En: MACKEY - P

MACKEY – P

Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

TEXT WIRD FORMATIERT

• P

The sixteenth letter of the English and Greek alphabets, and the seventeenth of the Hebrew, in which last-mentioned language its numerical value is 80, is formed thus 9, signifying a mouth in the Phenician. The sacred name of God associated with this letter is in Hebrew , Phodeh or Redeemer.

• PACHACAMAC

The Peruvian name for the Creator and Ruler of the universe.

• PAEZ, JOSE ANTONIO

Founder of the Venezuelan Republic, was born of Indian parentage near Acarigua, June 13, 1790, prominent in the struggle for independence against Spain from 1810 to 1823 and in 1829 effected the secession of Venezuela from the Republic of Colombia and became its first president, 1830 to 1834, serving again in 1839 to 1843, dictator in 1846. Headed a revolution and was imprisoned but released in 1858 and in 1860 was Minister to the United States. General Paez was also first Grand Master of Venezuela and on May 1, 1840, he became the first Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, of his country. He died in New York, May 6, 1873. In 1925 the representative at Washington of the Venezuelan Department of State presented the sword of Brother Paez to General John J. Pershing, also a member of the Craft and Commander of the American Army during the World War.

• PAGANIS, HUGO DE

The Latinized form of the name of Hugh de Payens, the first Grand Master of the Templars (see Payens).

• PAGANISM

A general appellation for the religious worship of the whole human race, except of that portion which has embraced Christianity, Judaism, or Mohammedanism. Its interest to the Masonic student arises from the fact that its principal development was the ancient mythology, in whose traditions and mysteries are to be found many interesting analogies with the Masonic system (see Dispensations of Religion).

• PAINE, THOMAS

A political writer of eminence during the Revolutionary War in America. He greatly injured his reputation by his attacks on the Christian religion. He was not a Freemason, but wrote An Essay on the Origin of Freemasonry, with no other knowledge of the Institution than that derived from the writings of Smith and Dodd, and the very questionable authority of Prichard's Masonry Dissected. He sought to trace Freemasonry to the Celtic Druids. For one so little acquainted with his subject, he has treated it with considerable ingenuity. Paine was born in England in 1737, and died in New York, in 1809. Paine's acquaintance with prominent Freemasons on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean has doubtless had much to do with the claim often made for his membership in the Craft.

A meeting with Brother Franklin in London obtained for him introductions to the leaders in the Colonies and he sailed there in 1774 where he became editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette. He published, 1776, Common Sense, an argument for a republic. Then he served on the staff of General Greene and wrote pamphlets entitled the Crisis, his opening words, "These are the times that try men's souls" sounding powerfully then and later in days of turmoil.

In England after the war he was indicted for treason, escaping to France, and there narrowly escaped the guillotine, spending ten months in prison. Then he attacked Washington bitterly, came to the United States, but while his services to the country were gratefully remembered, his blunt discourtesy to the President and other old friends could not be forgotten. He was buried at New Rochelle, hut in 1819 William Cobbett took his body to England. Moncure D. Conway wrote a biography of him which says that the preface to his essay on Freemasonry was probably written by his devoted friend, Colonel John Fellows.

PALESTlNE

called also the Holy Land on account of the sacred character of the events that have occurred there, is situated on the coast of the Mediterranean, stretching from Lebanon south to the borders of Egypt, and from the thirty-fourth to the thirty-ninth degrees of longitude. It was conquered from the Canaanites by the Hebrews under Joshua 1450 years B.C. They divided it into twelve Confederate States according to the Tribes. Saul united it into one kingdom, and David enlarged its territories. In 975 B.C., it was divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judea, the latter consisting of the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and the former of the rest of the Tribes. About 740 B.C., both kingdoms were subdued by the Persians and Babylonians, and after the captivity only the two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned to rebuild the Temple. With Palestine, or the Holy Land, the mythical, if not the authentic, history of Freemasonry has been closely connected.

There stood, at one time, the Temple of Solomon, to which some writers have traced the origin of the Masonic Order; there fought the Crusaders, among whom other writers have sought, with equal boldness, to find the cradle of the Fraternity; there certainly the Order of the Templars was instituted, whose subsequent history has been closely mingled with that of Freemasonry; and there occurred nearly all the events of sacred history that, with the places where they were enacted, have been adopted as important Masonic symbols.

PALESTINE, EXPLORATlONS IN

The desire to obtain an accurate knowledge of the archeology of Palestine, gave rise in 1866 to an association, which was permanently organized in London, as the Palestine Ezploration Fund, with the Queen as the chief patron, and a long list of the nobility and the most distinguished gentlemen in the kingdom, added to which followed the Grand Lodge of England and forty-two subordinate and provincial Grand Lodges and Chapters- Early in the year 1867 the Committee began the work of examination, by mining in and about the various points which had been determined upon by a former survey as essential to a proper understanding of the ancient city, which had been covered up by debris from age to age, so that the present profiles of the ground, in every direction, were totally different from what they were in the days of David and Solomon, or even in the time of Christ- Lieutenant Charles Warren, R. E., as he then was, later Lieut.-General Sir Charles Warren, G.M.C.M, K.C.B, F.R.S., was sent out with authority to act as circumstances might demand, and as the delicacy and the importance of the enterprise required.

He arrived in Jerusalem February 17, 1867, and continued his labors of excavating in many parts of the city, with some interruptions, until 1871, when he returned to England. During his operations, he kept the Society in London constantly informed of the progress of the work in which he and his associates were so zealously engaged, in a majority of eases at the imminent risk of their lives and always that of their health.

The result of these labors has been a vast accumulation of facts in relation to the topography of the holy city which throw much light on its archaeology. A branch of the Society has been established in the United States of America, and continued in successful operation.

PALESTINE, KNIGHT OF

See Knight of Palestine

PALESTINE, KNIGHT OF SAINT JOHN OF

See Knight of Saint John of Palestine

PALESTINE, KNIGHTS OFSee Marconis, also Memphis, Rite of

PALESTINE, ORDER OF

Mentioned by Baron de Tschoudy, and said to have been the fountain whence the Chevalier Ramsay obtained the information for the regulation of his system.

PALLA

An altar-cloth, also a canopy borne over the head of royalty in Oriental lands.

PALLADIA ANDREA

Such reference books as are most often consuited in public libraries say little more about Andrea Palladio than that he was an Italian architect, of Venice, born in 1518, died in 1580, that he was one of the creators of the Italian, or neo-Classical style, that he wrote treatises on his art, and that he seas called "the modern Vitruvius." That would be a pitiably weak description of Palladio in the eyes of any English Mason who had read The First & Chief; Grounds of Architecture, the first book printed in England on architecture, by John Shute, who had gone to Venice in the 1540's and there for two or three years had studied "the glories of the new Italian architecture" at first hand; or after Inigo Jones, about 1600, came back to his King after a similar journey of study, and introduced the new style into England; for Palladio became a vast enthusiasm there, almost a cult, and hundreds of small clubs of amateur architects met to study the art of I this great modern Master, who in due time was to be Sir Christopher Wren's guiding inspiration when after the London fire in 1666 he designed not only St. Paul's but more than a hundred other buildings, a few of them in America.

That ferment of interest in the Italian, or, as it was popularly called, Classical style, may well have helped to prepare the way for the renaissance of Speculative Freemasonry, and Palladion as the original source of that interest.

Dr. James Anderson "wrote" the 1723 and 1738 editions of the Book of Constitutions for the Mother Grand Lodge of 1717 but it is impossible to discover who was responsible for the materials in either; perhaps many Brethren were; whoever it was he (or they) makes it clear in the 1738 edition that Freemasonry mas in the Craft's mind, twenty-one years after the formation of Grand Lodge, still identified closely with architectures for he goes out of his way to remark that, "In the last Reign sundry of the 50 new Churches in the Suburbs of London were built in a fine Stile upon the Parliamentary Fund, particularly the b beautiful St. Mary be Strand." The "fine stile" was the Palladian; and in another connection it is made clear that the Freemasons at the time not only did not guess that the old Operatives had been builders of Gothic, but even dismissed Gothic as a barbarous thing.

This enthusiasm for the art of Palladio extended even into the Lodges, a representative instance being given in the records of that remarkable Lodge, The Old Kings' Arms Lodge, I\'o. 28, which was warranted in 1725; in a Minute for August 1, 1737, it is recorded: "Passed that a part of the Palladio's Architecture be read instead of the Laws or Constitutions." In the Inventory of the same Lodge is an entry dated in 1737: " 1st book of Palladio's Architecture, in English"; in 1739: "Three remaining books of Palladio's Architecture. "

PALLADIC FREEMASONRY

The title given to the Order of the Seven Sages and the Order of the Palladium (see Palladium, Order of the).

PALLADIUM OF LADIES

See Companions of Penelope

PALLADIUM, ORDER OF THE

An androgynous society, both sexes, of Masonic adoption, established, says Ragon, at Paris in 1737. It made great pretensions to high antiquity, claiming that it had its origin in the instructions brought by Pythagoras from Egypt into Greece, and having fallen into decay after the decline of the Roman Empire, it was revived in 1637 by Fenelon, Archbishop of Canbray; all of which is altogether mythical. Fenelon was not born until 1651. It was a very moral society, consisting of two Degrees:

1. Adelph; 
2. Companion of Ulysses. 
When a female took the Second Degree, she was called a Companion of Penelope.

PALM AND SHELL, ORIENTAL ORDER OF THE

The object of the Masonic Holy Land League, in whose membership the Pilgrim Knights of the Palm and Shell were enrolled, was to encourage researches commenced in 1863 under the leadership of Brother Rob Morris in the Holy Land. These investigations into the traditions and practices of the ancient Craft in the East, were supported in 1867 by contributions amounting to $10,000 and an organization was effected of Master Masons. A ritual was prepared to include various signs, words and ceremonies, obtained by Doctor Morris from Eastern Freemasons.

The instruction was divided into the following parts: Preliminary, Covenanting, Drama, Means of Recognition, and a funeral ceremony for Pilgrim Knights. Rev. Henry R. Coleman, of Kentucky, became Supreme Chancellor of the Order and in 1906 he published at Louisville, for the Society, a guide to the ceremonies and lectures entitled the Pilgrim Knight. Among other items of interest he describes the formation of a Lodge, the Royal Solomon, at Jerusalem, conditionally promoted by Doctor Morris in 1868, but actually by a Warrant from the Grand Lodge of Canada, William Mercer Wilson, Grand Master, and attested by Thomas White, Jr., Deputy Grand Master, on February 17, 1873; the organizing meeting occurring in the quarries under Jerusalem on May 7, 1873.

Brother Coleman says: "Under this authority, a delegate went from the United States to Jerusalem and calling together a competent number of those named in the Warrant, and others, the Lodge was regularly and constitutionally organized and has had many years of prosperous existence up to the issuance of this volume." The first Degree was conferred at the Mediterranean Hotel, afterwards a Lodge-room was established near the Joppa Gate.

PALMER

From the Latin word palmifer, meaning a palm-bearer. A name given in the time of the Crusades to a pilgrim, who, coming back from the holy war after having accomplished his vow of pilgrimage, exhibited upon his return home a branch of palm bound round his staff in token of it.

PALMER, HENRY L.

Born at Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania October 18, 1819, and died at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 7, 1909. Served as Representative and Senator in Wisconsin Legislature, was President of School Board, City Attorney, also County Judge of Probate for several years and resigned to become President of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee. Raised in Evening Star Lodge, No. 75, at West Troy, New York, in 1841, he affiliated with Tracy Lodge, now Wisconsin Lodge, No. 13, Milwaukee, in 1849, elected Worshipful Master in 1851, serving for four years, and was again chosen as Worshipful Master for 1865 and in 1867.

He officiated as Grand Master in 1852-3, and 1871-2. In 1846 he was exalted in Apollo Chapter, No. 48, at Troy, New York, and was a charter member of Wisconsin Chapter, No. 7, Royal Arch Masons, serving as High Priest for several years, and in 1858-9 was Grand High Priest of Wisconsin. Master of Wisconsin Council of Royal and Select Masters for some years, he was in 1863-4 Grand Master of the Grand Council. In Apollo Commandery, No. 15, at Troy, New York, he was knighted in 1847 and in 1850 assisted in organizing Wisconsin Commandery, No. 1, becoming Eminent Commander in 1853 and served nine successive years; then for seven successive years beginning with 1859 he was Grand Commander of Wisconsin: and at Columbus, Ohio, in September, 1865, he was elected and served for the constitutional term as Grand Master of the Grand Encampment. Receiving the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in 1863, including the honorary thirty-third grade on August 3, at the introduction of the Rite into Wisconsin, he was on October 20, 1864, elected and crowned an Active Member of the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction and in 1879 was chosen as the Most Puissant Sovereign Grand Commander, resigning shortly before his death, and was succeeded by Brother Samuel C. Lawrence.

PALSER PLATES

Thomas Palser, Surrey Side, Westminster Bridge, London, England, published a set of seven engravings, 1809-12, featuring Masonic ceremonies. These imitated a set issued in France, 1745.

PANTACLE

The pentalpha of Pythagoras is so called in the symbolism of High Magic and the Hermetic Philosophy (see Pentalpha).

PANTHEISM

A speculative system, which, spiritually considered, identifies the universe with God, and, in the material form, God with the universe. Material Pantheism is subject to the criticism, if not to the accusation of being atheistic. Pantheism is as aged as religion and was the system of worship in India, as it was in Greece. Giordano Brunc was burned for his pantheistic opinions at Rome in 1600.

PANTHEISTIC BROTHERHOOD

Described by John Toland, in his Pantheisticon, as having a strong resemblance to Freemasonry. The Soeratic Lodge in Germany, based on the Brotherhood, was of short duration.

PANTHEISTICON

See Toland, John

PAPWORTH MANUSCRIPT

A manuscript in the possession of Wyatt Papworth, of London, who purchased it from a bookseller of that city in 1860. As some of the watermarks of the paper on which it is written bear the initials G. R., with a crown as a watermark, it is evident that the manuscript cannot be older than 1714, that being the year in which the first of the Georges ascended the throne. It is most probably of a still more recent date, perhaps 1720.

The Rev. A. F. A. Woodford has thus described its appearance: "The scroll was written originally on pages of foolscap size, which were then joined into a continuous roll, and afterwards, probably for greater convenience, the pages were again separated by Cutting them, and it now forms a book, containing twenty-four folios, served together in a light-brown paper cover. The text is of a bold character, but written so irregularly that there are few consecutive pages which have the same number of lines, the average being about seventeen to the page." The manuscript is not complete, three or four of the concluding charges being omitted, although some one has written, in a hand different from that of the text, the word Finis at the bottom of the last page. The manuscript appears to have been simply a copy, in a little less antiquated language, of some older Constitution. It has been published by Brother Hughan (1872) in his Old Charges of the British Free masons.

PAPYRUS

"The papyrus leaf," says J. W. Simons, in his Egyptian Symbols, "is that plant Which formed tablets and books, and forms the first letter of the name of the only eternal and all-powerful god of Egypt, Amen, who in the beginning of things created the world," whose name signified occult or hidden The Hebrew word, owe, which signifies a leaf, and to inscribe on tablets forms, olm, meaning the antique origin of things, obscure time, hidden eternity. The Turin Funeral Papyrus is a book published by Doctor lepsius in original character, but translated by Doctor Birch. This Book of the Dead is invaluable as containing the true philosophic belief of the Egyptians respecting the resurrection and immortality. The manuscript has been gathered from portions which it was obligatory to bury with the dead. The excavations of mummies in Egypt have been fruitful in furnishing the entire work.

PARACELSUS

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus de Hohenheim, as he styled himself, was born in Germany in 1493, and died in 1541. He devoted his youth to the study and practice of astrology, alchemy, and magic, and passed many years of his life in traveling over Europe and acquiring information in medicine, of which he proclaimed himself to be the monarch. Brother Mackey says that he was, perhaps, the most distinguished charlatan who ever made a figure in the world. Certainly his writings, those accredited to him, at least, show us a puzzling personality, superstitious yet methodical, crude in some respects but lucid of statements, a reformer in the rough. The followers of his school were called Paracelststs, and they continued for more than a century after the death of their master to influence the schools of Germany. Much of the Cabalistic and mystical science of Paracelsus was incorporated into Hermetic Freemasonry by the founders of the advanced Degrees.

PARACELSUS, SUBLIME

A Degree to be found in the manuscript collection of Peuvret.

PARAGUAY

A republic of South America. A Lodge authorized by the Grand Orient of Brazil was at work in 1881 at Paraguay. In 1893 the Grand Orient of Paraguay was founded and in 1923 it exercised control over ten Lodges. The Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was founded at Asuncion in 1870 and is quite separate and distinct from the Grand Orient.1 No more information about Masonic development in Paraguay is available. Indeed, Brother Oliver Days Street says in his Report on Correspondence made to the Grand Lodge of Alabama in 1922: "We haves sought in vain to get into communication with these Grand Bodies or with some of their leading members. We are consequently unable to give many particulars."

PARALLEL LINES

In every well-regulated Lodge there is found a point within a circle, which circle is imboridered by two perpendicular parallel lines. These lines are representative of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, the two great patrons of Freemasonry to whom our Lodges are dedicated, and who are said to have been "perfect parallels in Christianity as well as Freemasonry" In those English Lodges which have adopted the Union System established by the Grand Lodge of England in 1813. and where the dedication is "to God ad his service," the lines parallel represent Moses and Solomon. As a symbol, the parallel lines are not o be found in the earlier instructions of Freemasonry. Though Oliver defines the symbol on the authority of what he calls the Old Lectures, it is not to be found , any anterior to Preston, and even he only refers to ne parallelism of the two Saints John.

PARIKCHAI, AGROUCHADA

An occult scientific work of the Brahmans. According to a work my Louis Jacolliot, 1884, the Fakirs produced phelomena at will with superior intervention or else with shrewd charlatanism: processes that were Known to the Egyptians and Jewish Cabalists. The loetrines are those known to the Alexandrian school, no the Gauls, and as well to the Christians. In the division of the Cabala, the first treated of the History the Genesis or Creation, and taught the science of culture; the second, or Mereaba, of the History of he Chariot, and contained a treatise on theology. Here were three Degrees of initiation among the Brahmans:

1. According to selection, the candidate became L Grihasta, a Pourohita or Fakir, or in twenty years a Guru.

2. A Sannyassis or Cenobite and Vanaprasthas, find lived in the Temple. 
3. A Sannyassis-Nirvany or Naked Cenobite.

Those of the third Degree were visible only once in five years, appearing in a column of light created by themselves, at midnight, and on a stand in the center of a great tank. Strange sounds and terrific shrieks ere heard as they were gazed upon as demigods, surrounded by thousands of Hindus. The government was by a Supreme Council of seventy Brahmans, over seventy years of age, selected from the Nirvany, and chosen to see enforced the Law of the Lotus. The Supreme Chief, or Brahmatna, was required to be saver eighty years of age, and was looked upon as Immortal by the populace. This Pontiff resided in Bn immense palace surrounded by twenty-one walls.

The primitive holy word composed of the three otters A. U. M., says Brother C. T. McClenachan, comprises the Vedic trinity, signifying Creation, Preservation, and Transformation, and symbolizes all the initiatory secrets of the occult sciences. By some it has been taught that the Honover, or primordial germ, as defined in the Avesta, existed before all else (also see Manou, Book xi, Sloca 265).

The following unexplained magical words were always inscribed in two triangles: L'om. L'rhomsh'hrum. Shorim. Ramaya- Nahama. He who possessed the word greater than the A. U. M. was deemed next to Brahma. The word was transmitted in a sealed box.

The Hindu triad, of which in later times Om is the mystic name, represents the union of the three gods, namely, a, Vishnu; u, Siva, m, Brahma. It may also be typical of the three Vedas. Om appears first in the Upanishads as a mystical monosyllable, and is thus set forth as the object of profound meditation. It is usually called pranava, more rarely aksharam. The Buddhists use Om at the beginning of their Vidya Shad-akshari or mystical formulary in six Syllables; namely, Om mani pad me hum (see Pitris Indische Mysterien, also 0m and Aum).

PARIS, CONGRESSES OF

Three important Masonic Congresses have been held in the city of Paris. The first was convened by the Rite of Philalethes in 1785, that by a concourse of intelligent Freemasons of all rites and countries, and by a comparison of oral and written traditions, light might be educed on the most essential subjects of Masonic science, and on the nature, origin, and historic application as well as the actual state of the Institution. Savalette de Lauges was elected President. It closed after a protracted session of three months, without producing any practical result. The second was called in 1787, as a continuation of the former, and closed with precisely the same negative result. The third was assembled in 1855, by Prince Murat, for the purpose of effecting various reforms in the Masonic system. At this Congress, ten propositions, some of them highly important, were introduced, and their adoption recommended to the Grand Lodges of the world. But the influence of this Congress has not been more successful than that of its predecessors.

PARIS CONSTITUTIONS

A copy of these Constitutions, said to have been adopted in the thirteenth century, will be found in G. P. Depping's Collection de Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France (Paris, 1837). A part of this work contains the Réglements sur les arts et métiers de Paris, rédiges au 13me siéclge et connus sous le nom de livre des métiers d'Etienne Boileau. This is a book of the trades and their regulations, and treats of the masons, stonecutters, plasterers, and mortar-makers, and, as Steinbrenner (Origin and History of Masonry, page 104) says, "is interesting, not only as exhibiting the peculiar usages and customs of the Craft at that early period, but as showing the connection which existed between the laws and regulations of the French Masons and those of the Steinmetzen of Germany and the Masons of England."

A translation of the Paris Constitutions was published in the Freemasons Magazine (Boston, 1863, page 201). In the year 1743, the "English Grand Lodge of France" published, in Paris, a series of Statutes, taken principally from Anderson's work of the editions of 1723 and 1738. It consisted of twenty articles, and bore the title of General Regulations taken from the Minutes of the Lodges, for the use of the French Lodges, together with the alterations adopted at the General Assembly of the Grand Lodge, December 1I, 1745, to serve as a rule of action for the said kingdom. A copy Of this document, says Findel, was translated into German, with annotations, and published in 1856 in the Zeitschrift Jur Freimaurer of Altenberg.

PARLIAMENTARY LAW

Parliamentary Law, or the Lex Parliamentaria, is that code originally framed for the government of the Parliament of Great Britain in the transaction of its business, and subsequently adopted, with necessary modifications, by the Congress of the United States. But what was found requisite for the regulation of public bodies, that order might be secured and the rights of all be respected, has been found equally necessary in private societies. Indeed, no association of men could meet together for the discussion of any subject, with the slightest probability of ever coming to a conclusion, unless its debates were regulated by certain and acknowledged rules.

The rules thus adopted for its government are called its parliamentary law, and they are selected from the parliamentary law of the national assembly, because that code has been instituted by the wisdom of past ages, and modified and perfected by the experience of subsequent ones, so that it is now universally acknowledged that there is no better system of government for deliberative societies than the code which has so long been in operation under the name of parliamentary law.

Not only, then, is a thorough knowledge of parliamentary law necessary for the presiding officer of a Masonic Body, if he would discharge the duties of the chair with credit to himself and comfort to the members, but he must be possessed of the additional information as to what parts of that law are applicable to Freemasonry, and what parts are not; as to where and when he must refer to it for the decision of a question, and where and when he must lay it aside, and rely for his government upon the organic law and the ancient usages of the Institution (see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).

PARLIAMENTARY LAW

Masonic Parliamentary Law is the body of usages, rules, and regulations according to which a Lodge is governed in its Opening and Closing, in establishing a Quorum, in conducting the Order of Business, in trials, etc. Very few Grand Bodies have codified their Parliamentary Law or published it separately; the usages and rules are embedded here and there in the Landmarks, in Grand Lodge Constitutions, in the Statutes and General Laws, in decisions and edicts, in printed rules, and in Lodge By-Laws; the key to finding any given Parliamentary Law is in the subject about which a question has been raised. Each Grand Jurisdiction has its own custom and its own written rules; these usually differ in detail from those of other Grand Jurisdictions but in its principles and its fundamental rules Masonic Parliamentary Law everywhere is the same, and the foundations of it were laid at the beginning of the Fraternity so that much of it is time immemorial.

The Congress of the United States has its own parliamentary code; with some modifications the same code is used by state Legislatures, and it is the model for parliamentary rules in use by voluntary associations, societies, clubs, churches, and by schools. These rules are printed in Robert's Rules of Order and in Cushing's Manual, both of which are by common consent accepted as authoritative not only by associations every where in America, but by the civil courts; an association need not follow either, but if it does its procedure is sure to be approved by the courts.

It so happens, however, that neither of these manuals can be used by a Masonic body. The Masonic Parliamentary Code is what codifiers describe as a tertium organon, a "third method"—that is to say, one apart from the codes used in other societies or in legislatures and parliaments, one which is acceptable to civil courts and vet differs in both fundamental principles and details of practices from the codes edited by either Roberts or Cushing. Freemasonry writes its own code.

This is because a Lodge differs in the fundamentals of organization from other associations and societies, and especially from those loose and informal groups which are called clubs. In the structure of its organization a Lodge (or Chapter, Council, or Commandery, or Consistory) is unique, therefore its parliamentary code is unique. Two of those fundamentals (there are others) exhibit both the nature and the extent of that difference:

1. In the great majority of societies and associations the head or chief officer is caned president or chairman. Little or no sovereignty inheres in his office; his principal duty is to preside. Usually he has no function except to see that the group's affairs are conducted according to an approved routine and he himself is not answerable for what the group may do. By contrast the principal officer of a Masonic Lodge is not a presiding officer only but within fixed limits is a sovereign; he is given the title of Worshipful Master because he is a master. If an action taken by his Lodge is brought into question by the Grand Master or by the Grand Lodge he, at least in the first instance is answerable and responsible. Manifestly the parliamentary rules which apply to a mere presiding officer could not apply to a Worshipful Master.

2. Again, in the majority of societies and associations the members retain the right to say for themselves what their society is, what it is in existence to do, what its purposes are—it may begin, as did Tammany Hall, as a patriotic fraternity and end up as a political machine; or it may begin as a card club and end up as a country club. These transmogrifications among voluntary groups are the rule rather than the exception. But in a Masonic Lodge no member or group of members can either discuss or vote for an innovation in the Landmarks: they cannot add to or subtract from Masonic purposes; they cannot alter the time immemorial usages; uJ1uzt Freemasonry is not subject to debate, not even in the Grand Communication of a Grand Lodge. A member who might wish Freemasonry to be other than it is, can have no alternatives save to accept it or to leave it. It is obvious that parliamentary practices suitable for a voluntary society cannot apply to Freemasonry.

The most comprehensive treatise on the subject is Parliamentary Law, by Albert G. Mackey. Portions of Masonic practice are given in Worshipful Master's Assistant, by Robert Macoy. For an epitome of the Masonic code see chapter in Lodge Methods, by L. B. Blakemore. J. T. Lawrence's work on the subject is excellent, but is written for prentices in England. Grand Lodges often include parliamentary rules in their printed Monitors. Since each Grand Body enacts its own rules for its own uses books, articles, and essays are confined to discussions of general principles; the most practicable handbook for a Lodge officer is his Grand Lodge Code. For Masonic students the richest store of materials is in Grand Lodge Proceedings, especially in the Fraternal (or Foreign) Correspondence Reports; among these latter the most notable are the Reports written for the Grand Lodge of Maine by Judge Josiah a Drummond between 1865 and 1900. For parliamentary subjects in detail consult the Index of this Encyclopedia.

PARLIRER

In the Lodges of Stone-Masons of the Middle Ages, there was a rank or class of workmen called Parlirers, literally, spokesmen. They were an intermediate class of officers between the Masters of the Lodges and the Fellows, and were probably about the same as our modern Wardens. Thus, in the Strasbourg Constitutions of 1459, it is said: "No Craftsman or Mason shall promote one of his apprentices as a parlirer whom he has taken as an apprentice from his rough state, or who is still in the years of apprenticeship," which may be compared with the old English Charge that "no Brother can be a Warden until he has passed the part of a Fellow Craft" (Constitutions, 1723, page 52). They were called Parlirers, properly, says Heldmann, Parlierers, or Spokesmen, because, in the absence of the Masters, they spoke for the Lodge, to traveling Fellows seeking employment, and made the examination.

There are various forms of the word. Kloss, citing the Strasbourg Constitutions, has Parlirer, Krause has, from the same document, Parlierer, but says it is usually Polier; Heldmann uses Parlierer, which has been generally adopted.

PAROLE

The French for Word and here applied to the Mot de Sexsestre, which see, and in that language this means a six-months password, communicated by the Grand Orient of France, and in addition to an Annual Word in November, which tends to show at once whether a member is in good standing.

PARROT MASONS

One who commits to memory the questions and answers of the catechetical lectures, and the formulas of the ritual, but pays no attention to the history and philosophy of the Institution, is commonly called a Parrot Mason, because he is supposed to repeat what he has learned without any conception of its true meaning. In former times, such superficial Freemasons were held by many in high repute, because of the facility with which they passed through the ceremonies of a reception, and they were generally designated as Bright Masons. But the progress of Freemasonry as a science now requires something more than a mere knowledge of the lectures to constitute a Masonic scholar.

PARSEES

The descendants of the original fire worshipers of Persia, or the disciples of Zoroaster who emigrated to India about the end of the eighth century. There they now constitute a very large and influential body of industrious and moral citizens adhering with great tenacity to the principles and practices of their ancient religion. Many of the higher classes have become worthy members of the Masonic fraternity, and it was for their sake principally that Doctor Burnes attempted some years ago to institute his new Order, entitled the Brotherhood of the Olive Branch, as a substitute for the Christian Degrees of Knighthood, from which, by reason of their religious they were excluded (see Olive-Branch in the East, Brotherhood of the, and Zendauesta).

PARTICULAR LODGES

In the Regulations of 1721, it is said that the Grand Lodge consists of the representatives of all the particular Lodges on record (Constitutions, 1723, page 61). In the modern Constitutions of England, the term used is Private Lodges. In Armeria, they are called Subordinate Lodges.

PARTS

In the old obligations, which may be still used in some portions of the United States, there was provision which forbade the revelation of any of the arts, parts, or points of Freemasonry. Doctor Oliver explains the meaning of the word parts by telling us that it was "an old word for degrees or lectures" (see Points).

PARVIN, NEWTON RAY

Brother Parvin was born at Muscatine, Iowa, July 5, 1851. In 1872 he entered the office of the Grand Secretary, where he remained as a clerk and Deputy until the death of his father, Theodore Sutton Parvin, in 1901. He was then elected Grand Secretary, in which office he served until his death. He was made a Master Mason in Iowa City Lodge No. 4, May 5, 1874. He was exalted in Iowa City Chapter No. 2, June 18, 1877, and received the Orders of the Temple in Palestine Commandery No. 2, Iowa City, June 28, 1878, and served all Bodies as Secretary or Recorded for several terms.

After his removal to Cedar Rapids in 1885, he transferred his Chapter and Commandery membership to Trowel Chapter No. 49, and Apollo Commandery No. 26, serving as Eminent Commander in 1896. His father was Grand Recorder of the Grand Encampment, Knights Templar of the United States, for some twelve years, during which time he assisted him. He received the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite just before the removal of the Library to Cedar Rapids, by order of Albert Pike, Sovereign Grand Commander, that he might become custodian of important papers relating to this Rite, and was appointed a Knight Commander, Court of Honor, October 20th, 1886. He was nominated by the Grand Commander and elected to receive the Thirty-Third Degree, and he was crowned by his father, for the Supreme Council, May 17, 1895. Brother Parvin was a founder of the National Masonic Research Society, of which he was a Steward and First Vice-President. Brother Parvin died January 16, 1925. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and funeral services were held January 20, in charge of the Grand Lodge.

PARVIN, THEODORE S.

Born January 15, 1817, in Cumberland County, New Jersey. His journey in life gradually tending westward, he located in Ohio, and graduated in 1837 at the Cincinnati Law School- He was appointed private secretary by Robert Lucas, first Governor of Iowa, in which State he became Judge of the Probate Court and afterward Curator and Librarian of the State University at Iowa City. Brother Parvin was initiated in Nova Cesarea Lodge, No- 2, Cincinnati, Ohio, March 14, 1838, and raised the 9th of the May following, and he same year dimitted and removed to Iowa. He participated tn the organization of the first Lodge, Des Moines, No. 1, and also of the second, Iowa Lodge, No. 9, at Muscatine. He was elected Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge at its organization in 1844, and held the office continuously to the time of his death, with the exception of the year 1852-3, when he served as Grand Master. He founded and organized the Grand Lodge Library and held the office of Grand Librarian until his death. His official signature is on every Charter of the Grand Lodge of towa from 1844 - 1900.

Brother Parvin was exalted in Iowa City Chapter, No. 2, January 7, 1845, and held the offices of Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter, 1854, and Grand Secretary of the Grand Chapter, 1855-6, and represented the Grand Chapter in the General Grand Chapter for many years. He was created a Royal elect Master in Dubuque Council, No. 3, September 7, 1847, and presided over the Convention organizing the Grand Council of Iowa, 1857. Knighted January 18, 1855, in Apollo Encampment, No. 1, Chicago, Illinois, he was a member of the Convention organizing the Grand Commandery of Iowa, 186A, being the first Grand Commander. He was Grand Recorder of the Grand encampment of Knights Templar of the United States for fifteen years, 1871-86. In 1859 he received the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and was crowned in that year an Inspector-General, Thirty third Degree.

In addition to this record, our Brother also organized the Grand Bodies of Dakota, and the Grand Commandery of Nebraska, and his contributions to Masonic literature placed him among the leading writers and thinkers of the Craft. He died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 28, 1901.

PARVIS

In the French system, the room immediately adjoining a Masonic Lodge is so called. It is equivalent to the Preparation Room of the American and English systems.

PASCHAL FEAST

Celebrated by the Jews in commemoration of the Passover, by the Christians in commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord. The Paschal Feast, called also the Mystic Banquet, is kept by all Princes of the Rose Croix. Where two are together on Maundy Thursday, it is of obligation that they should partake of a portion of roasted lamb. This banquet is symbolic of the doctrine of the resurrection.

PASCHALIS, MARTINEZ

The founder of a new Rite or modification of Freemasonry, called by hun the Rite of Elected Cohens or Priests. It was divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man from virtue and happiness, and in the second, his final restoration. It consisted of nine degrees, namely:

1. Apprentice

2. Fellow Craft
3. Master
4. Grand Elect
5. Apprentice Cohen
6. Fellow Craft Cohen
7. Master Cohen
8. Grand Architect
9. Knight Commander

Paschalis first introduced this Rite into some of the Lodges of Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterward, in 1767, he extended it to Paris, where, for a short time, it was rather popular, ranking some of the Parisian literati among its disciples. It has ceased to exist. Paschalis was a German, born about the year 1700, of poor but respectable parentage. At the age of sixteen he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin. He then traveled through Turkey, Arabia, and Palestine, where he made himself acquainted with the Cabalistic learning of the Jews. He subsequently repaired to Paris, where he established his Rite.

Paschalis was the Master of Saint Martin, who afterward reformed his Rite. After living for some years at Paris, he went to Santo Domingo, where he died in 1779. Thory, in his Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France has given very full details of this Rite and of its receptions (see Saint Martin).

PASCHAL LAMB

See Larch, Paschal

PAS PERDUS

The French call the room appropriated to visitors the Salle des pas perdus, literally the Hall of the Lost Steps, a Masonic waiting room. It is the same as the Tiler's Room in the English and American Lodges.

PASSAGE

The Fourth Degree of the Fessler Rite, of which Patria forms the Fifth.

PASSAGES OF THE JORDAN

See Fords of the Jordan

PASSED

A candidate, on receiving the Second Degree, is said to be "passed as a Fellow Craft." It alludes to his having passed through the porch to the Middle Chamber of the Temple, the place in which Fellow-Crafts received their wages. In America, Crafted is often improperly used in its stead (see also Past, and Past Masters).

PASSING OF CONYNG

That is, surpassing in skill. The expression occurs in the Cooke Manuscript (line 676), "The forsayde Maister Euglet ordeynet thei were passing of conyng should be passing honored"; that, The aforesaid Master, Euclid, ordained that they that were surpassing in skill should be exceedingly honored. It is a fundamental principle of Freemasonry to pay all honor to knowledge.

PASSING THE RIVER

A mystical alphabet said to have been used by the Cabalists. These characters, with certain explanations, become the subject of consideration with Brethren of the Fifteenth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The accompanying are the characters.

PASSWORD

A word intended, like the military countersign, to prove the friendly nature of him who gives it, and is a test of his right to pass or be admitted into a certain place. Between a Word and a Password there seems fo be this difference: the former is given for instruction, as it always contains a symbolic meaning; the latter, for recognition only. Thus, the author of the life of the celebrated Elias Ashmole says, "Freemasons are known to one another all over the world by certain passwords known to them alone; they have Lodges in different countries, where they are relieved by the brotherhood if they are in distress" (see Sign).

PAST

An epithet applied in Freemasonry to an officer who has held an office for the prescribed period for which he was elected, and has then retired. Thus, a Past Master is one who has been elected and installed to preside for twelve months over a Lodge, and the Past High Priest one who, for the same period, has been installed to preside over a Chapter. The French use the word Passe in the same sense, but they have also the word Anaen, with a similar meaning. Thus, while they would employ Al altre passe to designate the Degree of Past Master, they would call the official Past Master, who had retired from the chair at the expiration of his term of service, an Ancient Venerable, or Ancient Maitre (note also Passed and Past Master).

PAST MASTER

An honorary Degree usually conferred on the Master of a Lodge at his installation into office. In this Degree the necessary instructions are conferred respecting the various ceremonies of the Order, such as installations, processions, the laying of corner-stones, etc. When a Brother, who has never before presided, has been elected the Master of a Lodge, an emergent Lodge of Past Masters, consisting of not less than three, is convened, and all but Past Masters retiring, the Degree is conferred upon the newly elected officer..

Some form of ceremony at the installation of a new Master seems to have been adopted at an early period after the revival. In the "manner of constituting a new Lodge," as practiced by the Duke of Wharton, who was Grand Master in 1723, the language used by the Grand Master when placing the candidate in the chair is given, and he is said to use "some other expressions that are proper and usual on that occasion, but not proper to be written" (Constitutions, 1738, page 150). Whence we conclude that there was an esoteric ceremony. Often the rituals tell us that this ceremony consisted only in the outgoing Master communicating certain modes of recognition to his successor. And this actually, even at this day, constitutes the essential ingredient of the Past Master's Degree.

The Degree is in the United States also conferred in Royal Arch Chapters, where it succeeds the Marl; Master's Degree. The conferring of this Degree, which has no historical connection with the rest of the Degrees, in a Chapter, arises from the following circumstance: Originally, when Chapters of Royal Arch Masonry were under the government of Lodges in which the Degree was then always conferred, it was a part of the regulations that no one could receive the Royal Arch Degree unless he had previously presided in the Lodge as Master.

When the Chapters became independent, the regulation could not be abolished, for that would have been an innovation; the difficulty has, therefore been obviated, by malting ever) candidate for the Degree of Royal Arch a Virtual Past Master before his exaltation. Under the English Constitution this practice was forbidden in 1826, but seems to have lingered on in some parts until 1850. "The dis-use of the Virtual Past Master's Degree or Chair Degree in the British Isles has in no way interfered with its continued use in the United States, especially in the older Jurisdictions whose Freemasonry attests its Ancient origin (see the footnote on page 145, volume BViii, 1915, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley).

Some extraneous ceremonies, but no means creditable to their inventor, were at an early period introduced into America. In 1856, the General Grand Chapter, by a unanimous vote, ordered these ceremonies to be discontinued, and the simpler mode of investiture to be used; but the order has only been partially obeyed, and many Chapters continue what one can scarcely help calling the indecorous form of initiation into the Degree.

For several years past the question has been agitated in some of the Grand Lodges of the United States, whether this Degree is within the Jurisdiction of Symbolic or of Royal Arch Masonry. The explanation of its introduction into Chapters, just given, manifestly demonstrates that the jurisdiction over it by Chapters is altogether an assumed one. The Past Master of a Chapter is only a quasi or seeming Past Master; the true and legitimate Past Master is the one who has presided over a Symbolic Lodge.

Brother R. F. Gould (Masonic Monthly, July, 1882) says in regard to the Degrees of Past Master and the Royal Arch, "The supposition has much to recommend it, that the connection of the secrets of the Royal Arch, is the earliest form in which any esoteric teaching was specially linked with the incidents of Lodge Mastership, or in other words, that the Degree of Royal Arch was the complement of the Masters Grade. Out of this was ultimately evolved the Degree of Installed Master, a ceremony unknown in the Modern System until the first decade of the nineteenth century, and of which I can trace no sign amongst the Ancient until the growing practice of conferring the Arch upon Brethren not legally qualified to receive it, brought about the constructive passing through the Chair, which by qualifying candidates not otherwise eligible, naturally entailed the introduction of a ceremony, additional to the simple forms known to Payne, Anderson, and Desaguliers "

Past Masters are admitted to membership in many Grand Lodges, and by some the inherent right has been claimed to sit in those Bodies. But the most eminent Masonic authorities have made a contrary decision, and the general, and, indeed, almost universal opinion now is that Past Masters obtain their seats in Grand Lodges by courtesy, and in consequence of local regulations, and not by inherent right.

A subtle distinction may be noted between the expressions Past and Pass'd Master. "The distinction in sense that had originally lain between Past Master and virtual Pass'd Master could make no headway against the similarity in sound. The Past Master was the Brother who 'had served his just and lawful time' as W. M. of a Lodge, and had thereby qualified for the completion of Master Degree. The Passed Master was a Brother who had been passed through a so-called Chair Degree, and had thereby been entrusted with certain equivalent secrets. The epithet Past is an adjective, conveying the idea of time expired: the epithet Pass'd is a participle conveying the idea of motion completed. Such verbal niceties did not trouble the Brethren of the eighteenth, or any other century" (footnote, page 144, volume xxviu, 1915, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley).

The usual jewel of a Past Master in the United States is a pair of compasses extended to sixty degrees on the fourth part of a circle, with a sun in the center. In England it was formerly the square on a quadrant, but is at present the square with the forty-seventh problem of Euclid engraved on a silver plate suspended within it. This latter design is also adopted m Pennsylvania. The French have two titles to express this Degree. They apply Maztre Passe to the Past Master of the English and American system, and they call in their own system one who has formerly presided over a Lodge an Ancien Maitre. The indiscriminate use of these titles sometimes leads to confusion in the translation of their lectures and treatises.

PAST MASTER, JOINING

Any Past Master upon joining another Lodge in England becomes a Past Master in the Lodge he joins. He ranks immediately after the then Immediate Past Master and in later lists of the Past Masters his name is placed before that of the Worshipful Master presiding in the East when he affiliates.

PASTOPHORI

Couch or shrine bearers. The company of Pastophori constituted a sacred college of priests in Egypt, whose duty it was to carry in processions the image of the god. Their chief, according to Apuleius (Metamorphoses xi), was called a Scribe. Besides acting as mendicants in soliciting charitable donations from the populace, they took an important part in the Mysteries.

PASTOS

The Greek word, meaning a couch. The pastos was a chest or close cell, in the Pagan Mysteries, among the Druids, an excavated stone, in which the aspirant was for some time placed, to commemorate the mystical death of the god. This constituted the symbolic death which was common to all the mysteries. In the Arkite Rites, the pastos represented the ark in which Noah was confined. It is represented among Masonic symbols by the coffin (see Coffin)..

PATENTS

Diplomas or Certificates of the advanced Degrees in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite are called Patents. The term is also sometimes applied to Commissions granted for the exercise of high Masonic authority. Literae patented was aperture that is, letters patent or open letters, was a term used in the Middle Ages in contradistinction to literae clausae, or closed letters, to designate those documents which were spread out on the whole length of the parchment, and sealed with the public seal of the sovereign; while the secret or private seal only was attached to the closed patents. The former were sealed with green wax, the latter with white. There was also a difference in their heading; letters patent were directed "universis tum praesentibus quam futuris," that is, to ad present or to come; while closed letters were directed "universis praesentibus literas inspecturis," that is, to all present who shad inspect these letters. Masonic Diplomas are therefore properly called Letters Patent, or, more briefly, Patents.

PATIENCE

In the instructions of the Third Degree according to the American Rite, it has been said that "time, patience, and perseverance will enable us to accomplish all things, and perhaps at last to find the true Master's Word." The idea is similar to one expressed by the Hermetic philosophers. Thus Pernetty tells us (Dictionary of Hermetic Mythology), that the alchemists said: "The work of the philosopher's stone is a work of patience, on account of the length of time and of labor that is required to conduct it to perfection; and Geber says that many adepts have abandoned it in weariness, and others, wishing to precipitate it, have never succeeded." With the alchemists, in their esoteric teaching, the philosopher's stone had the same symbolism as the Word has in Freemasonry.

PATRIARCHAL FREEMASONRY

The theory of Doctor Oliver on this subject has, we think, been misinterpreted. He does not maintain, as has been falsely supposed, that the Freemasonry of the present day is but a continuation of that which was practiced by the Patriarchs, but simply that, in the simplicity of the patriarchal worship, unencumbered as it was with dogmatic creeds, we may find the true model after which the religious system of Speculative Freemasonry has been constructed. Thus (in his Historical Landmarks I, page 207) he says: "Nor does it, Freemasonry, exclude a survey of the patriarchal mode of devotion, which indeed forms the primitive model of Freemasonry. The events that occurred in these ages of simplicity of manners and purity of faith, when it pleased God to communicate with his favored creature, necessarily, therefore, form subjects of interesting illustration in our Lodges, and constitute legitimate topics on which the Master in the chair may expatiate and exemplify, for the edification of the Brethren and their improvement in morality and the love and fear of God." There is here no attempt to trace a historical connection, but simply to claim an identity of purpose and character in the two religious systems, the Patriarchal and the Masonic.

PATRIARCH, GRAND

The Twentieth Degree of the Council of Emperors of the East and West. The same as the Twentieth Degree, or Noachite, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

PATRIARCH OF THE CRUSADES

One of the names formerly given to the degree of Grand Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew, the Twenty-ninth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The legend of that Degree connects it with the Crusades, and hence the name; which, however, is never used officially, and is retained by regular Supreme Councils only as a synonym.

PATRIARCH OF THE GRAND LUMINARY

A Degree contained An the nomenclature of Le Page

PATRON

In the year 1812, the Prince of Wales, becoming Regent of the Kingdom, was constrained by reasons of state to resign the Grand Mastership of England, but immediately afterward accepted the title of Grand Patron of the Order in England, and this was the first time that the title was officially recognized.

George IV held it during his life, and on his death, William IV, in 1830, officially accepted the title of Patron of the United Grand Lodge. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the title fell into abeyance, because it was understood that it could only be assumed by a sovereign who was a member of the Craft, but King Edward VII became Protector of English Freemasons on his accession to the throne in 1901. The office is generally not known in other countries, though on the Continent similar positions have been occupied (see Protector).

PATRONS OF FREEMASONRY

Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. At an early period we find that the Christian church adopted the usage of selecting for every trade and occupation its own patron saint, who is supposed to have taken it under his especial charge. The selection was generally made in reference to some circumstance in the life of the saint, which traditionally connected him with the profession of which he was appointed the patron. Thus Saint Crispin, because he was a shoemaker, is the patron saint of the Gentle Craft, and Saint Dunstan, who was a blacksmith, is the patron of blacksmiths. The reason why the two Saints John were selected as the patron saints of Freemasonry will be seen under the head of Dedication of Lodges.

PAUL, CONFRATERNITY OF SAINT

In the time of the Emperor Charles V there was a secret community at Trapani, in Sicily, which called itself La Confraternita di San Paolo. These people, when assembled, passed sentence on their fellow-citizens; and if anyone was condemned, the waylaying and putting him to death was allotted to one of the members, which office he was obliged, without murmuring, to execute (Stolberg's Travels, volume iii, page 472). In the travels of Brocquire to and from Palestine in 1432, page 328, an instance is given of the power of the association over its members. In the German romance of Hermunn of Unna, of which there are an English and French translation, this tribunal plays an important part.

PAUL I

This Emperor of Russia was induced by the machinations of the Jesuits, whom he had recalled from banishment, to prohibit in his domains all secret societies, and especially the Freemasons. This prohibition lasted from 1797-1803, when it was repealed by his successor. Paul had always expressed himself an enthusiastic admirer of the Knights of Malta; in 1797 he had assumed the title of Protector of the Order, and in 1798 accepted the Grand Mastership. This is another evidence, if one was needed, that there was no sympathy between the Order of Malta and the Freemasons.

Dr. Ernest Friedrichs' Die Freimaurerei in Russland und Polen, Freemasonry in Russia and Poland 1907, has an interesting account of Masonic conditions under Paul I of Russia, who reigned from 1796 to 1801. He tells us that Catherine's son, Paul I, was himself a Freemason. It is said that he was introduced to Freemasonry during a journey which he made through Europe, when he was still the Czare witch, in company of his wife, and of Prince Kurakin who was a most devoted son of Freemasonry. Was it not natural then that the Association which had been outlawed and banished by his mother should look forward to being reinstalled and rehabilitated?

And this expectation seemed as though it were perfectly justified, for immediately after his coronation Paul summoned to Moscow the Freemasons of that city, with Professor Matthai, the Master in the Chair of the former Lodge To the Three Swords at their head, and took counsel with them "in a brotherly spirit and without ceremony" as to what should be done. At the conclusion of the negotiations "he embraced each single one as a Freemason and gave him the Masonic shake of the hands.

" This promised very well, and that "a Committee was now appointed to examine the documents, to collect the ruins of Freemasonry and to organize the whole," was but logical. After so much recognition and so much encouragement on the part of the sovereign, followed in 1797—the prohibition of Freemasonry, which "was carried out with great strictness." This sudden change in his manner of looking at things and in his attitude to Freemasonry would cause surprise in a man of ordinary capacity, but Paul was mentally deranged, and it was just his acting by fits and starts that was characteristic of his disease. But does such an explanation clear up everything? No, for Paul was not so ill as to be unable to grasp what would be the consequences of his action. On the contrary, as soon as it was a question of an advantage for his own person, or something that added to his lustre, he was suddenly quite normal in the choice of his means. This change of attitude was, therefore, perhaps, preceded by well-weighed considerations; nay, we may add that they were considerations with a real genuine background.

It was about this time that the Knights of Malta who were hard-pressed by Napoleon Bonaparte turned to the Czar Paul for protection. According to the information conveyed to Paul by Count Litter, a Knight of Malta, Freemasonry was a hindrance and even a danger to the aims of this Order. He was, therefore, obliged to decide in favor of the one or the other. The Maltese Order was something definite; it was a power, whereas Freemasonry was really nothing, or at any rate something altogether indefinite which might perhaps have a future, but perhaps it might not. Could Paul find the choice hard to make? In addition there was a something which, though altogether unpolitical, has often decided questions in politics, namely: Paul's principal mis tress, the extremely beautiful Anna Lopuchin. It was possible for him to make her a Grand Cross Lady of the Order of the Knights of Saint John, but "pretty Annie" among Freemasons was no longer conceivable after the famous "Egyptian Masonry"! Thus it was that Paul became the Grand Master of le Order of the Knights of Saint John at Malta, end Freemasonry was prohibited. Further, it is said that the Jesiuts set going every imaginable and unimaginable expedient against Freemasonry. Nor does this seem to have been impossible.

PAUL, SAINT, THE APOSTLE , A FREEMASON

In the Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati Volume I, page 74) there is a translation by Brother G. W. Speth of a paper by Brother Carl Herman Tendler, a member of the United Lodges, zu den drei Schwertern und Astrea zur grunenden Raute, im Dresden (at the Three Swords and Astrea, and at the blossoming Twig at Dresden). This Brother claims that, "There are many not unimportant grounds of suspicion that Paul was a member of the builder society at Damascus, and a master thereof, perhaps even a Chairmaster." His argument is principally Leased upon certain Significant words found in the writings of Saint Paul. For instance, the following statement is a fair example of his line of thought:

The virtue which the builder-societies impressed upon their members as the most edifying the most conducive to edification, and which Saint Paul recommends to Christian builders as the dower and crown of humanity, the highest aspiration of Christian builder-societies, is agape, love, union in love. In his epistle to the Corinthians, amongst whom Saint Paul worked and taught eighteen months, the word is repeated twenty-three times. Most remarkable is the distinction (I Corinthians viii 1) between gnosis, wisdom of the mysteries, and agape, Christian union. "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth, ' i.e., the speculations of the mysteries induce pride, but the Christian union produces amelioration.

The original meaning of agape is not love, charity, but union, unity: thus asapai (usually translated love feasts are originally unions for Christian edification, mutual culture associations. The constant use of all these words points to the supposition that Saint Paul was a member of a builder-society, Mason Lodge. In this sense the fraternity of Masons is thus as old as mankind itself, and the most energetic and active apostle of Christianity was a Mason. The agreement of the principles of Freemasonry with those of Christianity can only be denied by the malevolent or those totally unacquainted with the Craft.

PAUPERES COMMILITONES JESU CHRISTI

See Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ

PAVEMENT, THE

There is almost nothing anywhere in the early records of Speculative Lodges to suggest either a history or an interpretation of the Pavement, which is represented by a series of black and white squares inside a rectangular frame; nor does there anywhere appear an explanation of why a Blazing Star was set in the middle of it, or why a rope with a tie and tassels in the corners was combined with it. By general consent Masonic symbologists have treated these as separate svmbolisms, yet there must belong together or they would not have been shown together on old Tracing Boards.

Despite this paucity of data the Pavement is one of the most interesting of Masonic symbols, and that interest is heightened with each discover) of news facts. As a design the Pavement itself, whether set from the sides in a system of squares or from a corner in a system of diamonds, is one of the oldest and most universally liked of decorative designs—old as Egypt, or as China, and found at the ends of the earth; and especially beloved by Indians in both N orth and South America w ho have found numberless adaptations of it; checker-work w as one of the favorite motifs of Byzantine artists; and from early Roman times has been so much used in Italy that walls as w ell as floors are decorated with it, outside as w ell as inside. It is one of the few symbols in which non-Masonic meanings and uses correspond with or are identical with Masonic meanings; and it also is one of the few symbols which is Operative and Speculative at one stroke, because Operative builders used a board of floor or tracing paper (or cloth) divided into squares in laying out plans—as architects and engineers still do. In it many types of symbolism converge.

"The Pavement," writes Pike in his Morals and Dogma, " alternately black and white, symbolizes, whether so intended or not, the Good and Evil Principles of the Egyptian and Persian creed. It is the warfare of Michael and Satan . . . " (Perhaps Pike should have written " a creed " because both Egyptians and Persians had many creeds; nevertheless, and apropos of the latter, the dualism was a cardinal doctrine in Zoroastrianism. htithraism, Manicheeism, etc.?

The Pavement also suggests the correct position of the feet; and the fact that in Circumambulation the turns are at right angles, which in itself impresses upon a Candidate the fact that in a Lodge no member can run to and from at will, and that goings and comings are ordered.

The checkered design may be thought of as inlay work or as mosaic work, but in Masonry it is described by the latter word. "Mosaic" is believed by some etymologists to derive from the Latin, by others from the Greek mousa, muse; in either event it passed from Latin into Italian, thence into French, and finally into English (it had no reference to Moses). The Greek artisans of the Byzantine Period used mosaic 60 extensively and so skillfully that it also came to be called in memory of them opus alexandrium, and opus graecanicum; and occasionally it was called opus sedile. But as a Greek art it died out in the Seventh Century, a short time before Charlemagne, and when the Western Empire was about to sever its last ties with the Eastern. In the Eleventh Century it was revived in Italy, and in the great Twelfth Century (which has a better right than the Thirteenth to the title of "greatest of centuries"—granted that there ever was a "greater"!) the extraordinarily talented Cosmati family made their mosaic work so famous that it came to be called Cosmati work.

If, as the majority of Masonic symbologists believe, the black and white squares symbolize day and night, the Pavement is a member of a recurrent theme—the Twenty-four Inch Gage represents the twenty-four hours, the Sun and Moon are day and night, the East is the place of light and the North is the place of darkness, the Master's station is at the beginning of the day and the Junior Warden's is at the end, the postulant is brought from darkness to light, there are High Twelve and Low Twelve. Masons are to know each other in the dark as well as in the light; in the dark a man needs a guide, in the daylight he can guide himself; a man hexes, or buries, his secrets in the dark where no other can find them. These meanings cluster around the symbolism of the Pavement; perhaps the sun is meant by the Blazing Star (as it was once called) and is in the center because it makes the day by its shining and the night by the shadow it casts; and perhaps the rope around the perimeter reminds men that while for the world day and night go on endlessly they do not for him, and only a few days are going to be tied together in his span of them, so that it is good for him, as is the Masons' creed, to work while it is called of day for soon the night cometh when no man can work.

(For an interesting account of the mosaic work of the Cosmati family see Cathedral Builders, by Leader Scott; p. 314 and p.406. Goodyear, in his Roman and Medieval Art, says "The Siena Cathedral is famous for its pavement, the most remarkable in Europe." For a crowded and learned essay on mosaics see page 95 ff of Vol. I, of Porter's Medieval Architecture. There is a chapter on "Italy and Mosaic," in Arts and Crafts of the Middle Ages, by Julia De Wolf Addison. Kugler writes with authority on Cosmati work in Part I, p. 11 ff., of his The Italian Schools of Painting.)

PAVEMENT, MOSAIC

See Mosaic Pavement

PAX VOBISCUM

A Latin phrase meaning Peace be with you! Used in the Eighteenth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

PAYENS, HUGH DE

In Latin, Hugo de Paganis. Founder and the first Grand Master of the Order of Knights Templar. He was born at Troyes, in the kingdom of Naples. Having, with eight others, established the Order at Jerusalem, in 1118 he visited Europe, where, through his representations, its reputation and wealth and the number of its followers were greatly increased. In 1129 he returned to Jerusalem, where he was received with great distinction, but shortly afterward died, and was succeeded in the Grand Mastership by Robert de Craon, surnamed the Burgundian.

PAYNE, GEORGE

An English Freemason, who lived at New Palace Yard, Westminster, England, where he died January 23, 1757, leaving very little record of his personal life outside of the fact that he seas at the time secretary to the Tax Office with a 300d social and financial position.

A biographical note in the Freemason, June 6, 1925, quotes the Gentlexnan's Maganne, 1757, that among the various bequests in his will were legacies to two of his nieces, Francis, Countess of Northampton, and Catherine, Lady Francis Seymour. From 1718-9 he acted as the second Grand Master of Freemasons, being again elected for the year 1721. The General Regulations, which were subsequently rearranged and published by Doctor Anderson in 1723, were originally compiled by Brother Payne during his second term of office as Grand Master. Payne was also Master of the original No. 4 Lodge, at the Horn Tavern, now the Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge; Senior Grand Warden, 1724-5; Deputy Grand Master in 1735; Master of the Old King's Arms Lodge, No. 28, an active member of Grand Lodge up until 1754, being appointed a member of the Committee to revise the Constitutions on June 27, 1754. These revisions were finally brought to a conclusion and published by Entick in 1756.

P. D. E. P.

Letters placed on the ring of profession of the Order of the Temple, being the initials of the Latin sentence, Pro Deo et Patria, that is, For God and Country.

PEACE

The spirit of Freemasonry is antagonistic to war. Its tendency is to unite all men in one brotherhood, whose ties must necessarily be weakened by all dissension. Hence, as Brother Albert Pike says, "Freemasonry is the great Peace Society of the world. Wherever it exists, it struggles to prevent international difficulties and disputes, and to bind republics, kingdoms, and empires together in one great band of peace and amity."

PEACE AND HARMONY

The universality of Freemasonry which is everywhere accepted as a Landmark in principle is as yet unrealized in practice. Great Britain admits Negroes to membership in its Lodges in the Western Atlantic but in China its Lodges do not admit Chinese. American Lodges admit Jesvs, who have long been debarred by a number of European Grand Bodies, but does not accept Negroes. Some Lodges in the Near East admit Mohammedans, others do not. These " discrepancies, " or apparent inconsistencies, are found in every Masonic country, and they are made the more glaringly evident by the fact that in none of the Landmarks or Constitutions or Charters of regularly constituted Masonic Bodies are racial, social, or religious exclusions incorporated. The solution of the paradox is found in another Landmark, indubitably coeval with Freemasonry, to the effect that it is the first duty of Brethren when in Lodge assembled, and the paramount duty of the Worshipful Master, to maintain the peace and harmony of the Craft. This has been universally understood to refer not only to quarrels, schisms, cabals, etc., inside the Lodge, but also to such controversies, customs, or general social movements outside the Lodge that would, if introduced into it, disturb its peace and harmony.

A Lodge being not in a vacuum, and being composed of men who cannot wholly divest themselves of their feelings or even of their prejudices, is unable to act with absolute independence of its milieu, but must for sake of its own peace and harmony so act, at least for a time, as to exclude disturbing factors; if for this reason a Lodge in a given community excludes men of some race, language, or religion it is not because Freemasonry is antipathetic to them in principle, but because they are disturbing at a given place and time. Moreover the Craft never from its earliest years has admitted that any non-Mason has a right to demand membership; the non-Mason must petition, that is, pray for, the Degrees, and appeals to the grace of the Body to which he prays; the Body can refuse to grant that prayer for any reason of its own, and is therefore not responsible to demands set up in the world outside itself. American Grand Jurisdictions do not in fact (whether in principle or not) accept petitions from Negroes; this is solely because for the time being the Lodges are working amidst a social problem which is not of its making and which it cannot as a Masonic body alter among non-Masons; it is not because Negroes are not white; and it may easily come to pass in the future that when the "race issue" has ceased to be disturbing, Negroes will be admitted. Nothing in the Landmarks or in any Grand Lodge Constitution discriminates against them.

PEARY, REAR ADMIRAL ROBERT EDWIN

Famous discoverer of the North Pole, born May 6, 1856, at Cresson Springs, Pennsylvania; died on February 20, 1920. Entered civil engineer corps, United States Navy, 1881; made his first expedition north, with one companion, 1886; again in 1891, 1893, 1898, 1905, and for a sixth time in 1908, reaching the North Pole at last, April 6, 1909. He was a Freemason, Raised March 3, 1896, in Kane Lodge No. 454, New York City (see New Age, March, 1925).

PECTORAL

Belonging to the breast; from the Latin pectus, meaning the breast. The heart has always been considered the seat of fortitude and courage, and hence by this word is suggested to the Freemason certain symbolic instructions in relation to the virtue of fortitude. In the earliest lectures of the eighteenth century it was called one of the "principal signs," and had this hieroglyphic, X; but in the modern instructions the hieroglyphic has become obsolete, and the word is appropriated to one of the Perfect Points of Entrance.

PECTORAL OF THE HIGH PRIEST

The breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Jews was so called from pectus, meaning the breast, upon which it rested (see Breastplate and Pectoral).

PECULIARITY OF FREEMASONRY

In the period when Mitchell, Macoy, Morris were writing their books, Mackey was writing his earlier books, and Oliver and Preston were the staples of Masonic reading, "the peculiarity of Masonry" was a recognized subject, discussed in print, and the theme of many speeches and orations. Then came in American colloquial usage the corrupting of the word into a descriptive name for idiosyncratic, hard to know, ultra individualistic men, or cranks; and with the loss of the word's meaning the subject of Masonic peculiarity fell out of discussion. Men accustomed to describe something or somebody hard to know, or unusual, as "peculiar," could not see that Freemasonry was peculiar in that sense.

It is unfortunate that a shift in speech occasioned the eclipse of one of the old, and important, and revealing Masonic subjects. From the first, Freemasonry had something which it itself had found out, which belonged to itself alone, which it had borrowed from no outside source, and never altered to suit outside demands, and which persisted unaltered through one change after another in circumstances. The doctrine therefore is a sound one; and it is a safe key to Masonic history, because what the historian of Speculative Freemasonry evermore is searching for is that in Freemasonry which from the beginning has persisted; and which though it has had to work under one set of circumstances or another has maintained its original identity from the beginning.

PEDAL

Belonging to the feet, from the Latin word pedes, meaning the feet The just man is he who, firmly planting his feet on tie principles of right, is as immovable as a rock, and can be thrust from his upright position neither by the allurements of flattery, nor the frowns of arbitrary power. Hence by this word is suggested to the Freemason certain symbolic instructions in relation to the virtue of justice. As in the case of Pectoral, this word was assigned, in the oldest instructions to the principal signs of a Freemason, having for its hieroglyphic; but in the modern lectures it is one of the Perfect Points of Entrance, and the hieroglyphic is no longer used. Some such curious old hieroglyphics were probably indications of foot or hand positions.

PEDESTAL

The pedestal is the lowest part or base of a column on which the shaft is placed. In a Lodge, there are supposed to be three columns, the column of Wisdom in the East, the column of Strength in the West, and the column of Beauty in the South. These columns are not generally erected in the Lodge, but their pedestals always are, and at each pedestal sits one of the three superior officers.

Hence we often hear such expressions as these, advancing to the pedestal, or standing before the pedestal, to signify advancing to or standing before the seat of the Worshipful Master. The custom in some Lodges of placing tables or desks before the three principal officers is, of course, incorrect. They should, for the reason above assigned, be representations of the pedestals of columns, and should be painted to represent marble or stone.

PEDUM

A Latin word meaning a Shepherd's Crook, and is so used by the Roman poet, Vergil, and hence sometimes used in ecclesiology for the Bishop's Crozier. In the Statutes of the Order of the Temple at Paris, it is prescribed that the Grand Master shall carry a "pedum magistrate sev patriarchal But the better word for the staff of the Grand Master of the Templars is baculus, which see.

PEETASH

The Demon of Calumny in the religious system of Zoroaster, Persia.

PELASGIAN RELIGION

The Pelasgians were the oldest, if not the aboriginal, inhabitants of Greece. Their religion differed from that of the Hellenes, who succeeded them, in being less poetical, less mythical, and more abstract. We know little of their religious worship except by conjecture; but we may suppose it resembled in some respects the doctrines of what Doctor Oliver calls the Primitive Freemasonry. Creuzer thinks that the Pelasgians were either a nation of priests or a nation ruled by priests.

PELEG

A Hebrew word meaning Division. A son of Eber. In his day the world was divided. A significant word in the advanced Degrees. In the Noachite, or Twenty-first Degree of the Scottish Rite, there is a singular legend of Peleg, which of course is altogether mythical, in which he is represented as the Architect of the Tower of Babel.

PELICA

The pelican feeding her young with her blood is a prominent symbol of the Eighteenth or Rose Croix Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and was adopted as such from the fact that the pelican, in ancient Christian art, was considered as an emblem of the Savior. Now this symbolism of the pelican, as a representative of the Savior, is almost universally supposed to be derived from the common belief that the pelican feeds her young with her blood, as the Savior shed his blood for mankind; and hence the bird is always represented as sitting on her nest, and surrounded by her brood of young ones, who are dipping their bills into a wound in their mother's breast. But this is not the exact idea of the symbolism, which really refers to the resurrection, and is, in this point of view, more applicable to Christ, as well as to the Masonic Degree of which the resurrection is a doctrine.

In an ancient Bestiarium, or Natural History, in the Royal Library at Brussels, cited by Larwood and Rotten in a recent work on the History of Signs Boards, this statement is made:

The pelican is very fond of his young ones, and when they are born and begin to grow, they rebel in their nest against their parent, and strike him with their wings flying about him, and beat him so much till they wound him in his eyes. Then the father strikes and kills them. And the mother is of such a nature that she comes back to the nest on the third day, and sits down upon her dead young ones, and opens her side with her bill and pours her blood over them, and so resuscitates them from death; for the young ones, by their instinct, receive the blood as soon as it comes out of the mother, and drink it.

The Ortus Vocabulorum, compiled early in the fifteenth century, gives the fable more briefly: "It is said, if it be true, that the pelican kills its young, and grieves for them for three days. Then she wounds herself, and with the aspersione of her blood resuscitates her children." And the writer cites, in explanation, the Latin verses:

Ut pelicanu fit matris sanguine sanus,

Sie Saneti sumus nos omnes sanguine nati.
As the Pelican is restored by the blood of its mother so are we all born by the blood of the Holy One, that is, of Christ.

Saint Jerome gives the same story, as an illustration of the destruction of man by the old serpent, and his salvation by the blood of Christ. Shelton, in an old work entitled the Armorie of Birds, expresses the same sentiment in the following words:

Then said the pelican

When my birds be slain,
With my blood I them revive
Scripture doth record
The same did our Lord
And rose from death to life.

This romantic story was religiously believed as a fact of natural history in the earliest ages of the church. Hence the pelican was very naturally adopted as a symbol of the resurrection and, by consequence, of Him whose resurrection is, as Cruden terms it, "the cause, pattern, and argument of ours."

But in the course of time the original legend mas, to some extent, corrupted, and a simpler one was adopted, namely, that the pelican fed her young with her own blood merely as a means of sustenance, and the act of maternal love was then referred to as Christ shedding his blood for the sins of the world. In this view of the symbolism, Pugin has said that the pelican is "an emblem of our Blessed Lord shedding his blood for mankind, and therefore a most appropriate symbol to be introduced on all vessels or ornaments connected with the Blessed Sacrament " In the Antiquities of Durhom Abbey, we learn that "over the high altar of Durham Abbey hung a rich and most sumptuous canopy for the Blessed Sacrament to hang within it, whereon stood a pelican, all of silver, upon the height of the said canopy, very finely gilt, giving her blood to her young ones, in token that Christ gave His blood for the sins of the world

But Doctor Mackey believed the true theory of the pelican is, that by restoring her young ones to life by her blood, she symbolizes the resurrection. The old symbologists said, after Jerome, that the male pelican, who destroyed his young, represents the serpent, or evil principle, which brought death into the world; while the mother, who resuscitates them, as the representative of that Son of .Man of whom it is declared, "except ye drink of His blood, ye have no life in you." Hence the pelican is very appropriately assumed as a symbol in Freemasonry, whose great object is to teach by symbolism the doctrine of the resurrection, and especially in that sublime Degree of the Scottish Rite wherein, the old Temple being destroyed and the old Word being lost, a new temple and a new word spring forth—all of which is but the great allegory of the destruction by death and the resurrection to eternal life.

PELLEGRINI, MARQUIS OF

One of the pseudonyms or false names assumed by Joseph Balsamo, better known as Count Cagliostro, which see.

PENAL SIGN

That act which refers to a penalty

PENALTY

The adversaries of Freemasonry have found, or rather invented, abundant reasons for denouncing the Institution; but on nothing have they more strenuously and fondly lingered than on the accusation that it makes, by horrid and impious cere Lnonies, all its members the willing or unwilling executioners of those who prove recreant to their cows and violate the laws which they are stringently hound to observe. Even a few timid and uninstructed freemasons have been found who were disposed to believe that there was some weight in this objection. the fate of Morgan, apocryphal as it undoubtedly was, has been quoted as an instance of Masonic punishment inflicted by the regulations of the Order; and, notwithstanding the solemn asseverations of what most intelligent Freemasons to the contrary, seen have been found, and still are to be found, who seriously entertain the opinion that every member of the Fraternity becomes, by the ceremonies of his initiation and by the nature of the vows which he has taken, an active Nemesis of the order, bound by some unholy promise to avenge the Institution upon any treacherous or unfaithful Brother.

All of this arises from a total misapprehension, in the minds of those who are thus led astray, of the true character and design of vows or oaths which are accompanied by an imprecation. It is well, therefore, .or the information both of our adversaries—who may thus be deprived of any further excuse for slander, and of our friends—who will be relieved of any continued burden on their consciences, that we should show that, however solemn may be the promises of secrecy, of obedience, and of charity which are required from our initiates, and however they may be guarded by the sanctions of punishment upon their offenders, they never were intended to impose upon any Brother the painful and—so far as the laws of the country are concerned—the illegal task of vindicating the outrage committed by the violator. The only Masonic penalty inflicted by the Order upon a traitor, is the scorn and detestation of the Craft whom he has sought to betray.

But that this subject may be thoroughly understood, it is necessary that some consideration should be given to oaths generally, and to the character of the imprecations by which they are accompanied. The observation, or imprecation, is that part of every oath which constitutes its sanction, and which consists in calling some superior power to witness the declaration or promise made, and invoking his protection for or anger against the person making it, according as the said declaration or promise is observed or violated. This observation has, from the earliest times, constituted a part of the oath—and an important part, too—among every people, varying, of course, according to the varieties of religious beliefs and modes of adoration. Thus, among the Jews, we find such observations as these: co yagnasheh li Elohim, meaning so may God do to me. A very common observation among the Greeks was isto Zeus or theon marturomai, meaning May Jove stand by me, or I call God to unfitness. And the Romans, among an abundance of other observations, often said, dii me perdant, meaning May the gods destroy me, or ne vivam, May I die.

These modes of observation were accompanied, to make them more solemn and sacred, by certain symbolic forms. Thus the Jews caused the person who swore to hold up his right hand toward heaven, by which action he was supposed to signify that he appealed to God to witness the truth of what he had averred or the sincerity of his intention to fulfil the promise that he had made. So Abraham said to the King of Sodom, "I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, . . . that I will not take anything that is thine." Sometimes, in taking an oath of fealty, the inferior placed his hand under the thigh of his lord, as in the case of Eliezer and Abraham, related in the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis. Among the Greeks and Romans, the person swearing placed his hands, or sometimes only the right hand, upon the altar, or upon the victims when, as was not unusual, the oath was accompanied by a sacrifice, or upon some other sacred thing. In the military oath, for instance, the soldiers placed their hands upon the signa, or standards (see Hand).

The observation, with an accompanying form of solemnity, vas indeed essential to the oath among the ancients, because the crime of perjury was not generally looked upon by them in the same light in which it is viewed by the moderns. It was, it is true, considered as a heinous crime, but a crime not so much against society as against the gods, and its punishment was supposed to be left to the deity whose sanctity had been violated by the adjuration of his name to a false oath or broken vow. Hence, Cicero says that "death was the divine punishment of perjury, but only dishonor was its human penalty." Therefore the crime of giving false testimony under oath was not punished in any higher degree than it would have been had it been given without the solemnity of an oath. Swearing was entirely a matter of conscience, and the person who was guilty of false swearing, where his testimony did not affect the rights or interests of others, was considered as responsible to the deity alone for his perjury.

The explicit invocation of God, as a witness to the truth of the thing said, or, in promissory oaths, to the faithful observance bf the act promised, the observation of Divine punishment upon the jurator if what he swore to be true should prove to be false, or if the vow made should be thereafter violated, and the solemn form of lifting up the hand to heaven or placing it upon the altar or the sacred victims, must necessarily have given confidence to the truth of the attestation, and must have been required by the hearers as some sort of safeguard or security for the confidence they were called upon to exercise. This seems to have been the true reason for the ancient practice of solemn observation in the administration of oaths.

Among modern nations, the practice has been continued, and from the ancient usage of invoking the names of the gods and of placing the hands of the person swearing upon their altars, we derive the present method of sanctifying every oath by the attestation contained in the phrase "So help me, God," and the concluding form of kissing the Holy Scriptures (see Oath and Oath, Corporal).

Now the question naturally occurs as to what is the true intent of this observation, and what practical operation is expected to result from it. In other words, what is the nature of a penalty attached to an oath, and how is it to be enforced7 When the ancient Roman, in attesting with the solemnity of an oath to the truth of what he had just said or was about to say, concluded with the formula, "May the gods destroy me," it is evident that he simply meant to say that he was so convinced of the truth of what he had said that he was entirely willing that his destruction by the gods whom he had invoked should be the condition consequent upon his falsehood. He had no notion that he was to become outlawed among his fellow-creatures, and that it should be not only the right, but the duty, of any man to destroy him. His crime would have been one against the Divine law, and subject only to a Divine punishment.

In modern times, perjury is made a penal offense against human laws, and its punishment is inflicted by human tribunals. But here the punishment of the crime is entirely different from that inferred by the observation which terminates the oath. The words "So help me, God," refer exclusively to the withdrawal of Divine aid and assistance from the jurator in the case of his proving false, and not to the human punishment which society would inflict.

In like manner, we may say of what are called Masonic penalties, that they refer in no case to any kind of human punishment; that is to say, to any kind of punishment which is to be inflicted by human hand or instrumentality. The true punishments of Freemasonry affect neither life nor limb. They are expulsion and suspension only. But those persons are wrong, be they mistaken friends or malignant enemies, who suppose or assert that there is any other sort of penalty which a Freemason recreant to his vows is subjected to by the laws of the Order, or that it is either the right or duty of any Freemason to inflict such penalty on an offending Brother. The observation of a Freemason simply means that if he violates his vows or betrays his trust he is worthy of such penalty, and that if such penalty were inflicted on him it would be but just and proper. "May I die," said the ancient, "if this be not true, or if I keep not this vow." Not may any man put me to death, nor is any man required to put me to death, but only, if I so act, then would I be worthy of death. The ritualistic penalties of Freemasonry, supposing such to be, are in the hands not of man, but of God, and are to be inflicted by God, and not by man.

Brother Fort says, in the twenty-ninth chapter of his Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry, that:

Penalties inflicted upon convicts of certain grades during the Middle Ages, were terrible and inhuman.

The most cruel punishment awaited him who broke into and robbed a Pagan Temple. According to a law of the Frisians, such desecration was redressed by dragging the criminal to the seashore and burring the body at a point in the sands where the tide daily ebbed and flowed (Lex Frisionum, title xiu).

A creditor was privileged to subject his delinquent debtor to the awful penalty of having the flesh torn from his breast and fed to birds of prey. Convicts were frequently adjudged by the ancient Norse code to have their hearts torn out (Grimm, Demtsche Rechts-Alter thumer, page 690).

The oldest death penalties of the Scandinavians prescribed that the body should be exposed to fowls of the air to feed upon. Sometimes it was decreed that the victim be disemboweled, his body burnt to ashes and scattered as dust to the winds. Judges of the secret Vehmgericht passed sentences of death as follows: "Your body and flesh to the beasts of the field, to the birds of the air, and to the fishes of the stream." The judicial executioner, in carrying into effect this decree, severed the body in twain, so that, to use the literal text, "the air might strike together between the two parts." The tongue was oftentimes torn out as a punishment. A law of the early Roman Umpires known as Ex Jure Orientis Calsareo, enacted that any person, suitor at law or witness, having sworn upon the evangelists, and proving to be a perjurer, should have the tongue cut from its roots. A cord about the neck was used symbolically, in criminal courts, to denote that the accused was worthy of the extreme penalty of law by hanging or decapitation. When used upon the person of a freeman, it signified a slight degree of subjection or servitude (pages 318-20, 693 and 708).

Some eminent Brethren of the Fraternity insist that the penalty had its origin in the manner in which the lamb was sacrificed under the charge of the Captain of the Temple, who directed the Priests: and said, "Come and cast lots." "Who is to slaughter?" "Who is to sprinkle?" "Go and see if the time for slaughter approaches?" "Is it light in the whole East, even to Hebron?" and when the Priest said "Yes," he was directed to "go and bring the lamb from the lamb-chamber"; this was in the northwest corner of the court. The lamb was brought to the north of the altar, its head southward and its face northward The lamb was then slaughtered; a hole was made in its side, and thus it was hung up. The Priest skinned it downward until he came to the breast, then he cut off the head, and finished the skinning; he tore out the heart, subsequently he cleft the body, and if became all open before him; he took out the intestines etc.; and the various portions were divided as they had cast lots (see the Talmud, Joseph Barclays LL.D.) .

PENALTIES

"In London, at the beginning of the 14th Century a man convicted of treason in the court of the mayor, was bound to a stake in the Thames during two flows and two ebbs of the tide. " (Tyburn Tree, Its History and Annals, by Alfred Marks; Brown, Langham & Co.; London. Liber Custumorium; ed. by Riley; Vol. I; page 150.)

" 1557. The VI day of April was hanged at the low water mark at Wapping beyond St. Katharine's 7 for robbing on the sea. " (From Machyn's Diary.)

In Holinshed's Chronide, and referring to the Sixteenth Century: "pirates and robbers by sea are condemned in the court of admiralty, and hanged on the shore at low water mark, where they are left till three tides have over washed them. "

In 1530 Parliament directed that Richard Roose be boiled to death. (See page 21, Burough Customs; by Selden Society; also pp. 73, 74.)

From Holinshed's Chronicle: "Such as having walls and banks near unto the sea, and do suffer the same to decay (after convenient admonition) whereby the water entereth and drowneth up the country, are by a certain custom apprehended, condemned, and staked in the breach, where they remain for ever as parcel of the foundation of the new wall that is made upon them, as I have heard reported. "

(Note—Much that is now done by local, state, and national governments such as building highways, bridges, sea walls, dykes, schools, sewers, the removal of garbage, police and fire protection, etc., was in the Middle Ages the responsibility of individuals, churches, fraternities volunteer associations, and other private and semi-private agencies.)

The Laws of Henry I mention scalping and flaying as punishments. (For Chapter on "Drawn, Hanged, and Quartered" see page 27 of Tyburn Tree.)

There were three modes of "drawing": dragging along the ground on a sled or without a sled to place of execution; dragging on ground by horses until victim was dead; tying between horses which pulled in opposite directions. When Wm. Loughead was drawn to Tyburn sharp stones were laid in the path.

In 1238 a man was accused of attempting to assassinate Henry III. In the first place he was drawn asunder, then beheaded, then his body was divided in three parts, each of which was dragged through one of the greatest cities of England and afterwards hung on the robbers' gibbet. (See Chron. Majora, by Matthew Paris; III, p. 497.)

A typical form of punishing a heretic by the Church w as to tie him to a stake; heap branches around him; fire them with him looking on; hoot at him when he began to scream; to disembowel him; to cut or pull out his tongue (the "agent of heresy"); to scatter his ashes.

For centuries the orthodox punishments for treason were:

1. Drawn to gallows.

2. Hanged, then let down alive.
3. Bowels removed.
4. Next, to be burned
5. Head cut off.
6. Body divided into four parts.

In his East London Besant writes: "Next to Wapping Old Stairs is 'Execution Dock' this was the place where sailors were hanged and all criminals sentenced for offenses committed on the waters. They were hanged at low tide on the foreshore, and were kept hanging until three tides had overflowed their bodies . . . The prisoner was conveyed to the spot in a cart, beside him his own coffin, while the ordinary sat beside him and exhorted him. He wore the customary white night-cap and carried a Prayer Book in one hand, while a nosegay was stuck in his bosom. " Captain Kidd was hanged there, March 23, 1701. Shakespeare mentions executions in the rough sands In a number of cases executions were postponed be cause of low tide. (See Old Dundee Lodge, by Arthur Heiron; p. 77.)

A visitor to England in 1598 left it on record that about 300 pirates were hanged each year. The cruel and inhuman form of these punishments was often condemned, especially among craftsmen in the gilds who always had a better sense of justice and more humanity than the so-called "upper" classes, or even some sections of the clergy; when these protests began to have weight Chief Justice Coke argued against them in favor of severe penalties in his Institutes (Part III; 1644; page 210), and gave what he took to be Biblical authority for each of them, but refused to explain why the Sermon on the Mount (he lived in "Old Testament England") possessed no authority.

The last to suffer the penalties for treason executed in their plenitude of horror were the Scots in 1745. The last bloody execution was in 1820. Writers careless in statement or ignorant of history describe these penalties as "medieval"; they were later than that, and began in England along with many other cruel and inhuman practices when the Tudor Kings (and Queens) attempted to set up a royal despotism on the pattern of the Kings of France, though it did not stop with the Tudors but was continued (with temporary breaks) until George III, whose ambition was to be "a monarch in fact as well as in name." The Middle Ages, at least in England, were far more humane—between 1200 A.D. and 1500 A.D. England was probably the most civilized and humane country in the world except China.

For this, the great number of gilds and fraternities of craftsmen were responsible, because men who work, and who enjoy their work, always are more humane than men who prey upon others. Many examples of the oaths used by the Gilds and City Companies have been preserved; they are short, simple, direct, and the penalties assessed were of the same sort that have always been used by Freemasons: fines, reprimand, suspension, expulsion; w here the churches burned and the kings hanged, the craftsmen expelled—their Eden was the opposite of Adam's, who was blessed when in idleness but when expelled had to suffer the "curse" of labor, whereas the craftsmen's Eden was work, and idleness was a curse.

The two types of punishment, one for heresy and one for treason, became conventionalized, and at last were used merely as an emblem to represent the general idea of penalty.

The use of penalties in the form of some such emblem began in Speculative Lodges at least as early as 1700 (as the Old Catechisms show) but always were emblematic only, since the only penalties practiced were what they are now (except for fines, no longer permitted). It is easy to understand that if in an emblematic drama it was necessary to heighten the effect of the idea of penalty (penalty in general) the natural form would be that which had been in conventionalized and orthodox use for many years. The principal tenets, or beliefs demanded by Masonic law, are Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth; to be faithless to them is for Masons a heresy The Ancient Landmarks are the law; to be treacherous to them is treason.

NOTE. AS to the form given to one set of the emblematic Pp's. it is significant that they correspond, as a key to a lock, and point to point to a drama, or tragedy; the two obviously are hemispheres of the same whole. When and where did the ritualistic Pps. originate? Perhaps if that question is ever answered by Masonic research it will give the date of the origin of a drama in which every Mason feels a keen, intellectual interest. For a remarkable book on the whole subject of penalties see A History of Penal Methods, by George Ives- Stanley Paul & Co.; London; 1914.

PENCIL

In the English system this is one of the Working-tools of a Master Mason, and is intended symbolically to remind us that our words and actions are observed and recorded by the Almighty Architect, to whom we must give an account of our conduct through life In the American system the penal is not specifically recognized The other English Working-tools of a Master Mason are the Skirret and compasses In the French Rite "to hold the Pencil," or in French, tener he crayons is to discharge the functions of a Secretary during the Communication of a Lodge.

PENITENTIAL SIGN

Called also the Supplicatory Sign. It is the third sign in the English Royal Arch System. It denotes that frame of heart and mind without which our prayers and oblations will not obtain acceptance; in other words, it is a symbol of humility.

PENNELL, JOHN

There are in the latest of the issues of Wolfsteigs' Bibliographer some 80,000 titles of Masonic books, which statistic proves the correctness of a statement once made by a Librarian of the Library of Congress (or at least was attributed to him) that "more books have been published on Freemasonry than on any other singe subject (italics ours)." The fact is interesting but it is not flattering; it is the opposite of flattery, because though it is a "single subject" in Library classification, Freemasonry is so old, so large, of so much importance in the world, and has had in history a role of proportion so epic, that 80,000 is a pitiably small number of titles; 800,000 would be nearer to what the number ought to be.

Eighty thousand, nevertheless, is a respectable number. One of the puzzling facts about this literature (one among many) is that Craft writers have never developed any criticism for Masonic critics are countable on the hand. Also, it has had almost no literary critics; that is, not critics (or appraisers, or analyzers) of the contents of the books, but critics of the form, the writing, the literary styles in which the books have been written. Had there been an adequate criticism, and in particular a school of literary critics, some publisher by this time would have brought out a set of the literary masterpieces of Masonic literature— which Masons of taste will continue to pray for, hoping for the day when Brethren of means will discover that a sufficient number of new temples have been erected and will devote their beneficence to that for which the temples were designed to be used.

If ever such a library of literary classics is published it must contain the one work by John Pennell, which was his version of the Book of Constitutions, published by the Grand Lodge of Ireland, in 1730. As literature those Constitutions easily stand far ahead of any other version of them in English or in any other language; and it is a fact in which American Masons ear take a far-off pride because that which is most distinctive of Freemasonry here had its sources not in the (Modern) Grand Lodge of 1717 but in the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and in its spiritual heir, the Ancient Grand Lodge of 1751. Pennell himself wrote the Irish version; he was Grand Secretary; it is called by his name.

The so-called Anderson version of 1723 was not written by Anderson, but was compiled and copied by him; a whole circle of men, twenty at least, took a hand in the composition, nevertheless it will doubtless long continue to be called by Anderson's name. Of it Crawley wrote: '"The advice given and the maxims laid down belong to the great heritage of our Brotherhood, and are of the same weight today as when extracted from our Ancient Records by Anderson, and repeated by Pennell, or when originally built up through centuries of experience by the unremembered Masters of our Craft." That is true; it is also true that in its literary form the famous version of 1723 is uninspired, ambiguous, and with little art in the use of words. The library form of the so-called Anderson Version of 1738 is even more inept and is at points rendered absurd by the introduction of the fable of " the True Noachidae. " If a Mason will set the 1723 version in a column on the left side of the page, the 1738 version in a column on the right side, and the Pennell version between the two, he will see at a glance that as literature Pennell is to the first as the diamond is to concrete, and to the other as diamond is to clay. Pennell is literature, pure and unalloyed; neither Swift nor Dryden could have written better, nor on the subject could either have written as well.

NOTE. The paralleling of the three versions has already been done, and by Crawley himself- see page 5 of his Reprint of 'The Old Charges and the Papal Bulls," from Ars Quatuor Coronaborum; Vol. XXIV; 1911; pp. 47+5.)

PENNSYLVANIA

According to an article by Benjamin Franklin published in his own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, there were in 1730 several Lodges already established in the State. A Deputation had been issued to Daniel Coxe by the Grand Lodge of England and there may have been time for him to have established one or two Lodges, but most probably those mentioned by Franklin were working by "immemorial" right. In 1734 Franklin, Master of Saint John's Lodge, applied for and obtained a Charter for a Lodge at Philadelphia from the Grand taster of the Saint John's Grand Lodge of Massachuset. At this time several of the Lodges worked the Royal Arch Degree under the Lodge Warrant.

In 1731 a Grand Lodge was organized by the Brethren from the Lodges mentioned by Franklin. Records are preserved since July 29, 1779, and earlier ones were probably destroyed in the Revolutionary War. On September 25, 1786, it was decided to sever relations with English authority.

The Grand Lodge was closed and a Convention held the same day, by representatives of thirteen Lodges, who decided to open a new and independent Grand Lodge. On July 24, 1734, Franklin was elected Grand Master.

The first Chapter in Pennsylvania worked under the Warrant of Royal .Arch Lodge, .No. 3, which had been formed in 1763 by some of the members of Lodge No. , Ancient York Masons, established 1757. A Royal Arch Degree had been worked as early as 1757 or 1758. In 1763 several members of this Lodge established Royal Arch Lodge, No. 3, under whose warrant the first Chapter in Pennsylvania worked for some time. From 1758 until 1795 all Chapters in Pennsylvania worked under the authority of Lodges subordinate to the Grand Lodge. A Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter was opened on February 24, 1798, attached to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. In 1824 this was closed and a meeting was held to organize an independent Grand Chapter. May 24, officers were elected and Michael Nisbet became Grand High Priest. This Grand Chapter was not subordinate to the General Grand Chapter of the United States, and worked all the usual Degrees except that of Past Master, which is controlled by the Grand Lodge.

Washington, No. 1, was the first Council to be established in Pennsylvania. On December 6, 1847, delegates from three Councils, namely, Washington, No. 1; Mount Moriah, No. 2, and Lone Star, No. 3, met and formed a Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters. This Encampment met regularly at first, but gradually interest in it lessened and in 1854 it was proposed to put the Degrees under the control of the Council of Princes of Jerusalem. The Councils would not agree to this and on December 30, 1854, the Grand Council was reorganized as an independent Body which did not recognize Degrees granted in the Chapter.

The first Commandery in Pennsylvania was opened at Philadelphia in 1793. On December 27, 1812, it united with No. 2 as No. 1. On May 12, 1797, delegates from Commanderies Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 held a Convention and organized a Grand Encampment. Nos. 1 and 2, however, as So. 1, with No. 2 of Pittsburgh; Rising Sun, No. 1, of New York; Washington, No. 1, of Wilmington, and Baltimore, No. 1, of Maryland, established a second Grand Encampment on February 16, 1814. After 1824 the subordinate Encampments except Saint John's, No. 4, ceased work. May 10, 1854, representatives from Saint John's, No. 4; Philadelphia, No. 5; Union, No. 6, and De Molay, No. 7, established a Grand Encampment under the authority of the Grand Lodge. On February 16, 1857, the Grand Lodge withdrew all privileges granted to Lodges of Knights Templar. There were thus two Grand Encampments and not until June 1, 1857, was the union of the two Bodies finally accomplished.

On May 14, 1852, the Gourgas Lodge of Perfection and the Pennsylvania Council of Princes of Jerusalem were established at Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Chapter of Rose Croix was chartered at the same place on May 14, 1857, and on that day also a Charter was granted to Pennsylvania Consistory, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Juries diction.

PENNSYLVANIA WORK

The method of Entering, Passing, and Raising candidates in the Lodges of Pennsylvania differs so materially from that practiced in the other States of the Union, that it cannot be considered as a part of the American Rite as first taught by Webb, but rather as an independent, Pennsylvania modification of the York Rite of England. Indeed, the Pennsylvania system of work much more resembles the English than the American. Its ritual is simple and didactic, like the former, and is almost entirely without the impressive dramatization of the latter.

Brother Richard beaux, a Past Grand Master of Pennsylvania, thus speaks of the Masonic works of his State with pardonable, if not with impartial, commendations:

The Pennsylvania work is sublime from its simplicity. That it is the ancient work is best shown conclusively, however, from this single fact, it is so simple, so free from those displays of modern inventions to attract the attention, without enlightening, improving, or cultivating the mind. In this mark every word has its significance. Its types and symbols are but the language in which truth is conveyed. These are to be studied to be understood. In the spoken language no synonyms are permitted. In the ceremonial no innovations are tolerated. In the ritual no modern verbiage is allowed.

PENNY

In the parable read in the Mark Degree a penny is the amount given to each of the laborers in the vineyard for his day's labor. Hence, in the Masonic instructions, a penny a day is said to be the if wages of a Mark Master. In several passages of the authorized version of the New Testament, penny occurs as a translation of the Greek word , op which was intended as the equivalent of the Roman denarius. This was the chief silver coin of the Romans from the beginning of the coinage of the city to the early part of the third century. Indeed, the name continued to be employed in the coinage of the Continental States, which imitated that of the Byzantine Empire, and was adopted by the Anglo Saxons.

The specific value of each of so many coins going under the same name, cannot be ascertained with any precision. In its Masonic use, the penny is simply a symbol of the reward of faithful labor. The smallness of the sum, whatever may have been its exact value, to our modern impressions is apt to give a false idea of the liberality of the owner. Doctor Light foot, in his essay on a Fresh Revision of the New Testament, remarks: "It is unnecessary to ask what impression the mention of this sum will leave on the minds of an uneducated peasant or shopkeeper of the present day. Even at the time when our version was made, and when wages were lower, it must have seemed wholly inadequate."

However improper the translation is, it can have no importance in the Masonic application of the parable, where the penny is, as has already been said, only a symbol, meaning any reward or compensation (see Wayes).

PENTACLE, THE

The pentaculum Salomonts, or magical pentalpha, not to be confounded with Solomon's seal. The pentacle is frequently referred to in Hermetic formulae.

PENTAGON

A geometrical figure of five sides and five angles. It is the third figure from the exterior, in the Camp of the Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, or Thirty-second Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In the Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro, he constructed, with much formality, an implement called the sacred pentagon, and which, being distributed to his disciples, gave, as he affirmed, to each one the power of holding spiritual intercourse.

PENTAGON, MAGIC

See Magic Squares

PENTAGRAM

From the Greek words pente, meaning five, and gramma, a letter. In the science of magic the pentalpha is called the holy and mysterious pentagram. Eliphas Levi says (Dogma abut Ritual of High Magic ii, page 55) that the pentagram is the star of the Magians; it is the sign of the Word made flesh; and according to the direction of its rays, that is, as it points upward with one point or with two, it represents the good or the evil principle, order or disorder; the blessed lamb of Ormuzd and of Saint John, or the accursed god of Mendes; initiation or profanation; Lucifer or Vesper; the morning or the evening star; Marie or Lilith; victory or death; light or darkness (see Pentalpha).

PENTALPHA

The triple triangle, or the pentalpha of Pythagoras, is so called from the Greel; words pente, meaning five, and alpha, the letter A, because in its configuration it presents the form of that letter in five different positions. It was a doctrine of Pythagoras, that all things proceeded from numbers, and the number five, as being formed by the union of the first odd and the first even, was deemed of peculiar value; and therefore, Cornelius Agrippa says (in his Occult Philosophy) of this figure, that, "by virtue of the number five, it has great command over evil spirits because of its five double triangles and its five acute angles within and its five obtuse angles without, so that this interior pentangle Stains in it many great mysteries."

The disciples of Pythagoras, who were indeed its real inventory placed within each of its interior angles one of the letters of the Greek word or the Latin one Salus, both of which signify health; and thus it was made the talisman of health.

They placed it at the beginning of their epistles as a greeting to invoke secure health to their correspondent. But its use was not confined to the disciples of Pythagoras. As a talisman, it was employed all over the East as a charm to resist evil spirits. Mone says that it has Deen found in Egypt on the statue of the god Anubis. Lord Brougham says, in his Italy, that it was used by natiochus Epiphanes, and a writer in Notes and queries (Third Series ix, page 511) says that he has found it on the coins of Lysimachus. On old oritish and Gaulish coins it is often seen beneath the feet of the sacred and mythical horse, which was the ensign of the ancient Saxons.

The Druids wore it on their sandals as a symbol of Deity, and hence the Germans call the figure Druttenfuss, a word originally signifying Druid's foot, but which, in the gradual corruptions of language, is now made to mean Witch's foot. Even at the present day it retains its hold upon the minds of the common people of Germany, and is drawn on or affixed to cradles, thresholds of houses, and stable-doors, to keep off witches and elves.

The early Christians referred it to the five wounds of the Savior, because, when properly inscribed upon the representation of a human body, the five points will respectively extend to and touch the side, the two hands, and the two feet. The Medieval Freemasons considered it a symbol of deep wisdom, and it is found among the architectural ornaments of most of the ecclesiastical edifices of the Middle Ages.

But as a Masonic symbol it peculiarly claims attention from the fact that it forms the outlines of the five-pointed star, which is typical of the bond of brotherly love that unites the whole Fraternity. It is in this view that the pentalpha or triple triangle is referred to in Masonic symbolism as representing the intimate union which existed between our three ancient Grand Masters, and which is commemorated by the living pentalpha at the closing of a Royal Arch Chapter. Many writers have confounded the pentalpha with the Seal of Solomon, or Shield of David. This error is almost inexcusable in Doctor Oliver, who constantly commits it, because his Masonic and archeological researches should have taught him the difference. Solomon's Seal being a double, interlaced triangle, whose form gives the outline of a star of six points.

PERAU, GABRIEL LOUIS CALABRE

A man of letters, an Abbé, and a member of the Society of the Sorbonne. He was born at Semur, in Auxois, in 1700, and died at Paris, March 31, 1767. De Feller (Universal Biography) speaks of his uprightness and probity, his frankness, and sweetness of disposition which endeared him to many friends. Certainly the only work which gives him a place in Masonic history indicates a gentleness and moderation of character with which we can find no fault. In general literature, he was distinguished as the continuator of d'Avrigny's Vies des Hommes illustres de la France, Lives of the Illustrious Men of France; which, however, a loss of sight prevented him from completing.

In 1742, he published at Geneva a work entitled Le Secret des Franc-Maçons. This work at its first appearance attracted much attention and went through many editions, the title being sometimes changed to a more attractive one by booksellers. The Abbe Larudan attempted to palm off his libelous and malignant work on the Abbé Perau, but without success; for while the work of Larudan is marked with the bitterest maligruty to the Order of Freemasonry, that of Perau is simply a detail of the ceremonies and instructions of Freemasonry as then practiced, under the guise of friendship.

PERFECT ASHLAR

See Ashtar

PERFECT INITIATES, RITE OF

A name given to the Egyptian Rite when first established at Lyons by Cagliostro.

PERFECT IRISH MASTER

The French phrase is Parfait Maître Irlandais. One of the Degrees given in the Irish Colleges as claimed to be instituted by Ramsay.

PERFECT LODGE

See Just Lodge

PERFECT MASTER

The French name Maître Parfait. The Fifth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The ceremonies of this Degree were originally established as a grateful tribute of respect to a worthy departed Brother. The officers of the Lodge are a Master, who represents Adoniram, the Inspector of the Works at Mount Lebanon, and one Warden. The symbolic color of the Degree is green, to remind the Perfect Master that, being dead in vice, he must hope to revive in virtue. His jewel is a compass extended sixty degrees, to teach him that he should act within measure, and ever pay due regard to justice and equity. The apron is white, with a green flap; and in the middle of the apron must be embroidered or painted, within three circles, a cubical stone, in the center of which the letter J is inscribed, according to the old rituals; but the Samaritan yod and he, according to the instructions of the Southern Jurisdiction.

Delaunay, in his Thuileur de l'Ecossztme, gives the Tetragrammaton in this Degree, and says the Degree should more properly be called Past Master or in French, Ancien Maître, because the Tetragrammaton makes it in some sort the complement of the Master's Degree. But the Tetragrammaton is not found in any of the approved rituals, and Delaunay's theory falls therefore to the ground. But besides, to complete the Master's with this Degree would be to confuse all the symbolism of the Ineffable Degrees, which really conclude with the Fourteenth.

PERFECT POINTS OF ENTRANCE

bee Point of Entrance, Perfect

PERFECT PRUSSIAN

In French Parfait Prussien. A Degree invented at Geneva, in 1770, as a second part of the Order of Noachites.

PERFECT STONE

A name frequently given to the cubic stone discovered in the Thirteenth Degree of Perfection, the tenth of the Ineffable Aries. It denotes justice and firmness, with all the moral lessons and duties in which the mystic cube is calculated to instruct us.

PERFECT UNION, LODGE OF

A Lodge at Rennes, in France, where the Rite of Elect of Truth was instituted (Bee Elect of Truth, Rite of).

PERFECTION

The Ninth and Last Degree of Fessler's Rite (see Ressler, Rite of).

PERFECTIONISTS

The name by which Weishaupt first designated the order which he founded in Bavaria, and which he subsequently changed for that of the Illuminati.

PERFECTION, LODGE OF

The Lodge in which the Fourteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is conferred. In England and America, this Degree is called Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime Mason, but the French designate it Grand Scottish Mason of the Sacred Vault of Janes VI, the French title being Grand ecossais de la VoUte Sacree de Jacques Vl. This is one of the evidences—and a very pregnant one—of the influence exercised by the exiled Stuarts and their adherents on the Freemasonry of that time in making it an instrument for the restoration of James II, and then of his son, to the throne of England.

This Degree, as concluding all reference to the first Temple, has been called the Ultimate Degree of ancient Freemasonry. It is the last of what is technically styled the Ineffable Degrees, because their instructions relate to the Ineffable Word, that which is not to be outspoken. Its place of meeting is called the Sacred Vault. Its principal officers are a Thrice Puissant Grand Master, two Grand Wardens, a Grand Treasurer, and Grand Secretary. In the first organization of the Rite in this country, the Lodges of Perfection were called Sublime Grand Lodges, and hence, the word Grand is still affixed to the title of the officers.

The following mythical history is connected with and related in this Degree: When the Temple was finished, the Freemasons who had been employed in constructing it acquired immortal honor. Their Order became more uniformly established and regulated than it had been before. Their caution and reserve in admitting new members produced respect, and merit alone was required of the candidate. With these principles instilled into their minds, many of the Grand Elect left the Temple after its dedication, and dispersing themselves among the neighboring nations, instructed all who applied and were found worthy in the Sublime Degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry.

The Temple was completed in the Year of the World 3000. Thus far, the wise King of Israel had behaved worthy of himself, and gained universal admiration; but in process of time, when he had advanced in years, his understanding became impaired; he grew deaf to the voice of the Lord, and was strangely irregular in his conduct. Proud of having erected an edifice to his Maker, and intoxicated with his great power, he plunged into all manner of licentiousness and debauchery, and profaned the Temple, by offering to the idol Moloch that incense which should have been offered only to the living God.

The Grand Elect and Perfect Masons saw this, and were sorely grieved, afraid that his apostasy would end in some dreadful consequences, and bring upon them those enemies whom Solomon had vaingloriously and wantonly defied. The people, copying the vices and follies of their King, became proud and idolatrous, and neglected the worship of the true God for that of idols

As an adequate punishment for this defection, God inspired the heart of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, to take vengeance on the Kingdom of Israel. This prince sent an army with Nebuzaradan, Captain of the Guards, who entered Judah with fire and sword, took and sacked the city of Jerusalem, razed its walls, and destroyed the Temple. The people were carried captive to Babylon, and the conquerors took with them all the vessels of silver and gold. This happened four hundred and seventy years, six months, and ten days after its dedication.

When, in after times, the princes of Christendom entered into a league to free the Holy Land from the oppression of the infidels, the good and virtuous Freemasons, anxious for the success of so pious an undertaking, voluntarily offered their services to the confederates, on condition that they should be permitted a chief of their own election, which was granted; they accordingly rallied under their standard and departed.

The valor and fortitude of these elected knights was such that they were admired by, and took the lead of, all the princes of Jerusalem, who, believing that their mysteries inspired them with courage and fidelity in the cause of virtue and religion, became desirous of being initiated. Upon being found worthy, their desires were complied with; and thus the Royal Art, meeting the approbation of great and good men, became popular and honorable, was diffused through their various dominions, and has continued to spread through a succession of ages to the present day.

The symbolic color of this Degree is red—emblematic of fervor, constancy, and assiduity. Hence, the Freemasonry of this Degree was formerly called Red Masonry on the Continent of Europe. The jewel of the Degree is a pair of compasses extended on an are of ninety degrees, surmounted by a crown, and with a sun in the center. In the Southern Jurisdiction the sun is on one side and a five-pointed star on the other. The apron is white with red flames, bordered with blue, and having the jewel painted on the center and the stone of foundation on the flap.

PERFECTION, RITE OF

In 1754, the Chevalier de Bonneville established a Chapter of the advanced Degrees at Paris, in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence called the Chapter of Clermont. The system of Freemasonry he there practiced received the name of the Rite of Perfection, or Rite of Heredom. The College of Clermont was, says Rebold (History of Three Grand Lodges, page 46) the asylum of the adherents of the House of Stuart, and hence the Rite is to some extent tinctured with Stuart Freemasonry It consisted of twenty-five Degrees as follows:

1. Apprentice

2. Fellow Craft
3. Master
4. Secret Master
5. Perfect Master
6. Intimate Secretary
7. Intendant of the Building
8. Provost and Judge
9. Elect of Nine
10. Elect of Fifteen
11. Illustrious Elect, Chief of the Twelve Tribes
12. Grand Master Architect
13- Royal Arch
14. Grand, Elect, Ancient, Perfect Master
15. Knight of the Sword
16. Prince of Jerusalem
17. Knight of the East and West
18. Rose Croix Knight
19. Grand Pontiff
20. Grand Patriarch
21. Grand Master of the Key of Freemasonry
22. Prince of Libanus
23. Sovereign Prince Adept Chief of the Grand Consistory
24. Illustrious Knight Commander of the Black and White Eagle
25. Most Illustrious Sovereign Prince of Freemasonry, Grand Knight, Sublime Commander of the Royal Secret.

It will be seen that the Degrees of this Rite are the same as those of the Council of Emperors of the East and West, which was established four years later, and to which the Chapter of Clermont gave way. Of course, they are the same, so far as they go, as those of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite which succeeded the Council of Emperors. The distinguishing principle of this Rite is, that Freemasonry was derived from Templarism, and that consequently every Freemason was a Knight Templar. It was there that the Baron von Hund was initiated, and from it, through him, proceeded the Rite of Strict Observance; although he discarded the Degrees and retained only the Templar theory.

PERIGNAN

When the Elu Degrees were first invented, the legend referred to an unknown person, a tiller of the soil, to whom King Solomon was indebted for the information which led to the discovery of the craftsmen who had committed the crime recorded in the Third Degree. This mysterious person, at first designated as L'Inconnu, French, meaning The Unknown, afterwards received the name of Perignan, and a Degree between the Elu of Nine and the Elu of Fifteen was instituted, which was called the Elu of Perignan, and which became the Sixth Degree of the Adonhiramite Rite. The derivation or radical meaning of the word is unknown, but it may contain, as do many other words in the advanced Degrees, a reference to the adherents, or to the enemies, of the exiled House of Stuart, for whose sake several of these Degrees were established (see Elect of Perignan, also Perfection, and Clermont).

PERFECT UNION, OF VIENNA

One of the very few Lodges in the world that can be compared with the famous Neuf Soeur's Lodge in Paris for the scope of its work, the brilliancy of its membership, and its national influence, was the Perfect Union Lodge of Vienna, which under the Mastership of Ignaz von Born in 1781 and afterwards, became a Masonic Society of Science and Art. Born had been made a Mason in Prague. Under his leadership there entered the portals of Perfect Union such men as: Ratschky, librettist for Mozart; Michaeler, Rector of Innsbruck University; Sauter, a professor of philosophy; Barth, the anatomist; Ecknel, founder of numismatics; Krakowsky, Minister of State; Reinhold, the philosopher, Schiller's friend, and Wieland's son-inlaw; Watteroth, the historian; Forster, who circumnavigated the earth; Zainer, one of the great sculptors of the century; the Abbe Denis, bibliographers; Leber, physician to the Empress; Joseph Haydn, the composer; and some 200 others of scarcely less eminence. The Lodge supported two periodicals.

It amassed a huge library and museum. For the botanical garden it established, its members made an expedition to (of all places !) South Carolina (did they visit Lodges while there?). It was a Lodge lecture by Born which gave Mozart the material and the inspiration for his opera "The Magic Flute." Mozart was a visitor at the time of Haydn's initiation; and one of the latter's friends and colleagues was the composer of the Austrian national anthem, Hoschka, also a Mason. Schikaneder, who wrote the libretto for "The Magic Flute" and Giesecke, his assistant, were Masons. The character, Sarastro, in the opera, was Born; and it is said that it was at the time of Born's death that Mozart, deeply moved, decided to write the "Flute." It was the very success of this Lodge that moved the Roman Church to launch its crusade against Austrian Masonry, for reasons understandably enough to any man who knows how deadly free and genuine enlightenment is to the Vatican's program.

Two interesting sources on the Lodge, on Born, and on Mozart are: Transactions: The American Lodge of Research; Vol. III, No. 2; New York; Masonic Hall; 1941-1942; page 493 ff. The Freemasons, by Eugen Lennhoff; Oxford University Press; New York; 1934; page 121 ff.

PERIODS OF THE GRAND ARCHITECT

See Siz Periods

PERJURY

In the Municipal Law perjury is defined to be a wilful false swearing to a material matter, when an oath has been administered by lawful authority. The violation of vows or promissory oaths taken before one who is not legally authorized to administer them, that is to say, one who is not a magistrate, does not in law involve the crime of perjury. Such is the technical definition of the law; but the moral sense of mankind does not assent to such a doctrine, and considers perjury, as the root of the word indicates, the doing of that which one has sworn not to do, or the omitting to do that which he has sworn to do.

The old Romans seem to have taken a sensible view of the crime of perjury. Among them oaths were not often administered, and, in general, a promise made under oath had no more binding power in a court of justice than it would have had without the oath. False swearing was with them a matter of conscience, and the person who was guilty of it was responsible to the Deity alone. The violation of a promise under oath and of one not under such a form was considered alike, and neither was more liable to human punishment than the other. But perjury was not deemed to be without any kind of punishment. Cicero expressed the Roman sentiment when he said in Latin, Perjurii poena divina ezitium; humana dedecus, meaning the divine punishment of perjury is destruction; the human, infamy. Hence every oath was accompanied by an execration, or an appeal to God to punish the swearer should he falsify his oath.

"In the case of other sins," says Archbishop Sharp, "there may be an appeal made to God's mercy, yet in the case of perjury there is none; for he that is perjured hath precluded himself of this benefit because he hath braved God Almighty, and hath in effect told Him to His face that if he was foresworn he should desire no mercy." It is not right thus to seek to restrict God's mercy, but there can be no doubt that the settlement of the crime lies more with Him than with man. Freemasons look in this light on what is called the penalty; it is an invocation of God's vengeance on him who takes the vow, should he ever violate it; men's vengeance is confined to the contempt and infamy which the foreswearer incurs (see Penalty also Oath, and Oath, Corporal).

PERNEITI or PERNETY, ANTOINE JOSEPH

Born at Roanne, in France, in 1716. At an early age he joined the Benedictines, but in 1765 applied, with twenty-eight others, for a dispensation of his vows. A short time after, becoming disgusted with the Order, he repaired to Berlin, where Frederick the Great made him his librarian. In a short time he returned to Paris, where the Archbishop strove in vain to induce him to re-enter his monastery. The Parliament supported him in his refusal, and Pernetti continued in the world. Not long after, Pernetti became infected with the mystical theories of Swedenborg, and published a translation of his Wonders of Heaven and Hell.

He then repaired to Avignon, where, under the influence of his Swedenborgian views, he established an Academy of the Illuminati, based on the first three grades of Freemasonry, to which he added a mystical one, which he called the True Freemason.

This Rite was subsequently transferred to Montpellier by some of his disciples, and modified in form under the name of the Academy of True Freemasons. Pernetti, besides his Masonic labors at Avignod, invented several other Masonic Degrees, and to him is attributed the authorship of the Degree of Knight of the Sun, now occupying the twenty-eighth place in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. He was a very learned man and a voluminous writer of versatile talents, and published numerous works on mythology, the fine arts, theology, geography, philosophy, and the mathematical sciences, besides some translations from the Latin. He died at Valence, in Dauphiny, in the year 1800.

PERPENDICULAR

In a geometrical sense, that which is upright and erect, leaning neither one way nor another. In a figurative and symbolic sense, it conveys the signification of Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance. Justice, that leans to no side but that of Truth; Fortitude, that yields to no adverse attack; Prudence, that ever pursues the straight path of integrity; and Temperance that swerves not for appetite nor passion.

PERSECUTIONS

Freemasonry, like every other good and true thing, has been subjected at times to suspicion, to misinterpretation, and to actual persecution. Like the Church, it has had its martyrs, who, by their devotion and their sufferings, have vindicated its truth and its purity. With the exception of the United States, where the attacks on the Institution can hardly be called persecutions—not because there was not the will, but because the power to persecute was wanting—all the persecutions of Freemasonry have, for the most part, originated with the Roman Church. "Notwithstanding," says a writer in the Freemasons Quarterly Mayanne (1851, page 141), "the greatest architectural monuments of antiquity were reared by the labors of Masonic gilds, and the Church of Rome owes the structure of her magnificent cathedrals, her exquisite shrines, and her most splendid palaces, to the skill of the wise master-builders of former ages, she has been for four centuries in antagonism to the principles inculcated by the Craft."

Leaving unnoticed the struggles of the corporations of Freemasons in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the seventeenth centuries, we may begin the record with the persecutions to which the Order has been subjected since the revival in 1717.

One of the first persecutions to which Freemasonry in its present organization, was subjected, occurred in the year 1735, in Holland. On the 16th of October of that year, a crowd of ignorant fanatics, whose zeal had been enkindled by the denunciations of some of the clergy, broke into a house in Amsterdam, where a Lodge was accustomed to be held, and destroyed all the furniture and ornaments of the Lodge.

The States General, yielding to the popular excitement, or rather desirous of giving no occasion for its action, prohibited the future meetings of the Lodges. One, however, continuing, regardless of the edict, to meet at a private house, the members were arrested and brought before the Court of Justice. Here, in the presence of the whole city, the Masters and Wardens defended themselves with great dexterity; and while acknowledging their inability to prove the innocence of their Institution by a public exposure of their secret doctrines, they freely offered to receive and initiate any person in the confidence of the magistrates, and who could then give them information upon which they might depend, relative to the true designs of the Institution. The proposal was acceded to, and the Town Clerk was chosen. He was immediately initiated, and his report so pulsed his superiors that all the magistrates and principal persons of the city became members and zealot patrons of the Order.

In France, the fear of the authorities that the Freemasons concealed, within the recesses of their Lodges, designs hostile to the Government, gave occasion to an attempt in 1737, on the part of the police, to prohibit the meetings of the Lodges. But this unfavorable disposition did not long continues and the last instance of the interference of the Government with the proceedings of the Masonic Body was in June, 1745, when the members of a Lodge, meeting at the Hotel de Soissons, were dispersed, their furniture and jewels seized, and the landlord amerced in a penalty of three thousand lives.

The persecutions in Germany were owing to a singular cause. The malice of a few females had been excited by their disappointed curiosity. A portion of this disposition they succeeded in communicating to the Empress, Maria Theresa, who issued an order for apprehending all the Freemasons in Vienna, when assembled in their Lodges. The measure was, however, frustrated by the good sense of the Emperor, Joseph I, who was himself a Freemason, and exerted his power in protecting his Brethren.

The persecutions of the church in Italy, and other Catholic countries, have been the most extensive and most permanent. On the 28th of April, 1738, Pope Clement XII issued the famous Bull against Freemasons whose authority is still in existence. In this Bull, the Roman Pontiff says, "We have learned, and public rumor does not permit us to doubt the truth of the report, that a certain society has been formed, under the name of Freemasons, into which persons of all religions and all sects are indiscriminately admitted, and whose members have established certain laws which bind themselves to each other, and which, in particular, compel their members, under the severest penalties, by virtue of an oath taken on the Holy Scriptures, to preserve an inviolable secrecy in relation to everything that passes in their meetings."

The Bull goes on to declare, that these societies have become suspected by the faithful, and that they are hurtful to the tranquillity of the state and to the safety of the soul; and after making use of the now threadbare argument, that if the actions of Freemasons were irreproachable, they would not so carefully conceal them from the light, it proceeds to enjoin all bishops, superiors, and ordinaries to punish the Freemasons "with the penalties which they deserve, as people greatly suspected of heresy, having recourse, if necessary, to the secular arm."

What this delivery to the secular arm means, we are at no loss to discover, from the interpretation given to the Bull by Cardinal Firrao in his Edict of Publication in the beginning of the following year, namely, "that no person shall dare to assemble at any Lodge of the said society, nor be present at any of their meetings, under pain of death and confiscation of goods, the said penalty to be without hope of pardon."

The Bull of Clement met in France with no congenial spirits to obey it. On the contrary, it was the subject of universal condemnation as arbitrary and unjust, and the Parliament of Paris positively refused to enroll it. But in other Catholic countries it was better respected. In Tuscany the persecutions were unremitting. A man named Crudeli was arrested at Florence thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, subjected to torture, and finally sentenced to a long imprisonment, on the charge of having furnished an asylum to a Masonic Lodge. The Grand Lodge of England, upon learning the circumstances, obtained his enlargement, and sent him pecuniary assistance.

Francis de Lorraine, who had been initiated at the Hague in 1731, soon after ascended the grand ducal throne, and one of the first acts of his reign was to liberate all the Freemasons who had been incarcerated by the Inquisition; and still further to evince his respect for the Order, he personally assisted in the constitution of several Lodges at Florence, and in other cities of his dominions.

The other sovereigns of Italy were, however, more obedient to the behests of the holy father, and persecutions continued to rage throughout the peninsula. Nevertheless, Freemasonry continued to flourish, and in 1751, thirteen years after the emission of the Bull of prohibition, Lodges were openly in existence in Tuscany, at Naples, and even in the Eternal City itself. The priesthood, whose vigilance had abated under the influence of time, became once more alarmed, and an edict was issued in 1751 by Benedict XIV, who then occupied the papal chair, renewing and enforcing the Bull which had been fulminated by Clement.

This, of course, renewed the spirit of persecution. In Spain, one Tournon, a Frenchman, was convicted of practicing the rites of Freemasonry, and after a tedious confinement in the dungeons of the Inquisition, he was finally banished from the kingdom (see Italy).

In Portugal, at Lisbon, John Coustos, a native of Switzerland, was still more severely treated. Ele was subjected to the torture and suffered so much that he was unable to move his limbs for three months. Coustos, with two companions of his reputed crime, was sentenced to the galleys, but was finally released by the interposition of the English Ambassador.

In 1745, the Council of Berne, in Switzerland, issued a Decree prohibiting, under the severest penalties, the assemblages of Freemasons. In 1757, in Scotland, the Synod of Sterling adopted a resolution debarring an adhering Freemasons from the ordinances of religion. And, as if to prove that fanaticism is everywhere the same, in 1748 the Divan at Constantinople caused a Masonic Lodge to be demolished, its jewels and furniture seized, and its members arrested. They were discharged upon the interposition of the English Minister; but the government prohibited the introduction of the Order into Turkey.

America has not been free from the blighting influence of this demon of fanaticism. But the exciting scenes of anti-Masonry are almost too recent to be treated by the historian with coolness or impartiality. The political party to which this spirit of persecution gave birth was the most abject in its principles, and the most unsuccessful in its efforts, of any that our times have seen. It has passed away; the clouds of anti-Masonry have been, we trust, forever dispersed, and the bright sun of Freemasonry, once more emerging from that temporary eclipse, is beginning to bless our land with the invigorating heat and light of its meridian rays (see Anti-Masonry, Anti-Masonic Party, and Anti-Masonic Books).

PERSEVERANCE

A virtue inculcated, by a peculiar symbol in the Third Degree, in reference to the acquisition of knowledge, and especially the knowledge of the True Word (see Patience).

PERSEVERANCE, ORDER OF

An Adoptive Order established at Paris, in 1771, by several nobles and ladies. It had but little of the Masonic character about it; and, although at the time of its creation it excited considerable sensation, it existed but for a brief period. It was instituted for the purpose of rendering services to humanity. Ragon says (Tuileur General, page 92) that there was kept in the archives of the Order a quarto volume of four hundred leaves, in which was registered ad the good deeds of the Brethren and Sisters. This volume is entitled Ioure d'Honneur de l'Ordre de la Perseuerance. Ragon intimates that this document is still in existence. Thory (Foundation of the Grand Orient, page 383) says that there was much mystification about the establishment of the Order in Paris. Its institutors contended that it originated from time immemorial in Poland, a pretension to which the King of Poland lent his sanction. Many persons of distinction, and among them Madame de Genlis, were deceived and became its members.

PERSIA

A kingdom of West Asia. No Lodges have been constituted in Persia by the Grand Lodge of England although Sir Gore Ousely, Ambassador to the Shah of Persia in 1810, was appointed Provincial Grand Master for that country. The Grand Orient of France, however, controls one Lodge at Teheran, Le Reveil de l'Iran, meaning in French The AuJakening of Persia. Iran, or Eran, as it is sometimes spelled, is the official designation of the Persian Kingdom and is derived from Aryana, the country of the Aryans, who were the Sanscrit-speaking immigrants to Persia, from India, and the name was thus adopted from ancient times by the Persians.

Several prominent Persians have been Freemasons. Askeri Khan, Ambassador of the Shah, at Paris, was initiated in 1808 and the Mirza Abul Hassan Khan in 1810. According to the Freemason of June 28, 1873 nearly all the members of the Court of Teheran were Freemasons.

On November 24, 1808, when Askeri Khan, the Ambassador of Persia near the Court of France, was received into the Order at Paris by the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite, he presented his sword, a pure Damascus blade, to the Lodge, with these remarks: I promise you, gentlemen, friendship, fidelity, and es teem. I have been told, and I cannot doubt it, that Freemasons were virtuous, charitable, and full of love and attachment for their sovereigns. Permit me to make you a present worthy of true Frenchmen. Receive this sabre, which has served me in twenty-seven battles. May this act of homage convince you of the sentiments with which you have inspired me, and of the gratification that I feel in belonging to your Order.

The Ambassador subsequently seems to have taken a great interest in Freemasonry while he remained in France, and consulted with the Worshipful Master of the Lodge on the subject of establishing a Lodge and Accepted Scottish Rite. He was a very learned man and a voluminous writer of versatile talents, and published numerous worts on mythology, the fine arts, theology, geography, philosophy, and the mathematical sciences, besides some translations from the Latin. He died at Valence, in Dauphiny, in the year 1800.

PERPENDICULAR

In a geometrical sense, that which is upright and erect, leaning neither one way nor another. In a figurative and symbolic sense, it conveys the signification of Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance. Justice, that leans to no side but that of Truth; Fortitude, that yields to no adverse attack; Prudence, that ever pursues the straight path of integrity; and Temperance that swerves not for appetite nor passion.

PERSECUTIONS

Freemasonry, like every other good and true thing, has been subjected at times to suspicion, to misinterpretation, and to actual persecution. Like the Church, it has had its martyrs, who, by their devotion and their sufferings, have vindicated its truth and its purity. With the exception of the United States, where the attacks on the Institution can hardly be called persecutions—not because there was not the will, but because the power to persecute was wanting—all the persecutions of Freemasonry have, for the most part, originated with the Roman Church. "Notwithstanding," says a writer in the Freemasons Quarterly Magazine (1851, page 141), "the greatest architectural monuments of antiquity were reared by the labors of Masonic gilds, and the Church of Rome owes the structure of her magnificent cathedrals, her exquisite shrines, and her most splendid palaces, to the skill of the wise master-builders of former ages, she has been for four centuries in antagonism to the principles inculcated by the Craft."

Leaving unnoticed the struggles of the corporations of Freemasons in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the seventeenth centuries, we may begin the record with the persecutions to which the Order has been subjected since the revival in 1717.

One of the first persecutions to which Freemasonry in its present organization, was subjected, occurred in the year 1735, in Holland. On the 16th of October of that year, a crowd of ignorant fanatics, whose zeal had been enkindled by the denunciations of some of the clergy, broke into a house in Amsterdam, where a Lodge was accustomed to be held, and destroyed all the furniture and ornaments of the Lodge.

The States General, yielding to the popular excitement, or rather desirous of giving no occasion for its action, prohibited the future meetings of the Lodges. One, however, continuing, regardless of the edict, to meet at a private house, the members were arrested and brought before the Court of Justice. Here, in the presence of the whole city, the Masters and Wardens defended themselves with great dexterity; and while acknowledging their inability to prove the innocence of their Institution by a public exposure of their secret doctrines, they freely offered to receive and initiate any person in the confidence of the magistrates, and who could then give them information upon which they might depend, relative to the true designs of the Institution. The proposal was acceded to, and the Town Clerk was chosen. He was immediately initiated, and his report so pleased his superiors that all the magistrates and principal persons of the city became members and zealous patrons of the Order.

In France, the fear of the authorities that the Freemasons concealed, within the recesses of their Lodges, designs hostile to the Government, gave occasion to an attempt in 1737, on the part of the police, to prohibit the meetings of the Lodges. But this unfavorable disposition did not long continues and the last instance of the interference of the Government with the proceedings of the Masonic Body was in June, 1745, when the members of a Lodge, meeting at the Hotel de Soissons, were dispersed, their furniture and jewels seized, and the landlord amerced in a Penalty of three thousand lives.

The persecutions in Germany were owing to a singular cause. The malice of a few females had been excited by their disappointed curiosity. A portion of this disposition they succeeded in communicating to the Empress, Maria Theresa, who issued an order for apprehending all the Freemasons in Vienna, when assembled in their Lodges. The measure was, however, frustrated by the good sense of the Emperor, Joseph I, who was himself a Freemason, and exerted his power in protecting his Brethren.

The persecutions of the church in Italy, and other Catholic countries, have been the most extensive and most permanent.

On the 28th of April, 1738, Pope Clement XII issued the famous Bull against Freemasons whose authority is still in existence. In this Bull, the Roman Pontiff says, "We have learned, and public rumor does not permit us to doubt the truth of the report, that a certain society has been formed, under the name of Freemasons, into which persons of all religions and all sects are indiscriminately admitted, and whose members have established certain laws which bind themselves to each other, and which, in particular, compel their members, under the severest penalties, by virtue of an oath taken on the Holy Scriptures, to preserve an inviolable secrecy in relation to everything that passes in their meetings." The Bull goes on to declare, that these societies have become suspected by the faithful, and that they are hurtful to the tranquillity of the state and to the safety of the soul; and after making use of the novel threadbare argument, that if the actions of Freemasons were irreproachable, they would not so carefully conceal them from the light, it proceeds to enjoin all bishops, superiors, and ordinaries to punish the Freemasons "with the penalties which they deserve, as people greatly suspected of heresy, having recourse, if necessary, to the secular arm."

What this delivery to the secular arm means, we are at no 1088 to discover, from the interpretation given to the Bull by Cardinal Firrao in his Edict of Publication in the beginning of the following year, namely, "that no person shall dare to assemble at any Lodge of the said society, nor be present at any of their meetings, under pain of death and confiscation of goods, the said penalty to be without hope of pardon."

The Bull of Clement met in France with no congenial spirits to obey it. On the contrary, it was the subject of universal condemnation as arbitrary and at ispahan. Thory, who gives this account (Acta Latomorum i, page 237) does not tell us whether the project of an Ispahan Lodge was ever executed. But it is probable that on his return home the Ambassador introduced among his friends some knowledge of the Institution, and impressed them with a favorable opinion of it. At all events, the Persians in later times do not seem to have been ignorant of its existence. Holmes, in his sketches on the Shores of the Casptan gives the following as the Persian idea of Freemasonry: In the morning we received a visit from the Governor, who seemed rather a dull person, though very polite and civil. He asked a great many questions regarding the Feramoosh Khoneh, as they called the Freemasons' Hall in London- which is a complete mastery to all the Persians who have heard of it. Very often, the first question we have been asked is, "What do they do at the Feramoosh Khoneh? What is it?" They generally believe it to be a most wonderful place, where a man may acquire in one day the wisdom of a thousand years of study; but every one has his own peculiar conjectures concerning it. Some of the Persians who went to England became Freemasons- and their friends complain that they will not tell what they saw at the Hall, and cannot conceive why they should all be so uncommunicative.

We have, from the London Freemason (of June 28, 1873) this further account; but the conjecture as to the time of the introduction of the Order unfortunately wants confirmation:

Of the Persian officers who are present in Berlin pursuing military studies and making themselves acquainted with Prussian military organization and arrangements, one belongs to the Masonic Order. He is a Mussulman. He seems to have spontaneously sought recognition as a member of the Craft at a Berlin Lodge, and his claim was allowed only after such an examination as satisfied the Brethren that he was one of the Brethren.

From the statement of this Persian Freemason it appears that nearly all the members of the Persian Court belong to the mystic Order, even as German Freemasonry enjoys the honor of counting the Emperor and Crown Prince among its adherents. The appearance of this Mohammedan Freemason in Berlin seems to have excited a little surprise among some of the Brethren there, and the surprise would be natural enough to persons not aware of the extent to which Freemasonry has been diffused over the earth. Account for it as one may, the truth is certain that the mysterious Order was established in the Orient many ages ago. Nearly all of the old Mohammedan buildings in India, such as tombs, mosques, etch are marked with the Masonic symbols, and many of these structures, still perfect, were built in the time of the Mogul Emperor Akbar, who died in 1605. Thus Freemasonry must have been introduced into India from middle Asia by the Mohammedans hundreds of years ago.

Since then there was an initiation of a Persian in the Lodge Clemente Amitie at Paris. There is a Lodge at Teheran, of which many native Persians are members.

PERSIAN PHILOSOPHICAL RITE

A Rite which its founders asserted was established in 1818, at Erzerum, in Persia, and which was introduced into France in the year 1819. It consisted of seven Degrees, as follows:

1. Listening Apprentice

2. Fellow Craft, Adept, Esquire of Benevolence
3. Master, Knight of the Sun
4. Architect of all Rites, Knight of the Philosophy of the Heart5. Knight of Eclecticism and of Truth
6. Master Good Shepherd
7. Venerable Grand Elect
This Rite never contained many members, and has been long extinct.

PERSONAL MERIT

In the Charges, 1723, we find "All preferment among Masons is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only, that so the Lords may be well served, the Brethren not put to shame nor the Royal Craft despised. Therefore no Master or Warden is chosen by seniority, but for his merit" (Constitutions, 1723, page 51).

PERU

A republic of South America. There is an old belief that the French brought Freemasonry into Peru in 1807 and that the work of the various Lodges then formed was ended in 181?; by the Church. This however, is little more than a tradition. The Republic was declared independent in 1820. In 1825 a visit was paid by General Valero representing the Grand Orient of Colombia at Santa Fe de Bogota to legalize the Lodges and Chapters already working there, the first of which, at Lima, had begun work in 1821.

In 1830 a Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was established at Lima by Jose Maria Monson, a Roman Catholic Chaplain.

A Grand Lodge with Thomas Ripley Eldridge as Grand Master was soon opened. A Constitution was adopted on August 11, 1831, and the name changed to Grand Orient of Peru. Work was interrupted by political troubles but on November 1, 1848, the Craft had 80 increased in strength that the Grand Orient was re-established.

A Grand National Orient of Peru was organized on July 13, 1852. In 1857 three Lodges, Concordia Universel, Estrella Polar and Virtudy United, withdrew and with others formed a Grand Lodge at Lima on November 20, 1859. Again in 1860 there was trouble with the Supreme Council and several more seceded, joined the Grand Lodge and formed a Grand Orient and a Supreme Council by authority of the Grand Orient of Colombia. In 1863, however, this Grand Body disappeared.

The Supreme Council then revived the Grand Orient in 1875 and again in 1881. At that time five Lodges withdrew from the Supreme Council and finally established at Lima the Grand Lodge of Peru in March, 1882.

The Grand Lodge of Scotland has two Lodges at Callao, two at Lima, and one at Cerro de Pasco. The Grand Orient of Italy is also represented at Lima by the Stella d'Italia Lodge, Italian Star.

PETERS, WILLIAM

The Rev. William Peters was appointed Grand Portrait Painter to the Grand Lodge of England in 1813.

PETION FOR A CHARTER

The next step in the process of organizing a Lodge, after the Dispensation has been granted by the Grand Master, is an application for a Charter or Warrant of Constitution. The application may be, but not necessarily, in the form of a Petition. On the report of the Grand Master, that he had granted a Dispensation, the Grand Lodge, if the new Lodge is recommended by some other, generally the nearest Lodge, will confirm the Grand Master's action and grant a Charter; although it may refuse to do so, and then the Lodge will cease to exist. Charters or Warrants for Lodges are granted only by the Grand Lodges in America, Ireland and Scotland. In England this great power is vested in the Grand Master. The Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England say that "every application for a Warrant to hold a nest Lodge must be, by Petition to the Grand Master, signed by at least seven regularly registered Masons."

Although, in the United States, it is the general usage that a Warrant must be preceded by a Dispensation, yet there is no general law which would forbid the Grand Lodge to issue a Charter in the first place, no Dispensation having been previously granted. The rule for issuing Charters to Lodges prevails, with no modification in relation to granting them by Grand Chapters, Grand Councils, or Grand commanderies for the Bodies subordinate to them.

PETIT PALAIS

Before the occupation of France by the Germans in World War II a number of French Anti-Masonic groups perfected a more or less unified organization for the express purpose of nullifying the influence of French Masonry before the invasion, and of preparing it for a quick destruction once their friends, the Germans, had arrived. One of the employed leaders of this organization was Bernard Fad, a gentleman who had published two books about Masonry for the American market. The scheme went forward like clockwork, and reached what was expected to be its grand climax in October, 1940, when the German and French Nazis working together opened a "vast" exposition of the "horrors and treacheries of Freemasonry" in the Petit Palace, Paris. They first had sealed the entrances to the temple of the Grand Orient of France at 16 Cadet St., of the Grand Lodge of France at 8 Puteaux Street, and of the National Grand Lodge of France, at 42 Rochechouart Street. Some 200 laborers were forcibly impressed to remodel the Petit Palais, remove the regalia, furniture, records, pictures, etc., from the temples of the three Grand Bodies, and to reassemble them in the quarters for the exposition. The exposition was open for two months.

A number of persons were commandeered into going through an imitation of Masonic ceremonies, attired in regalia, though not with much enjoyment. It would be easy to state at a distance that the thing boomeranged and that the rank and file of Frenchmen showed no interest or were bored when they attended, and it would be taken as an expression of resentment; but it happens in this case to have been literally true. To make up a show of interest the Boches took their own troops to the Palais by the lorry load; these looked, grinned, and gossiped among themselves, and were glad to get away. Any costume, even one of Mr. Goering's uniforms, or Mr. Hitler's trench coat, would look absurd if set up in a case, and was empty; Lodge costumes were even more ridiculous, and even less interesting.

PETITION FOR A DISPENSATION

When it is desired to establish a new Lodge, application by Petition must be made to the Grand Master. This petition ought to be signed by at least seven Master Masons, and be recommended by the nearest Lodge; and it should contain the proposed name of the Lodge and the names of the three principal officers. This is the usage in the United States; but it must be remembered that the Grand Master's prerogative of granting Dispensations cannot be rightfully restricted by any law. Only should the Grand Master grant a Dispensation for a Lodge which, in its petition, had not complied with these prerequisites, it is not probable that, on subsequent application to the Grand Lodge, a Warrant of Constitution would be issued.

PETITION FOR INITIATION

According to American usage any person who is desirous of initiation into the mysteries of Freemasonry must apply to the Lodge nearest to his place of residence, by means of a petition signed by himself, and recommended by at least two members of the Lodge to which he applies. The application of a Freemason to a Chapter, Council, or Commandery for advancement to higher Degrees, or of an unaffiliated Freemason for membership in a Lodge, is also called a Petition. For the rules that govern the disposition of these petitions, see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry.

PETRE, LORD

Lord Petre was elected Grand Master of the (1717) Grand Lodge of England in 1772, and was reelected for three other terms. Because he was a remarkable man himself, entitled for his own sake to be remembered, and because his tenure in office fell at a critical period in the Grand Lodge's affairs, his administration is a landmark in Masonic history, for American Masons as much as for British, because at least one of his actions (re. Preston) was to have in the not distant future consequences for American Masonry of the first importance.

Brother Petre was one of three Grand Masters who were Roman Catholics while in office—Grand Master Lord Ripon resigned the office when he became a convert. But it appears never to have occurred to him that his religion interfered, or could interfere, with his Freemasonry. In 1772 he took the unprecedented step of giving Grand Lodge approval to a book not of an official kind, when in 1772 he officially sanctioned the publication of William Preston's Illustrations of Masonry —and the fact ought to have been kept in mind by R. F. Gould in those many pages of his History when he sought to discredit the book and to write down its author. Had not Lord Petre thus approved the publication, Thomas Smith Webb would not have made use of it, and American Lodges very probably would not now be using the Webb-Preston Work. Lord Petre similarly officially approved a second edition in l 775. He also gave approval to William Hutchinson's Smrxt of Masonry, a book which Mackey introduced to a wide public in America in later years. Both books were advertised for sale in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of England in 1776.

Lord Petre appointed the first Grand Chaplain— the ill-fated and self-fated Rev. William Dodd. Ele laid the foundation-stone of the new Freemasons' Hall in 1775. He created the new office—to be short lived—of Grand Architect. Under him, the Grand Lodge ordained that no keeper of a public house could be a member of a Lodge meeting on his premises. The Grand Lodge established correspondence with the Grand Lodge of Germany. At the very end of his last term the Grand Lodge took its first official step against the Ancient Grand Lodge, which had been established in London for twenty-five years, by forbidding Masons to visit its Lodges or receiving its members as visitors. The Resolution was harshly worded and presented by the then Grand Secretary, and was probably written by the latter; Ancient Masons are described as " Persons " (an insulting word at the time) who are " calling themselves Ancient Masons," of a "pretended" authority, "and at present said to be under the patronage of the Duke of Athol." (Why "said to be" when every Mason knew that it was?)

Lord Petre appeared in Grand Lodge for the last time in 1791. He died July 3, 1801; after his death it was discovered that he had expended each year in benevolence £5,000, a sum roughly equivalent at the present time to $75,000.

Notes. The Grand Secretary's Bull of Excommunication of 1777 against the Ancient was destined to have its thunders proved as hollow as other Bulls of other Vatican in only five years (1792) H. R. H. the Duke of Kent had himself made an Ancient Mason in Canada, and had an Ancient Provincial Grand Lodge set up there, although at the time he was a member of Modern Lodges in England; and did so as the first step in a plan he had made with his brother H. R. H. Duke of Sussex, to put an end to the unnecessary division in English Freemasonry, a project accomplished by them in 1813 at which time Kent was Ancient Grand Master and Susses was Modern Grand Master. It is interesting to observe—if the digression is allowable—that during his four years, Lord Petre was our Grand Master, as much so as he was of Lodges in England so that the history of his and of preceding administrations is our history; it is therefore extraordinarily difficult to explain why English historians, and almost with no exceptions omit so much as a reference to Provincial Grand Lodges and Lodges in Canada and America when writing their histories of the Grand Lodge and of the Craft!

PEUVRET, JEAN EUSTACHE

An usher of the Parliament of Paris, and Past Master of the Lodge of Saint Pierre in Martinico, and afterward a dignitary of the Grand Orient at France. Peuvret was devoted to Hermetic Freemasonry, and acquired some reputation by numerous compilations on Masonic subjects. During his life he amassed a valuable library of mystical, alchemical, and Masonic books, and a manuscript collection of eighty-one Degrees of Hermetic Freemasonry in six quarto volumes. He asserts in this work that the Degrees were brought from England and Scotland; but this Thory (Acta Latomorum 1, page 205) denies, and says that they were manufactured in Paris. Peuvret's exceeding zeal without knowledge made him the victim of every charlatan who approached him. He died at Paris in 1800.

PFUSCHER

German word meaning cowan

PHAINOTELETIAN SOCIETY

The French title is Society Phaxnotelete. A Society founded at Paris, in 1840, by Louis Theordore Juge, the editor of the Globe, composed of members of all rites and Degrees, for the investigation of all non-political secret associations of ancient and modern times. The title is taken from the Greek, and signifies literally the Society of the Explainers of the Mysteries of Initiation.

PHALLIC WORSHIP

The Phallus was a sculptured representation of the membrum uirile, or male organ of generation. The worship of it is said to have originated in Egypt, where, after the murder of Osiris by Typhon, which is symbolically to be explained as the destruction or deprivation of the sun's light by night, Isis, his wife, or the symbol of nature, in the search for his mutilated body, is said to have found all the parts except the organs of generation. This myth is simply symbolic of the fact that the sun having set, its fecundating and invigorating power had ceased. The Phallus, therefore, as the symbol of the male generative principle, was very universally venerated among the ancients, and that, too, as a religious rite, without the slightest reference to any impure or lascivious application.

As a symbol of the generative principle of nature, the worship of the Phallus appears to have been very nearly universal. In the mysteries it was carried in solemn procession. The Jews, in their numerous deflections into idolatry, fell readily into that of this symbol. And they did this at a very early period of their history, for we are told that even in the time of the Judges (see Judges in, 7), they "served Baalim and the groves." Now the word translated, here and elsewhere, as groves, is in the original Asherah, and is by all modern interpreters supposed to mean a species of Phallus. Thus Movers (Die Phonizier, page 56) says that Asherah is a sort of Phallus erected to the telluric goddess Baaltes, and the learned Holloway (Originals i, page 18) had long before come to the same conclusion.

But the Phallus, or, as it was called among the Orientalists, the Lingam, the symbol under which, for example, the god Siva is worshiped in India, was a representation of the male principle only. To perfect the circle of generation, it is necessary to advance one step farther. Accordingly we find in the Cteis of the Greeks, and the Yoni of the Indians, a symbol of the female generative principle of coextensive prevalence with the Phallus. The Cteis was a circular and concave pedestal, or receptacle, on which the Phallus or column rested, and from the center of which it sprang.

The union of these two, as the generative and the producing principles of nature, in one compound figure, was the most usual mode of representation. Here we undoubtedly find the remote origin of the point within a circle, an ancient symbol which was first adopted by the old sun-worshipers, and then by the ancient astronomers, as a symbol of the sun surrounded by the earth or the universe—the sun as the generator and the earth as the producer—and afterward modified in its signification and incorporated as part of the symbolism of Freemasonry (see Point within a Circle).

PHALLUS

Donegan says this word comes from an Egyptian or Indian root. More directly it comes from the Greek by way of Latin (see Phallic Worship) .

PHARAXAL

A significant word in the advanced Degrees, and there said, in the old instructions to signify we shall all be united. Delaunay gives it as Pharas Rol, and says it means All is explained. If it is derived from wig, and the adverbial i:, kol, meaning altogether, it certainly means not to be united, but to be separated, and has the same meaning as its cognate polkas This incongruity in the words and their accepted explanation has led Brother Pike to reject them both from the Degree in which they were originally found. And it is certain that the radical pal and phar both have everywhere in Hebrew the idea of separation. But Doctor Mackey's reading of the old rituals compelled him to believe that the Degree in which these words are found always contained an idea of separation and subsequent reunion. It is evident that there was either a blunder in the original adoption of the word pharazal, or more probably a corruption by subsequent copyists. He was satisfied that the ideas of division, disunion, or separation, and of subsequent reunion, are correct;' but he was also satisfied that the Hebrew form of this word is wrong.

PHARISEES

A school among the Jews at the time of Christ, so called from the Aramaic Perushim, Separated, because they held themselves apart from the rest of the nation. They claimed to have a mysterious knowledge unknown to the mass of the people, and pretended to the exclusive possession of the true meaning of the Scriptures, by virtue of the oral law and the secret traditions which, having been received by Moses on Mount Sinai, had been transmitted to successive generations of initiates. They are supposed to have been essentially the same as the Assideans or Chasidim. The character of their organization is interesting to the Masonic student. They held a secret doctrine, of which the dogma of the resurrection was an important feature; they met in sodalities or societies, the members of which called themselves Chabirim, meaning fellows or associates; and they styled all who were outside of their mystical association, Yom Haharetz, or people of the land.

PHENICIA

The Latinized form of the Greek word Phoinikia, from sooLvtt, a palm, because of the number of palms anciently, but not now, found in the country. A tract of country on the north of Palestine, along the shores of the Mediterranean, of which Tyre and Sidon were the principal cities. The researches of Gesenius and other modern philologers have confirmed the assertions of Jerome and Augustine, that the language spoken by the Sews and the Phenicians was almost identical; a statement interesting to the Masonic student as giving another reason for the bond which existed between Solomon and Hiram, and between the Jewish workmen and their fellow-laborers of Tyre, in the construction of the Temple (see Tyre).

Phenicia is in Syria, literally the land of the Surians or Tvrians, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west; Mount Lebanon on the east, a strip of land forming Phenicia proper being only some twentyeight miles long by a mile wide, with the famous cities of antiquit, v, Tyre and Sidon, the former at the north and the latter at the south of tips region. Phenicia in some estimates is given a larger territory, about 120 miles by 20. In any case the outstretched foreign importance of the people far exceeds the limited domestic area of their country Both Tyre, meaning frock, and Sidon, Fishery, are mentioned in Joshua (xix, 28, 29) as prominent places. There are several other allusions to them in the Bible.

The people were adventurous, their ships were on the Indian Ocean and the broad Atlantic, their energies extended to British coasts, Ceylon shores; for Xerxes at Salamis they furnished 300 ships; they earned the praise of Nenophon for naval architecture; Tyrian purple was the royal color, in mining and manufacturing they were accomplished pioneers. Their intercourse with the Israelites was typical and in the service of Solomon they were but exhibiting their customary zeal in commerce and founding further international goodwill. Of their labors for David and Solomon in building the House of the Lord at Jerusalem we read in Second Samuel (v, 11) and First Kings (v, 1; vii, 13; iv, 11, 12). of the scope of their trade read Ezekiel (chapters xxvi, xxvii and xxviii). on the coast of Tyre and Sidon our Lord healed the woman of Canaan (Matthew xv, 21-8). Among many interesting items read "The ruined cities of Palestine east and west of the Jordan," Arthur W. Sutton, Journal, Victoria Institute (volume lii), also Smithsonuzn Report, 1923 (pages 509-11):

Sidon is not only the most ancient city of Phenicia but one of the oldest of the known cities of the world and is said by Josephus to have been built by Sidon, the eldest son of Canaan, and is mentioned with high praise by Homer in the Iliad, where he says that as early as in the Trojan war, the Sidonian mariners, having provoked the enmity of the Trojans, were by them despoiled of the gorgeous robes manufactured by Sidon's daughters, these being considered so valuable and precious as to propitiate the goddess of war in their favor. Sidon was renowned for its skill in arts, science, and literature, maritime commerce and architecture; and according to Strabo, the Sidonians were celebrated for astronomy geometry, navigation, and philosophy.

Sidon was captured by Shalmaneser in 720 B.C., and it was again taken in 350 B.C. by Artaxerxes Ochus. It fell to Alexander the Great without a struggle, and afterwards came into possession successively of the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies. During the time of the Crusaders Sidon was four times taken, plundered, and dismantled. Excavations have revealed several rock-hewn tombs, with elaborately carved sarcophagi. The most celebrated is the sarcophagus of Alexander, which before the war was. in the mosque at Constantinople. He was certainly never buried in it. A sarcophagus was opened the other day at Sidon, full of fluid and containing a beautiful body in perfect preservation, but immediately it was lifted from the fluid it lost all shape.

The origin of Tyre is lost in the mist of centuries, and Isaiah says its "antiquity is of ancient days" (xxii, 7). Herodotus states it was founded about 2,300 years before his time, i.e., 2750 8.C. William of Tyre declares it was called after the name of its founder, "Tyrus, who was the seventh son of Japhet, the son of Noah." Strabo spoke of it as the most considerable city of all Phenicia. Sidon was certainly the more ancient city of the two, but Tyre by far the more celebrated and one of the greatest cities of antiquity. It was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar for 30 years. The siege of the eity by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. was the most remarkable and disastrous episode in the history of Tyre. The island city held out for seven months, but was finally captured by being united to the mainland by a mole formed of the stones, timber, and rubbish of old Tyre on the shore which were conveyed into position by the Grecian army.

In more modern times the city was taken by the Mohammedan, the lives and property of the inhabitants being spared on condition that there should be " no building of new churches, no ringing of bells, no riding on horseback, and no insults to the Moslem religion." Tyre was retaken by the Christians in 1124, but once more fell into Moslem hands at the final collapse of the Crusades in 1291. It was then almost entirely destroyed and the place has never since recovered, though of late years there have been signs of a slight revival of commerce, and the city is gradually becoming more populous. In the middle of the last century it had fallen so low that Hasselquist, a traveler, found but ten inhabitants in the place.

The ruins which are now found in the peninsula are those of Crusaders or Saraeenic work. The city of the Crusaders lies several feet beneath the debris, and below that are the remains of the Mohammedan and early Christian Tyre. The ancient capital of the Phenicians lies far, far down beneath the superincumbent ruins.

PHENIX

The old mythological legend of the phenir is a familiar one. The bird was described as of the size of an eagle, with a head finely crested, a body covered with beautiful plumage, and eyes sparkling like stars.

She was said to live six hundred years in the wilderness, when she built for herself a funereal pile of aromatic woods, which she ignited with the fanning of her wings, and emerged from the flames with a new life. Hence the phenix has been adopted universally as a symbol of immortality.

Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis ii, page 441) says that the phenix is the symbol of an ever-revolving solar cycle of six hundred and eight years, and refers to the Phenieian word phen, which signifies a cycle. Aumont, the first Grand Master of the Templars after the martyrdom of De Molay, and called the Restorer of the Order, took, it is said, for his seal, a phenix brooding on the flames, with the Latin motto, Ardet ut sivat, meaning She burns that she may live. The phenix was adopted at a very early period as a Christian symbol, and several representations of it have been found in the catacombs. Its ancient legend, doubtless, caused it to be accepted as a symbol of the resurrection.

PHILADELPHES, LODGE OF THE

The name of a Lodge at Narbonne, in France, in which the Primitive Rite was first instituted; whence it is sometimes called the Rite of the Philadelphians (see Primitive Rite).

PHILADELPHES, RITE OF THE GRAND LODGE OF

See Memphis, Rite of

PHILADELPHIA

Placed on the imprint of some Masonic works of the eighteenth century as a pseudonym or false name of Paris.

PHILADELPHIANS, RITE OF THE

See Primitive Rite

PHILALETHES, RITE OF THE

Called also the Seekers of Truth, although the word literally means Friends of Truth. It was a Rite founded in 1773 at Paris, in the Lodge of Amis Reunis, by Savalette de Langes, Keeper of the Royal Treasury, with whom were associated the Vicomte de Tavannes, Court de Gebelin, M. de Sainte-Jamos, the President d'Hericourt, and the Prince of Hesse. The Rite, which was principally founded on the system of Martinism, did not confine itself to any particular mode of instruction, but in its reunions, called Contents, the members devoted themselves to the study of all kinds of knowledge that were connected with the occult sciences, and thus they welcomed to their association all who had made themselves remarkable by the singularity or the novelty of their opinions, such as Cagliostro, Mesmer, and Saint Martin. It was divided into twelve classes or chambers of instruction. The names of these classes or Degrees were as follows:

1. Apprentice

2. Fellow Craft
3. Master
4. Elect
5. Scottish Master
6. Knight of the East
7. Rose Croix
8. Knight of the Temple
9. Unknown Philosopher
10. Sublime Philosopher
11. Initiate
12. Philalethes, or Searcher after Truth

The first six Degrees were called Petty Masonry, and the last six High Masonry. The Rite did not increase very rapidly; nine years after its institution, it counted only twenty Lodges in France and in foreign countries which were of its obedience. In 1785 it attempted a radical reform in Freemasonry, and for this purpose invited the most distinguished Freemasons of all countries to a Congress at Paris. But the project failed, and Savalette de Langes dying in 1788, the Rite. of which he alone was the soul, ceased to exist, and the Lodge of Amis Reunis was dissolved.

PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON

Born in England, 1698, of an illustrious family; received a splendid education and on June 25, 1722, was elected to succeed the Duke of Montague as Grand Master of Freemasons, Doctor Desaguliers acting as Deputy Grand Master. The Constitutions, 1723, has a frontispiece showing two figures understood to be the respective dukes, Montague presenting the Roll of Constitutions and the Compasses to Wharton. A year later he waived the custom of naming his successor and left it to the Grand Lodge to make its own choice, the Earl of Dalkeith. The Earl named Doctor Desaguliers for his Deputy. On the question "that the Deputy nominated by the Earl of Dalkeith be approved," the motion was declared carried by a vote of forty-three to forty-two. Later in the proceedings, the Grand Master said he had some doubt upon this decision but was overruled. As a result the Duke of Wharton departed from the Hall without ceremony.

His interest in Freemasonry did not cease with the above experience. According to Lane's Masonic Records the Duke of Wharton in "his own Apartments in Madrid" founded the first "Warranted or constituted Lodge in Foreign Parts by the Grand Lodge of England." He pursued an inconsistent political career, in 1798 he joined the Roman Catholic Church, although he once wrote a poem with the lines "And give us grace for to defy the Devil and the Pope," made several attempts to assume active work for the Pretender, tried to reinstate himself with his Government, and, failing that, he again directed his pen against the English Parliament, which retaliated by outlawing him. Eventually reduced to poverty, having spent his large fortune recklessly, he died in the garb of a Franciscan monk in 1731, when but thirty-three years of age. Perhaps the most notable peculiarities of this able yet unstable exemplar of flickering brilliance are best cataloged in the following suggestive lines from Alexander Pope's Moral Essays, Epistle 1:

Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,

Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise; 
Born with whatever could win it from the wise, 
Women and fools must like him, or he dies 
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke 
The club must hail him master of the joke.... 
His passion still, to covet general praise, 
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; 
A constant bounty which no friend has made; 
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade 
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, 
Too rash for thought, for action too refined; 
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves: 
A rebel to the king he loves 
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, 
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great, 
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule? 
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.

(See Lewis Melville's Philip, Duke of Wharton, 1913, John Lane; also R. F. Gould's Masonic Celebwrities, and an article by R I. Clegg, American Freemason, 1914, page 282.)

PHILIP IV

Surnamed Le Bel, or the Fair, who ascended the throne of France in 1285. He is principally distinguished in history on account of his persecution of the Knights Templar. With the aid of his willing instrument, Pope Clement V, he succeeded in accomplishing the overthrow of the Order. He died in 1314, execrated by his subjects, whose hearts he had alienated by the cruelty, avarice, and despotism of his administration.

PHILIPPIAN ORDER

Finch gives this as the name of a secret Order instituted by King Philip "for the use only of his first nobility and principal officers, who thus formed a select and secret council in which he could implicitly confide." It has attracted the attention of no other Masonic writer, and was probably no more than the coinage of a charlatan's brain.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

Brother Teodaro M. Kalaw, La Masoneria Filipina, mentions the claim that when the British captured Manila from Spain, 1762-4, a Lodge was established. In 1924 a speaker at the Masonic Temple, Manila, reported his researches at Seville, Spain, into letters from the Archbishop at Manila complaining that the British had at the above period held Masonic meetings in the Cathedral of Intramuros and that this profanation possibly unfitted the building for ecclesiastical uses.

There is therefore a probability of the Brethren among the European officers having constituted a Lodge. Brigadier-General Matthew Horne, second Provincial Grand Master, Coromandel Coast, was also an early visitor to the Philippines (see Proceedings, Grand Lodge, Philippines, Brother E. A. Perkins, 1927, pages 63-72). Documents show that in 1756 the Inquisition, Manila, tried two Irishmen, James O'Eennedy, merchant, and Edward Wigat, physician, OLs the charge that as Freemasons they were violating a Spanish royal decree but being under the protection of England they escaped with a reprimand. January 19, 1812, the Regency prohibited Freemasonry and in 1829 a shipment of Masonic books being discovered on a ship bound to Manila the regulations were made more strict.

Lodge Primera Luz Filipina (First Philippine Light) was established in 1856 by two naval lieutenants, Jose Malcamps y Monge and Casto Mendez Nufiez, chartered by the Gran Oriente Lusitano (Grand Orient of Portugal) and worked at Cavite. One of these lieutenants became Admiral and Captain General of the Philippines, the other, Nufiez was offered the position of Squadron Commander of the Spanish Fleet.

This Lodge did not admit Filipinos and soon another Lodge, mainly Germans, was organized and a Secretary of the Lodge, Jacobo Zobel y Zangronis, was probably the first Filipino to be initiated in the islands. The British established a Lodge and then the Spaniards organized one also admitting natives. Measures were adopted in 1893 to suppress the Craft and the Katipunan, a seditious secret society borrowing the general forms of Freemasonry, was suppressed severely and Freemasons suffered accordingly, many tortured and slain. December 30, 1896, Dr. Jose Rizal, a prominent Freemason, was shot by a firing squad at Manila. January 11, 1897, eleven other Craftsmen were shot there, one freemason unable to stand because of the dislocation of his limbs by torture.

Other executions occurred in various parts of the islands. After May 1, 1898, the American fleet under Admiral Dewey entered Manila Bay, old Lodges reopened, and Emilio Aguinaldo gave official recognition to the Craft. A Field Lodge of a North Dakota Regiment began work, August 21, 1898, Lieutenant Colonel W. C. Treumann, Worshipful Master. On October 10, 1901, Manila Lodge No. 342, Eugene E. Stafford of New York, as Worshipful Master, was organized by the Grand Lodge of California and in two years Cavite Lodge No. 350, and later Corregidor Lodge No. 386. Then a Lodge Perla del Oriente (Pearl of the East) No. 1043 at Manila and a Lodge at Cebu, were chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. On December 19, 1912, the Grand Lodge was organized by the Californian Bodies and were later joined by others. In 1910 Mount Arayal Lodge of Perfection under the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was established at Manila, a Lyceum with Judge Charles S. Lobingier as Preceptor being founded there in 1908, and in 1911, Manu Chapter, Confucius Council, and Guatama Consistory came into existence, and were followed by others (see Masonry in the Philippines, in New Age, by Leo Fischer, September, 1927, pages 543-8).

PHILO

The name among the Illuminati by which Baron von Enigge was known (see Enigge).

PHILOCOREITES, ORDER OF

An androgynous, both sexes, secret society established in the French army in Spain, in 1808. The members were called Knights and Ladxes Philocoreites, or Lovers of Pleasure. It was not Masonic in character. But Thory has thought it worth a long description in his History of the Foundation of the Grand Orient of France.

PHILO JUDAEUS

A Jewish philosopher of the school of Alexandria, who was born about thirty years before Christ. Philo adopted to their full extent the mystical doctrines of his school, and taught that the Hebrew Scriptures contained, in a system of allegories, the real source of all religious and philosophical knowledge, the true meaning of which was to be excluded from the vulgar, to whom the literal signification alone was to be made known. Whoever, says he, has meditated on philosophy, has purified himself by virtue, and elevated himself by a contemplative life to God and the intellectual world, receiving their inspiration, thus pierces the gross envelop of the letter, and is initiated into mysteries of which the literal instruction is but a faint image. A fact, a figure, a word, a rite or custom, veils the profoundest truths, to be interpreted only by him who has the true key of science. Such symbolic views were eagerly seized by the early inventors of the advanced, philosophical Degrees of Freemasonry, who have made frequent use of the esoteric philosophy of Philo in the construction of their Masonic system.

PHILO-MUSICAE SOCIETY, ETC.

As stated in the paragraph on page 772 the Philo-Musicae Et Architecturae Apolloni Society was established by a small group of Freemasons who were lovers of music and architecture early in 1725. A copy of the Minutes was presented by John Henderson, of London, to the British Museum in 1859, and is now listed as Add. Its. No. 23202. Quatuor Coronati Lodge published a reprint of it in Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha; Vol. IX; 1900; edited by its Secretary, G. W. Speth, and with a critical Introduction by the erudite Bro. W. Harry Rylands. In the Records the Society (or Lodge) describes itself as having been formed Feb. 18, 1725, at the Queen's Head near Temple Barr. Lane's List of Lodges (Revised Edition) gives the Lodge as at Hollis-Street Oxford-Square, and in a foot-note the Grand Lodge's own list is quoted as having added to that entry: "Ditto, [i.e. Queen's Head] Temple Barr, Philo-Musicae et Architecturae Societas. Every other Thursday from St. John Baptist." It is difficult to know whether this was a society within the Lodge; or a separate society meeting in the same room; etc. The founders were members of the Queen's Head, but during the Society's two years of existence it itself, and acting as a Lodge, "made" eighteen Masons. This small Society with its two years of existence would have attracted very little attention from Masonic historians did not its Minutes appear to show that in 1725 it was conferring two Degrees in addition to the Entered Apprentice Degree. If the latter of these two was the Master Mason Degree the Philo-Musicae Minute is one of the two oldest written records of a Third Degree. (Bro. Robert F. Gould discussed the Minute at length in a paper published in Ars Quatuor Coronstorum, in 1903, later included in his Collected Essatys and Papers Relating to Freemasonry; William Tait; 1913; Ch. XIII.)

PHILO-MUSICAE ET ARCHITECTURAE SOCIETAS

An organization founded in London, February 18, 1725, and terminating March 23, 1727. A complete Minute-booL: of this society is in the possession of the British Museum, having been reprinted by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge due to the information contained therein as to the Degrees conferred by Freemasons during that period. This was a musical society primarily, but no members were admitted who were not Freemasons, the society itself, as was the practice before the formation of the English Grand Lodge in 1717, frequently performing Masonic ceremonies, conferring Degrees, etc. Naturally after 1717 this custom was objected to by the Grand Lodge and in 1725 the Duke of Richmond, then Grand Master, protested against this irregularity. In spite of this, however, the society continued to meet until 1727.

PHILOSOPHER, CHRISTIAN

The French title is Philosophe Chretien. The Fourth Degree of the Order of African Architects.

PHILOSOPHER, GRAND AND SUBLIME HERMETIC

In French, Grand et Sublime Philosophe Hermetique. A Degree in the manuscript collection of Peuvret. Twelve other Degrees of Philosopher were contained in the same collection, namely, Grand Neapolitan Philosopher, Grand Practical Philosopher, Cabalistic Philosopher, Cabalistic Philosopher to the Number 5, Perfect Mason Philosopher, Perfect Master Philosopher, Petty Neapolitan Philosopher, Petty Practical Philosopher, Sublime Philosopher, Sublime Philosopher to the Number 9, and Sublime Practical Philosopher. They are probably all Cabalistic or Herrnetic Degrees.

PHILOSOPHER OF HERMES

In French, Philosophe d'Herrnts. A Degree contained in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Reunis at Calais.

PHILOSOPHER, SUBLIME

The French title is Sublime Philosophy and alludes to two grades.

1. The Fifty-third Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.
2. The Tenth Class of the Rite of the Philalethes.

PHILOSOPHER, SUBLIME UNKNOWN

In French, Sublime Philosophe Inconnu. The Seventy ninth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

PHILOSOPHER, THE LITTLE

The title in French is Le petit Philosophy. A Degree in the collection of Pyron.

PHILOSOPHER, UNKNOWN

In French the title is Philosophy Inconnu. The Ninth Class of the Rite of the Philalethes. It was so called in reference to Saint Martin, who had adopted that title as his pseudonym, or false name and was universally known by it among his disciples.

PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

It was the doctrine of the Alchemists, that there was a certain mineral, the discovery of which was the object of their art, because, being mixed with the baser metals, it would transmute these into gold. This mineral, known only to the adepts, they called Lapis Philosophorum, or the philosopher's stone.

Hitchcock, who wrote a book in 1857 on Alchemy and the Alchemists, to maintain the proposition that Alchemy was a symbolic science, that its subject was Man, and its object the perfection of men, asserts that the philosopher's stone was a symbol of man. He quotes the old Hermetic philosopher, Isaac Holland, as saying that "though a man be poor, yet may he very well attain unto it—the work of perfection—and may be employed in making the philosopher's stone." Hitchcock (on page 76) in commenting on this, says: "That is, every man, no matter how humble his vocation, may do the best he can in his place—may 'love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly with God'; and what more doth God require of any man?" If this interpretation be correct, then the philosopher's stone of the Alchemists, and the spiritual temple of the Freemasons are identical symbols (see Alchemy).

PHILOSOPHIC DEGREES

All the Degrees of the ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite above the Eighteenth and below the Thirty-third are called Philosophic Degrees, because, abandoning the symbolism based on the Temple, they seek to develop a system of pure theosophy. Some writers have contended that the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Degrees should be classed with the Philosophic Degrees. But this is not correct, since both of those Degrees have preserved the idea of the Temple system. They ought rather to be called Apocalyptic Degrees, the Seventeenth Degree more especially, because they do not teach the ancient philosophies, but are connected in their symbolism with Saint John's spiritual temple of the New Jerusalem.

PHILOSOPHIC SCOTTISH RITE

This Rite consists of twelve Degrees, as follows:

1, 2, 3. Knight of the Black Eagle or Rose Croix of Heredom, divided into three parts; 
4. Knight of the Phenix; 
5. Knight of the Sun; 
6. Knight of the Rainbow; 
7. True Mason; 
8. Knight of the Argonaut; 
9. Knight of the Golden Fleece; 
10. Perfectly Initiated Grand Inspector; 
11. Grand Scottish Inspector; 
12. Sublime Master of the Luminous Ring.

The three Degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry form the necessary basis of this system, although they do not constitute a part of the Rite. In its formation it expressly renounced the power to constitute Symbolic Lodges, but reserved the faculty of affiliating regularly constituted Lodges into its high Degrees. Thory (Foundation of the Grand Orient, page 162) seems desirous of tracing the origin of the Rite to the Rosicrucians of the fourteenth century. But the reasons which he assigns for this belief are by no means satisfactory.

The truth is, that the Rite was founded in 1775, in the celebrated Lodge of the Social Contract, in French, Contrat Social, and that its principal founder was M. Boileau, a physician of Paris, who had been a disciple of Pernetti, the originator of the Hermetic Rite at Avignon, whose Hermetic principles he introduced into the Philosophic Scottish Rite. Some notion may be formed of the nature of the system which was taught in this Rite, from the name of the Degree which is at its summit. The Luminous Ring is a Pythagorean Degree. In 1780, an Academy of the Sublime Masters of the Luminous Ring was established in France, in which the doctrine was taught that Freemasonry was originally founded by Pythagoras, and in which the most important portion of the lectures was engaged in an explanation of the peculiar dogmas of the Sage of Samos.

The chief seat of the Rite had always been in the Lodge of Social Contract until 1792, when, in common with all the other Masonic Bodies of France, it suspended its labors. It was resuscitated at the termination of the Revolution, and in 1805 the Lodge of the Social Contract, and that of Saint Alexander of Scotland, assumed the title of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite in France. This body was eminently literary in its character, and in 1811 and 1812 possessed a mass of valuable archives, among which were a number of old charters, manuscript rituals, and Masonic works of great interest, in all languages.

PHILOSOPHUS

The Fourth Grade of the First Order of the Society of Rosicrucians, as practised in Europe and the United States.

PHILOSOPHY SUBLIME

In French, Philosophie Sublime. The Forty-eighth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim.

PHILOSOPHY OF FREEMASONRY

Lectures on the Philosophy of Freemasonry, by Roscoe Pound, former Dean of the Law School, Harvard University, presents the philosophy of Freemasonry in the form of a series of chapters on each of four typical Masonic thinkers: William Preston, Karl C. F. Krause, the Rev. George Oliver, and Albert Pike; and concludes with a chapter in which he develops a theory of his own in the terms of Pragmatism. His method is to reduce the problem to "three fundamental questions . . . What is the end (purpose or goal) of Masonry? How does Masonry seek to achieve its end? What are the fundamental principles by which Masonry is governed in achieving its task?" These four Masonic philosophies, he makes clear, are typical only and not exhaustive of the line of thinkers who belong to the succession of Masonic philosophers, and the list could have included such names as Calcott, Albert G. .NIackey, Simon Greenleaf, H. J. Whymper, Charles Broekwell, William Hutchinson, H. P. Bromwell, Jethre Inwood. A. E. Waite, W. L. Wilmshurst, J. F. Newton, etc.

A work which discusses the contents of Masonic philosophy in non-technical form, entitled The Great Teachings of Masonry, by H. L. Haywood, suggests that to the schools of philosophy expounded by Pound should be added at least two others: the historical school, which holds "that the unfolding story of Masonry is a gradual revelation of the nature of Masonry " and the school of Masonic mysticism according to which " our Order is an instituted form of mysticism, in the ceremonies and symbols of which men may find, if they care to follow them, the roads that lead to a direct and firsthand experience of God."

One of the difficult questions to answer about Freemasonry is, Where is it? In what particular thing do you find it? It is very old, because as the Old Charges prove present day Lodges have descended in an unbroken line from Fourteenth Century Lodges and those Lodges in turn (their members were very conscious of Masonry's antiquity) had descended from the Twelfth Century. As it spread from one country to another Freemasonry diversified itself, so that the Freemasonry of Sweden differs from that of France which in turn differs from that of America, and so forth. At the end of the Eighteenth Century the Fraternity further diversified itself by expanding from within in the form of four new and independent branches: Capitular Masonry, Cryptic Masonry, Templarism, and the Scottish Rite.

These Rites, in turn, are divided into some forty Degrees, each Degree is divided into sections in each section are rites, symbols, charges, obligations, etc. Meanwhile, there are in the United States forty-nine Grand Lodges, each sovereign and sole within its jurisdiction; each of these has Constitutions and Statutes in the form of a printed Code, and governs itself according to a set of unwritten laws called Ancient Landmarks. In no time or place does this world-wide Fraternity publish or propound a written creed or set of doctrines; Freemasonry does not define itself. The answer to the question, What is Freemasonry? can therefore be found only by grasping the whole of this great complex of men and activities, extending through centuries in time and over many countries in space; to have the ability thus to grasp and to understand it requires that a man shall possess such a mass of knowledge of history, laws, rites, symbols, Landmarks, literature as is possible to a few men only. The endeavor to answer the question, What is Freemasonry? by the use of those means is Masonic Philosophy.

*

PHYLACTERIES

The second fundamental principle of Judaism is the wearing of phylacteries; termed by some writers Tataphoth, or ornaments, and refer to the law and commandments, as "Bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine head" (Proverbs ini, 3; vi, 21, and viii, 3). The phylacteries are worn on the forehead and arm, and are called in Hebrew Tephillin, from Palal, meaning to pray. These consist of two leathern boxes. One contains four compartments, in which are enclosed four portions of the law written on parchment and carefully folded. The box is made of leather pressed upon blocks of wood specially prepared, the leather being well soaked in water.

The following passages of the Law are sewn into it: Exodus xiii, 1-10, 11-16. Deuteronomy vi, 4-9; xi, 13-21. On this box is the letter if, pronounced shin, with three strokes for the right side, and the same letter with four strokes for the left side of the wearer. The second box has but one compartment, into which the same passages of Scripture are sewed with the sinews of animals, specially prepared for this object. The phylacteries are bound on the forehead and arm by long leathern straps.

The straps on the head must be tied in a knot shaped like the letter is, daleth. The straps on the arm must go round it seven times, and three times round the middle finger, with a small surplus over in the form of the letter as, yod. Thus we have the Shaddai, or Almighty. The phylacteries are kept in special bags, with greatest reverence, and the Rabbis assert "that the single precept of the phylacteries is equal to all the commandments."

PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS

The physical qualifications of a candidate for initiation into Freemasonry may be considered under the three heads of Sex, Age, and Bodily Conformation.

1. Sex. It is a landmark that the candidate shall be a man. This, of course, prohibits the initiation of a woman.

2. Age. The candidate must, say the Old Regulations, be of "mature and discreet age." The Masonic instructions forbid the initiation of an "old man in his dotage, or a young man under age." The man who has lost his faculties by an accumulation of years, or not vet acquired them in their full extent by immaturity of age. is equally incapable of initiation (see Dotage and Mature Age).
3. Bodily Conformation. The Gothic Constitutions of 926, or what is said to be that document, prescribe that the candidate ';must be without blemish, and have the full and proper use of his limbs"; and the Charges of 1722 say "that he must have no maim or defect in his body that may render him incapable of learning the art, of serving his Master's Lord, and of being made a Brother" (see Constitutions, 1723, page 51). And although a fess jurists have been disposed to interpret this law with unauthorized laxity, the general spirit of the Institution, and of all its authorities, is to observe it rigidly (see the subject fully discussed in Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry)

PICART'S CEREMONIES

Bernard Picart was a celebrated engraver of Amsterdam, and the author of a voluminous work, which was begun in 1723, and continued after his death, until 1737, by J. F. Bernard, entitled Ceremonies Religieuses de to us les peu pies du monde, Religious Cereinonies of All the People of the World. A second edition was published at Paris, in 1741, by the Abb6s Banier and Le Mascrier, who entirely remodeled the work; and a third in 1783 by a set of free-thinkers, who disfigured, and still further altered the text to suit their own views. Editions, professing to be reprints of the original one, have been subsequently published in 1807-9 and in 1816. The book has been more recently deemed of some importance by the investigators of the Masonic history of the eighteenth century, because it contains an engraved list in two pages of the English Lodges which were in existence in 1735. The plate is, however, of no value as an original authority, since it is merely a copy of the Engraved List of Lodges, published by J. Pine in 1735.

PICKAX

An instrument used to loosen the soil and prepare it for digging. It is one of the Working tools of a Royal Arch Mason, and symbolically teaches him to loosen from his heart the hold of evil habits.

PIECE OF ARCHITECTURE

In French, the title is Morfeau d'Architecture. The French so call a discourse, poem, or other production on the subject of Freemasonry. The definition previously given in this work under the title Architecture, if confined to Lodge Minutes, would not be sufficiently inclusive.

PIKE, ALBERT

Born at Boston, Massachusetts, December 29, 1809, and died April 2, 1891. After a sojourn in early life in Mexico, he returned to the United States and settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, as an editor and lawyer. Subsequent to the War of the Rebellion, in which he had cast his fortunes with the South, he located in Washington, District of Columbia, uniting with a former Senator, Robert Johnson, in the profession of the law, making his home, however, in Alexandria. His library, in extent and selections, was a marvel, especially in all that pertains to the wonders in ancient literature. Brother Pike was the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Southern Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, having been elected in 1859. He was Provincial Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland in the United States, and an honorary member of almost every Supreme Council in the world. His standing as a Masonic author and historian, and withal as a poet, was most distinguished, and his untiring zeal was without a parallel.

The above account of Brother Pike by Doctor Mackey might easily be elaborated because he attained fame in so many varied fields of activity. From a Masonic point of view, however, perhaps his worth to the Craft is best shown by his writings and of these most prominent is Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, to which he devoted his abilities ungrudgingly. From this splendid world we take the following definition of Freemasonry: Freemasonry is the subjugation of the Human that is in Man, by the Divine: the conquest of the Appetites and Passions by the Moral Sense and the Reason; a continual effort, struggle and warfare of the Spiritual against the Material and Sensual. That victory—when it has been achieved and secured, and the conqueror may rest upon his shield and wear the well-earned laurels —is the true Holy Empire.

He was also an able writer of verse and perhaps the specimen of his poetry by which he is most frequently recalled to mind is the one entitled, Every Year.

Life is a count of losses,

Every year; 
For the weak are heavier crosses, 
Every year; 
Lost Springs with sobs replying 
Unto Weary Autumns' sighing, 
While those we love are dying, 
Every year. 
The days have less of gladness, 
Every year; 
The nights more weight of sadness; 
Every year 
Fair Springs no longer charm us, 
The winds and weather harm us, 
The threats of death alarm us, 
Every year. 
There come new cares and sorrows, 
Every year; 
Dark days and darker morrows, 
Every year; 
The ghosts of dead loves haunt us, 
The ghosts of changed friends taunt us, 
And disappointments daunt us, 
Every year. 
To the Past go more dead faces, 
Every year; 
As the Loved leave vacant places, 
Every year; 
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us, 
In the evening's dusk they greet us, 
And to come to them entreat us, 
Every year. 
"You are growing old," they tell us, 
"Every year; 
"You are more alone," they tell us, 
"Every year; 
"You can win no new affection, 
"You have only recollection, 
"Deeper sorrow and dejection, 
"Every year." 
Too true!—Life's shores are shifting, 
Every year; 
And we are seaward drifting, 
Every year; 
Old places, changing, fret us, 
The living more forget us, 
There are fewer to regret us, 
Every year. 
But the truer life draws nigher, 
Every year 
And its Morning-star climbs higher, 
Every year; 
Earth's hold on us grows slighter, 
And the heavy burden lighter, 
And the Dawn immortal brighter, 
Every year.

The Tribune of Fort Smith, Arkansas, has published a letter from Brother Albert Pike to a dying friend. This was addressed to Doctor Thurston, of Van Buren, and was received by him the day before he died. This letter wag written when Brother Pike was seventy-six years old and is, therefore, all the more interesting as an assurance of his convictions in his later years.

Washington September 3, 1885.

My Dearest and Best and Truest Old Friend:

I have just received your loving message sent to me by Mr. Sandels. I had already two days ago learned from our old friend Cush, who had the information from James Stewart. that you were about to go away from US, In a little while I shall follow you; and it will be well for me if I can look forward to the departure, inevitable for all, with the same patience and equanimity with which you are waiting for it.

I do not believe that our intellect and individuality cease to be when the vitality of the body ends. I have a profound conviction, the only real revelation, which to me makes absolute certainty that there is a Supreme Deity, the Intelligence and Soul of the Universe, to Whom it is not folly to pray- that our convictions come from Him, and in them He does not lie to, nor deceive us; and that there is to be for my very self another a continued life, in which this life will not be as if it had never been, but I shall see and know again those whom I have loved and lost here. you have led an upright, harmless, and blameless life, always doing good, and not wrong and evil. you have enjoyed the harmless pleasures of life, and have never wearied of it nor thought it had not been a life worth living. Therefore you need not fear to meet whatever lies beyond the veil.

Either there is no God or there is a just and merciful God, who will deal gently and tenderly with the human creatures whom He has made so weak and so imperfect. There is nothing in the future for you to fear, as there is nothing in the past to be ashamed of. Since I have been compelled by the lengthening of the evening shadows to look forward to my own near approaching departure, I do not feel that I lose the friends who go before me. It is as if they had set sail across the Atlantic Sea to land in an unknown country beyond, hither I soon shall follow to meet them again.

But, dear old friend, I shall feel very lonely after you are gone. We have been friends so long, without a moment's intermission, without even one little cloud or shadow of unkindness of suspicion coming between us that I shall miss you terribly. I shall never have the heart to visit Van Buren again. There are others whom I like there but none so dear to me as you—none there or anywhere else. As long as I live I shall remember with loving affection your ways and looks and words, our glad days passed together in the woods, your many acts of kindness, the old home and the shade of the mulberries, and our intimate communion and intercourse during more than forty-five years.

I hoped to be with you once more in the woods, but now I shall never be in camp in the woods again. The old friends are nearly all gone, you are going sooner than I to meet them. I shall live a little longer, with little left to live for, loving your memory, and loving the wife and daughter who have been so dear to you. Dear, dear old friend, good bye ! May our Father who is in heaven have you in His holy keeping and give you eternal rest.

Devotedly your friend, ALBERT PIKE.

We are indebted to the courtesy of Brother Thomas Pitt, Past Grand High Priest of Ohio, for the opportunity to transcribe a letter in his possession written by Albert Pike, to Brenton D. Babcock of Cleveland, on what is taught by the symbols and ceremonies of Freemasonry. It is as follows:

O of Washington, 25 January, 1887.

Dear Brother Babcock:

Like you, I laid away the enclosed "Screed," and it has been only now got out from a mass of papers which I have had to look over. I have read it, but I don't think it would pay to investigate and criticize it. I think that no speculations are more barren than those in regard to the astronomical character of the symbols of Masonry, except those about the Numbers and their combinations of the Kabalah. All that is said about Numbers in the lecture, if not mere jugglery, amounts to nothing. That the object of Masonry is "to preserve weights and measures," is an entirely new notion; and I fail to see how it preserves them. If the Symbols and Ceremonies of Masonry don't teach great Seditious truths, not in the ancient ages made known to the Profane, they are worth less. The astronomical explanations of them, however plausible, would only show that they taught no truths, moral or religious. As to the tricks played with Numbers they only show in what freaks of absurdity, if not insanity, the human intellect can indulge. As you may want to keep the Lecture as a curiosity, I return it to you, with thanks for your kindness in sending it to me.

Always fraternally yours,

ALBERT PIKE

Brother Alva Adams of Colorado, addressing the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, at Washington, District of Columbia, October 26, 1919, said of General Albert Pike:

Expediency was an unknown word in his vocabulary. He hated nothing as much as a lie. Toward the enemas of truth he was the uncompromising foe—towards all others he was tolerant, gentle and kind. He took the noblest conceptions from the sacred books of all creeds and faiths, stripped them of superstition and the trappings of idolatry and made them lessons for all men. He took the fear of the stake and hell-fire from the timid. The poetic soul of Pike enabled him to hear melodies our ears could not hear—to see visions hidden from ordinary mortals. He was wise without arrogance—a Priest without bigotry or superstition—a man rather than a saint. So human that he could understand and sympathize with his brother. His books and papers and their income were dedicated forever to charity. Pike's life and studies indicate that he w as cultured in the Sew Testament.

He was not a Cromwell, led by the heroics and slaughter of the Old Testament into the belief that the killing of unbelievers was a virtue. More than many liberators has Pike broken the chains of spiritual bondage and set free the mind and soul of men. Manhood not sainthood was the ultimate of his teachings Others as great may come, but he was the uncrowded King of the Scottish Rite. The form the rituals and lectures now have, Pike gave them. Every poetic thought, every glowing sentence, every lofty sentiment speaks the name of Pike. As the Laws King Alfred wrote a thousand years ago are still a part of England's glory and liberty, so in another thousand years will the ideals, the poetry, the moral code and philosophy of Albert Pike be shaping the influence and destiny of Masonry. It is a patent of nobility to be a Brother to this god-like leader— this King among men—the greatest Freemason—this Prince in the House of Solomon and Hiram.

Pike had the brute force of primitive man coupled with an unusual degree of culture, refinement and poetic genius. He could cut the rough ashlar from the quarry and he could form, finish and polish it with the skill of a Canova. In the capital of this great Nation he was its most striking personality As a youth in the wilderness he was the leader and champion of its noblest aspirations.

Wherever he went—in whatever field of activity he engaged—he was Captain "fit to stand by Caesar and give direction." In his last address Pike said, " Freemasonry is the apotheosis of labor." True it is that could the Masonic principles of justice, equity and fairness guide the transactions between employer and employee there would be neither strikes nor look-outs in American industry. Employer would receive an honest profit and labor would be as contented as the toiler was under Hiram, of whom it is said that so fair and just was the treatment of the workmen that during the years of the Temple's building there alas neither discord, discontent nor dissatisfaction. Let the labor code of Hiram prevail today and peace and harmony would purple every horizon of human effort. Profiteering would fade into normality and there would be no place for that element to whom discontent is capital, trouble is profit, and turbulence fame and power.

A Colorado Masonic orator said that the three greatest literary works were the Bible, Shakespeare, and the writings of Albert Pike. While few are prepared to place Pike so near the fountain head of earthly inspiration and genius, it is certain that his fame will grow as knowledge of his exalted sentiment and ability are spread. It is the hiding of God-given talent not to make known more widely his works, not only among Freemasons, but to all men. As we read the Rituals he adorned, and Morals and Dogma, we are often struck by the similarity in noble thought and phrase to some of the sublime passages in Scripture Had Pike lived and been known in the time of David he would have been credited with the unauthenticated Psalms.

In every field of activity he was at home, from the rifle of the frontiersman to the inspired pen of prophecy, he was Master. Integrity was a dominant trait in his character. Toward misfortune and weakness he was tolerant Hypocrisy and falsehood he hated as Deity hated them His pen could be sharp as well as merciful. He wrote, " A lie has as many legs as a centipede it is rarely overtaken by the truth, and will not die even when its brains are knocked out." Long before Sherman gave his definition of war General Pike had said, "In war hell legislates for humanity How Plutarch would have loved to have written his life. How Angelo would have gloried in sculpting this Olympian form, or Thorwaldsen in molding it in enduring bronze.

With a wealth of material untouched there is a limit to a paper like this. That limit has been reached. Our hero has gone beyond the sky " but the afterglow of his life will remain in the hearts of his Brothers an abiding radiance of glory. In those far-away days when Odin and Thor ruled in the North it was the habit of the wild sea rovers to place their dead Chieftain on a throne built in his boat the rudder was tied to west—into the sunset, the sails spread and glade fast, and before an Eastern tempest the boat was launched and the dead Chieftain sailed alone as befitted a King. So twenty-eight years ago sailed our Grand Commander out upon God's sea of mystery and of hope but he still lives in our Order as its Priest and Prophet and King.

General Pike's personal Masonic record of Degrees received and offices held, as compiled by Brother W. L. Boyden, Librarian, Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite comprises over one hundred and thirty items. These are listed in the Neu) Age Magazine, January, 1920 (volume xxviiu, pages 3G7).

A biographical sketch was prepared by Brother Horace Van Deventer in 1909, Knoxville, Tennessee; a survey of the available materials for a Life of General Pike by "Mysticus" is in the New Age Magazine, March, 1921 (volume xxix, paces 128-33); his daughter, Mrs. Lillian Pike Roome, has a brief biography of him in the preface to an edition of General Pike's poems, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1900; The Life Story of Albert Pike, Brother Fred W. Allsopp of Little Rock, Arkansas, 1900, has treasured much of this very human personality; Brother Charles S. Lobingier, New Age Magazine, July, 1927 (volume xxxv, page 397), gives choice selections from his literary productions with interesting biographical notes, and Albert Pike, a biography by Brother Fred W. Allsopp, published by the Parke Harper Company of Little Rock, Arkansas, 192S, is ably written and well illustrated.

Of General Pike's labors in literature we may say he was a poet of outstanding versatility and charm, an authority upon the foundations of the art and science of jurisprudence, and a commentator of high rank in the lore of the ancient east. A volume, Lyrics and Love Songs, edited by his daughter, Mrs. L. P. Roome, was published by Brother Fred W. Allsopp, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1899, and another, Hymns to the Gods and other Poems, from the same editor and publisher, appeared in that year, followed in each case by second editions of both works in 1916. His legal attainments are discussed in J. hi'. Caldwell's "Influence of Bench and Bar," The South in the Building of the Nation (chapter xvu, volume 7). His oriental studies are edited by Brother Marshall W. Wood for publication by the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, a volume, Irano-Aryan Faith and Doctrine, as contained in the Zenda-Avesta, appearing in 1924.

To Freemasons Brother Pike appeals intimately because of his work upon the grades of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, of which for years he was the beloved Grand Commander. He left to the Supreme Council many manuscripts, one upon the Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry His Morals and Dogma, Monitor of the Rite, 1871, is not dogmatic in the odious sense of that word, General Pike using it to mean doctrine or teaching, the book being one of methodical instruction in the philosophy of Freemasonry. Perhaps no quotation from the multitude available better illustrates the attitude of Brother Pike to the Masonic Institution than the following paragraph from an address by him (Life Story of Albert Pike, page 117):

Had mankind from the day of the Rood, steadily followed some of the lessons taught them by the industrious bees, had they associated themselves together in Lodges, and taught faithfully practiced Toleration, Charity and Friendship; had even those of the human race done so who have professed the Christian faith, to what imaginable degrees of happiness and prosperity would they not have attained, to what extreme and now invisible heights of knowledge and wisdom would not the human intellect have soared!

PIKE, ALBERT

The World of Washington Irvinq, by Van Wyok Brooks (E. P. Dutton & Co.; New York; 1944), is a brilliant and distinguished book in which the panorama of American writers of the period of Irving and Cooper is brought alive again, and at the same time is described against the background of European literature. To Masons it has the added interest of being one of the first critical literary histories to recognize Albert Pike's place in American literature. For, contrary to the impression Masons have had, Pike's time, thought, and writing were not absorbed by the Fraternity. (See index of the book.)

Brooks mentions Pike among the few American writers who admired the Indians, though he does not give him sufficient credit for his knowledge of Indian affairs, seeing that Pike learned a number of Indian languages, acted as attorney for them in State and Federal Courts, and had them under his command in the Confederate army. Brooks also describes Pike's famous journey to Taos and Santa Fe from Independence, Mo., and mentions his once-familiar poems on Taos and Noon and Santa Fe, but fails to describe Pike's visit to Albuquerque (a city built over the ruins of seven Pueblo Indian cities) or his journey on foot across the Staked Plains—an incredibly reckless achievement and the first time ever attempted by a white man—nor does he mention Pike's book, now very rare, about his walking trip in New Mexico, a copy of which is preserved in the vaults of the Grand Lodge of New Mexico.

In 1840 Pike built a mansion in Little Rock, "the Athens of the Southwest," a city which still bears his imprint. By one of those happy coincidences which can only occur in real life this mansion became the home of another American poet when in 1889 John Gould Fletcher moved into it with "its lofty rooms, its wide halls and great folding doors, its six white columns, " etc. Brooks said that Pike's poem Isadore "may have indeed have had its effect on Poe. " Pike's book of poems entitled Bymns to the Gods was published in Blackwood's Magazine in Britain and the poems " were greatly admired by Christopher North" (who was probably a Mason; at least, he was once a Lodge visitor). A generally-overlooked Masonic treatise by Pike is a commentary on the Regius MS. which he wrote in the form of a letter to Robert Freke Gould on September 26, 1889, and which was afterwards published as a brochure. This essay proves beyond all peradventure of doubt that Pike studied very little or the history of Ancient Craft Masonry and did not keep abreast of its scholarship; there is at least one mistake in facts in almost every sentence.

(See Bibliography of the Writings of Albert Pike: Prose, Poetry, MS., by W. L. Boyden; Washington, D. C.; 1921.)

PIKE, ZEBULON MONTGOMERY

Famous American explorer and soldier, born January 5, 1779; died April 27, 1813. He was appointed in 1805 to conduct exploring expeditions into the country of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. On November 15, 1806, he discovered the famous peak located in what is now Colorado known as Pike's Peak. Brother Pike was a member of Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (see the New Age, November, 1924; also Territorial Masonry, Ray V. Denslow, 1925, pages 4, 13, 22).

PILGRIM

A pilgrim, from the Italian pelegrino, and that from the Latin peregrinus, signifying a traveler, denotes one who visits holy places from a principle of devotion. Dante, Vita Nuova, meaning Young or New Life, distinguishes pilgrims from palmers thus: palmers were those who went beyond the sea to the East, and often brought back staves of palm-wood; while pilgrims went only to the shrine of Saint Jago, in Spain. But Sir Walter Scott says that the palmers were in the habit of passing from shrine to shrine, living on charity; but pilgrims made the journey to any shrine only once; and this is the more usually accepted distinction of the two classes. In the Middle Ages, Europe was filled with pilgrims repairing to Palestine to pay their veneration to the numerous spots consecrated in the annals of Holy Writ, more especially to the sepulcher of our Lord. Robertson (History, chapter v, i, page 19) says:

It is natural to the human mind, to view those places which have been distinguished by being the residence of any illustrious personage, or the scene of any great transactions with some degree of delight and veneration. From this principle flowed the superstitious devotion with which Christians, from the earliest ages of the church, were accustomed to visit that country which the Almighty had selected as the inheritance of his favorite people, and in which the Son of God had accomplished the redemption of mankind. As this distant pilgrimage could not be performed without considerable expense, fatigue, and danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and came to be considered as an expiation for almost every crime. Hence, by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or to the shrine of some blessed martyr, the thunders of the church, and the more quiet, but not less alarming. reproaches of conscience were often averted. And as this was an act of penance, sometimes voluntarily assumed, but oftener imposed by the command of a religious superior, the person performing it was called a Pilgrim Penitent. While the Califs of the East, a race of monarchs equally tolerant and sagacious, retained the sovereignty of Palestine, the penitents were undisturbed in the performance of their pious pilgrimages. In fact, their visits to Jerusalem were rather encouraged by these sovereigns as 3 commerce which, in the language of the author already quoted, "brought into their dominions gold and silver, and carried nothing out of them but relies and consecrated trinkets."

But in the eleventh century, the Turks, whose bigoted devotion to their own creed was only equaled by their hatred of every other form of faith, but more especially of Christianity, having obtained possession of Syria, the pilgrim no longer found safety or protection in his pious journey. He who would then visit the sepulcher of his Lord must be prepared to encounter the hostile attacks of ferocious Saracens and the Pilgrim Penitent, laying aside his peaceful garb, his staff and russet cloak, was compelled to assume the sword and coat of mail and become a Pilgrim Warrior. Having at length, through all the perils of a distant journey, accomplished the great object of his pilgrimage, and partly begged his way amid poor or inhospitable regions, where a crust of bread and a draft of water were often the only alms that he received, and partly fought it amid the gleaming scimitars of warlike Turks, the Pilgrim Penitent and Pilgrim Warrior was enabled to kneel at the Sepulcher of Christ, and offer up his devotions on that sacred spot consecrated in his pious mind by so many religious associations.

But the experience which he had so dearly bought was productive of a noble and a generous result. The Order of Knights Templar was established by some of those devoted heroes, who were determined to protect the pilgrims who followed them from the dangers and difficulties through which they themselves had passed, at times with such remote prospects of success. Any of the pilgrims having performed their vow of visiting the holy shrine, returned home, to live upon the capital of piety which their penitential pilgrimage had gained for them. But others, imitating the example of the defenders of the sepulcher, doffed their pilgrim's garb and united themselves with the knights who were contending with their infidel foes, and thus the Pilgrim Penitent, having by force of necessity become a Pilgrim Warrior, ended his warlike pilgrimage by assuming the vows of a Knight Templar.

In this synopsis, the modern and Masonic Knight Templar will find a rational explanation of the ceremonies of that Degree.

PILGRIM KNIGHTS OF THE PALM AND SHELL

See Palm and Shell, Oriental Order of the

PILGRIM PENITENT

A term in the instructions of Masonic Templarism. It refers to the pilgrimage, made as a penance for sin, to the sepulcher of the Lord; for the church promised the remission of sins and various spiritual advantages as the reward of the pious and faithful pilgrim (see Pilgrim).

PILGRIM'S SHELL

See Scallop Shell

PILGRIM'S WEEDS

The costume of a pilgrim was thus called. It may be described as follows: In the first place, he wore a sclavina, or long Sown, made of the darkest colors and the coarsest materials, bound by a leathern girdle, as an emblem of his humility and an evidence of his poverty; a bourdon, or staff, in the form of a long walking stick, with two knobs at the top, supported his weary steps; the rosary and cross, suspended from his neck, denoted the religious character he had assumed; a scrip, or bag, held his scanty supply of provisions; a pair of sandals on his feet, and a coarse round hat turned before, in the front of which was fastened a scallop shell, completed the rude toilet of the pilgrim of the Middle Ages. Spenser's description, in the Fairic Queen (Book I, chapter vi, stanza 35), of a pilgrim's weeds, does not much differ from this:

A silly man in simple weeds forewarn

And soiled with dust of the long dried way; 
His sandals were vtith toilsome travel torne,
And face all tann'd with scorching sunny ray; 
As he had traveled many a summers day,
Through boiling sands of Araby and Inde; 
And in his hand a Jacob's staff to stay
His weary limbs upon; and eke behind
His scrip did hang, in which his needments he did bind.

PILGRIM LODGE

A London Lodge, Der Pilger, No. 238, established August, 1799, retaining the customs of German Masonic Bodies. A special jewel is worn by members, a silver key and a gold trowel suspended from a light blue ribbon. Until 1834 it was a Red Apron Lodge, resigning this privilege because few Germans then resided in London.

PILGRIM TEMPLAR

The part of the pilgrim represented in the Ritual of the Masonic Knights Templar Degree is a symbolic reference to the career of the pilgrim of the Middle Ages in his journey to the sepulcher in the Holy Land (see Pilgrim).

PILGRIM WARRIOR

A term in the instructions of Masonic Templarism. It refers to the pilgrimage of the knights to secure possession of the holy places. This w as considered a pious dutv. "Whoever goes to Jerusalem," says one of the Canons of the Council of Clermont, "for the liberation of the Church of God, in a spirit of devotion only, and not for the sake of glory or of gain, that journey shall be esteemed a substitute for every kind of penance." The difference between the Pilgrim Penitent and the Pilgrim Warrior was this: that the former bore only his staff, but the latter wielded his sword.

PILIER

This is a French word. The title given to each of the conventual Bailiffs or heads of the eight languages of the Order of Malta, and by which they were designated in all official records. It signifies a pillar or support of an edifice, and was metaphorically applied to these dignitaries as if they were the supports of the Order.

PILLAR

In the earliest times it was customary to perpetuate remarkable events, or exhibit gratitude for providential favors, by the erection of pillars, which by the idolatrous races were dedicated to their spurious gods. Thus Sanconiatho tells us that Hypsourianos and Ousous, who lived before the Flood, dedicated two pillars to the elements, fire and air. Among the Egyptians the pillars were, in general, in the form of obelisks from fifty to one hundred feet high, and exceedingly slender in proportion. Upon their four sides hieroglyphics were often engraved. According to Herodotus, they were first raised in honor of the sun, and their pointed form was intended to represent his rays. Many of these monuments still remain.

In the antediluvian or before the Flood, ages, the posterity of Seth erected pillars; "for," says the Jewish historian, "that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction, that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone; they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind, and would also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them." Jacob erected such a pillar at Bethel, to commemorate his remarkable vision of the ladder, and aftervard another one at Galeed as a memorial of his alliance with Laban. Joshua erected one at Gilgal to perpetuate the remembrance of his miraculous crossing of the Jordan. Samuel set up a pillar between Mizpeh and Shen, on account of a defeat of the Philistines, and Absalom erected another in honor of himself. The reader will readily see the comparison between these memorials mentioned in the Bible and the modern erection of tablets, grave stones, etc., to the honor of the dead as well as to a notable deed or event. Compare also the use of an altar.

The doctrine of gravitation was unknown to the people of the primitive ages, and they were unable to refer the support of the earth in its place to this principle. Hence they looked to some other cause, and none appeared to their simple and unphilosophic minds more plausible than that it was sustained by pillars. The Old Testament abounds with reference to this idea. Hannah, in her song of thanksgiving, exclaims: "The pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them" (First Samuel ii, 8). The Psalmist signifies the same doctrine in the following text: "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved; I bear up the pillars of it" (Psalm lxxv, 3). Job (xxvi, 7) says: "He shaketh the earth out of her places, and the pillars thereof tremble."

All the old religions taught the same doctrine; and hence pillars being regarded as the supporters of the earth, they were adopted as the symbol of strength and firmness. To this, Dudley (Naology, page 123) attributes the origin of pillar worship, which prevailed so extensively among the idolatrous nations of antiquity. "The reverence," says he, "shown to columns, as symbols of the power of the Deity, was readily converted into worship paid to them as idols of the real presence." But here he seems to have fallen into a mistake. le double pillars or columns, acting as an architectural support, were, it is true, symbols derived from a natural cause of strength and permanent firmness. But there was another more prevailing symbology. The monolith, or circular pillar, standing alone, was, to the ancient mind, a representation of the Phallus, the symbol of the creative and generative energy of Deity, and it is in these Phallic Pillars that we are to find the true origin of pillar worship, which was only one form of Phallic Worship, the most predominant of all the cults to which the ancients were addicted.

PILLARS OF CLOUD AND FIRE

The pillar of cloud that went before the Israelites by day, and the pillar of fire that preceded them by night, in their journey through the wilderness, are supposed to be alluded to by the pillars of Jachin and Boaz at the Porch of Solomon's Temple. We find this symbolism at a very early period in the eighteenth century having been incorporated into the lecture of the second Degree, where it still remains. "The pillar the right hand," says Calcott (Candid Disquisitons, page 66), "represented the pillar of the cloud, and that on the left the pillar of fire." If this symbolism be correct, the pillars of the porch, like those of the wilderness, would refer to the superintending and protecting power of Deity.

PILLARS OF ENOCH

Two pillars which were erected by Henoch, for the preservation of the antediluvian, or before the Flood, inventions, and which are repeatedly referred to in the Legend of the Craft, contained in the Old Constitutions, and in the advanced Degrees of modern times (see Enoch).

PILLARS OF THE PORCH

The pillars most remarkable in Scripture history were the two erected by Solomon at the porch of the Temple, and which Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, chapter ii) thus describes: "Moreover, this Hiram made two hollow pillars, whose outsides were of brass, and the thickness of the brass was four fingers' breadth, and the height of the pillars was eighteen cubits, or twenty-seven feet, and the circumference, twelve cubits, or eighteen feet; but there was cast with each of their chapiters lily-work, that stood upon the pillar, and it was elevated five cubits, seven and a half feet, round about which there was net-work interwoven with small palms made of brass, and covered the lily-work. To this also were hung two hundred pomegranates, in two rows. The one of these pillars he set at the entrance of the porch on the right hand, or South, and called it Jachin, and the other at the left hand, or North, and called it Boaz."

It has been supposed that Solomon, in erecting these pillars, had reference to the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire which went before the Israelites in the wilderness, and that the right hand or South pillar represented the pillar of cloud, and the left hand or North pillar represented that of fire. Solomon did not simply erect them as ornaments to the Temple, but as memorials of God's repeated promises of support to his people of Israel. For the pillar Jachin, derived from the words Jah, meaning Jehovah, and achin, to establish, signifies that God will establish His house of Israel; while the pillar Boas, compounded of b, meaning in and oaz, strength, signifies that in strength skull it be established.

And thus were the Jews in passing through the porch to the Temple, daily reminded of the abundant promises of God, and inspired with confidence in his protection and gratitude for his many acts of kindness to his chosen people.

There is no part of the architecture of the ancient Temple which is so difficult to be understood in its details as the Seriptural account of these memorable pillars. Freemasons, in general, intimately as their symbolical signification is connected with some of the most beautiful portions of their ritual, appear to have but a confused notion of their construction and of the true disposition of the various parts of which they are composed. Ferguson says (Smith's Dictionary of Ihe Bible) that there are no features connected with the Temple which have given rise to so much controversy, or been so difficult to explain, as the form of these two pillars.

Their situation, according to Lightfoot, was within the porch, at its very entrance, and on each side of the gate. They were therefore seen, one on the right and the other on the left, AS soon as the visitor stepped within the porch. And this, it will be remembered, in confirmation, is the very spot in which Ezekiel (xi, 49), places the pillars that he saw in his vision of the Temple. "The length of the porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth eleven cubits; and he brought me by the steps whereby they went up to it, and there were pillars by the posts, one on this side, and another on that side." The assertion made by some writers, that they were not columns intended to support the roof, but simply obelisks for ornament, is not sustained by sufficient authority; and as Ferguson very justly says, not only would the high roof look painfully weak, but it would have been impossible to construct it, with the imperfect science of those days, without some such support. These pillars, we are told, were of brass, as well as the chapiters that surmounted them, and were east hollow. The thickness of the brass of each pillar was "four fingers, or a hand's breadth," which is equal to three inches. According to the amounts in First Kings (viiu, 15), and in Jeremiah (liu, 21), the circumference of each pillar was twelve cubits. Now, according to the Jewish computation, the cubit used in the measurement of the Temple buildings was six hands' breadth, or eighteen inches. recording to the tables of Bishop Cumberland, the cubit was rather more, he making it about twenty-two inches; but Brother Mackey adheres to the measure laid down by the Jewish writers as probably more correct, and certainly more simple for calculation. The circumference of each pillar, reduced by this scale to English measure, would be eighteen feet, and its diameter about six.

The reader of the Scriptural accounts of these pillars will be not a little puzzled with the apparent discrepancies that are found in the estimates of their height as given in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. In the former book, it is said that their height was eighteen cubits, and in the latter it was thirty-five, which latter height Whiston observes would be contrary to all the rules of architecture. But the discrepancy is easily reconciled by supposing—which, indeed, must have been the case that in the Book of Kings the pillars are spoken of separately, and that in Chronicles their aggregate height is calculated; and the reason why, in this latter book, their united height is placed at thirty-five cubits instead of thirty-six, which would be the double of eighteen, is because they are there measured as they appeared with the chapters upon them. Now half a cubit of each pillar was concealed in what Lightfoot calls "the whole of the chapiter," that is, half a cubit's depth of the lower edge of the chapiter covered the top of the pillar, making each pillar, apparently, only seventeen and a half cubits high, or the two thirty-five cubits as laid down in the Book of Chronicles.

This is a much better method of reconciling the discrepancy than that adopted by Calcott, who supposes that the pedestals of the pillars were seventeen cubits high—a violation of every rule of architectural proportion with which we would be reluctant to charge the memory of so "cunning a workman" as Hiram the Builder. The account in Jeremiah agrees with that in the Book of Rings. The height, therefore, of each of these pillars was, in English measure, twenty-seven feet. The chapiter or pommel was five cubits, or seven and a half feet more; but as half a cubit, or nine inches, was common to both pillar and chapiter, the whole height from the ground to the top of the chapiter was twenty-two cubits and a half, or thirty-three feet and nine inches.

Ferguson has come to a different conclusion. He save in the article Temple, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, that "according to First Kings (vii, 15), the pillars were eighteen cubits high and twelve in circumference, with capitals five cubits in height. Above this was (see verse 19) another member, called also chapiter of lily-work, four cubits in height, but which, from the second mention of it in verse 22, seems more probably to have been an entablature, which is necessary to complete the order. As these members make out twenty-seven cubits, leaving three cubits, or four and a half feet, for the slope of the roof, the whole design seems reasonable and proper." He calculates, of course, on the authority of the Book of Kings, that the height of the roof of the porch was thirty cubits, and assumes that these pillars were columns by which it was supported, and connected with it by an entablature.

Each of these pillars was surmounted by a chapiter, which was five cubits, or seven and a half feet in height. The shape and construction of this chapiter require some consideration. The Hebrew word which is used in this place is koteret. Its root is to be found in the word keter, which signified a crown, and is so used in Esther (vi, 8), to designate the Royal diadem of the King of Persia. The Chaldaic version expressly calls the chapiter a crown; but Rabbi Solomon, in his Commentary, uses the word ponel, signifying a globe or spherical body, and Rabbi Gershom describes it as "like two crowns joined together." Lightfoot says, "it was a huge, great oval, five cubits high, and did not only sit upon the head of the pillars, but also flowered or spread them, being larger about, a great deal, than the pillars themselves." The Jewish commentators say that the two lower cubits of its surface were entirely plain, but that the three upper were richly ornamented. In the First Book of Kings (vii, 17-20, 2 ), the ornaments of the chapiters are thus described:

And nets of checker-work and wreaths of chain-work for the chapiters which were upon the tops of the pillars seven for the one chapiter, and seven for the other chapiter And he made the pillars, and two rows round about upon the one net-work, to cover the chapiters that were upon the top, with pomegranates; and so did he for the other chapiter. And the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars were of lily-work in the porch, four cubits.

And the chapiters upon the two pillars had pomegranates also above, over against the belly, which was by the net-work; and the pomegranates were two hundred in rows, round about upon the other chapiter.

And upon the top of the pillars was lily-work- so was the work of the pillars finished. Let us endeavor to render this description, which does appear somewhat confused and unintelligible, plainer and more comprehensible.

The "nets of checker-work" is the first ornament mentioned. The words thus translated are in the original which Lightfoot prefers rendering thickets of branch work; and he thinks that the true meaning of the passage is that "the chapiters were curiously wrought with branch work, seven goodly branches standing up from the belly of the oval, and their boughs and leaves curiously and lovely intermingled and interwoven one with another." He derives his reason for this version from the fact that the same word, is translated thicket in the passage in Genesis (xxii, 13), where the ram is described as being "caught in a thicket by his horns"; and in various other passages the word is to be similarly translated.

But, on the other hand, we find it used in the Book of Job (xvu, 8), where it evidently signifies a net made of meshes: "For he is cast into a net by his own feet and he walketh upon a snare." In Second Kings (i, 2), the same word is used, where our translators have rendered it a lattice; "Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber." Brother Mackey was, therefore, not inclined to adopt the emendation of Lightfoot, but rather coincide with the received version, as well as the Masonic tradition, that this ornament was a simple network or fabric consisting of reticulated lines—in other words, a lattice-work.

The "wreaths of chain-work" that are next spoken of are less difficult to be understood. The word here translated Wreath is and is to be found in Deuteronomy (xxu, 12), where it distinctly mean syringes: "Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture." Fringes it should also be translated here. "The fringes of chain-work," Doctor Mackey thought, were therefore attached to, and hung down from, the network spoken of above, and were probably in this case, as when used upon the garments of the Jewish High Priests, intended as a "memorial of the law."

The "lily-work" is the last ornament that demands our attention. And here the description of Lightfoot is so clear and evidently correct, that Doctor Mackey did not hesitate to quote it at length. "At the head of the pillar, even at the setting on of the chaptiter, there was a curious and a large border or circle of lily-work, which stood out four cubits under the chapiter, and then turned down, every lily or lona tongue of brass, with a neat bending. and so seemed as a flowered crown to the head of the pillar, and as a curious garland whereon the chapiter had its seat."

There is a very common error among Freemasons, which has been fostered by the plates in our Monitors, hat there were on the pillars chapiters, and that these chapiters were again surmounted by globes. The truth, however, is that the chapiters themselves rere "the pommels or globes," to which our lecture, in the Fellow Crafty Degree, alludes. This is evident from what has already been said in the first art of the preceding description. The lily here spoken of is not at all related, as might be supposed, to the common lily—that one spoken of in the New Testament- It was a species of the lotus, the Symnhaea lotos, or lotus of the Nile. This was among the Egyptians a sacred plant, found everywhere on their monuments, and used in their architectural decorations. It is evident, from their descriptioninings, that the pillars of the porch of King Solomon's Temple were copied from the pillars of the Egyptian Temples. The maps of the earth and the charts of the celestial constellations which are sometimes said to have been engraved upon these globes, must be referred to the pillars, where, according to Doctor Oliver, a Masonic tradition places them—an ancient custom, instances of which we find in profane history. this is, however, by no means of any importance, as the symbolic allusion is perfectly well preserved n the shapes of the chapiters, without the necessity of any such geographical or astronomical engraving upon them. For being globular, or nearly so, they may be justly said to have represented the celestial and terrestrial spheres.

The true description, then, of these memorable pillars, is simply this: Immediately within the porch of the Temple, and on each side of the door, were placed two hollow brazen pillars. The height of each was twenty-seven feet, the diameter about six feet, and the thickness of the brass three inches. Above the pillar, and covering its upper part to the depth of nine inches, was an oval body or chapiter seven feet and a half in height. Springing out from the pillar, at the junction of the chapiter with it, was a row of lotus petals, which, first spreading around the chapiter, afterward gently curved downward toward the pillar, something like the Acanthus leaves on the capital of a Corinthian column.

About two-fifths of the distance from the bottom of the chapiter, or just below its most bulging part, a tissue of network was carved, which extended over its whole upper surface. To the bottom of this network was suspended a series of fringes, and on these again were carved two rows of pomegranates, one hundred being in each row. This description, it seemed to Doctor Mackey, is the only one that can be reconciled with the various passages in the Books of Kings, Chronicles, and Josephus, which relate to these pillars, and the only one that can give the Masonic student a correct conception of the architecture of these important symbols.

And now as to the Masonic symbolism of these two pillars. As symbols they have been very universally diffused and are to be found in all rites. Nor are they of a very recent date, for they are depicted on the earliest tracing-boards, and are alluded to in the catechisms before the middle of the eighteenth century. Nor is this surprising; for as the symbolism of Freemasonry is founded on the Temple of Solomon, it was to be expected that these important parts of the Temple would be naturally included in the system. But at first the pillars appear to have been introduced into the lectures rather as parts of a historical detail than as significant symbols—an idea which seems gradually to have grown up. The catechism of 1731 describes their name, their size, and their material, but says nothing of their symbolic import. Yet this had been alluded to in the Scriptural account of them, which says that the names be stowed upon them were significant. What was the original or Scriptural symbolism of the pillars has been very well explained by Dudley, in his Naology. He says (page 121):

The pillars represented the sustaining power of the great God. The flower of the lotus of water-lily rises from a root growing at the bottom of the water, and maintains its position on the surface by its columnar stalk, which becomes more or less straight as occasion requires; it is therefore aptly symbolical of the power of the Almighty constantly employed to secure the safety of all the world. The chapiter is the body or mass of the earth; the pomegranates, fruits remarkable for the number of their seeds, are symbols of fertility; the wreaths drawn variously over the surface of the chapiter or globe indicate the courses of the heavenly bodies in the heavens around the earth, and the variety of the seasons. The pillars were properly placed in the porch or portico of the Temple, for they suggested just ideas of the power of the Almighty, of the entire dependence of man upon him, the Creator; and doing this, they exhorted all to fear, to love, and obey Him.

It was, however, Hutchinson who first introduced the symbolic idea of the pillars into the Masonic system. He says:

The pillars erected at the porch of the Temple were not only ornamental. but also carried with them an emblematical import in their names: Boaz being, in its literal translation. in thee is strength; and Jachin, it shad be established, which, by a very natural transposition, may be put thus: O Lord, Thou art mighty, and Thy power is established from everlasting to everlasting.

Preston subsequently introduced the symbolism, considerably enlarged, into his system of lectures. He adopted the reference to the pillars of fire and cloud, which is still retained. The Masonic symbolism of the two pillars may be considered, without going into minute details, as being twofold. First, in reference to the names of the pillars, they are symbols of the strength and stability of the Institution; and then in reference to the ancient pillars of fire and cloud, they are symbolic of our dependence on the superintending guidance of the Great Architect of the Universe, by which around that strength and stability are secured.

The foregoing article by Doctor Mackey may well be supplemented here by such later information as is, for example, contained in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible. From this later authority we find that the hollow pillars had a thickness of metal equal to three inches of our measure. Their height on the basis of the larger cubit of twenty and one-half inches was about thirty-one feet, while their diameter works out at about six and one-half feet. The capitals appear from First Kings (vii, 41), to have been globes or of some such shape, each about eight and one-half feet in height, giving a total height for the complete pillars of, roughly, forty feet. They may be regarded as structurally independent of the Temple Porch and stood free in front of it, Jachin on the south and Boaz on the north, one on either side of the steps leading up to the entrance of the Porch (see Ezekiel xl, 49).

Such free-standing pillars were a feature of the Phenician and other Temples of Western Asia. The names Jachin and Boaz are not now translated with the same assurance as formerly. Various meanings have been assigned and one of the more suggestive explanations is that they refer to Baal and Jachun, the latter being a Phenician verbal form of the same signification—He wig be—as the Hebrew Jahweh, both words having been used as synonyms for Deity.

The fact that the pillars were the work of the Tyrian artist makes it probable that their presence is to be explained with the analogy in mind of similar pillars of Phenician Temples. These, though they were viewed in primitive times as the dwelling-place of the Deity, had, as civilization and religion advanced, come to be regarded as merely symbols of His sacred presence. To a Phenician Temple architect such as Hiram Abiff, Jachin and Boaz would appear as natural additions to such a religious structure and are, therefore, as Kennedy suggests, perhaps best explained as conventional symbols of God for whose worship the Temple of Solomon was designed and built.

PILLARS, TWO GREAT

The oldest existing Tracing Boards of early Eighteenth Century Lodges contain the two Pillars. One gathers from the Minutes that during the days when Lodges had their dining table in the center of the Lodge room and sat around it while a Candidate was being initiated, the Tracing Board, painted on cloth, was laid on the floor, or hung on the wall, and "lectures" were used to explain it. The set of symbols in the still-existing Tracing Boards correspond 80 closely to those mentioned in the Legend of the Craft in the Old Charges that it is reasonable to believe that the key to the interpretation of the symbols given to the Candidate is found in the latter. If that be true, the two pillars in the Tracing Boards in the oldest of the Lodges must have referred to the two pillars described in the Cooke MS., one of marble and one of "lacerns," or tile.

When the Allegory of Solomon's Temple was introduced into the Second Degree, perhaps about 1740 or 1750 in its present form, the two Great Pillars belonging to it came into a prominent place. This meant that the older Lodges then had two sets of Pillars. Whether the former was dropped out, or the two became coalesced, it is impossible to know.

In some of the Tracing Boards and in engravings used on certificates, etc., three pillars often were used, but these probably represented columns; and in some instances these were either Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty, or else, to judge by the figures sometimes shown on top of them, the three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. With the columns representing the Five Orders, Lodge symbolism contained no fewer than ten, and it may even have been thirteen, pillars and columns together.

Two problems about the Temple pillars are not yet solved: first, whether they stood out on the platform beyond the Temple, or stood in the facade of it, and as structural members of the building; second, what their height was. The narrative in the Book of Kings does not give an answer to either question. On the basis of the general custom in Egypt and in the Near East it is most likely that the Two Pillars stood apart from the building; and it is possible that the Chapters on their tops were really large metal baskets which could be filled with burning pine or cedar knots for illumination at night, and also possibly as a reminiscence of the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.

There were four cubits, or units of measurement, in use. Generally, a cubit was the distance from the elbow to the end of the fingers, but the others differed; in one instance, one of the cubits in use is almost twice the length of another. The Book of Kings does not say which cubit was employed, but if the Pillars were in the facade of the building and formed two sides of the entrance they were probably about seventeen feet high; if, as is more likely, they stood apart they were probably thirty-four feet high. As far as known records go the early Speculative Masons saw so little of importance in the question of height that apparently they never decided it one way or another; in any event, the exact height means nothing to the symbolism.

In both the oldest Minutes and the oldest engravings the two Globes appear to have been unconnected with the Pillars. They were put sometimes in one place in the room and sometimes in another. Remarks incorporated here and there in the Minutes suggest that the Brethren used them to represent "the universality of Masonry," not in the sense that Masonry took in everything but in the sense that Lodges are constituted in every country. One globe was the sky, the other the land; together they made up the world. The two Great Pillars in the Old Charges represented the Liberal Arts and Sciences; in the Allegory of Solomon's Temple they were guardians and gates to the Presence of Jehovah; both of these interpretations became loosely fused in the Second Degree.

By a similar development of symbolic interpretation the Terrestrial Globe came also to mean the earth, the earthy; the Celestial, to mean the heavenly, the spiritual. When the Globes and the Pillars were combined both sets of symbolism were synthesized, so that as used in modern Speculative Rituals they are very rich in significance, not the least of which was the complete fusing of education (Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences) with religion (Temple worship), an idea in absolute contrast to the Medieval idea, when church and school were often at war with each other, and faith and knowledge were considered to be opposites, or foes.

PINCEAU

French, meaning a penury; but in the technical language of French Freemasonry it is a pen. Hence, in the Minutes of French Lodges, tenir We pinceau, to take hold of the pencil means to act as Secretary.

PINCENEY, WILLIAM

Born March 17, 1764, at Annapolis, Maryland. Member of State Convention to ratify Federal Constitution, 1788-92; House of Delegates, 1795, State Executive Council, 1792-5; United States Commissioner at London, 1806, and remained as resident Minister, 1807-11; United States Attorney General, 18114; Congressman, 1816; Minister to Russia, 181S8, then to Naples; United States Senator, 1820, until his death, February 25, 1822. Commanded battalion of riflemen in war of 1812 and severely wounded in battle of Bladensburg. Presumed to have been made a Freemason in Lodge No. 15 or Lodge No. 16, Baltimore, rosters of both missing for 1781 to 1792. He was one of the petitioners and the first Senior Warden of Amanda Lodge No. 12, in 1793, at Annapolis (see Freemasonry in Itiarylund, E. T. Schultz, 1884, pages 184 and 403; New Age, March, 1925).

PINE-CONE

The tops or points of the rods of deacons are often surmounted by a pine-cone or pineapple. This is in imitation of the Thyrsus, or sacred staff of Bacchus, which was a lance or rod enveloped in leaves of ivy, and having on the top a cone or apple of the pine: To it surprising virtues were attributed, and it was introduced into the Dionysiac Mysteries as a sacred symbol.

PINNACLES

The generally ornamented terminations much used in Gothic architecture. They are prominently referred to in the Eleventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, where the pinnacles over the three gates support the warning to all evil-doers, and give evidence of the certainty of punishment following crime.

PIRLET

The name of a tailor of Paris, who, in 1762, organized a Body called Council of Knights of the East, in opposition to the Council of Emperors of the East and West.

PITAKA

Divisions of the Pali Scriptures are so named, meaning in each case basket or collection The Bible of Buddhism, containing 116 volumes, is divided into three classes, collectively known as the Tripitaka or Pitakattayan, that is, the Triple Basket the Soutras, or Discourses of Buddha; the Vinaga or Discipline; and the Abhadhama, or Metaphysics. The Canon was fixed about 240 B.C-and commands a following of a large part of the human race. Masonically considered, this indeed must be a great Light or Trestle-Board, if it is the guide of the conduct and practice of so vast a number of our Brethren, for are not all men our Brethren?

PITDAH

The Hebrew word One of the twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest, of a yellow color. The Sanskrit for yellow is pita.

PITRIS

Among the Hindus, Pitris were spirits; and so mentioned in the Agrouchada Parikchai, the philosophical compendium of the Hindu spiritists, a scientific work giving an account of the creation and the Mercaba, and finally the Zohur; the three principal parts of which treat of the attributes of God, of the world, and of the human soul. A fourth part sets forth the relevancy of souls to each other, and the evocation of Pitris. The adepts of the occult sciences were said by the votaries of the Pitris of India to have "entered the garden of delights" (see Parikchai, Agrouchada; also, Indische Mysterien).

PIUS VII

On August 13, 1814, Pope Pius VII issued an Edict forbidding the meetings of all secret societies, and especially the Freemasons and Carbonari, under heavy corporal penalties, to which were to be added, according to the malignity of the cases, partial or entire confiscation of goods, or a pecuniary fine. The Edict also renewed the Bull of Clement XII, by which the punishment of death was incurred by those who obstinately persisted in attending the meetings of Freemasons (see Persecutions).

PLACE

In strict Masonic ritualism the positions occupied by the Master and Wardens are called stations; those of the other officers, places. This distinction is not observed in the higher Degrees (see Stations).

PLANCHE TRACEE

The name by which the Minutes are designated in French Lodges. Literally, planche is a board, and traced means delineated. The planche traces is therefore the board on which the plans of the Lodge have been delineated.

PLANS AND DESIGNS

The plans and designs on the Trestle-Board of the Master, by which the building is erected, are, in Speculative Freemasonry, symbolically referred to the moral plans and designs of life by which we are to construct our spiritual temple, and in the direction of which we are to be instructed by some recognized Divine authority (see Trestle Board).

PLATONIC ACADEMY

See Academy, Platonic

PLAYS, LONDON CLUBS AND

In 1220 King Henry III issued a charter to "The Society of Parish Clerks," often called "London Clubs." The particular clerks (clerics) referred to were those trained men in each parish upon whom a priest depended for music; and a set of notes was drawn in their crest when their charter was written. In very old times priests and monks themselves acted out "holy plays" under such titles as "Noah's Flood," "Story of Samson," etc., and it may be that it was out of this tradition that the "London Clubs" developed from a society of singers into one for writing, costuming, and acting plays for the City Companies. Herbert, one of the historians of the Companies, describes them as "being the first t actors of the middle ages."

That these clerks (Stow refers to them as "The Clerks Company") acted plays at the feasts of the London City Companies is proved by the Company books in which amounts of money paid by them for plays are frequently entered. Their subjects were nearly all taken from the Bible; and it would appear that the clerks could prepare a play for any given Company which would be appropriate to its work, especially since almost every Company had a set of legendary stories of its own origins indirectly based on Scripture stories; the Company of Carpenters, for examples based theirs on the stories of Jesus in the carpenter shop; the Shipwrights, on the story of the Ark; the Ironmongers, on the story of Tubal Cain; the Masons, on the story of Solomon and the Temple; etc. Arundell, in his Reminiscences of the City of Lone don and its Livery Companies (page 226), gives a specimen list as: "The Fall of Lucifer,1' "The Shepherds feeding their flocks by night," "The Killing of the Innocents," etc.

Toulmin Smith, who was the first scholar to make researches in the Mystery and Miracle Plays, especially of Chester where they were performed in public by the gilds and very elaborately, was nowhere able to find any play with any similarity to the ceremony of HA.-., nor has any other specialist since found any evidence; but it could easily be that The Clerks Company of Players had produced such a play for Masons Companies, not for use in a street pageant but for giving at a feast in the Masons Hall. Lodges of Freemasons existed separately from these permanent Masons Companies in the towns and cities, but it often happened that a Craftsman was a member of a Lodge and a Company at the same time—as is still true—so that a play originally created for a Company might be used by a Lodge.

Some students of Craft history (as is true in the ease of the present writer, do not believe that the Rite of Raising is or ever has been of theatrical origins; others do, and it may be that these latter are more likely to find some form of a Hiram Abif story among the London Clerks' plays than among plays for street pageants.

PLEDGE OF FIDELITY

See Right Hand, and Oath, Corporeal

PLENTY

The ear of corn, or sheaf of wheat, is, in the Masonic system, the symbol of plenty. In ancient iconography, the godless Plenty was represented by a young nymph crowned with flowers, and holding in the right hand the horn of Amalthea, the goat that suckled Jupiter, and ln her left a bundle of sheaves of wheat, from which the ripe grain is falling profusely to the ground. There have been some differences in the representation of the goddess on various medals; but, as Montfauçon shows, the ears of corn are an indispensable part of the symbolism (see Shibboleth).

PLOT MANUSCRIPTS

Doctor R. Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686, speaks of "a scrole or parchment volume," in the possession of the Freemasons of the seventeenth century, in which it is stated that the "charges and manners Severe after perused and approved by King Henry VI." Doctor Oliver (Golden Remains iii page 35) thinks that Plot here referred to what is known as the Leland Manuscript, which, if true, would be a proof of the authenticity of that document. But Brother Oliver gives no evidence o the correctness of his assumption. It is more probable that the manuscript which Doctor Plot loosely quotes has not yet been recovered.

PLOT, ROBERT, M.D.

Born in 1651, and died in 1696. He was a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, and Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, to which position he had been appointed by Elias Ashmole, to whom, however, he showed but little gratitude. Doctor Plot published, in 1686, the Natural History of Staffordshire, a work in which he went out of his way to attack the Masonic institution. An able defense against this attack will be found in the third volume of Oliver's Golden Remairls of the Early Masonic Writers.

The work of Doctor Plot is both interesting and valuable to the Masonic student, as it exhibits the condition of Freemasonry in the latter part of the seventeenth century, certainly, if not at a somewhat earlier period, and is an anticipated answer to the assertions of the iconoclasts who would give Freemasonry its birth in 1717. For this purpose, we insert so much of his account (from the Natural History of Staffordshire, chapter viii, page 316) ans refers to the customs of the Society in 1686.

85. To these add the Customs relating to the County, whereof they have one, of admitting Men into the Society of Freemasons, that in the Moorelands of this County seems to be of greater request than any where else, though I find the Custom spread more or less all over the Nation; for here I found persons of the most eminent quality, that did not disdain to he of this Fellowship. Nor indeed need they were it of that Antiquity and honor, that it pretended in a large parchment volume they have amongst them, containing the History and Rules of the craft of masonry. Which is there deduced not only for sacred writ, but profane story, particularly that it was brought into England by Saint Amphibal, and first communicated to Saint Alban, who set down the Charges of masonry, and was made paymaster and Governor of the Kings works, and gave them charges and manners as Saint Amphibal had taught him. Which were after confirmed by King Athelstan, whose youngest son Edwyn loved well masonry, took upon him the charges and learned the manners, and obtained for them of his Father a free-Charter. Whereupon he caused them to assemble at York, and to bring all the old Books of their craft and our of them ordained such chargers and manners, as they then thought fit: which charges in the said Schrole or parchment volume, are in part declared: and thus was the craft of masonry grounded and confirmed in England.

It is also there declared that these charges and manners were after perused and approved by King Hen. 6. and his council, both as to Masters and Fellows of this right Worshipful craft.

86. Into which Society when any are admitted, they call a meeting or Lodge as they term it in some places which must consist at lest of 5 or 6 of the ancients of the Order, whom the candidates present with gloves, and so likewise to their wives, and entertain with a collation according to the Custom of the place:

This ended they proceed to the admission of them which chiefly consists in the communication of certain Secret Signs, whereby they are known to one another all over the Nation, by which means they have maintenance whither ever they travel; for if any man appear though altogether unknown that can shew any of these scenes to a Fellow of the Society, whom they otherwise call an accepted mason, he is obliged presently to come to him from what company or place soever he be in, nav tho' from the top of a Steeple, what hazard or inconvenience soever he run to know his pleasure and assist him; viz., if he want work he is bound to find him some, or if he cannot doe that, to give him money, or otherwise support him till work can be had; which is one of their articles; and it is another, that they advise the Masters they work for. according to the best of their skill, acquainting them with the goodness or badness of their materials; and if they be any way out in the contrivance of their buildings modestly to rectify them in it; that masonry be not dishonored: and many such like that are commonly known: but some others they have (to which they are sworn after their fashion) that none know but themselves. which I have reason to suspect are much worse than these, perhaps as bad as this History of the craft itself; than which there is nothing I ever met with, more false or incoherent.

87. For not to mention that Saint Amphibalus by judicious persons, is thought rather to be the cloak than master of Saint Alban, or how unlikely it is that Saint Alban himself in such a barbarous Age, and in times of persecution should be supervisor of any works- it is plain that King Athelstan was never married, or ever had so much as any natural issue; (unless we give way to the fabulous History or Guy Earl of Warwick, whose eldest son Reynburn is said indeed to have been married to Leoneat the supposed daughter of Athelstan, which will not serve the turn neither) much less ever had he a lawful son Edwyn, of whom I find not the least umbrage in History. He had indeed a Brother of that name, of w horn he was so jealous though very young when he came to the crown, that he sent him to Sea in a pinnace Without tackle or oar, only in company with a page, that lsis death might be imputed to the teases and not to him whence the Young Prince (not able to master his passions) east himself headlong into the Sea and there dyed. Who how unlikely to learn their manners; to get them a Charter; or call them together at York; let the Reader judge

88. Yet more improbable is it still. that Hen. the G. and his Council, should ever peruse or approve their charges and manners, and so confirm these right Worshipful Masters and Fellows as they are called in the Scroll: for in the third of his reign when he could not be 4 years old I find an act of Parliament quite abolishing this Society. It being therein ordained, that no Congregations and Confederacies should be made by masons, in their general Chapters and Assemblies, whereby the good course and effect of the Statutes of Laborers; were violated and broken in subversion of Law: and that those who caused Such Chapters or Congregations to be holden, should be adjudged Felons; and those masons that came to them should be punished by imprisonment, and make fine and ransom at the Kinas will. So very much out was the Compiler of this History of the craft of masonry, and so little skill had he in our Chronicles and Laws. Which Statute though repealed by a subsequent act in the 5 of Elize. whereby Servants and Laborers are compellable to serve, and their wages limited; and all masters made punishable for giving more wages than what is taxed by the Justices, and the servants if they take it &c. Yet this act too being but little observed, tis still to be feared these Chapters of Free-masons do as much mischief as before, which if one may estimate by the penalty was anciently so great, that perhaps it might be useful to examine them now.

PLUMB

An instrument used by Operative Masons to erect perpendicular lines, and adopted in Speculative Freemasonry as one of the Working tools of a Fellow Craft. It is a symbol of rectitude of conduct, and inculcates that integrity of life and undeviating course of moral uprightness which can alone distinguish the good and just man. As the operative workman erects his temporal building with strict observance of that plumb-line, which will not permit him to deviate a hair's breadth to the right or to the left, so the Speculative Freemason, guided by the unerring principles of right and truth inculcated in the symbolic teachings of the same implement, is steadfast in the pursuit of truth, neither bending beneath the frowns of adversity nor yielding to the seductions of prosperity.

To the man thus just and upright, the Scriptures attribute, as necessary parts of his character, kindness and liberality, temperance and moderation, truth and wisdom; and the pagan poet Horace (Book III, Ode 3) pays, in one of his most admired odes, an eloquent tribute to the stern immutability of the man who is upright and tenacious of purpose.

Iustum et tenacem propositi virum

non civium ardor prava iubentium, 
non voltus instantis tyranni 
mente quatit solida neque Auster 
dux inquieti turbidus Hadriae 
nec fulminantis magna manus Iovis; 
si fractus inlabatur orbis, 
inpavidum Serient ruinae.

The man of firm and righteous will,

No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, 
No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, 
Can shake the strength that makes him strong: 
Not winds that chafe the sea they sway, 
Nor Jovews right hand with lightning red: 
Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way, 
That wreck would strike one fearless head. 

—Professor John Conington.

It is worthy of notice that, in most languages, the word which is used in a direct sense to indicate straightness of course or perpendicularity of position, is also employed in a figurative sense to express uprightness of conduct. Such are the Latm rectum, which signifies at the same time a right line and honesty or integrity; the Greek, Ap§6s, which means straight, standing upright, and also equitable, just, true; and the Hebrew tsedek, which in a physical sense denotes rightness, straightness, and in a moral, what is right and just. Our own word Right partakes of this peculiarity, right being not wrong, as well as not crooked.

As to the name, it may be remarked that plumb is the word used in Speculative Freemasonry. Webster says that as a noun the word is seldom used except in composition. Its constant use, therefore, in Freemasonry, is a peculiarity.

PLUMB-LINE

A line to which a piece of lead is attached so as to make it hang perpendicularly. The plumb-line, sometimes called simply the line, is one of the working-tools of the Past Master. According to Preston, it was one of the instruments of Freemasonry which was presented to the Master of a Lodge at his installation, and he defines its symbolism as follows: "The line teaches the criterion of rectitude, to avoid dissimulation in conversation and action, and to direct our steps in the path which leads to immortality." This idea of the immortal life was always connected in symbology with that of the perpendicular—something that rose directly upward. Thus in the primitive church, the worshiping Christians stood up at prayer on Sunday, as a reference to the Lord's resurrection on that day. This symbolism is not, however, preserved in the verse of the prophet Amos (vii, 7) which is read in the United States as the Scripture passage of the Second Degree, where it seems rather to refer to the strict justice which God will apply to the people of Israel. It there coincides with the first Masonic definition that the line teaches the criterion of moral rectitude.

PLUMB-RULE

A narrow straight board, having a plumb-line suspended from its top and a perpendicular mark through its middle. It is one of the Working-tools of a Fellow Craft, but in Masonic language is called the Plumb, which see.

PLURALITY OF VOTES

See Majority

POCKET COMPANIONS

A Pocket Companion For Freemasons, by W. Smith; published at London in 1735 by E. Rider in Blackmore Street. A collection of songs which forms one part of this book is dated 1734. The price is not given but from other sources it is known that, unlike Anderson's Book of Constitutions, it was inexpensive, probably one shilling and six pence. The book was small (12 mo) and the author (about whom little is known) states that his design has been to produce "a small Volume easily portable, which will render what was before difficult to come at, and troublesome to carry about, of more extensive use." In it is a brief "History of Masonry" charges; General Regulations; Manner of Constituting a New Lodge; A Short Charge; a collection of 19 songs and a prologue; concluding with a List of Lodges in which the last entry is the Lodge at Duke of Marlborough's Head in Whitechapel, constituted November 5, 1734.

A Dublin edition was issued the same year. It differed little from the London edition except that it carried an approbation by the Grand Master (Lord Kingsland) which the London Edition had not done, doubtless because it was considered to encroach upon the rights of the Anderson Book of Constitutions of 1723; and that it gave "lawful age" as twenty-one instead of twenty-five as in England. In this edition is the oft-discussed entry of an American Lodge dated at 1735: "The Hoop in Wator Street, in Philadelphia, 1st Monday." (A copy of the Dublin Edition is in the vaults of the Iowa Grand Lodge Library, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.)

In 1736 another issue of the London edition was published by John Torbuck. In 1738 Smith himself brought out a new and somewhat enlarged edition which included the "Defense of Masonry," believed to have been written by Martin Clare.

A North of England Edition, entitled The Book M, was published at Newcastle, in 1736. A German edition was brought out in Frankfort, 1738. Other German editions followed, and other books of a similar kind were published soon after in Belgium and France.

An edition was published in Edinburgh in 1752, and again in 1754.

A Dublin Edition; 1764. Other London editions in 1754; 1759; 1761; 1764. At this time "pocket companion" became a generic term, and for decades one work after another of a similar kind was produced until the end of the century; they were entitled Vademecum, Principles, Institutes, Repository, Practice, Musical Mason, etc.

Regardless of titles these books went by the general name of pocket companions—"pocket" because they were small, "companions" because they were reference (and song) books; and they satisfied a want felt by Masons everywhere because the Anderson Book of Constitutions was too large and too costly. (To judge by Lodge Minutes the larger number of the Anderson books must have been purchased by Lodges out of their general funds.) Until Hutchinson published his Spirit of Masonry and Preston his Illustrations they were, except for official or semi-official manuals, the only generally available Masonic reading matter, and the fact explains why it was that on both sides of the Atlantic Masons had but a meager understanding of Freemasonry and often were puzzled by its practices; yet the Pocket Books (like Old Catechisms and Engraved Lists), and for all their dryness, are invaluable because they contain essential data not found elsewhere.

NOTE. The attitude of the Grand Lodge toward the two Books of Constitutions to which the name of James Anderson was attached remained ambiguous for decades: The Grand Lodge itself ordered the book to be prepared, George Payne prepared almost half of it, yet the Grand Lodge not only put Anderson's name on the Title Page but left it to him to have the book published- and apparently the Grand Lodge never gave an all-out official endorsement to either the 1723 or the 1738 editions. If it was an official publication by the Grand Lodge why did it permit a private writer to publish it? Why did it leave it to the option of Lodges to purchase it or not? Why did it not give copies to the Lodges without charge as Grand Lodges now give Proceedings? If it was official why did the Grand Lodge permit divergent forms of ceremony to be used? And why did it suffer other, and private, publications to be used in lieu of it? If it was not Official, why did Grand Lodge sponsor it? The data as a whole gives the impression that this ambiguity was a settled policy- and in that formative period of the Grand Lodge system doubtless was a wise one.

POETRY, MASONIC

Where Masonic poetry can be found, and what Masonic poetry is, are questions answerable onlyWafter the phrase is defined. If by Masonic poetry is meant verse written by a Mason about a symbol or about the Lodge or the Ritual, there is little of it, and in Masonic literature is no poem which a literary critic of competence would recognize as a masterpiece. Rob Morris wrote a volume of Masonic verse but had the misfortune not to be a poet; and those who have followed him have had a still larger share of the same misfortune. But there is no reason to limit Masonic verse so narrowly; there are great themes in Freemasonry in addition to its Landmarks and its Rules and Regulations; great themes in its history, its teachings, its spirit. If defined in this more inclusive sense there is much Masonic poetry, and of the very highest quality; much more in fact than Masons themselves can easily believe because it has never been collected in anthologies.

Of the poetry thus more broadly defined Robert Burns is the acknowledged laureate; second after him, and not far removed, is Rudyard Kipling—both were active and earnest Masons, and each held Lodge office; and after Kipling, though at a farther remove, is Edwin Markham, who acknowledged Masonry to have been the inspiration of many of his pages. Goethe, the greatest of poets since Shakespeare, performed the almost impossible feat of writing a poem on the philosophy of the Craft in his "A Mason's Ways." If Knighthood and Crusades are included in the Masonic purview, Scott and the French and Italian epic writers wrote thousands of pages.

But it is not so much among the classics, the standard writers, or in a whole corpus of work by any one writer, that the best and largest number of Masonic poems are found, but rather as a single poem, or only one or two, here and there among hundreds of poems. Longfellow's series of sonnets on Dante are in artistic skill his masterpiece; one of them is the description of a cathedral, and of perfect beauty.

Edna Millay's masterpiece is her sonnet on "Euclid." The theme of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" is brotherhood, a brotherhood so inclusive that it gathers into its embrace animals, plants, "all things both great and small"; and the same theme animates Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, a great work with an appeal in it for American Masons that our English Brethren may have difficulty in finding.

Scottish Rite Masons read Tennyson's Idylls of the Ring because in some pages those Vergilian leaves read almost like a gloss on certain of the High Grades; and the verse by Tennyson and a host of other poets on the Legend of the Holy Grail are a commentary of large and moving eloquence on the text of That Which Was Lost. And work, the Masonic theme par excellence, is being sung by a whole generation of Russian poets—and if they continue as they have begun they will yet find a way to bring the Fraternity back into their country because so many of them are Masons in spirit. And it is not to be forgotten that the oldest Masonic document in existence is itself a poem, composed in rhyme. If there were a Francis Palgrave in the Fraternity he could compile a Golden Treasury in many volumes

POETRY OF FREEMASONRY

Although Freemasonry has been distinguished more than any other single institution for the number of verses to which it has given birth, it has not produced any poetry of a very high order, except a few lyrical effusions. Rime, although not always of transcendent merit, has been a favorite form of conveying its instructions. The oldest of the Constitutions, that known as the Halliwell or Regius Manuscript, is written in verse; and almost all the early catechisms of the Degrees were in the form of rime, which, although often doggerel in character, served as a convenient method of assisting the memory.

But the imagination, which might have been occupied in the higher walks of poetry, seems in Freemasonry to have been expended in the construction of its symbolism, which may, however, be considered often as the results of true poetic genius.

There are, besides the songs, of which the number in all languages is very great, an abundance of prologues and epilogues, of odes and anthems, some of which are not discreditable to their authors or to the Institution. But there are very few poems on Masonic subjects of any length. The French have indulged more than any other nation in this sort of composition, and the earliest Masonic poem known is one published at Frankfort, 1756, with the title of Noblesse des Franc-Maçons ou Institution de leur Sociéte avant le deluge universel et de son renouvellement apres le Deluge, Nobility of the Freemasons, or the Institution of their Society before the Universal Deluge and of its Renovation after the Flood. It was printed anonymously, but the authorship of it is attributed to M. Jartigue. It is a transier to verse of all the Masonic myths contained in the Legend of the Craft and the traditional history of Anderson Neither the material nor the execution exempt the author from Horace's denunciation of poetic mediocrity.

A selection of poems that are of sufficient merit to be notable exceptions to the above criticism by Doctor Mackey, are here inserted.

The Lodge-room Over Simpkins' Store

The plainest lodge-room in the land was over Simpkins' store 
Where Friendship Lodge had met each month for fifty years or more. 
When o'er the earth the moon full-orbed, had cast her bnghtest beams, 
The Brethren came from miles around on horseback and in teams. 
And O! what hearty grasp of hand, what welcome met them there, 
As mingling with the waiting groups they slowly mount the stair. 
Exchanging fragmentary news or prophecies of crop, 
Until they reach the Tyler's room and current topics drop, 
To turn their thoughts to nobler themes they cherish and adore 
And which were heard on meeting night up over Simpkins' store. 
To city eyes, a cheerless room, long usage had defaced, 
The tell-tale lines of lath and beam on wall and ceiling traced. 
The light from oil-fed lamps was dim and yellow in its hue 
The carpet once could pattern boast, though now 'twas lost to view. 
The altar and the pedestals that marked the stations three, 
The gatepost pillars topped with balls, the rude-carved Letter G. 
Were village joiner's clumsy work, with many things beside, 
Where beauty's lines were all effaced and ornament denied 
There could be left no lingering doubt, if doubt there was before 
The plainest lodge-room in the land was over Simpkins' store. 
While musing thus on outward form the meeting time drew near 
And we had glimpse of inner life through watchful eye and ear. 
When Lodge convened at gavel's sound with officers in place 
We looked for strange, conglomerate work, but could no errors trace. 
The more we saw, the more we heard, the greater our amaze 
To find those country Brethren there so skilled in Masons' ways. 
But greater marvels were to come before the night was through, 
Where unity was not mere name, but fell on heart like dew 
Where tenets had the mind imbued, and truths rich fruitage bore 
In plainest lodge-room in the land, up over Simpkins' store. 
To hear the record of their acts was music to the ear, 
We sing of deeds unwritten which on angel's Scroll appear. 
A Widow's Case—for Helpless Ones—lodge funds were running low, 
A dozen Brethren sprang to feet and offers were not slow. 
Food, raiment, things of needful sort, while one gave load of wood 
Another, shoes for little ones, for each gave what he could. 
Then spake the last:—"I haven't things like these to give—but then, 
Some ready money may help out"—and he laid down a Ten 
Were Brother cast on darkest square upon life's checkered floor 
A beacon light to reach the white—was over Simpkins' store. 
Like scoffer who remained to pray, impressed by sight and sound 
The faded carpet death our feet was now like holy ground. 
The walls that had such dingy look were turned celestial blue. 
The ceiling changed to canopy where stars were shining through. 
Bright tongues of flame from altar leaped, the G was vivid blaze, 
All common things seemed glorified by heaven's reflected rays. 
O! wondrous transformation wrought through ministry of love— 

Behold the Lodge-room Beautiful!—fair type of that above

The vision fades—the lesson lives! and taught as ne'er before, 
In plainest lodge-room in the land—up over Simpkins' store. 

—Lawrenee N. Greenleaf, Past Grand Master of Colorado, died October 25, 1922.

What Came We Here To Do?

Foot to foot, no matter where, 
Though far beyond my destined road 
If Brother needs a Brother's care, 
On foot I'll go and share his load. 
Knee to knee, no selfish prayer 
Shall ever from my lips ascend 
For all who act upon the square, 
At least, henceforth, my knee shall bend. 
Breast to breast, and this I swear, 
A Brother's secrets here shall sleep 
If told to me upon the square, 
Save those I am not bound to keep. 
Hand to back, oh type of love! 
Fit emblem to adorn the skies, 
Be this our task below, above 
To help poor falling mortals rise. 
Cheek to cheek, or mouth to ear, 
" we all like sheep have gone astray," 
May we good counsel give and bear 
'Til each shall find the better way. 

—I. M. Jenkins, Brotherhood, January, 1920.

The Temple of Living Stones

The temple made of wood and stone may crumble and decay 
But there's a viewless Fabrie which shall never fade away; 
Age after age the Masons strive to consummate the Plane 
But still the work's unfinished which th' immortal Three began; 
None but immortal eyes may new, complete in all its parts 
The Temple formed of Living Stones—the structure made of hearts. 
'Neath every form of government, in every age and clime: 
Amid the world's convulsions and the ghastly wrecks of time.— 

While empires rise in splendor, and are conquered and overthrown

And cities crumble into dust, their very sites unknown,— 

Beneath the sunny smiles of peace, the threatening frown of strife,

Freemasonry has stood umnoved, with age renewed her life. 
She claims her votaries in all climes, for none are under ban 
Who place implicit trust in God, and love their fellow man; 
The heart that shares another's woe beats just as warm and true 
Within the breast of Christian, Mohammedan or Jew 
She levels all distinctions from the highest to the least,— 

The King must yield obedience to the Peasant in the East.

What honored names on history's page, o'er whose brave deeds we pore, 
Have knelt before our sacred shrine and trod our checkered floor ! 
Kings, princes, statesmen, heroes, bards who square their actions true, 
Between the Pillars of the Porch now pass in long review 
0, Brothers, what a glorious thought for us to dwell upon,— 

The mystic tie that binds our hearts bound that of Washington!

Although our past achievements we with honest pride review 
As long as there's Rough Ashlars there is work for us to do 
We still must shape the Living Stones with instruments of love 
For that eternal Mansion in the Paradise above; 
Toil as we've toiled in ages past to carry out the plan,—

'Tis this;—the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Man ! —Lawrence N. Greenleaf.

Great Source of Light and Love!

Great Source of light and love 
To Thee our songs we raise! 
Oh, in Thy- temple, Lord, above, 
Hear and accept our praise! 
Shine on this festive day! 
Succeed its hoped design; 
And may our Charity display 
A ray resembling Thine! 
May this fraternal Band, 
Now consecrated, blest 
In Pinion, all distinguished, stand, 
In Purity be dressed! 
May all the Sons of Peace 
Their every grace improve, 
Till discord through the nations cease, 
And all the world be Love! 

—Thaddeus Mason Harris.

Felloweraft's Song

His laws inspire our being— 

Our light is from His sun;

Beneath the Eve All-Seeing, 
Our Mason's work is done 
His Plumb line in uprightness 
Our faithful guide shall be 
And in the Source of Brightness 
Our willing eyes shall see. 
Thou, Father, art the Giver 
To ever. earnest prayer! 
O. be the Guide forever 
To this, our Brother dear! 
By law and precept holy, 
By token, word and sign, 
Exalt him, now so lowly, 
Upon this Grand Design. 
Within thy Chamber name him 
A Workman, vise and true! 
While loving Crafts shall claim him 
In bonds of friendship due; 
Thus shall the w alls extol Thee, 
And future ages prove 
what Masons ever call Thee, 
The God of Truth and Love! 
___ Rob Morris

For Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never brought to min'? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And days o' auld lang syne? 
For auld lang syne, my dear, 
For auld lang syne, 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 
For auld lang syne. 
We twa hae rin about the braces, 
And pu'd the gowans fine 
But we've wandered monie a weary fit 
Sin' auld tang syne. 
We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, 
Frae mornin' sun til dine 
But scas between us braid hae roared 
Sin' auld lang syne. 
And here's a hand, my trusty fiery 
And gie's a hand o' thine 
Ane we'll tak a right guid willie-waught 
For auld lang syne. 
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, 
And surely I'll be mine 
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 
For auld lang syne! 

—Robert Burns.

The verses sometimes called the Freemasons health and the Entered Apprentice's Song are found under the latter title in this work (see also Morris, Rob); Pike, Albert; Kipling, Rudyard, and Songs of Freemasonry).

POINSETT, JOEL R.

Joel Roberts Poinsett introduced from Mexico the plant with crimson bracts which has become the national Christmas flower Poinsettia pulcherina. He was born in Charleston S.C., in 1779, like Paul Revere being of Huguenot descent, of parents who were able to send him to school in England, employ private tutors after his return, and finally to send him to Scotland for his education in law. He studied military sciences at Woolwich. After nearly four years of traveling about Europe, President Madison called him home for a-mission to South America to make the first of a long series of endeavors to create there a Good Neighbor policy. He served in the South Carolina legislatures then served as Minister to Mexico; once, in Chile, he led one of those small, but critical naval battles (with Spain, then on the verge of a war with us) which so often decided our national destiny but are forgotten by Americans. While in office as Secretary of War during President Van Buren's administration he pioneered the way for what was to become the National Guard system, a scheme adopted from Eighteenth Century England for having an army without having professional soldiers.

Brother Poinsett w as a member of Solomon's Lodge, No. 1, Charleston; filled a succession of offices including Grand High Priest, and was elected Grand Master but could not serve because of his appointment as Secretary of War. It was as Minister to Mexico that he made a place for himself in Masonic history when he introduced Masonry into Mexico City; and could the Lodges there have resisted invasion by the Church from one side and politics from the other, the Mexican Craft would have developed into one of great strength along with the Craft in the United States and Canada.

POINTED CUBICAL STONE

The Broached Thurnel, which see, mentioned by Doctor Oliver and others in the Tracing-Board of an Entered Apprentice, and known to the French Freemason as the pierre cubiquc, has an ax inserted in the apex. Brother William S. Rockwell considered this feature in the Tracing-Board remarkable and suggestive of curious reflections, and thus reasoned: The cubic stone pointed with an axe driven into it, is strikingly similar to a peculiar hieroglyphic of the Egyptians. The name of one of their gods is written with a determinative sign affixed to it, consisting of a smooth rectangular stone with a knife over it; but the most singular portion of the circumstance is, that this hieroglyphie, which is read by Egyptelogists, Seth, is the symbol of falsehood and error, in contradistinction to the rough, or brute, stone, which is the symbol of faith and truth. The symbol of error was the soft stone, which could be cut; the symbol of truth, the hard stone, on which no tool could be used.

Seth is the true Egyptian name of the god known afterward by the name of Typhon, at one time devoutly worshiped and profoundly venerated in the culminating epoch of the Pharaonic empire, as the monuments of Parnac and Medinet-Abou testify.

But in time his worship was overthrown, his shrines desecrated, his name and titles chiseled from the monumental granite, and he himself, from being venerated as the giver of life and blessings to the rulers of Egypt, degraded from his position, treated as a destroying demon, and shunned as the personification of evil. This was not long before the exode of the children of Israel. Seth was the father of Judaeus, and Palestinus is the god of the Semitic tribes who rested on the seventh day, and bears the swarthy complexion of the hated race. Seth is also known by other names in the hieroglyphic legends, among the most striking of which is Bar, that is Bal, known to us in sacred history as the fatal stumbling block of idolatry to the Jewish people (see Triangle and Square).

POINTS

In the Old Constitutions known as the Halliwell or Regius Manuscript, there are fifteen regulations which are called points. The fifteen articles which precede are said to have been in existence before the meeting at York, and then only collected after search, while the fifteen points were then enacted. Thus we are told—

Fifteen artyculus they there sougton,

bald fifteen poyntys there they wrogton.

The word sougton, means sought or Soured out; the word wrogton, wrought or enacted. The points referred to in the ritualistic phrase, arts, parts, and prints of the hidden mysteries of Masonry" are the rules and regulations of the Inntitution- Phillips's New World of Words (1706 edition) defines point as "a head or chief matter." It is in this sense that we speak of the points of Freemasonry.

A rather significant use of the word is where it means to correct and complete the openings left between the stones in a wall, a meaning applied by the operative craftsmen that is very old and still very apt.

POINTS OF ENTRANCE, PERFECT

In the earliest lectures of the eighteenth century these were called Principal Points. The designation of them as Perfect Points of Entrance was of a later date. They are described both in the English and the American systems. Their specific names, and their allusion to the four cardinal virtues, are the same in both; but the verbal explanations differ, although not substantially. They are so called because they refer to four important points of the initiation. The Guttural refers to the entrance upon the penal responsibilities; the Pectoral, to the entrance into the Lodge; the Hanusl, to the entrance on the Covenant; and the Pedal, to the entrance on the instructions in the northeast.

POINTS OF FELLOWSHIP, FIVE

There are duties owing by every Freemason to his Brethren, which, from their symbolic allusion to certain points of the body, and from the lesson of brotherly love which they teach, are called the Five Points of Fellowship. They are symbolically illustrated in the Third Degree, and have been summed up by Doctor Oliver as "assisting a Brother in his distress, supporting him in his virtuous undertakings, praying for his welfare, keeping inviolate his secrets, and vindicating his reputation as well in his absence as in his presence" (Landmarks i, page 185).

Cole, in the Freemasons Library (page 190) gives the same ideas in extended language, as follows:

1. When the necessities of a Brother call for my aid and support, I will be ever ready to lend him such assistance, to save him from sinking, as may not be detrimental to myself or connection, if I find him worthy thereof.

2. Indolence shall not cause my footsteps to halt nor wrath turn them aside- but forgetting every selfish consideration I will be ever swift of foot to serve, help, and execute benevolence to a fellow-creature in distress, and more particularly to a Brother Freemason.

3. When I offer up my ejaculations to almighty God, a Brother's welfare I will remember as my own; for as the voices of babes and sucklings ascend to the Throne of Grace, so most assuredly fill the breathings of a fervent heart arise to the mansions of bliss, as our prayers are certainly required of each other.

4. A Brother's secrets, delivered to me as such, I will keep as I would my own; as betraying that trust might be doing him the greatest injury he could sustain in this mortal life; nay, it would be like the villainy of an assassins who lurks in darkness to stab his adversary, when unarmed and least prepared to meet an enemy.

5. A Brother's character I will support in his absence as I would in his presence: I will not wrongfully revile him myself, nor will I suffer it to be done by others, if in my power to prevent it.

The enumeration of these Points by some other more recent authorities differs from Cole's, apparently, only in the order in which the Points are placed. The latter order is given by Doctor Mackey:

1. Indolence should not cause our footsteps to halt, or wrath turn them aside; but with eager alacrity and swiftness of foot, we should press forward in the exercise of charity and kindness to a distressed fellow-creature.

2. In our devotions to almighty God, we should remember a Brother's welfare as our own; for the prayers of a fervent and sincere heart will find no less favor in the sight of Heaven, because the petition for self is mingled with aspirations of benevolence for a friend. 3. When a Brother intrusts to our keeping the secret thoughts of his bosom, prudence and fidelity should place a sacred seal upon our lips lest, in an unguarded moment, we betray the solemn trust confided to our honor.

4. When adversity has visited our Brother, and his calamities call for our aid, we should cheerfully and liberally stretch forth the hand of kindness, to save him from sinking, and to relieve his necessities.

5. While with candor and kindness we should admonish a Brother of his faults, we should never revile his character behind his back, hut rather, when attacked by others, support and defend it.

The difference here is apparently only in the order of enumeration, but really there is an important difference in the symbols on which the instructions are founded. In the old system, the symbols are the hand, the foot, the knee, the breast, and the back. In the new system, the first symbol or the hand is omitted, and the mouth and the ear substituted. There is no doubt that this omission of the first and insertion of the last are innovations, which sprung up in 1843 at the Baltimore Convention, and the enumeration given by Cole is the old and genuine one, which was originally taught in England by Preston, and in the United States by Webb.

POINTS, THE FIVE

See Chromatic Calendar

POINTS, TWELVE GRAND

See Twelve Original Points of Masonry

POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE

This is a symbol of great interest and importance, and brings us into close connection with the early symbolism of the solar orb and the universe, which was predominant in the ancient sun-worship. The lectures of Freemasonry give what modern Monitors have made an exoteric explanation of the symbol, in telling us that the point represents an individual Brother, the circle the boundary line of his duty to God and man, and the two perpendicular parallel lines the patron saints of the Order—Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist.

But that this was not always its symbolic signification, we may collect from the true history of its connection with the phallus of the Ancient Mysteries

The phallus was among the Egyptians the symbol of fecundity, expressed by the male generative principle. It was communicated from the Rites of Osiris to the religious festivals of Greece. Among the Asiatics the same emblem, under the name of Miriam, was, in connection with the female principle, worshiped as the symbols of the Great Father and Mother, or producing causes of the human race, after their destruction by the deluge.

On this subject, Captain Wilford (Asiatic Researches) remarks "that it was believed in India, that, at the general deluge, everything was involved in the common destruction except the male and female principles, or organs of generation, which were destined to produce a new race, and to repeople the earth when the waters had subsided from its surface. The female principle, symbolized by the moon, assumed the form of a lunette or crescent; while the male principle, symbolized by the sun, assuming the form of the lingam, placed himself erect in the center of the lunette, like the mast of a ship.

The two principles, in this united form, floated on the surface of the waters during the period of their prevalence on the earth; and thus became the progenitors of a new race of men." Here, then, was the first outline of the point within a circle, representing the principle of fecundity, and doubtless the symbol, connected with a different history, that, namely, of Osiris, was transmitted by the Indian philosophers to Egypt, and to the other nations, who derived, as is elsewhere shown, all their rites from the East.

It was in deference to this symbolism that, as Godfrey Higgins remarks (Anecalypsis ii, page 306), circular temples were in the very earliest ages universally erected in cyclar numbers to do honor to the Deity.

In India, stone circles, or rather their ruins, are everywhere found; among the oldest of which, according to Moore (Pancheon, page 242) is that of Dipaldiana, and whose execution will compete with that of the Greeks. In the oldest monuments of the Druids we find, as at Stonehenge and Avebury, the circle of stones. In fact, all the temples of the Druids were circular, with a single stone erected in the center. A Druidical monument in Pembrokeshire, called Y Cromlech, is described as consisting of several rude stones pitched on end in a circular order, and in the midst of the circle a vast stone placed on several pillars. Near Keswick, in Cumberland, says Doctor Oliver (Signs and Symbols, page 174) is another specimen of this Druidical symbol. On a hill stands a circle of forty stones placed perpendicularly, Of about five feet and a half in height, and one stone in the center of greater altitude. Among the Scandinavians, the hall of Odin contained twelve seats, disposed in the form of a circlers for the principal gods, with an elevated seat in the center for Odin. Scandinavian monuments of this form are still to be found in Scania, Zealand, and Jutland. But it is useless to multiply examples of the prevalence of this symbol among the ancients. Now let us apply this knowledge to the Masonic symbol.

We have seen that the phallus and the point within a circle come from the same source, and must have been identical in signification. But the phallus was the symbol of fecundity, or the male generative principle, which by the ancients was supposed to be the sun, they looking to the creature and not to the Creator, because by the sun's heat and light the earth is made prolific, and its productions are brought to maturity. The point within the circle was then originally the symbol of the sun; and as the lingam of India stood in the center of the lunette, so it stands within the center of the Universe, typified by the circle, impregnating and vivifying it with its heat. And thus the astronomers have been led to adopt the same figure as their symbol of the sun.

Now it is admitted that the Lodge represents the world or the universe, and the Master and Wardens within it represent the sun in three positions. Thus we arrive at the true interpretation of the Masonic symbolism of the point within the circle. It is the same thing, but under a different form, as the Master and Wardens of a Lodge. The Master and Wardens are symbols of the sun, the Lodge of the universe, or world, just as the point is the symbol of the same sun, and the surrounding circle of the universe.

To the above observations by Doctor Mackey, Brother Charles T. McClenachan adds these two paragraphs:

An addition to the above may be given, by referring to one of the oldest symbols among the Egyptians, and found upon their monuments, which was a circle centered by an A U M, supported by two erect parallel serpents; the circle being expressive of the collective people of the world, protected by the parallel attributes, the Power and Wisdom of the Creator. The Alpha and Omega, or the will representing the Egyptian omnipotent God, surrounded by His creation, having for a boundary no other limit than what may come within his boundless scope, his Wisdom and Power. At times this circle is represented by the Ananta (a Sanskrit word meaning eternity), a serpent with its tail in its mouth. The parallel serpents were of the cobra species.

It has been suggestively said that the Masonic symbol refers to the circuits or circumambulation of the initiate about the sacred Altar, which supports the three Great Lights as a central point, while the Brethren stand in two parallel lines.

POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE

As knowledge of the customs of gilds, fraternities, churches, and of popular customs in the Middle Ages is increased it becomes ever more evident that the two Sts. John Days were in everybody's mind the two fixed points of the year, and that where we measure time in our minds from New Year's Day (St. John the Evangelist's Day was equivalent to it) they measured it from two extremes, one the shortest day in winter, the other the longest day in summer.

The early prominence of these two Days in Masonic customs need not there fore mean that the days were chosen for their religious significance; it rather may mean that they were chosen for their convenience as a calendar. It is doubt ful if Masons ever thought of the Sts. John as their Patron Saints until a late period; from the records of the Mason Companies (as noted on another page in this Supplement), some of them took St. Thomas as their Patron.

The Monitorial Lectures make it plain that the two Parallel Lines represent the Sts. John Evangelist and Baptist, not in their theological significance but in their sense as a calendar; the days named after those, Saints, rather than the Saints themselves, are denoted.

Since those days were the two extremes of the year, the sun is correctly represented as swinging in its circuit between them, for it cannot move south this side of the fixed point of the day named for the Evangelist nor go north beyond the fixed point of the day represented by the Baptist. The two days are the limits of its circle, therefore the circle is shone set between the lines. The Point Within the Circle represents the year, a year of work, a year out of a man's life; at least it does if the history of its use is a true guide to its symbolic meaning. To follow that guide is not to narrow the symbolism down to a mere fact in the calendar, but is to canalize it, and to hold it fast to its Masonic meaning, lest commentators wander off into regions that have no connection with Freemasonry.

POLAND

Lodges were held in Poland quite early in the eighteenth century, but the Bull of pope Clement XII in 1739 stopped all activities. In 1742, however, a Lodge was again at work in Volhynien and others soon revived. The Three Brothers Lodge was opened at Warsaw in 1766 by Count Augustus Moszynski and on June 24, 1769, it was declared a Grand Lodge. In 1770 Brother Moszynski was recognized by England as Provincial Grand Master for Poland. In 1772 owing to political affairs Masonic doings ceased. By 1780 however there were again three Lodges at work. The Good Shepherd Lodge reorganized as Catherine of the Polar Star, was in August, 1780, granted a Warrant as a Provincial Grand Lodge -' England with Count Hulsen as presiding officer. On March 4, 1784, it became an independent Grand Orient of Poland with Brother Andrew Mocranowski as Grand Master.

Activities again ceased in 1789 but were resumed in 1810. Eleven years later the Lodges were again closed by order of Czar Alexander. The freedom of action brought about in Masonic affairs during the World War encouraged the promotion of Lodges and a Grand Lodge was formed on October 1, 1921, independently of the Grand Lodge of Italy which had taken the preliminary steps at organization on September 11, 1920.

Brother Oliver Day Street, in his Report on Correspondence to the Grand Lodge of Alabama, 1922, days, "The Grand Lodge of Poland with seat at Warsaw, has been recently organized, but we possess little information concerning it. A brief item in the Fellowship Forum of March 17, 1922, says that it bids fair to become the center of a vigorous Masonic movement in Central Europe."

A Supreme Council of Poland, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was established in 1922 under the sponsorship of the Supreme Councils of Switzerland, Netherlands, and Italy.

POLITICS

There is no charge more frequently made against Freemasonry than that of its tendency to revolution, and conspiracy, and to political organizations which may affect the peace of society or interfere with the rights of governments. It was the substance of all Barruel's and Robison's accusations, that the Jacobinism of France and Germany was nurtured in the Lodges of those countries; it was the theme of all the denunciations of the anti-Masons of America, that the Order was seeking a political ascendancy and an undue influence over the government; it has been the unjust accusation of every enemy of the Institution in all times past, that its object and aim is the possession of power and control in the affairs of state. It is in vain that history records no instance of this unlawful connection between Freemasonry and politics; it is in vain that the libeler is directed to the Ancient Constitutions of the Order, which expressly forbid such connection; the libel is still written, and Freemasonry is again and again condemned as a political club.

POLITICS AND MASONRY

The first Book of Constitutions of Freemasonry (1723) has as its second part The Charges of a Free-Mason, which begins on page 49. The second of these charges is "Of the Civil Magistrate Supreme and Subordinate."

The paragraph consists of two long sentences, but both are nothing more than an elaboration of the opening clause of the first of the two: "A Mason is a peaceable Subject of the Civil Powers ...." The elaboration of this straightforward, unambiguous statement makes clear what the new Grand Lodge had in mind; there are Mayors, it said, with their council in towns and cities, Sheriffs with their staffs in the counties; each of these "magistrates" is charged to enforce the ordinances of the town or laws of the realm governing gilds, associations, assemblies of craftsmen; Masons do not rebel against these magistrates or make trouble for them; they keep the peace.

It did not occur to the Freemasons then, as it had never occurred to their Masonic forebears, that they were living under a "political system" that other political systems were possible; that a different political system might be better than the one they had; they did not discuss such questions, or debate them, or propagandize their members in support of one system as against another. Such abstract and general political theories as democracy, monarchy, feudalism, republicanism, communism had never crossed their minds.

Throughout the Middle Ages theologians and philosophers might theorize about "the prince" or raise abstract questions. At a later time Coke, Bacon, Blackstone, Mr. Locke could discuss the merits of a constitutional system as against personal monarchy. But craftsmen knew nothing of such subjects, took their rulers and laws for granted, and raised no questions except on such matters of practical detail as their rights to hold assemblies, the carelessness of Royal Administrators, the scale of wages, etc.

Is Freemasonry democratic, republican, monarchic, etc.? Neither the words nor the ideas denoted by the words are found anywhere in the customs, rules and regulations, Constitutions, Landmarks, or the Ritual. The Craft has never interested itself in political philosophies, creeds, crusades; and does not now, because, like theology, they lie outside its province. Don't make trouble for magistrates; don't indulge in street brawls; don't hold illegal assemblies; be peaceable and law-abiding, this was as far as the Masons went; they did not even include such non-partisan, universal words as patriotism and citizenship in their Ritual.

The Craft began in a period of unadulterated feudalism, when a Lord owned the land, or a portion of it, and the men, women, fields, animals, and everything on it.

To be free was an exceptional status which the lord granted, and almost always for a consideration, and this freedom was granted to a man, a town, a corporation, a body of men, a trade by means of a charter or dispensation.

Men not freed or manumitted were the private property of the lord, and could be bought and sold with the land. Feudalism was never banished in toto (Hungary still has it), but broke up one portion at a time, here and then there, now and then, piecemeal. It was succeeded by a dynastic system of personal rulers. A country, or county, or estate, or principality, or "crown" belonged to its ruler; if he married a woman possessing the crown of another "country," perhaps across the sea, he became ruler of both. He could divide countries among his sons. In Italy and France cities belonged to lords, and a great center like Venice, or Genoa, or Florence might belong to one "kingdom" today, another tomorrow because of a marriage.

This dynastic system gave way, piecemeal, to the national system; there came into existence countries with permanent boundaries, and in the process many lords and dynasties were swallowed up by one lord and he became king of a country: and his family was the only royal dynasty. The power of these personal dynastic rulers was eaten into by the ever-increasing powers, first, of their own counselors and under-lords, second, by the citizens at large represented by committees-of-the-whole called parliaments. The United States was the first country to adopt the last named exclusively, and to abandon the old barbaric notion that a man can "own" a country and a people, and the Medieval notion that any one man can rule and govern a people. The proof that Freemasonry is wholly non-political is furnished by the fact that it has perpetuated itself and preserved its own Landmarks unaltered in each and every one of these political systems; and the corollary fact that as a fraternity it has never taken part in overthrowing one system in favor of another. Its members can espouse any political theory or party they wish, can be monarchists, or communists, but they cannot act or speak in such matters in the name of Masonry or commit the Craft to any political dogma.

The American Revolution was in reality two revolutions: the military revolution for political independence was brought successfully to an end with the surrender of Yorktown; the social revolution, by which the titles, classes, privileges, etc., of the old aristocracy were abolished, came to its final end in the administration of Andrew Jackson.

In the American way of life a man counts as one, never more or less than one; he is a citizen by virtue of birth (or naturalization), and no one man can be less or more of a citizen than another; each one is free to attend school, walk the streets, work, speak, think; his government deals with him solely as a man; it has never required that he belong to any given party, religion, or class. This is not a political system, but the absence of one, and absent because none is needed. The country is not governed according to a theory; the names "democratic" or "republican," etc., and if properly defined, are mere verbal labels, and mean nothing. A man is an American; there is no requirement for him to be anything additional. But he is "American" only because he lives in the country called America. It is because a man himself, any man, and by virtue of his nature, must thus count as one man, be dealt with as a man and in no other capacity, that America has its way of life, and for no other reason; we did not at a people begin by adopting some particular political theory or program, and then set about putting it into practice. Men in any country can have the same way of life for and of themselves without thinking of it as borrowed from America, because it is not American but belongs to man as man.

Freemasonry fitted happily into this way of life, though it had, as an organization, nothing to do with making it (there were as many Masons on one side in the Revolution as on the other); the only point at which it chanced to correspond beforehand with the American way was its ancient Landmark of treating each candidate solely on his merits as a man, of compelling him to meet his fellows on the level, and of forcing him to leave his privileges, titles, etc., outside; but it did this not because it had adopted the theory called "democracy"—a word which, like socialism, may mean anything—but because its members were workers engaged in the same work together.

In the paragraphs on RELIGION ONLY FREEMASONRY elsewhere in this Supplement it is stated that Freemasonry never had a theology of its own because Masonry was the art of architecture, and that art, like the other arts and sciences, can never be altered by any theology, church, or religion but is self-same everywhere and always. The same fact is true of Masonry and politics. The principles, formulas, and tools of architecture were the same in feudal Europe as in "democratic" America. If Hitler and Stalin had any need to solve the Forty-seventh Proposition of Euclid they both had to solve it in the same way, because geometry is irrelevant to political regimes. So is astronomy, geology, farming, navigation, music, chemistry, physics, etc.; an automobile cannot be fascist, communist, democratic any more than it can be Jewish, Christian, or Buddhist.

Politics are of highest importance inside their own province; outside it they have no say about anything. Freemasonry stands outside that province. Such Lodges in Europe, especially in Italy and under the Grand Orient of France, as went into politics went out of Masonry in the act of doing so; and the Grand Bodies of more than ninety per cent of the world's Masonry proclaimed the fact by withdrawing fraternal recognition. When the Duke of Wharton tried to bring the young Mother Grand Lodge over to his political crowd of Jacobites the Grand Lodge put him out. If the National Association of Mathematicians were told by one of their members that henceforth mathematics must be Republican, or Protestant, or Anti-Semitic, they would do the same thing and for the same reason. Even the form of organization of a Lodge, its rules of order, its order of business, its regulations, its offices, its etiquette, cannot be described by any one of the labels used by politicians; it is uniquely Masonry's own; as the way of life in America can only be described as American, so with it; its way can only be described as Masonic.

Note. Apropos of what was said above about the second. or social, revolution, so many Americans refused to give up the usages of aristocracy that, under the name of United Empire Loyalists, 35,000 of them moved up to Nova Scotia. and 15,000 moved up into Ontario, most of them—and not always voluntarily!—in the years 1783-4; and still later so many moved up from Vermont that in the War of 1812 the majority of Vermonters refused to enlist in a war against Canada, because they had relatives there. Martha Washington herself was socially a Tory— to her a " democrat " meant very much what " bolshevist " was to mean a century and a half later. A Washington D. C. daily newspaper referred to Mrs. Dolly Madisor; the President's wife, as "Her Majesty."

POLKAL

A significant word in the advanced Degrees, which means altogether separated, in allusion to the disunited condition of the Masonic Order at the time, divided as it was into various and conflicting rites. The word is corrupted from palcol, and is derived from the Hebrew radical pal, which, as Gesenius says, everywhere implies separation, and the adverbial kol, meaning Wholly, altogether.

POLYCHRONICON

Ranulf Higden, a monk of Chester, wrote, about 1350, under this title a Latin chronicle, which was translated into English in 1387 by John Trevisa, and published by William Caxton, in 1482, as The Polychronicot; "conteynyag the Berynges and Dedes of many Tymes." Another edition was published, though, perhaps, it was the pane book with a new title by Wynkyn de Woorde. in 1485, as Policronicon, in which booke ben comprysed bryefy many wonderful hystoryes, Englished by one Trevisa, vicarye of Barkley, etc., a copy of which sold in 1857 for £37. There was another translation in the same century by an unknown author. The two translations made the book familiar to the English public, with whom it was at one time a favorite work. It was much used by the compiler or compilers of the Old Constitutions now known as the Cooke Manuscripts Indeed, there is very little doubt that the writers of the old Masonic records borrowed from the Polychronicon many of their early legends of Freemasonry. In 1865 there was published at London, under the authority of the Master of the Rolls, an edition of the original Latin chronicle, with both the English translations, that of Trevisa and that of the unknown writer.

POMEGRANATE

The pomegranate, as a symbol, was known to and highly esteemed by the nations of antiquity. In the description of the pillars which stood at the porch of the Temple (see First Kings via, 15), it is said that the artificer "made two chapiters of molten brass to set upon the tops of the pillars." Now the Hebrew word caphtorim, which has been translated chapiters and for which, in Amos (ix, 1), the word lintel has been incorrectly substituted, though the marginal reading corrects the error, signifies an artifical large pomegranate or globe. The original meaning is not preserved in the Septuagint, which has nor in the Vulgate, which uses sphaerula, both meaning simply a round ball. But Josephus, in his Ardiquities, has kept to the literal Hebrew.

It was customary to place such ornaments upon the tops or heads of columns, and in other situations. The skirt of Aaron's robe was ordered to be decorated with golden bells and pomegranates, and they were among the ornaments fixed upon the golden candelabra. There seems, therefore, to have been attached to this fruit some mystic signification, to which it is indebted for the veneration thus paid to it. If so, this mystic meaning should be traced into Spurious Freemasonry; for there, after all, if there be any antiquity in our Order, we shall find the parallel of all its rites and ceremonies.

The Syrians at Damascus worshiped an idol which they called Rimmon. This was the same idol that was worshiped by Shaman before his conversion; as recorded in the Second Book of Kings. The learned have not been able to agree as to 'he nature of this idol, whether he was a representation of Helios or the Sun, the god of the Phenicians, or of Venus, or according to Grotius, in his Commentary on the passage in Kings, of Saturn, or what, according to Statius, Feems more probable, of Jupiter Cassius. But it is sufficient for the present purpose to know that Rimmon is the Hebrew and Syriac for pomegranate.

Cumberland, the learned Bishop of Peterborough (Origines gerLtium antiquissimae, or Attempts for discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations, page 60), quotes Achilles Statius, a converted Pagan, and Bishop of Alexandria, as saying that on Mount Cassius, which Bochart places between Canaan and Egypt, there was a temple wherein Jupiter's image held a pomegranate in his hand, which Statius goes on to say, "had a mystical meaning." Sanconiathon thinks this temple was built by the descendants of the Cabiri. Cumberland attempts to explain this mystery thus: "Agreeably hereunto I guess that the pomegranate in the hand of Jupiter or Juno, because, when it is opened, it discloses a great number of seeds, signified only, that those deities were, being long-lived, the parents of a great many children, and families that soon grew into nations, which they planted in large possessions, when the world was newly begun to be peopled, by giving them laws and other useful inventions to make their lives comfortable." Pausanias (Corinthiaca, page 59) says he saw, not far from the ruins of Mycenae, an image of Juno holding in one hand a scepter, and in the other a pomegranate; but he likewise declines assigning any explanation of the emblem, merely declaring that it was a Greek expression meaning a forbidden mystery. That is, one which was forbidden by the Cabiri to be divulged.

In the Festival of the Thesmophoria, observed in honor of the goddess Ceres, it was held unlawful for the celebrants who were women to eat the pomegranate. Clemens Alexandrinus assigns as a reason, that it was supposed that this fruit sprang from the blood of Bacchus.

Bryant (Analysis of Ancient Mythology in, page 237) says that the Ark was looked upon as the mother of mankind, and on this account it was figured under the semblance of a pomegranate; for as this fruit abounds with seeds, it was thought no improper emblem of the Ark, which contained the rudiments of the future world. In fact, few plants had among the ancients a more mythical history than the pomegranate.

From the Hebrews, who used it mystically at the Temple, it passed over to the Freemasons, who adopted it as the symbol of plenty, for which it is well adapted by its swelling and seed-abounding fruit.

POMMEL

A round knob; a term applied to the globes or balls on the top of the pillars which stood at the porch of Solomon's Temple. It was introduced into the Masonic lectures from Scriptural language. The two pommels of the chapters is in Second Chronicles (iv, 13). It is, however, an architectural term, thus defined by Parker (Glossary of Architecture, page 365): Pommel denotes generally any ornament of a globular form.

POMME VERTE

This in French means the Green Apple. An androgynous (of both sexes) Order instituted in Germany in 1780, and afterwards introduced into France as we are told by Thory (Acta Latomorum i, page 333).

PONTIFES FRERES

See Bridge Builders

PONTIFEX

See Bridge Builders

PONTIFF

In addition to what has been said of this word in the article on the Bridge Builders of the middle Ages, the following from Athanase Coquerel, in a recent essay entitled The Rise and Decline of the Romish Church, will be interesting.

What is the meaning of pontiff? Pontiff means bridge maker, bridge builder. Why are they called in that way? Here is the explanation of the fact:

In the very first year of the existence of Rome, at a time of which we have a very fabulous history and but few existing monuments, the little town of Rome, not built on seven hills, as is generally supposed—there are eleven of them now, then there were within the town less than seven even—that little town had a great deal to fear from an enemy which should take one of the hills that were out of town—the Janiculum—because the Janiculum is higher than the others, and from that hill an enemy could very easily throw stones, fire, or any means of destruction into the town.

The Januculum was Heparated from the town by the Tiber. Then the first necessity for the defense of that little town of Rome was to have a bridge.

They had built a wooden bridge over the Tiber and a great point of interest to the town was, that this bridge should be kept always in good order, so that at any moment troops could pass over. Then, with the special genius of the Romans, of which we have other instances, they ordained, curiously enough, that the men who were a corporation, to take care of that bridge shouid be sacred; that their function. necessary to the defense of the town, should be considered holy; that thev should be priests, and the highest of them was called the High Bridge Maker. So it happened that there was in Rome a Corporation of Bridge Makers— pontifices—of whom the head was the most sacred of all Romans; because in those days his life and the life of his companions was deemed necessary to the safety of the town.

Thus it is that the title of Pontifex Maximus, assumed by the Pope of Rome, literally means the Grand Bridge Builder (see Bridge Builders of the Middle Ages).

PONTIFF, GRAND

See Grand Pontiff

POOR FELLOW SOLDIERS OF JESUS CHRIST

This title is in Latin Pauperes commilitones Jesu Christi. This was the title first assumed by the Knights Templar.

POOROOSH

The spirit or essence of Brahma in the Indian religious system.

POPE, ALEXANDER

Son of a Roman Catholic linen-dealer at London. Born May 21, 1688, died May 30, 1744. the body being buried in the parish church of Twickenham. Many of his satires took up the cause of this or that political question and Pope's associates and friends numbered among them men high in the public life of England at that period. Deformed by disease in childhood, he was for life an invalid, yet a busy man of letters whose prose and verse, original and translated, were clever, keen, abiding. Devoted to his mother, his quarrels elsewhere were equally earnest, lasting, thorough. Probably the venom of his literary attacks was in part due to great sensitiveness over his crippled, unhealthy condition. His verse is particularly smooth in flow, bright of allusion, phrases neatly framed, apt for quotation, as in the following familiar lines from his Essay on Man:

Know then thyself, presume no God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is man. 
An honest man s the noblest work of God 
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; 
Still by himself abused and disabused 
Created half to rise, and half to fall 
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; 
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled 
The glory, jest and riddle of the world! 
The same work is equally striking in what is said f woman: 
Our grandsire, Adam, ere of Eve possesst 
Alone, and eten in Paradise unblest 
With mournful looks the blissful scenes survev'd, 
And wander'd in the solitary shade. 
The Maker saw, took pity, and bestow'd 
Woman, the last, the best reserv'd of God.

Several of his intimates were reputed to be members of the Craft. He is quoted as being a member of the same Masonic Lodge in London which enrolled on its books his life-long friends, Dean Swift and John Arbuthnot, by Brother J. H. Edge in the Builder, May, 1924- One therefore hunts through his writings or some reference to the Fraternity or its instruction. Strange but true is it that the Four Cardinal Virtues, Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence, and Justice exactly as they are enumerated in the Monitors, are given in that order by Alexander Pope:

In clouded Majesty her dulness shone;

Four guardian Virtues round, support her throne 
Fears champion Fortitude, that knows no fears 
Of hisses blows, or want, or less of ease: 
Calm Temperance, whose blessings these partake 
Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake 
prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail 
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale 
Where. in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs 
And solid pudding against empty brays.

Brother W. Wonnacott, late Grand Librarian of England, personally assured us that in his belief it is the name of Alexander Pope that is in the 1730 list of the members of the Lodge held at the Goat, a Tavern at the foot of The Haymarket, London, and our good Brother called attention to the above lines as probably pointing to some knowledge on Pope's part of the moralization that is impressed by us on our only admitted Brethren. The Universal Prayer, oft quoted in Masonic instruction, was written by Pope in 1738 and is given below:

Father of all! In every age

In every clime adored, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 
Thou Great First Cause, least understood 
Who all my sense confined 
To know but this, that Thou art good 
And that myself am blind. 
Yet gave me, in this dark estate, 
To see the good from ill; 
And. binding Nature fast in fate 
Left free the human will. 
What conscience dictates to be done 
Or warns me not to do 
This teach me more than Hell to shun, 
That more than Heaven pursue. 
What blessings Thy free bounty gives 
Let me not east away 
For God is paid when man receives: 
To enjoy is to obey. 
Yet not to earth's contracted span 
Thy goodness let me bound 
Or think Thee Lord alone of man, 
When thousand worlds are round. 
Let not this weak, unknowing hand 
Presume Thy bolts to throw, 
And teach damnation round the land 
On eaeh I judge Thy foe. 
If I am right, Thy grace impart 
Still in the right to stay 
If r am wrong, oh, teach my heart 
To find that better way l 
Save me alike from foolish pride, 
Or impious discontent 
At aught Thy wisdom has denied, 
Or aught that goodness lent. 
Teach me to feel another's woe 
To right the fault I see 
That mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me. 
Mean though I am, not wholely so, 
Since quickened by Thy breath; 
Oh lead me nvheresoe'er I go 
Through this day's life or death. 
This day be bread and peace my lot; 
All else beneath the sun 
Thou know'st if best bestowed or not 
And let Thy will be done! 
To Thee NVhose temple is of space,— 

Whose altar earth sea skies— One chorus let all beings raise!

All Nature s incense rise.

POPE, FREEMASONS AUK HORIZED BY

See Freemasons authorized by Pope

POPPY

In the Mysteries of the Ancients, the poppy was the symbol of regeneration. The somniferous qualities of the plant expressed the idea of quiescence; but the seeds of a new existence which it contained were thought to show that nature, though her powers were suspended, yet possessed the capability of being called into a renewed existence. Thus the poppy planted near a grave symbolized the idea of a resurrection. Hence, it conveyed the same symbolism as the evergreen or sprig of acacia does in the Masonic mysteries.

PORCH OF THE TEMPLE

See Temple of Solomon

PORTA, GAMBATTISTA

A physicist of Naples, who was born in 1545 and died in 1615. He was the founder of the Segreti, or Academy of Ancients, which see. He devoted himself to the study of the occult sciences, was the inventor of the camera obscura, and the author of several treatises on Magic, Physiognomy, and Secret Writing. De Feller (Universal Biography) classes him with Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, Paracelsus, and other disciples of occult philosophy.

PORTER, A. K., ON MEDIEVAL MASONRY

After a long and specialized training, Arthur E. Porter, Harvard University, devoted the whole of his career to Gothic Architecture, and for many years studied the still-existing buildings at first hand, and while doing so studied the history of the period in which the buildings were erected and existing documents connected with them.

His knowledge of Medieval architecture was encyclopedic. Near the end of his career he published in two volumes his great Medieval Architecture, illustrated throughout not by pictures for sake of pictures but by photographs and drawings essentially a part of the text, and with exhaustive bibliographies. This work stands in contrast to other histories of the Gothic style on three fundamentals: it makes clear that the Gothic style was a single, organic formula, not a collection of separate elements, or a revision of previous styles; it sees in each building a document of its times, and therefore itself a chapter in history; more important still, and for the first time with any adequacy, it begins not with the buildings but with the builder, and finds in the building something thought out, designed, and constructed by them, and for their own purposes.

Historians before Porter had written—though it is hard to believe—as if a Gothic cathedral had been built by a pale abstraction called the Gothic style; as if the masonry had built itself. Medieval Architecture is the most useful of books for students of Medieval Freemasonry. The early Gothic Freemasons emerge from it as living and breathing men, easily understandable, men who in character, mind, education, and skill towered unapproachably above other men in their period; and it is easy to see that it was they, and not the village stone masons, who found out for themselves and transmitted that set of truths which was carried on century after century and into Speculative Lodges. Porter's work and C. G. Coulton's Art and the Reformation, if placed together, comprise the most encyclopedic and the clearest account of Medieval Freemasonry now in print. (Medieval Architecture: Its Origin and Development, by Arthur Kingsley Porter, Baker & Taylor; New York; 1909; two volumes.)

PORTIFORIUM

A word used in England during the Middle Ages to mean a breviary, a book containing the daily offices or prayers for the canonical hours. Doctor Mackey also found the name had been applied to a banner like unto the gonfalon, used as an ensign in cathedrals, and borne at the head of religious processions.

PORTRAIT PAINTER, GRAND

The Grand Lodge of England created this position in 1785 when the Rev William Peters was appointed, due to his painting and presenting to the Grand Lodge a portrait of I ord Petre Past Grand Masters Brother Peters w as the only holder of this office. The Provincial Grand Lodge of Sussex, England, 1801, created the office of Provincial Grand Portrait Painter.

PORTUGAL

Claims that Freemasonry flourished in Portugal as early as 1727 may or may not be true but according to the Minutes of the Grand Lodge of England it is certain that a Dispensation was granted to Brethren at Lisbon on April 17, 1735.

Continuous opposition to the Craft culminated in 1743 in the issue of an edict of death against Freemasonry by Hing John V. The Craft revived in 1761 only to be crushed in 1776 by the Inquisition. Lodges were held in ships in the harbor amid the most unusual surroundings. These dangers it seems only made the Craft grow stronger for a Grand Lodge was actually organized during this period. This was closed by the Grand Master in 1807 to prevent its coming under the rule of the Grand Orient of France.

In the absence of any central control several small Jurisdictions sprang up and in 1849 five of them met to form a Grand Orient, but trouble arose and on January 31,1859, another Grand Orient was instituted.

These two Grand Orients, combined with some Lodges on the Irish list, formed ten years later the Grand Orient of Lusitania, comprising a Symbolic Grand Lodge, a Supreme Council, a Supreme Rose Croix Chapter for the French Rite and a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Brethren. Therefore, as Brother Oliver Day Street says; "It thus appears that Freemasonry of all Rites is united in one Supreme governing body."

PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA

Lodges chartered by the United Lusitanian Grand Orient of Portugal are located at Beira, Chai-chai, Ibo, Mozambique and Quilimane

PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA

In this district the Grand Orient of Portugal has chartered eleven Lodges, two at Loanda and one each at Bie, Cabinda, Landana, Luxares, Mossamedes, Quibanda, Liumbale, Qussol and San Antonio de Zairo.

POSTULANT

The title given to the candidate in the Degree of Knight Radosh. From the Latin word postulans, meaning asking for, Wishing to have.

POTIER, MELCHIOR

Published a history of the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris, 1839.

POTOCKI

Polish family of nobility, the following members being Freemasons: Ignaz Potocki, Grand Master, 1781-3; Stanislas Felix Potocki, Grand Master, 1789, and Stanislas Kostka Potocki, Grand Master, 1812-23.

POT OF INCENSE

As a symbol of the sacrifice which should be offered up to Deity, it has been adopted in the Third Degree (see Incense).

POT OF MANNA

See Manna, Pot of

POUND, ROSCOE

Roscoe Pound, born in 1870, Dean of the Law School of Harvard University, became famous for the variety as well as for the vastness of his learning; in legal erudition he had no superior in America and possibly no peer, but at the same time he was an extraordinary linguist (he learned his English and Latin together in childhood), an authority on field botany on which he wrote a text-book used in colleges, an authority on Medieval law and history, and also was one of the most learned of American Masons.

He published two works of permanent value on Masonry, Philosophy of Freemasonry, and Jurisprudence of Freemasonry, after the larger part of the two had first been published in The Builder. In A Bibliography of the Writings of Roscoe Pound; Harvard University Press; 1942; Franklyn C. Setars devotes Part III, Section 2, page 127, to a bibliography of his writings on Freemasonry.

Dean Pound was Past Master of Lancaster Lodge, No. 54, A. F. & A. M., Lincoln. Neb.; was a member of Belmont Lodge and also of Beaver Lodge, in Belmont, Mass., and of The Harvard Lodge, Cambridge, class, and Past Deputy Grand Master, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts- He was a member of the A. & A. S. R., at Lincoln, Neb.; was crowned 33 , Northern Jurisdictions September 16, 1913. His two works on Masonry are contributions to Masonic thought rather than to either history or practice; he was the first to interpret Krause to the American Craft; he gave a newts fresh appraisal of the work of Preston (a welcome contrast to the harsh and misleading portrait painted by Gould in his History); and when in his Philosophy he devoted a chapter to a "pragmatic" philosophy of Freemasonry he established in American Masonic thought for the first time what in substance is the true distinction between "Instituted" and "Constituted" as applied to the Fraternity.

(It was a happy coincidence that Sir Frederick Pollock who occupied in legal scholarship in England a position corresponding to Pound's in the United States, also was an active Mason and a Masonic writer; author, among other things, of a memorable essay on Masonic ranks in The Builder. He was the Pollock of the published [Judge Oliver Wendell] Holmes—Pollock Correspondence.)

POURSUIVANT

More correctly, Pursuivant, which see.

PRACTICUS

The Third Degree of the German Rose Croix.

PRAXOEANS

The followers of Praxeas in the second century, who proclaimed a unity in God, and that He had suffered upon the cross.

PRAYER

Freemasonry is a religious institution, and hence its regulations inculcate the use of prayer "as a proper tribute of gratitude," to borrow the language of Preston, "to the beneficent Author of Life." Hence it is of indispensable obligation that a Lodge, a Chapter, or any other Masonic Body, should be both opened and closed with prayer; and in the Lodges working in the English and American systems the obligation is strictly observed. The prayers used at opening and closing in the United States differ in language from the early formulas found in the second edition of Preston, and for the alterations we are probably indebted to Webb. The prayers used in the middle and perhaps the beginning of the eighteenth century are to be found in Peston (1775 edition) and are as follows:

At opening - May the favor of Heaven be upon this our happy meeting: may it begun , carried on, and ended in order , harmony, and brotherly love: Amen.

At Closing.—May the blessing of Heaven be with us and all regular Masons, to beautify and cement us title every moral and social virtue: Amen.

There is also a prayer at the initiation of a candidate, which has, at the present day, been very slightly varied from the original form. This prayer, but in a very different form, is much older than Preston, who changed and altered the much longer formula which had been used previous to his day. It was asserted by Dermott that the prayer at initiation was a ceremony only in use among the Ancient or Atholl Freemasons and that it was omitted by the Moderns. But this cannot be so, as is proved by the insertion of it in the earliest editions of Preston. We have moreover a form of prayer into be used at the admission of a brother, " contained in the Pocket Companion, published in 1754, by John Scott, an adherent of the Moderns, which proves that they as well as the Ancient observed the usage of prayer at an initiation. There is a still more ancient formula of "Prayer to be used of Christian Masons at the appointing of a brother," said to have been used in the reign of Edward IV from 1461 to 1483, which is as follows:

The might of God, the Father of Heaven, with the wisdom of his glorious Son through the goodness of the Holy Ghost, that hath been three persons in one Godhead be with us at our beginning give us grace to govern in our living here, that we may only come to his bliss that shall never have an end.

The custom of commencing and ending labor with prayer was adopted at an early period by the Operative Freemasons of England. Findel says ( History, page 78), that "their Lodges were opened at sunrise, the Master taking his station in the East and the Brethren forming a half circle around him. After prayer, each Craftsman had his daily work pointed out to him, and received his instructions. At sunset they again assembled after labor, prayer was offered, and their wages paid to them.

" We cannot doubt that the German Stone Masons, who were even more religiously demonstrative than their English Brethren must have observed the same custom. As to the posture to be observed in Masonic prayer, it may be remarked that in the lower Degrees the usual posture is standing. At an initiation the candidate kneels, but the Brethren stand. In the higher Degrees the usual posture is to kneel on the right knee. These are at least the usages which are generally practiced in the United States.

We may add to the above comments by Doctor Mackey a few items of interest. Brother L. P. Newby (Sidelights on Templar Law, 1919, pages 96, 130) says:

Who is responsible for having two different versions of the Lord's Prayer in our Services, I am unable to state. It is a mistaken assumption that the Committee on Revision of 1910 (Grand Encampment Knights Templar of the United States) prepared a Lurial Service containing the Lord's Prayer, in which the words "Tres pass and Trespasses"' were used. The committee did prepare and present a short form of Burial Service. but it was not acted upon by the Grand Encampment in 1910, the further consideration of it was postponed, and it has never been acted upon (see Proceedings, 1910, middle and perhaps the beginning of the eighteenth page 203). The proper words to be used with the Lord's Prayer in the Asylum of the Commandery are debts and Debtors," and at Burial Services "Trespass and Trespasses (see Proceedings, 1916, pages 36-8 Brother Newby also says of the two expressions:

Our Savior upon two occasions instructed His people how to pray, first in His Sermon on the Mount, and second. about two years afterward; but in neither prayer did He use the words "Trespass and Trespasses" (see St. Matthew vi, 12; St. Luke xi, 1-13). In His Sermon on the Mount He did say to the people: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father wil also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses." These statements were made in a sermon and not in a prayer. As the form of the Lord's prayer used by the members of other Churches contains the words "debts and debtors," it is not for a layman to determine the question as to which form is correct, yet it is rather remarkable that those who prepared our Ceremonies did not agree upon the Lord's Prayer.

The Lord's Prayer should also be examined in the light of the translation by Professor Edgar J. Goodspeed, University of Chicago, whose English of the New Testament aims to reproduce the ease, boldness, and unpretending vigor of the original Greek, in the common language of everyday life during the era of one Savior.

The frequently observed expression "for Thine is the power and glory for ever," is a conclusion not to be found in any of the oldest manuscripts but in most of the later copies of Matthew only. It occurs the Didache, the teachings of the Apostles, a disvery at Constantinople in early Christian literature which a copy finished by the writer, Leo, on June 1, 1156, was found in the Library of the Jerusalem Jonastery.

Of the prayer itself several points have aroused discussion. Daily bread, for example, was given various interpretations by the old authorities. Hastings dictionary of the Bible (page 553) suggests for consideration the two aspects, "the word bread may be taken in an earthly or a heavenly sense. The fulness of Scriptural language justifies the widest application of the term, whatsoever is needed for the coming day, to be sought in daily morning prayer—"give us today" or whatsoever is needed for the coming days of life. The petition becomes a prayer for the presence of Him who has revealed Himself as "the Bread." The clause "as we forgive our debtors" is by some old authorities read "as we have forgiven our debtors." The conclusion of the prayer is usually repeated as "deliver us from evil" but the Greek ending is indefinite and Hastings says this may be read "the evil one," or "the evil," or "whatsoever is evil." However, as to these variations, they can be heeded in the spirit of the poet, Coleridge (Ancient Mariner, Part vii):

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things, both great and small. 
And as to forms we have Brother Kipling's Song of Kabir: 
My brother kneels, so saith Kabir 
To stone and brass in heathen-wise, 
But in my brother's voice I hear 
My own unanswered agonies. 
His God is as his fates assign 
His prayer is all the world's—and mine.

Madame de Stael has in Corinne (Book x, chapter v) commented earnestly and with precision on the benefit of praying with one another.

To pray together in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life.

An old prayer was given in the Printing Art, and was contributed by us to the American Freemason, June, 1910. Appearing in the Wolangerichtete Buchdruckerei of Ernesti it is a reminder of the pronounced religious fervor of craftsmen. The sentiment of loyalty and respect to the craft was so commonly observed that when a German traveling workman entered a town and found his way to the local place of his trade the usual salutation was "God bless the Art," Gott grus die kunst. Here is the prayer:

Oh Lord, Almighty God, printing is a glorious and a noble art—a blessing Thou hast reserved for mankind in these latter days, an art by which all conditions of men, and especially Thy Holy Church, are greatly nourished. And since, good Lord, Thou hast of Thy free grace given me an opportunity of exercising an Art and Craft so exalted, I pray Thee to guide me by Thy Holy Spirit in using the same to Thy honor. Thou knowest, dear Lord, the great diligence, continual care and accurate knowledge of the characters of many languages are needful in this Art, therefore I call to Thee for help; that I may be earnest and careful, both in the setting up of types, and in printing the same. Preserve my soul in the constant love of Thy Holy Word and truth, and my body in sobriety and purity, that so, after a life here befitting a printer, I may hereafter, at the last coming of my most worthy Savior, Jesus Christ, be found a good workman in his sight, and wear the everlasting crown in His presence. Hear me, dearest God, for Thy honor and my welfare, Amen.

Another Masonic prayer, one used by the Worshipful Master, Henry Pears, Tyrian Lodge, No. 370, Cleveland, Ohio, is here submitted as when first heard there by us many years ago:

Almighty and Eternal God—there is no number of Thy days nor of Thy mercies. Thou has sent us into the world to serve Thee, but we wander from Thee in the paths of error. Our days are but a span in length, yet tedious because of calamities that surround us on every side. The days of our pilgrimage are few and full of evil. our bodies are frail, our passions violent and distempered, our understanding weak and our will perverse. Look thou, Almighty Father, upon us with pity and with mercy. We adore Thy majesty, and trust like little children in Thy infinite goodness. Give us patience to live well; and firmness to resist evil. even as our departed Brother resisted. Give us faith and confidence in Thee, and enable us so to live that when we come to die, we may lie down in the grave like one who composes himself to sleep, and may we hereafter be worthy to be held in the memories of men. Bless us, O God, and bless our fraternity throughout the world. May we live and emulate the example of our departed Grand Master, and finally may we attain in this world a knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.

Heartiness of invocation is not necessarily any measure of the length of a prayer, an effectual prayer recorded by Saint Luke (xviu, 13) was "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." At Royal Arch Chapter dinners in Europe we noted that the grace as given in our hearing on several occasions was even less lengthy than the one just mentioned and had but a couple of Latin words, "Benedictus, Bened at," meaning May the Blessed One bless. After the dinner there was an equally brief prayer, also in Latin, "Benedicto Benedicatur," May the Blessed One be blessed.

PREADAMITE

A Degree contained in the Archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite.

PRECAUTION

In opening and closing the Lodge, in the admission of visitors in conversation with or in the presence of strangers, the Freemason is changed to use the necessary precaution, lest that should be communicated to the profane which should only be known to the initiated.

PRECEDENCY DF LODGES

The precedency of Lodges is always derived from the date of their Warrants of Constitution, the oldest Lodge ranking as No. 1. As this precedency confers certain privileges, the number of the Lodge is always determined by the Grand Lodge, while the name is left to the selection of the members.

*

PRECEPTOR

Grand Preceptor, or Grand Prior, or Preceptor, or Prior, was the title indifferently given by the Knights Templar to the officer who presided over a province or kingdom, as the Grand Prior or Grand Preeeptor of England, who was called in the East the Prior or Preceptor of England. The principal of these Grand Preceptors were those of Jerusalem, Tripolis, and Antioch.

PRECEPTORY

The houses or residences of the Knights Templar were called Preceptories, and the superior of such a residence was called the Preceptor. Some of the residences were also called Comxnanderies. The latter name has been adopted by the Masonic Templars of America. An attempt was made in 1856, at the adoption of a new Constitution by the Grand Encampment of the United States, which met at Hartford, to abolish the title Comtnanderies, and adopt that of Preceptories, for the Templar organizations; a change which would undoubtedly have been more in aceordance with history, but unfortunately the effort to effect the change was not successful.

PRECIOUS JEWELS

See Jewels, Precious

PREFERMENT

In all the Old Constitutions we find a reference made to ability and skill as the only claims for preferment or promotion. Thus in one of them, the Lansdourne Manuscript, whose date is about 1560, it is said that Nimrod gave a charge to the Freemasons that "they should ordaine the most wise and cunning man to be Master of the King or Lord's worke that was amongst them, and neither for love, riches, nor favour, to sett another that had little cunninge to be Master of that worke, whereby the Lord should bee ill served, and the science ill defamed.

"And again, in another part of the same manuscript, it is ordered, "that noe Mason take on him noe Lord's worke nor other man's but if he know himselfe well able to performe the worke, so that the Craft have noe slander." Charges to the same effect, almost, indeed, in the same words, are to l)e found in all the Old Constitutions. So Anderson, when he compiled the Charyes of a Freemason, which he says were "extracted from the ancient records," and which he published in 1723, in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions, lavs down the rule of preferment in the same spirit, and in these words: "All preferment among Masons is grounded upon real worth and personal merit only; that so the Lords may be well served, the Brethren not put to shame, nor the royal Craft despised; therefore no Master or Warden is chosen by seniority, but for his merit."

Then he goes on to show hovs the skilful and qualified Apprentice may in due time become a Fellow Craft, and, "when otherwise qualified, arrive to the Honour of being the Warden, and then the Master of the Lodge, the Grand Warden, and at length the Grand Master of all the Lodges, according to his merit" (Constitutions, 1723, page 51). This ought to be now, as it has always been, the true law of tree masonry; and when ambitious men are seen grasping for offices, and seeking for positions whose duties they are not qualified to discharge, one is inclined to regret that the Old Charges are not more strictly obeyed

PRELATE

The fourth officer in a Commandery of Knights Templar and in a Council of Companions of the Red Cross. His duties are to conduct the religious ceremonies of the organization. His jewel is a triple triangle, the symbol of Deity, and within each of the triangles is suspended a cross, in allusion to the Christian character of the chivalric institution of which he is an officer. The corresponding officer in a Grand Commandery and in the Grand Encampment is called a Grand Prelate.

PRELATE OF LEBANON

In French Prélat du Ixban. A mystical Degree in the collection of Pyron.

PRENTICE

An archaism, or rather a vulgarism for Apprentice, constantly found in the Old Records. It is now never used except in connection with Prentice Pillar, which see.

PRENTICE PILLAR

In the southeast part of the Chapel of Roslyn Castle, in Scotland, is the celebrated column which goes by this name, and with which a Masonic legend is connected. The pillar is a plain fluted shaft, having a floral garland twined around it, all carved out of the solid stone.

The legend is, that when the plans of the chapel were sent from Rome, the master builder did not clearly understand about this pillar, or, as another account states, had lost this particular portion of the plans, and, in consequence, had to go to Rome for further instructions or to procure a fresh copy.

During his absence, a clever apprentice, the only son of a widow, either from memory or from his own invention, carved and completed the beautiful pillar. When the master returned and found the work completed, furious with jealous rage, he killed the apprentice, by striking him a frightful blow on the forehead with a heavy setting maul. In testimony of the truth of the legend, the visitor is shown three heads in the west part of the chapel—the master's, the apprentice's, with the gash on his forehead, and the widows There can be but little doubt that this legend referred to that of the Third Degree, which is thus shown to have existed, at least substantially, at that early period.

PREPARATION OF THE CANDIDATE

Great care was taken of the personal condition of every Israelite who entered the Temple for Divine worship. The Talmudic treatise entitled Baracoth, which contains instructions as to the ritual worship among the Jews, lays down the following rules for the preparation of all who visit the Temple: "No man shall go into the Temple with his staff, nor with shoes on his feet, nor with his outer garment, nor with money tied up in his purse." There are certain ceremonial usages in Freemasonry which furnish what may be called at least very remarkable coincidences with this old Jewish custom.

The preparation of the candidate for initiation in Freemasonry is entirely symbolic. It varies in the different Degrees, and therefore the symbolism varies with it. Not being arbitrary and unmeaning, but, on the contrary, conventional and full of signification, it cannot be altered, abridged, or added to in any of its details without affecting its esoteric design. To it, in its fullest extent every Candidate must, without exception submit. The preparation of a candidate is one of the most delicate duties we have to perform and care should be taken in appointing the officer, who should bear in mind that "that which is not permissible among gentlemen should be impossible among Freemasons "

PREPARING BROTHER

The Brother who prepares the candidate for initiation. In English, he has no distinctive title. In French Lodges he is called Frére terrible, and in German he is called Vorbereitender Bruder, or Fürchterlicher Bruder. His duties require him to have a competent knowledge of the ritual of reception, and therefore an experienced member of the Lodge is generally selected to discharge the functions of this office. In some Jurisdictions this is performed by the Master of Ceremonies

PRESIDENT

The presiding officer in a Convenon of High Priests, according to the American System, is so called. The second officer is styled Vice-President. On September 6, 1871, the Grand Orient of France, in violation of the landmarks, abolished the office of Grand Master, and conferred his powers on a Council of the Order. The President of the Council is now the official representative of the Grand Orient and the Craft, and exercises several of the prerogatives hitherto administered by the Grand Master.

PRESIDENTS, RELIGION OF THE

Of the first thirty-one Presidents of the United States nine have been Episcopalians: Washington, Madison, Monroe, W. H. Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Pierce, Arthur, F. D. Roosevelt; of the other twenty-two five have been Presbyterians, four Methodists, four Unitarians, two Reformed Dutch, and one each Baptist, Congregationalist, Quaker, Disciple of Christ; and three (Jefferson, Hayes, and Lincoln) members of no church.

Had Eighteenth Century Deists ever organized themselves as a Church Jefferson would have belonged to it (as would Benjamin Franklin). Lincoln was possibly the most genuinely religious rnan in the list; while he united with no church he described himself in private as a Universalist. Hayes probably considered himself in private to be a Unitarian. If the last three are added to the four confessed Unitarians it means that of the twenty-two one-third (minus a ' small amount of the fraction) have been of the extremely non-ecclesiastical denomination; and the fact shows better than any argument how very small has been the role of ecclesiasticism in American public life.

PRESIDING OFFICER

Whoever acts, although temporarily and pro hac vice, meaning in Latin for this occasion, as the presiding officer of a Masonic body, assumes for the time all the powers and functions of the officer whom he represents. Thus, in the absence of the Worshipful Master, the Senior Warden presides over the Lodge, and for the time is invested with all the prerogatives that pertain to the Master of a Lodge, and can, while he is in the chair, perform sny aet that it would be competent for the Master to perform were he present.

PRESS, MASONIC

The number of the Masonic press throughout the world is small, but the literary ability commands attention. In every nation Freemasonry has its advocate and neevsbearer, in the form of a weekly or semi-monthly chronicle of events, or the more sedate magazine or periodical, sustaining the literature of the Fraternity (see Publications, .Masonic and Magazine).

PRICE, HENRY

Born about 1697 in London and came to New England about 1723, returning later to England. It is recorded in the Minutes of the Grand Lodge of England that in 1730 he was a member of Lodge No. 75, meeting at the Rainbow Coffee House in York Buildings, London. He is mentioned as being in a law-suit at Boston in 1733 and was in business there as a tailor. During 1733 Governor Jonathan w Belcher appointed him Cornet in his Troop of Guards with the rank of Major. The office was that of Standard Bearer. The executors of Price allude to him in 1792 as Major Price. He carried on business for some time at the Sign of the Brazen Head on Cornhill, near the present No. 36 Washington Street, about half way between Water Street and State Street in Boston. He adhered to the Church of England and attended Trinity Church.

He died on May 20, 1780. Brother W. S. Gardner (on page 307, Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1871) points out here the necessity for bearing in mind that until January 1, 1752, the year commenced on March 25. By act of Parliament of 1751, the succeeding years commenced on January 1. In these Proceedings of 1871 (pages 284-304), there are some particulars of decided interest regarding this prominent Freemason and his pioneer work. A portrait to which allusion is made is described as follows: It represents him in the full vigor of manhood, dressed in the Id peculiar style of gentlemen of about the year 1740. w He wore a wig and queue, white neck-cloth and single breasted coat flowing away. His face betokened mildness and gentleness. The eyes are large and full, set wide apart, soft and expressive. The forehead was lighted up with animation and conveyed the idea of a gentleman.

April 30, 1733, the Right Honorable and Right Worshipful Anthony Lord Viscount Montague, Grand Master of England, issued a Deputation appointing Henry Price as Provincial Grand Master of New England. Price was authorized to appoint his Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, and "to constitute the Brethren now Residing or who shall hereafter reside in those parts, into One or more Regular Lodge or Lodges, as he shall think fit, and as often as Occasion shall require."

On Monday of July 30, 1733, Henry Price convened at Boston the following Brethren: Andrew Belcher, Thomas Kennelly, John Quane, Henry Hope, Frederick Harnilton, John McNeall, Peter Hall, Matthew Young, John Waddell and Edward Ellis at the house of Edward Lutwyteh "at ye Sign of the Bunch of Grapes in King Street.

" This celebrated inn was situated on what is now the corner of State and Kilby streets, and on the westerly side of the last named street. Brother Price produced his Deputation appointing him Provincial Grand Master of New England. By virtue of this Deputation he formed and opened a Provincial Grand Lodge, appointed Right Worshipful Brother Andrew Belcher as Deputy Grand Master and Worshipful Brothers Thomas Kennelly and John Quane as Grand Wardens pro tempore. Several Brothers were then made Freemasons. Then, "granting the prayer thereof, he then and there in the most solemn manner according to ancient Rt. and Custom and the form prescribed in our printed Book of Constitutions, constitute" the Brethren into a regular Lodge, in manner and form.

Henry Hope was chosen Master and he nominated Frederick Hamilton and James Gorder as Wardens. These being presented to Grand Master Price, he "caused them to be duly examined, and being found duly qualified, approved and confirmed them in their respective stations by investing them with the implements of their office, giving each his proper charge, and admonishing the Brethren of the Lodge to do obedience and submission, according to our printed Book of Constitutions, Charges and Regulations, and so forth. Thus was Masonry founded in New England."

In 1734 Brother Price's Commission was extended over all North America. On November 28, 1734, Benjamin Franklin, who was a close friend of Price and who at that time was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, wrote Price the following letter in behalf of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, evidently with the purpose of arranging a mutually agreeable status under the new conditions:

Right Worshipful Grand Master and Most Worthy and Dear Brethren:— We acknowledge your favor of the 23rd of October past, and rejoiee that the Grand Master whom God bless, hath 80 happily recovered from his late indisposition: and we now, glass in hand, drink to the establishment of his health, and the prosperity of your whole Lodge.

We have seen in the Boston prints an article of news from London, importing that at a Grand Lodge held there in August last, Mr. Price's deputation and power extended over all America, which advice we hope is true, and we heartily congratulate him thereupon and though this has not been as yet regularly signified to us by you, vet, giving credit thereto, we think it our duty to lay before your Lodge what we apprehend needful to be done for us, in order to promote and strengthen the interest of Masonry in this Province, which seems to want the sanction of some authority derived from home, to give the proceedings and determinations of our Lodge their due weight, to wit, a Deputation or charter granted by the Right Worshipful Mr. Price, by virtue of his Commission from Britain, confirming the Brethren of Pennsylvania in the privileges they at present enjoy of holding annually their Grand Lodge, choosing their Grand Master, Wardens and other officers, who may manage all affairs relating to the Brethren here with full Dower and authority, according to the - customs and usages of Masons, the said Grand Master of Pennsylvania only yielding his chair, when the Grand Master of all America shall be in place. This, if it seems good and reasonable to you to grant, will not only be extremely agreeable to us, but mill also, we are confident conduce much to the welfare, establishment and reputation of Masonry in these parts. We therefore submit it for your consideration, and, as we hope our request will be complied with, we desire that it may be done as soon as possible and also accompanied with a copy of the R. W. Grand Master s first Deputation, and of the instrument by which it appears to be enlarged as above-mentioned, witnessed by your it ardent and signed by the Secretary; for which favors this Lodge doubt not of being able to behave as not to be thought ungrateful.

We are Right Worshipful Grand Master and Most Worthy Brethren, Your Affectionate Brethren and obliged humble Servants, Signed at the request of the Lodge, B. Franklin, G. M. Philadelphia, Nov. 25, 1734.

On the same day that Franklin Sent the above letter as an official communication from the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, he also wrote a personal letter to Price which is quoted below:

Dear Brother Price:—I am glad to hear of your recovery. I hoped to have seen you here this Fall, agreeable to the expectation you were so good as to give me, but since sickness has prevented your coming while the weather was moderate, I have no room to flatter myself with a visit from you before the Spring, when a deputation of the Brethren here will have an opportunity of showing how much they esteem vou.

I beg leave to recommend their request to you, and to inform you, that some false and rebel Brethren, who are foreigners, being about to set up a distinct Lodge in opposition to the old and true Brethren here, pretending to make Masons for a bowl of punch, and the Craft is like to come into disesteem among us unless the true Brethren are countenanced and distinguished by some special authority as herein desired. I entreat therefore , that whatever you shall think proper to do therein may be sent by the next post , if possible , or the next following.

I am, Your Affectionate Brother & humb Servt

B. Franklin, G M.,
Philadelphia, Nov. 28 1734. Pennsylvania.
P. S.—If more of the Constitutions are wanted among you, please hint it to me.
To Mr. Henry Price,
At the Brazen Bead
Boston,

The originals of the two letters quoted above were destroyed at the burnings of the Masonic Temple in Boston, April S6, 1864, prior to which time the official letter hung in a frame in the Temple.

For much information concerning Brother Price, see The Beginnings of Freemasonry in America, first delivered as an address to the Grand Lodge on September 13, 1916, and published in the Proceedings of that year, afterwards reprinted in book form, by Past Grand Master Melvin M. Johnson of Massachusetts; also Doctor Mackey's History of Free masonry, pages 1565-6, 1604-5.

A Henry Price Medal is awarded as occasion war rants by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to Brethren who have rendered distinguished service to the Order, a practice begun by Brother Melvin M Johnson during his term of office as Grand Master; 1914-6.

PRICHARD, SAMUEL

"An unprincipled and needy Brother," as Doctor Oliver calls him, who published at London, in 1730, a book with the following title: Masonry Dissected; being a Universal and Genuine Description of aU its Branches, from the Original to this Present Time: as it is delivered in the constituted, regular Lodges, both in City and Country according to the several Degrees of Admission, giving an impartial account of their regular Proceedings in initiating their New Members in the whole Three Degrees of Masonry, viz., I. Entered Prentice; II. Fellow Craft; III. Master. To which is added, The Author's Vindication of Himself, by Samuel Prichard, Late Member of a constituted Lodge.

This work, which contained a great deal of plausible matter, mingled with some truth as well as falsehood, passed through a great many editions, was translated into the French, German, and Dutch languages, and became the basis or model on which all the subsequent so-called expositions, such as Tubal-Kain, Jachin and Boaz, etc., were framed. In the same year of the appearance of Prichard's book, a Defence of Masonry, as a reply to the Masonry Dissected was anonymously published, and has often been erroneously attributed to Doctor Anderson, but it has been discovered that its author was Brother Martin Clare (see Clare Martin). No copy is now known to exist of this Defence, but it will be found at the end of the 1738 edition of the Constitutions.

It is not, however, a reply to Prichard, but rather an attempt to interpret the ceremonies which are described in the Masonry Dissected in their symbolic import, and this it is that gives to the Defence a value which ought to have made it a more popular work among the Fraternity than it is. Prichard died in obscurity; but the Abbe Larudan, in his Franc-Maçons écrasés, Freemasons Crushed (page 135), has manufactured a wild tale about his death; as herein desired. I entreat, therefore, that whatever stating that he was carried by force at night into the Grand Lodge at London, put to death, his body burned to ashes, and all the Lodges in the world in formed of the execution. The Abbe is satisfied of the truth of this wondrous narrative because he had heard it told m Holland and in Germany, all of which only proves that the French calumniator of Freemasonry abounded either in an inventive faculty or in a trusting faith.

PRIEST

In the primitive ages of the world every father was the Priest of his family, and offered prayer and sacrifice for his household. So, too, the Patriarchs exercised the same function. Melchizedek is called the Priest of the Most High God; and every where in Scripture we find the Patriarchs performing the duties of prayer and sacrifice. But when political society was organized, a necessity was found, in the religious wants of the people, for a separate class, who should become, as they have been described the mediators between men and God, and the interpreters of the will of the gods to men. Hence arose the sacerdotal classwthe cohens among the Hebrews, the Stereos among the Greeks, and the sacerdos among the Romans. Thereafter prayer and sacrifice were entrusted to these, and the people paid them reverence for the sake of the deities whom they served. EAver since, in all countries, the distinction has existed between the priest and the layman, as representatives of two distinct classes.

But Freemasonry has preserved in its religious ceremonies as in many of its other usages, the patriarchal spirit. Hence the Master of the Lodge, like the father of a primitive family, on all occasions offers up prayer and serves at the altar. A Chaplain is sometimes through courtesy, invited to perform the former duty, but the Master is really the Priest of the Lodge.

Having then such solemn duties to discharge, and sometimes as on funereal occasions, in public, it becomes every Master so to conduct his life and conversation as not, by contrast, to make his ministration of a sacred office repulsive to those who see and hear him, and especially to profanes.

It is not absolutely required that he should be a religious man, resembling the clergyman in seriousness of deportment; but in his behavior he should be an example of respect for religion. He who at one time drinks to intoxication, or indulges in profane swearing, or obscene and vulgar language, is unfit at any other time to conduct the religious services of a society. Such a Master could inspire the members of his Lodge with no respect for the ceremonies he was conducting; and if the occasion was a public one, as at the burial of a Brother, the circumstance would subject the Order which could tolerate such an incongruous exhibition to contempt and ridicule.

PRIEST, GRAND HIGH

See Grand High Priest

PRIEST, HIGH

See High Priest

PRIESTHOOD, ORDER OF HIGH

See High Priesthood, Order of

PRIESTLY ORDER

A Rite which Brother John Yarker, of Manchester, says, Mysteries of Antiquity, page 126, was formerly practiced in Ireland, and formed the system of the York Grand Lodge. It consisted of seven Degrees, as follows: 1. 2. 3. Symbolic Degrees; 4. Past Master;

5. Royal Arch; 
6. Knight Templar; 
7. Knight Templar Priest, or Holy Wisdom.

The last Degree was conferred in a Tabernacle, and was governed by seven officers known as Pillars. Brother Hughan, History of Freemasonry in York, page 32, doubts the York origin of the Priestly Order, as well as the claim it made to have been reeved in 1786. The Kent Tabernacle conferring the Degree of Knight Templar Priest at Newcastle, England, is of Time Immemorial standing in the Fraternity and has continued in the control and practice of this and many other old ceremonies.

PRIESTLY VESTMENTS

The High Priest ministered in eight vestments, and the ordinary priest in four—the tunic, drawers, bonnet, and girdle. To these the High Priest added the breastplate, ephod, robe and golden plate, and when occasion required the Urim and Thummim, the curious Objects mentioned in the Old Testament (Exodus xxviii, 30) in connection with the breastplate.

PRIEST, ROYAL

The Fifth Degree of the Initiated Brothers of Asia

PRIEST THEOSOPHIST

Thory says that it is the Sixth Degree of the Cabalistic Rite

PRESTON, WILLIAM

This distinguished Freemason was born at Edinburgh on July 28, 1742, Old Style, and Brother C. C. Hunt, of Iowa, points out that the date sometimes given as August 7, New Style, should be August 8, as the calendar error which was ten clays in 1582 had become eleven in the eighteenth century when the change was made in English-speaking countries He was the son of William Preston, Esq., Writer to the Signet, a Scottish legal term meaning an agent or attorney in causes in the Court of Sessions, and Helena Cumming. The elder Preston was a man of much intellectual culture and ability, and in easy circumstances, and took, therefore, pains to bestow upon his son an adequate education. He was sent to school at a very early age, and having completed his preliminary education in English under the tuition of Stirling, a celebrated teacher in Edinburgh, he entered the High School before he was six years old, and made considerable progress in the Latin tongue.

From the High School he went to college, where he acquired a knowledge of the rudiments of Greek. After the death of his father he retired from college, and became the amanuensis of that celebrated linguist, Thomas Ruddiman, to whose friendship his father had consigned him. Ruddiman having greatly impaired and finally lost his sight by his intense application to his classical studies, Preston remained with him as his secretary until his decease. His patron had, however, previously bound young Preston to his brother, Walter Ruddiman, a printer, but on the increasing failure of his sight, Thomas Ruddiman withdrew Preston from the printing-office, and occupied him in reading to him and translating such of his works as were not completed, and ia correcting the proofs of those that were in the press. Subsequently Preston compiled a catalogue of Ruddiman's books, under the title of Bibliotheca Ruddimana, which is said to have exhibited much literary ability.

After the death of Ruddiman, Preston returned to the printing-office where he remained for about a year; but his inclinations leading him to literary pursuits, he, with the consent of his master, repaired to London in 1760, having been furnished with several letters of introduction by his friends in Scotland. Among them was one to William Strahan, the Kings Printer, in whose service, and that of his son and successor, he remained for the best years of his life as a corrector of the press, devoting himself, at the same time, to other literary vocations, editing for many years the London Chronicle, and furnishing materials for various periodical publications. Preston's critical skill as a corrector of the press led the literary men of that day to submit to his suggestions as to style and language; and many of the most distinguished authors who were contemporary with him honored him with their friendship. As an evidence of this, there were found in his library, at his death, presentation copies of their works, with their autographs, from Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Blair, and many others.

It is, however, as a distinguished instructor of the Masonic Ritual and as the founder of a system of lectures which still retain their influence, that William Preston the more especially claims our attention. Stephen Jones, the disciple and intimate friend of Preston, published in 1795, and in the Freemasons Magazine, a sketch of Preston's life and labors; and as there can be no doubt, from the relations of the author and the subject, of the authenticity of the facts related, we shall not hesitate to use the language of this contemporary sketch, interpolating such explanatory remarks as we may deem necessary.

Soon after Preston's arrival in London, a number of Brethren from Edinburgh resolved to institute a Freemasons' Lodge in that city, under the sanction of a Constitution from Scotland; but not having succeeded in their application, they were recommended by the Grand Lodge of Scotland to the Ancient Lodge in London, which immediately granted them a Dispensation to form a Lodge and to make Freemasons. They accordingly met at the White Hart in the Strand, and Preston was the second person initiated under that Dispensation. This was in 1762. Lawrie records the application as having been in that year to the Grand Lodge of Scotland. It thus appears that Preston was made a Freemason under the Dermott system. It will be seen, however, that he subsequently went over to the older Grand Lodge.

The Lodge was soon after regularly constituted by the officers of the Ancient Grand Lodge in person. Having increased considerably in numbers, it was found necessary to remove to the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street, where it continued some time, till, that house being unable to furnish proper accommodations, it was removed to Scots Hall, Blackfriars.

Here it continued to flourish about two years, when the decayed state of that building obliged it to remove to the Half Moon Tavern, Cheapside, where it continued to meet for a considerable time. At length Preston and some others of the members having joined the Lodge, under the older English Constitution, at the Talbot Inn, in the Strand, they prevailed on the rest of the Lodge at the Half Moon Tavern to petition for a Constitution. Lord Blaney at that time Grand Master, readily acquiesced with the desire of the Brethren, and the Lodge was soon after constituted a second time, in ample form, by the name of the Caledonian Lodge, then No. 325, but now 134. The ceremonies observed, and the numerous assembly of respectable Brethren who attended the Grand Officers on that occasion, were long remembered to the honor of the Lodge.

This circumstance, added to the absence of a very skillful Freemason, to whom Preston was attached and who had departed for Scotland on account of his health, induced him to turn his attention to the Masonic lectures; and to arrive at the depths of the science, short of which he did not mean to stop, he spared neither pains nor expense.

Preston's own remarks on this subject, in the introduction to his Illustrations of Masonry, are well worth the perusal of every Brother who intends to take office.. "When," says he, "I first had the honor to be elected Master of a Lodge, I thought it proper to inform myself fully of the general rules of the society, that I might be able to fulfil my own duty, and officially enforce obedience in others. The methods which I adopted, with this view, excited in some of superficial knowledge an absolute dislike of what they considered as innovations; and in others, who were better informed, a jealousy of pre-eminence, which the principles of Masonry ought to have checked. Notwithstanding; these discouragements, however, I persevered in my intention of supporting the dignity of the society, and of discharging with fidelity the trust reposed in me." Freemasonry has not changed. We still too often find the same mistaking of research for innovation, and the same ungenerous jealousy of pre-eminence of which Preston complains.

Wherever instruction could be acquired, thither Preston directed his course; and with the advantage of a retentive memory, and an extensive Masonic connection, added to a diligent literary research, he so far succeeded in his purpose as to become a competent master of the subject. To increase the knowledge he had acquired, he solicited the company and conversation of the most experienced Freemasons from foreign countries; and, in the course of a literary correspondence with the Fraternity at home and abroad, made such progress in the mysteries of the art as to become very useful in the connections he had formed. He was frequently heard to say, that in the ardor of his inquiries he had explored the abodes of poverty and wretchedness, and, where it might have been least expected, acquired very valuable scraps of information. The poor Brother in return, we are assured, had no cause to think his time or talents ill bestowed. He was also accustomed to convene his friends once or twice a week, in order to illustrate the lectures; on which occasion objections were started, and explanations given, for the purpose of mutual improvement. At last, with the assistance of some zealous friends, he was enabled to arrange and digest the whole of the first lecture.

To establish its validity he resolved to submit to the society at large the progress he had made; and for that purpose he instituted, at a very considerable expense, a grand gala at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, on Thursday, May 21, 1779, which was honored with the presence of the then Grand Officers, and many other eminent and respectable Brethren. On this occasion he delivered an oration on the Institution, which, having met with general approbation, was afterward printed in the first edition of the Illustrations of Masonry, published by him the same year.

Having thus far succeeded in his design, Preston determined to prosecute the plan he had formed, and to complete the lectures. He employed, therefore, a number of skillful Brethren, at his own expense, to visit different town and country Lodges, for the purpose of gaining information; and these Brethren communicated the result of their visits at a weekly meeting. When by study and application he had arranged his system, he issued proposals for a regular course of lectures on all the Degrees of Freemasonry, and these were publicly delivered by him at the Miter Tavern, in Fleet Street, in 1774.

For some years afterward, Preston indulged his friends by attending several schools of instruction, and other stated meetings, to propagate the knowledge of the science, which had spread far beyond his expectations, and considerably enhanced the reputation of the society. Having obtained the sanction of the Grand Lodge, he continued to be a zealous encourager and supporter of all the measures of that assembly which tended to add dignity to the Craft, and in all the Lodges in which his name was enrolled, which were very numerous, he enforced a due obedience to the laws and regulations of that Body.

By these means the subscriptions to the charity became much more considerable; and daily acquisitions to the society were made of some of the most eminent and distinguished characters. At last he was invited by his friends to visit the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 1, then held at the Miter Tavern, in Fleet Street, when on June 15, 1774, the Brethren of that Lodge were pleased to admit him a member, and, what was very unusual, elected him Master at the same meeting.

He had been Master of the Philanthropic Lodge at the Queen's Head, Gray's-inn-gate, Holborn, for over six years, and of several other Lodges before that time. But he was now taught to consider the importance of the first Master under the English Constitution; and he seemed so regret that some eminent character in the walks of life had not been selected to support so distinguished a station. Indeed, this too small consideration of his own importance pervaded his conduct on all occasions; and he was frequently seen voluntarily to assume the subordinate offices of an assembly, over which he had long presided, on occasions where, from the absence of the proper persons, he had conceived that his services would promote the purposes of the meeting. To the Lodge of antiquity he now began chiefly to confine his attention, and during his Mastership, which continued for some years, the Lodge increased in numbers and improved in its finances. That he might obtain a complete knowledge of the state of the society under the English Constitution, he became an active member of the Grand Lodge, was admitted a member of the Hall Committee, and during the secretaryship of Thomas French, under the auspices of the Duke of Beaufort, then Grand Master, had become a useful assistant in arranging the general regulations of the society, and reviving the foreign and country correspondence. Having been appointed to the office of Deputy Grand Secretary under James Heseltine, he compiled, for the benefit of the charity, the History of filemarkable Occurrences, inserted in the first two publications of the Freemasons' Calendar: prepared for the press an Appendia; to the Book of Constitutions, and attended so much to the correspondence with the different Lodges as to merit the approbation of his patron. This enabled him, from the various memoranda he had made, to form the history of Freemasonry, which was afterward printed in his Illustrations. The office of Deputy Grand Secretary he afterward resigned.

An unfortunate dispute having arisen in the Society in 1777, between the Grand Lodge and the Lodge of Antiquity, in which Preston took the part of the Lodge and of his private friends, his name was ordered to be erased from the Hall Committee; and he was afterward, with a number of gentlemen, members of that Lodge, expelled. The treatment he and his friends received at that time was circumstantially narrated in a well-written pamphlet, printed by Preston at his own expense, and circulated among his friends, but never published, and the leading circumstances were recorded in some of the later editions of the Illustrations of Masonry. Ten years afterward, however, on a reinvestigation of the subject in dispute, the Grand Lodge was pleased to reinstate Preston, with all the other members of the Lodge of Antiquity, and that in the most handsome manner, at the Grand Feast in 1790, to the general satisfaction of the Fraternity.

During Preston's exclusion, he seldom or ever attended any of the Lodges, though he was actually an enrolled member of a great many Lodges at home and abroad, all of which he politely resigned at the time of his suspension, and directed his attention to his other literary pursuits, which may fairly be supposed to have contributed more to the advantage of his fortune.

So much of the life of Preston we get from the interesting sketch of Stephen Jones. To other sources we must look for a further elucidation of some of the circumstances which he has so concisely related. The expulsion from the Order of such a man as Preston was a disgrace to the Grand Lodge which inflicted it. It was, to use the language of Doctor Oliver, who himself, in after times, had undergone a similar act of injustice, "a very ungrateful and inadequate return for his services."

The story was briefly this: It had been determined by the Brethren of the Lodge of Antiquity, held on December 17, 1777, that at the Annual Festival on Saint John's day, a procession should be formed to Saint Dunstan's Church, a few steps only from the tavern where the Lodge was held; a protest of a few of the members was entered against it on the day of the festival. In consequence of this only ten members attended, who, having clothed themselves as Freemasons in the vestry room, sat in the same pew and heard a sermon, after which they crossed the street in their gloves and aprons to return to the Lodge-room.

At the next meeting of the Lodge, a motion was made to repudiate this act; and while speaking against it, Preston asserted the inherent privileges of the Lodge of Antiquity, which, not working under a Warrant of the Grand Lodge, was, in his opinion, not subject in the matter of processions to the regulations of the Grand Lodge. It as for Maintaining this opinion, which whether right or wrong,- was after all only an opinion, Preston u as, under circumstances which exhibited neither magnanimity nor dignity on the part of the Grand Lodge, expelled from the Order. One first unhappy result of this act of oppression was that the Lodge of Antiquity severed itself from the Grand Lodge, and formed a rival Body under the style of the Grand Lodge of England South of the River Treatt, acting under authority from the Lodge of All England at York.

But ten years afterward, in 1787, the Grand Lodge saw the error it had committed, and Preston was restored with all his honors and dignities and the new Grand Lodge collapsed. And non, while the name of Preston is known and revered by all who value Masonic learning, the names of all his bitter enemies, with the exception of Noorthouch, have sunk into a well-deserved oblivion. Preston had no sooner been restored to his Masonic rights than he resumed his labors for the advancement of the Order. In 1787 he organized the Order of Harodim, which see, a society in which it was intended to thoroughly teach the lectures which he had prepared. Of this Order some of the most distinguished Freemasons of the day became members, and it is said to have produced great benefits by its well-devised Plan of Masonic instruction.

But William Preston is best known to us by his invaluable work entitled I Illustrations of Masonry. The first edition of this work was published in 1772. Although it is spoken of in some resolutions of a Lodge, published in the second edition, as "a very ingenious and elegant pamphlet," it was really a work of some size, consisting, in its introduction and text, of 288 pages. It contained an account of the Grand Gala, or banquet, given by the author to the Fraternity in May, 177 , when he first proposed his system of lectures. This account was omitted in the second and all subsequent editions "to make room for more useful matter." The second edition, enlarged to 324 pages, was published in 1775, and this was followed by others in 1776, 1781, 1788, 1792, 1799, 1801, and 1812.

There were other editions, for Wilkie calls his 1801 edition the tenth, and the edition of 1819, the last published by the author, is called the twelfth. The thirteenth and fourteenth editions were published of ter the author's death, with additions—the former by Stephen Jones in 1891, and the latter by Doctor Oliver in 1829. Other English editions have been subsequently published, one edited by Doctor Oliver in 1829. The work was translated into German. and two editions published, one in 1776 and the other in 1780. In America, two editions were published in 1804, one at Alexandria, in Virginia, and the other, with numerous important additions, by George Richards, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Both claim, on the title-page, to be the "first American edition"; and it is probable that both works were published by their respective editors about the same time, and while neither had any knowledge of the existence of a rival copy.

Preston died, after a long illness, in Dean Street. Fetter Lane, London, on April 1, 1818, at the age of seventy-six, and was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral In the latter years of his life he seems to have taken no active public part in Freemasonry, for in the very full account of the proceedings at the Union in 1813 of the two Grand Lodges, his name does not appear as one of the actors, and his system was then ruthlessly surrendered to the newer but not better one of Doctor Hemming. But he had not lost his interest in the Institution which he had served 80 well and so long, and by which he had been so well requited.

For he bequeathed at his death £300 in Consols, a contraction for consolidated annuities, a British government security, the interest of which was to provide for the annual delivery of a lecture according to his system. He also left £500 to the Royal Freemasons Charity, for female children, and a like sum to the General Charity Fund of the Grand Lodge. He had a wife and grandchildren and left behind him his name as 3 great Masonic teacher and the memory of his services to the Craft. Jones's edition of his Illustrations contains an excellently engraved likeness of him by Ridley, from an original portrait said to be by S. Drummond, Royal Academician. There is an earlier engraved likeness of him in the Freemasons Magazine for 1795, from a painting known to be by Drummond, and taken in 1794. They present the differences of features which may be ascribed to a lapse of twenty-six years. The latter print was said, by acquaintances, to be an excellent likeness.

The Records of Tile Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, have been published in two volumes bearing that title, the first in 1911 edited by Brother W. Harry Rylands and the second in 1926 by Brother C. W. Firebrace who has also supervised the publication in 1928 of a second edition of the first volume. These splendid works contain much valuable information about William Preston whose Masonic career was so intimately associated with this famous Lodge.

PRESTON, WILLIAM

Since the majority of Grand Jurisdictions in the United States use the Webb-Preston Work, and since Thomas Smith Webb, whom Mackey described as the "father of American Freemasonry, founded his own teachings on those of Preston, and since Preston's Illustrations of Masonry has, next to Mackey's own, been the most widely-read book in American Masonry for a century and a half, American Seasons have a larger interest in Preston than in any other Masonic leader of the past 150 years, excepting only the names of Webb himself, of Mackey, and of Pike. Preston was British (see page 795) but even in his home-land he has never had the importance he has had here.

It happens that until recent years almost the only source of information about Preston as a man was in Gould's History of Freemasonry and in his Concise History of Freemasonry; it also happens that in both of these books Gould pronounces a judgment that not only is harsh but is so phrased (doubtless unintentionally) as to leave the impression that Preston was not mentally responsible. Scholars have long since known that Gould's judgment is not just, but Gould is read widely and they are not, hence it is of service to American Masons to give a truer portrait, and to ease American Masons of the paradox of having everywhere the Preston Work, and at the same time of having two books so widely read which picture Preston in a sense so opposite to his American reputation. To do so will not discredit Gould; a great mass of facts remains in Gould's books after a few fallacies are removed. On page 115, Vol. I (of the Dudley Wright edition of Gould's History of Freemasonry), Preston is quoted to the effect that York had for centuries been looked up to as the cradle of Freemasonry; Gould's criticism makes this appear as if Preston had been writing about the Grand Lodge of All England, at York. In a comment on the editions of Preston's Illustrations of Freemasonry (page 291; Vol. I), Gould writes:

"One can believe that his information was acquired, as he interprets it, piecemeal, or, like Mahomet and Joseph Smith, each effort was preceded by a special revelation." (This sneer is effected by ignoring the circumstances under which Preston had to collect his data; a Grand Lodge censorship had left the Craft illiterate, and had compelled students like Preston to seek data at large, often from the memories of the oldest Masons. The then Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge was not helpful.) On page 297, Vol. I, Gould writes that "the veracity and accuracy of Preston," "counts for very little"; on the same page he accuses Preston of writing "mythical history" about Wren. On page 337 of the Concise History (London; 1903) is a contemptuously written paragraph on Preston and Dermott, the former of whom he describes as "a journeyman printer"; the latter as "a journeyman painter." (The Dukes of Athol, less snobbish than Gould, did not disdain to associate for years with the "journeyman painter"—especially since they were working in a Fraternity founded by journeymen Masons.)

On page 338 Gould becomes openly insulting: " Preston, however, was by a long way the greater romancer of the two, or perhaps it will be better to describe him as a Masonic visionary who untrammeled by any laws of evidence—wrote a large amount of enthusiastic rubbish wherein are displayed a capacity of belief and capability of assertion, which are hardly paralleled at the present day by the utterances of the company promoter or even of the mining engineer."

It is a curious fact that much of what Gould calls "enthusiastic rubbish" was taken by Preston straight from the Book of Constitutions which the Grand Lodge itself had published in one edition after another, and as an official book. It is true that much of the historical portion of Preston's Illustrations has become discredited by later knowledge, but it was published in 1772 when any kind of Masonic knowledge was difficult to find; Gould's own two histories also have suffered the same fate, and by a strange irony he is nowhere more in need of revision than in what he said about Preston; and in at least two of his quarrels with Preston it turns out that it was Gould who was mistaken; but errors about data and mistakenness in historical hypotheses do not show that Preston was a liar er a visionary any more than they show that Gould was one. By another strange irony, Preston suffers more at the hands of Wright's revised Gould's History than he did in the first edition, because in it Preston is victimized by blunders of fact in addition to having no atonement made for the original injustice. One of these blunders is too long to quote. On page 306, Vol. VI, it is stated that Preston's had been "the Standard of Masonic Work in England for nearly twenty years." Preston was in the Modern Grand Lodge; his "Work" was not therefore used in the Ancient Grand Lodge; it was never a Standard Work in England, and has never been since, because England has never had a Standard Bork. It also states that an unknown "English Brother" brought Preston s "Work" to Webb in 1800; Webb had already published his book in 1797. Webb is called Thomas G.; his name was Thomas Smith; etc.

Preston was born into a distinguished family in Edinburgh (1742), and would have inherited a fortune had it not been very largely lost in the rebellion of 1745. His father was a distinguished and highly talented man. Preston himself graduated from the Edinburgh High School and then passed through the University. He then became amanuensis and secretary to Thomas Ruddiman, a scholar of large erudition who was famous as an editor of learned texts, and under whom Preston was thoroughly drilled in the minutiae and strict rules of language and of editing.

At that time the first publishing house in England, and with only one or two exceptions the first publishing house in the world, was Strahan's at London, the King's Printer. In 1760, and with letters of introduction from men of influence in Edinburgh, Preston entered Strahan's, beginning as a compositor in order to learn the publishing business from the ground up. From compositor he became a proof-reader, and in time head proof-reader, and then became general superintendent of the firm. On his death in 1785 Strahan left him an annuity, but Preston remained on under the younger Strahan, and id 1804 became a partner. Strahan was publisher of the works of Samuel Johnson, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Professor Robertson, Blackstone, David flume, Dr. Blair, etc., and with these men and men like them Preston had friendships and acquaintanceships over a long period of years.

The same learning, thoroughness and great ability which brought him to a headship in a famous firm, he carried into his Masonic work. The old Lodge of Antiquity was in the doldrums when he entered it and likely to perish; he built it up to about one hundred members, among them a number of members of Parliament.

When the Grand Lodge decided to prepare a new edition of the Book of Constitutions they asked him to edit it, and to give him free access to Grand Lodge archives appointed him an assistant to the Grand Secretary, James Heseltine, and under the agreement that Preston's name should appear on the title-page as editor. When the work was nearing completion, the jealous and petty-minded Heseltine proposed that John Northouck's name should also appear alongside of Preston's though Northouck had done none of the work. Preston resigned rather than suffer Heseltine's indignities, and it was this which was the real beginning of the disagreement which split the Lodge of Antiquity. When the troubles which then ensued came upon hire, Preston proved himself a man as great in dignity and self-respect as in ability; the abuses leveled at him by a Grand Lodge Officer did not make him bend, nor did he ever falter in his great confidence in Freemasonry or in the Grand Lodge itself; he was completely vindicated in due time, was received again with honor, and in his will left large sums to the Grand Lodge benevolence. In the whole of England there was no man less like the romancer, the untruthful historian, the visionary, the fabricator in the caricature which Gould painted; nor could any writer have been guilty of a more vulgar lapse of taste than to bracket Preston with sellers of worthless stock or with such a half-mad man as the Mormon Joseph Smith. (The authentic account of Preston is the history of the Lodge of Antiquity, No. 2, by Rylands and Firebrace. The above discussion of the single question of his character and reputation pro supposes that the reader has already read the biographical article at page 795.)

PRESTONIAN LECTURER

In 1818, Brother Preston, the author of the Illustrations of Masonry, bequeathed £300 in Consols, the interest of which was to provide for the annual delivery of a lecture according to the system which he had elaborated. The appointment of the Lecturer was left to the Grand Master for the time being. Stephen Jones, a Past Master of the Lodge of Antiquity, and an intimate friend of Preston, received the first appointment; and it was subsequently given to Brother Laurence Thompson, the only surviving pupil of Preston.

He held it until his death, after which no appointment of a Lecturer was made until 1857, when the Worshipful Master of the Royal Stork Lodge, was requested by Lord Zetland, Grand Master, to deliver the lecture, which he did in January, 1858; twice again in the same year the lecture was delivered, by the Worshipful Master of the Grand Stewards Lodge and by Brother Thiselton, Secretary of the Lodge of Antiquity, and again, by Brother Hewlett and then Brother Henry Warren in subsequent years until 1862, since which time the lecture seems to have been abandoned until 1924 when Captain C. W Firebrace, a Past Master of Preston's old Lodge, the Lodge of Antiquity, was appointed the Prestonian Lecturer for the year, and was followed by Brother Lionel Vibert, in 1925, a Past Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge.

PRESTONIAN LECTURES

About the year 1772, Preston submitted his course of lectures on the first three Degrees to the Craft of England. These lectures were a revision of those which had been practiced, with various modifications, since the revival of 1717, and were intended to confer a higher literary character on the Masonic Ritual. Preston had devoted much time and labor to the compilation of these lectures, a syllabus of which will be found in his Illustrations They were adopted eagerly by the English Fraternity, and continued to be the authoritative system of the Grand Lodge of England until the Union in 1813, when, for the sake of securing uniformity, the new system of Doctor Hemming was adopted. But the Prestonian lectures and ritual are still used by many Lodges in England. In the United States they were greatly altered by Webb.

PRETENDER

The word Pretender has occasionally been misunderstood by commentators. As a French term it means Claimant and should not convey the impression of him who makes a mere pretense. This latter meaning would never have been used by Shone who permitted the word Pretender to signify his Opposition. James Stuart, the son of James II, who abdicated the throne of Great Britain, and Charles Edward, his son, are known in history as the Old and the Young Pretender. Their intrigues with Freemasonry, which they are accused of attempting to use as an instrument to aid in a restoration to the throne, constitute a very interesting episode in the history of the Order (see Stuart Freemasonry).

PREVIOUS QUESTION

A parliamentary motion intended to suppress debate. It is utterly unknown in the parliamentary law of Freemasonry, and it would be always out of order to move it in a Masonic Body.

PRIMITIVE FREEMASONRY

The Primitive Freemasonry of the antediluvians, or people of before the Flood times, is a term for which we are indebted to Doctor Oliver, although the theory was broached by earlier writers, and among them by the Chevalier Ramsay. The theory is, that the principles and doctrines of Freemasonry existed in the earliest ages of the world, and were believed and practiced by a primitive people, or priesthood, under the name of Pure or Primitive Freemasonry; and that this Freemasonry, that is to say, the religious doctrine inculcated by it, was, after the flood, corrupted by the Pagan philosophers and priests, and, receiving the title of Spurious Freemasonry, was exhibited in the Ancient Mysteries. The Noachidae, however, preserved the principles of the Primitive Freemasonry, and transmitted them to succeeding ages, when at length they assumed the name of Speculative Freemasonry. The Primitive Freemasonry was probably without ritual or symbolism, and consisted only of a series of abstract propositions derived from antediluvian traditions. Its dogmas were the unity of God and the immortality of the soul.

Doctor Oliver, who gave this system its name, describes it (Historical Landmarks I, page 61) in the following language: "It included a code of simple morals. It assured men that they who did well would be approved of God; and if they followed evil courses, sin would be imputed to them, and they would thus become subject to punishment. It detailed the reasons why the seventh day was consecrated and set apart as a Sabbath, or day of rest; and showed why the bitter consequences of sin were visited upon our first parents, as a practical lesson that it ought to be avoided. But the great object of this Primitive Freemasonry was to preserve and cherish the promise of a Redeemer, who should provide a remedy for the evil that their transgressions had introduced into the world, when the appointed time should come."

In his History of Initiation Doctor Oliver makes the supposition that the ceremonies of this Primitive Freemasonry would be few and unostentatious, and consist, perhaps, like that of admission into Christianity, of a simple lustration, conferred alike on all, in the hope that they would practice the social duties of benevolence and good-will to man, and unsophisticated devotion to God.

He does not, however, admit that the system of Primitive Freemasonry consisted only of those tenets which are to be found in the first chapters of Genesis or that he intends, in his definition of this science, to embrace so general and indefinite a scope of all the principles of truth and light, as Preston has done in his declaration, that "from the commencement of the world, we may trace the foundation of Freemasonry." On the contrary, Doctor Oliver supposes that this Primitive Freemasonry included a particular and definite system, made up of legends and symbols, and confined to those who were initiated into its mysteries. The knowledge of these mysteries was of course communicated by God himself to Adam, and from him received by his descendants.

This view of Doctor Oliver is substantiated by the remarks of Rosenberg, a learned French Freemason, in an article in the Freemasons Quarterly Review, on the Book of Raziel, an ancient Cabalistic work, whose subject is these Divine mysteries. "This book," says Rosenberg, "informs us that Adam was the first to receive these mysteries. Afterward, when driven out of Paradise, he communicated them to his son Seth; Seth communicated them to Enoch; Enoeh to Methuselah; Methuselah to Lamech; Lamech to Noah; Noah to Shem; Shem to Abraham; Abraham to Isaac; Isaac to Jacob; Jacob to Levi; Levi to Kelhoth; Kelhoth to Amram; Amram to Moses; Moses to Joshua; Joshua to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; the Prophets to the Wise Men; and then from one to another down to Solomon."

Such, then, was the Pure or Primitive Freemasonry, the first System of mysteries which, according to modern Masonic writers of the school of Oliver, has descended, of course with various modifications, from age to age, in a direct and uninterrupted line, to the Freemasons of the present day. The theory is an attractive one, and may be qualifiedly adopted, if we may accept what appears to have been the doctrine of Anderson, of Hutchinson, of Preston, and of Oliver, that the purer theosophic tenets of "the chosen people of Clod" were similar to those subsequently inculcated in Freemasonry, and distinguished from the corrupted teaching of the Pagan religions as developed in the Mysteries. But if we attempt to contend that there was among the Patriarchs any esoteric organization at all resembling the modern system of Freemasonry, we shall find no historical data on which we may rely for support.

PRIMITIVE RITE

This Rite was founded at Narbonne, in France, on April 19, 1780, by the pretended "Superiors of the Order of Free and Accepted Masons." It was attached to the Lodge of the Philadelphus, under the title of the "First Lodge of Saint John united to the Primitive Rite for the Country of France." Hence it is sometimes called the Primitive Rite of Narbonne, and sometimes the Rite of the Philadelphus. It was divided into three classes, which comprised ten Degrees of instruction. These were not, in the usual sense. Degrees but rather collections of grades, out of which it was sought to develop all the instructions of which they were capable. These classes and Degrees were as follows:

First Class.

1. Apprentice. 
2. Fellow Craft. 
3. Master Mason. 
These were conformable to the same Degrees in all the other Rites.

Second Class.

Fourth Degree, comprising Perfect Masters Elu, and Architect. Fifth Degree, comprising the Sublime Ecossais. 
Sixth Degree, comprising the Enight of the Sword, Knight of the East, and Prince of Jerusalem.

Third Class.

7. The First Chapter of Rose Croix, comprising ritualistic instructions. 
8. The Second Chapter of Rose Croix. It is the depository of historical documents of rare value. 
9. The Third Chapter of Rose Croix, comprising physical and philosophical instructions. 
10. The Fourth and last Chapter of Rose Croix, or Rose Croix Brethren of the Grand Rosary, engaged in researches into the occult sciences, the object being the rehabilitation of man in his primitive rank and prerogatives.

The Primitive Rite was united to the Grand Orient in 1786, although some of its Lodges, objecting to the union, maintained their independence It secured at one time, a high consideration among French Freemasons, not only on account of the objects in which it was engaged, but on account also of the talents and position of many of its members.

PRIMITIVE SCOTTISH RITE

This Rite claims to have been established in 1770, at Namur, in Belgium, by a body called the Metropolitan Grand Lodge of Edinburgh. But the truth, according to Clavel ( Histoire Pittoresque, page 220) is that it was the invention of one Marchot, an advocate of Nivelles, who organized it in 1818, at Namur, beyond which city, and the Lodge of Bonne Amitie, it scarcely ever extended. It consists of thirty-three Degrees, as follows:

1. Apprentice;

2. Fellow Craft; 
3. Master; 
4. Perfect Master; 
5. Irish Master; 
6. Elect of Nine; 
7. Elect of the Unknown; 
8. Elect of Fifteen; 
9. Illustrious Master; 
10. Perfect Elect; 
11. Minor Architect; 
12. Grand Architect; 
13. Sublime Architect; 
14. Master in Perfect Architecture; 
15. Royal Arch; 
16. Prussian Knight; 
17. Knight of the East; 
18. Prince of Jerusalem; 
19. Master of All Lodges; 
20. Knight of the West; 
21. Knight of Palestine; 
22. Sovereign Prince of Rose Croix; 
23. Sublime Scottish Freemason; 
24. Knight of the Sun; 
25. Grand Scottish Freemason of Saint Andrea; 
26. Master of the Secret; 
27. Knight of the Black Eagle; 
28. Knight of K H; 
29. Grand Elect of Truth; 
30 novice of the Interior; 
31. Knight of the Interior; 
32. Prefect of the Interior; 
33. Commander of the Interior.

The Primitive Scottish Rite appears to have been founded upon the Rite of Perfection, with an intermixture of the Strict Observance of Hund, the Adonhiramite, and some other Rites.

PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM

Fig. 1. Vishnu. a Hindu god.

Fig. 2. Brahama, chief Hindu god 
Fig. 3. Venus and Hymen, vitality powers 
Fig. 4. Sun and Moon gods 
Fig. 5. Car of Cupid 
Fig. 6. Mercury rooster and corn. 
Fig. 7. Catalathus maidenhood symbol, on winged bearer 
Fig. 8. Neptune, the sea god 
Fig. 9. Goddess of the City Sidon. 
Fig. 10. Oriental myth of mankind from fish. 
Fig. 11. Venus raised from sea by Titans. 
Fig. 12. Serpent rampled by Hindu god. 
Fig. 13. Ashtaroth as goddess of night. 
Fig. 14. Lotus and destructive emblems. 
Fig. 15. Moon god. 
Fig. 16. Tentyra Venus with dove. 
Fig. 17. Four-horned goat from Spain. 
Fig. 18. Mermaid myth. 
Fig. 19. Horned head of the god Baal. 
Fig. 20. Vine leaves and apples denoting fertility.

PRINCE

The fiord Prince is not attached as a title to any Masonic office, but is prefixed as a part of the name to several Degrees, as Prince of the Royal Secret, Prince of Rose Croix, and Prince of Jerusalem. In all of these instances it seems to convey some idea of sovereignty inherent in the character of the Degree. Thus the Prince of the Royal Secret was the ultimate. and, of course, controlling Degree of the Rite of Perfection, whence, shorn, however, of its sovereignty it has been transferred to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

The Prince of Rose Croix, although holding in some Rites a subordinate position, was originally an independent Degree, and the representative of Rosicrucian Freemasonry. It is still at the head of the French Rite. The Princes of Jerusalem, according to the Old Constitutions of the Rite of Perfection, were invested with power of jurisdiction over all Degrees below the Sixteenth, a prerogative which they exercised long after the promulgation of the Constitutions of 1786; and even now they are called, in the Ritual of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Chiefs in Masonry, a term borrowed from the Constitutions of 1762. But there are several other Prince Degrees which do not seem, at least now to claim any character of sovereignty—such are the Prince of Lebanon, Prince of the Tabernacle and Prince of Mercy, all of which are now subordinate Degrees in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

PRIMITIVE SECRET SOCIETIES

In Andaman Island villages there is a triple arrangement of houses, one set for married couples, one for bachelors, one for spinsters. Boys (at about twelve) can leave the care of women and enter the ranks of men only after severe initiation ordeals (not kept secret from women) designed to test self-control.

Among Australian Aborigines ("Abos") initiation ceremonies are performed at puberty, the purpose being to give males ascendancy over women; the rites are very severe, and sometimes fatal. Just as farmers in an agricultural country, and as owners and employees in an industrial country organize in every possible way to protect their crops or their production, so among tribes which must depend on the number of men in it everything is done to safe-guard marriage and child bearing; it is because of this, and not because they are "lustful," or "shameless," less still because they believe in any nonsense about "phallicism," that many non-civilized tribes and peoples punish unchastity by death, wall off women by taboos, isolate boys in "men's houses," and practice so-called "fertility rites."

Among the Mosai every male is initiated and circumcised (this latter was almost universal in the ancient world and never was peculiar to the Hebrews); the mans are divided into three grades: boys, warriors, elders.

The men in the Banks Islands comprise a secret society, but instead of entrance being by initiation it is gained by paying a fee—; the "men society" is really a gild. They live in "men's houses"; they live and work for sake of prestige and wealth; are divided into grades. There are secret clubs, called "ghost associations," with quarters in hidden places, and with entrance by initiation and payment of a fee.

In American Indian tribes and peoples (the Sioux, Pueblos, Navajo, Apaches, etc., are peoples) are and ever have been numberless clubs, fraternities, societies, with a lavish use of ceremonies of initiation, much symbolism, secret words and passwords. There are countless social clubs, both male and female, many charging fees. In the Crow Tobacco Society women are admitted on a par with the men—androgynous societies are very common among them today. There are many secret cults devoted to purposes analogous to religion. There are exceptions, however; a few Indian peoples, the Shoshones of the Great Basin being one of them, who have never had secret societies of any type.

Africa also is full of secret societies, and on the West Coast are many societies of women, of every sort. one of their commonest purposes is to enable a tribe to mislead other tribes about itself, and this applies to white men: the first generations of explorers and missionaries were lied to, and in consequence sent back fantastic reports which misled anthropologists for two generations—half the clippings and notes which Herbert Spencer so laboriously collected in his files were these "lie misleaders" and for the same reason a large number of the early, and once popular, books on anthropology are now half worthless. There never was such a thing as "primitive man," or a "primitive culture" (Frazer and Levy-Bruhl to the contrary notwithstanding); men ten thousand years ago were what men are now but did different things, or the same things differently, because they did not have the same inventions, discoveries, machines that we have; nor were they any more "savage," or "warlike"—the Indian chiefs put on "war dances" not because their young men desired to fight but because they desired not to.

Many tribes and peoples have borrowed secret cults and ceremonies from each other. Sometimes the founder of a cult was a visionary, and received a revelation in the form of a vision, like saint-worshiping cults in the Middle Ages.

Secret societies differ fundamentally; after comparing those of the Melanesians with the American Pueblo Indians, Lowie wrote that "there is no analogy whatever either in constitution, function, or anything else but the exclusion of non-members." Nor w ere secret societies universal even in so-called "primitive times." The Dravidi3ns of India had them, but there were none in large parts of Asia. For 2000 years China had secret societies by the hundreds (as did, and do, the Japanese) but they were political organizations, not initiation societies.

In Mexico and Central America the "men's house" system is still in use among the more remote Indian tribes, but differ much among themselves. It survives also among the Eskimos. Webster collected a long and gruesome catalog of the "ordeals" or "markings" used; in Australia alone he lists pulling out of hair, biting of head, pulling or filing of teeth, sprinkling with blood, immersion in dust or filth, floggings, scarification, painful tattooing, smoking, burning, subincision, circumcision, burials and raisings, burials in snow, immersion in water, handling serpents—he states that circumcision is the most nearly universal. After initiation the youth enters a new life, forgets the old, has a new name, a new language, and new privileges.

Frazer saw in almost every form of initiation ceremonies a dramatization of dying and rising again. Levy Bruhl saw in them evidences of a "pre-logical" culture—one of men not yet possessed of any mind. Both theories are become impossible. A man who has lived among "primitive" people long enough to know them finds that they have the same minds as ourselves. Russians have proved that so-called "primitives" are capable of becoming educated men, and even scientists, in one generation; the French proved the same in their African Colonies, and the Dutch in Java and Sumatra. The "primitive man" of Herbert Spencer and Lord Lubbock turned out to be a myth.

It is dangerous to generalize about ceremonies, rites, symbols, etc., of so-called "primitive rites," and impossible to argue that identical rites presuppose the same origin. The same sign which among Bushnegroes means "go," would among Zuni Indians mean "come." A "burial and resurrection" rite in an African tribe may mean "you will die"; among the Polynesians it may mean "you will not die."

At the beginning of the century American colleges and universities began everywhere to install departments of anthropology; the literature which a half century before had begun with a few simple books by Herbert Spencer (not an anthropologist) and Lord Avebury began so rapidly to increase that it now defies a life-time of reading, and a number of its titles have rivaled best-sellers in popularity. The following are recommended only as an introduction to a bibliography too large to enumerate:

Primitive Society, by Robert H. Lowie.

Primitive Secret Societies, by Hutton Webster- Maemillan- New York- 1908
The Mind of Primitive lIan, by Franz Boas- Macmillan New York- 1911.
The Golden Bough, by J. G. Frazer.
Source Books for Social Origins, by Wm. I. Thomas University of Chicago Press- Chicago, 1909.
Myth. Ritual and Religion, by Andrew Lang; London; 1887.
Coming of Age in Samoa, by Margaret Mead. (This exploded G. Stanley Hall's famous theory of adolescence )
Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethies, the articles are dry and not fertile with thought, but they are often valuable for their bibliographies.
Initiation Introduction and Primitive, by Goblet d'AIviella. (Schure's popular books on the same subject are worthless.)
Oriantal Religions in Roman Paganism, by Franz Cumont; Chicago; 1911.
Region of the Semites, by Robertson Smith- London 1894. (This famous book raised a theological storm in Scotland. Though out of date factually it is a courageous massive, illumunating work.)

Books published in the past few years have been highly technicalized special studies; preference to older works was given above because theirs is a more general treatment. For a fictionalized treatment of primitive secret cults see The Delight Makers, by Adolph Bandelier; and The Man Tho Would be King, by Rudyard Kipling. Sir Samuel Dill's From Nero to Marcus Aurelius is not fiction, but reads as easily, and though it deals with the subject at one remove, illuminates it brightly; the same can be said of Ancient Arch and Ritual, by Jane Ellen Harrison.

PRINCE ADEPT

See Adept. Prince

PRINCE DEPOSITOR, GRAND

in French the title is Grand Prince Depository. A Degree in the collection of Pyron.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

On October 9, 1797, Saint John's Lodge was warranted at Charlottetown by the Grand Lodge of England. The island was then St. John's Island and continued to be so called until 1798. Seven Lodges, namely, Saint John's, Victoria, King Hiram, Saint George, Alexandra, Mount Lebanon, and True Brothers met on June 23, 1875 end formed the Grand Lodge of Prince Edward Island . The Hon. John Yeo was elected Grand Master and was duly installed the following day by the Grand Master of New Brunswich.

PRINCE MASON

A term applied in the old Scottish Rite Constitutions to the possessors of the advanced Degrees above the Fourteenth. It was first assumed by the Council of the Emperors of the East and West. Rose Croix Freemasons in Ireland are still known by this name.

PRINCE MASONS OF IRELAND

Brother Gerald Fitzgibbon, President of the Grand Chapter of Prince Masons of Ireland and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Thirty-third Degree, presided at the Triennial Convocation of the Grand Chapter of the Prince Masons of Ireland held on May 19, 1909. Brother Fitzgibbon submitted at that time some historical notes regarding the several developments of the organization over which he presided.

He pointed out that the course of Freemasonry in Ireland is distinguished and has been peculiarly affected by two incidents. The first was its complete exemption from the differences of the Ancient and Moderns which divided Great Britain for more than sixty years and was happily closed on Saint John's Day, 1813, by the establishment of the United Grand Lodge of England. Irish Freemasonry owes much to this exemption and especially the primitive simplicity of its constitution, rites and workings. The other incident was personal and was the unexampled reign and influence of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Leinster, Ireland's only Duke, as he was then. For more than sixty years, 1813-74, he was the Grand Master of the Craft. He obtained and worked every Degree and became the head of every governing Body in the Order.

He was installed in 1817 as Sovereign Commander of the Metropolitan College of Heredom which then ruled the Rite of Perfection. As Sovereign Grand Commander he was named in 1824 in the Warrant which constituted the Irish Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree. First principal in 1829 of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter, in 1836 he headed the Supreme Grand Encampment of Knights Templar. He presided over the Grand Council of Rites from 1838 until it merged into the Grand Chapter of Prince Masons, of which he was the first President. It is literally true that he left his mark upon every part of the Irish Masonic system. He was ever jealous of innovation. He disliked histrionic display. To him Irish Freemasonry owes the simple dignity of its ceremonies (see Ireland). Brother Fitzgibbon also says

As to the History of Craft Freemasonry, I do not sympathize with those prosaic Annalists who deny, or who refuse to accept, anything of which it is impossible to produce better evidence than tradition or probability.

On the other hand, I cannot go with the opposite school of historians who invest Freemasonry with every attribute which imagination can supply. Our Irish tenacity of the principle that Masonic knowledge should be communicated by oral tradition only, makes it especially difficult for us to produce such ancient documentary evidence; but I am convinced that long before the transition from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry probably for centuries, possibly even before the days of Solomon, the Craft existed as an organized Society or Guild. Personally I believe the genuine Freemasons were made in Germany, and in England too, throughout the Middle Ages.

The change took place during the close of the seventeenth and the opening of the eighteenth century. Evidence is accumulating that it was gradual and not simultaneous in different countries. Ireland was very early in the field. Recent research among the manuscripts of Trinity College has brought proof to light that Freemasonry of the speculative type was known within the precincts of Dublin University before the Revolution of 1688. The German historian Kloss, quotes an official list issued in l788 by the Grand Orient in France in which a Lodge in Walsh's Irish Regiment, then in the French service, is stated to have been constituted in 1688.

When the Grand Lodge of Ireland, for the first time in the history of Grand Lodges, issued numbered Warrants to subordinate Lodges, Lodge No. 1, Cork, on submitting to its Jurisdiction, claimed, and got. the first place upon the Roll, by right of its previous existence as an autonomous Body—in effect as a Grand Lodge in Munster. The independent authority of the Master of a Munster Lodge, as early as 1713, rendered the initiation at sight of the Lady Freemason as an Entered Apprentice not merely possible, but, in a sense, regular. Before 1743—how long we know not—the Royal Arch existed here, It is believed to have been an early development of the Chair Degree of the Ancient Craft. It differs in Epoch, in Legend, and in Status, from the Royal Arch as known elsewhere. So long as the Mark Degree has been worked in Ireland it has always been subordinate to the Royal Arch, and a necessary qualification for admission to it.

One of the most significant circumstances in the whole history of Irish Freemasonry is recorded by Frederick Dalcho, the chief promulgator of the Rite of Thirty-three Degrees. On February 20, 1788, a Royal Arch Chapter working in Charleston under 3 Dublin Warrant, formed a junction with "the Sublime Grand Lodge of South Carolina," and its members were received, free of expense, into the high Degrees worked by that Lodge, and were acknowledged as high as the thirteenth Degree inclusive" (see Daleho's Masonic Orations, page 64). That Sublime Grand Lodge was then working the Rite of Perfection of Twenty-five Degrees, and in 1801 it constituted itself as the first Supreme Council for the United States of America of the "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite" of Thirty-three Degrees.

Why Scottish is a question, That Rite was promulgated on December 4 1802, and every Regular Supreme Council of the World now, directly and indirectly, holds a Warrant in which the Charleston Council is styled the Mother Supreme Council of the World, The acknowledgment by this indisputable authority of the Irish Royal Arch as the Thirteenth Degree established conclusively that our working up to that Degree is equivalent to, and dispenses with, all or any of the lower Degrees worked elsewhere.

The Grand Lodge of Ireland, and the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree for Ireland, have never recognized any Side Degrees or By Degrees whatever. Every Degree worked in Ireland is a Regular Degree, and when lawfully conferred, it confers all Degrees below it, as a qualification for advancement in the Ancient and Accepted Rite. Among the degrees of which the Sovereign Grand Inspectors General of the Thirty-third Degree for the United States were in possession in 1801 Dalcho mentions " the Royal Arch as given under the Constitution of Dublin" (see Dalcho's Masonic Orations page 69). No similar recognition was accorded to the Royal Arch of any other Constitution.

Chivalric or Templar Degrees have, at all time since their introduction in Ireland, been included with but above the Royal Arch, and with but below the Rose Croix, as essential qualifications for the higher Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. It is an interesting question, too difficult and too obscure for me, how far these Templar Degrees owed their introduction into Ireland, and soon afterwards from Ireland into Great Britain wand the American Colonies to the Jacobites. The Wild Geese flew far and wide, and Irishmen were on both sides in most of the fighting, during that stirring time.

Craft Masons, whether Irish, French or German, when they came here from the Continent, seem to have communicated any Degrees which they had obtained abroad to those whom they deemed qualified to receive them at home. The first Templar Degrees of which we have authentic record, were conferred in Craft Lodges; but probably before 1769, and certainly from 1774, Chivalric Degrees have been continuously worked in Ireland and none but Royal Arch Freemasons have ever been admitted to them. The Degrees which are now governed by the Great Priory in succession to the Early Grand Encampment and the supreme Grand Encampment of Ireland, have, since the Convent General Contention of 1895, been recognized by our Supreme Council as covering the Regular Degrees from the Fourteenth to and including the Seventeenth. I now come to the Rose Croix. We believe Ireland to have been the first English-speaking country to receive the Eighteenth Degree. The Irish Templars first obtained it from France at the hands of Pierre Laurent and Emmanuel Zimmermann, on January 20, 1782, and it has ever since been rigorously reserved for Templar Masons. The " Kilwinning " and "Original " Chapters, which still exist, date from that day, and they constituted a Governing Body for Prince Masonry; of which, through the Council of Rites, our own Grand Chapter is the lineal successor. This Chapter remained the independent and autonomous Governing Body of the Rose Croix until it came under the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree in 1905. We had an Irish Rose Croix Chapter working in Lisbon until 1872, and we have reason to believe that our Original and Kilwinning Chapters are both older than the Bristol Chapter, which derived its knowledge of the Degree from Ireland.

On February 17, 1796, a Grand Sublime Council was opened in Dublin by the Rose Croix Freemasons, for working still higher Degrees; and on June 1, 1802, under a French Constitutional Warrant, the " Metropolitan College of Heredom of Ireland" was opened in Dublin under the authority of Emmanuel Zimmermann, with John Fowler for its first Grand Commander, as the Governing Body of the "Order of Philosophical Freemasonry in all its Blanches." This College continued to confer and to govern the higher Degrees of the Rite of Perfection until 1824. These included the Degrees now known as the Twenty-eighth and Thirtieth Degrees, and the Highest or Sublime Degree, the Twenty-fifth in number, which is described in the Minutes of the College as the Ne plus ultra of the Science of Freemasonry this Kingdom.

This is the very phrase by which Dalcho described the Thirty-third and last Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. It was not known in Ireland by that number before 1824, because the "Rite of Perfection" consisted of Twenty-five Degrees only, and continued to be worked until 1824, but it is capable of indisputable proof from existing documents that this "Sublime Degree" combined in itself the essentials of both the Thirty-second and the Thirty-third Degrees as now known to us.

In an extant O.B. "ratified in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, on May 26th. 1811," again "verified on June 25th, 1825," and attested under the hands of John Fowler and the Duke of Leinster, who were the first and second Grand Commanders of the Metropolitan College of Heredom, we find that those who were admitted to the Sublime Degree of the Rite of Perception bound them selves to acknowledge no higher Degree, and undertook to discharge the Duties of Inspectors General. Thus, step by step and without a break, we can trace all the Degrees at any time worked in Ireland from the First or Entered Apprentice Degree, to the Highest Degree of Inspector General, as forming one continuous series, in which each Degree is required to qualify its possessor for further advancement.

It remains to explain the occasion and the manner of the Institution of the Rite of Thirty-three Degrees. Soon after the establishment of speculative Freemasonry and throughout the eighteenth century, there arose in Europe and in America, new and fanciful "Degrees," to be reckoned by hundreds, some say by thousands, and fantastic "Rites," all purporting to be Masonic, were invented in divers countries. All "the wisdom of the Egyptians" the Magi and the Mystics, Hermetie and Cabalistic conceits, and Occult Science falsely so-called were engrafted upon the primitive Masonic stock, obscuring the Symbolism and debasing the teaching of the Ancient Craft. The career and the fate of Cagliostro are enough to indicate the danger which threatened the reputation of Freemasonry in the end of the eighteenth century. We owe the formulation of the Ancient and Accepted Rite to the original Supreme Council of the United States, now of the Southern Jurisdiction. Its object was to identify genuine Freemasonry, to check further innovation, and to procure acceptance for a rational Standard of Uniformity.

The framers of the new Rite took the appropriate motto Ordo ab Chao (Order from Disorder). In 1801 the Sublime Grand Lodge of South Carolina constituted itself the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree for the United States; and on December 4, 1802, it addressed a Manifesto to the " Free and Accepted Masons of all Degrees, Ancient and Modern, over the Two Hemispheres," with the object of inducing them to join "one Band of the Brotherhood to dwell together in Unity," holding the same principles, and, so far as possible, adopting the same ceremonies.

This action has been justified, and it has been rewarded, by the general adoption of the Ancient and Accepted Rite. The Manivesto bears the names of Colonel John Mitchell as the Grand Commander. and Dr. Frederick Dalcho as the Lieutenant Grand Commander, of the United States of America, each styling himself a "Sovereign Grand Inspector of the Thirty-third Degree." It embodied a Report signed by Daleho, stating the principles on which the Rite had been framed, and these were elucidated by certain Orations in which he advocated its adoption, and which have since been regarded as Masonic classier

The Rite retained all the essentials of the Rite of Perfection. Though the number of Degrees was raised from Twenty-five to Thirty-three, the Highest Degree of the older Rite retained its pre-eminence, though it was divided into the Thirty-second and Thirty-third Degrees. This division was justified by attributing the status of a distinct Degree to the appointment by Frederick the Great of a Council of Nine as the Supreme Executive of the Rite of Perfection. The full number of Degrees was made up by recognizing seven selected Degrees of lower grades. Considerable liberty was exercised by each Jurisdiction which adopted the new Rite, as well as its Ceremonial, as in the choice of the Degrees which should be worked, thus it was that in Ireland much of the ancient working of the simpler Rite of Perception has been retained, and Side Degrees have been omitted.

Ireland's connection with the change was intimate and remarkable. Our Metropolitan College continued to work the Rite of Perfection until 1824, but in and after 1802 it was in direct fraternal communication with the Supreme Council of the United States—just as the Irish Royal Arch had been with the Sublime Grand Lodge of Charleston in 1788. Colonel John Mitchell is believed to have been initiated in an Ulster Lodge before he went to America. Frederick Oaleho is believed to have been initiated in Saint Patrick's Lodge, No. 656, under the Irish Constitution, at Baltimore in Maryland. Hence their intimate knowledge of Irish Degrees, and of Irish working. That Dalcho was a "friend" of John Fowler, the Commander and an Inspector-General of the Metropolitan College of Heredom from 1801 to 1817 appears in the Minutes of our own Supreme Council of the correspondence between them, which began before 1802 and continued until it w as ended by the Bar of 1812. This correspondence ultimately but not until 1824, led to the acceptance of the Warrant which constituted our Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree under the Duke of Leinster as the first Sovereign Grand Commander for Ireland.

I close by mentioning an earlier but most interesting incident, of which you can see the significance for yourselves. Soon after the promulgation of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, John Fowler, on behalf of the Original Chapter of Prince Masons and of the Metropolitan College of Heredom for Ireland, of which he was the Commander, asked his friend Daleho for permission to print in Dublin the documents relating to the New Rite. The request was regarded as an honor, and was at once granted.

Here is a copy of the Book! (See Doctor Dalcho's Masonic Orations, Dublin, printed by John King, Westmoreland Street, 1808.) It is headed by a copper-plate w engraving of the Arms of the Metropolitan College of Eleredom of Ireland. In these Arms the initiated can trace insignia of every Degree worked in Ireland, from the Rose Croix to the Inspector-General s Degree. These include the Standards of the Thirty-second Degree and the Eagle of the Thirty-third Degree the Austrian and Russian Imperial Eagle introduced into Masonry by the Emperors of the East and West, which recent archaeology has identified with the Totem of the Accadian City of Lagash dating back two thousand years before the Christian Era, and brought into Europe by the first Crusaders. The Dublin edition of Dalcho's book was printed seventeen years before the Thirty-third Degree was known or authorised to be conferred by that number in Ireland. Ireland in 1824, England in 1845, and Scotland in 1846, for the first time accepted patents or constitutions tor Supreme Councils of the Thirty-third Degree.

In 1811 a copy of this book was presented by the Metros politician College to the Duke of Kent as the Illustnous Commander of the Governing Body of the Sublime Degrees in England and it was acknowledged by a gracious letter from Kensillgton Palace, expressing the gratification with which that introduction to the Ancient and Accepted Rite had been received.

I trust that the dates and incidents which I have mentioned will incline you to be faithful to the traditions of Irish Masonry, and will increase your respect and affection for the simple but solemn ceremonials to which we have been here so long accustomed. I have tried to show that the impressive Formulanes of the old Rite of Perfection still survive among us under the rule of the more modern Council to which you now bear allegiance; and also to give you grounds for believing that for more than two hundred years Ireland has held a forward place in the ranks and progress of Freemasonry.

PRINCE OF JERUSALEM

In French, Prince de Jerusalem. This was the Sixteenth Degree of the Rite of Perfection, whence it was transferred to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, where it occupies the same numerical position. Its legend is founded on certain incidents which took place during the rebuilding of the second Temple, when the Jems were so much incommoded by the attacks of the Samaritans and other neighboring nations, that an Embassy was sent to King Darius to implore his favor and protection, which was accordingly obtained.

This legend, as developed in the Degree, is contained neither in Ezra nor in the apocryphal books of Esdras. It is found only in the Antiquities of Josephus (Book 5I, chapter iv, section 9), and thence there is the strongest internal evidence to show that it was derived by the inventor of the Degree. Who that inventor was we can only conjecture. But as we have the statements of both Ragon and Kloss that the Baron de Tschoudy composed the Degree of Knight of the East, and as that Degree is the first section of the system of which the Prince of Jerusalem is the second, we may reasonably suppose that the latter was also composed by him.

The Degree being one of those adopted by the Emperors of the East and West in their system, which Stephen Morin was authorized to propagate in America, it was introduced into America long before the establishment of the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A Council was established by Henry A. Francken, about 1767, at Albany, in the State of New York, and a Grand Council organized by Myers, in 1788, in Charleston, South Carolina. This body exercised sovereign powers even after the establishment of the Supreme Council May 31, 1801, for, in 1802, it granted a Warrant for the establishment of a Mark Lodge in Charleston, and another in the same year, for a Lodge of Perfection, in Savannah, Georgia

But under the present regulations of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, this prerogative has been abolished, and Grand Councils of Princes of Jerusalem no longer exist. The old regulation, that the Master of a Lodge of Perfection must be at least a Prince of Jerusalem, which was contained in the Constitution of the Grand Council, has also been repealed, together with most of the privileges which formerly appertained to the Degree. A decision of the Supreme Council, in 1870, even obliterated Councils of the Princes of Jerusalem as a separate organization, authorized to confer the preliminary Degree of Knights of the East, and placed such Councils within the bosom of Rose Croix Chapters, a provision which, as a manifest innovation on the ancient system, the expediency, or at least the propriety, may be greatly doubted.

Bodies of this Degree are called Councils. According to the old rituals, the officers were a Most Equitable, a Senior and Junior Most Enlightened, a Grand Treasurer, and Grand Secretary. The more recent instructions of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States has substituted for these a Most Illustrious Tarshatha, a Most Venerable High Priest, a Most Excellent Scribe, two Most Enlightened Wardens, and other officers. Yellow is the symbolic color of the Degree, and the apron is crimson, formerly white, lined and bordered with yellow. The jewel is a medal of gold, on one side of which is inscribed a hand holding an equally poised balance, and on the other a double-edged, cross-hilted sword erect, between three stars around the point, and the letters D and Z on each side.

The Prince of Jerusalem is also the Fifty-third Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France, and the Forty-fifth of the Rite of Mizraim.

PRINCE OF JERUSALEM, JEWEL OF

Should be a gold incrustation on a lozenge-shaped piece of mother-of-pearl. Equipoise scales held by hand, sword, five stars, one larger than the other four, and the letters D and Z in Hebrew, one on either side of the scales. The five-pointed crown, within a triangle of gold, has also been a jewel of this Sixteenth Degree.

PRINCE OF LEBANON

See Knight of the Royal Ax

PRINCE OF LIBANUS

Another title for the Prince of Lebanon

PRINCE OF MERCY

The title in French is Prince de Merci. The Twenty-sixth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, called also Scottish Trinitarian or Ecossais Trinitaire. It is one of the eight Degrees which were added on the organization of the Scottish Rite to the original twenty-five of the Rite of Perfection.

It is a Christian Degree in its construction, and treats of the triple covenant of mercy which God made with man; first with Abraham by circumcision; next, with the Israelites in the wilderness, by the intermediation of Moses; and lastly, with all mankind, by the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ. It is in allusion to these three acts of mercy, that the Degree derives its two names of Scottish Trinitarian and Prince of Mercy, and not, as Ragon supposes, from any reference to the Fathers of Mercy, a religious society formerly engaged in the ransoming of Christian captives at Algiers. Chemin Dupontes (Memoire Sur l'Ecossisime, page 373) says that the Scottish Rituals of the Degree are too full of the Hermetic philosophy, an error from which the French Cahiers are exempt; and he condemns much of its doctrines as "hyperbolique plaisanteric. " But the modern rituals as now practiced are obnoxious to no such objection. The symbolic development of the number three of course constitutes a large part of its lecture; but the real dogma of the Degree is the importance of Truth, and to this all its ceremonies are directed.

Bodies of the Degree are called Chapters. The presiding officer is called Most Excellent Chief Prince, the Wardens are styled Excellent. In the old rituals these officers represented Moses, Aaron, and Eleazar; but the abandonment of these personations in the modern rituals was in the opinion of Doctor Mackey an improvement. The apron is red bordered with white, and the jewel is an equilateral triangle, within which is a heart. This was formerly inscribed with the Hebrew letter tau, now with the letters I.H.S.; and, to add to the Christianization which these letters give to the Degree, the American Councils have adopted a tessera in the form of a small fish of ivory or mother-of-pearl, in allusion to the well-known usage practices of the primitive Christians (see Tessera Hospitalis, and Mark).

PRINCE OF ROSE CROIX

See Rose Croiz, Prince of

PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY

According to the Talmudists, the Jews, while in captivity at Babylon, kept a genealogical table of the line of their kings, and he who was the rightful heir of the throne of Israel was called the Head or Prince of the Captivity. At the time of the restoration, Zerubbabel, being the lineal descendant of Solomon, was the Prince of the Captivity.

PRINCE OF THE EAST, GRAND.

In French, Grand Prince d'Orient. A Degree in the collection of Le Page.

PRINCE OF THE LEVITES

The French title is Prince des Lévites. A degree in the collection of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Reunis at Calais.

PRINCE OF THE ROYAL SECRET

See Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

PRINCE OF THE SEVEN PLANETS, ILLUSTRIOUS GRAND

In French, Illustre Grand Prince des sept Ptanetes. A Degree in the manuscript collection of Peuvret.

PRINCE OF THE TABERNACLE

The French title is Prince du Tabernacle. The Twenty-fourth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In the old rituals the Degree was intended to illustrate the directions given for the building of the tabernacle, the particulars of which are recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus. The Lodge is called a Hierarchy, and its officers are a Most Powerful Chief Prince, representing Moses, and three Wardens, whose style is Powerful, and who respectively represent Aaron, Bezaleel, and Aholiab. In the modern instructions of the United States, the three principal officers are called the Leader, the High Priest, and the Priest, and respectively represent Moses, Aaron, and Ithamar, his son. The ritual is greatly enlarged; and while the main idea of the Degree is retained, the ceremonies represent the initiation into the mysteries of the Mosaic tabernacle. The jewel is the letter A, in gold, suspended from a broad crimson ribbon. The apron is white, lined with scarlet and bordered with green. The hap is sky blue. On the apron is depicted a representation of the Tabernacle. This Degree appears to be peculiar to the Scottish Rite and its modifications. Doctor Mackey had not met with it in any of the other Rites.

PRINCE OF WALES

See Wales, Princes of

PRINCE OF WALES GRAND LODGE

About the time of the reconciliation of the two contending Grand Lodges in England, in 1813, they were called, by way of distinction, after their Grand Masters. That of the Moderns was called the Prince of Wales Grated Lodge, and that of the Ancient the Duke of Kent's Grand Lodge. The titles were used colloquially, and not officially.

PRINCE OF WALES LODGE

A Red Apron Lodge, No. 259, constituted August 20, 1787, by Warrant from the Duke of Cumberland, Most Worshipful Grand Master, under the patronage and personal protection of the Prince of Wales who subsequently became George IV of England. George, Prince of Wales, was Worshipful Master 1787-1820, having at one time had as Wardens the Dukes of York and Clarence. The Duke of York was Worshipful Master 1820-7 and the latter having been Worshipful Master 1827-30. The Duke of Sussex, Most Worshipful Grand Master, was Worshipful Master 1830-43. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, was Worshipful Master in 1874. The membership consisted entirely of those who had been honored with appointments under its patron or men firmly attached to His Royal Highness's person and interests. This Lodge has the privilege of electing Grand Steward annually and also its members may wear "a royal medal, having the Prince of Wales' plume and motto within a garter, surmounted by the coronet," etc., for the purpose of being "worn by the members out as well as in the Lodge, as a public token of their sincere and devoted attachment to H. R. H.'s person and interests." At the time of King William IV's accession to the English throne in 1830 he was actual Master of the Prince of Wales Lodge and due to this distinction the other members of the Lodge were given the honor of having their aprons decorated with a narrow internal border of garter-blue (see the history of the Lodge as written by Brother Thomas Fenn)

PRINCESS OF THE CROWN

The French title is Princesse de la Couronne. The Tenth and last Degree of the Freemasonry of Adoption according to the French regime. The Degree, which is said to have been composed in Saxony, in 1770, represents the reception of the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon. The Grand Master and Grand Mistress personate Solomon and his wife, which one, the Cahier does not say, and the recipiendary or candidate plays the part of the Queen of Sheba. The Degree, says Ragon (Tuileur General, page 78) is not initiatory, but simply honorary.

PRINCIPAL OFFICERS

The number three, as a sacred number in the Masonic system, is, among many other ways, developed in the fact that in all Masonic bodies there are three principal officers.

PRINCIPAL POINTS

See Points of Entrance, Perfect

PRINCIPALS

The three presiding officers in a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, according to the system practised in England, are called the Three Principals, or King, Prophet, and Priest, and, under the titles of Z. X, and J. represent Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Joshua. No person is eligible to the First Principal's chair unless he has served twelve months in each of the others; and he must also be the Master or Past Master of a Lodge, and have served in the Chapter the office of Scribe, Sojourner, or Assistant Sojourner. At his installation, each of the Principals receives an installing Degree like that of the Master of a Blue Lodge. There is, however, no resemblance between any of these Degrees and the Order of High Priesthood which is conferred in Royal Arch ceremonies in the United States. The presiding officers of the Grand Chapter are called Grand Principals, and represent the same personages. The official jewel of Z. is a Crown; of H. an All-seeing Eye; and of J. a Book, each surrounded by a nimbus, or rays of glory, and placed within an equilateral triangle.

PRINCIPAL SOJOURNER

The Hebrew word an, ger, which we translate a sojourner, signifies a man living out of his own country, and is used in this sense throughout the Old Testament. The children of Israel were, therefore, during the captaincy, sojourners in Babylon, and the person who is represented by this officer, performed, as the incidents of the Degree relate, an important part in the restoration of the Israelites to Jerusalem. He was the spokesman and leader of a party of three sojourners, and is, therefore emphatically called the chief, or Principal Sojourner. In the English Royal Arch system there are three officers called Sojourners. But in the American system the three Historical Sojourners are represented by the candidates, while only the supposed chief of them is represented by an officer called the Principal Sojourner. His duties are those of a Conductor, and resembles in some respects, those of a Senior Deacon in a Symbolic Lodge; which office, indeed, he occupies when the Chapter is open on any of the preliminary Degrees.

PRINTED PROCEEDINGS

In 1741, the Grand Lodge of England adopted a regulation which Entiek (Constitutions, 1756, page 236) is careful to tell us, "was unanimously agreed to," forbidding any Brother "to print, or cause to be printed, the proceedings of any Lodge or any part thereof, or the names of the persons present at such Lodge, but by the direction of the Grand Master or his deputy, under pain of being disowned for a Brother, and not to be admitted into any Quarterly Communication or Grand Lodge, or any Lodge whatsoever, and of being rendered incapable of bearing any office in the Craft." The law has never been repealed, but the Grand Lodge of England issues reports of its meetings, as also do most of the Grand Lodges of the world. Bulletins are published at stated intervals by the Grand Orients of France, Italy, and Portugal, and by nearly all those of South America. In the Unite l States, every Grand Lodge publishes annually the journal of its proceedings, and many subordinate Lodges print the account of any special meeting held on an important or interesting occasion.

PRINTER GILDS

After years of argument and discussion historians of the great art of printing tend to agree that the honor of inventing the printing press goes to the Dutchman Laurens Coster, who was born about 1370 A.D. and died in 1440 A.D. Johann Gutenberg (1397-1468) will continue to be the most famous of the earliest printers because of his edition of the Bible, a single copy of which has sold for almost one million dollars.

But it was Aldus Manutius (1495 1597) and his family in Venice who established the first great publishing house, and who made printing a world force for kings and popes to reckon with. Without printing there would have been no Renaissance, and without a Renaissance there would have been neither Humanism now the Reformation. Immediately this new power appeared, the Vatican moved in to chain it up, lest the common people in Europe should learn a number of inconvenient facts. How the printers themselves circumvented the Vatican, and a number of kings beside, is explained in Vol. II of Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages, by George Haven Putnam, a companion piece to the same author's work on the Roman censorship of books (that censorship continues to be enforced wherever the Vatican has the power to enforce it, even in America); G. P. Putnam's Sons; New York; 1897.

To a Mason who remembers what the gild system meant to Masonry, the most interesting chapter in Putnam's history is the one on the printer gilds; it shows how the printers and publishers themselves, and oftentimes against the State as well as against the Church, defended and maintained and expanded their epoch-making art, until it was at last beyond and above control by any Church or State in the world.

(NOTE. It was not printing that Coster invented but the use of movable type; printing of books from engraved wood blocks, each block being as large as a page, had been done centuries before. In 1908 Sir Aurel Stein discovered in Buddhist eaves in the Gobi Desert near Funhwang a number of very old printed books. "One large black printed roll which bore a date corresponding to A.D. 868 was the oldest specimen of a printed book so far known...." Altogether Sir Aurel discovered in one series of eaves preserved by the drynessl over 9,000 printed books and ms. rolls. See page 47 in The Gobi Desert, by Mildred Cable with Francesca French; the Macmillan Company; New York; 1944).

PRIOR

This word has in its uses several applications.

1. The Superiors of the different nations or Provinces into which the Order of the Templar was divided, were at first called Priors or Grand Priors, and afterwards Preceptors or Grand Preceptors.
2. Each of the languages of the Order of Malta was divided into Grand Priories, of which there were twenty-six, and over each of them a Grand Prior presided. Under him were several Commanderies.
3. The second officer in a Council of Kadosh, under the Supreme Council of the ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.
4. The Grand Prior is the third officer in the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.

PRIOR, GRANDSee Grand Prior

PRIORY

The jurisdiction of a Grand Prior in the Order of Malta or Saint John of Jerusalem.

PRIORY, GREAT

See Great Priory

PRISEURS, ORDER OF THE

See Nicotiates, Order of

PRISON

A Lodge having been held in 1782, in the King's Bench Prison, London, the Grand Lodge of England passed a resolution declaring that "it is inconsistent with the principles of Masonry for any Freemason's Lodge to be held for the purposes of making, passing, or raising Masons in any prison or place of confinement" (Constitutions, 1784, page 349).

The resolution is founded on the principle that there must be perfect freedom of action in everything that relates to the admission of candidates, and such freedom is not consistent with the necessary restraints of a prison.

PRIVATE COMMITTEE

See Committee, Private

PRIVILEGED QUESTIONS

In parliamentary law, privileged questions are defined to be those to which precedence is given over all other questions. They are of four kinds:

1. Those which relate to the rights and privileges of the assembly or any of its members.
2. Motions for adjournment.
3. Motions for reconsideration.
4. Special orders of the day.The first, third, and fourth only of these are applicable to Masonic parliamentary law.

PRIVILEGE, QUESTIONS OF

In all parliamentary or legislative bodies, there occur certain questions which relate to matters affecting the dignity of the assembly or the rights and privileges of some of its members, and these are hence called Questions of Privilege; such, for instance, are motions arising out of or having relation to a quarrel between two of the members, an assault upon any member, charges affecting the integrity of the assembly or any of its members, or any other matters of a similar character. Questions referring to any of these matters take precedence of all other business, and hence are always in order. These questions of privilege are not to be confounded with privileged questions; for, although all questions of privilege are privileged questions, all privileged questions are not questions of privilege. Strictly speaking, questions of privilege relate to the house or its members, and privileged questions relate to matters of business (see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).

PROBATION

The interval between the reception of one Degree and the succeeding one is called the probation of the candidate, because it is during this period that he is to prove his qualification for advancement. In England and in the United States the time of probation between the reception of Degrees is four weeks, to which is generally added the further safeguard of an open examination in the preceding Degree. In France and Germany the probation is extended to one year. The time is greatly extended in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The Statutes of the Southern Supreme Council require an interval of two years to be passed between the reception of the Fourteenth and the Thirty-second Degrees. An extraordinary rule prevailed in the Constitutions of 1762, by which the Rite of Perception was governed. According to this rule, a candidate was required to pass a probation, from the time of his application as an Entered Apprentice until his reception of the Twenty-fifth or ultimate Degree of the Rite, of no less than six years and nine months. But as all the separate times of probation depended on symbolic numbers, it is not to be presumed that this regulation was ever practically enforced.

PROBLEM, FORTY-SEVENTH

See Forty Seventh Problem

PROCESSIONS

Public processions of the Order, although not as popular as they were some years ago, still have the warrant of early and long usage. The first procession, after the revival, of which we have a record, took place June 24, 1721, when, as Anderson tells us (Constitutions, 1738, page 112), "Payne, Grand Master, with his Wardens, the former Grand officers, and the Masters and Wardens of twelve Lodges, met the Grand Master elect in a Grand Lodge at the King's Arms Tavern, Saint Paul's Churchyard, in the morning, . . . and from thence they marched on foot to the Hall in proper clothing and due form" (see Clothing and Regalia). Anderson and Entick continue to record the annual processions of the Grand Lodge and the Craft on the Feast Day, with a few exceptions, for the next twenty five years; but after this first pedestrian procession all the subsequent ones were made in carriages, the record being, "the procession of March was made in coaches and chariots" (Constitutions, 1756, page 227).

But ridicule being thrown by the enemies of the Order upon these processions, by a mock one in 1741 (see Scald Miserables), and in subsequent years, in 1747 the Grand Lodge unanimously resolved to discontinue them, nor have they since been renewed (Constitutions, 1756, page 248). on the subject of these mock processions, see an article by Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley (Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xviu).

Public processions of the Craft were some years ago very common in America, nor have they vet been altogether abandoned; although now practiced with greater discretion and less frequently, being in general restricted to special occasions of importance, such as funerals, the laying of corner-stones, etc.

The question has been often mooted, whether public processions, with the open exhibition of its regalia and furniture, are or are not of advantage to the Order. In 1747 it was thought not to be so, at least in London, but the custom was continued, to a great extent, in the provinces. Doctor Oliver (Symbol of Glory) was in favor of what he calls "the good old custom, so strongly recommended and assiduously practiced by the Masonic worthies of the eighteenth century, and imitated by many other public bodies of men, of assembling the Brethren of a Provence annually under their own banner, and marching in solemn procession to the house of God, to offer up their thanksgiving in the public congregation for the blessings of the preceding year; to pray for mercies in prospect, and to hear from the pulpit a disquisition on the moral and religious purposes of the Order."

Processions are not peculiar to the Masonic Fraternity. The custom comes to us from remote antiquity. In the initiations at Eleusis, the celebration of the Mysteries was accompanied each day by a solemn procession of the initiates from Athens to the temple of initiation. Apuleius describes the same custom as prevailing in the celebration of the Mysteries of Isis.

Among the early Romans, it was the custom, in times of public triumph or distress, to have solemn processions to the temples, either to thank the gods for their favor or to invoke their protection. The Jews also went in procession to the Temple to offer up their prayers. So, too, the primitive Christians walked in procession to the tombs of the martyrs Ecclesiastical processions were first introduced in the fourth century.

They are now used in the Roman Church on various occasions, and the Pontificate Romanum supplies the necessary ritual for their observance. In the Middle Ages these processions were often carried to an absurd extent Polydore describes them as consisting of ridiculous contrivances, of a figure with a great gaping mouth, and other pieces of merriment." But these displays were abandoned with the increasing refinement of the age. At this day, processions are common in all countries, not only of religious confraternities, but of political and social societies. There are processions also in Freemasonry which are confined to the internal concerns of the Order, and are not therefore of a public nature. The procession "around the Hall," at the installation of the Grand Masters is first mentioned in 1791. Previous to that year there is no allusion to any such ceremony. From 1W17-20 we are simply told that the new Grand Master "was saluted," and that he was "homaged" or that "his health was drunk in due form." But in 1721 a processional ceremony seems to have been composed, for in that year we are informed (Constitutions, 1735, page 113), that "Brother Payne. the old Grand Master, made the first procession round the Hall, and when returned, he proclaimed aloud the most noble Prince and our Brother." This procession was not abolished with the public processions in 1747, but continued for many years afterward.

In the United States it gave rise to the procession at the installation of Masters, which, although pronded for by the ritual, and practiced by Lodges, has been too often neglected by many. The form of the I procession, as adopted in 1724, is given by Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, page 117), and is almost precisely the same as that used in all Masonic processions at the present day, except funeral ones. The rule was then adopted, which has ever since prevailed, that in all processions the juniors in Degree and in office shall go first, so that the place of honor shall be the rear.

An early Masonic procession is reported in Read's Weekly Journal or British Gazeteer, No. 606, April 13, 1736, as quoted in the Freemasons Magazine and Masonic Mirror, September 19, 1863 (page 223) as follows:

Friday, about 2 o'clock, the Grand Cavalcade of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, set forward from the Earl of London's house in Privy-garden to Fishmonger's hall in Thames street.

The procession was as follows: A pair of kettledrums, 2 trumpets, 2 French horns, 4 haut-boys, 2 bassoons, the 12 present stewards in 12 chariots, the Master and warden of the Stewards Lodge in one coach, the Brethren in their respective coaches, the noblemen and gentlemen who have served in the Grand Offices. the two Grand Wardens in one coach the Deputy Grand Master alone the Secretary and Sword Bearer in one coach, the Rt. Hon., the Lord Viscount Weymouth, the present Grand Master. and the Rt. Hon. Earl of London, the Grand Master elect, together in the Lord Weymouth's coach, the Earl of London's coach and six horses, empty, closed the procession. The cavalcade proceeded through the Strand Fleet street, Cheapside, Cornhill and Gracechurch-street to Fishmonger s Hall, where a very elegant entertainment was provided by the Stewards. In the evening there was a grand ball for the ladies, and the whole was concluded with the usual magnificence and grandeur

PROCESSIONS, PAGEANTS, ASSEMBLIES

With the subject of processions, discussed on page 808, may be connected pageants and assemblies, because at some three or four periods in the history of Freemasonry the three had the same importance for both the public and Craftsmen. In the earliest period of the Operative Craft assemblies were in general forbidden by the King, whether public or private—if public they were generally called assemblies or congregations, if private they were often called covines; it was feared lest large numbers of peoples met together might plan united action against their temporal or their religious rulers.

An assembly could, however, be held on written permission, or patent, from some lord, prince, or king; and the author of the original version of the Old Charges made much of the fact that when it had held its General Assembly in York to receive a charter, the Fraternity held it by royal permission, which proved that it had not been an unlawful congregation or covine. Even after they had formed a new and permanent General Assembly, or Grand Lodge, in 1717, the Lodges did not feel easy in their minds until they had secured patronage from a member of the nobility, the Duke of Montague, and, as the events proved, they were wise, because when in 1799 the Parliament forbade secret societies ("covines") the Noble Patrons of the two Grand Lodges went in person and obtained exemption for the Fraternity by name.

In the heyday of the gild system pageants were a prominent, established, constituted municipal event, provided for in the law, supervised by the Mayor and Aldermen, and belonging to the customs or rules of the gilds themselves.

These pageants consisted of floats, each mounted on a wagon, each boat having some general significance, or else was one act in a connected series of acts. They were so elaborately and richly costumed, the "machinery" used was so ingenious, and the arrangements to be made were so extensive, that a pageant like the famous Corpus Christi at Chester might cost many thousands of dollars; and records of the gild and City Companies, each of which participated, show that there was often much complaint about costs. The custom was for each gild to contribute one float, or "waggon." It does not appear that Freemasons were very often in these pageants; where they had local gilds or companies they usually were small; where many Masons worked on a cathedral they had not a gild but a Lodge.

The Church and the State between them exercised a rigid control of these pageants, censored the words spoken, and the actions, costumes, and machinery.

This fact explains the early fear Masons had of Masonic pageants; it explains also why Freemasons enacted their own ceremonies in secret; they knew, oftentimes, that the Church would condemn them for heresy, or at least would frown upon them as novelties or innovations; in a time when the people had no books, and priests preached few sermons, pageants became a book, and the Church made sure to see that it was an orthodox book.

The ceremonies used by the Freemasons then would, if we could now see them, be innocuous and innocent in our eyes, and with no theological significance; but our own familiar and innocuous ceremonies, were we by miracle to enact them in the year 1200 A.D., would condemn us to burning at the stake; the Tiler at the door of the Medieval Lodge and the guard against eavesdroppers were of more than ceremonial importance; certainly no Freemason would wish to see his own emblems and ceremonies exhibited in a pageant.

By the Eighteenth Century the pageant had become a procession, but even as processions they had their dangers, as Dr. Desaguliers and his Brethren discovered in the early years of Grand Lodge. Streets were narrow; a procession stopped traffic and interfered with stores and shops (the typical Medieval village or town had no stores); street arabs were inspired to rowdyism; the more solemn the procession the more likely it was to be parodied by a mock procession—an acted-out cartoon. Moreover, processions often were used for political propaganda, or as public protests, or as threats to gentlemen in power, or as invitations to popular revolt, or as a challenge to some rival party, etc. The Grand Lodge forbade Masonic processions, even the old custom of the ceremonial conducting of a new Grand Master from his home to be installed in the Grand Lodge room. When Preston and his fellow officers from the Lodge of Antiquity met at church, they walked together only a few feet, and wore no regalia except white gloves, yet they were expelled by the Grand Lodge.

What a procession might mean in the terms of pubs lie order, and at times of political crisis, is best seen in the history of the troubles in Ireland which led to the foundation or the Orange Society; and in the history of Cambridge and of Oxford Universities when in the battles between Town and Gown what began as a procession would up as a riot. At the present time what we Americans call "Masonic processions" are not processions as Eighteenth Century Masons would have understood the word because they do not enact anything or signify anything; they are nothing but a walking together," not for the purpose of putting Masonic emblems or regalia on public view but in order that when the members of a Lodge attend a church or a funeral or go to lay a corner-stone they go together.

The difficulties Grand Lodges and Grand Masters have of deciding whether to permit them or not may be owing to their confusing a present day "marching together" with the very different processions of the days when the first rules were made.

(See Historical Reminiscence of the City of London and its Livery Companies, by Thomas Arundell; Bentley; London; 1869; it is very rich in materials OF gild processions, pageants, etc.; see Chapters XXIV and XX~Y, and consult Index.)

PROCLAMATION

At the installation of the officers of a Lodge, or any other Masonic Body, and especially a Grand Lodge or Grand Chapter, proclamation is made in a Lodge or Chapter by the installing officer, and in a Grand Lodge or Grand Chapter by the Grand Marshal. Proclamation is also made on some other occasions, and on such occasions the Grand Marshal performs the duty.

PROCLAMATION OF CYRUS

A ceremony in the American Royal Arch. We learn from Scripture , that in the first year of Cyrus, the Eing of Persia, the captivity of the Jews was terminated. Cyrus, from his conversations with Daniel and the other Jewish captives of learning and piety, as well as from his perusal of their sacred books, more especially the prophecies of Isaiah, had become imbued with a knowledge of true religion, and hence had even publicly announced to his subjects his belief in the God "which the nation of the Israelites worshiped." He was consequently impressed with an earnest desire to fulfil the prophetic declarations of which he was the subject, and to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. Accordingly, he issued a proclamation, which we find in Ezra (I, 2 and 3) as follows:

Thus saith Cyrus, Ring of Persia, The Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, he is the God, which is in Jerusalem.

With the publication of this proclamation of Cyrus commences what may be called the second part of the Royal Arch Degree.

PROCLUS

Known as the successor of Syrianus as the head of the Athenian school. Born in Constantinople, 412, died at Athens, 485. Proclus was a Neo-Platonist, and waged war against the new religion of Christianity, which caused him to be banished from the city; but was subsequently readmitted. His works were chiefly mystical, such as devoting hymns to the sun, Venus, or the poetic muses, and so far were harmless.

PROFANE

There is no word whose technical and proper meaning differs more than this. In its ordinary use profane signifies one who is irreligious and irreverent, but in its technical adaptation it is applied to one who is ignorant of sacred rites. The word is compounded of the two Latin words pro and canum, and literally means before or outside of the temple; and hence, a profanes among the ancients was one who was not allowed to enter the temple and behold the mysteries. "Those," says Vossius, "were called profane who were not initiated in the sacred rites, but to whom it was allowed only to stand before the temple—profane—not to enter it and take part in the solemnities." The Greek equivalent, had a similar reference; for its root is found in a threshold, as if it denoted one who was not permitted to pass the threshold of the temple. In the celebrated hymn of Orpheus, which it is said was sung at the Mysteries of Eleusis, we meet with this phrase, meaning I speak to those to whom it is lawful, but close the doors against the profane. When the mysteries were about to begin, the Greeks used the solemn formula, and the Romans, Procul, O procul este, profani, both meaning, Far hence, O far hence, be ye, ye outsiders! (see Vergil, Aeneid, book vi, line 258).

Hence the original and inoffensive signification of profane is that of being uninitiated; and it is in this sense that it is used in Freemasonry, simply to designate one who has not been~initiated as a Freemason. The word profane is not recognized as a noun substantive in the general usage of the language, but it has been adopted as a technical term in the dialect of Freemasonry, in the same relative sense in which the word layman is used in the professions of law and divinity.

Accepted as the word is for general use among Freemasons, its ancient meaning "outside the Temple, an outsider," may be misunderstood. A peculiar instance of this sort came up for consideration in 1926 at the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands. One of the Lodges objected to the use of the word profane, in either English or Spanish, when reference is made to persons not Freemasons, because it "has no proper place in modern Masonry." Accordingly the Grand Lodge adopted this resolution:

That the use of the word profane when reference is made to persons not Masons be avoided wherever possible ban the use of some other word or expression in its stead, such as uninitaited and non-Mason.

PROFICIENCY

The necessity that anyone who devotes himself to the acquisition of a science should become a proficient in its elementary instructions before he can expect to grasp and comprehend its higher branches, is so almost self-evident as to need no argument. But as Speculative Freemasonry is a science, it is equally necessary that a requisite qualification for admission to a higher Degree should be a suitable proficiency in the preceding one. It is true, that we do not find in express words in the Old Constitutions any regulations requiring proficiency as prey liminary to advancement, but their whole spirit is evidently to that effect; and hence we find it prescribed in the Old Constitutions, that no Master shall take an apprentice for less than seven years, because it was expected that he should acquire a competent knowledge of the mystery before he could be admitted as a Fellow.

The modern Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England provides that no Lodge shall confer a higher Degree on any Brother until he has passed an examination in open Lodge on the preceding Degrees (Rule 195) and many, perhaps most, of the Grand Lodges of the United States have adopted a similar regulation. The instructions of all the Symbolic Degrees, and, indeed, of the higher Degrees, and that too, in all rites, makes the imperative demand of every candidate whether he has made suitable proficiency in the preceding Degree, an affirmative answer to which is required before the rites of initiation can be continued. This answer is, according to the instructions, that "he has." But some Freemasons have sought to evade the consequence of an acknowledgment of ignorance and want of proficiency by a change of the language of the instructions into "such as time and circumstances would permit." But this is an innovation, unsanctioned by any authority, and should be repudiated. If the candidate has not made proper proficiency, the ritual, outside of all statutory regulations, refuses him advancement.

Anderson, in the second edition of his Constitutions (page 71), cites what he calls "an old record," which says that in the reign of Edward III of England it was ordained "that Master Masons, or Masters of work, shall be examined whether they be able of cunning to serve their respective Lords, as well the Highest as the Lowest, to the Honour and Worship of the aforesaid Art, and to the Profit of their Lords." Here, then, we may see the origin of that usage, w hich is still practised in every well-governed Lodge, not only of demanding a proper degree of proficiency in the candidate, but also of testing that proficiency by an examination. This cautious and honest fear of the Fraternity lest any Brother should assume the duties of a posi. tion which he could not faithfully discharge, and which is, in our time, tantamount to a eandidate~s advancing to a Degree for which he is not prepared, in again exhibited in all the Old Constitutions. Thus in the Lansdowrzc Manuscript, whose date is referred to the middle of the sixteenth century it is charged "that no Mason take on him no Lord's world nor other man's, but if he know himself well able to perform the work, so that the Craft have no slander." The same regulation, and almost in the same language, is to be found in all the subsequent manuscripts.

In the Charges of 1729, it is directed that "a younger Brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent spoiling the materials for want of judgment, and for enereasing and continuing of brotherly love" (Contstitutions, 1723, page 53).

It was, with the same view, that all of the Old Constitutions made it imperative that no Master should take an apprentice for less than seven years, beeause it was expected that he should acquire a eompetent knowledge of the mystery of the Craft before he could be admitted as a Fellow. Notwithstanding these charges had a more particular reference to the operative part of the art, they clearly shou the great stress that was placed b) our ancient Brethren upon the necessity of skill and proficiency; and they have furnished the precedents upon which are based all similar regulations subsequently applied to Speculative Freemasonry.

PRO GRAND MASTER

The Latin word pro to be translated for, or instep of, or on behalf of the Grand Master. An officer known only to the English system, and the title adopted for the first time in 1782, when, on the election of the Duke of Cambridge to the office of Grand Master, a regulation was adopted by the Grand Lodge of England, that whenever a Prince of the Blood accepted the office of Grand Master, he should be at liberty to nominate any peer of the realm to be the Acting Grand Master, and to this officer is now given the title of Pro Grantl Master. His collar, jewel, and authority are the same as those of a Grand Master, and in the case of a vacancy he actually assumes the office until the next annual election. The following Brethren have been Pro Grand Masters:

1782-1789 Earl of Effingham.

1790-l813 Earl of Moira
1834-1838 Lord Dundas.
l839-1840 Earl of Durham.
1841-1843 Earl of Zetlarld.
1874-1890 Earl of Carnarvon.
l891-l898 Earl of Lathom.
1898-1908 Earl Amherst.
1908 Lord Ampthill.

PROGRESSIVE FREEMASONRY

Our Freemasonry is undoubtedly a progressive science, and yet the fundamental principles of Freemasonry are the same now as they were at the very beginning of the Institution. Its landmarks are unchangeableIn these there can be no alteration, no diminution no addition. When, therefore, we say that Freemasonry is progressive in its character, vie of course do not mean to allude to this unalterable part of its nstitution- But there is 3 progress which every science must undergo, and which many of them have already undergone, to which the science of Freemasonry is subject.

Thus we say of chemistry that it is a progressive science.

Two hundred sears ago, all its principles, so far as they were known, were directed to such futile inquiries as the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality Now these principles have become more thoroughly understood, and more definitely established and the object of their application is more noble at philosophic. The writings of the chemists of the former and the present period suffieiently indicate this progress of the science. Yet the elementary principles of chemistry are unchangeable Its truths were the same then as they are now. Some of them were at that time unknown, because no mind of sufficient research had discovered them; but they existed as truths, from the verv creation of matter; and now they have only been developed, not invented.

So it is with Freemasonry. It too has had its progress. Freemasons are now expected to be more learned than formerly in all that relates to the science of the Order. Its origin, its history, its objects, are now considered worthy of the attentive consideration of its disciples. The rational explanation of its ceremonies and symbols, and their connection with ancient systems of religion and philosophy, are now considered as necessary topics of inquiry for all who desire to distinguish themselves as proficients in Masonic science.

In all these things we see a great difference between the Freemasons of the present and of former ciays. In Europe, a century ago, such inquiries were eonsidered as legitimate subjects of Masonic study. Hutchinson published in 1760, in England, his admirable worlk entitled the Spirit of freemasonry, in which the deep philosophy of the Institution was fairly developed with much learning and ingenuity. Preston's Illustrations of Masonry, printed at a not Much later period, also exhibits the system treated, c in many places, in a philosophical manner. Lawrie's History of Freemasonry, published in Scotland in 1804, is a work containing much profound historical and antiquarian research.

And in the last century, the works of Doctor Oliver alone would be sufficient to demonstrate to the most cursory observer that Freemasonrv has a claim to be ranked among the learned institutions of the day. In Germany and France, the press has been borne down with the weight of abstruse vorks on our Order, written by men of the highest literary pretensions. In the United States, notwithstanding the really excellent work of Salem Town on Speculatieve Masonry, published in 1818, and the learned Discourses of Dr. T. M. Harris, published in 1801, it is only within much more recent years that Freemasonry has begun to assume the exalted position of a literary institution.

PROMISE

In entering into the Covenant of Freemasonry, the candidate makes a promise to the Order; for his covenant is simply a promise where he voluntarily places himself under a moral obligation to act within certain conditions in a particular way.

The law of promise is, therefore, strictly applicabie to this covenant, and by that law the validity and obligation of the promises of every candidate must be determined. In every promise there are these two things to be considered: the intention and the obligation.

As to the intention: of all casuists, the Jesuits alone have contended that the intention may be concealed within the bosom of the promiser. All Christian and Pagan writers agree on the principle that the words expressed must convev their ordinary meaning to the promisee. If we promise to do a certain thing to-morrow, we cannot, when the morrow comes, refuse to do it on the ground that we onlv promised to do it if it suited us when the time of performance had arrived. The obligation of every promiser is, then, to fulfil the promise that he has made not in any way that he may have secretly intended, but in the way in which he supposes that the one to whom he made it, understood it at the time that it was made. Hence all Masonic promises are accompanied by the declaration that they are given without equivocation or mental reservation of any kind whatsoever.

All voluntary promises are binding, unless there be some paramount consideration which will release the obligation of perforrnance. It is worth-while, then, to inquire if there be any such considerations which can impair the validity of Masonic promises. Doctor Wayland (Elements of Moral Science, page 285) lays down five conditions in which promises are not binding:

1. Where the performance is impossible2. Where the promise is unlawful.

3. Where no expectation is voluntarily excited by the promuser.
4. Where they proceed upon a condition which the promiser subsequently finds does not exist.
5. Where either of the parties is not a moral agent.

It is evident that no one of these conditions will apply to Masonic prornises, for,

1. Every promise made at the altar of Masonry is possible to be performed.
2. No promise is exacted that is unlawful in its nature; for the candidate is expressly told that no promise exacted from him will interfere with the duty which he owes to God and to his country.
3. An expectation is v oluntarily excited bv the promiser, and that expectation is that he will faithfully fulfil his part of the covenant.
4. No false condition of things is placed before the candidate, either as to the character of the Institution or the nature of the duties which would be required of him.
5. Both parties to the promise, the candidate who malies it and the Craft to whom it is made, are moral agents, fully capable of entering into a contract or covenant.
This, then, is the proper answer to those adversaries of Freemasonry who contend for the invalidity of Masonic promises on the very grounds of Wayland and other moralists. Their conclusions would be correct, were it not that every one of their premises is false.

PROMOTER, FATHER AND

See Father and Promoter

PROMOTION

Promotion in Freemasonry should not be governed, as in other societies, by succession of office. The fact that one has filled a longer office gives him no claim to a higher, unless he is fitted, by skill and capacity, to discharge its duties faithfully. This alone should be the true basis of promotion (see Preferment).

PROMULGATION, LODGE OF

A Lodge of instruction which paved the way for the Union of 1813 of the Antient and Modern Grand Lodges. In 1809 the Grand Lodge of the Moderns resolved, on April 12, that, "This Grand Lodge do agree in opinion with the Committee of Charity that it is not necessary any longer to continue in force those measures which were resorted to, in or about the year 1739, respecting irregular Masons, and do therefore enjoin the several Lodges to revert to the Ancient Landmarks of the Society." A Warrant was issued, October 26, 1809, permitting certain Brethren to hold a Special Lodge with the purpose of "Ascertaining and promulgating the Ancient Land-Marks of the Craft." Meetings were held weekly at Freemasons Hall, beginning November 21, 1809. When the members agreed as to the exact form and manner of every ceremony they invited the Masters of the London Lodges to attend a rehearsal. Then they went through the Three Degrees and the ceremony of Installation, specified as "One of the two Land-Marks of the Craft." This word two is probably mistaken for true. After doing much good work in the way of bringing together factions and in the teaching of the accepted forms of ritual and ceremony, the Brethren disbanded in March, 1811.

PROOFS

What the German Freemasons call proben und prufungen, meaning trials and proofs, and the French, dpreuves Maconniques, or Masonic proofs, are defined by Bazot (Manuel, page 141) to be "mvsterious methods of discovering the character and disposition of a recipiendary." They are, in fact, those ritualistic ceremonies of initiation which are intended to test the fortitude and fidelity of the candidate. They seem to be confined to Continental Freemasonry, for they are not known to any extent in the English or American systems, where all the ceremonies are purely symbolic. Krause ( Kunsturkunden, Book I, clii, 37) admits that no trace of them, at least in the perilous and fearful forms which they assume in the Continental Rituals, are to be found in the oldest English catechisms. He admits that, as appealing to the sentiments of fear and hope, and adopting a dramatic form, they are contrary to the spirit of Freemasonry, and greatly interfere with its symbolism and with the pure and peaceful sentiments which it is intended to impress upon the mind of the neophyte.

PROPERTY OF A LODGE

As a Lodge owes its existence, and all the rights and prerogatives that it exercises, to the Grand Lodge from which it derives its Charter or Warrant of Constitution, it has been decided, as a principle of Masonic law, that when such Lodge ceases to exist, either by a withdrawal or a surrender of its Warrant, all the property which it possessed at the time of its dissolution reverts to the Grand Lodge. But should the Lodge be restored by a revival of its Warrant, its propertv should be restored, because the Grand Lodge held it only as the general trustee or guardian of the Craft.

PROPHET

Haggai, who in the American system of the Royal Arch is called the Scnbe. in the English system receives the title of Prophet, and hence in the order of precedence he is placed above the High Priest.

PROPHETS, SCHOOLS OF THE

Bee Schools of the Prophets.

PROPONENDA

The matters contained in the Notices of Motions, which are required by the Grand Lodge of England to be submitted to the members previous to the Quarterly Communication when they are to be discussed, are sometimes called the proponenda, or subjects to be proposed.

PROPOSING CANDIDATES

The only method recognized in the United States of proposing candidates for initiation or membership is by the written petition of the applicant, who must at the same time be recommended by two members of the Lodge. In England, the applicant for initiation must previously sign the declaration, which in the United States is only made after his election. He is then proposed by one Brother, and, the proposition being seconded by another, he is balloted for at the next regular Lodges Applicants for membership are also proposed without petition, but the Certificate of the former Lodge must be produced, as in the United States the dimit is required. Nor can any candidate for affiliation be balloted for unless previous notice of the application be given to all the members of the Lodge.

PROPYLAEUM

This word is also written Propylaeon. The court or vestibule in front of an edifice. The Propylaed is the celebrated entrance to the Parthenon, the Greek Doric temple at Athens, built by Pericles in honor of Minerva or Athena.

PROSCRIPTION

The German Freemasons employ this word in the same sense in which we do expulsion, as the highest Masonic punishment that can be inflicted. They also use the word uerbannung, meaning banishrnent, for the same purpose.

PROSELYTE OF JERUSALEM

In French, Prosdlyte de Jerusalem. The Sixty-eighth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of France.

PROSELYTISM

Making converts, to win over from one faith to another by argument or other means of persuasion. Brahmanism is, perhaps, the only religion which is opposed to proselytism. The Brahman seeks no convert to his faith, but is content with that extension of his worship which is derived from the natural increase only of its members.

The Jewish Church, perhaps one of the most exclusive, and which has alwavs seemed indifferent to progress, yet provided a special form of baptism for the initiation of its proselytes into the Mosaic rites. Buddhism, the great religion of the Eastern world, which, notwithstanding the opposition of the leading Brahmans, spread with amazing rapidity over the Oriental nations, so that now it seems the most popular religion of the world, owes its extraordinary growth to the energetic propagandism of Sakya muni, its founder, and to the same proselyting spirit which he inculcated upon his disciples. The Christian church, mindful of the precept of its Divine founder, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," has always considered the work of missions as one of the most important duties of the Church, and owes its rapid increasers in its earlier years, to the proselyting spirit of Paula and Thomas, and the other apostles.

Mohammedanism springing up and lingering for a long time in a single family, at length acquired rapid growth among the Oriental nations, through the energetic proselytism of the Prophet and his adherents. But the proselytism of the religion of the New Testament and that of the Koran differed much in character. The Christian made his converts by persuasive accents and eloquent appeals; the Mussulman converted his penitents by the sharp power of the sword. Christianity was a religion of peace, Mohammedanism of war; yet each, though pursuing a different method, was equally energetic in securing converts.

In respect to this doctrine of proselytism, Freemasonry resembles more the exclusive faith of Brahms than the inviting one of Moses, of Buddha, of Christ, or of Mohammed. In plain words, FreemasonrY is rigorously opposed to all proselytism. While its members do not hesitate, at all proper times and on all fitting occasions, to defend the Institution from all attacks of its enemies, it never seeks, by voluntary laudation of its virtues, to make b new accessions of friends, or to add to the number of its disciples.

Nay, it boasts, as a peculiar beauty of its system, that it is a voluntary Institution. Not only does it forbid its members to use any efforts to obtain initiates, but actually requires every candidate for admission into its sacred rites to seriously declare, as a preparatory step, that in this voluntary offer of himself he has been unbiased by the improper solicitations of friends. Without this declaration, the candidate would be unsuccessful in his application. Although it is required that he should be prompted to solicit the privilege by the favorable opinion which he had conceived of the Institution, yet no provision is made by which that opinion can be inculcated in the minds of the profane; for were a Freemason, by any praises of the Order, or any exhibitions of its advantages, to induce anyone under such representations to seek admission, he would not only himself commit a grievous fault, but would subject the candidate to serious embarrassment at the very entrance of the Lodge.

This Brahmanical spirit of anti-proselytism, in which Freemasonry differs from every other association, has imprinted upon the Institution certain peculiar features. In the first place, Freemasonry thus becomes, in the most positive form, a voluntary association. Whoever comes within its mystic circle, comes there of his "own free will and accord, and unbiased by the influence of friends." These are the terms on which he is received, and to all the legitimate consequences of this voluntary connection he must submit. Hence comes the axiom, "Once a freemasons always a Freemason" that is to say, no manse having once been initiated into its sacred rites, can, at his own pleasure or caprice, divest himself of these obligations and duties which, 19 a Freemason, be has assumed. Coming to us freely and willingly, he can urge no claim for retirement on the plea that he leas unduly persuaded, or that the character of our Institution had been falsely represented. To do so would be to convict himself of fraud and falsehood, in the declarations made by him preliminary to his admission.

If these declarations were indeed false, he at least cannot, under the legal maxim, take advantage of his own wrong. The knot which binds him to the Fraternity has been tied by himself, and is indissoluble. The renouncing Freemason may, indeed, withdraw from his connection vith a Lodge, but he cannot release himself from his obligations to the regulation, which requires every Freemason to be a member of one. He may abstain from all communication with his Brethren, and cease to take any interest in the concerns of the Fraternity; but he is not thus absolved from the performance of any of the duties imposed upon him by his original admission into the brotherhood. A proselyte, persuaded against his will might claim his right to withdraw; but the voluntary seeker must take and hold what he finds.

Another result of this anti-proselyting spirit of the Institution is, to relieve its members from all undue anxiety to increase its membership. It is not to be supposed that Freemasons have not the very natural desire to see the growth of their Order. Toward this end, they are ever ready to defend its character when attacked, to extol its virtues, and to maintain its claims to the confidence and approval of the wise and good. But the growth they wish is not that abnormal one, derived from sudden revivals or ephemeral enthusiasm, where passion too often takes the place of judgment; but that slow and steady, and therefore healthy, growth which comes from the adhesion of wise and virtuous and thoughtful men, who are willing to join the brotherhood, that they may the better labor for the good of their fellow-men.

Thus it is that we find the addresses of our Grand Masters, the reports of our Committee on Foreign Correspondence, and the speeches of our anniversary orators, annually denouncing the too rapid increase of the Order, as something calculated to affect its stability and usefulness. Hence, too, the Black Ball, that antagonist of proselytism, has been long and familiarly called the Bulwark of Freemasonry. Its faithful use is ever being inculcated by the fathers of the Order upon its younger members; and the unanimous ballot is universally admitted to be the most effectual means of preserving the purity of the Institution. And so, this spirit of anti-proselytism, impressed upon every Freemason from his earliest initiation although not itself a landmark, has come to be invested with all the sacredness of such a law, and Freemasonry stands out alone, distinct from every other human association, and proudly proclaims, "Our portals are open to all the good and true, but we ask no man to enter."

PROTECTOR OF ENGLISH FREEMASONS

This is a title accepted by King Edward VII of England on his accession to the throne in 1901. King Christian IX of Denmark became the Protector of the Craft in that country in 1885 when the Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm Karl was Grand Master (see Patron).

PROTECTOR OF INNOCENCE

The French title is ProtecSur de Z'lnnoeence. A Degree in the nomenclature of Fustier, cited by him from the collection of Viany.

PROTECTRESS

A title assumed by Catherine II of Russia (see Russia).

PROTOCOL

In French, the formulae or technical words of legal instruments; in Germany, the rough draft of an instrument or transaction; in diplomacy, the original copy of a treaty. Gadicke says that, in Masonicslanguage, the protocol is the rough Minutes of a Lodge. The word is used in this sense in Germany only.

PROTOTYPE

The same as Archetype, which see

PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE

In each of the Counties of England is a Grand Lodge composed of the various Lodges within that district, with the Provincial Grand Master at their head, and this Body is called a Protnrmal Grand Lodge. It derives its existence, not from a Warrant, but from the Patent granted to the Provincial Grand Master by the Grand Master, and at his death, resignation, or removal, it becomes extinct, unless the Provincial Grand registrar keeps up its existence by presiding over the province until the appointment of another Provincial Grand Master. Its authority is confined to the framing of by-laws, malting regulations, hearing disputes, etc., but no absolute sentence can be promulgated by its authority without a reference to the Grand Lodge. Hence Doctor Oliver (Junspruderunc, page 272) says that a Provincial Grand Lodge "has a shadow of power, but very little substance. It may tally but it cannot act." The system does not exist in the United States. In England and Ireland the Provincial Grand Master is appointed by the Grand Master, but in Scotland his Commission emanates from the Grand Lodge.

PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER

The presiding officer of a Provincial Grand Lodge. He is appointed by the Grand Master, during whose pleasure he holds his office. An appeal lies from his decisions to the Grand Lodge.

PROVINCIAL GRAND OFFICERS

The officers of a Provincial Grand Lodge correspond in title to those of the Grand Lodge. The Provincial Grand Treasurer is elected, but the other officers are nominated by the Provincial Grand Master. They are not by such appointment members of the Grand Lodge, nor do they take any rank out of their Province. They must all be residents of the Province and subscribing members to some Lodge therein. Provincial Grand Wardens must be Masters or Past Masters of a Lodge, and Provincial Grand Deacons, Wardens, or Past Wardens.

PROVINCIAL MASTER OF THE RED CROSS

The Sixth Degree of the Rite of Clerks of Strict Observance

PROVOST AND JUDGE

The French title is Prevot et Juve. The Seventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The history of the Degree relates that it was founded by Solomon, King of Israel, for the purpose of strengthening his means of preserving order among the vast number of Crafts men engaged in the construction of the Temple. Tito, Prince Harodim, Adoniram, and Abda his father, were first created Provosts and Judges, who were afterward directed bv Solomon to initiate his favorite and intimate secretary, Joabert, and to give him the keys of all the building.

In the oid instructions, the Master of a Lodge of Provosts and Judges represents Tito, Prince Harodim, the first Grand Warden and Inspector of the three hundred architects. The number of lights is six, and the symbolic color i8 red. In the more recent instructions of the Southern Jurisdietion of the United States there has been a slight change The legend is substantially preserved, but the presiding officer represents Azarias, the son of Nathan The jewel is a golden key, having the letter A within a triangle engraved on the ward. The collar is red The apron is white, lined with red, and is furnished with a pocket. This has been claimed as one of Ramsay's Degrees, and in French was originally called Mattre Irlandais, meaning Irish Master.

PROXY INSTALLATION

The Regulations of 1721 provide that, if the new Grand Master be absent from the Grand Feast, he may be proclaimed if proper assurance be given that he will serve, in which case the old Grand Master shall act as his proxy and receive the usual homage. This has led to a custom, once very common in the United States, but later on getting into disuse, of installing an absent officer by proxy. Such installations are called Prozy Installations. Their propriety is truly very questionable.

PROXY MASTER

In the Grand Lodge of Scotland, a Lodge is permitted to elect any Master Mason who holds a Diploma of the Grand Lodge, although he may not be a member of the Lodge, as its Proxy Master. He nominates two Proxy Wardens, and the three then become members of the Grand Lodge and representatives of the Lodge. Great opposition has recently been made to this system, because by it a Lodge is often represented by Brethren who are in no way connected with it, who never were present at any of its meetings, and who are personally unknown to any of its members. A similar system prevailed in the Grand Lodge of South Carolina, but was, after a hard struggle, abolished in 1860, at the adoption of a new Constitution.

PRUDENCE

This is one of the four cardinal virtues, the praetise of which is inculcated upon the Entered Apprentice. Preston first introduced it into the Degree as referring to what was then, and long before had been called the Four Principal Signs, but which are now known as the Perfect Points of Entrance. Preston's eulogium on prudence differs from that used in the lectures of the United States of America, which was composed by Webb. It is in these words: "Prudence is the true guide to human understanding, and consists in judging and determining with propriety what is to be said or done upon all our occasions, what dangers we should endeavor to avoid, and how to act in all our difficulties." Webb's definition, which is much better, may be found in all the Monitors. The Masonic reference of prudence to the manual point reminds us of the classic method of representing her in statues with a rule or measure in her hand.

PRUSSIA

Frederick William I of Prussia was so great an enemy of the Masonic Institution, that until his death it was scarcely known in his de minions, and the initiation, in 1738, of his son. the Crown Prince, was necessarily kept a secret from his father. But in 1740 Frederick II ascended the throne and Masonry soon felt the advantages of a royal patron. The Baron de Bielefeld says (Letters i, page 157) that in that year the king himself opened a Lodge at Charlottenburg, and initiated his brother, Prince William, the hIargrave of Brandenburg, and the Duke of Holstein-Beck. Bielefeld and the Counselor Jordan, in 1740, established the Lodge of the Three Globes at Berlin, which soon afterward assumed the rank of a Grand Lodge. There are now in Prussia three Grand Lodges, the seats of all of them being at Berlin.

These are the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, established in 1740, the Grand Lodge Royal York of Friendship, established in 1760, and the National Grand Lodge of Germany, established in 1770.

There is no country in the world where Freemasonry is more profoundly studied as a science than in Prussia, and much of the abstruse learning of the Order, for which Germany has been distinguished, is to be found among the members of the Prussian Lodges. Unfortunately, they have, for a long time, been marked with an intolerant spirit toward the Jevs, whose initiation was strictly forbidden until comparatively recently, when that stain was removed, and the tolerant principles of the Order were recognized by the abrogation of the offensive laws.

PRUSSIAN KNIGHT

See Noachite

PSATERIANS

A sect of Arians who maintained at the Council of Antioch, 360 A.D., that the Son was dissimilar to the Father in will; that He was made from nothing; and that in God, creation and generation were synonymous terms.

PSEUDONYM

A false or fictitious name. Continental writers on Freemasonry in the eighteenth century often assumed fictitious names, sometimes from affectation, and sometimes because the subjects they treated were unpopular with the government or the church. Thus, Carl Rössler wrote under the pseudonym of Acerrellas, Arthuseus under that of Irenaeus, Agnostus, Guillemain de Saint Victor under that of De Gaminville or Querard, Louis Travenol under that of Leonard Gabanon, etc.

The Illuminati also introduced the custom of giving pseudonyms to the kingdoms and cities of Europe; thus, with them, Austria was Achaia; Munich, Athens; Vienna, Rome; Ingolstadt. Eleusis, etc. But this practice was not confined to the Illuminati, for we find many books published at Paris, Berlin, etc., with the fictitious imprint of Jerusalem, Cosmopolis, Latomopolis, Philadelphia, Edessa, etc. This practice has long since been abandoned.

PUBLICATIONS, MASONIC

The fact that, within the past few years, Freemasonry has taken its place and an imposing one. too—in the literature of the times; that men of genius and learning have devoted themselves to its investigation; that its principles and its system have become matters of study and research; and that the results of this labor of inquiry have been given, and still continue to be given, to the world at large, in the form of treatises on Masonic science, have at length introduced the new question among the Fraternity, whether Masonic books are of good or of evil tendency to the Institution.

Many well-meaning but timid members of the Paternity object to the freedom with which Masonic topics are discussed in printed works. They think that the veil is too much withdrawn by modern Masonic writers, and that all doctrine and instruction should be confined to oral teaching, within the limits of the Lodge-room. Hence, to them, the art of printing becomes useless for the diffusion of Masonic knowledge; and thus, whatever may be the attainments of a Masonic scholar, the fruits of his study and experience would be confined to the narrow limits of his personal presence. Such objectors draw no distinction between the Ritual and the Philosophy of Freemasonry. Like the old priests of Egypt, they would have everything concealed under hieroglyphics, and would as soon think of opening a Lodge in public as they would of discussing, in a printed book, the principles and design of the Institution.

The Grand Lodge of England, some 5 years ago, adopted a regulation which declared it penal to print or publish any part of the proceedings of a Lodge, or the names of the persons present at such a Lodge, without the permission of the Grand Master. The rule, however, evidently referred to local proceedings only, and had no relation whatever to the publication of Masonic authors and editors; for the English Masonic press, since the days of Hutchinson, in the middle of the eighteenth century, has been distinguished for the freedom, as well as learning, with which the most abstruse principles of our Order have been discussed.

Many years ago the Committee of Foreign Correspondence of a prominent Grand Lodge affirmed that Masonic literature was doing more "harm than good to the Institution." About the same time the Committee of another equally prominent Grand Lodge was not ashamed to express its regret that so much prominence of notice is, "in several Grand Lodge proceedings, given to Masonic publications. Masonry existed and flourished, was harmonious and happy, in their absence."

When one reads such diatribes against Masonic literature and Masonic progress—such blind efforts to hide under the bushel the light that should be on the hill-top—he is incontinently reminded of a similar iconoclast, who, more than tour centuries ago, made a like onslaught on the pernicious effects of learning. The immortal Jack Cade, in condemning Lord Say to death as a patron of learning, gave vent to words of which the language of these enemies of Masonic literature seems to be but the echo:

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm, in erecting 3 grammar-school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally thou hast caused printing to be used and contrary to tie king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will he proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.

We belong to no such school. On the contrary, we believe that too much cannot be written and printed and read about the philosophy and history, the science and symbolism of Freemasonry; prodded always the writing is confided to those who rightly understand their art. In Freemasonry, as in astronomy, in geology, or in any other of the arts and sciences, a new book by all expert must always be esteemed a valuable contribution. The production of silly and untutored minds will fall of themselves into oblivion without the aid of official persecution; but that which is really valuable—which presents new facts, or furnishes suggestive thoughts—will, in spite of the denunciations of the Jack Cades of Freemasonry, live to instruct the Brethren, and to elevate the tone and standing of the Institution. Doctor Oliver, who has written more on Freemasonry than any other author, says on this subject:

I conceive it to be an error in judgment to discountenance the publication of philosophical disquisitions on the subject of Freemasonry, because such a proceeding would not only induce the world to think that our pretensions are incapable of enduring the test of inquiry, but would also have a tendency to restore the dark ages of superstition, when even the sacred writings were prohibited, under an apprehension that their contents might be misunderstood or perverted to the propagation of unsound doctrines and pernicious practices, and thus would ignorance be transmitted, aa a legacy, from one generation to another.

Still further pursuing this theme, and passing from the unfavorable influence which must be exerted upon the world by our silence, to the injury that must accrue to the Craft, the same learned writer goes on to say, that "no hypotheses can be more untenable than that which forebodes evil to the Masonic Institution from the publication of Masonic treatises illustrative of its philosophical and moral tendency." And in view of the meager and unsatisfactory nature of the lectures, in the form in which they are delivered in the Lodges, he wisely suggests that "if strictures on the science and philosophy of the Order were placed within every Brother's reach, a system of examination and research would soon be substituted for the dull and uninteresting routine which, in so many instances, characterizes our private meetings. The Brethren would become excited by the inquiry, and a rich series of new beauties and excellences would be their reward."

Of such a result there is no doubt. In consequence of the increase of Masonic publications in this country, Freemasonry has already been elevated to a high position. If there be any who still deem it a merely social institution, without a philosophy or literature; if there be any who speak of it with less admiration than it justly deserves, we may be assured that such men have read as little as they have thought on the subject of its science and its history. A few moments of conversation with a Freemason will show whether he is one of those contracted craftsmen who suppose that Masonic brightness consists merely in a knowledge of the correct mode of working one's way into a Lodge, or whether he is one who has read and properly appreciated the various treatises on the "Royal Art," in which men of genius and learning have developed the true spirit and design of the Order.

Such is the effect of Masonic publications upon the Fraternity; and the result of all my experience is, that enough has Clot been published. Books on all Masonic subjects, easily accessible to the masses of the Order, are necessaries essential to the elevation and extension of the Institution. Too many of them confine their acquirements to a knowledge of the signs and the ceremonies of initiation. There they cease their researches. They- make no study of the philosophy and the antiquities of the Order. They do not seem to know that the modes of recognition are simply intended as means of security against imposition, and that the ceremonial rites are worth nothing without the symbolism of which they are only the external exponents. Freemasonry for them is nerveless—senseless—lifeless; it is an empty voice without meaning—a tree of splendid foliage, but without a single fruit.

The monopteral instructions of the Order, as they are technically called, contain many things which probably, at one time, it would have been deemed improper to print; and there are some Freemasons, even at this day, who think that Webb and Cross were too free in their publications. And yet we have never heard of any evil effects arising from the reading of our Monitors, even upon those who have not been initiated. On the contrary, meager as are the explanations given in those works, and unsatisfactory as they must be to one seeking for the full light of Freemasonry, they have been the means, in many instances, of inducing the profane, who have read them, to admire our Institution, and to knock at the door of Freemasonry for admission—while we regret to say that they sometimes comprise the whole instruction that a candidate gets from an ignorant Master. Without these published Monitors, even that little beam of light would be wanting to illuminate his path.

But if the publication and general diffusion of our elementary text-books have been of acknowledged advantage to the character of the Institution, and have, by the information, little as it is, which they communicate, been of essential benefit to the Fraternity, we cannot see why a more extensive system of instruction on the legends, traditions, and Symbols of the Order should not be productive of still greater good. Years ago, Doctor Mackey, as in the foregoing paragraphs, uttered on this subject sentiments which we now take occasion to repeat:

Without an adequate course of reading, no Freemason can now take a position of any distinction in the ranks of the Fraternity. Without extending his studies beyond what is taught in the brief lectures of the Lodge, he can never properly appreciate the end and nature of Freemasonry as a speculative science. The lectures constitute but the skeleton of Masonic science. The muscles and nerves and blood-vessels, which are to give vitality, and beauty, and health, and vigor to that lifeless skeleton, must be found in the commentaries on them which the learning and research of Masonic writers have given to the Masonic student.

The objections to treatises and disquisitions on Masonic subjects, that there is danger, through them, of giving too much light to the world without, has not the slightest support from experience. In England, in France, and in Germany, scarcely any restriction has been observed by Masonic writers, except as to what is emphatically esoteric; and yet we do not believe that the profane world is wiser in those countries than in our own in respect to the secrets of Freemasonry. In the face of these publications, the world without has remained as ignorant of the aporrheta or mysteries of our art, as if no work had ever been written on the subject; while the world within—the Craft themselves—have been enlightened and instructed, and their views of Freemasonry—not as a social or charitable society, but as a philosophy, a science, a religion—have been elevated and enlarged

The truth is, that men who are not Freemasons never read authentic Masonic works. They have no interest in the topics discussed, and could not understand them, from a want of the preparatory education which the Lodge alone can supply. Therefore, were a writer even to trench a little on what may be considered as being really the arcana or inner secrets of Freemasonry there is no danger of his thus making an improper revelation to improper persons.

PUBLIC CEREMONIES

Most of the ceremonies of Freemasonry are strictly private, and can be conducted only in the presence of the initiated. But some of them, from their nature, are necessarily performed in public. Such are the burials of deceased brethren, the laying of corner-stones of public edifices, and the dedications of Masonic halls. The installation of the officers of a Lodge, or Grand Lodge, are also sometimes conducted in public in the United States. But the ceremonies in this case differ slightly from those of a private installation in the Lodge room, portions of the ceremony having to be omitted.

The reputation of the Order requires that these ceremonies should be conducted with the utmost propriety, and the Manuals and Monitors furnish the fullest details of the order of exercises Preston, in his Illustrations, was the first writer who gave a printed account of the mode of conducting the public ceremonies, and to him we are most probably indebted for their ritual. Anderson, however, gave in the first edition of the Constitutions the prescribed form for constituting new Lodges, and installing their officers, which is the model upon which Preston, and other writers, have subsequently framed their more enlarged formulas.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Brother DeWitt Clinton founded the New York Free School Society, which later became the Public School Society of New York, generously heading the subscription list and promising $200 a year for the support of the organization. He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees and very active until his death in 1898. In Cubberley's History of Education (page 661) there is a description of the Society promoted by Brother DeWitt Clinton:

This Society was chartered by the Legislature " to provide schooling for all children who are the proper objects of a gratuitous education." It organized free public education in the city, secured funds, built schoolhouses, provided and trained teachers, and ably supplemented the work of the private and church schools. By its energy and its persistence it secured for itself 3 large share of public confidences and aroused a constantly increasing interest in the cause of popular education. In 1853, after it had educated over 600.000 children and trained over 1200 teachers, this Society, its work done. surrendered its charter and turned over its buildings and equipment to the public school department of the city, which had been created by the Legislature in 1842.

The New York Mercury, December 31, 1753, refers to a meeting of the Grand Lodge on the previous Thursday, the Festival of Saint John the Evangelist. The report goes on to say that the Brethren donated fifteen pounds to be spent in clothing for the poor children belonging to the Charity School and that a contribution was also made for the relief of indigent prisoners. This interest in the schools is characteristic of Freemasons and at a quarterly meeting of the Grand Lodge of New York, December 7, 1508, a Committee was appointed to "devise and report to this Grand Lodge a plan for the education of children Of poor Masons." This Committee reported in 1809. recommending that a fund be raised "sufficient to defray the expense of an establishment to consist of fifty children."

The Committee had several conferences with the Trustees of the Free School in order to ascertain the probable expense of tuition, including all books and supplies necessary for the purpose. We are told that the Trustees "agreed to educate in their seminary fifty children constantly for $300 annually, which is more than one-half less than would be required for their education in a separate school." The Grand Lodge vas accordingly asked to contribute $80 a year to make up the 3300 required to carry the plan into effect. Each of the Lodges contributing to the Fund vas given the right of "naming two children to receive the benefit of this charity." Six places were assigned to the Grand Lodge School Committee, which was also given authority to fill "all vacancies as they occur from the individual Lodge declining or neglecting to recommend as aforesaid."

In that year, 1809, the first school building was opened and Brother DeWitt Clinton delivered an address at the time. He was instrumental in establishing the educational system of the State and served the Grand Lodge from 1806 to 1820 as Grand Master and was for eight years Governor of New York State.

The Masonic School Committee on June 3, 1812, suggested for the consideration of the Grand Lodge the propriety of establishing a school to be under the entire management of the Grand Lodge, but this suggestion was not adopted. We find that the number of children that the Brethren had decided to educate amounted to fifty and that they were provided with comfortable clothing. From time to time the School Committee provided for purchases of shoes and stockings, overcoats and hats for the children.

The Free School was from the start supported by voluntary donations, but as the legislature began to recognize the value of the work that was accomplished, sums of money were granted. About the end of 1817 the Free School was formally established under the supervision of the State and further support from the Masonic Fraternity was no longer required. For an account of the relations between the Public School project and the Grand Lodge see a chapter in the History of Freemasonry in the State of New York by Brother Ossian Lang (pages 91-5) to which we are indebted for information.

Education generally, as it has been fostered by Freemasons everywhere, is not confined to the promotion of Public Schools and therefore requires no extended mention here. But note should be taken of the active interest in common-school education by the Brethren, the Freemasons in Latin lands being especially worthy of remembrance in this connection. There is also the promotion by the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, United States of America, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which in 1920 openly declared itself in favor of the creation of a Department of Education with a Secretary in the President's Cabinet, and the passage of what was then known as the Smith-Towner Educational Bill embodying the principle of Federal Aid to the Public Schools in order to provide funds for the equalization of educational opportunities to the children of the nation.

The Brethren declared their belief in the compulsory attendance of ad children upon the Public Schools and that it was the duty of all parents to see that school facilities are both adequate and efficient, "to strengthen the Public Schools by promoting their efficiency, so that their superiority over all other schools shall be so obvious that every parent will have to send his children to them if they are to progress and keep step with the Public School students in life's race" (see Transactions, 192s5, pages 218-9, Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite).

The former Grand Secretary of Scotland, Brother William A. Laurie (bristly of Free Masonry, 1849, page 70) gives briefly several interesting instances:

In Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, charity-schools were erected by the Lodges for educating the children of Free Masons whose poverty debarred them from this advantage. In that which was formed at Brunswick they were instructed in classical learning and various Blanches of mathematics, and were regularly examined by the Duke of Brunswick who rewarded the most deserving with suitable premiums. At Eisenach, several seminaries of this hind were established, the teachers were endowed with fixed salaries, and in a short time after their institution these sent into the world 700 children instructed in the principles of science and the doctrines of Christianity. In 1771 an establishment of a similar kind was formed at Cassel in which the children were maintained and educated till they could provide for themselves. In 1773 the united Lodges of Dresden, Leipsic, and Gorlitz, erected at Frederickstadt a seminars for children of every denomination in the Electorate of Saxony, the Masonic subscriptions were so numerous that the funds of the institution were sufficient for its maintenance and in the space of five years, above 1100 children received a liberal education.

In the same year an extensive workhouse was erected at Prague. in which the children were not only instructed in the rudimentary principles of education but in those branches also of the useful and fine arts which might qualify them for commercial and agricultural situations. It deserves to be remarked that the founders of these institutions, amid their anxiety for the public prosperity, never neglected the spiritual interests of the children; they saw that early piety is the foundation of all that is useful and Honorable in life, and that without this, speculative knowledge and practical skill are of little avail.

Fully in line with the subject under discussion is another item also mentioned in the above work (page 193), "At the Quarterly Communication on 4th February, 1820, a letter was read from Leonard Corner, Esquire, Secretary to the Edinburgh School of Arts, thanking the Grand Lodge for the very liberal manner in which they had granted the use of the Hall for the accommodation of that Institution, thereby enabling it to extend its usefulness to a degree that would not have been practicable without this cordial co-operation." Brother Lauriesac's "This was the first School of arts instituted in Scotland, if not in Great Britain, and the parents of the numerous Mechanics' Institutes since established" (see also Sunday Schools).

PUERILITY OF FREEMASONRY

"The absurdities and puerilities of Freemasonry are fit only for children, and are unworthy of the time or attention of wise men." Such is the language of its adversaries, and the apothegm is delivered with all that self-sufficiency which shows that the speaker is well satisfied with bus o an wisdom, and is very ready to place himself in the category of those wise men whose opinion he invokes. This charge of a puerility of design and object of Freemasonry is worth examination. Is it then possible, that those scholars of unquestioned strength of intellect and depth of science, who have devoted themselves to the study of Freemasonry and who have in thousands of volumes given the result of their researches, have been altogether mistaken in the direction of their labors, and have been seeking to develop, not the principles of a philosophy, but the mechanism of a toy? Or is the assertion that such is the fact a mere sophism, such as ignorance is every day uttering, and a conclusion to which men are most likely to arrive when they talk of that of which they know nothing, like the critic who reviews a book that he has never read, or the skeptic who attacks a creed that he does not comprehend?

Such claims to an inspired infallibility are not uncommon among men of unsound judgment. Thus, when Gall and Spurzheim first gave to the world their wonderful discoveries in reference to the organization and the functions of the brain discoveries which have since wrought a marked revolution in the sciences of anatomy, physiology, and ethics—the Edinburgh reviewers attempted to demolish these philosophers and their new system, but succeeded only in exposing their own ignorance of the Science they were discussing. Time, which is continually evolving truth out of every intellectual conflict, has long since shown that the German philosophers were right and that their Scottish critics were wrong.

How common is it, even at this day, to hear men deriding Alchemy as a system of folly and imposture, cultivated only by madmen and knaves, when the researches of those who have investigated the subject without prejudice, but with patient learning, have shown, without any possibility of doubt, that these old Alchemists, so long the objects of derision to the ignorant, were religious philosophers, and that their science had really nothing to do with the discovery of an elixir of life or the transmutation of the baser metals into gold, but that they, like the Freemasons, with whom they have a strong affinity, concealed under profound symbols, intelligible only to themselves, the search after Divine Truth and the doctrine of immortal life Truth was the gold which they eliminated from all mundane things, and the immortality of the soul was the elixir of everlasting life which perpetually renewed youth, and took away the power of death. So it is with Freemasonry. Those who abuse it know nothing of its inner spirit, of its profound philosophy, of the pure religious life that it inculcates.

To one who is at all acquainted with its organization, Freemasonry presents itself under two different aspects:

First, as a Secret society distinguished by a peculiar ritual. Second, as a society having a philosophy on which it is founded and which it proposes to teach to its disciples.

These by way of distinction may be called the ritualistic and the philosophical elements of Freemasonry. The ritualistic element of Freemasonry is that which relates to the due performance of the rites and ceremonies of the Order. Like the rubrics of the church, which indicate when the priest and congregation shall kneel and when they shall stand, it refers to questions such as these: What words shall be used to such a place, and what ceremony shall be observed such an occasion? It belongs entirely to the inner organization of the Institution, or to the manner in which its Services shall be conducted, and is interesting or important only to its own members. The language of its ritual or the form of its ceremonies has nothing more to do with the philosophic designs of Freemasonry than the rubrics of a church have to do with the religious creed professed by that church. It might at any time be changed in its most material points, without in the slightest degree affecting the essential character of the Institution.

Of course, this ritualistic element is in one sense portent to the members of the Society, because, by a due observance of the ritual, a general uniformity is preserved. But beyond this, the Masonic Ritual makes no claim to the consideration of scholars, and never has been made, and, indeed, from the very nature of its secret character, never can be made, a topic of discussion with those who are outside of the Fraternity.

But the other, the philosophical element of Freemasonry is one of much importance. For it, and through it, we do make the plea that the Institution is entitled to the respect, and even veneration, of all good men, and is well worth the careful consideration of scholars.

A great many theories have been advanced by Masonic writers as to the real origin of the Institution, as to the time when and the place where it first had its birth. It has been traced to the Mysteries of the ancient Pagan world, to the Temple of King Solomon, to the Roman Colleges of Artificers, to the Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Land, to the Gilds of the Middle Ages, to the Stone-Masons of Strasburg and Cologne, and even to the revolutionary struggle in England in the time of the Commonwealth, and to the secret efforts of the adherents of the House of Stuart to recover the throne. But whatever theory may be selected, and wheresoever and whensoever it may be supposed to have received its birth one thing is certain, namely, that for generations past, and yet within the records of history it has, unlike other mundane things, presented to the world an unchanged organization.

Take, for instance, the theory which traces it back to one of the most recent periods, that, namely, which places the organization of the Order of Freemasons at the building of the Cathedral of Strasburg, in the year 1975. During all the time that has since elapsed, full six hundred years, how has Freemasonry presented itself? Why, as a Brotherhood organized and controlled by a secret discipline, engaged in important architectural labors, and combining with its operative tasks speculations of great religious import If we see any change, it is simply this, that when the necessity no longer existed, the operative element was laid aside, and the speculative only was retained but with a scrupulous preservation—as if it were for purposes of identification—of the technical languages the rules and regulations, the working tools, and the discipline of the Operative Art. The material only on which they wrought was changed.

The disciples and followers of Erwin of Steinbach, Master Builder of Strasburg, were engaged, under the active influence of a profoundly religious sentiment, in the construction of a material edifice to the glory of God. The more modern workers in Freemasonry are under the same religious influence, engaged in the construction of a spiritual temple. Does not this long continuance of a Brotherhood employed in the same pursuit, or changing it only from a material to a spiritual character, but retaining its identity of organization, demand for itself some respect, and, if for nothing else, at least for its antiquity, some share of veneration? But this is not all. This Society or Brotherhood, or Confraternity as it might more appropriately be called, is distinguished from all other associations by the possession of certain symbols, myths, and, above all else, a Golden Legend, all of which are directed to the purification of the heart, to the elevation of the mind, to the development of the great doctrine of immortality.

Now the question where and when these symbols, myths, and legends arose is one that is well worth the investigation of scholars, because it is intimately connected with the history of the human intellect. Did the Stone-Masons and Building Corporations of the Middle Ages invent them? Certainly not, for they are found in organizations that existed ages previously. The Greeks at Eleusis taught the same dogma of immortal life in the same symbolic mode, and their legend, if it differed from the Masonic in its accidents, was precisely identical in its substance.

For Hiram there was Dionysus, for the Acacia the Myrtle, but there were the same mourning, the same discovery, the same rejoicing, because what had been lost was found, and then the same ineffable light, and the same sacred teaching of the name of God and the soul's immortality. So an ancient orator, who had passed through one of these old Greek Lodges—for such, without much violence of language, they may well be called—declared that those who have endured the initiation into the Mysteries entertain better hopes both of the end of life and of the eternal future. Is not this the very object and design of the legend of the Master's Degree? And this same peculiar form of symbolic initiation is to be found among the old Egyptians and in the island of Samothracia, thousands of years before the light of Christianity dawned upon the world to give the seal of its Master and Founder to the Divine Truth of the Resurrection.

This will not, it is true, prove the descent of Freemasonry, as now organized, from the religious histories of antiquity; although this is one of the theories of its origin entertained and defended by scholars of no mean pretension.

But it will prove an identity of design in the moral and intellectual organization of all these institutions, and it will give the Masonic student subjects for profound study when he asks the interesting questions—Whence came these symbols, myths and legends?

Who invented them? How and why have they been preserved? Looking back into the remotest days of recorded history, we find a priesthood in an island of Greece and another on the banks of the Nile, teaching the existence of a future life by symbols and legends, which convey the lesson in a peculiar mode. Now, after thousands of years have elapsed, we find the same symbolic and legendary method of instruction, for the same purpose, preserved in the depository of what is comparatively a modern institution. Between these two extremes of the long past and the present now, we find the intervening period occupied by similar associations, succeeding each other from time to time, and spreading over different countries, but all engaged in the same symbolic instruction, with substantially the same symbols and the same mythical history

Does not all this present a problem in moral and intellectual philosophy, and in the archeology of ethics, which is well worthy of an attempted solutions How unutterably puerile seem the objections and the objurgations of a few contracted minds, guided only by prejudice, when we consider the vast questions of deep interest that are connected with Freemasonry as a part of those great Brotherhoods that have filled the world for so many ages. So far back, indeed, that some philosophic historians have supposed that they must have derived their knowledge of the doctrines which they taught in their mystic assemblies from direct revelation through an ancient priesthood that gives no other evidence of its former existence but the results which it produced. Man needs something more than the gratification of his animal wants. The mind requires food as well as the body, and nothing can better give that mental nutriment than the investigation of subjects which relate to the progress of the intellect and the growth of the religious sentiment.

Again, man was not made for himself alone. The old Stoic lived only for and within himself. But modern philosophy and modern religion teach no such selfish doctrine. Man is but part of the great brotherhood of man, and each one must be ready to exclaim with the old poet, Homo sum humani nihil a me alienum puto. This means in the Latin I am a man, and I deem nothing relating to mankind to be foreign to my feelings.

Men study ancient history simply that they may learn what their Brother men have done in former times, and they read the philosophers and poets of Greece and Rome that they may know what were the speculations of those old thinkers. They strive to measure the intellect of man as it was then and as it is now, because the study of the growth of intellectual philosophy and the investigation of the mental and moral powers come home to us all as subjects of common interest. Looking then, upon Freemasonry as one of those associations which furnish the evidence and the example of the progress of man in intellectual, moral, and religious development, Doctor Mackey concludes by saying we may well claim for it that its design, its history, and its philosophy, so far from being puerile, are well entitled to the respect of the world, and are worth the careful research of scholars.

PUISSANT

A title given to the presiding officer in several of the advanced Degrees.

PUISSANT IRISH MASTER

The Eighth Degree of what has been claimed as Ramsay's Irish Colleges

PULLEN, WILLIAM HYDE

An eminent and accomplished Craftsman of England, who divas renowned among English and American Workmen for his excellence in the conduct of the forms and varied ceremonies of Freemasonry.

PULPIT

From the Latin word Pulpitum, meaning a stage or scaffold, applied originally to the space where the actors played their parts in the Roman theater.

PULSANTI OPERIETUR

Latin, meaning to him undo knocks it shall be opened . An inscription sometimes placed over the front door of Masonic temples or Lodge-rooms.

PUNISHMENTS, MASONIC

Punishment in Freemasonry is inflicted that the character of the Institution may remain unsullied, and that the unpunished crimes of its members may not injuriously reflect upon the reputation of the whole society. The nature of the punishment to be inflicted is restricted by the peculiar character of the Institution, which is averse to some forms of penalty, and by the laws of the land, which do not give to private corporations the right to impose certain species of punishment.

The infliction of fines or pecuniary penalties has, in modern times at least, been considered as contrary to the genius of Freemasonry, because the sanctions of Masonic law are of a higher nature than any that could be furnished by a pecuniary penalty.

Imprisonment and corporal punishment are equally adverse to the spirit of the Institution, and are also prohibited by the laws of the land, which reserve the infliction of such penalties for their own tribunals. Masonic punishments are therefore restricted to an expression of disapprobation or the deprivation of Masonic rights, and they are:

1. Censure

2. Reprimand
3. Exclusion
4. Suspension, Definite or Indefinite; and 
5. Expulsion
all of which see under their respective titles.

PUNJAUB

Freemasonry was founded in Punjaub, India, in 1872, by an ardent Freemason, Worshipful Brother Major Henry Basevi, whose failing health caused him to forsake his post shortly thereafter, leading as his successor Major M. Ramsay, who became R. W. Deputy Grand Master. Many years ago, the Institution began the maintenance, the clothing, and education of the young, in 1879 having twenty-one children in its care.

PURANAS

A Hindu word meaning knowledge. The text-books of the worshipers of Vishnu and of Siva, forming, with the Tantras, the basis of the popular creed of the Brahmanical Hindus. There are about eighteen Puranas, and as many more minor works, called Upapuranas, all written in Sanskrit, and founded to some extent upon the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Otherwise, their date is very uncertain.

PURCHASE

In the Cooke Manuscript (line 630) it is said that the son of Athelstan "purchased a free Patent of the king that they—the Freemasons— should make assembly." This does not mean that he bought the Patent, but that he obtained or procured it. Such was the use of purchase in old English. The booty of a thief was called his purchase, because he had acquired it. Colloquially, the word is still used to designate the getting of a hold on anything.

PURE FREEMASONRY

See Primitive Freemasonry

PURGING THE LODGE

An old expression for the ceremony of ascertaining the Masonic right to be present when a Lodge is opened (see also Fencing the Lodge).

PURIFICATION

As the Aspirant in the Ancient Mysteries was not permitted to pass through any of the forms of initiation, or to enter the sacred vestibule of the Temple, until, by water or fire, he had been symbolically purified from the corruptions of the world which he was about to leave behind, so in Freemasonry there is in the First Degree a symbolical purification by the presentation to the candidate of the common gavel, an implement whose emblematic use teaches a purification -of the heart (see Lustration).

PURITY

In the Ancient Mysteries purity of heart and life was an essential prerequisite to initiation, because by initiation the aspirant was brought to a knowledge of God, to know whom was not permitted to the impure. For, says Origen (Against Celsus vi), "a defiled heart cannot see God, but he must be pure who desires to obtain a proper view of a pure Being." In the same spirit the Divine Master says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." But "to see God" is a Hebraism, signifying to possess Him, to be spiritually in communion with Him, to know His true character. Now to acquire this knowledge of God, symbolized by the knowledge of His Name, is the great object of Masonic, as it was of all ancient initiation; and hence the candidate in Freemasonry is required to be pure, for "he only can stand in the holy place who hath clean hands and a pure heart" (see White).

PURITY, BROTHERS OF

An association of Arabic philosophers, founded at Bosra, in Syria, in the tenth century. Many of their writings, which were much studied by the Jews of Spain in the twelfth century, were very mystical. Steinschneider (Jewish Literature, 174, 295) calls them the Freemasons of Bosra, and says that they were "a celebrated Society of a kind of Freemasons."

PURPLE

Purple is the appropriate color of those Degrees which, in the American Rite, have been interpolated between the Royal Arch and Ancient Craft Masonry, namely, the Mark, Past, and Most Excellent Masters.

It is in Freemasonry a symbol of fraternal union, because, being compounded of blue, the color of the Ancient Craft, and red, which is that of the Royal Arch, it is intended to signify the close connection and harmony which should ever exist between those two portions of the Masonic system. It may be observed that this allusion to the union and harmony between blue and red Masonry is singularly carried out in the Hebrew word which signifies purple.

This word, which is argamun, is derived from ragam or rehem, one of whose significations is "a friend." But Portal (Comparison of Egyptian Symbols with Those of the Hebrews) says that purple, in the profane language of colors, signifies constancy in spiritual combats, because blue denotes fidelity, and red, war.

In the religious services of the Jews we find purple employed on various occasions. It was one of the colors of the curtains of the Tabernacle, where, Josephus says, it was symbolic of the element of water, of the veils, and of the curtain over the great entrance; it was also used in the construction of the ephod and girdle of the Heigh Priest, and the cloths for Divine Service. Among the Gentile nations of antiquity purple was considered rather as a color of dignity than of veneration, and was deemed an emblem of exalted office Hence Homer mentions it as peculiarly appropriated to royalty, and Vergil speaks of purpura regum, or the purple of Kings. Pliny says it was the color of the vestments worn by the early kings of Rome; and it has ever since, even to the present time, been con ridered as the becoming insignia of regal or supreme authority.

In American Freemasonry, the purple color seerns to be confined to the intermediate Degrees between the Master and the Royal Arch, except that it is sometimes employed in the vestments of officers representing either kings or men of eminent authority —such, for instance, as the Scribe in a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons.

In the Grand Lodge of England, Grated Officers and Provincial Grand Officers wear purple collars anal aprons. As the symbolic color of the Past Master's Degree, to which all Grand Officers should have attained, it is also considered in the United States as the appropriate color for the collars of officers of a Grand Lodge.

PURPLE BRETHREN

In English Freemasonry, the Grand Officers of the Grand Lodge and the Past Grand and Deputy Grand Masters and Past and Present Provincial Grand Masters are called purple brethren, because of the color of their decorations, and at meetings of the Grand Lodge are privileged to sit on the dais.

PURPLE LODGES

Grand and Provincial Grand Lodges are thus designated by Doctor Oliver in his Institutes of Masonic Jurisprudence. The term is not used in the United States.

PURRAH

A society of Sussu negroes exercising similar powers to, and for a somewhat similar purpose as, the Vehmgerichte. The Vehmgerichte were Tribunals once flourishing in Germany, and particularly in Westphalia, during the Middle Ages. Their privileges were curtailed in the sixteenth century and the institution came to an end about 1811. These were courts receiving from the Emperor power over life and death. Their proceedings were in the hands of a society to which freemen were eligible and their jurisdiction was administered much as in an ordinary court. There was a process of initiation, with secret signs and pass-words suggestive of Freemasonry and a certain Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite utilizes a court proceeding of this kind very effectively. The Vehmgerichte had a secret system of investigation and its methods were of an autocratic character.

PURSUIVANT

The third and lowest order of heraldic officers. In Freemasonry the lowest officer in rank except the Tiler, if he may be termed an officer.

PUTNAM, GENERAL ISRAEL

A hero of the American Revolutionary War. Born at Salem. Massachusetts, January 7, 1718; died May 29, 1790. A member of Hiram Lodge No. 1, New Haven, Connecticut, according to the New Age, January, 1924, but his name is not listed among the members of that Lodge (see Niram Lodge No. 1, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, 175S1916). It has also been stated that he was Raised in a Military Lodge at Crown Point while in the British Army (Masonry in the Formation of Our Government, Philip A. Roth, 1927. pages 354).

Brother McClenachan records the following anecdote: "In 1758 Putnam was captured by the Indians near Crown Point. While he was being tied to an oak tree to be burned, Putnam, as a last resort, gave the Masonic sign of distress, which was observed by a French officer named Molang, who immediately, at his own risk, ordered Putnam released- This tree was called Putnam's Oak, and grew near Putts Creek, Indian Ridge" (History of Freemasonry New York, C. T. McClenachan, page oo4; see further mention of him in History of Freemasonry in the State of New York, Ossian Lang, 1922, page 52).

PUTNAM, GENERAL RUFUS

A general in the American Revolutionary War. Born at Sutton, Massachusetts, April 9, 1738; died May 1, 1824, at Marietta, Ohio (see New Age, April, 1925). Raised a Freemason in American Union Lodge No. 3, at Philadelphia April 13, 1779. When the Grand Lodge of Ohio was organized in 1808 he was unanimously chosen Grand Master, although by that time he deemed himself too aged for active service and felt forced to decline.

PYRON, JEAN BAPTISTE PIERRE JULIEN

A distinguished French Freemason of the latter part of the eighteenth and beginning of the last century, who died at Paris in September, 1821. He was the author of many Masonic discourses, but his most important work was a profound and exhaustive History of the Organization of the Ancient and Accepted Rite in France, published in 1814. He was one of the founders of the Grand Orient, and having received the Thirty-third Degree from the Count de Grasse Tilly, he afterward assisted in the organization of the Supreme Council of Italy, at Milan, and the Supreme Council of France.

In 1805, his name was struck from the register of the Grand Orient in consequence of his opposition to that Body, but he remained the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council until his death. Ragon calls him an intriguer and bold innovator, but Thory speaks more highly of his Masonic character. He was undoubtedly a man of talent, learning, and Masonic research. He made a manuscript collection of many curious Degrees, which Thory has liberally used in his Nomenclature of Rites and Degrees.

PYTHAGORAS

One of the most celebrated of the Grecian philosophers, and the founder of what has been called the Italic School, was born at Samos in the period of 586-69 B.C., the year 582 being favored as the probable one of his birth. Educated as an athlete, he subsequently abandoned that profession and devoted himself to the study of philosophy. He traveled through Egypt, Chaldea, and Asia Minor, and is said to have submitted to the initiations in those countries for the purpose of acquiring knowledge.

On his return to Europe, he established his celebrated school at Crotona, a Dorian Colony in the south of Italy, about 529 B.C., much resembling that subsequently adopted by the Freemasons. His school soon acquired such a reputation that disciples flocked to him from all parts of Greece and Italy. Pythagoras taught as the principal dogma of his philosophy the system of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls. He taught the mystical power of numbers, and much of the symbolism on that subject which we now passes is derived from what has been left to us by his disciples, for of his own writings there is nothing extant. He was also a geometrician, and is regarded as having been the inventor of several problems, the most important of which is that now known as the forty-seventh problem of Euclid. He was also a proficient in music, and is said to have demonstrated the mathematical relations of musical intervals, and to have invented a number of musical instruments.

Disdaining the vanity and dogmatism of the ancient sages, he contented himself with proclaiming that he was simply a seeker after knowledge, not its possessor, and to him is attributed the introduction of the word philosopher, or lover of wisdom, as the only title which he would assume. After the lawless destruction of his school at Crotona, he fled to the Locrians, who refused to receive him, when he repaired to Metapontum, and sought an asylum from his enemies in the temple of the Muses, where tradition says that he died of starvation at near the end of the sixth or the beginning of the fifth century. Some claim the date to be 506 B.C., when he was about seventy-six years old.

• PYTHAGORAS, SCHOOL OF

The schools established by Pythagoras at Crotona and other cities, have been considered by many writers as the models after which Masonic Lodges were subsequently constructed. They undoubtedly served the Christian ascetics of the first century as a pattern for their monastic institutions, with which institutions the Freemasonry of the Middle Ages, in its operative character, was intimately connected. A brief description of the school of Crotona will not therefore be inappropriate.

The disciples of this school wore the simplest kind of clothing, and having on their entrance surrendered all their property to the common fund. they then submitted for three years to voluntary poverty, during which time they were also compelled to a rigorous silence. The doctrines of Pythagoras were always delivered as infallible propositions which admitted of no argument, and hence the Greek expression he said it, was considered as a sufficient answer to anyone who demanded a reason. Aristotle, by the way, in his accounts of Pythagorean doctrines, refers with what appears to be a studied and cautious vagueness to the Pythagoreans, not to Pythagoras. The teaching was probably, according to recent investigation, as a rule credited to the founder.

The scholars were divided into Esoterics and Exsoterics. This distinction was borrowed by Pythagoras from the Egyptian priests, who practiced a similar mode of instruction. The exoteric scholars were those who attended the public assemblies, where general ethical instructions were delivered by the sage. But only the esoterics constituted the true school, and these alone Pythagoras called, says Jamblichus, his companions and friends. Before admission to the privileges of this school, the previous life and character of the candidate were rigidly scrutinized, and in the preparatory initiation secrecy was enjoined by an oath, and he was made to submit to the severest trials of his fortitude and self-command. He who after his admission was alarmed at the obstacles he had to encounter, was permitted to return to the world, and the disciples, considering him as dead, performed his funeral obsequies, and erected a monument to his memory.

The mode of living in the school of Crotona was like that of the modern Communists. The Brethren, about six hundred in number, with their wives and children, resided in one large building. Every morning the business and duties of the day were arranged, and at night an account was rendered of the day's transactions. They arose before day to pay their devotions to the sun, and recited verses from Homer, Hesiod, or some other poet. Several hours were spent in study, after which there was an interval before dinner, which was occupied in walking and in gymnastic exercises.

The meals consisted principally of bread, honey, and water, for though the table was often covered with delicacies, no one was permitted to partake of them. It was in this secret school that Pythagoras gave his instructions on his interior doctrine, and explained the hidden meaning of his symbols. There were three Degrees: the first or Mathematic, being engaged in the study of the exact sciences; and the second, or Theoretic, in the knowledge of God and the future state of man; but the third, or highest Degree, was communicated only to a few whose intellects were capable of grasping the full fruition of the Pythagorean philosophy.

This school, after existing for thirty years, was finally dissolved through the machinations of Sylo, a wealthy inhabitant of Crotona, who, having been refused admission, in revenge excited the citizens against it, when a lawless mob attacked the scholars while assembled in the house of Milo, set fire to the building and dispersed the disciples, forty of them being burned to death. The school was never resumed, but after the death of the philosopher, summaries of his doctrines were made by some of his disciples. Still many of his symbols and his esoteric teachings have to this day remained uninterpreted and unexplained.

After this account of the Pythagorean school, the Freemason will find no difficulty in understanding that part of the so called Lowland Manuscript which is said to have so much puzzled the great metaphysician John Locke. This manuscript—the question of its authenticity is not here entered upon—has the following inter esting paragraphs:

How comede ytt—Fremasonryn Engellonde? Peter Gower, a Grecian, journeyeded for kunnynge ye Egypte and in Syria, and yn everyche londe whereat the Venetians hadde plauntedde Maconrye, and wynnynge entraunce yn al Lodges of Maconnes, he lerned muche and retournedde and worked yn Grecia Magna wachsynge and becommynge a myghtye wysacre and gratelyche renowned, and here he framed a grate Lodge at Groton, and maked many Maconnes, some whereoffe dyd journeye yn Fraunce, and maked manye Maconnes wherefromme, yn process of tyme, the arte passed yn Engelonde.

Locke confesses that he was at first puzzled with those strange names, Peter Gower, Groton, and the Venetians; but a little thinking taught him that they were only corruptions of Pythagoras, Crotona, and the Phenicians. It is not singular that the old Freemasons should have called Pythagoras their "ancient friend and Brother," and should have dedicated to him one of their geometrical symbols, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; an epithet and a custom that have, by the force of habit, been retained in all the modern instructions of the Craft.

Recent conclusions ascribe to Pythagoras and his followers equal esteem to that accorded them by the old Freemasons. In their mathematical work the leading characteristic was a combination of arithmetic and geometry. The studies containing the germ of algebra were developed in the Pythagorean School into a true scientific method in its theory of proportion and in fact Pythagoras has been not only credited with a method common in value to all branches of mathematics but to be personally comparable himself with Descartes who decisively combined geometry and algebra.

See also

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