Masonic Education

In the study of Masonry, often there are references to two members of the Craft, Rev. Dr. James Anderson and Dr. Albert G. Mackey. In this issue, I will provide a summary of their background.

The following presentation was completed with much paraphrasing –

From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

R.W. Bro. Robert South

 Rev. Dr. James Anderson – (1680?-1739)

A native of Scotland – probably from Aberdeen, he was the compiler of the first two official publications of the Grand Lodge of England. He was educated at the Marischal College, now part of the University of Aberdeen and there received his Master’s degree and possibly his Doctor of Divinity. Records of his initiation into Freemasonry have not been found but he was a member of the Lodge at the ‘Rummer and Grapes’ in Channel Row, Westminster ( I believe part of London England.) This was one of the four Lodges that came together to form the Grand Lodge of England. In 1721, he was ordered to ‘digest’ the ‘old Gothic Constitutions … in a new and better method’. In 1723 he presented the results of his labours as The Constitution of the Free-Masons… for use of the Lodges. This small volume was of ninety-one pages.  The second edition was of 230 pages contains the first account of the founding of and early progress of the premier Grand Lodge. Also notable in the two editions is the introduction of several terms from Scottish operative Masonry, such as ‘Entered Apprentice’ and ‘Fellow-Craft (1723) and ‘Cowan’ (1738).

Dr. Albert G. Mackey – (1807-81)

He was well known in the United States as a prolific masonic author. He was a medical doctor from 1834 to 1854 but then he chose to devote himself to the written word. While practicing medicine, he served in the office of Grand Secretary of South Carolina from 1842 to 1867. In 1859 he rose to be the head of General Grand Chapter of the United States in the Royal Arch. For no less than 34 years he was the Grand Secretary General of the Supreme Council 33 Degrees for the Southern District. It is a measure of his dedication that between 1860 and 1867 he was occupying five high and demanding masonic offices concurrently and yet was able to pursue his literary activities. His best known works are The Lexicon of Freemasonry (1845) and The Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1874). More can be found on the Internet for both of these Brethren.

CABLE-TOW:

A word not generally defined in dictionaries but which may be interpreted as a “tow-line”. The length of a cable-tow, the distance within which a freemason is required to obey a summons to his lodge, is sometimes stated to be three miles although different versions of the Old Charges gave it as five or as much as fifty miles.

With modern means of communication and travel at his command, the present-day freemason can stretch very considerably the length of his cable-tow. Various symbolic meanings have been accorded to the piece of rope with which the initiate quickly becomes familiar; perhaps the most readily acceptable is that of unity. 

From “A REFERENCE BOOK FOR FREEMASONS  – Frederick Smyth

2019-04

In this portion of our website, I will present various articles that I hope readers will find interesting and educational. Hopefully a new one each (calendar) month. Most, if not all articles will not be my own creation, so I will indicate my source of information.

LODGE OF PROMULGATION (1809-11):

In 1809, when Union with the Antients was in sight,  the premier Grand Lodge authorized a ‘Special Lodge of Promulgation’ to determine the Ancient landmarks of the society to consider the points of variation that had so far existed between the practices of the two fraternities. A Master and Wardens were nominated for it and twenty-three brethren were elected to membership. Of these eleven were either Past Grand Wardens or Provincial Grand Masters, and nine were Masters of lodges including, curiously enough, the Grand Master, the Duke of Sussex, as Master of Antiquity. A significant Minute of the lodge’s proceedings relates to a meeting in December 1809:

            Resolved that Deacons (being approved on due examination to be not only Ancient but useful and necessary Officers) be recommended.

This tells us not only of how Deacons – previously seen mostly in lodges of the Ancients but not in those of premier Grand Lodge – came to be essential in the United fraternity. It stands also as an example of how the Lodge of Promulgation worked. A further recommendation was that Installation of Masters-elect, being a ‘landmark’ of the Craft, should be ‘observed’. The complete record demonstrates how, in nearly every subject that came under review, it was the Ancients’ practice that this lodge composed of Moderns tended to favour. One proposal which was not adopted was for the appointment of a ’Professor of the Art and Mystery of Speculative Masonry’ to settle doubtful points!

            Although the lodge closed in 1811, members of it later served on the committee which dealt with the arrangements for effecting the Union itself in 1813.

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From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

R.W. Bro. Robert South

2019-03

In this portion of our website, I will present various articles that I hope readers will find interesting and educational. Hopefully a new one each (calendar) month. Most, if not all articles will not be my own creation, so I will indicate my source of information.

BOARD OF INSTALLED MASTERS: The ceremony of Installation was in many cases little more than a formality before and, indeed, long after the Union of 1813. The matter received the attention of the Lodge of Promulgation (April 2019 issue.) on 19 October 1810, when it was decided that the ceremony was one of the landmarks of the Craft and ought to be observed. Accordingly a considerable number of Masters of London lodges were installed in Boards of Installed Masters, brethren below the chair being order to withdraw. The ritual to be used was not among those settled by the Lodge of Reconciliation and in 1827 the Duke of Sussex warranted a ‘Lodge or Board of Installed Masters’, authorizing it to hold meetings at which qualified brethren could be ‘made’.

The modern connotation of the term is well-known and need not be pursued here (but see Installation). (May 2019 issue.)

From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

I thank our Webmaster for allowing me to continue in contributing to the Masonic Education portion of the website.

R.W. Bro. Robert South

2019-02

In this portion of our website, I will present various articles that I hope readers will find interesting and educational. Hopefully a new one each (calendar) month. Most, if not all articles will not be my own creation, so I will indicate my source of information.

BROTHERLY LOVE, RELIEF AND TRUTH:

These are the three Grand Principles of Freemasonry, the first of which has been described as ’the foundation and copestone, the cement and glory of this eminent fraternity’. Relief is the practical extension of brotherly love to those in need, within and without the Craft. Truth can be regarded not only as the antithesis of falsehood, the correction of calumnies against brethren or against the fraternity as a whole. The light of truth can be made to reveal and replace ignorance and error and thus further enable us to serve our fellow-creatures.

I thank our Webmaster for allowing me to continue in contributing to the Masonic Education portion of the website.

From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

R.W. Bro. Robert South @

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In this portion of our website, I will present various articles that I hope readers will find interesting and educational. Hopefully a new one each (calendar) month. Most, if not all articles will not be my own creation, so I will indicate my source of information.

LIGHTS, GREATER AND LESSER

The distinction between the greater and the lesser lights seems to have been derived from the usages of the Ancients. They emphasized the paramount importance of the three great lights while the Moderns regarded the Volume of the Sacred Law, the square and compasses simply as lodge ‘furniture’. The candlesticks (today representing, customarily, three orders of architecture) contain the three lesser lights.

It was decreed at the Union of the two Grand Lodges in 1813 that the Master’s light is never to be extinguished or obscured while a lodge is open. That rule – it has been classified by some as a landmark! – is still widely observed.

In some Craft workings and more especially so in Continental lodges, the lighting and extinguishing of the candles are ceremonial features at the opening and closing. Although in most English lodge rooms the three lesser lights are located on tall columnar candlesticks at the right of the Master and Wardens respectively, under other jurisdictions they may well be placed around a central altar.

 As to the position of the three ‘Great Lights’, in English practice they are usually on the Master’s pedestal or on one immediately in front of it. There are differences of opinion as to whether, in the circumstances, the open book should invariably face the Master or should be turned towards the West, possibly throughout the entire proceedings but certainly during the obligations. It must be observed that at no time is the Master required to recite from the Scriptures and it must also be pointed out that – in some English lodges, in most Irish and Scottish lodges and almost invariably in America  and on the Continent – there is an altar at some distance from the East and it is here that the candidate kneels. On it Sacred Volume invariably face the West. However the Book is placed, the square and compasses must lie on it so that the points of the latter are towards the base of the printed page.

There is a great of useful information about the Great an lesser lights in Harry Carr’s The Freemason at Work (1976 and further editions).

If one may for a moment revert to the subject of the lesser lights , it is sad indeed that – for convenience rather than credibility – candles are so often replaced by electric lamps. Unavoidable with this means of illumination, the routine dimming of the Master’s light in a certain ceremony can scarcely convey the simulation of the ‘glimmering ray’ to which attention is so impressively drawn in one of the most moving passages of the English Craft ritual.

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From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

R.W. Bro. Robert South

ALTAR:
In the Craft it is an essential part of the furniture of a lodge room; on it are placed the Three Great Lights (…). Too often in English practice it is inconveniently combined with the Master’s pedestal, but elsewhere the two are clearly separated. Indeed, under many jurisdictions it is customary to place the altar well away from the East, more often than not as central feature of the lodge room and with the three candlesticks set about it. In the Royal Arch and in some degrees related to it, there is an altar “wrought in the form of a double cube”. In several Orders of Christian Freemasonry an essential and prominent feature of the apartments in which they meet is a rectangular altar in the East, with the principal officers seated on either side of it.

In this portion of our website, I will present various articles that I hope readers will find interesting and educational. Hopefully a new one each (calendar) month. Most, if not all articles will not be my own creation, so I will indicate my source of information.

THE CHISEL

The Chisel is the last of the three working tools of the First Degree, and rightly so, because the Chisel should never leave our hand. As our ritual tells us: “the Chisel points out the advantages of education, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of every civilised society”. “Points out the advantages of education” — and is that not the whole theme of the Second Degree? There we are exhorted to extend our researches into the hidden mysteries of nature and science. “Science” in that use is the ancient word for knowledge, and education is the acquisition of knowledge, the way to which lies up the Winding Staircase. As the workman, with the aid of a chisel gives form and regularity to the shapeless mass of stone, so education by cultivating ideas and polishing rude thoughts transforms the ignorant savage into the civilised being.
The Chisel furthermore demonstrates the advantages of discipline. The mind like the diamond in its original state is unpolished, but by grinding away the external coat we are enabled to discover the latent beauty of the stone. Thus education discovers the latent beauties of the mind, and draws them forth to range over the field of matter and space in order to display the summit of human knowledge, our duty to God and man.
After drawing the candidate’s attention to the Chisel, we then exhort him to make a daily advancement in Masonic knowledge. He is then ready for the Second Degree.

This months issue of Masonic Education is courtesy of the internet Website – PIETRE-STONES REVIEW OF FREEMASONRY – FREEMASONS-FREEMASONRY.COM

I thank our Webmaster for allowing me to continue in contributing to the Masonic Education portion of the website.

R.W. Bro. Robert South

 

 

 

THE COMMON GAVEL

COMMON GAVEL: Is an instrument made use of by operative masons to break off the corners of rough stones, the better to fit them for the builder’s use; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught to make use of it for the more noble and glorious purpose of divesting our hearts and consciences of all the vices and superfluities of life; thereby fitting our minds, as living stones, for that spiritual building-that house not made with hands-eternal in the heavens.
The Common Gavel is an important instrument of labor, without which no work of manual skill can be completed; from which we learn that skill without industry will be of no avail, and labor is the lot of man; for the heart may conceive, and the head devise in vain, if the hand be not prompt to execute the design.

Masons are called moral builders. In their rituals they declare, emphatically, that a more noble and glorious purpose than squaring stones and hewing timbers is theirs-fitting immortal nature for that spiritual building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It is said that the construction of the pyramids of Egypt employed the labor of one hundred thousand men for many years, but it was only to build monumental piles, beneath whose shadows kings might rest. These pyramids are only temples for the dead; Masons are building one for the living. The pyramids were only mausoleums in which the bones of the mighty dead might repose in imperial magnificence; Masons are erecting a structure in which the God of Israel shall dwell for ever. The pyramid shall crumble away, till not one stone shall be left upon another; but who shall count the years of immortality, the life-time of the soul, which is fitted for its place in the heavens? Who can define its outlines, or fathom its depths, or measure its journey! It is a stream which grows broader and deeper as it flows onward. An angel’s eye cannot measure its length, nor an angel’s wing travel to its farthest boundary. When earth’s proudest monumental piles have crumbled away, and that sand been scattered by the desert winds, and the glory and greatness of earth shall be forgotten, then will the immortal be pluming its wings for loftier flights. It is a fountain whose sources are in the Infinite, and whose placid waters flow on for ever-a spring-time that shall bloom, educating immortal mind for the present, the future, for all ages-is acknowledged to be one of the essential objects of Masonic labors. The builder builds for a century; Masons, for eternity. The painter paints for a generation; they, for everlasting years.

from General Ahiman Rezon, by Daniel Sickels, [1868], at sacred-texts.com

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R.W. Bro. Robert South

TWENTY-FOUR INCH GAUGE

This working tool has what are probably its first mentions in 1724, in two exposures in which it is described as a ‘rule’. No length is given for it until Three Distinct Knocks of 1760 and Jachin & Boaz of 1762, in which the day is divided thus: ‘Six hours to work in six hours to serve God, six to serve a friend or brother’. The remaining were presumably allowed for rest and refreshment. It has been whimsically suggested that metrication should overtake this working tool! The French, we are told, do not moralize upon it. Where it is given a length the old French word pouce (inch) is used. Some German lodges use Zolf, also meaning an inch. But without metricating also units of time-which, thank goodness, no one seems to have proposed-twenty-four hours and twenty-four inches are likely to remind us for many years ahead of the worthy employment of each day.

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From ‘A Reference Book For Freemasons’ – compiled by Frederick Smyth and published in 1998.

R.W. Bro. Robert South