of the Degrees which constitute the Institution, can give him no knowledge whieh he has not before poeseeeed we must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.

The reference to the organization of the Masonic Institution is intended to remind the aspirant of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilization, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Freemasonry itself is the result of civilization; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition of mankind.

All the monuments of antiquity that the ravages of time have left, combine to prove that man had no sooner emerged from the savage into the social state, than he commenced the organization of religious mysteries, and the separation, by a sort of divine instinct, of the sacred from the profane. Then occurred the invention of architecture as a means of providing convenient houses, the necessary shelter from the in~elemencies and vicissitudes of the seasons, with all the mechanical arts connected with it; and lastly, geometry, as a necessary science to enable the cultivators of land to measure and designate the limits of their possessions. All these are claimed as peculiar eharaeteristies of Speculative Freemasonry, which may be considered as the type of civilization, the former bearing the same relation to the profane world as the latter does to the savage state. Hence we at once see the fitness of the symbolism which commences the aspirant's upward progress in the cultivation of knolvledge and the search after Truth, by recalling to his mind the condition of civilization and the social union of mankind as necessary preparations for the attainment of these objects.

In the allusions to the officers of a Lodge, and the Degrees of Freemasonry as explanatory of the organization of our own Society, we clothe in our symbolic language the history of the organization of society.

Advancing in his progress, the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive all our ideas of perception, and which therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to the comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is so closely connected with the Operative Institution of Freemasonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts.

In his second pause, in the ascent of the Winding Stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knolvledge. So far, then, the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessary and useful member of that society. But his motto will be, Excelsior. Still must he go onward and forward.

The stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and still further treasures Wisdom are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the Middle Chamber, the abiding-place of Truth, be reached. In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained.

Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolized by any other sign or series of daetrine.s pus hy the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Freemasonry is an institution of the olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is one of the most pregnant evidences that five have of its antiquity.

In the seventh century, and for a long time afterward, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, Music, and astronomy.

"These seven heads," says Enfield, "were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any questions which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature."

At a period, says the same writer, when few were instructed in the trivium, and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both was sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher. The propriety, therefore, of adopting the seven liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is apparent (see Seven Iiberal Arts and Sciences). The candidate having reached this point, is now supposed to have accomplished the task upon which he had entered—he has reached the last step, and is now ready to receive the full fruition of human learning. So far, then, we are able to comprehend the true symbolism of the Winding Stairs. They represent the progress of an inquiring mind with the toils and labors of intellectual cultivation and study, and the preparatory acquisition of all human science, as a preliminary step to the attainment of Divine Truth, which, it must be remembered, is always symbolized in Freemasonry by the Word.

Here let us again allude to the symbolism of numbers, which is for the first time presented to the consideration of the Masonic student in the legend of the Winding Stairs. The theory of numbers as the symbols of certain qualities was originally borrowed by the Freemasons from the school of Pythagoras. It will be impossible, however, to develop this doctrine in its entire extent, in the present article, for the numeral symbolism of Freemasonry would itself constitute materials for an ample essay. It will be sufficient to advert to the fact, that the total number of the steps, amounting in all to fifteen in the American system, is a significant symbol. For Afteen was a sacred number among the Orientals, because the letters of the holy name Jah, no, were, in their numerical value, equivalent to fifteen; and hence a figure in which the nine digits were so disposed as to make fifteen either way when added together perpendicularly, horizontally, or diagonally, constituted one of their most sacred talismans. The fifteen steps in the Winding Stairs are therefore symbolic of the name of God.

But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the Winding Sta . Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Freemason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages arc Truth, or that approximation to it which will be most appropriate to the Degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Freemason is ever to be in search of Truth, but is never to find it. This Divine Truth, the object of all his labors, is symbolized by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a Substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of the nature of God and of man's relation to him, which knowledge constitutes Divine Truth, can never be acquired in this life.

It is only when the portals of the grave open to us, and give us an entrance into a. more perfect life, that this knowledge is to be attained. "Happy is the man," says the father of Iyric poetry, "who descends beneath the hollow earth, having be held these Mysteries: he knows the end, he knows the origin of life." The Middle Chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that that Truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G. A. O. T. U.

This is the reward of the inquiring Freemason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the Truth, but must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it. It is, then, as a symbol and a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the Winding Stairs. If we attempt to adopt it as an historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire thus to impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as an historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand Craftsmen were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity.

But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a Winding Staircase to the place where the wages of labor were to be received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the Middle Chamber of life—in the full fruition of manhood—the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek God and God's Truth. To believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Freemasonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good or a wise man's study. Of the legend we may admit its historical details are barren, but its symbols and allegories are fertile with instruction.

• WIND, MASON'S

Among the Masonic tests of the eighteenth century was the question, "How blows a Mason's wind?" and the answer was, "Due East and West."

Browne gives the question and answer more fully and assigns the explanation as follows:

How blows the wind in Masonry;

Favorable due east and west.

To what purpose?

To call men to, at, and from their labor.

What does it further allude to?

To those miraculous winds which proved so essential in working the happy deliverance of the children of

Israel from their Egyptian bondage, and proved the overthrow of Pharaoh and all his host when he attempted to follow them.

Krause very correctly thinks that the fundamental idea of the Masonic wind blowing from the east is to be found in the belief of the Middle Ages that all good things, such ss philosophy and religions came from the East.

In the German ritual of The Three Saints John's Degrees of the Mother Lodge of the Three Globes, the idea is expressed a little differently. The Catechism is as follows:

Whence comes the wind?

From the East towards the West, and from the South towards the North, and from the North towards the South, the East and the West.

What weather brings it?

Variable, hail and storm, and calm and pleasant weather.

The explanation given is that these changing winds symbolize the changing progress of man's life in his pursuit of knowledge—now clear and full of hope, now dark with storms. Bode's hypothesis that these variable winds of Freemasonry were intended to refer to the changes of the condition of the Roman Catholic Church under English monarchs, from Henry VIII to James II, and thus to connect the symbolism with the Stuart Freemasonry, is wholly untenable, as the symbol is not found in any of the advanced Degrees. it is not recognized in the French, and is obsolete in the York Rite.

• WINDOW

A piece of furniture in the Mark Degree. It is a mere symbol, having no foundation in truth, as of record there was no such appendage to the Temple. Of course windows are mentioned in the Bible as in the construction details of First Kings (vi, 4) "And for the house (of the Lord) he made windows of narrow lights." Doctor Mackey has in mind a special window familiar to every Mark Master. It is simply intended to represent the place where the workman received his wages, symbolic of the reward earned by labor.

• WINE

One of the elements of Masonic consecration, and, as a symbol of the inward refreshment of a good conscience is intended, under the name of the Wine of Refreshment, to remind us of the eternal refreshments which the good are to receive in the future life for the faithful performance of duty in the present.

• WINGS OF THE CHERUBIM, EXTENDED

The candidate in the Degree of Royal Master of the American Rite is said to be received "beneath the extended wings of the cherubim." The expression is derived from the passage in the First Book of Kings (vi, 27) which describes the setting of "the cherubim within the inner house." Practically, there is an anachronism in the reference to the cherubim in this Degree.

In the older and purer ritual, the ceremonies are supposed to take place in the Council-Chamber or private apartment of King Solomon, where of course, there were no cherubim. And even in some more modern rituals, where a part of the ceremony referred to in the tradition is spill to have occurred in the holy of Holies, that part of the Temple was at that time unfinished, and the cherubim had not yet been placed there.

But symbolically the reference to the cherubim in this Degree, which represents a searcher for Truth, is not objectionable. For although there is a great diversity of opinion as to their exact signification, yet there is a very general agreement that, under some one manifestation or another, they allude to and symbolize the protecting and overshadowing power of the Deity.

When therefore, the initiate is received beneath the extended wings of the cherubim, we are taught by this symbolism how appropriate it is, that he who comes to ask and to seek Truth. symbolized by the True Word should begin by placing himself under the protection of that Divine Power which alone is Truth, and from which alone Truth can be obtained.

• WISCONSIN

From a speech made by Henry S. Baird on December 17, 1854, it is known that a meeting was held December 27, 1823, to organize a Lodge at Green Bay, then in Michigan. In response to a petition the Grand Lodge of New York granted a Dispensation and on September 2, 1824, the Lodge was instituted at Fort Howard. Robert Irwin, Sr., was installed Worshipful Master, Benjamin Watson, Senior Warden and W. V. Wheaton, Junior Warden.

On December 3, 1824, a Charter was granted by the same Grand Lodge. Mineral Point Lodge was granted a Dispensation, October 8, 1840 and Melody Lodge one on January 10, 1843, both from Missouri, and Milwaukee Lodge held its first meeting on July 5, 1843, when a Dispensation was received from Illinois. Milwaukee, No. 22; Melody, No 5, and Mineral Point Lodges after some discussion held a Convention at Madison, December 18, 1843, for the purpose of organizing a Grand Lodge.

Brothers Moses Meeker and George W. Lakin were appointed Chairman and Secretary respectively. A Constitution prepared by Brothers Lawton, Meeker, and Lakin was adopted when the Grand Lodge was opened on December 18, 1843. The following officers were installed: Benjamin T. Kavanaugh, Grand Master; Abram D. Smith, Deputy Grand Master; Moses Meeker, Senior Grand Warden; David Merrill, Junior Grand Warden; Thomas P. Burnett, Grand Treasurer; Ben C. Eastman, Grand Secretary, and Dwight F. Lawton, Grand Lecturer. January 17, 1844, a special Communication was held to give the constituent Lodges their new numbers and charters.

Milwaukee Chapter, later called Kilburn Chapter, No. 1, was granted a Dispensation by the Deputy General Grand High Priest at the triennial Convocation of the General Grand Chapter held on September 10, 1844. By the same authority a Convention was held in Madison on January 10, 1850. Representatives of Kilburn Chapter, No. 1; Washington Chapter, No. 2, and Southport Chapter, No. 3, attended the fleeting and established the Grand Chapter of Wisconsin on February 14, 1850. Argulus W. Sark was authorized by the Grand Master to install the officers of the Lodge and duly performed this ceremony on August 7, 1850.

Three Councils were chartered in Wisconsin by the Grand Council of Ohio. Deputy Grand Puissant George Keifer reported to the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Ohio that Dispensations had been granted to Beloit Council at Beloit on March 30, 1857; to Gebal Council at Janesville on July 10, 1857, and to Madison Council at Madison on August 8, 1857, the petitioners being duly recommended by Franklin Council, No. 14, of Troy, Ohio.

Charters were granted each of these Councils on October 15, 1857, and they were numbered respectively as Gebal Council, No. 27; Beloit Council, No. 28, and Madison Council, No. 29. On October 28, 1857, delegates met and instituted a Grand Council which met annually until 1878, when, on March 11, the Degrees were put under the control of the Grand Chapter. The brand Council was again organized in 1881 by representatives of forty-nine Councils and was recognized by the General Grand Council as a nonparticipating independent body.

Wisconsin Commandery, No. 1, at Milwaukee, was given a Dispensation July 12, 1849, and a Charter on September 11, 1850. Delegates from three Commanderies, namely, Wisconsin, No. 1; Janesville, No. 2; Robert Macoy, No. 3, met and organized the Grand Commandery of Wisconsin on October 20, 1859, at Madison.

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, was first established in Wisconsin on August 7, 1863, when the Wisconsin Consistory, the Wisconsin Chapter of Rose Croix, the Wisconsin Council of Princes of Jerusalem and the Wisconsin Lodge of Perfection were opened at Milwaukee.

• WISDOM

In Ancient Craft Masonry, Wisdom is symbolized by the East, the place of light, being represented by the pillar that there supports the Lodge and by the Worshipful Master. It is also referred to King Solomon, the symbolical founder of the Order. In Masonic architecture the Ionic column, distinguished for the skill in its construction, as it combines the beauty of the Corinthian and the strength of the Doric, is adopted as the representative of Wisdom. King Solomon has been adopted in Speculative Freemasonry as the type or representative of Wisdom, in accordance with the character which has been given to him in the First Book of Kings (iv, 30-2): "Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations round about."

In all the Oriental philosophies a conspicuous place has been given to Wisdom. In the book balled the Wisdom of Solomon (vu, 74), but supposed to be the production of a Hellenistic Jew, it is said: "I called upon God, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I preferred her before scepters and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her." And farther on in the same book (vii, 287) she is described as "the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence (emanation) flowing from the glory of the Almighty, .... the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror, of the power of God, and the image of His goodness."

The Cabalists made the Hebrew Chochma, or Wisdom, the second of the ten Sephiroth, placing it next to the Crown. They called it a male potency, and the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, are, or Intelligent, female. These two Sephiroth, with Keter, or the Crown, formed the first triad, and their union produced the Intellectual World.

The Gnosties also had their doctrine of Wisdom, whom they called Achamoth. They said she was femenine; styled her Mother, and said that she produced all things through the Father.

The Oriental doctrine of Wisdom was, that it is a Divine Power standing between the Creator and the creation, and acting as His agent. "The Lord," says Solomon (Proverbs iii, 19) "by wisdom hath founded the earth." Hence Wisdom, in this philosophy, answers to the idea of a vivifying spirit brooding over and impregnating the elements of the chaotic world In short, the world is but the outward manifestation of the spirit of Wisdom. This idea, so universally diffused throughout the East, is said to have been adopted into the secret doctrine of the Templars, who are supposed to have borrowed much from the Basilideans, the Manicheans, and the Gnostics. From them it easily passed over to the advanced Degrees of Freemasonry, which were founded on the Templar theory.

Hence, in the great decoration of the Thirty-third Degree of the Scottish Rite, the points of the triple triangle are inscribed with the letters S.A.P.I.E.N.T.I.A., the Latin for Wisdom.

Bezaleel (Exodus xxxi, 3) was filled "with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship," and this has ever been the ideal condition of a Craftsman. From first to last the Scripture, the Great Light, urges the dominating value of Wisdom, from the Pentateuch to Revelation, the allusions are frequent and emphatic. Especially in such pertinent and suggestive references as in Second Chronicles (I, 7-12) do we find that the desire by Solomon for Wisdom and understanding was rewarded by material possessions as well as these leading spiritual gifts.

It is not difficult now to see how this word Wisdom came to take so prominent a part in the symbolism of Ancient Freemasonry, and how it was expressly appropriated to King Solomon. As Wisdom, in the philosophy of the East, was the creative energy—the architect, so to speak, of the world, as the emanation of the Supreme Architect—so Solomon was the architect of the Temple, the symbol of the world. He was to the typical world or Temple what Wisdom was to the great world of the creation. Hence Wisdom is appropriately referred to him and to the Master of the Lodge, who is the representative of Solomon. Wisdom is always placed in the East of the Lodge, because thence emanate all light, and knowledge, and truth.

• WITHDRAWAL OF PETITION

It is a law of Freemasonry in the United States of America that a petition for initiation having been once presented to a Lodge, cannot be withdrawn. It must be subjected to a ballot. It must be submitted to the action of the Lodge. The rule is founded on prudential reasons.

The candidate having submitted his character for inspection, the inspection must be made. It is not for the interests of Freemasonry (the only thing to be considered) that, on the prospect of an unfavorable judgment, he should be permitted to decline the inspection, and have the opportunity of applying to another Lodge, where carelessness or ignorance might lead to his acceptance. Initiation is not like an article of merchandise sold by-rival dealers, and to be purchased, after repeated trials, from the most acccommodating seller.

• WITNESSES

See Trials

• WOELLNER, JOHANN CHRISTOPH CON

A distinguished Prussian statesman, and one equally distinguished as one of the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order in Germany, and the Rite of Strict Observance, to whose advancement he lent all the influence of his political position. He was born at Dobritz, May 19, 1732. He studied theology in the orthodox Church, and in 1750 was appointed a preacher near Berlin, and afterward a Canon at Halberstadt.

In 1786, King William III, of Prussia, appointed him Privy Councilor of Finance, an appointment supposed to have been made as a concession to the Rite of Strict Observance, of which Woellner was a Provincial Grand Master, his Order name being Eques à cubo. In 1788 he became Minister of State, and was put at the head of ecclesiastical affairs. No Freemason in Germany labored more assiduously in the cause of the Order and in active defense of the Rite of Strict Observance, and hence he had many enemies as well as friends. On the demise of King William, he was dismissed from his political appointments, and retired to his estate at Grossriez, where he died September 11, 1800.

• WOLF

In the Egyptian Mysteries, the candidate represented a wolf and wore a wolf's skin, because 08iris once assumed the form of that animal in his contests with Typhon. In the Greek mythology, the wolf was consecrated to Apollo, or the sun, because of the connection between luke, meaning light, and lukos, a wolf. In French, slings and pincers as well as wolf is lowe, and hence the word louveteau, a whelp as well as a supporting wedge, signifying the son of a Freemason (see Lewis) .

• WOLFENBUTTEL, CONGRESS OF

A city of Lower Saxony, in the principality of Wolfenbuttel, and formerly a possession of the Duke of Brunswick. In 1778 Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, convoked a Masonic Congress there, with a view of reforming the organization of the Order. Its results, after a session of five weeks, were a union of the Swedish and German Freemasons, which lasted only for a brief period, and the preparation for a future meeting at Wilhelmsbad.

• WOLFGANG, ALBERT, PRINCE OF LIPPESCHAUMBERG

Born in 1699, died in 1748. One of the Masonic circle whom Frederick the Great favored and sought at times to meet.

• WOOD CUTTERS, ORDER OF

See Fendeurs

• WOODFORD, ADOLPHUS FREDERICK ALEXANDER

The oldest son of Field Marshal Sir Alexander Woodford, born on July 9, 1821. He became a Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, and three years later studied for the Church at Durham University, was ordained, and became Rector of Swillington, Leeds, England, which position he occupied until 1872. He was initiated in 1842, while on a visit to his father, then Governor of Gibraltar, in the Lodge of Friendship, then No. 345, and was appointed Grand Chaplain by the Earl of Zetland in 1863, delivering the oration on April 27, 1864, at the laying of the foundation stone of the new building at Freemasons' Hall.

He was Editor of the Freemason and the Masonic Monthly, the former from 1873 to 1885, and the latter from 1873 to 1882. He prepared a Masonic Cyclopedia and was a frequent instructive writer of rare versatility. His essay on "The Connection of York with the History of Freemasonry in England," published in Brother Hughan's Unpublished Records of the Craft, was written in 1871; in 1872 he published the Sloane Manuscript No. M29 and wrote the preface to Brother Hughan's Old Charges. His Defense of Masonry appeared in 1874. At the formation of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge he was a leading figure and, after a life devoted so freely and helpfully to the service of the Craft, Brother Woodford died on December 23, 1887.

• WOODFORD MANUSCRIPT

A manuscript formerly in the possession of one of England's most esteemed Freemasons, Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, editor of Kenning's Cyclopedia of Freemasonry. Brother Hughan says it is almost a verbatim copy of the Cooke Manuscript. The indorsement upon it reads, "This is a very ancient record of Masonry, which was copied for me by Wm. Reid, Secretary to the Grand Lodge, 1728." It formerly belonged to Mr. William Cowper, Clerk to the Parliament, and is now in the library of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076, at London, England.

• WOOF, RICHARD

Wrote Sketch of the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, wilh Notes on the Masonic Templars, London, 1865, and was Provincial Senior Grand Warden of Worcestershire, England.

• WOOG, CARL CHRISTIAN

Born at Dresden in 1713, and died at Leipsic, April 24, 1771. Mossdorf says that he was, in 1740 a resident of London, and that there he was initiated into Ancient Craft Masonry, and also into the Scottish Degree of Knight of Saint Andrew. In 1749, he published a Latin work entitled Presbyterorum et Daconorum Achaiae de Martyrio Sancti Andreae Apostoli, Epistola Encyclica, in which he refers to the Freemasons (page 32) in the following language: nicum adhuc addo, esse inter caementarios, seu lapicidas liberos, (qui Franeo muratoriorum Franc-MaSons nomine communiter insigniuntur quique rotunda quadratis miscere dicuntur) quosdam qui S. Andreae memoriam summa veneratione recolant.

Ad minimum, si scriptis, quae deteeta eorum mysteria et arcana recensent, fides non est deneganda, certum erit, eos quotunnis diem quoque Andreas, ut Sancti Johannis diem so lent, festum agere atque ceremoniosum celebrare, esseque intereos sectam aliquam, quse per crucem, quam in pectore gerant, in qua Sanctus Andreas funibus alligatus haereat, a re]iquis se destinguunt" that is, "I add only this, that among the Freemasons (commonly called Franc-Maçons, who are said to mingle circles with squares) there are certain ones who cherish the memory of Saint Andrew with singular veneration.

At all events, if we may credit those writings in which their mysteries and secrets are detected and exposed, it will be evident that they are accustomed to keep annually, with ceremonies, the festival of Saint Andrew as well as that of Saint John; and that there is a sect among them which distinguish themselves from the others by wearing on their breast the cross on which Saint Andrew was fastened by cords."

Woog, in a subsequent passage, defends the Freemasons from the charge made by these Expositions that they were irreligious, but declares that by him their mysteries shull remain buried in profound silence— "per me vero maneant eorum mysteria alto silentio sapulta." lt is, apparently, from these passages that Mossdorf draws his conclusions that Woog was a Freemason, and had received the Scottish Degree of Knight of Saint Andrew. They at least prove that he was an early friend of the Institution.

• WOOSTER, MAJOR GENERAL DAVID

Born at Stratford, Connecticut, March 2, 1710. Aide to George Washington in the American Revolution and a Freemason, having joined the Fraternity in 1745. He was founder and first Master of Hiram Lodge No. 1, New Haven, Connecticut, chartered November 12, 1750, holding the office until 1761 He was wounded at the battle of Ridgefield and died as a result on May 2, 1777 (see New Age, May, 1925; also in the history of Hiram Lodge No. 1 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, 1750-1916).

• WORD

When emphatically used, the expression, the Word, is in Freemasonry always referred to the Third Degree, although there must be a word in each Degree. In this latter and general sense, the Word is called by French Freemasons la parole, and by the Germans ein Wörterzeichen. The use of a Word is of great antiquity. We find it in the ancient Mysteries. In those of Egypt it is said to have been the Tetragrammaton. The German Stone-Masons of the Middle Ages had one, which, however, was probably only a password by which the traveling Companion might make himself known in his professional wanderings.

Lyon (History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, page 22) shows that it existed, in the sixteenth and subsequent centuries, in the Scotch Lodges, and he says that "the Word is the only secret that is ever alluded to in the Minutes of Mary's Chapel, or in those of Kilwinning, Aitcheson's Haven, or Dunblane, or any other that we have examined of a date prior to the erection of the Strand Lodge." Indeed, he thinks that the communication of this Word constituted the only ceremony of initiation practiced in the Operative Lodges. At that time there was evidently but one Word for all the ranks of Apprentices, Craftsmen, and Masters. He thinks that this communication of the Mason Word to the Apprentices under oath constituted the germ whence has sprung the Symbolical Freemasonry.

But it must be remembered that the learned and laborious investigations of Brother Lyon refer only to the Lodges of Scotland. There is no sufficient evidence that a more extensive system of initiation did not prevail at the same time, or even earlier, in England and Germany. Indeed, Findel has shown that it did in the latter country; and it is difficult to believe that the system, which we know was in existence in 1717, was a sudden development out of a single Word, for which we are indebted to the inventive genius of those who were engaged in the revival at that period. Be this as it may, the evidence is conclusive that everywhere, and from the earliest times, there was a Word. This at least is no modern usage.

But it must be admitted that this Word, whatever it was, was at first a mere mark of recognition. Yet it probably had a mythical signification, and was not arbitrarily adopted. The word in the Sloane Manuscript No. 3329, which Brother Hughan places at a date not posterior to 1700, is undoubtedly a corrupted form of that now in use. Hence we may conclude that the legend, and its symbolism also existed at the same time, but only in an incomplete form.

The modern development of Speculative Freemasonry into a philosophy has given a perfected form to the symbolism of the Word no longer confined to use as a means of recognition, but elevated, in its connection with the legend of the Third Degree, to the rank of a symbol.

So viewed, and by the scientific Freemason it is now only so viewed, the Word becomes the symbol of Divine Truth, the loss of which and the search for it constitute the whole system of Speculative Freemasonry. So important is this Word, that it lies at the very foundation of the Masonic edifice. The Word might be changed, as might a grip or a sign, if it were possible to obtain the universal consent of the Craft, and Freemasonry would still remain unimpaired. But were the Word abolished, or released from its intimate connection with the Hiramic legend, and with that of the Royal Arch, the whole symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry would be obliterated. The Institution might withstand such an innovation, but its history, its character, its design, would belong to a newer and a totally different society. The Word is what Dermott called the Royal Arch, "the marrow of Masonry."

• WORD, LOST

See Lost Word

• WORD, MASON

In the minutes and documents of the Lodges of Scotland during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the expression Mason word is constantly used. This continuous use would indicate that but one word was then known. Nicolai, in his Essay on the Accusations against the Templars, quotes a "small dictionary published at the beginning of the eighteenth century," defining the Mason's word.

• WORD, SACRED

A term applied to the chief or most prominent word of a Degree, to indicate its peculiarly sacred character, in contradistinction to a password, which is simply intended as a mode of recognition. It is sometimes ignorantly corrupted into "secret word." All significant words in Freemasonry are secret. Only certain ones are sacred.

• WORD, SIGNIFICANT

See Significant Word

• WORD, TRUE

Used as the contradistinction to Lost Word and the Substitute Word. To find it, is the object of all Masonic search and labor. For as one Lost Word is the symbol of death, the True Word is the symbol of life eternal. It indicates the change that is always occurring—Truth after error, light after darkness, life after death. Of all the symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry, that of the True Word is the most philosophic and sublime.

• WORK

See Labor

• WORKING-TOOLS

In each of the Degrees of Freemasonry, certain implements of the Operative Art are consecrated to the Speculative Science, and adopted to teach as symbols lessons of morality. With these the Speculative Freemason is taught to erect his spiritual Temple, as his Operative predecessors with the same implements so constructed their material Temples. Thus they are known as Working Tools of the Degree. They vary but very slightly in the various Rites, but the same symbolism is preserved. The principal Working-Tools of the Operative Art that have been adopted as symbols in the Speculative Science, confined, however, to Ancient Craft Masonry, and not used in the higher Degrees, are the Twenty-four-inch Gage, Common Gavel, Square, Level, Plumb, Skirrit, Compasses, Pencil, Trowel, Mallet, Pickax, Crow, and Shovel. See them under their respective heads in this encyclopedia.

• WORK, MASTER OF THE

An architect or superintendent of the building of an edifice. Du Cange Glossarium, thus defines it: "Magister operis vet operarum outgo, mattre de l'oeurre, cui operibus publicis vacare incumbit," that is, "Master of the Work or of the works, commonly, maltre de l'oeurre, one whose duty it is to attend to the public works."

The Cooke Manuscript (line 529) says: "And also he that wele most of connying (skill) schold be governour of the werke, and scholde be callyd maister."

In the old record of the date of Edward III, cited by Doctor Anderson in his second edition (page 71) it is prescribed "that Master Masons, or Masters of Work, shall be examined whether they be able of cunning to serve the irrespective lords."

The word was in common use in the Middle Ages, and applied to the Architect or Master Builder of an edifice. Thus Edwin of Steinbach, the architect of the Cathedral of Strasbourg, is called Master of the Work. The monasteries had a similar officer, who was, however, more generally called the Operaritss, but sometimes Magister operis (see Works, Grand Superintendent of).

• WOMAN

The law which excludes women from initiation into Freemasonry is not contained in the precise words in any of the Old Constitutions, although it is continually implied, as when it is said in the Lansdowne Manuscript, 1560, that the Apprentice must be "of limbs whole, as a man ought to be." and that he must be "no bondsman." All the regulations also refer to men only, and many of them would be wholly inapplicable to women. But in the Charges compiled by Anderson and Desaguliers, and published in 1723, the word woman is for the first time introduced and the law is made explicit. Thus it is said that "the persons admitted members of a Lodge must be good and true men, .... no bondmen, no women," etc.

(Constitutions, 1723, page 51). Perhaps the best reason that can be assigned for the exclusion of women from our Lodges will be found in the character of our organization as a mystic Society. Speculative Freemasonry is only an application of the art of Operative Masonry to purposes of morality and science. The Operative branch of our Institution was the forerunner and origin of the Speculative. Now, as we admit of no innovations or changes in our customs, Speculative Freemasonry retains, and is governed by, all the rules and regulations that existed in and controlled its Operative prototype. Hence, as in this latter art only hale and hearty men, in possession of all their limbs and members, so that they might endure the fatigues of labor, were ployed, so in the former the rule still holds, of excluding all who are not in possession of these prerequisite qualifications.

Woman is not permitted to participate in our rites and ceremonies, not because we deem her unworthy or unfaithful, or incapable, as has been foolishly supposed, of keeping a secret, but because on our entrance into the Order, we found certain regulations which prescribed that only men capable of enduring the labor, or of fulfilling the duties of Operative Masons, could be admitted. These regulations we have solemnly promised never to alter; nor could they be changed, without an entire disorganization of the whole system of Speculative Freemasonry.

A curious newspaper advertisement appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, January 6, 1770, as quoted below:

This is to acquaint the public that on Monday, 1st inst., being the Lodge or monthly meeting-night of the Free and Accepted Masons of the 22nd Regiment, held at the Crown, near Newgate, Mrs. Bell, the landlady of the house, broke open a door with a poker, by which means she got into an adjacent room, made two holes through the wall, and by that stratagem discovered the berets of Masonry, and knowing herself to be the first woman in the world that ever found out the secret is willing to make it known to all her sex. So that any lady that is desirous of learning the secrets of Freemasonry by applying to that well-learned woman, Mrs. Bell, who has lived fifteen years in and about Newgate, may be instructed in all secrets of Masonry.

The following notice appeared December 2, 1772, in the Edinburgh Courant:

A few nights ago a regular Lodge of Freemasons was held at the Star in Watergate Street, in the City of Chester, when a woman who lodged in the house, concealed herself in a press in the Lodge room in order to satisfy a painful curiosity, she had a long time imbibed of discovering the reason of their secret meetings; but the ever wary and careful fraternity, making a timely and secret discovery of the place of her concealment assembled themselves within her hearing, and after repeating the punishment which they always inflict on every person whom they detect prying into their secrets, opened the press and took her out, almost dead with apprehension of what she was to suffer, which had such an effect on the humanity of the Brethren then present, that they unanimously agreed to dismiss her, without doing her any injury than that of severe reprimand for er folly.

The manuscript Constitutions of the Freemasons, dated 1693, have frequently been quoted in support of the theory that women were at one time admitted into Masonic guilds, which Manuscript states:

The one of the elders taking the Booke, and that he or she that is to bee made a Mason shall lay their hands thereon, and the charge shall be given. But Brother D. Murray Lyon holds that the word shee should be read they. Although the Ancient Charges forbid the admission or initiation of women into the Masonic Fraternity, several instances are asserted where women have been duly initiated either as the result of accident or design. The best known is the case of the Honorable Elizabeth Saint Leger, born 1693, who afterwards became, in 1713, the Honorable Mrs. Aldworth. She was a daughter of the first Viscount Doneraile, of Cork, Ireland.

The Viscount was an enthusiastic Freemason and, as was customary in the early part of the eighteenth century, Lodges were occasionally held in his own house. It is said that Miss Saint Leger hid herself one evening about the year 1710, previous to the initiation of a gentleman named Coppinger, in a room adjoining the one used for a Lodge-room. Due to repairs being made in the partitions, the young lady was able to remove a brick from the wall separating the two rooms, and witnessed the entire ceremony of initiation. In attempting to make her escape she inadvertently came across the Tyler who, armed with a sword, stood barring her exit. Her shrieks caused the members of the Lodge to rush to the spot, where, after considerable discussion and entreaty on the part of her brother, it was decided to initiate her into the Order and, it is said, in the course of time she became Master of the Lodge.

Some accounts state that Miss Saint Leger, while reading one afternoon in the room adjoining the Lodge-room fell asleep and upon awakening heard voices. She, quite naturally, listened and before she realized what was occurring she had been made acquainted with a part of the Masonic ceremony. She is said to have been initiated in Lodge No. 95, which still meets in Cork, but there is no record extant of her reception into the Vrder. In fact there has been much difference of conclusions regarding the matter.

There is, however, record of her being a subscriber to the Irish Book of Constitutions, 1744, and also of her frequent attendance at entertainments given under Masonic auspices, at which times she wore full Masonic regalia. When she died in 1775, at Cork, she was accorded the honor of a Masonic burial. Mrs Aldworth was cousin to general Antony Saint Leger, Park Hill, near Doncaster, who instituted the renowned Doncaster Saint Leger races and stakes in 1776 (see Aldworth, Hon. Mrs).

The most modern instance of a woman claiming to be a member of a recognized Masonic Lodge was a Mrs. Catherine Babington, the only daughter of Charles and Margaret Sweet, born at Prineess Furnaee, Kentucky. December 28, 1815.

Her Biography was written and published by her son, J. P. Babington, himself a member of Lee Lodge, No. 253, Taylorsville, North Carolina. It is claimed that she concealed herself in an adjoining room to that used by the Lodge at different times covering a Period of a year and a half and was finally discovered by an uncle of hers who questioned her and, upon finding that she was well versed and familiar with much of the Masonic ritual, she was, we are told, clothed in a suitable uniform of red flannel and taken to the Lodge, where she was obligated as a regular Mason but not admitted to membership. She kept herself posted in Freemasonry up until the time of her death, although she never attempted to visit a Lodge.

Mrs. Babington died in Shelby, North Carolina and many incidents are related of her use of Masonic signs and words in her travels through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and other States. Most of these accounts are highly improbable, if not impossible. In the Femme et l'Enfant dans la FranoMafonnerie, meaning Woman and Child in Freemasonry, a French work by A. C. de la Rive, noted in Symbolism, September, 1922, page 251, there is a phrase relative to the so-called initiation of women in the Masonic Order.

The author says, "Two women had already benefitted as exceptions, Mademoiselle Fernig, Mistress of Dumouriez, and, under the Consulate, Madame de Xaintrailles." Brother Oswald Wirth, editor of Symbolism, informs his readers that the book quoted does not give any further reference to the initiation of Mademoiselle Fernig, and that vainly he has sought for the source or for any confirmation of the story in the publications of the period. Brother Albert Lantoine, author of the Histoire de la FrancMafonnetie Francaise, 1925, kindly made a further search for us and read the correspondence of the sisters Fernig, who survived the French Revolution, but discovered no additional light on the subject.

Helene, Countess Hadik Barkoozy, was initiated into the Lodge Egyenloseg, in Unghvar, which held a Warrant from the Grand Orient of Hungary. The Countess was born in 1833, was the sole heiress of Count Johann Barkoozy, and, being the last of her race, was permitted by the Hungarian Courts to take the place of a son.

She succeeded her father in the extensive Majorat at Barkoozy and in 1860 married Count Bela Hadik, Aide-de-Camp of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. With her inheritance she came into possession of an extensive Masonic library which she studied diligently and, being a highly educated lady, soon mastered the statements and was an ardent admirer of Masonic principles In 1875 she was able to secure entrance into the Lodge Egyenloseg. When the Grand Orient of Hungary heard of this violation of the Statutes, proceedings were immediately instituted against every member who had a part in the initiation and on a meeting of January 5, 1876, all accused were found guilty.

The Deputy Master of the Lodge was divested of all Masonic rights and expelled from the Order. The names of the officers were struck off the lists and the other members suspended for a period of three, six, or twelve months. On March 10, 1876, the Grand Lodge ruled: —"the admission of Countess Hadik Barkoozy to be contrary to the laws and therefore null and void, forbids her admittance into any Lodge of their Jurisdiction, under penalty of erasion of the Lodge from the rolls, and requests all Grand Lodges to do the same. Also the Countess is requested to return the invalid Certificate which she holds within ten days, in default of which measures will be taken to confiscate immediately the Certificate whenever produced at any of the Lodges."

There is a tradition, which has never been officially confirmed, that a Mrs. Beaton, a Norfolk lady, of England, contrived to conceal herself behind the wainscoting in a Lodge-room where she learned the secret of the First Degree. She was discovered at this point and was herself initiated into the Masonic Fraternity.

A Mrs. Havard is said to have been proposed as an honorary member and initiated into Palladian Lodge, No. 120, at Hereford, Herefordshire, on the Roll of the R.n~lish Constitutions in the year 177() This Lodge was warranted in 1762 and celebrated the centenary of its existence in 1862. No record is available other than tradition of this incident, however.

Madame de Xaintrailles, wife of the French General of that name, was a member of an Adoptive Lodge, and it has been said that she was afterwards initiated into Freemasonry. No documentary proof is available, but the incident, supposed to have occurred at the close of the eighteenth century, is mentioned in the Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie, (1843, by T. B. Clavel, pages 34-5; see also Xaintrailles, Madame de). A women's auxiliary was formed by the Lodge Sincerite, Klattau, Bohemia, whose Charter was recalled in September, 1780. The membership of the auxiliary was confined to wives of the members of the parent Lodge. An exception to this rule was made in favor of the Baroness Chanowsky de Langendorf.

The creation of this auxiliary contributed in no small degree to the difficulties which later befell the parent Lodge when their Charter was recalled. The auxiliary was known as the Three Crowned Hearts, and the underlying purposes were admirable. The members were strictly admonished to observe peace, harmony, union, unblemished behavior, not to utter words of slander, and the funds were used to assist a sick Sister or Brother in misfortune or unemployment. The Constitution and By-laws are in the archives of the National Museum in Prague, Czechoslovakia. A Master Mason managed the Lodge as its Master and the office of Treasurer was also held by a Master Mason but all other officers were women.

The Theosophical Society headed by Mrs. Annie Besant, has an Order which they describe as CoMasonr1y and which they claim is "Masonry for women." Formerly the title used Joint for the prefix, as in Transactisms, Dharma Lodge, Supreme Council, Universal Joint Freemasonry, No. 1, Benares, 1903 There is, however, no connection whatever between this organization and established Freemasonry (see Co-Masonry).

The remarkable case of the Chevalier D'Eon is discussed elsewhere (see D'Eon, Chevalier) and it is sufficient to say here that the signature as Junior Warden appended to a petition is decidedly far from feminine, and the results of the post-mortem examination (see Dictionary of National Biography, volume xii, page 384) determined the male sex of the individual conclusively. Simon Boubee, in his Etudes historiques et philosophiques sur La Franc-Magonnerie, meaning Historical and philosophical studies on Freemasonry, 1854, quoted by Albert Lantoine, September, 1920, Symbolisrne, Paris, refers to the allusion in the above work to women of rank and their knowledge of the Masonic Institution.

Brother Lantoine says the author is not afraid of advancing the statement that "the Masonry of Adoption preceded Symbolic Masonry in France and at its head is found presiding that Queen, the widow of Charles I, of whom English Masons glorify themselves of being the children, and whom even yet they invoke in moments of distress, when they cry for assistance, A.·. M.·. L.·. E.·. D.·. L.·. V.·.," these being the initials of a French phrase meaning substantially help me, ye sons of the widow. Of course, the sons of the widow in this case have reference to the Masonic followers of Hiram, who was a widow's son, and also in this particular instance having an allusion in the statement to the House of Stuart, the effort to place the son of a widow on the British throne giving a political flavor to the expression and in that way adding a little weight to the old claims of a Masonic nature built upon the romantic history of the Scottish royal family and their adherents in their exile on the Continent of Europe and especially in France. But let us see on what grounds Boubee proceeds with his assertions. This is what he writes:

That widow, of Charles I, daughter of Henry IV, and sister of Louis XIII, returned to the Court of France after the death of her husband, and her greatest pleasure was to tell her nephew of the heroic efforts that were made in England by the sons of the widow to reestablish her son on the throne. The ladies of the Court were not strangers to these confidences.. She made known to then the words and signs which formed the tie of their center of union, and she thus initiated them to the mysteries of the Institution of which she was the Protectress, and which had not hitherto penetrated into France. These paragraphs illustrate the readiness of the French writer to mix up the origin of Lodges of Adoption with those of Lodges of Freemasons, the first comprising both sexes, the latter restricted to men. Nevertheless the item is of interest to us, if only as showing how legends live and grow.

A quaint song contained in A Defense of Freemasonry, published anonymously in 1765, curiously refers to the possible (we cannot well believe the writer to have meant the probable) initiation of women. The King is appended and the reader can construe it for himself.

ADVICE TO THE LADIES BY BROTHER RILEY

It has oft of the females been said

(But you'll own the report is not true)

That they are not Freemasons made,

For they cannot their passions subdue

That they never can subject their will

Nor be bound any secrets to keep

Nor never can keep their tongues still,

Except when in bed fast asleep.

See how common fame will tell lies

And scandalous stories retail!

But Masons those always despise,

Who against the fair sex dare to rail;

There are several females renowned

For sentiments truly refined

Whose conduct is constantly found

By the Craft to be just, true, and kind.

The thrice mystic number of III,III,III,

And the mystical number of III,

The Muses and Graees divine,

Are the damsels I mean that are free

The Cardinal virtues so bright,

Who preside o'er each principal sign

And Cynthia who governs the night

In the lodges resplendently shine.

But 'tis not these fair ones alone,

For Innocence kindly each night

Vouchsafes to deseend from her thrones

To clothe ev'ry WIason in white;

There's Faith, Hope and Charity fair,

Who teach us the ladder to climb,

As nightly the fabric lve rear,

By industry, patience and time.

Then ladies attend to advice,

And listen to what I impart

In virtue and honor be nice

Learn to govern the tongue and the heart

In short you must copy the fair,

Whom I have just mentioned before,

And then we will try,

I declare

To admit you within the lodge door.

This song is bound up with a number of Masonic curiosities in Brother Henry Sadler's most interesting and highly instructive Reprints and Revelations. The volume also contains the remarkable communication to George Faulkner, printer. This "Letter from the Grand Mistress of the Freemasons" is ascribed to the sardonic Dean Swift, but omitted from the more recent editions of that author's works.

Perhaps its want of interest to the general public may have had something to do with that exclusion. But it is of interest to the Craft because of the transparent intention of its writer to lampoon some attempt to expose the secrets of Freemasonry. Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley, Treasurer, Grand Lodge of Ireland, painstaking, skilled and scholarly in literary and Masonic matters, considers it to be a serious faced travesty of the pamphlet, The Grand Mystery of Freemasons Discovered, of which a first edition was published in 1724, and a second in 1725. Brother Enoch T. Carson of Cincinnati had a fine facsimile made of the first edition and issued the work as the initial publication of his self-sacrificing Masonic Archeological series. A reprint of the second edition of the Gruntl Mystery is in Gould's History of Freemasonry.

Brother Sadler found the names of both Pope and Swift on the roll of the Lodge held prior to 1730 at the "Goat at foot of the Haymarket." It is further pointed out that in 1722-7 Swift was in London, the guest of Pope at Twickenham. Brother Chetwode Crawley observes that Swift "sunned himself in the society of Arbuthnot and Pope, and shared with them all the convialities of London from which he had so long been absent. If they took part in Freemasonry, we may be sure he joined them. And there is no doubt about Arbuthnot or Pope. To make his connection with Freemasonry doubly sure, Swift, as we have already had occasion to indicate, took on himself the defense of the Craft by a reductio ad absurdum of the spurious rituals then current in London."

The "Letter" starts out with the following lines: "Seeing it is of late become a fashion in town, in writing to all the world, to address to you (he was the editor of the Dublin Journal, a printer and a Freemason), our society of Female Freemasons hath also chosen you for our printer, and so, without preface, art, or embellishment (for truth anti a short paper needeth none of them) our female lodge has the whole mystery as well as any Lodge in Europe, with proper instructions in writing; and what will seem more strange to you, without the least taint of perjury." Then follows a whimsical statement of a traveler having supplied the ladies with full particulars of Masonic secrets as they had been imparted by a Lodge whose members were so intoxicated that the candidate was never pledged to preserve inviolate the information that had been given to him. Nevertheless, an old song quoted in A Defense of freemasonry says: "The fair from our rights are forever debarred," and so far as this refers to membership, it finds general acceptance.

The following associations are worthy of mention, although very few details are available as to their rules and rituals: L'Ordre des Dames Ecossaises de Hospice du Mont Thabor; Order of Knights and Ladies of Joy, founded in 1696 in Paris, under the protection of Bacchus and Venus and whose printed statutes are still in existence; the German Order of the Rose, established in Germany in 1784 by Francis Matthaus Grossinger; the Order of Harmony, also founded by Grossinger on the collapse of the Order of the Rose, in 1788; the Order of the Lovers of Pleasure, established on December 25, 1808, by a number of young officers of the French Army. This was a military Order which is said to have been much favored by Napoleon I. There was also the Society known as the Mopses, which admitted women to all offices except that of Grand Master, who was elected for life. Subordinate to him, however, there was a Grand Mistress, also elected for life.

A number of these organizations related directly or indirectly to the Craft, as Eastern Star, Order of the Rainbow (for girls), Indifferents, Order of Fendeurs et Fendeuses, Order des Felicitaires, Companions of Penelope, Feuillants, Order of Perseverance, Knights and Nymphs of the Rose, Society of the Chain, L'Ordre des Chevaliers et Chevalieres de l'Ancre or Anchor, Orden der Gartnerinnen, and others will be found in this work under their significant title words.

Brother Dudley Wright (Woman and Freemasonry London,1922) treats the subject at length; there is also a section upon it by Brother Albert Lantoine (Histoire de la Franc-Mafennerie Frangaise, 1925, pages 375-93) a study of the matter from the eighteenth century to our own times; a paper "Woman and Freemasonry," Brother Gordon P. G. Hills (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1920, volume xxiii, page 63) contains several curious instances where the Masonic secrets are said to have been acquired by women, and Brother Hills says further (page 77) "Women are not eligible to become Freemasons be cause our Craft is a men's Society," a point well to keep in mind.

• WORKMEN AT THE TEMPLE

We have no historical book, except the meager details in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, of the number or classification of the workmen at the Temple of Solomon. The subject has, however, afforded a fertile theme for the exercise of the inventive genius of the ritualists. Although devoid of interest as a historical study, an acquaintance with these traditions, especially the English and American ones, and a comparison of them with the Scriptural account and with that given by Josephus, are necessary as a part of the education of a Masonic student. Doctor Mackey furnished the legends, therefore, simply as a matter of curiosity, without the slightest intention to vouch for their authenticity, at the same time trusting that the good sense and common fairness of the reader will prevent him from including such unauthenticated matter in lectures usually given in the Third Degree and often with much pretense to learning. In the Second Book of Chronicles (ii 17 and 18) we read as follows:

And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering where with David his father had numbered them, and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred. And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a-work.

The same numerical details are given in the second verse of the same chapter. Again, in the First Book of Kings (v 13 and 14) it is said:

And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel- and the levy was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy.

The succeeding verses make the same enumeration of workmen as that contained in the Book of Chronicles quoted above, with the exception that, by omitting the three hundred Harodim, or rulers over all, the number of overseers is stated in the Book of Kings to be only three thousand three hundred. With these authorities, and the assistance of Masonic traditions, Doctor Anderson, in the Book of Constitutions (second edition, page 11) constructs the following table of the Craftsmen at the Temple:

Harodim, Princes, Rulers, or Provosts 300

Menatzchim, Overseers, or Master Masons 3.300

Ghiblim Stone-Squarers

Ischotzei, Hewers All Fellow Crafts 80.000

Benai, Builders

The Levy out of Israel, who were timber cutters 30.000

All the Freemasons employed in the work of the Temple, exclusive of the two Grand Wardens 113.600

Besides the Ish Sabal, or men of burden, the remains of the old Canaanites, amounting to 70,000, who are not numbered among the Freemasons. In relation to the classification of these workmen, Doctor Anderson says: "Solomon partitioned the Fellow Crafts into certain Lodges, with a Master and Wardens in each, that they might receive commands in a regular manner, might take care of their tools and jewels, might be paid regularly every week, and be duly fed and clothed; and the Fellow Crafts took care of their succession by educating Entered Apprentices. "

Josephus makes a different estimate. He includes the 3,300 Overseers in the 80,000 Fellow Crafts, and makes the number of Freemasons, exclusive of the 70,000 bearers of burden, amount to only 110,000.

A work published in 1764, entitled The Masonic Pocket-Book, gives a still different classification. The number, according to this authority, was as follows:

Harodim 300

Monatzohkn 3,300

Ghiblim 83,000

Adoniram's men 30,000

Total 116,600

These, together with the 70,000 Ish Sabal, or laborers, make a grand total of 186,600 workmen.

According to the statement of Webb, which has been generally adopted by the Fraternity in the United States, there were:

Grand Masters 3

Overseers 3,300

Fellow Crafts 80,000

Entered Apprentices 70,000

This account makes no allusion to the 300 Harodim, nor to the levy of 30,000, it is, therefore, manifestly incorrect. Indeed, no certain authority can be found for the complete classification of the workmen, since neither the Bible nor Josephus gives any account of the number of Tyrians employed. Doctor Oliver, however, in his Historical Landmarks, has collected from the Masonic traditions an account of the classifications of the workmen, which we shall insert, with a few additional facts taken from other authorities. According to these traditions, the following was the classification of the Freemasons who wrought in the Quarries of Tyre:

Super-Excellent Masons 6

Excellent Masons 48

Grand Architects 8

Architects 16

Master Masons 2,376

Mark Masters 700

Mark Men 1,400

Fellow Crafts 53,900

These were arranged as follows: The six Supers Excellent Masons were divided into two Grand Lodges, with three Brethren in each to superintend the work. The Excellent Masons were divided into six Lodges of nine each, including one of the Super-Excellent Masons, who presided as Master.

The eight Grand Architects constituted one Lodge, and the sixteen Architects another. The Grand Architects were the Masters, and the Architects the Wardens, of the Lodges of Master Masons, which were eight in number, and consisted, with their officers, of three hundred in each. The Mark Masters were divided into fourteen Lodges of fifty in each, and the Mark Men in fourteen Lodges also, of one hundred in each. The Mark Masters were the Masters, and the Mark Men the Wardens, of the Lodges of Fellow Crafts, which were seven hundred in number, and with their officers consisted of eighty in each.

The classification of the workmen in the Forest of Lebanon was as follows:

Super-Excellent Masons 3

Excellent Masons 24

Grand Architeets 4

Architects 8

Master Masons 1,188

Mark Masters 300

Mark Men 600

Fellow Crafts 23,100

Entered Apprentices 10,000

Total 35,227

These were arranged as follows: The three Super Excellent Masons formed one Lodge. The Excellent Masons were divided into three Lodges of nine each, including one of the Super-Excellent Masons as Master. The four Grand Architects constituted one Lodge and the eight Architects another, the former acting as Masters and the latter as Wardens of the Lodges of Master Masons, which were four in number, and consisted, with their officers, of three hundred in each. The Mark Masters were divided into six Lodges of fifty in each, and the Mark Men into six Lodges also, of one hundred in each. These two classes presided, the former as Masters and the latter as Wardens, over the Lodges of Fellow Crafts, which were three hundred in number, and were composed of eighty in each, including their officers.

After three years had been occupied in "hewing, squaring, and numbering" the stones, and in "felling and preparing" the timbers, these two Bodies of Freemasons, from the Quarries and the Forest, united for the purpose of properly arranging and fitting the materials, so that no metallic tool might be required in putting them up, and they were then carried up to Jerusalem Here the whole body was congregated ,under the superintending care of Hiram Abif, and to them were added four hundred and twenty Lodges of Tyrian and Sidonian Fellow Crafts, having eighty in each, and the twenty thousand Entered Apprentices of the Levy from Israel, who had heretofore been at rest, and who were added to the Lodges of their Degree, making them now consist of three hundred in each, so that the whole number then engaged at Jerusalem amounted to two hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and eighty-one, who were arranged as follows:

9 Lodges of Excellent Masons, 9 in each, were 81

12 Lodges of Master Masons, 300 in each, were 3,600

1,000 Lodges of Fellow Crafts 80 in each, were 80,000

420 Lodges of Tyrian Fellow Crafts, 80 in each, were 33,600

100 Lodges of Entered Apprentices, 300 in each were 30 000

70,000 Ish Sabal, or laborers 70 000

Total 217,281

Such is the system adopted by our English Brethren. The American ritual has greatly simplified the arrangement. According to the system now generally adopted in the United States, the workmen engaged in building King Solomon's Temple are supposed to have been classified as follows:

3 Grand Masters.

300 Harodim, or Chief Superintendents, who were Past Masters.

3,300 Overseers, er Master Masons, divided into Lodges of three in each.

80,000 Fellow Crafts, divided into Lodges of five in each.

70 000 Entered Apprentices, divided into Lodges of seven in each.

According to this account, there must have been eleven hundred Lodges of Master Masons; sixteen thousand of Fellow Crafts; and ten thousand of Entered Apprentices. No account is here taken of the levy of thirty thousand who are supposed not to have been Freemasons, nor of the builders sent by Hiram, King of Tyre whom the English lectures place at thirty-three thousand six hundred, and most of whom some may suppose to have been members of the Dionysiac Fraternity of Artificers, the institution from which Freemasonry, according to legendary authority, took its origin.

On the whole, the American system seems too defective to meet all the demands of the inquirer into this subject—an objection to which the English is not so obnoxious. But, Doctor Mackey again observes the whole account is mythical, and is to he viewed rather as a curiosity than as having any historical value.

• WORKS, GRAND SUPERINTENDENT OF

A Grand Lodge Officer, an architect by profession, entrusted with the duties to report "on the state of repair of the edifices of the Grand Lodge and make such further reports from time to time as he may deem expedient," and to advise with the Board of General Purposes "on all plans of building or edifices undertaken by the Grand Lodge and furnish estimates, etc." A similar officer is appointed in English Provincial Grand Lodges.

• WORKSHOP

The French Freemasons call a Lodge an atelier, literally, a workshop, or as Boiste defines it, "a place where Craftsmen work under the same Master."

• WORLD

The Lodge is said to be a symbol of the world. Its form—an oblong square, whose greatest length is from east to west—represents the shape of the inhabited world according to the theory of the ancients. The "clouded canopy," or the "starry decked covering" of the Lodge, is referred to the sky. The sun, which enlightens and governs the world at morning, noon, and evening, is represented by the three superior officers. And, lastly, the draft, laboring in the work of the Lodge, present a similitude to the inhabitants of the world engaged in the toils of life. While the Lodge is adopted as a copy of the Temple, not less universal is that doctrine which makes it a symbol of the world (see Form of the Lodge).

• WORLDLY POSSESSIONS

In the English lectures of Doctor Hemming, the name 'Tubal Cain is said "to denote worldly possessions," and hence Tubal Cain is adopted in that system as the symbol of worldly possessions. The idea is derived from the derivation of the word Cain from herbals, to acquire to gain. and from the theory that Tubal Cain, bit his inventions, had enabled his pupils to acquire riches. But the derivative meaning of the word has reference to the expression of Eve, that in the birth of her eldest son she had acquired a man by the help of the Lord. Any system which gives importance to mere wealth as a Masonic symbol, is not in accord with the moral and intellectual designs of the Institution, which is thus represented as a mere instrument of Mammon. The symbolism is quite modern, and has not been adopted elsewhere than in English Freemasonry.

• WORLDLY WEALTH

Partial clothing is, in Freemasonry, a symbol teaching the aspirant that freemasonry regards no man on account of his worldly wealth or honors; and that it looks not to his outward clothing, but to his internal qualifications.

• WORSHIP

Originally, the term "to worship" meant to pay that honor and reverence which are due to one who is worthy. Thus, where our authorized version translates Matthew xix, 19, "Honor thy father and thy mother," Wycliffe says, "Worship thi fadir and thi modir." And in the marriage service of the Episcopal Church, the expression is still retained, "with my body I thee worship," that is, "honor or reverence thee."

Hence the still common use in England of the words Worshipful and Right Worshipful as titles of honor applied to municipal and judicial officers. Thus the Mayors of small towns, and Justices of the Peace, are called Worshipful, while the mayors of large cities, as London, are called Right Worshipful. The usage was adopted and retained in Freemasonry. The word worship, or its derivatives, is not met with in any of the old manuscripts.

In the "Manner of constituting a New Lodge," adopted in 1722, and published by Doctor Anderson in 1723, the word worship is applied as a title to the Grand Master (Constitutions, 1723, page 71).

• WORSHIPFUL

A title applied to a Symbolic Lodge and to its Master. The Germans sometimes use the title Hochwurdig. The French style the Worshipful Master Venerable, and the Lodge, Respectable. In the seventeenth century, the Gilds of London began to call themselves Worshipful, as "the Worshipful Company of Grocers," etc.; and it is likely that the Lodges at the Revival, and perhaps a few years before, adopted the same style.

The reader will find in the remarks made to a Lodge by Paul Revere a significant and free use of the word in addressing both Masters and Wardens (see Revere, Paul). Many such instances are also mentioned in MisceUanea Latoinorum. On page 28, volume v, mention is made of the use of Right Worshipful Master in a number of Lodges, including the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, and Saint John the Baptist Lodge, No. 39, though it cannot be said to have been the usual practise. Two old Warrants issued by the Modern Grand Lodge in 1767 and 1769 are also noted on the same page as being "at the Petition of our Right Worshipful and well beloved Brethren."

Brother J. Vroom notes on page 44, volume v, that in the records of the Orphan's Friend Lodge, No. 34, on the registry of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia, Ancient, until some time later than 1813, the three principal officers of the Lodge were styled Right Worshipful Master, Worshipful Senior Warden, and Worshipful Junior Warden. The writer suggested that this may be a local custom, derived through Massachusetts influence from Lodges established under Scottish Warrants.

Brother T. B. Whytehead, discussing Relics of the Grand Lodge at York (in volume xiii, 1900, page 107) Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, states that at a Communication of the Lodge held on November 30, 1778, "it was considered the title of Most Worshipful should be used in future to the Grand Master of all England and the Lodges granted in future under this Constitution the Masters of such Lodges be called Right Worshipful Master."

The expression has the prestige of long service as a term of respectful formality but is now of much more limited usefulness than formerly. In Samuel Pepys' famous Diary there is a pertinent entry under date of August 4, 1661, where it is recorded that a clergyman addressed his congregation as "Right Worshipful and dearly beloved This was in the Parish of "my Cousin Roger," who was the Member of Parliament for the town of Cambridge. Probably the presence of such persons of distinction was the reason for the expression employed by the preacher.

• WORSHIPFUL LODGE

See Worshipful

• WORSHIPFUL MASTER

See Worshipful

• WORSHIPFUL MASTER, DEATH OF

When the Master dies, the Senior Warden, or in his absence the Junior Warden, acts as Master in summoning the Lodge. The Senior Warden presides if present and, if not, then the Junior Warden. In England, by Rule 141 of the Grand Lodge, in case of the death or absence of the Master the chair is taken by the Immediate Past Master, or by the Senior Past Master of the Lodge, or by the Senior Past Master who subscribes to the Lodge. Failing all these, then the Senior Warden or, in his absence, the Junior Warden rules the Lodge. These last two may not, however, occupy the Master's chair and no initiation may take place or Degree be conferred under the English ruling unless a Master or Past Master in the Craft presides in the East.

• WORSHIPFUL, MOST

The prevailing title of a Grand Master and of a Grand Lodge.

• WORSHIPFUL, RIGHT

The prevailing title of the elective officers of a Grand Lodge below the Grand Master.

• WORSHIPFUL, VERY

A title used by certain of the Grand Officers of the Grand Lodge of England.

• WOUND, MASON'S

Nicolai, in the appendix to his Essay on the Accusations against the Templars, says that in a small dictionary, published at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the following definition is to be found. "Mason's Wound. It is an imaginary wound above the elbow, to represent a fracture of the arm occasioned by a fall from an elevated place.

The origin and esoteric meaning of the phrase have been lost. It was probably used as a test, or alluded to some legend which has now escaped memory. However, note also the Master's penalty in the Degree of Perfection.

• WREN, SIR CHRISTOPHER

One of the most distinguished architects of England was the son of Dr. Christopher Wren, Rector of East Knoyle in Wiltshire, and was born there October 20, 1632. He was entered as a Gentleman Commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, in his fourteenth year, being already distinguished for his mathematical knowledge. He has said to have invented, before this period, several astronomical and mathematical instruments. In 1645, he became a member of a scientific club connected with Gresham College, from which the Royal Society subsequently arose. In 1653, he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, and had already become known to the learned men of Europe for his various inventions.

In 1657, he removed permanently to London, having been elected Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College. During the political disturbances which led to the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Commonwealth, Wren, devoted to the pursuits of philosophy, appears to have kept away from the contests of party. Soon after the restoration of Charles II, he was appointed Savillian Professor at Oxford, one of the highest distinctions which could then have been conferred on a scientific man. During this time he was distinguished for his numerous contributions to astronomy and mathematics, and invented many curious machines, and discovered many methods for facilitating the calculations of the celestial bodies. Wren was not professionally educated as an architect, but from his early youth had devoted much time to its theoretic study. In 1665 he went to Paris for the purpose of studying the public buildings in that city. and the various styles which they presented.

He was induced to make this visit, and to enter into these investigations, because, in 1660, he had been appointed by King Charles II one of a Commission to superintend the restoration of the Cathedral of Saint Paul's, which had been much dilapidated during the times of the Commonwealth. But before the designs could be carried into execution, the great fire occurred which laid so great a part of London, including Saint Paul's, in ashes.

Wren was appointed assistant in 1661 to Sir John Denham, the Surveyor-General, and directed his attention to the restoration of the burnt portion of the city. His plans were, unfortunately for the good of London, not adopted, and he confined his attention to the rebuilding of particular edifices. In 1667, he was appointed the successor of Denham as Surveyor General and Chief Architect.

In this capacity he erected a large number of churches, the Royal Exchange, Greenwich Observatory, and many other public edifices. But his crowning work, the masterpiece that has given him his largest reputation, is the Cathedral of Saint Paul's, which was commenced in 1675 and finished in 1710. The original plan that was proposed by Wren was rejected through the ignorance of the authorities, and differed greatly from the one on which it has been constructed. Wren, however, superintended the erection as master of the work, and his tomb in the crypt of the Cathedral was appropriately inscribed with the words Si monumentum requiris, circumspice; that is, If you seek his monument, look around.

Wren was made a Knight in 1672, and in 1674 he married a daughter of Sir John Coghill. To a son by this marriage are we indebted for memoirs of the family of his father, published under the title of Parentalia.

After the death of his wife, he married a daughter off Viscount Fitzwilliam. In 1680, Wren was elected President of the Royal Society, and continued to a late period his labors on public edifices, building, among others, additions to Hampton Court and to Windsor Castle. After the death of Queen Anne, who was the last of his royal patrons, Wren was removed from his office of Surveyor-General, which he had held for a period of very nearly half a century. He passed the few remaining years of his life in serene retirement. He was found dead in his chair after dinner, on February 25, 1723, in the ninety-first year of his age.

Notwithstanding that much that has been said by Doctor Anderson and other writers of the eighteenth century, concerning Wren's connection with Freemasonry, is without historical confirmation, there can, Doctor Mackey believed, be no doubt that he tools a deep interest in the Speculative as well as in the Operative Order.

The Rev. J. W. Laughlin, in a lecture on the life of Wren, delivered in 1857, before the inhabitants of Saint Andrew's, Hnlbrn, and briefly reported in the Freemasons Magazine, said that "Wren was for eighteen years a member of the old Lodge of Saint Paul's, then held at the Goose and Gridiron, near the Cathedral, now the Lodge of Antiquity; and the records of that Lodge show that the maul and trowel used at the laying of the stone of Saint Paul's, together with a pair of carved mahogany candlesticks, were presented by Wren, and are now in possession of that Lodge." By the order of the Duke of Sussex, a plate was placed on the mallet or maul, which contained a statement of the fact.

C. W. King, who was not a Freemason, but has derived his statement from a source to which he does not refer (but which was perhaps Nicolai) makes, in his work on the Gnostics (page 176) the following statement, which is here quoted merely to show that the traditionary belief of Wren's connection with Speculative Freemasonry is not confined to the Craft. He says:

Another and a very important circumstance in this discussion must always be kept in view: our Freemasons (as at present organized in the form of a secret Society) derive their title from a mere accidental circumstances connected with their actual establishment. It was in the Common Hall of the London Gild of Freemasons (the trade) that their first meetings were held under Christopher Wren, president, in the time of the Commonwealth.

Their real object was political—the restoration of monarchy; hence the necessary exclusion of the public and the oaths of secrecy enjoined on the members. The presence of promoting architectures and the choice of the place where to hold their, meetings, suggested by the profession of their president, were no more than blinds to deceive the existing government.

Doctor Anderson, in the first edition of the Constitutions, makes but a slight reference to Wren, only calling him "the ingenious architect, Sir Christopher Wren." Doctor Mackey was almost afraid that this passing notice of him who has been called "the Vitruvius of England" must be` attributed to servility. George I was the stupid monarch who removed Wren from his office of Surveyor-General, and it would not do to be too diffuse with praise of one who had been marked by the disfavor of the king. But in 1727 George I died, and in his second edition, published in 1738, Doctor Anderson gives to Wren all the Masonic honors to which he claims that he was entitled.

It is from what Anderson has said in that work, that the Masonic writers of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, not requiring the records of authentic history, have drawn their views of the official relations of Siren to the Order. He first introduces Wren (page 101) as one of the Grand Wardens at the General Assembly held December 27, 1663, when the Earl of Saint Albans was Grand Master, and Sir John Denham, Deputy Grand Master. He says that in 1666 Wren was again a Grand Warden, under the Grand Mastership of the Earl of Rivers; but immediately afterward he calls him Deputy Wren, and continues to give him the title of Deputy Grand Master until 1685, when he says (page 106) that "the Lodges met, and elected Sir Christopher Wren Grand Master, who appointed Mr. Gabriel Cibber and Mr. Edmund Savage Grand Wardens; and while carrying on Saint Paul's he annually met those Brethren who could attend him, to keep up good old usages."

Brother Anderson (on page 107) makes the Duke of Richmond and Lennox Grand Master, and reduces Wren to the rank of a Deputy; but he says that in 1698 he was again chosen Grand Master, and as such "celebrated the Cape-stone" of Saint Paul's in 1708. "Some few years after this," he says, "Sir Christopher Wren neglected the office of Grand Master." Finally he says (on page 109) that in 1716 "the Lodges in London finding themselves neglected by Sir Christopher Wren," Freemasonry was revived under a new Grand Master. Some excuse for the aged architect's neglect might have been found in the fact that he was then eighty-five years of age, and had been long removed from his public office of Surveyor-General. Brother Noorthouek is more considerate. Speaking of the placing of the last stone on the top of Saint Paul's—which, notwithstanding the statement of Doctor Anderson, was done, not by Wren, but by his son—he says (Constitutions, page 204): The age and infirmities of the Grand Master, which prevented his attendance on this solemn occasion, confined him afterwards to great retirement; so that the Lodges suffered from many of his usual presence in visiting and regulating their meetings, and were reduced to a small number.

Brother Noorthouck, however, repeats substantially the statements of Doctor Anderson in reference to Wren's Grand Mastership. How much of these statements can be authenticated by history is a question that must be decided only by more extensive investigations of documents not yet in possession of the Craft. Findel says in his History (page 127) that Doctor Anderson, having been commissioned in 1735 by the Grand Lodge to make a list of the ancient Patrons of the Freemasons, so as to afford something like a historical basis, "transformed the former Patrons into Grand Mastefs, and the Masters and Superintendents into Grand Wardens and the like, which were unknown until the year 1717." Of this there can be no doubt; but there is other evidence that Wren was a Freemason. In Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire (page 277) a manuscript in the library of the Royal Society, Halliwell finds and cites, in his Early History of Freemasonry in England (page 46) the following passage: This day, May the 15th, being Monday, 1691, after Rogation Sunday, is a great convention at Saint Paul's Church of the Fraternity of the Accepted (the word Free was first written, then the pen drawn through it and the word Accepted written over it) Seasons, where Sir Christopher Wren is to be adopted a brothers and Sir Henry Goodrie of the Tower, and divers others. There have been Kings that have been of this sodality.

If this statement be true—and we have no reason to doubt it, from Aubrey's general antiquarian accuracy—Doctor Anderson is incorrect in making him a Grand Master in 1685, six years before he was initiated as a Freemason. The true version of the story probably is this: Wren was a great architect—the greatest at the time in England. As such he received the appointment of Deputy Surveyor-General under Denham, and subsequently, on Ocnham's death, of Surveyor-General. He thus became invested, by virtue of his office, with the duty of superintending the construction of public buildings.

The most important of these was Saint Paul's Cathedral, the building of which he directed in person, and with so much energy that the parsimonious Duchess of Marlborough, when contrasting the charges of her own architect with the scant remuneration of Wren, observed that "he was content to be dragged up in a basket three or four times a week to the top of Saint Paul's, and at great hazard, for £200 a year."

All this brought him into close connection with the Gild of Freemasons, of which he naturally became the patron, and subsequently he was by initiation adopted into the modality Wren was, in fact, what the Medieval Masons called Magister Operis, or Master of the Work. Doctor James Anderson, writing for a purpose naturally transformed this title into that of Grand Master—an office supposed to be unknown until the year 1717. Aubrey's authority, in Doctor Maelsey's opinion, sufficiently establishes the fact that Wren has a Freemason, and the events of his life prove his attachment to the profession.

Whether Sir Christopher Wren was or not a member of the Fraternity has long been debated with lively interest. The foregoing statement by Doctor Mackey gives the principal facts and we may note that two newspapers announced his funeral, Lost boy (No. 5245, March 2-5, 1793) and the British Journal (No. 25, March 9, 1723).

Both of them allude to Wren as "that worthy Freemason." Brother Christopher Wren, Jr., the son of Sir Christopher Wren, was Master of the famous Lodge of Antiquity in 1729. The subject is discussed in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemason also by Sir John S. Cockburn, Masonic Record, March, 1923, in Square and Compass, September, 1923, and many other journals, as well as in Records of Antiquity Lodge, volume i, by Brother W. H. Rylands, and volume ii, by Captain C. W. Firebrace, there is much additional and valuable firsthand information favoring Wren's active connection with the Fraternity, some items personally checked by us at the Lodge itself.

Brother K. R. H. Mackenzie in the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia says,

There can be little doubt that Wren took a deep interest in speculative as well as operative Masonry (see Book of Constitutions) and that he was an eminent Member of the Craft cannot be doubted, but the dates respecting Wren's initiation are vague and unsatisfactory, none of the authorities agreeing. It would seem certain, however, that for many years he was a member of the old Lodge of Saint Paul's, meeting at the (Bose and gridiron, in Saint Paul's Churchyard.

Brother Robert F. Gould (History of Freemasonry, me ii, page 55) says, The popular belief that Wren was a Freemason, though hitherto unchallenged, and supported by a great weight of authority, is, in my judgment, unsustained by any basis of well-attested fact. The admission of the great architect—at any period of his life—into the Masonic fraternity, seems to me a mere figment of the imagination, but it may at least he confidently asserted, that it cannot be proved to be a reality.

Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, Renning's Cyclopedia of Freemasonry, says, In Freemasonry it has been general for many years to credit Sir Christopher Wren with every thing great and good before the " Revival," but on very slender evidence. He is said to have been a member of the Lodge of Antiquity for many years; "and the maul and trowel used at the laving of the stone of Saint Paul's, with a pair of carved mahogany candlesticks, were presented " by hind and are in the possession of the Lodge.

Doctor Anderson chronicles him as Grand Master in 16S5; but according to a manuscript of Aubrey's in the Royal Society, he was not admitted a Brother Freemason until 1691. Unfortunately, the early records of the celebrated Lodge of—Antiquity have been lost or destroyed, so there is literally nothing certain as to Wren's Masonic career, what little has been circulated is contradictory. It is, of course, more than likely he took an active part in Freemasonry, though he was not a member of the Masons Company; but as the records are wanting, it is idle to speculate, and absurd to credit to his labors on behalf of our Society what there is not a tittle of evidence to prove.

Brother Hawkins, an editor of this work, also prepared for the Concise Cyclopedia of freemasonry, the following summary of the arguments on both sides of the question at issue: Those who contend that he was not a Freemason reply as follows:

1. No reference to the convention mentioned by Aubrey has yet been discovered elsewhere, and it remains uncertain whether it ever was held and whether the proposed adoption of the illustrious architect took place or not; also it is inconsistent with the dates given in the 1738 Constitutions.

2. In the Constitutions of 1723, he is only described as lithe ingenious architect," without any hint of his being a Freemason.

3. It is incredible that Doctor Anderson, when compiling the 1723 Constitutions, should have been ignorant of the details of Wren's Masonic career which he gave so from in 1735; moreover, he has claimed as Grand Masters are most all distinguished men from Adam downwards, though there was no such office as Grand Master until 1117, and his dates are inconsistent with that given by Aubrey.

4. Subsequent writers all quoted from the 1738 Constitutions and therefore their evidence is worth no more than Doctor Anderson's, and no such records as Preston refers to can now be found, nor can the legendary history of the candlesticks and the mallet be authenticated. Such are the arguments for and against Wren's connection with the Craft; those who claim him as a Freemason must reconcile as best they can the conflicting dates given by Aubrey and Anderson: and those who regard his membership as equally a fable with his Grand Mastership must somehow explain away the contemporary evidence of the two newspapers that in the year of his death called him ' ' that worthy Freemason."

• WREN'S MANUSCRIPT

On the Brotttne's Manuscript, owned by Brother W. J. Hughan, there is an endorsement stating that the original was found amongst the papers of Sir Christopher Ntren. Brother Hughan has tried to trace this further through the relatives of Brother S. Browne but was unsuccessful.

• WRESTLE

A Degree sometimes called the Mark a Link, or Wrestle. It was formerly connected with the Mark Degree in England. Its ceremonies were founded on the passage in Genesis xxxii,

• WRIGHT, REV. JAMES, D.D.

Grand Chaplain of ,Scotland, author of 21 Recommendation of Brotherly Love, 1786.

• WRITING

The law Which forbids a Freemason to commit to writing the esoteric parts of the ritual has been exemplified in some English and American Lodges by a peculiar ceremony; but the usage is not universal. The Druids had a similar rule; and we are told that they, in keeping their records, used the letters of the Greek alphabet, so that they might be unintelligible to those not authorized to read them.

• WYKEHAM, WILLIAM OF

Bishop of Winchester. Born at Wykeham, in Hampshire, in 1324, and died in 1404. He was eminent both as an ecclesiastic and statesman. In 1359, before he reached the episcopate, Edward III appointed him Surveyor of the Works at Windsor, which Castle he rebuilt. In his Warrant or Commission, he was invested with power "to appoint a11 workmen, to provide materials, and to order everything relating to building and repairs."

He was, in fact, what the old manuscript Constitutions call the Lord, under whom were the Master Masons. Doctor Anderson says that he was at the head of four hundred Freemasons (Constitutions, 1738, page 70) was Master of Work under Edward III, and Grand Master under Richard II (Constitutions, page 72). And the freemasons Magazine (August, 1796) styles him "one of the brightest ornaments that Freemasonry has ever boasted." In this there is, of course, a mixture of myth and history. Wylseham was an architect as well as a bishop, and superintended the building of many public edifices in England in the fourteenth century, being a distinguished example of the connection so common in Medieval times between the ecclesiastics and the Freemasons.

• WYCLIF AS ANTI-MASON

John Wyclif was born in 1320, and died in 1384. His name is spelled in a score of forms; the one here used was adopted by the Wyelif Society. He was a power in his own day and has been famous since, because he was the great English scholar of his period; because he opposed the financial rapacity of the Church; because he sent out "humble men" to preach to the rank and file not in Latin but in their own language; because he made two translations of the Bible in English, the "literal" one (from the Latin Vulgate) in 1382 (circa), the "free" translation in a version published after his death in 1395; because his example inspired John Hus of Bohemia; and because he stood up manfully against the wrath of the Pope for having made "the Bible available for the vulgar"—that is, common people.

But Wyclif held as tenaciously as any other Fourteenth Century theologian to the notion that work is a curse and that workmen belong to the lower orders, are less than men, and have no rights as compared with "the gentry," therefore it infuriated him when Freemasons "congregated" to demand better wages and against them he let loose with the counterblast quoted below. Other clergymen afterwards were to follow him; indeed, clerical antipathy to Freemasonry has never ceased in some quarters. The fact that Wyclif and his Lollard movement ("the reformation before the Reformation") were contemporary with the first permanent Lodges of Freemasons is of significance in the history of the Craft. The paragraph herewith is from page 332, in Cap. XXVIII, entitled "The Grete Sentens of Curs," in Vol. III, of Selected English Works, edited by T. Arnold; 1871.

"Able false conspirators ben cursed of God and man. Conspirators ben tho that by eomyn assent don wrong or ony falsenesse to here neighboris. Here it semeth openly that able freris, worldly elerkis, and possessioneris, ben openly cursed; for thei eonspiren falsely aghenst the gospel and Christis pore prestis.

"Also alle newe fraternytes or gildis maad of men semen openly to renne in in this curs. For thei conspiren many false errours aghenst the comyn fratero nyte of Crist, that alle Cristene men token in here cristendom, and aghenst eomyn eharite and comyn profit of Cristene men. And thereto thei conspiren to bere up eche other, ye, in wrong, and oppresse othere men in here right bi here witt and power. And alle the goodness that is in these gildes eche man owith for to do bi corny fraternyte of Cristendom, bi Goddis eomaundement . . . Also men of sutel craft, as fre masons and othere, semen openly cursed bi this sentence. For thei conspiren togidere that no man of here craft what take lesse on a day than thei setten though he schulde bi good conscience take moche lesse, and that noon of hem schal make sade trewe werk to lette othere mennus wynnyng of the craft, and that non of hem schal do ought but only hewe stone, though he myght profit his maistir twenti pound bit o daies werk bi leggyng on a wal without en harm of penyng himself. See how this wickid peple conspireth aghenst treuthe and charity and comyn profit of the lond and ponyschith hem that helpen frely here neigheboris!"

• WYOMING

The first Masonic meeting held in Wyoming was of an informal nature and took place on the top of Independence Roek, Natrona County, on July 4,1862, at sunset. Several trains of immigrants had arrived and it was decided by about twenty Brethren to hold a celebration to commemorate the day and event. On December 15, 1874, the Masters and Wardens of Cheyenne, No. 16; Wyoming, No. 28; Laramie, No. 18, and Evanston, No. 24, adopted a Constitution and Grand Officers were elected and installed. On October 12, 1875, the first Annual Grand Communication of the Grand Lodge of Wyoming was held at Laramie. The Grand Lodge of Colorado chartered Cheyenne Lodge, No. 1G, of Cheyenne, October 7, 1868. Wyoming Lodge, No. 28, at South Pass City, was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Nebraska, June 23, 1870. Lararnie Lodge No. 18, Laramie City, was granted a Charter on September 28, 1870, by the Grand Lodge of Colorado while also issued a Charter on September 30, 1874, to Evanston Lodge No. 24, at Evanston.

In his report to the Triennial Convocation of the General Grand Chapter held on September 19, 1871, the General Grand High Priest, Companion Joseph E. Dyas, stated that he had issued a Dispensation to Wyoming Chapter, No. 1. A Dispensation for the formation of a Grand Chapter of Wyoming was signed on April 6, 1909, by Companion Dyas who also approved the Constitution and By-laws on April 19. Eight Chapters with Charters and two working under Dispensations existed in Wyoming at the time.

The officers of the General Grand Chapter gave a Dispensation to a Council at Cheyenne on June 24, 1895, but it was annulled October 11, 1897. Other Dispensations were granted and after a time annulled and not until 1918 was a Charter issued, when Wyoming, No. 1, at Casper, having a Dispensation dated May 1, 1918, was chartered five months later on September 30. Laramie, No. 2, at Laramie City, received a Dispensation, November 1, 1920, and a Charter September 27, 1921. Sheridan, No. 3, at Sheridan received a Dispensation, December 16, 1922, and a Charter September 9, 1924.

Wyoming Commandery, No. 1, worked under Dispensation issued March 15, 1873, until it was given a Charter on December 3, 1874. Three subordinate Commanderies, Wyoming, No. 1; Ivanhoe, No. 2, and Immanuel, No. 3, were in existence when the Grand Commandery of Wisconsin was organized by authority of the Grand Encampment on September 23, 1886. It was instituted on March 8, 1888.

On October 24, 1901, four Bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, were chartered at Cheyenne, namely, Wyoming Consistory, No. 1; Cheyenne Council of Kadoshj No. 1; Albert Pike Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 2, and Rocky Mountain Lodge of Perfection, No. 3.

• WYSEACRE

The Leland Manuscript, referring to Pythagoras, says that "wynnynge entraunee yn al Lodges of Maconnes, he lerned muche and retournedde and woned yn Grecia Magna wachsynge, and beeommynge a mightye wyseaere." The word wiseaere, which now means a dunce or a silly person, who may pretend to great wisdom, is a corruption of the German wetssager, and originally signified a wise sayer or philosopher, in which sense it is used in the passage cited.

See also

• En:Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
• En:Albert Mackey
• Albert Mackey
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