G
In the Hebrew, represented by ג. The seventh letter of the English, Latin, and Romanic alphabets. In the Greek and many other alphabets it is the third in place; in the Russian, Wallachian, and some others it is the fourth; in the Arabic the fifth, and in the Ethiopian the twentieth. In Hebrew it is called Gheé-mel, is of the numerical value of three, and its signification is camel. It is associated with the third sacred name of God, in Hebrew, : Ghadol, or in Latin magnus, the Mighty. In Freemasonry it is given as the initial of the word God. The Masonic use of the letter tends to the belief of a modern form in the ceremony of the Fellow Craft Degree (see G. O. D.). As in all Roman Catholic and in many Protestant churches the cross, engraved or sculptured in some prominent position, will be found as the expressive symbol of Christianity, so in every Masonic Lodge a letter G may be seen in the East, either painted on the wall or sculptured in wood or metal, and suspended over the Master's chair. This is, in fact, if not the most prominent, certainly the most familiar, of all the symbols of Freemasonry. It is the one to which the poet, Brother Robert Burns, alluded in those well known and often-quoted lines, in which he speaks of . . . that hieroglyphic bright
Which none but Craftsmen ever saw;" that is to say, ever saw understandingly ever saw, knowing at the same time what it meant. There if an uncertainty as to the exact time when this symbol was first introduced into Speculative Masonry. It was not derived, in its present form, from the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, who bestowed upon Freemasonry so much of its symbolism, for it if not found among the architectural decorations of the old cathedrals. Doctor Oliver says it was in the old lectures; but this is an uncertain expression. From Prichard's Masonry Dissected, which was published in 1730, it would seem that the symbol was not in use at that date. But it may have been omitted. If Tubal Kain, which was published in 1767, is, as it purported to be, identical with Prichard's purpose, the question is settled; for it contains the lecture on the letter G. to which reference will directly be made.
However, it is certain that the symbol was well known and recognized in 1766, and some few years before. The book entitled Solomon in all has Glory, the first edition of which appeared in that year, and which is a translation of Le Maçon demasque, contains the reference to and the explanation of the symbol. The work contains abundant internal evidence that it is a translation, and hence the symbol may, like some others of the system subsequent to 1717, have been first introduced on the Continent, and then returned in the translation, all of which would indicate a date some years prior to 1776 for the time of its adoption.
In the ritual contained in Tubal Kain (page 18), or, if that be only a reprint, in Masonry Dissected, that is to say, in 1768 or in 1730, there is a test which is called The Repeating the Letter G, and which Doctor Oliver gives in his Landmarks (I, 454) as a part of the old lectures. It is doggerel verse, and in the form of a catechism between an examiner and a respondent, a form greatly affected in these old lectures, and is as follows, the Resp. meaning Response, and the Ex.,
Examiner:
RESP. In the Midst of Solomon's Temple there stands a G
A letter for all to read and see;
But few there be that understand What means the letter G.
Ex. My friend, if you pretend to be
Of this Fraternity
You can forthwith and rightly tell
What means that letter G.
RESP. By sciences are brought about
Bodies of various kinds,
Which do appear to perfect sight
But none but males shall know my
Ex. the Right shall
RESP. If Worshipful.
Ex. Both Right and Worshipful I am;
To nail you I have command,
That you forthwith let me know,
As I you may understand.
RESP. BY letters four and science five
This G aright doth stand,
In a due art and proportion
You have your answer, Friend.
And now as to the signification of the symbol. We may say, in the first place, that the explanation is by no means, and never has been, esoteric. As the symbol itself has always been exposed to public view, forming, as it does, a prominent part of the furniture of a Lodge, to be seen by everyone, so our Masonic authors from the earliest times, have not hesitated to write, openly and in the plainest language, of its signification. The fact is, that the secret instruction in reference to this symbol relates not to the knowledge of the symbol itself, but to the mode in which, and the object for which that knowledge has been obtained.
Hutchinson, who wrote as early as 1776, says, in his Spirit of Masonry (Lecture viii):
It is new incumbent on me to demonstrate to you the great signification of the letter G. wherewith Lodges and the medals of Masons are ornamented. To apply its signification to the name of God only is depriving it of part of its Masonic import; although I have already shown that the symbols used in lodges are expressive of the Divinity's being the great object of Masonry, as Architect of the world. This significant letter denotes Geometry, which, to artificers, is the science by which all their labors are calculated and formed; and to Masons, contains the determinations definition, and proof of the order, beauty, and wonderful wisdom of the power of God in His creation.
Again, Dr. Frederick Dalcho, a distinguished Freemason of South Carolina, in one of his orations delivered and published in 1801, uses the following language (page 27):
The letter G. which ornaments the Master's Lodge, is not only expressive of the name of the Grand Architect of the universe. but also denotes the science of Geometry, so necessary to artists. But the adoption of it by Mesons implies no more than their respect for those inventions which demonstrate to the world the power, the wisdom, and beneficence of the Almighty Builder in the works of the creation.
Lastly, Doctor Oliver has said, in his Golden Remains of she Early Masonic Writers, that "the term G. A. O. T. U. is used among Masons for this great and glorious Being, designated by the letter G. that it may be applied by every brother to the object of his adoration." More quotations are unnecessary to show that from the earliest times, since the adoption of the letter as a symbol, its explanation has not been deemed an esoteric or secret part of the ritual. No Masonic writer has hesitated openly to give an explanation of its meaning. The mode in which, and the purpose for which, that explanation was obtained are the only hidden things about the symbol.
It is to be regretted that the letter G. as a symbol, was ever admitted into the Masonic system. The use of it as an initial would necessarily confine it to the English language and to modern times. It wants therefore, as a symbol, the necessary characteristics of both universality and antiquity. The Greek letter gamma is said to have been venerated by the Pythagoreans because it was the initial of af«,uerpzQ, or Geometry. But this veneration could not have been shared by other nations whose alphabet had no gamma, and where the word for geometry was entirely different.
There can be no doubt that the letter G is a very modern symbol, not belonging to any old system anterior to the origin of the English language. It is, in fact, a corruption of the old Hebrew Cabalistic symbol, the letters 1yod, by which the sacred name of God—in fact, the most sacred name, the Tetragrammaton is expressed. This letter yod is the initial letter of the word ;ll;r, or Jehovah, and is constantly to be met with among Hebrew writers, as the abbreviation or symbol of that most holy name, which, indeed, was never written at length. Now, as G is in like manner the initial of God, the English equivalent of the Hebrew Jehovah, the letter has been adopted as a symbol intended to supply to modern Lodges the place of the Hebrew symbol. First adopted by the English ceremony makers, it has without remark, been transferred to the Freemasonry of the Continent, and it is to be found as a symbol in all the systems of Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and every other country where Freemasonry has been introduced; although in Germany only can it serve, as it does in England, for an intelligent symbol. The letter G. then has in Freemasonry the same force and signification that the letter god had among the Cabalists. It is only a symbol of the Hebrew letter, and, as that is a symbol of God, the letter G is only a symbol of a symbol. As for its reference to geometry, Kloss, the German Masonic historian, says that the old Operative Masons referred the entire science of geometry to the art of building, which gave to the modern English Freemasons occasion to embrace the whole system of Freemasonry under the head of Geometry, and hence the symbol of that science, as well as of God, was adopted for the purpose of giving elevation to the Fellow Craft's Degree.
Indeed, the symbol, made sacred by its reference to the Grand Geometrician of the universe, was well worthy to be applied to that science which has, from the remotest times, been deemed synonymous with Freemasonry.
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GABAON
A significant word in the advanced Degrees. Oliver says (Landmarks i, 335), "in philosophical Masonry, heaven, or, more correctly speaking, the third heaven, is denominated Mount Gabaon, which is feigned to be accessible only by the seven degrees that compose the winding staircase. These are the degrees terminating in the Royal Arch." Gabaon is defined to signify a high place. It is the Septuagint and Vulgate form of lip::, Gibeon, which was the city in which the tabernacle was stationed during the reigns of David and Solomon. The word means a city built on a hill, and is referred to in Second Chronicles (i, 3). "So Solomon, and all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God." In a ritual, middle of the eighteenth century, it is said that Gabanon is the name of a Master Mason. This word is a striking evidence of the changes which Hebrew words have undergone in their transmission to Masonic ceremonies, and of the almost impossibility of tracing them to their proper root. It would seem difficult to find a connection between Gabanon and any known Hebrew word. But if we refer to Guillemain's Ritual of Adonhiramite Masonry (page 95) we will find the following passage:
How is a Master called?
Gabaon, which is the name of the place where the Israelites deposited the ark in the time of trouble.
What does this signify?
That the heart of a Mason ought to be pure enough to be a temple suitable for God.
There is abundant internal evidence that these two rituals came from a common source, and that Gabaon is a French distortion, as Gabanon is an English one, of some unknown word connected, however, with the Ark of the Covenant as the place where that article was deposited. Now, we learn from the Jewish records that the Philistines, who had captured the ark, deposited it "in the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah;" and that David, subsequently recapturing it, carried it to Jerusalem, but left the tabernacle at Gibeon. The ritualist did not remember that the tabernacle at Gibeon was without the ark, but supposed that it was still in that sacred shrine. Hence Gabaon or Gabanon must have been corrupted from either Gibeah or Gibeon, because the ark was considered to be at some time in both places. But Gibeon had already been corrupted by the Septuagint and the Vulgate versions into Gabaon; and this undoubtedly is the word from which Gabanon is derived, through either the Septuagint or the Vulgate, or perhaps from Josephus, who calls it Gabao.
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GABAONNE
In French Masonic language the widow of a Master Mason. Derived from Gabaon.
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GABOR
Hebrews n::, strong. A significant word in the advanced Degrees.
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GABRIEL
Hebrew, 9 , a man or hero of God. The name of one of the archangels, referred to in some of the advanced Degrees. He interpreted to Daniel the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and made the prophecy of the "seventy weeks" (Daniel viui and ix); he announced the future appearance of the Messiah (Daniel ix, 21-7). In the New Testament he foretold to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist (Luke i, 19), and to Mary the birth of Christ (Luke i, 26). Among the Rabbis Gabriel is entrusted with the care of the souls of the dead, and is represented as having taught Joseph the seventy languages spoken at Babel. In addition, he was the only angel who could speak Chaldee and Syriac. The Talmud speaks of him as the Prince of Fire, the Spirit presiding over thunder. The Mohammedans term him the Spirit of Truth, and believe that he dictated the Koran to Mohammed.
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GAEDICKE, JOHANN CHRISTIAN
A bookseller of Berlin, born on the 14th of December, 1763, and initiated into Freemasonry in 1804. He took much interest in the Order, and was the author of several works. the most valuable and best known of which is the Freimaurer-Lexicon, or Freemasons Lexicon, published in 1818; which, although far inferior to that of Lenning, which appeared four years afterward, is, as a pioneer work, very creditable to its author. The Lexicon was translated into English and published in the London Freemasons Magazine.
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GAGE AND GAUGE
See Twenty-four-Inch Gage
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GALAHAD
Also spelled Galaad. Most probably in Doctor Mackey's opinion, the latter is a corruption of Gilead. The name of a pure and noble Knight, Sir Galahad, of the Round Table who sought the Holy Grail (see Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Quest of the Holy Grail, by Map, and High History of the Holy Grail, by Evans). Sir Galahad was the ideal knight of the legends of romance. The Holy Grail was reputed in several legends to be the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and in its preservation to have been the medium of many miracles and thus was especially sought by the Knights of King Arthur, Sir Galahad a leader in the quest. Said by the old ritualists to have been the Keeper of the Seals in the Scottish Degree of Knights of the Ninth Arch or Sacred Vault of James VI.
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GAMBETTA, LEON
French statesman, born at Cahors on April 2, 1838, the son of a Genoese grocer and a Frenchwoman. Studied for the law at Paris and although hindered by the accidental loss of an eye, his energy won for him prominence. Opposing the rupture with Germany in 1870, he patriotically gave every aid to France during the war, escaped in a balloon from the besieged Paris, raised another army, fighting to the finish. He founded the influential journal, La République française, succeeded in the adoption of a new constitution, massed an effective opposition to the restoration of the Pope's temporal power, became memorable as president of the Chamber of Deputies, formed a ministry, sought to establish friendly relations between France and former foes, and was ever powerful, progressive, and persevering in public service. His career was cut short at the age of forty-four by the accidental discharge of a revolver in his home at Ville d'Avray near Sevres on December 31, 1882. He was initiated in a Masonic Lodge at Bordeaux and on July 8,1875, with Emile Littré and Jules Ferry affiliated with the Lodge La Clemente Amitie at Paris.
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GANGLER
The title given to the candidate in the Scandinavian Mysteries, signifying wanderer. The application is also made to the sun.
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G..A..O..T..U.
An abbreviation of Grand Architect of the Universe (see Great Archit of the Universe) .
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GARIBALDI, GIUSEPPE (JOSEPH)
Renowned Italian patriot, born at Nice, July 4, 1807, died June 2,1882, at Caprera, a small island off the north coast of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea. Son of a sailor, he commanded a vessel in 1830; was condemned to death in 1834 as a revolutionist but escaped to South America; his limbs were dislocated by torture while the prisoner in the revolt against Brazil, and regaining his liberty he enabled Uruguay to secure independence and returned to Italy, refusing any recompense. Forming a new army he was pursued by the forces of France, Spain, Austria, and Naples, lost his wife and most of his followers by death and escaped to New York, where he prospered, and returned to Italy in 1854.
Took command of Alpine infantry in war of 1859 and was from that time successfully engaged in the many struggles for a united Italy. His biography in the books by G. M. Trevelyan is most exhilarating reading. As a Freemason he was Grand Master at Palermo, 1860, and called a convention in 1867 to unite all the Italian Bodies, a project not then fully successful. Through the courtesy of Brother Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master, Massachusetts, an incident relating to General Garibaldi was verified for us. Brother Curtis Guild, Jr., died in 1915, had been governor of Massachusetts for three years and later was Ambassador to Russia, his last year as Governor was also the first of his two years as Thrice Potent Master of Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection.
He had a sister and brother, Courtenay Guild, 32 . The account that follows is as both remember their father telling it a number of times:
My father, Curtis Guild, who died in 1911, was a Knight Templar, 32 Mason, and Past Thrice Potent Master of Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. My brother, Curtis build, who died in l915, was a Knight Templar, 33 Mason and Past Thrice Potent Master of Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. The story of my father's meeting with Garibaldi was told by my father and by my brother at various Masonic meetings and the desire to preserve an accurate record of the incident is my reason for writing out the story that I heard many times from the lips of my father. In 1867 my father and mother made their first visit to Europe, and after travel in England, France and Switzerland had arrived in Florence, with the intention of continuing the journey to Rome. It was summer, and there was some talk of an epidemic of cholera in Rome although little was said about the scourge in the newspapers. If there were an actual epidemic of cholera in Rome it would be most imprudent for American travelers to visit the city, but how could one learn the truth? General Giuseppe Garibaldi, with his army of redshirted soldiers, was preparing his campaign for a united Italy, that achieved success in 1870, and his headquarters were established in Florence. General Garibaldi was at one time Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy. Wry father knew him to be a Mason, and had doubtless sat in a Lodge with him during one of his visits to America, so he decided to call on the General and ask his advice.
The idea of an American traveler making a social call on the chief of a revolutionary army was ridiculed, but this traveler felt that he had the benefit of a pass that would gain him admission. He went to the General's headquarters where there were about twenty men before him awaiting an audience. On his card that he handed to the Orderly were these words:
Curtis Guild,
Boston, America 32
It was a surprise to the traveler as well as to the others when the Orderly returned from an inner room and said that the General would receive the American gentleman at once. The General spoke excellent English. "What can I do for you, Mr. Guild?" were his first words after greetings had been exchanged, and in answer to the inquiry about the cholera he said: "Don't go to Rome. The local government tries to keep the facts out of the papers, but there are a hundred new cases of cholera a day there, and there is a better reason why you should not go to Rome. Under pledge of Masonic secrecy I tell you that you might find it easier to get into Rome than to get out." My father thanked the General and could only say to his wife and friends that he had decided not to go to Rome. The following week the army of Garibaldi besieged Rome, and many American travelers in the city were shut up there and delayed so that they missed the steamers on which they had engaged rooms for the return journey to America. The pledge of secrecy was, of course, removed after the siege of Rome was begun, and my father used to enjoy telling the story when anybody asked, " What's the use of Masonry? "
In 1920 Miss Italia Anita Garibaldi, granddaughter of the General, visited America and delivered a number of lectures for the benefit of her family. Hearing her speak before a club in Boston, I was permitted after the lecture to tell to her and to the club my father's adventure. In connection with subsequent lectures it was a pleasure to me to be able to render service of some value to this daughter, granddaughter, and sister of Masons, in recognition of the favor to my parents fifty-three years before.
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GARINUS
Said in an old explanation of the Degree of Knights of the East and West to have been the Patriarch of Jerusalem, between whose hands the first Knights of that Order took, in 1182, their vows. It is a corruption, by the French ritualists, of Garimond or Gartmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem before whom the Hospitalers took their three vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty.
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GARTNERINNEN, ORDEN DER
Order of the Female Gardeners, an Italian political order whose members were women, founded in Naples, 1820. Its emblems were flowers. The Italian name was Ordine della Giardiniere.
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GASSICOURT, CADET DE
An apothecary of Paris, who, in the year 1796, published a work entitled Le Tounbeau de Jacques Molai, ou histoire secrete et abrade des initiés anciens et modernes (meaning, Sepulcher of Jacques Moray, or secret and abridged history of ancients and modern initiates). In this book, which embraced all the errors of Barruel and Robison, he made the same charges of atheism and conspiracy against the Fraternity, and loaded the Chevalier Ramsay with the most vehement indignation as a libertine and traitor. But De Gassicourt subsequently acknowledged his folly in writing against a Society of which he really knew nothing. In fact, in 1805, he solicited admission into the Order, and was initiated in the Lodge l'Abeille, at Paris, where, in the various offices of Orator and Master, which he filled, he taught and recommended that Institution which he had once abused; and even on a public occasion pronounced the eulogy of that Ramsay whom he had formerly anathematized.
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GASTON, JOHN
Grand Duke of Tuscany; in 1737 he inaugurated a persecution against the Freemasons in his dominions.
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GATES OF THE TEMPLE
In the system of Freemasonry, the Temple of Solomon is represented as having a gate on the east, west, and south sides, but none on the north. In reference to the historical Temple of Jerusalem, such a representation is wholly incorrect. In the walls of the building itself there were no places of entrance except the door of the porch, which gave admission to the house. But in the surrounding courts there were gates at every point of the compass. The Masonic idea of the Temple is, however, entirely symbolic. The Temple is to the Speculative Freemason only a symbol, not a historical building, and the gates are imaginary and symbolic also. They are, in the first place, symbols of the progress of the sun in his daily course, rising in the East, culminating to the meridian in the South, and setting in the West. They are also, in the allegory of life, which it is the object of the Third Degree to illustrate, symbols of the three stages of youth, manhood, and old age, or, more properly, of birth, life, and death.
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GAUDINI, THEOBALD DE
Known as the Monk Gaudini. Elected Grand Master of Templars, 1291; died 1301
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GAUGE
See Twenty-four-Inch Gave
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GAUNTLETS
Gloves formerly made of steel and worn by knights as a protection to their hands in battle. They have been adopted in the United States, as a part of the costume of a Knights Templar, under a regulation of the Grand Encampment, which directed them to be "of buff leather, the flap to extend four inches upwards from the wrist, and to have the appropriate cross embroidered in gold, on the proper colored velvet, two inches in length." As to uniforms of the Order, see The Habit of a Templar Knight, by Brother Ray V. Denslow for the Grand Commandery of Missouri, a valuable and stimulating report.
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GAVEL
The common gavel is one of the working tools of an Entered Apprentice. It is made use of by the Operative Mason to break off the corners of the rough ashlar, and thus fit it the better for the builder's use, and is therefore adopted as a symbol in Speculative Freemasonry, to admonish us of the duty of divesting our minds and consciences of all the vices and impurities of life, thereby fitting our bodies as living stones for that spiritual building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It borrows its name from its shape, being that of the gable or gavel end of a house; and this word again comes from the German gipfel, a summit, top, or peak the idea of a pointed extremity being common to all.
The true form of the gavel is that of the stonemasons hammer. It is to be made with a cutting edge, as in the engraving, that it may be used to break off the corners of rough stones, an operation which could never be effected by the common hammer or mallet. The gavel thus shaped will give, when looked at in front, the exact representation of the gavel or gable end of a house, whence, as has been already said, the name is derived.
The gavel of the Master is also called a Hiram, because, like that architect, it governs the Craft and keeps order in the Lodge, as he did in the Temple (see Hiram) .
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GEBAL
A city of Phenicia, on the Mediterranean, and under Mount Lebanon. It was the Byblos of the Greeks, where the worship of Adonis, the Syrian Thammuz, was celebrated. The inhabitants, who were Giblites or, in Masonic language, Giblemites, are said to have been distinguished for the art of stone-carving and are called in the First Book of Kings (v, 18) stone-squarers (see Giblim).
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GEDALIAH
The second officer in a Council of Super-Excellent Masters represents Gedaliah the son of Pashur. A historical error has crept into the ritual of this degree in reference to the Gedaliah who is represented in it. Brother Mackey sought to elucidate the question in his work on Cryptic Masonry in the following manner:
There are five persons of the name of Gedaliah who are mentioned in Scripture but only two of them were contemporary with the destruction of the Temple.
Gedaliah the son of Pashur is mentioned by the Prophet Jeremiah (xxxviii, 1) as a prince of the court of Zedekiah. He was present at its destruction and is known to have been one of the advisers of the King. It novas through his counsels, and those of his colleagues, that Zedekiah was persuaded to deliver up the Prophet Jeremiah to death, from which he was rescued only by the intercession of a eunuch of the palace.
The other Gedaliah was the son of Ahikam. He seems to have been greatly in favor with Nebuchadnezzar, for after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the deportation of Zedekiah, he was appointed by the Chaldean monarch as his Satap or Governor over Judea. He took up his residence at Mizpah, where he was shortly afterward murdered by Ishmael, one of the descendants of the house of David.
The question now arises, which of these two is the one referred to in the ceremonies of a Council of Super Excellent Masters? I think there can be no doubt that the founders of the Degree intended the second officer of the Council to represent the former, and not the latter Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and not Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; the Prince of Judah, and not the Governor of Judea.
We are forced to this conclusion, continues Brother Mackey, by various reasons. The Gedaliah represented in the Degree must have been a resident of Jerusalem during the siege, and at the very time of the assault, which immediately preceded the destruction of the Temple and the city. Now, we know that Gedaliah the son of Pashur was with Hezekiah as one of his advisers. On the other hand, it is most likely that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam could have been a resident of Jerusalem, for it is not at all probable that Nebuchadnezzar would have selected such a one for the important and confidential office of a Satrap or Governor. We should rather suppose that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam had been carried away to Babylon after one of the former sieges; that he had there, like Daniel, gained by his good conduct the esteem and respect of the Chaldean monarch; that he had come back to Judea with the army; and that, on the taking of the city, he had been appointed Governor by Nebuchadnezzar. Such being the facts, it is evident that he could not have been in the Council of King Zedekiah, advising and directing his attempted escape. The modern revivers of the Degree of Super-Excellent Master have, therefore, been wrong in supposing that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, and afterward Governor of Judea, was the person represented by the second officer of the Council. He was Gedaliah the son of Pashur, a wicked man, one of Zedekiah's princes, and was most probably put to death by Nebuchadnezzar, with the other princes and nobles whom he captured in the plains of Jericho.
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GEMARA
See Talmud
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GEMATRIA
Means in Hebrew to reckon by letters as well as numbers, a cabalistic method of interpreting the Scriptures by interchanging words whose letters have the same numerical value when added (see Numbers).
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY
See Assembly
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GENERAL GRAND CHAPTER
Until the year 1797, the Royal Arch Degree and the Degrees subsidiary to it were conferred in America, either in irresponsible Bodies calling themselves Chapters, but obedient to no superior authority, or in Lodges working under a Grand Lodge Warrant. On October 24, 1797, a Convention of Committees from three Chapters, namely, the Saint Andrew s Chapter of Boston, Temple Chapter of Albany, and Newburyport Chapter, was held at Boston, which recommended to the several Chapters within the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York to hold 8 Convention at Hartford on the fourth Wednesday of January ensuing, to form a Grand Chapter for the said States.
Accordingly, on January 24, 1798, delegates from Saint Andrew's Chapter of Boston, Massachusetts; King Cyrus Chapter of Newburyport, Massachusetts; Providence Chapter of Providence, Rhode Island; Solomon Chapter of Derby, Connecticut; Franklin Chapter of Norwich, Connecticut, and Hudson Chapter of Hudson, New York; to which were the next day added Temple Chapter of Albany, New York, and Horeb Chapter of Whitestown, New York, assembled at Hartford in Convention and, having adopted a Constitution organized a governing Body which they styled The Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the. Northern States of America. This Body assumed in its Constitution jurisdiction over only the States of New England and New York, and provided that Deputy Grand Chapters, subject to its obedience, should be organized in those States. Ephraim Kirby, of Litchfield, Connecticut, was elected Grand High Priest; and it was ordered that the first meeting of the Grand Chapter should be held at Middletown, Connecticut, on the third Wednesday of September next ensuing.
On that day the Grand Chapter met, but the Grand Secretary and Grand chaplain were the only Grand Officers present. The Grand King was represented by a proxy. The Grand Chapter, however, proceeded to an election of Grand Officers, and the old officers were elected. The Body then adjourned to meet in January, 1799, at Providence, Rhode Island.
On January 9, 1799, the Grand Chapter met at Providence, the Deputy Grand Chapters of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York being represented. At this meeting, the Constitution was very considerably modified, and the Grand Chapter assumed the title of The General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for the six Northern States enumerated in the preamble. The meetings were directed to be held septennial; and the Deputy Grand Chapters were in future to be called State Grand Chapters. No attempt was, however, made in words to extend the jurisdiction of the General Grand Chapter beyond the States already named. On January 9, 1806, a meeting of the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter was held at Middletown, representatives being present from the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York. The Constitution was again revised. The title was for the first time assumed of The General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for the United States of America, and jurisdiction was extended over the whole country. This year may, therefore, be considered as the true date of the establishment of the General Grand Chapter.
In 1826 the sentential meetings were abolished, and the General Grand Chapter has ever since met triennially. The General Grand Chapter consists of the present and past Grand High Priests, Deputy Grand High Priests, Grand Kings and Scribes of the State Grand Chapters, and the Past General Grand Officers. The officers are a General Grand High Priest, Deputy General Grand High Priest, General Grand King, General Grand Scribe, General Grand Treasurer, General Grand Secretary, General Grand Chaplain, General Grand Captain of the Host, and General Grand Royal Arch Captain. It originally possessed large prerogatives, extending even to the suspension of Grand Chapters; but by its present organization it has "no power of discipline, admonition, censure, or instruction over the Grand Chapters, nor any legislative powers whatever not specially granted" by its Constitution. It may, indeed, be considered as scarcely more than a great Masonic Congress meeting every three years for consultation. But even with these restricted powers, it is capable of doing much good.
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GENERAL GRAND HIGH PRIEST
The presiding officer of the General Grand Chapter of the United States of America. He is elected every third year by the General Grand Chapter. The title was first assumed in 1799, although the General Grand Chapter did not at that time extend its jurisdiction beyond six of the Northern States.
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GENERALISSIMO
The second officer in a Commandery of Knights Templar, and one of its representatives in the Grand Commandery. His duty is to receive and communicate all orders, signs, and petitions; to assist the Eminent Commander, and, in his absence, to preside over the Commandery. His station is on the right of the Eminent Commander, and his jewel is a square, surmounted by a paschal lamb. The use of the title in Templarism is of very recent origin, and peculiar to America. No such officer was known in the old Order. It is, besides, inappropriate to a subordinate officer, being derived from the French géneralissime, and that from the Italian generalissimo, both signifying a Supreme Commander. Strictly speaking, it has the same meaning in English.
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GENEROUS FREEMASON
The first Masonic opera, the libretto written by Brother William Rufus Chetwood, prompter at Drury Lane Theater, London, for eighteen years, beginning 1722. Sixty-one years before Brother Mozart composed his Masonic opera known as The Manic Flude, Brother Chetwood's work was first performed in public. The following advertisement appeared in the Daily Post, August 20, 1730:
At Oates and Fielding's Great Theatrical Booth at the George Inn Yard in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented an entire new opera called The Generous Freemason, or the Constant Lady, with the comical humors of Squire Noodle and his man Doodle by Persons from both Theaters. The part of the King of Tunis by Mr. Bareoek, Mirza Mr. Paget; Sebastian, Mr. Oates; Clermont, Mr. Fielding; Sir Jasper, Mr. Burnett; Squire Noodle, Mr. Berry Doodle, Mr. Smith; Davy, Mr. Excell; Captain, Mr. Brogden; the Queen, Nirs. Kilby; Maria, Miss Oates; Celia, Mrs. Grace- Jacinta, Miss Williams- Jenny, the chambermaid, Mrs. Stevens; Lettiee, Mrs. Roberts. All characters newly dressed. With several entertainments of dancing by Monsieur de St. Luee, Mlle. de Lorme, and others, particularly the Wooden Shoe Dance, the Pierrot and Pierrette, and the Dance of the Black Joke. Beginning every day at 2 o'clock.
The two theaters mentioned were Drury Lane and Covent Garden The opera was billed as "a tragicomi-farcical ballad opera" and published by "J. Roberts in Warwick Lane, and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster," the third page bearing the following dedication: To the Right Worshipful the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, Grand Wardens, and the rest of the Brethren of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, this opera is humbly inscribed by Your most obedient and devoted Servant, The Author, a Free-Mason. The two leading characters in the play are Maria, an English lady, and Sebastian, an English gentleman, who are secretly engaged to each other. When it is proposed that she marry someone else, Maria agrees to elope with Sebastian to Spain where he has a wealthy uncle. Sebastian expresses his regret at leaving England in these words:
But yet one pang I feel thro' all my joy,
That from my noble Brethren I must part;
Those men whose lustre spreads from Pole to Pole
Possessing every virtue of the Soul.
But yet all climes the Brotherhood adorn,
As smiling Phoebus gilds the rosie morn!
Let I,ove and Friendship then our cares confound,
And halcyon days be one eternal round.
During the journey to Spain their vessel is chased by a ship commanded by "the bravest Moor that ploughs the sea," the High Admiral of King Amuranth of Tunis known as Mirza. The captain of the lovers' ship thinks it advisable to surrender but is prevented by Sebastian who declares: "We will for battle instantly prepare: a Briton and a Mason cannot fear." Their brave action is however, all in vain and they are captured, thrown into prison and condemned to die. King Amuranth in the meantime has taken a fanny to Maria and his wife, Queen Zelmana, conceives a like affection for Sebastian. The death sentence is therefore delayed, giving Sebastian an opportunity to give the Masonic signal of distress to Mirza who recognizes him as a Brother and releases the two prisoners, saying to Sebastian: "Come to my arms, thou unexpected Joy, and find in me a Brother and a friend." Mirza accompanies the lovers on a vessel bound for England and Sebastian expresses his Brotherly affection to which Mirza, the generous Freemason replies: v What I have done was in firm Virtue's cause, Thou art my Brother by the strictest laws; A chain unseen fast binds thee to my heart A tie that never can from Virtue part.
After this, "Neptune rises to a symphony of soft musick, attended by Tritons," and the play closes with a song from him praising Freemasonry. The opera was revived at the Haymarket Theater in 1731 and Brother Chetwood, 1733, at the theater in Goodman's Fields rearranged it and produced it in the form of a one-act operetta, entitled The Mock Mason, retaining only the comic phases of the original play. In 1741 The Generous Freemason, in original form, was again given with great popularity. The music for the opera was supplied by three composers, the musical score having been written by Henry Carey known as the author and composer of Sally in our Alley. Richard Charke, a violinist and member of the Drury Lane Theater company, and John Sheeles, a famous teacher of the harpsichord, were the other two responsible for the Iyrics in the opera. Two copies of the opera are at present in the possession of the British Museum and these give the airs of some of the songs without accompaniment, which was the usual method at that time. We are indebted to Brother Richard Northcott, Fellow of the Roval Philharmonic Society, England, for the details given here.
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GENTLEMAN MASON
In some of the old lectures of the eighteenth century this title is used as equivalent to Speculative Freemason. Thus they had the following catechism
What do you learn by being a Gentleman Mason?
Secrecy, Morality, and Good-Fellowship.
What do you learn by being an Operative Mason?
Hew, Square, Mould stone, lay a Level, and raise a Perpendicular.
Hence we see that Gentleman Mason was in contrast with Operative Mason.
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GENUFLECTION
Bending the knees has, in all ages of the world, been considered as an act of reverence and humility, and hence Pliny, the Roman naturalist, observes, that "a certain degree of religious reverence is attributed to the knees of a man." Solomon placed himself in this position when he prayed at the consecration of the Temple; and Freemasons use the same posture in some portions of their ceremonies. as a token of solemn reverence. In Ancient Craft Masonry, during prayer, it is the custom for the members to stand, but in the advanced Degrees, kneeling, and generally on one knee, is the more usual form.
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GEOMATIC
See Domatic
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GEOMETRICAL MASTER MASON
A term in use in England during the eighteenth and early in the following century. By the primitive regulations of the Grand Chapter, an applicant for the Royal Arch Degree was required to produce a certificate that he was "a Geometrical Master Maeon," and had Paseed the Chair. The word Geometrical was, in Doctor Mackey's opinion, thus synonymous with Speculative. Later researches proved that there was actually a Degree of this name. Brother George W. Speth in 1899 (Transactions, Quatour Coronati Lodge, volume xii, page 205) mentions the ritual of the Most Excellent Order of Geometrical Master Masons as being about 1819 to 1820 but that the Degree is probably much older. He says there are nine Lectures. Much of the ritual is in very rough verse, archaic, containing allusions to matters which were in use early in the eighteenth century, such as the broached thurnell, which had disappeared from Craft Masonry long before the nineteenth century. On the other hand, much of it will be recognized by members of so-called Higher Degrees as at present in use. The Degree was given apparently after the Three Craft Degrees but is unconnected with the Royal Arch. It was conferred in a Chapter, not in a Lodge, and is Christian throughout. Both Doctor Mackey and Brother Woodford give the name Geometrical Master Masons in the Encyclopedias for which they are responsible, but neither seems to have realized that it represented an actual Degree.
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GEOMETRIC POINTS
In the language of French Freemasonry, this name is given to the four cardinal points of the compass, because they must agree with the four sides of a regular Temple or Lodge. They form a symbol of regularity and perfection.
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GEOMETRY
In the modern instructions, geometry is said to be the basis on which the super6trueture of Freemasonry is erected; and in the Old Constitutions of the Medieval Freemasons of England the most prominent place of all the sciences is given to geometry, which is made synonymous with Freemasonry. Thus, in the Regius Manuscript, which dates not later than the latter part of the fourteenth century. the Constitutions of Freemasonry are called "the Constitutions of the art of geometry according to Euclid," the words geometry and Masonry being used indifferently throughout the document; and in.
In the Harlefan Manuscript, No. 2054, it is said, "thus the craft Geometry was governed there, and that worthy Master (Euclid) gave it the name of Geometry, and it is called Mosonne in this land long after." In another part of the same manuscript, it is thus defined: "The fifth science is called Geometry, and it teaches a man to mete and measure of the earth and other things, which science is Masonry."
The Egyptians were undoubtedly among the first who cultivated geometry as a science. "It was not less useful and necessary to them," as Goguet observes (Origine des Lois, Origin of the Laws, I, iv, 4), "in the affairs of life, than agreeable to their speculatively philosophical genius." From Egypt, which was the parent both of the sciences and the mysteries of the Pagan world, it passed over into other countries; and geometry and Operative Masonry have ever been found together, the latter carrying into execution those designs which were first traced according to the principles of the former.
Speculative Freemasonry is, in like manner, intimately connected with geometry. In deference to our operative ancestors, and, in fact, as a necessary result of our close connection with them, Speculative Freemasonry derives its most important symbols from this parent science. Hence it is not strange that Euclid, the most famous of geometricians, should be spoken of in all the Old Records as a founder of Freemasonry in Egypt, and that a special legend should have been invented in honor of his memory.
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GEORGE IV
Born 1762; died 1830. King of Great Britain. February 6, 1787, in a Special Lodge, the Duke of Cumberland, Grand Master, made George IV, then Prince of Wales, a Freemason. The Duke of Cumberland died in 1790 and the Prince of Wales was elected Grand Master on November 24. Lord Moira became Pro Grand Master. In 1805 George was elected Grand Master of Scotland. He became King in 1811 and the Duke of Sussex was elected Grand Master of England, the King taking the title of Patron.
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GEORGIA
Major-General James Edward Oglethorp, founder of the Colony of Georgia on February 12, 1733, also founded on February 10, 1734, the Masonic Lodge now known as Solomon's Lodge No. 1, at Savannah, the name being so attached in 1776. To Past Master William B. Clarke's Early and Historic Freemasonry of Georgia we are indebted for definite light upon the old traditions of the Craft. The present Charter of this old Lodge, granted by the Grand Lodge of Georgia in 1786, states that Roger Lacey was granted a Warrant as the first Provincial Grand Master of Georgia in 1735 by Viscount Weymouth, Grand Master of England. Unity Lodge was constituted in 1774, and Grenadier's Lodge in 1775. During these years and up to 1786 a Provincial Grand Lodge existed and in the revolutionary period acted independently, formal reconstruction being made on December 21, 1786, when the permanent appointments under England were abolished and annual elections adopted. Major-General Samuel Elbert resigned the chair and William Stephens was elected Grand Master with other officers for 1787.
Solomon's Lodge at Savannah possesses an apron worn by Worshipful Master Benjamin Sheftall in 1758. The flap bears the emblem of the Royal Arch Degree and this suggests that at that time this ceremony was conferred in the Lodge where the Master himself was initiated. Georgia Chapter of Savannah worked under a Dispensation from the General Grand Chapter, December 1, 1802, and a Warrant was granted, January 9,1806. Union Chapter at Louisville received a Charter, from the General Grand Chapter, June 6, 1816; Augusta Chapter, December 6, 1818; Mechanics Chapter at Lexington, June 10, 1820; Webb Chapter at Sparta, November 16, 1921. A Grand Chapter was organized on February 4, 1822.
The first document mentioning the Degree of Select Masons in Georgia was a Diploma from Brother Cohen in possession of Brother Jacobs. In May, 1792, the latter was in Savannah and was invited to go to Augusta and confer the Degrees. The first Council, Adoniram Council, No. 1, of Augusta, was probably organized by Companion Webb or Companion Cross. On May 2, 1826, this Council took part in constituting the Grand Council of Georgia. Savannah Council, No. 2; Eureka Council, No. 3; Georgia Council, No. 4, and Hancock Council were also represented at the meeting. Soon after May 7, 1827, however, the activities of this Grand Council ceased for nearly fifteen years. On June 22, 1841, delegates from three Councils met at Augusta and again organized the Grand Council of Georgia.
Georgia Encampment, No. 1, at Augusta received a Dispensation dated 1823, and was chartered on May 5. Three other Commanderies, namely Saint Omar, No. 2, Saint Aldemar, and Coeur de Lion, were chartered before the Grand Commandery was organized on April 25, 1860. The year 1888 saw the establishment of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, at Savannah when Alpha, No. 1, a Lodge of Perfection, was granted a Charter on October 17. On the following day Temple, No. 1, a Chapter of Rose Croix, was chartered and on October 23, two years later, a Council of Kadosh, Gethsemane, No. 1, and a Consistory, Richard Joseph Nunn, No. 1, were also granted Charters.
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GERBIER, DOCTOR
An energetic Freemason, and, as mentioned in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, one of the removable Masters of the ancient Grand Lodge of France. He is said to have fabricated the title of the Metropolitan Chapter of France, which it was pretended had emanated from Edinburgh, in 1721.
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GERMAN FREEMASONS, UNION OF
See Herein deutscher Freimaurer
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GERMAN RITUAL
The principal systems of ritual or wodung in Germany are:
1. The old English as remodeled by Schroeder and used by the Grand Lodge of Hamburg, most of the Lodges under the Grand Lodge of Saxony and all of the Hanoverian Lodges which belong to the Grand Lodge Royal York, and the Five Independent Lodges.
2. Rectified Strict Observance, or Scottish, by the Three Globes, Berlin. The Ritual of the Saint John's Lodge is, we understand, that of Fessler, as revised by Zoellner
3. Swedish, by the Grand National Lodge, Berlin.
4. Fesslerts, differing slightly from that of Schroeder. The Grand Lodge of the-*Sun, at Bayreuth, and the Grand Lodge Royal York use this ritual. Great freedom is accorded the daughters of the Grand Lodge of the Sun, the only requirement being that once each year they are to work according to a common Ritual
5. Modern English Eclectic, in the Grand Lodge of Frankfort and Darmstadt. The Ritual is reported to be Sightly mixed with other ceremonies under the latter Grand Lodge.
The most complicated of all of these forms of working is the Swedish system, see No. 3 above. No. 1 or the Schroeder system is the simplest. The entire apparatus of the ceremonies just as gone through in ancient times is displayed at the initiations in the Swedish Ritual—that is, terrors, threats, and so forth. However, in Fessler's system these likenesses gradually disappear just as they do in the Grand Lodge, Kaiser Frederick, where they are only inferred indirectly in the declared historical reminiscences. The work in England appertaining to portions of the First and Second Degrees has been transposed in Germany so that an Entered Apprentice from America or England if visiting in Germany would not be able to work his way into the Lodge in the First Degree.
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GERMAN SOUTHWEST AFRICA
Three German Lodges exist here, at Lüderitzbucht, Swakopmund and Windhuk, the Kaiser Friedrich III Lodge from 1910, Zur Hoffnung Lodge from 1908, and the Kranzchen zur Kreuz des Sudens, 1909. Following the World War this German colonial possession became subject to the British Empire as the Protectorate of Southwest Africa.
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GERMAN UNION OF TWO AND TWENTY
A secret society founded in Germany, in 1786, by Doctor Bahrdt, whose only connection with Freemasonry was that Bahrdt and the twenty-one others who founded it were Freemasons, and that they invited to their co-operation the most distinguished Freemasons of Germany. The founder professed that the object of the association was to diffuse intellectual light, to annihilate superstition, and to perfect the human race. Its instruction was divided into six Degrees, as follows:
1. The Adolescent
2. The Man
3. The Old Man
4. The Mesopolite
5. The Diocesan
6. The Superior
The first three Degrees were considered a preparatory school for the last three, out of which the rules of the society were chosen. It lasted only four years, and was dissolved by the imprisonment of its founder for a political libel, most of its members joining the Illuminati. The publication of a work in 1789 entitled Mehr Noten als Text, etc., meaning More Notes than Text, or The German Union of XXII, which divulged its secret organization, tended to hasten its dissolution (see Bahrdt).
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GERMANY
Of all countries Germany plays the most important part in the history of ancient Freemasonry, eince it was there that the gilds of Operative Stone-Masons first assumed that definite organization which subsequently led to the establishment of Speculative Freemasonry. But it was not until a later date that the latter institution obtained a footing on German soil. Findel in his History (page 238) says that as early as 1730 temporary Lodges, occupied only in the communication of Masonic knowledge and in the study of the ritual, were formed at different points. But the first regular Lodge was established at Hamburg, in 1733, under a Warrant of Lord Strathmore, Grand Master of England; which did not, however, come into active operation until four years later. Its progress was at first slow; and nowhere is Freemasonry now more popular or more deserving of popularity. Its scholars have brought to the study of its antiquities and its philosophy all the laborious research that distinguishes the Teutonic mind, and the most learned works on these subjects have emanated from the German press. The detailed history of its progress would involve the necessity of no ordinary volume (see Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry published by the Masonic History Company, Chicago, pages 746-94, and 2242-53, also references in this work to Masonic leaders and society of Germany).
William Preston's Illustrations of Masonry state that in 1733 the Earl of Strathmore warranted a Lodge at Hamburg. It has been said also that Doctor Jaenisch was appointed Provincial Grand Master between 1718 and 1720, but there is no record, either of his name or of the Lodge at Hamburg, in the Minutes of the Grand Lodge. In 1741 a Lodge was established at Leipzig by seven Brethren who had held informal meetings during the five previous years.
Brother H. W. Marschall had been appointed Provincial Grand Master of Upper Saxony in 1737, and thereafter many other Provincial Grand Lodges were opened.
In August, 1738, although the King was opposed to Freemasonry, the Crown Prince Frederick was secretly initiated at Brunswick, August 15,1736, and always afterwards ardently supported the Fraternity.
A curious feature of the growth of the Craft in Germany is the number of independent Masonic Bodies which, with or without special authority, exercise control over other Lodges. There are also several independent Lodges in existence. The first of these Grand Lodges was probably the Zu den drei Weltkugeln (Three Globes) Lodge, opened at Berlin by the command of Frederick, who afterwards assumed the position of Grand Master as often as his military duties permitted. Of these bodies there has been a marked tendency in the more modern times to confine the ritual to the exemplification of the first three Degrees. But the earlier records show that other ceremonies were practiced. A Lodge, Three Doves, instituted in 1760, by a Warrant from the "Three Globes," also of Berlin, is recorded that in 1763 other Degrees were employed, including some if not all of the following: Elect of Nine, Elect of Fifteen, Elect of Perpigan, Red Scots Degree, Saint Andrew's Scot, Knight of the East, Knight of the Eagle or Prince Sovereign Rose Croix, a Supreme Council being formed of members of this last Degree to govern the others. This use of the supplementary grades at so early a period is in marked contrast with the later conditions when they were in Germany less favorably pursued.
Students will not overlook the building of the old cathedrals in Germany, especially those of Cologne and Strasburg, and the associations of the Craftsmen that grew with these stately structures, fraternities whose exploits and government are described in Doctor Mackey's History of Freemasonry. Their rules have a peculiar resemblance to our modern regulations. Mention must also be made here of the Verein deutscher Freimaurer, Association of Gerrrzan Freest massns founded on May 19, 1861, at Potsdam with the object of laboring for the development of Masonic ideals and for promoting their advancement, to respond to the requirements of Masonic science, to cultivate Masonic endeavor, to encourage fraternal relief in Lodges, and the exercise of discreet charity. The Association publishes a periodical, Zwanglosen Mitteilungen, every other month, holds yearly conventions of the membership, and also prints various pamphlets and books of value to Freemasons everywhere. The headquarters are at Leipzig.
Among various interesting enterprises is that of the Grand Lodge of the Sun, Zur Sonne, for facilitating the exchange from one Masonic family to another of young people, say from eleven to twenty years of age, principally during the holiday months of the year or at other times as may be desired. These youngsters were preferably to be placed in surroundings corresponding to those of their own homes.
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GHEMOUL BINAH THEBOUNAH
Hebrew, meaning, as usually explained, Prudence in the midst of vicissitude. The Hebrew characters are: ..The name of the seventh step of the mystical Kadosh Ladder of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
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GHIBLlM
The form in which Doctor Anderson spells Giblim. In the Book of Constitutions, 1738 (page 70) it is stated that in 1350 "John de Spoulce, called Master of the Ghiblim," rebuilt Saint George's chapel.
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GIBALIM
A Masonic corruption of Giblim, the Giblites, or men of Gebal (see Giblim).
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GIBBON, EDWARD
English historian, author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Made a Freemason in Friendship Lodge No. 6, London, in March, 172'5, Born April 27, 1737; died 1794 (see New Age Magazine, March 1925).
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GIBEAH
A Hebrew word signifying a hill, and giving name to several towns and places in ancient Palestine. The only one requiring special mention is Gibeah of Benjamin, a small city about four miles north of Jerusalem.
It was the residence, if not the birthplace, of King Saul. In the French Rite the word symbolically refers to the Master, who must be pure in heart, that the High and Holy One may dwell therein.The word is also used in the Swedish Rite.
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GIBLIM
Hebrew, oh. A significant word in Freemasonry.
It is the plural of the noun Gibli, the g pronounced hard, and means, according to the idiom of the Hebrew, Giblites, or inhabitants of the city of Gebal.
The Giblim, or Giblites, are mentioned in Scripture as assisting Solomon's and Hiram's builders to prepare the trees and the stones for building the Temple, and from this passage it is evident that they were clever artificers.
The passage is in First Kings (v, 18) and, in our common version, is as follows: "And Solomon's builders and Hiram' s builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers; so they prepared timber and stones to build the house," where the word translated in the authorized version by stone-squarers is, in the original, Gblim.
It is so also in that translation known as the Bishop's Bible. The Geneva version has Masons.
The French version of Martin has tailleurs de pierres following the English meaning; but Luther, in his German version retains the original word Giblim (see Ghiblim).
It is probable that the English translation followed the Jewish Targum, which has a word of similar import in this passage. The error has, however, assumed importance in the Masonic instructions, where Giblim is supposed to be synonymous with a Freemason. And Sir Wm.
Drummond confirms this by saying in his origins (volume iii, book v, chapter iv, page 129) that " the Gibalim were Master Masons who put the finishing hand to King Solomon's Temple (see Gebal).
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GILDS
The word gild, guild, or geld, from the Saxon gildan, to pay, originally meant a tax or tribute, and hence those fraternities which, in the early ages, contributed sums to a common stock, were called Gilds. Cowell, the old English jurist, defines a Gild to be "a fraternity or commonalty of men gathered together into one combination, supporting their common charge by mutual contributions. " Societies of this kind, but not under the same name, were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and their artificers and traders were formed into distinct companies which occupied particular streets named after them. But according to Dr. Lujo Brentano, who published, in 1870, an essay on The History and Development of Gilds, England is the birthplace of the Medieval Gilds from whom he says that the modern Freemasons emerged. They existed, however, in every country of Europe, and we identify them in the Compagnons de la Tour of France, and the Baucorporationen of Germany.
The difference, however, was that while they were patronized by the municipal authorities in England, they were discouraged by both the Church and State on the Continent.
The Gilds in England were of three kinds, Religious Gilds, Merchant Gilds, and Craft Gilds, specimens of all of which still exist, although greatly modified in their laws and usages. The Religious or Ecclesiastical Gilds are principally found in Roman Catholic countries, where, under the patronage of the Church, they often accomplish much good by the direction of their benevolence to particular purposes. Merchant Gilds are exemplified in the twelve great Livery Companies of London. And the modern Trades Unions are nothing else but Craft Gilds under another name. But the most interesting point in the history of the Craft Gilds is the fact that from them arose the Brotherhoods of the Freemasons.
Brentano gives the following almost exhaustive account of the organization and customs of the Craft Gilds: The Craft Gilds themselves first sprang up amongst the free craftsmen, when they were excluded from the fraternities which had taken the place of the family unions, and later among the bondmen, when they ceased to belong to the Namibia of their lord. Like those Frith Gilds, the object of the early Craft Gilds was to create relations as if among brothers; and above all things, to grant to their members that assistance which the member of a family might expect from that family. As men's wants had become different, this assistance no longer concerned the protection of life, limbs, and property, for this was provided for by the Frith Gilds now recognized as the legitimate authority; but the principal object of the Craft Gilds was to secure their members in the independent, unimpaired, and regular earning of their daily bread by means of their craft.
The very soul of the Craft Gild was its meetings, which brought all the Gild brothers together every week or quarter. These meetings were always held with certain ceremonies, for the sake of greater solemnity. The box having several locks like that of the Trade Unions, and containing the charters of the Gild, the statutes, the money, and other valuable articles, was opened on such occasions, and all present had to uncover their heads. These meetings possessed all the rights which they themselves had not chosen to delegate. They elected the presidents, originally called Aldermen, afterwards Masters and Wardens, and other officials, except in those eases already mentioned in which the Master was appointed by the King, the Bishop, or the authorities of the town.
As a rule, the Gilds were free to choose their Masters, either from their own members, or from men of higher rank though they were sometimes limited in their choice to the former.
The Wardens summoned and presided at the meetings, with their consent enacted ordinances for the regulation of the trade, saw these ordinances properly executed, and watched over the maintenance of the customs of the Craft. They had the right to examine all manufactures and a right of search for all unlawful tools and products. They formed, with the assistance of a quorum of Gild brothers, the highest authority in all the concerns of the Gild. No Gild member could be arraigned about trade matters before any other judge. We have still numerous documentary proofs of the severity and justice with which the Wardens exercised their judicial duties. Whenever they held a court, it was under special forms and solemnities; thus, for instance, in 1275 the chief Warden of the masons building Strasburg cathedral held a court sitting under a canopy.
Besides being brotherhoods for the care of the temporal welfare of their members, the Craft Gilds were, like the rest of the Gilds, at the same time religious fraternities. In the account of the origin of the Company of Grocers, it is mentioned that at the very first meeting they fixed a stipend for the priest, who had to conduct their religious services and pray for their dead. In this respect the Craft Gilds of all countries are alike; and in reading their statutes, one might fancy sometimes that the old craftsmen eared only for the well-being of their souls. All had particular saints for patrons, after whom the society was frequently called- and, where it was possible, they chose one who had some relation to their trade. They founded masses, altars, and painted windows in cathedrals; and even at the present day their coats of arms and their gifts range proudly by the side of those of kings and barons. Sometimes individual Craft Gilds appear to have stood in special relation to a particular church, by virtue of which they had to perform special services, and received in return a special share in all the prayers of the clergy of that church. In later times, the Craft Gilds frequently went in solemn procession to their churches.
Be find innumerable ordinances also as to the support of the sick and poor- and to afford a settled asylum for distress, the London Companies early built dwellings near their halls. The chief care, however, of the Golden was always directed to the welfare of the souls of the dead. Every year a requiem was sung for all departed Gild brothers, when they were all mentioned by name; and on the death of any member, special services were held for his soul, and distribution of alms was made to the poor, who, in return, had to offer up prayers for the dead, as is still the custom in Roman Catholic countries.
In a History of the English Guilds, edited by Toulon Smith from old documents in the Record Office at London, and published by the Early English Text Society, we find many facts confirmatory of those given by Brentano, as to the organization of these Gilds.
The testimony of these old records shows that a religious element pervaded the Gilds, and exercised a very powerful influence over them. Women were admitted to all of them, which Herbert (Livery Companies v, 83), thinks was borrowed from the Ecclesiastical Gilds of Southern Europe; and the Brethren and Sisters were on terms of complete equality There were fees on entrance, yearly and special payments, and fines for wax for lights to burn at the altar or in funeral rites. The Gilds had set days of meeting, known as morning speeches, or days of spekynggess totiedare for here commune profit, and a grand festival on the patron saint's day, when the members assembled for worship, almsgiving, feasting, and for nourishing of brotherly love. Mystery plays were often performed.
They had a treasure-chest, the opening of which was a sign that business had begun. While it remained open all stood with uncovered heads, when cursing and swearing and all loose conduct were severely punished. The Gild property consisted of land, cattle, money, etc. The expenditure was on the sick, poor and aged, in making good losses by robbery, etc. Loans were advanced, pilgrims assisted, and, in one city, "any good girl of the Gild" was to have a dowry on marriage, if her father could not provide it.
Poor travelers were lodged and fed. Roads were kept in repair, and churches were Unstained and beautified. They wore a particular costume, which was enforced by their statutes, whence come the liveries of the London Companies of the present day and the clothing of the Freemasons.
An investigation of the usage's of these Medieval Gilds, and a comparison of their regulations with the old Masonic Constitutions, will furnish a fertile source of interest to the Masonic archeologist, and will throw much light on the early history of Freemasonry (see Gilds, Encyclopedia Britannic, also the Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masonry, Edward Conder Jr.. and the Liber Albus, the White Book of the City of London, compiled in 1419 A.D., and reprinted in 1861).
As showing the spirit of the old Brethren we give here the pledge or oath of the Masters and Wardens of the Crafts or Mysteries, as then they were called, from page 451 of the Liber Albus, presumably the one ape proved by law in the reign of Henry IV of England but probably in use even before that time, 1367-1413: You shall swear, that well and lawfully you shall over look the Art or Mystery of which you are Masters, or Wardens, for the year elected. And the good rules and ordinances of the same Mystery, approved here by the Court, you shall keep and shall cause to be kept.
And all the defaults that you shall find therein, done contrary thereto, you shall present unto the Chamberlain of the City, from time to time, sparing no one for favor, and aggrieving no one for hate. Extortion or wrong unto no one, by color of your office, you shall do- nor unto anything that shall be against the estate and peace of the King, or of the City, you shall consent. But for the time that you shall be in office, in all things pertaining unto the said Mystery, according to the good laws and franchises of the said city, well and lawfully you shall behave yourself. So God you help, and the Saints.
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GILEAD
See Galahad
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GILGUL, DOCTRINE OF
We learn from Brother Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopoedia that Certain of the learned Jews have believed, for man centuries, in the doctrine of Gilgul, according to which the bodies of Jews deposited in foreign tombs contain within them a principle of soul which cannot rest until by a process called by them "the whirling of the soul.' the immortal particle reaches once more the sacred soil of the Promised Land. This whirling of souls was supposed to be accomplished by a process somewhat similar to that of the metempsychoses of the Hindus, the psychical spark being conveyed through bird, beast, or fish, and sometimes, the most minute insect. The famous Rabbi Akiba, followed by the Rabbis Judah and Meir, declared that none could come to the resurrection save those of the Jews who were buried in the Holy Land, or whose remains were, in the process of ages, gradually brought thither. In Picart's wonderful and laborious work there are many references to this doctrine. The learned may consult further authorities on this curious subject in the Cabana Denudata (or Uncovered), of Heinrich Khunrath, 1677.
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GILKES. PETER WILLIAM
Surname spelled in some old Masonic records as Jilks and so pronounced. An English Freemason who devoted practically his entire life to the dissemination of knowledge retarding the ceremonies of the Craft and the teaching of the ritual of the Grand Lodge of England, acknowledged by all as an authority on Masonic regulations. Born in London, May 1, 1765, and died on December 11, 1833. Initiated at the age of twenty-one in British Lodge, No. 4, now No. 8, in 1786 This record is not in accord with the Grand Lodge Register which gives the year as 1794 but the general choice is for 1786 (see Peter Gilkes, by Brother A. F. Calvert, 1916, pare 4). Little is known of the early history of Brother Gilkes except that he carried on, after the death of his father, a small retail establishment near Carnaby Market and Great Marlborough Street, London. In Dixon's History of Freemasonry in Lincolnshire we note that in August, 1820, in recognition of the "very polite manner in which he has always shown himself towards this Lodge in giving to the Brethren the instruction in Masonry as laid down by the United Lodge of Promulgation," a vote of thanks was passed to "Brother P. Jilks, Greengrozer, Carnaby Market, London." It is certain that Brother Gilkes did not pursue this long after the death of his mother but, "Finding himself independent and being of an unambitious nature, he determined to retire from business and devote himself to pursuits more genial to his disposition.
His accounts were soon closed, he engaged a single room which he furnished plainly, and arranged with Hannah, an old faithful servant of his late mother to attend to his apartment and prepare the frugal meals," he remaining a bachelor his entire life.
Brother Gilkes maintained and taught daily a class of Freemasons without making any charge for his service. The Freemasons Quarterly Renew, of 1834, said: "Although universally held in esteem amongst Masons his conduct was always characterized by good sense; he never aspired beyond his station in life, and declined the honor of an office in the Grand Lodge because he considered that his circumstances in life were not equal to the appointment." An entertaining old book by Dr. George Oliver is entitled The Discrepancies of Freemasonry examined during a week's gossip with the late celebrated Brother Gilkes and other eminent Masons. Page 32 tells of questions of Masonic importance discussed by Brothers Oliver and Gilkes in 1825 and the book shows clearly the high esteem in which the latter was held for his thorough knowledge of the Craft. Peter Gilkes attended and was prominent from the first meeting when the Emulation Lodge of Improvement for Master Masons was founded on October 2, 1823. This group believed in the regulation of all ceremonial by Grand Lodge and also desired that United Grand Lodge should extend its control to the three Lectures explaining the ceremonies.
The form of government they adopted was to enable Emulation Lodge "to hand down the Ceremonies and Lectures unaltered and unchanged from generation to generation." After frequent visits to this Lodge, Peter Gilkes became a joining member and leader of its Committee in May, 1825. This Lodge "differed from all other Lodges of Instruction in being designed for Master Masons only and therefore gave as much attention to the Third and Second as it gave to the First Ceremony, preference being given to the Third.
" An account of Brother Giles activities in various Masonic Lodges would fill many paged Briefly, he was a member of British Lodge, where he was initiated, Royal York Lodge of Perseverance, Lodge of Hope, Globe Lodge, Lodge of Unity, Cadogan Lodge, Old Concord Lodge, Saint James' Union Lodge, Lodge of Good Intent, Saint Michael's Lodge, Hope and Unity Lodge, and Lodge of Unions. Of ten Lodges he is said to have occupied the chairs. His visits to other Lodges were frequent.
Never a subscribing member of the Percy Lodge "he often conducted the ceremonies," says the history of the Lodge, and is recorded as present on eighty-five occasions from 1817 to 1833. While attending Lodges in this way he frequently instructed the Brethren and in one case Brother Calvert in his biography (page 13) records "Giles, while only attending the meetings as a visitor, occupied the chair on every occasion for three years running." Then he joined the Lodge and was elected Worshipful Master for the ensuing year.
Brother Giles' London pupils presented him in 1822 with a Past Master's jewel, profusely embellished with diamonds, handsomely designed by Brother John Harris and costing one hundred guineas, over $500. This was only one of a number of tokens of respect and admiration received by Brother Giles during his life. This jewel is possessed by the Percy Lodge.
A year after his death plans were made for the erection of a monument to his memory. His friend and pupil, Stephen Barton Wilson, one of the three instructors responsible for carrying on the work of their preceptor, was commissioned to execute the tablet. This beautiful memorial erected in 1834, is in Saint James Church, Piccalilli, London.
The activities of Brother Giles are intimately bound up with the story of Emulation Lodge of Improvement which should be read in Some Account of the Ritual, by Brother G. J. V. Rankin, 1925, and the Illustrated History of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, by Brother Henry Sadler.
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GIRARD, STEPHEN
A wealthy Freemason, widely known for his philanthropies. Born in France, May 20, 1750. Visited New York in 1774, in the meantime a sea captain, and began a trade to and from New Orleans and Port au Prince. Settled in Philadelphia in 1776, married, and established himself as a merchant. Ahiman Rezon, Pennsylvania, shows Stephen Girard was initiated September 7, 1778 in Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia; crafted October 1, 1778; raised November 23, 1778. An old copy of the by-laws of Lodge No. 3, 1844, gives these dates. In 1810 Brother Girard lent the Government of the United States much assistance in establishing and maintaining their credit with foreign countries, placing at the disposal of the Government, by the purchase of stock in the Bank of the United States, one million dollars. In 1812 he opened the Bank of Stephen Girard and in 1814 he personally subscribed for about 95 per cent of the Government's entire war loan. Brother Girard was appointed in 1809 to the Board of Trustees of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, this Grand Lodge having just completed the building of a large and expensive Masonic Hall. He subscribed the final five thousand dollars necessary to relieve this Institution of debt for the Hall. Stephen Girard was active in many public benefits, personally contributed his services and resources of the public hospital in 1793 when Philadelphia was suffering from an epidemic of yellow fever. Again in the yellow fever epidemic of 1797 to 1798 he gave generously of his time and money.
At his death, February 26, 1831, due to an accident when he was injured in the street by a truck, he had amassed a larger fortune than had ever been known in the United States up to that time. His will included numerous and generous contributions to various charitable and civic enterprises. Practically his entire fortune, amounting to some thirty-five million in 1908, was devoted to charitable purposes, and he founded one school in particular and provided funds for the continued maintenance of it.
His will reads that this is to be used "to provide for such a number of poor male white orphan children . . . a better education as well as a more comfortable maintenance than they usually receive from the application of public funds." Another indication of the eccentricities of Brother Girard is the fact that he also states in the will above quoted that "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of said college.... I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans .... free from the excitements which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce." Girard's heirs-at-law hotly contested this will, and, although Daniel Webster made a famous plea for the Christian religion in the effort to set aside the will, it was sustained by the Court.
The Masonic fund, known as the Stephen Girard Charity Fund, amounting to $90,000.00 in 191S, is handled by the Fraternity and has done much to alleviate poverty and hardship among the poor.
Two days after the death of Brother Girard a general invitation to his funeral appeared in the public newspapers and this invitation requested the attendance of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and of the subordinate Lodges and listed as well a number of other benevolent associations in which he had been interested. Almost four hundred members of the Fraternity assembled at the Masonic Hall and attended the funeral, which was held in the German Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity and the body being interred in a vault adjoining the Church. There was some difficulty when the Brethren entered the Church, which they did without their aprons in order to avoid any criticism, and it is recorded that the Roman Catholic clergy Left the Church in a body and therefore the funeral services were not performed. The Brethren waited some time and then removed the body from the Church and placed it in the vault as had been desired by Brother Girard.
It has been said that when Brother Girard was found to be near death he consented, at the request of his sister, to see a Catholic priest and this has been construed to mean that this intention had been to become reconciled to the Church in which he had been baptized, although by the time the priest arrived Brother Girard was dead. Under the circumstances, however, the Bishop of the Catholic Church consented to the body being admitted into the Church. The following is taken from Bishop Francis Patrick Henrick's diary written at the time:
The body of Stephen Girard was brought with much funeral pomp, attended by many Free Masons marching in procession in scarfs and ornaments, as a tribute of respect to their deceased companion, to the church of the Holy Trinity. When, therefore, I saw these enter the Church to have the funeral rites gone through, no priest assisting, I ordered the body taken away for burial I allowed it to have Christian burial for the potent reason that the deceased was baptized in the church and never left it, and when death came his illness was such that he did not perceive its approach. In January, 1851, when the buildings of the College for orphans had reached sufficient completion to receive it, the body of Brother Girard was removed by the City Councils and the Board of Commissioners of the Girard Estate from the Church and the body was finally reentered in the marble tomb which had been prepared for it within the grounds of the College in September, 1851, and this ceremony was participated in by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania at the express request of the Commissioners of the Girard Estates, the coffin being borne by eight Past Masters of the Order. A very impressive ceremony was held, about three hundred of the small orphans being present and the Masonic dirge having been expressly composed for the occasion. The heirs of Brother Girard objected to the removal of the remains from the Church by the city officials but the Courts ruled against them.
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GIRDLE
In ancient symbology the girdle was always considered as typical of chastity and purity. In the Brahmanical initiations, the candidate was presented with the Zennar, or sacred cord, as a part of the holy garments; and Gibbon says that "at the age of puberty, or maturity, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle; fifteen genuflections, or kneelings, were required after he put on the sacred girdle." The old Templars assumed the obligations of poverty, obedience, and chastity; and a girdle was given them, at their initiation, as a symbol of the last of the three vows. As a symbol of purity, the girdle is still used in many chivalric initiations, and may be properly considered as similar to the Masonic apron in its message.
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GLAIRE, PETER MAURICE
A distinguished Freemason, who was born in Switzerland in 1743, and died in 1819. In 1764, he went to Poland, and became the intimate friend of King Stanislaus Poniatowski, who confided to him many important diplomatic missions. During his residence in Poland, Glaire, greatly patronized the Freemasons of that kingdom and established there a Rite of seven Degrees. He returned to Switzerland in 178S, where he continued to exercise an interest in Freemasonry, and in 1810 was elected Grand Master for three years, and in 1813 for life, of the Grand Orient of Helvetia, which Body adopted his Rite.
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GLASTONBURY, HOLY THORN OF
There is an ancient market town in Somersetshire, England, which owes its origin to a celebrated abbey, founded, according to tradition, in 60 A.D. We are further told that Joseph of Arimathea was the founder, and the "miraculous thorn" which flowered on Christmas day as believed by the common people to be the veritable staff with which Joseph aided his steps from the Holy Land. The tree was destroyed during the civil wars, but grafts flourish in neighboring gardens. Glastonbury has the honor of ranking Saint Patrick, 415 A.D., and Saint Dunstan, 940 A. D, among its abbots. In 1539 Henry VIII summoned Abbot Whiting to surrender the town and all its treasures, and on his refusal condemned him to be hanged and quartered, and the monastery confiscated to the king's use, which sentence was immediately carried into execution. King Arthur is said to be buried in this place.
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GLEASON, BENJAMIN
Masonic ritualist. Graduated at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1802, and was a public lecturer on geography and astronomy. About 1801 received the Preston Lectures from Thomas Smith Webb and in 1805 was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, which office he held until 1842. A member of Mount Lebanon Lodge in Massachusetts in 1807. Visited England and exemplified the Lectures before the Grand Lodge there. He died in Concord, Massachusetts, 1847, at seventy years of age (see Notes on the Ritual, Silas H. Shepherd, Research Pamphlet No. 19, 1924).
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GLOBE
In the Second Degree, the celestial and terrestrial globes have been adopted as symbols of the universal extension of the Order, and as suggestive of the universal claims of brotherly love. The symbol is a very ancient one, and is to be found in the religious systems of many countries. Among the Mexicans the globe was the symbol of universal power. But the Masonic symbol appears to have been derived from, or at least to have an allusion to, the Egyptian symbol of the winged globe. There is nothing more common among the Egyptian monuments than the symbol of a globe supported on each side by a serpent, and accompanied with wings extended wide beyond them, occupying nearly the whole of the entablature above the entrance of many of their temples. We are thus reminded of the globes on the pillars at the entrance of the Temple of Solomon. The winged globe, as the symbol of Kneph, the Creator Sun, an Egyptian myth of a god having the body of a man and the head of a ram, was adopted by the Egyptians as their national device, as the Lion is that of England, or the Eagle of the United States. In Isaiah (xvi i, 1) where the authorized version of King James s Bible has "Woe to the land shadowing with wings," Lowth, after Bochart, translates, "Ho! to the land of the winged cymbal," supposing the Hebrew xxx to mean the sistrum, which was a round instrument, consisting of a broad rim of metal, having rods passing through it, and some of which, extending beyond the sides, would, says Bishop Lowth, have the appearance of wings, and be expressed by the same Hebrew word.
But Rosellini translates the passage differently, and says, " Ho, land of the winged globe." Dudley, in his Naology (page 18), says that the knowledge of the spherical figure of the earth was familiar to the Egyptians in the early ages, in which some of their temples were constructed. Of the round figure described above, he says that although it be called a globe, an egg, the symbol of the world was perhaps intended; and he thinks that if the globes of the Egyptian entablatures, were closely examined, they would perhaps be found of an oval shape, figurative of the creation, and not bearing any reference to the form of the world.
The interpretation of the Masonic globes, as a symbol of the universality of Freemasonry, would very well agree with the idea of the Egyptian symbol referring to the extent of creation. That the globes on the pillars, placed like the Egyptian symbol before the temple, were a representation of the celestial and terrestrial globes, is a very modern idea. In the passage of the Book of Kings, whence Freemasonry has derived its ritualistic description, it is said (First Icings vii, 16), "And he made two chapters of molten brass, to set upon the tops of the pillars.`' In some Masonic instructions it is said that "the pillars were surmounted by two pomels or globes." Now pomel, xxxxx, is the very word employed by Rabbi Solomon in his commentary on this passage, a word which signifies a globe or spherical bodice The Masonic globes were really the chapiters described in the Book of Kings.
Again it is said (First Kings vii, 92), "Upon the top of the pillars was lily work." We now know that the plant here called the lily was really the lotus, or the Egyptian water-lily. But among the Egyptians the lotus was a symbol of the universe; and hence, although the Freemasons in their lectures have changed the expanded flower of the lotus, which crowned the chapiter and surmounted each pillar of the porch, into a globe, they have retained the interpretation of universality. The Egyptian globe or egg and lotus or lily and the Masonic globe are all symbols of something universal, and the Masonic idea has only restricted by a natural impulse the idea to the universality of the Order and its benign influences. But in Brother Mackey's opinion it is a pity that Masonic ritualists did not preserve the Egyptian and Scriptural symbol of the lotus surrounding a ball or sphere, and omit the more modern figures of globes celestial and terrestrial.
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GLOBES, THE
It happens that unlike the majority of symbols and rites a certain number of written data are in existence about the origin of the symbolism's of the two Globes.
The oldest Lodges did not have them. Notices of them appear in the Minutes of one Lodge, some years later in the Minutes of another; they are shown in some of the oldest tracing boards and not shown in others; these facts show that the use of the Globes came slowly into use in the first half of the Eighteenth Century. In one Lodge record it is stated in so many words that "they illustrate the universality of the Craft" anywhere under heaven, anywhere in the earth, there is the home of Freemasonry! In the beginning of the Speculative system with the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717 it was expected that Grand Lodge would warrant Lodges only in London and inside a radius of ten miles from the City; it was not until the period of 1725 to 1730 that Warrants began to be issued (and then usually to men who had been made Masons in London) for "Lodges oversee." It is reasonable to assume that this planting of Freemasonry on the Continent and in faraway America must have inspired and stimulated Masons in and around London, must have given them a new emotion, because their horizons were unexpectedly pushed outwards over the rim of the world; if that assumption is valid it follows that the use of Globes began to spread among the Lodges in the period between 1730 to 1750. Globes were hand-made in 1725, and therefore were costly, especially those of glass or silver; in one Lodge book a set is inventoried at £100. Many Lodges received them as gifts from well-to-do members.
In the "Legend of the Craft" included in the Old Charges it is said that the secrets of the Liberal Arts and Sciences were preserved through Noah's Flood in two pillars. It is probable that early Speculative Masons pictured them as having been pedestals rather than pillars, similar to the pedestals they had in Lodge and in which regalia and the Secretary's records were stowed. These two ancient pedestals of the Old Charges were replaced by the two Great Pillars of Solomon's Temple, J and B. It appears that when the Globes first came into use they were placed in whatever spot was most convenient. Certainly there were not two globes on the Diluvian pillars. Solomon's Pillars were surmounted by Chapiters, and archeologists believe that they were made of strips of metal and shaped like baskets, and that resinous wood was piled in them for giving light after dark.
The replacing of the Chapiters by Globes on top of the Great Pillars may have come about for any one or more of at least three reasons: Globes were more convenient when thus off the floor and out of the road; they made the Pillars more pleasing to the eyes; the symbolism of the Globes and of the Pillars combined naturally and easily, etc.
Archeologists found near Herculaneum a villa in which the dining room had an astronomical ceiling which could be turned to make the painted stars inside correspond on any night with the actual stars outside. There are hints that the Egyptians had globes they had spherical geometry and astronomy. In the late Middle Ages globes were so common that the phrase "Terrestrial and Celestial Globes" passed into current speech. This has been used as an argument to prove that before Columbus set sail men knew of the sphericity of the earth; a few men unquestionably did know of it, but the Globes themselves prove nothing. Men who believed the earth to be fiat could have had maps of the flat earth put on a globe because it was more convenient; we print maps on flat paper but it does not prove that we believe the earth to be flat. It is probable that the Speculative Masons used their Globes for no other purpose than maps; nothing is hinted in their Minutes of esoteric or occultistic meanings; but to them the mere map of the whole earth and the whole sky was something to excite the mind because it kept them alive to the fact that their Fraternity which had only a few years before confined itself to so modest a territory, had unexpectedly and almost miraculously burst its bonds, and was extending itself over the world. The Globes belong to the subject-matter of the philosophy of Masonry, but thus far have received meager attention from those who specialize in that branch of Masonic studies, though why this is true it is difficult to know, because that which the Globes symbolize is as massively overwhelming a fact as a range of the Himalayas.
Suppose that speculative Masonry had been confined, as it was first intended to a radius of ten miles from the center of London; if it had, it could easily have limited its membership to London citizens, of the white race, and members of some Christian church; when it became universal, as the Globes symbolize, such localism became impossible. It could not become universal without expanding to other countries, it therefore could not be confined to England, and other countries would stand on a par with England. It could not be confined to one race if it became universal because the world is occupied by three races with some sixty or so branches. It could not be confined to one religion, because there are scores of great religions in the world. This transformation of a local Craft into a world-wide Fraternity was an epochal event in the history of Freemasonry, and none more so; and since it is represented by the Globes they have a scope and power of meaning far outreaching the small attention they have thus far received.
Note. See History of the Lodge of Amity No. 137; by Harry P. Smith; published by the Lodge, Poole, England, 1937, and printed by J. Looker. This is a book excellently to be recommended because in the Minutes quoted by it are so many descriptions of Ritual, customs, etc. written at the time. On page 47 it is told that during a Degree there were exhibited "a pair of 18-in. globes, the perfect ashlar suspended from a Lewis [a species of clamp] and affixed to a winch, an armillary sphere, and a small philosophical [scientific] apparatus, as well as the usual ornaments furniture and jewels." The author makes it clear that in the earliest days symbols had been drawn on the floor with chalk; that later the same symbols were painted permanently on a cloth, or board, or were inlaid in wood or stone. By about 1765 actual objects were used in place of drawn figures. The same impulse which substituted actual objects for drawn figures, led to substituting acted out ceremonies in lieu of what had been an oral lecture. The reference to the two "18-inch globes" is one of many Minutes or other records which substantiate what was said in a paragraph above about the placing of the Globes.
The present Ritual with its Ceremonies, Rites and Symbols can be explained only in the light of its history and in this Supplement that history—as just above—has been drawn from Lodge records, most of them of the Eighteenth Century, and of these the majority are of English Lodges. Records and Minutes of early American Lodges would naturally have been preferred for the present purpose but they unfortunately are few in number.
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"GOLDEN BOOK," ST. LAURENT'S
The "Golden Book" is a manuscript of 198 sheets of letter paper, 8 x 10, in a number of tints, bound in crimson morocco, preserved in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. It is printed in full at page 192 ff. in Ancient Documents Relating to the A. and A. Scottish Rite, edited by Juleps F. Sachse; Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia; 1915. It was written by Count De St. Laurent, a native of Bogota; and was found in Northern France. In it is his own record of his attempt to found a Supreme Council for the Western Hemisphere, in 1832, in a period when Scottish Rite Masonry in America was, like Ancient Craft Masonry, broken by the Anti-Masonic Crusade.
A number of other documents were afterwards copied into the manuscript. These latter are now infinitely more interesting than the Count's grandiose dream of becoming the head of the Scottish Rite for half the world, because among them are three of the very few written documents relating to the Masonic membership of Lafayette:
1. A translation of the letters patent by which the Thirty-third Degree was conferred upon him.
2. The Certificate of Lodge Lafayette.
3. A note in his own handwriting under the letters patent expressing his gratitude for the honor conferred. "This note is upon page 80 in the 'Golden Book' and is the only known Masonic autograph letter of Brother General Lafayette. It will be noted that this note was written by Brother Lafayette, May 10, 1834, just ten days before his death." (The document in full is given by Sachse on page 288.)
Because no record of General Lafayette's Initiation has been found, a number of writers (among them a few Masonic writers) have denied that he was ever regularly made a Mason. It is difficult to understand this reasoning. On October 6, 1824, the Grand Lodge of Delaware received him with a long procession and Grand Honors; on June 27, 1825, it made him an Honorary Member; in a return visit on July 25 to receive the honor he mentioned in his address that he had visited twenty-four Grand Lodges.
He had visited Illinois Masons at Kaskaskia, on April 20, of that same year. six days before that he had visited the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. In 1824 he had visited the Grand Lodge of Maine (for the text of his speech see Maine Proceedings; Vol. I, page 121). on October 8, 1824, he was made Honorary Member of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, and was accompanied by his son, Bro. George Washington Lafayette it was on that visit that the Legislature made him and his heirs citizens of Maryland for ever. In the same year he made a Masonic tour of New Jersey He visited the Grand Lodge of South Carolina in 1825. May 4, 1825, he visited the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, was made Honorary Member, and was entertained by Past Grand Master Andrew Jackson. His tour from beginning to end was a prolonged Masonic visit, and in all the branches of the Craft: to question his membership in the Order ceases to have any weight against the mass of so much Grand Lodge testimony.
Note. In his comments quoted on the Lafayette notation in the Golden Book Bro. Sachse describes it as "the only known Masonic autograph letter of Brother General Lafayette." [It is not a "letter."] It is difficult to believe that in almost a year spent in visiting Masonic bodies over the nation Bro. Lafayette wrote no letter to any Mason, or about his Masonic plans. Somewhere a few of them must be in existence. The Laurent "Golden Book" is not to be confused with another "Scottish Rite Golden Book" one described by Folger.
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GOLDEN CIRCLE, KNIGHTS OF THE
About 1835 there were in the South an undetermined number of "Southern Rights" Clubs set up to send out slavers, to protect, and uphold, and to proclaim the slaveholding system. After they had flourished in separate centers, taking different forms, there crystallized out of them in 1855 a secret society entitled Knights of the Golden Circle, and the name of George C. Bickley, a native of Indiana, and later a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, was prominently connected with it. It appears to have in part been designed as a foil to the Know Nothing Party, the most ambitious of the impossible attempts to organize in America a political party in the form of a secret society. The first of the professed aims of the Knights was to protect slavery; its second, was to snake the South an independent nation; its third was to conquer Cuba and Mexico.
Its historian says that it furnished the means for "General" Walker to conduct his once-notorious filibuster in Nicaragua an episode Americans have forgotten because it is too painful to remember. The Knights did not stop with dreaming of an independent Confederacy in the South; they envisaged it as the maker of an empire which would expand to include Mexico, the West Indies, and countries to the Isthmus.
The society came to an end (apparently) with the Civil War; historians, if they will search its local minutes, will find there recorded month by month a procession of ideas and ambitions and schemes which illuminate one or two corners in the Civil War period; otherwise the Circle belongs to the archeology of dead and forgotten secret movements. There was never any connection with Freemasonry; Grand Lodges both North and South, as hundreds of Lodge minutes shows kept themselves remarkably free from involvement in secret conspiracies; so free that they maintained much Fraternal comity during the War, and resumed the whole of it immediately after the War. (See the rare little book, a collector's item: An authentic Exposition of the Knights of the Golden Circle, by a member of the Order; Indianapolis; C. O. Perrins; 1861.)
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GOTHIC STYLE, THE
An architectural style is a set, or system, of principles which include within themselves a structural form, and a mode of ornamentation; the last named never being added on, as by an afterthought but belonging to the principles. To discover a new set or system of architectural principles is so difficult, and is achieved so seldom, that it is doubtful if more than a score or so of styles of architecture have been discovered in the history of the whole world. Oftentimes what is called a style is not a style, but a modification of one, or is the use of some detail of one (Greek pillars, for example), or, like the gables on New England houses, is nothing more than a local fancy—a carpenter's trick and not an architectural principle.
Before the period of about 1140 A.D. in northern France churches and other public buildings (every people's architecture has been a style or mode or customary design of public, or communal, or monumental buildings) were constructed in Romanesque. The origin of this type was the old Roman town hall, or basilica, and it had been adapted for use in churches by employing flattened round arches, often set in colonnades. These Romanesque churches w ere made of white stone, and there were so many of them in France that a chronicler once described them as "the white cloak of churches," a phrase repeated countless times.
Suddenly—in fact, very suddenly—and beginning at a point in or near Paris, this Romanesque type was replaced by the Gothic style, which until Petrarch's time was called the French style. This Gothic became an enthusiasm, almost an obsession, and between (roughly) 1140 A.D. and 1250 A.D. no fewer than eighty cathedrals and some 500 large churches were built in it in France alone—one bishop even tore down a great basilica church (St. Peter's at Rome was then a basilica) only fifty years old, because his people demanded the wonderful new Gothic.
This was not a gradual piecemeal development of one detail after another out of Romanesque, but the discovery of a new formula, which itself was a single unity of principles, and bad to be understood as a whole or not at all. A comparable discovery, one making it easier to grasp the point of the Gothic discovery, was made here in America by Wilbur and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, during the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Their discovery was not aimed at by first modifying one piece of machinery and then another, nor did it come as the end result of a large number of experiments one after the other, but z as a feat of thought, and was discovered at once and as a whole.
This discovery was the aero-dynamic formula; and it seas in essence not a mechanical one but a mathematical one, and neither of the men w as a mechanic. Whoever it was who found out the Gothic style, one man or a group, at one stroke or over ten or twenty years, similarly discovered a formula, the Gothic formula; and just as airplane designers, once they had the aero-dynamic formula to work with could make planes of any possible size, speed, power, and for any possible purpose, so could the possessors of the Gothic formula design buildings large or small; cathedrals or churches or monasteries or halls.
If histories of architecture in four or five modern languages be placed side by side on a series of shelves, and if their contents be compared one with another, it will be found that they are concerned with public and monumental structures, capitols, churches, libraries, museums, hospitals, palaces, etc. and that they describe or discuss these public and monumental structures in the terms of the architectural styles they embody. The building of such structures is one of the fine arts.
That fine art is always what historians mean by architecture. This distinction between a building which only a trained artist can erect and the simple structures which any workman can construct was as clear to men in the Middle Ages as it is now. Medieval men had numberless simple homes, cottages, barns, storehouses, factories, shops, sheds, bridges; in every village were carpenters, stone-masons, wailers, and bricklayers able to build them. But these local workmen were not then, any more than now, architects. To build a church, cathedral, gildhall, castle, town hall it was necessary to call in from outside builders trained and skilled in architecture, or building as a fine art. The evidences everywhere indicate that these latter workmen were called Freemasons; they indicate also that these Freemasons were in gilds or fraternities apart from the small gilds of local workmen, just as at the present time local carpenters and bricklayers are not members of the American Society of Architects.
In another respect, however, the art of architecture of the present time differs fundamentally from Medieval architecture. The present day architect begins with schooling instead of with apprenticeship.
He goes to college to study geometry, mechanics, draftsmanship, design, the history of his art, etc., and remains there until he has mastered a set of abstract formulae and general principles of construction; after he has set up his own office he is free to make his choice among five or six architectural styles when designing a building. In the Middle Ages the beginner was not sent to a school but was indentured in an apprenticeship; he was not educated in abstract principles and formulae but was manually trained to produce given pieces of work, and wherever he might go, he knew he would have those same given pieces of work to do. From the middle of the Twelfth Century until about the time of Henry VII the only style, or type of building, known to either architects or the public, was the Gothic. No two Gothic buildings were ever exactly the same, but their component parts were always made the same way—the pointed arch, the buttress, the column, the rose window, the fan vault, the tower, etc.; therefore the training of an apprentice consisted of drilling him in the knowledge and skill of making or designing those particular component parts of a Gothic building.
In the Middle Ages each trade or craft was locally organized as a gild, fraternity, society, etc.; in each instance the technologies, or making or mixing of materials, use of tools, etc., were a trade secret. The local stone-masons, carpenters, wailers, paviors, roofers likewise had their own local organizations, and in them preserved their own trade secrets. The Freemasons had societies, fraternities, lodges of their own, apart from local builders; the methods and principles of architecture, which at that time was necessarily Gothic architecture, were their great trade secret. To call them Gothic builders is therefore only another way of saying that they were architects, though the latter term was not then used.
The Gothic builder was trained in one style only, and would therefore have been at a disadvantage in competition with a modern architect, who had been educated to understand the principles of design in each and every established style. But the scope for a Gothic builder's ingenuity, talent, and skill was not therefore a narrow one; because the Gothic itself, above any other style ever discovered, was unbelievably fertile, flexible, comprehensive, and difficult; so much so that it overflowed, and elements of it were adopted by local builders, and even by designers of gold work, cloth designing, and even in writing. The mastering of it called for such an amount of knowledge that Gothic builders stood in a class apart, not in respect of their art alone but as men of great attainments in things of the mind, of characters of independence, of culture. Such men as Suger, Arnolfo, William of Sens, Henry Yevele were among the most eminent of great men of their own or any other time.
The local masons, carpenters, and other workmen in the building trades were illiterate, parochial, thoroughly trained but trained only for simple types of work; it would be impossible to believe that Speculative Freemasonry with its philosophy and its arts and sciences ever could have arisen among them; and as a matter of fact there is nothing to indicate that anything belonging to culture, science, thought was ever produced by them. It was among the Freemasons, or Gothic builders, that Speculative Freemasonry arose; it was they in particular, and not masons or builders in general, who are denoted by our use of the phrase "Operative Masons."
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GOULD'S HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY
Gould's History of Freemasonry, by Robert Freke Gould; Revised by Dudley Wright; under the supervision of Melvin M. Johnson and J. Edward Allen; Charles Seribner's Sons; New York, N. Y.; six volumes; blue cloth; full page illustrations, a number in full color; volumes separately paginated; general index in Volume VI; 2587 pages.
The frontispiece of the work is a reproduction in full color of George Washington in his regalia as Worshipful Master, by John Ward Dunsmore, one-time President of the National Academy, the original of which was painted on commission from the Board of General Activities, Grand Lodge of New York: it is a document as well as a painting because the artist posed his model in the actual regalia and on the dais of the Alexandria-Washington Lodge room, Alexandria, Va., of which Washington was Master at the time of his first Inauguration. In its binding, format, paper, and press-work the History is another of the solid, dignified masterpieces of the printer's art for which Scribner's have long been famous.
In the original Edition Gould himself wrote a chapter on the Masonic history of each of the States in America. These chapters were as sound as a writer working in London and with only a bare outline knowledge of American Masonry could make them; but they were never satisfactory, and as new data were discovered here they became increasingly unsatisfactory as years passed. Brothers Wright, Johnson and Allen deleted Gould's own chapters wholly, and in their places had new histories prepared by living American writers, one for each State. As far as American Masons are concerned this makes the History a new work. (Thomas Jefferson is included in the portrait gallery of Masonic Presidents; there is no known evidence of his having been a Mason, and there is much evidence in his private correspondence of his dislike of secret societies and fraternities.)
The History was completed and published by Gould (and his collaborators) in 1887; his reading for it must therefore have begun as early as 1875, or even 1870.
At that time what little was known about the Ancient Mysteries, the Collegia, the Essenes, and the (Duldees was confined to a few scattered references in ancient writings, most of them Greek or Roman. Since that time archeologists have unearthed hundreds of thousands of inscriptions and thousands of manuscripts, in consequence of which the history of those subjects has been wholly re-written; and Gould's first chapter is out of date. Thus, his three pages on the important subject of the Roman Collegia are based on Massman and Coote: the former published his Libellus in 1840, the latter his Romfans of Britain in 1878; neither is any longer of worth. Chapter 4 of Volume I on "The Craft Guilds of France" likewise has lost much of its weight by subsequent discoveries in historical research; these have been so revolutionary that the picture of the French gilds as painted by Gould has been altered out of recognition.
Gould did not have a true sense of proportion. Of six volumes only one is devoted to the general history of Freemasonry properly so called; Gould himself explained that this was for lack of space; if so it is difficult to see why he devoted one whole chapter to "The Quatuor Coronati" and spent more than sixty pages trying to prove that Wren was not a Mason, when neither subject was worth more than a footnote. He omitted almost the whole of the very important history of Freemasonry in the West Indies, in the French and Indian War, and his few pages on the history of Colonial Freemasonry in America are too slight a sketch to have any usefulness for American students.
Worse still (in the sense of a lack of proportion) he built his account of the origin and early development of Speculative Freemasonry around the single Grand Lodge of 1717, as if the Antient Grand Lodge, the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and early American Masonry had been of secondary importance.
Gould himself was not an expert on manuscripts or on the general archeology of documents, and his judgment therefore is sometimes faulty, and at other times uncertain, many of his paragraphs concealing a confusion of thought under sentences dogmatic in form.
One instance is found in his pages on early Freemasonry in Scotland; another is found in his discussion of the Leland MS. In his History he dismisses the latter as a forgery, at least, as apocryphal; but in an essay published later he admits that George Fleming Moore had almost convinced him of its authenticity.
Since Gould completed his work three events of massive importance have occurred: a sudden and unprecedented increase of knowledge of the Middle ages, accomplished by historical research, and more especially by documentary discoveries; the almost unbelievable enlargement of knowledge of ancient tunes made by archeologists since 1885; and the publication of histories and Minute Books of 200 or so of the oldest Lodges, a new source of information, and one which was not available in Gould's time, and one which compels a number of revisions of his theories of the early periods of Speculative Freemasonry. Gould's Hurtory has not lost its usefulness; for some purposes it is as useful as ever; but it is necessary for students to check each of its pages against the new knowledge.
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GOOD SHEPHERD, SIGN OF THE
When Jesus was relating (Luke - xv) the parable in which one having lost a sheep goes into the wilderness to search for it, He said: "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Hettner, a German writer on Greek customs, says: "When the Greek carries home his lamb, he slings it round his neck, holding it by the feet crossed over the breast. This is to be seen with us also, but the sight is especially: attractive at Athens, for it was in this manner that the ancients represented Hermes as the guardian and multiplier of flocks; so stood the statue of Hermes at Olympia. Occhalia. and Tanagra Small marble statues of this kind have even come down to us , one of which is to be seen in the Pembroke collection at Wilton House; another , a smaller one, in the Stoa of Hadrian, at Athens. This representation, however, appears most frequently in the oldest works of Christian arts in which the laden Hermes is turned into a laden Christ who often called himself the Good Shepherd, and expressly says in the Gospel of Saint Luke, that when the shepherd finds the sheep, he lays it joyfully on his shoulder." Now, although the idea of the Good Shepherd may have been of pagan origin, yet derived from the parable of our Savior in Saint Luke and his language in Saint John, it was early adopted by the Christians as a religious emblem. The Good Shepherd bearing the sheep upon his shoulders, the two hands of the Shepherd crossed upon his breast and holding the legs of the sheep, is a very common subject in the paintings of the earliest Christian era. It is an expressive symbol of the Savior's love of Him who taught us to build the new temple of eternal life— and, consequently, as Didron says, "the heart and imagination of Christians have dwelt fondly upon this theme; it has been unceasingly repeated under every possible aspect, and may be almost said to have been worn threadbare by Christian art. From the earliest ages, Christianity completely made it her own." And hence the Christian Degree of Rose Croix has very naturally appropriated the sign of the Good Shepherd, the representation of Christ bearing his once lost but now recovered sheep upon his shoulders, as one of its most impressive symbols.
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GOOSE AND GRIDIRON
An alehouse with this sign, in St. Paul's Church Yards London. In 1717 the Lodge of Antiquity met at the Goose anal Gridiron, and it was there that the first Quarterly Communication of the Grand Lodge of England, after the revival of 1717, was held on the 24th of June, 1717. It was on the headquarters of a musical society, whose arms a Iyre and a swan were converted into Goose and Gridiron.
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GORDON, JAMES
Provincial Grand Master over the Lodges warranted by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, east of Balbos in Andalusia, Southern Spain, appointed August 3, 1807 (see History of Freemasonry and Grand Lodge of Scotland, William A. Laurie, 1859, page 408):
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GORMOGONS
A secret society established in 1724, in England, in opposition to Freemasonry. One of its rules was that no Freemason could be admitted until he was first degraded, and had then renounced the Masonic Order. It was absurdly and intentionally pretentious in its character; claiming in ridicule of Freemasonry, a great antiquity, and pretending that it was descended from an ancient society in China. There was much antipathy between the two associations, as will appear from the following verses, published in 1729, by Henry Carey:
The Masons and the Gormogons
Are laughing at one another,
While all mankind are laughing at them;
Then why do they make such a pother?
They bait their hook for simple gulls
And truth with bam they smother,
But when thev've taken in their culls
Why then't is "Welcome, Brotherr"
The Gormogons made a great splutter in their day, and published many squibs against Freemasonry; yet that is still living, while the Gormogons were long ago extinguished. They seemed to have flourished for but a very few years. Brother R. F. Gould has collected about all that is known about the Gormogons in his article on the Duke of Wharton, in volume viii of Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge. But the reader must not overlook a pertinent quotation, from a letter written by Brother Gould, mentioned in Melville's Philip, Duke of Wharton (page 114), "About the Gormogons, indeed, all is inference and conjecture. We must suppose that the Society or Association actually met, but there is no distinct proof of their having done so."
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GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Of all the styles of architecture, the Gothic is that which is most intimately connected with the history of Freemasonry, having been the system peculiarly practiced by the Freemasons of the Middle Ages.
To what country or people it owes its origin has never been satisfactorily determined; although it has generally been conjectured that it was of Arabic or Saracenic extraction, and that it was introduced into Europe by persons returning from the Crusades. The Christians who had been in the Holy Wars received there an idea of the Saracenic works, which they imitated on their return to the West, and refined on them as they proceeded in the building of churches.
The Italians, Germans, French, and Flemings, with Greek refugees, united in a fraternity of architects and ranged from country to country, and erected buildings according to the Gothic style, which they had learned during their visits to the East, and whose fundamental principles they improved by the addition of other details derived from their own architectural taste and judgment. Hence Sir Christopher Wren thinks that this style of the Medieval Freemasons should be rather called the Saracenic than the Gothic. This style, which was distinguished by its pointed arches, and especially by the perpendicularly of its lines, from the rounded arch and horizontal lines of previous styles, was altogether in the hands of those architects who were known, from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, as Freemasons, and who kept their system of building as a secret, and thus obtained an entire monopoly of both domestic and ecclesiastical architecture. At length, when the gilds or fraternities of Freemasons, "who alone," says Hope, "held the secrets of Gothic art," were dissolved, the style itself was lost, and was succeeded by what Paley says (Manual of Gothic Architecture, page 15) was "a worse than brazen era of architecture" (see Traveling Freemasons).
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GOTHIC CONSTITUTIONS
A title sometimes given to the Institutions which are supposed to have been adopted by the Freemasons at the City of York, in the tenth century, and so called in allusion to the Gothic architecture which was introduced into England by the Fraternity. A more correct and more usual designation of these laws is the York Constitutions, which see.
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GOULD, ROBERT FREKE
This well-known historian of Freemasonry had a varied career. Born in 1836, and died March 26, 1915. He entered the English army at the age of eighteen, becoming a lieutenant in the same year, and serving with distinction in North China in 186S9. On his return to England he studied law and became a barrister in 1868. He was initiated at Ramsgate in the Royal Navy Lodge, No. 429, and was Master of the Inhabitants Lodge at Gibraltar, also of the Meridian Lodge, No. 743, a Military Lodge attached to his regiment. Afterward he held the Chair of the Moira, Quatuor Coronati and Jerusalem Lodges. In 1880 he was appointed Senior Grand Deacon of England. He had been a constant writer in the Masonic press since 1858; in 1879 he published The Four Old Lodges and The Atholl Lodges, and in 1899 a book on Military Lodges. But his greatest work is the History of Freemasonry in three large volumes, which occupied him from 1882 to 1887, which was followed in 1903 by A Concise History of Freemasonry abridged from the larger work and brought up to date.
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GOURGAS, JOHN JAMES JOSEPH
A merchant of New York, who was born in France in 1777, and received a member of the Scottish Rite in 1806. His name is intimately connected with the rise and progress of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States. Through his representations and his indefatigable exertions, the Mother Council at Charleston was induced to denounce the Consistory of Joseph Cerneau in the City of New York, and to establish there a Supreme Council for the Northern Jurisdiction, of which Brother Gourgas was elected the secretary-general. He continued to hold this office until 1S32, when he was elected Sovereign Grand Commander. In 1851, on the removal of the Grand East of the Supreme Council to Boston, he resigned his office in favor of Brother Giles Fonda Yates, but continued to take an active interest, so far as his age would permit, in the Rite until his death, which occurred at New York on February 19, 1865, at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, and being at the time probably the oldest possessor of the Thirtieth Degree in the world. Brother Gourgas was distinguished for the purity of his life and the powers of his intellect. His Masonic library was very valuable, and especially rich in manuscripts. His correspondence with Dr. Moses Holbrook, at one time Grand Commander of the Southern Council, is in the archives of that Body, and bears testimony to his large Masonic attainments.
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GRAAL, HOLY
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GRAIL, THE HOLY
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GRADES
Degrees in Freemasonry are sometimes so called. In this connection it is a French word (see Degrees).
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GRAIN OF MUSTARD, ORDER OF THE
The German name is Der Orden vom Senf Korn. An order instituted in Germany, based on Mark iv, 30 and 32, the object being the propagation of morality.
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GRAMMAR
One of the seven liberal arts and sciences, which forms, with Logic and Rhetoric. a triad dedicated to the cultivation of language. "God, ' says Sanctius, "created man the participant of reason; and as he willed him to be a social being, he bestowed upon him the gift of language, in the perfecting of which there are three aids. The first is Grammar, which rejects from language all solecisms and barbarous expressions; the second is Logic, which is occupied with the truthfulness of language; and the third is Rhetoric, which seeks only the adornment of language."
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GRAND ARCHITECT
A Degree in several of the Rites modeled upon the Twelfth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is the Sixth Degree of the Reform of Saint Martin; the Fourteenth of the Rite of Elected Cohens; the Twenty-third of the Rite of Mizraim, and the Twenty-fourth of the Metropolitan Chapter of France (see also Great Architect of the Universe).
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GRAND CHAPTER
A Grand Chapter consists of the High Priests, Kings, and Scribes for the time being, of the several Chapters under its Jurisdiction, of the Past Grand and Deputy High Priests. Kings and Scribes of the said Grand Chapter. In some Grand Chapters Past High Priests are admitted to membership, but in others they are not granted this privilege, unless they have served as Grand and Deputy Grand High Priests, Kings, or Scribes. Grand Chapters in the United States have the sole government and superintendence of the several Royal Arch Chapters and Lodges of the Most Excellent, Past, and Mark Masters within their several Jurisdictions.
Until the year 1797, there was no organization of Grand Chapters in the United States. Chapters were held under the authority of a Master's Warrant, although the consent of a neighboring Chapter was generally deemed expedient. But in 1797, delegates from several of the Chapters in the Northern States assembled at Boston for the purpose of deliberating on the expediency of organizing a Grand Chapter for the government and regulation of the several Chapters within the said States.
This Convention prepared an address to the Chapters in New York and New England, disclaiming the power of any Grand Lodge to exercise authority over Royal Arch Masons, and declaring it expedient to establish a Grand Chapter. In consequence of this address, delegates from most of the States above mentioned met at Hartford in January, 1798, and organized a Grand Chapter, formed and adopted a Constitution. and elected and installed their officers. This example was quickly followed by other parts of the Union and Grand Chapters came into existence in nearly all the States (see General Grand Chapter).
The officers of a Grand Chapter are usually the same 3S those of a Chapter, with the distinguished prefix of Grand to the titles. The jewels are also the same, but enclosed within 3 circle. In England and Scotland the Grand Chapter bears the title of Supreme Grand Chapter.
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GRAND CHAPTER OF PRINCE MASONS
See Prince Masons of Ireland
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GRAND COMMANDER
The presiding officer of a Grand Commandery of Knights Templar.
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GRAND COMMANDER OF THE EASTERN STAR
The French expression is Grand Commandeur de l'Etoile d'Orient. A Degree in Pyron's collection.
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GRAND CONCLAVE
The title of the presiding Body of Templarism in England is the Grand Conclave of the religious and Military Order of Masonic Knights Templar.
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GRAND CONSERVATORS
On July 1, 1814, the Grand Mastership of the Order in France, then held by Prince Cambacéres, was, in consequence of the political troubles attendant upon the restoration of the monarchy, declared vacant by the Grand Orient. On August 12 the Grand Orient decreed that the functions of Grand Master should be provisionally discharged by a Commission consisting of three Grand Officers, to be called Grand Conservators, and Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, the Count de Beurnonville, and Timbrune, Count de Valence, were appointed to that office.
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GRAND CONSISTORY
The governing Body over a State of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; subject, however, to the superior Jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third. The members of the Grand Consistory are required to be in possession of the Thirty-second Degree. Such wars. the practice in the Southern Masonic Jurisdiction which prevails in the Northern Body but the name is there the Council of Deliberation.
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GRAND COUNCIL
The title given to the first three officers of 3 Royal Arch Chapter. Also the name of the superintending Body of Cryptic Freemasonry in any Jurisdiction. It is composed of the first three officers of each Council in the Jurisdiction. Its officers are: Most Puissant Grand Master, Thrice Illustrious Deputy Grand Master, Illustrious Grand Conductor of the Works, Grand Treasurer, Grand Recorder, Grand Chaplain, Grand Marshal, Grand Captain of the Guards, Grand Conductor of the Council, and Grand Steward.
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GRAND DIRECTOR OF THE CEREMONIES
An important officer in the United Grand Lodge of England; a similar office to that of Grand Master General of Ceremonies of a Supreme Council, upon whom the order of the Grand Body largely depends, and who has charge of the service or ceremonies of whatever nature that may transpire.
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GRAND EAST
The city in which the Grand Lodge, or other governing Masonic Body is situated, and whence its official documents emanate, is called the Grand East. Thus, a document issued by the Grand Lodge off Massachusetts would be dated from the Grand East of Boston, or if from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, it would be the Grand East of New Orleans. The place where a Grand Lodge meets is therefore called a Grand East. The word is in frequent Masonic use on the Continent of Europe and in America, but seldom employed in England, Scotland, or Ireland.
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GRAND ELECT, PERFECT AND SUBLIME MASON
The Fourteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (see Perfection, Lodge of).
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GRAND ENCAMPMENT
See Encampment, Grand
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GRAND HIGH PRIEST
The presiding officer of a Grand Royal Arch Chapter in the American system. The powers and prerogatives of a Grand High Priest are far more circumscribed than those of a Grand Master. As the office has been constitutionally created by the Grand Chapter, and did not precede it as that of Grand Masters did the Grand Lodges, he possesses no inherent prerogatives, but those only which are derived from and delegated to him by the Constitution of the Grand Chapter and regulations formed under it for the government of Royal Arch Masonry.
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GRAND INQUIRING COMMANDER
The Sixty-sixth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim
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GRAND INSPECTOR, INQUISITOR COMMANDER
The Thirty-first Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is not a historical Degree, but simply a judicial power of the advanced Degrees. The place of meeting is called a Supreme Tribunal. The decorations are white, and the presiding officer is styled Most Perfect President. The jewel of the Degree is a Teutonic cross of silver attached to white watered ribbon. The Teutonic Cross is the same in shape as the Jerusalem Cross, four plain T's joined to make a cross, a cross potent, or having crutched arms.
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GRAND LODGE MANUSCRIPT, NO. 1
A roll of parchment, nine inches in length and five in breadth, containing the Legend of the Craft and the Old Charges. It is preserved in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of England, having been bought in 1839 for £25. It was dated by its writer 1583. It has been reproduced in Hughan's Old Charges, 1872; in Sadler's Masonic Facts and Fictions, and in facsimile by Quatuor Coronati Lodge.
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GRAND LODGE, REPRESENTATIVE OF A
See Representative of a Grand Lodge
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GRAND LODGE, SUPREME OR GENERAL
See General Grand Lodge
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GRAND MASTER
The chief presiding officer of the Symbolic Degrees in a Jurisdiction. He presides, of course, over the Grand Lodge, and has the right not only to be present, but also to preside in every Lodge, with the Master of the Lodge on his left hand, and to order his Grand Wardens to attend him, and act as Wardens in that particular Lodge. He has the right of visiting the Lodges and inspecting their books and mode of work as often as he pleases, or, if unable to do so, he may depute his Grand Officers to act for him. He has the power of granting Dispensations for the formation of new Lodges; which Dispensations are of force until revoked by himself or the Grand Lodge. He may also grant Dispensations for several other purposes (see the article Dispensation). Formerly, the Grand Master appointed his Grand Officers, but this regulation has been repealed, and the Grand Officers are now all elected by the Grand Lodges, except in England, where the Grand Master appoints all but the Grand Treasurer. When the Grand Master visits a Lodge, he must he received with the greatest respect, and the Master of the Lodge should always offer him the chair, which the Grand Master may or may not accept at his pleasure. Should the Grand Master die, or be absent from the Jurisdiction during his term of office, the Deputy Grand Master assumes his powers, or, if there be no Deputy, then the Grand Wardens according to seniority.
The following is a list of the Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of England, established in 1717 and afterward known as the Moderns:
1717. Antony Sayer.
1718. George Payne.
1719. J. T. Desaguliers, LL.D., F.R.S.
1720. George Payne.
1721. John, Duke of Montague.
1722. Philip, Duke of Wharton.
1723. Francis, Earl of Dalkeith.
1724. Charles, Duke of Richmond.
1725. Jarnes, Lord Paisley.
1726. William, Earl of Inchiquin.
1727. Henry, Lord Coleraine.
1728. James, Lord Kingston.
1729. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
1731. Thomas, Lord Lovel.
1732. Anthony, Viscount Montague.
1733. James, Earl of Strathmore.
1734. John, Earl of Crawford.
1745. Thomas, Viscount Weymouth.
1736. John, Earl of Londoun.
1737. Edward, Earl of Darnley.
1738. sir Henry, Marquess r
1739. Robert, Lord Raymond
1740. John, Earl of Wintore
1741. James, Earl of Morton
1749. John, Viscount Dudlex and Ward.
1744. Thomas, Earl of Strathmore.
1745. James, Lord Cranstoun.
1747. Williams Lord Byron.
1759. John, Lord Carysfort.
1754. James, Marquess of Carnarvon.
1757 . Sholts, Lord Aberdour.
1762. Washington, Earl Ferrers.
1764. Cadwallader, Lord Blaney.
1767. lIenry, Duke of Beaufort.
1772. Robert, Lord Petre.
1777. George, Duke of Manehester.
1782. H. R. H. The Duke of Cumberland.
1790. H. R. H. The Prinee of hi ales.
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Sussex.
The following is a list of the Grand Masters of the Atholl or Antients Grand Lodge:
1753. Robert Turner.
1754. Hon. Edward Vaughan.
1756. Earl of Blesinton.
1760. Thomas, Earl of Relly.
1766. Hon. Thos. Mathew.
1771. John third Duke of Atholl.
1775. John fourth Duke of Atholl
1789. Vacant.
1783. Randal, Earl of Antrim.
1791. John, fourth Duke of Atholl.
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Rent.
The following is a list of the Grand Masters of the United Grand Lodge of England from the Union of Ancient and Moderns in 1813:
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Sussex.
1844. Earl of Zetland.
1870. Marquis of Ripon.
1874. H. R. H. The Prince of Wales.
1901. H. R. H. The Duke of Connaught.
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GRAND MASTER ARCHITECT
The French is Grand Maître Architect. The Twelfth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This is strictly a scientific degree, resembling in that respect the Degree of Fellow Craft. In it the principles of architecture and the connection of the liberal arts with Freemasonry are unfolded. Its officers are three—a Master, and two Wardens. The Chapter is decorated with white and red hangings, and furnished with the five orders of architecture, and a case of mathematical instruments. The apron is white, lined with blue; and the jewel is a gold medal, on which are engraved the orders of architecture. It is suspended by a stone-colored ribbon.
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GRAND MASTER, INHERENT RIGHTS OF
See Inherent Rights of a Grand Master
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GRAND MASTER MASON
The title given to the Grand Master in the Grand Lodge of Scotland.
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GRAND MASTER OF ALL SYMBOLIC LODGES
The French title of this officer is Vénerable Maitre de toutes les Loges. The Twentieth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The presiding officer is styled Vénérable Grand Master, and is assisted by two Wardens in the West. The decorations of the Lodge are blue and yellows. The old ritual contains some interesting instructions respecting the first and second Temple. Among the traditions preserved by the possessors of this Degree is one which states that after the third Temple was destroyed by Titus, the son of Vespasian, the Christian Freemasons, who were then in the Holy Land being filled with sorrow, departed from home with the determination of building a fourth, and that, dividing themselves into several bodies, they dispersed over the various parts of Europe. The greater number went to Scotland, and repaired to the town of Kilwinning, where they established a Lodge and built an abbey, and where the records of the Order were deposited. This tradition, preserved in the original rituals, was to Brother Mackey a very strong presumptive evidence that the Degree owed its existence to the Templar system of Ramsay.
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GRADES OF WORKMEN
In the general craft of men in the Middle Ages who worked with stone in the construction of buildings, bridges, etc., there were classifications into kinds, which differed much among themselves; and the men were "graded" in the amount of wages paid them according to the degrees of skill which were called for in each class of workmen. The principal source of information is the Fabric Rolls, which were the books kept in administrative offices; municipal and other public archives; and the records of City Companies. The data show that the classifications never were crystallized, because they could not always be enforced, especially in small undertakings; but on the whole, and allowing for this, there were four grades: the Freemasons; layers or setters; rough masons; quarrymen.
Speculative Freemasonry originated among the Freemasons. There is no evidence to show that "operative" (the word is nearly always a misnomer as we now use it) masons in any of the grades except the first ever had any part in developing it, or any influence upon it. Speculative Freemasonry is manifestly more like a philosophy than anything else, and such a set of teachings and ideas could have originated nowhere in the building craft except among the Freemasons, who were architects, sculptors, artists, well-educated, men of culture, who met in Lodges of their own, and who had many things to think about in addition to cutting stone. The Degrees of a Speculative Body have no relationship to the grades of workmen in operative architecture; and no relation (except in a few unimportant details) with the City Companies. Had Freemasonry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries been nothing more than stone-masonry scholars, gentlemen, antiquarians, etc., would have had no motive for seeking membership in it, and would not have been accepted if they had sought it; yet they were accepted into Freemasonry, and at least as early as 1600, and the fact proves that the Freemasons had something no other class of masons possessed.
Among the Freemasons themselves there were three grades in the sense of "status of membership"; the Apprentices formed a well-defined group with its own oath and rules and regulations; the men out of apprenticeships full members of a Lodge and therefore called yellows of the Craft, who had mastered their trade; and the Master, or Master of Masons or Superintendent. The Fellows were under their own rules and regulations to which they were pledged by their own oath. The Master, along with Wardens (called by many different titles) and other officers to assist him, had their own duties and authorities, and while they did not form a separate grade of workmen as far as skill was concerned, necessarily had a status of their own as long as they were in office.
The present Craft Degrees obviously are organized upon this structure of the Freemasons' Lodge; but it does not follow that the symbols and ceremonies now used are the same as the ones used in the Fourteenth Century and afterwards; nor does it matter. It would not make any important difference if even now a number of emblems and symbols were shifted about; the Beehive, to give one example, might be even more suitable as an emblem for Apprentices than for Master Masons. Freemasons, either under the Grand Lodge system or in the Middle Ages, have never considered emblems and symbols to be more than means to an end; and just as grade-school teachers and university professors change different text-books in order the better to teach the same subjects so the Freemasons added or dropped emblems, symbols, and ceremonies whenever they could better their own teaching, or more effectual promulgate that philosophy of work and of men as workers which is the substance of regular Speculative Freemasonry.
In pre-Grand Lodge days there was yet another form of organization in architecture: public supervision. If a town had a City Company of Masons in it, a civil supervisor of buildings was appointed by the town council and he worked with the heads of the Mason Company. The King appointed a Royal Administrator to supervise and inspect buildings (palaces, churches, etc.); as stated elsewhere Geoffrey Chaucer, Inigo Jones, and Christopher Wren were among royal administrators appointed by English Kings. In general there were four types of public administration:a) Royal buildings,
b) Ecclesiastical buildings,
c) Municipal buildings,
d) Private buildings.
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GRAIL, THE HOLY
One of the legend cycles of the Middle Ages centered in the Holy Grail (or Graal), the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. According to the legend the cup was neither lost nor destroyed but was taken away to some safe hiding place where it became the source of many miracles. The legend cycle consists of tales of men, Galahad among them, who dedicated themselves to a search for that which was lost, who did not find it and yet who in a fashion did find it, because the dedication and the search for something holy became for the searcher what the grail itself might have been.
This search for that which was lost was the motif for many tales, poems, ballads, pictures, and dedications where it was not a cup that was lost but something else: the lost pronunciation of the Hebrew name of God; the lost sanctuary; the lost secrets of transmutation in alchemy; the search for a lost pearl; for the blue bird; in an ancient Chinese classic it is a tale of the search for a lost empress; the Spanish Conquistadores came up into the center of America searching for the lost Man of Gold, or the Gran Quivera; the Mayas searched for the bird which had given its plumage to their gods; American Indians have for generations had a ritualistic search for Montezuma; and there is another legend also of how certain Masons searched for a Word in which was contained the secrets of their art. The search for the Grail is no isolated tale, but one form of a theme as old and as wide as the world. Tennyson, and Van Dyke, and Maeterlinek, and the authors of the Golden Legend, and Malory, and an endless procession of poets have also written poems and tales of the search for the grail, each in his own fashion.
Freemasons can be proud that one of their own number and of their own scholarship has written what may be the most complete and scholarly and inspired of the many histories of the legend: The Holy Graal; Its Legends anus Symbolism, by Arthur Edward Waite; Rider & Co.; London; 1933. It contains a chapter on Freemasonry, and exhaustive bibliographies. It is Waite's greatest book.
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GRAND LODGE OFFICES
The Book of Constitutions of 1723 states explicitly that when delegates from four or more Lodges met in conference in 1716 their only purpose was to arrange for a general assembly and feast for Lodges then working in London. This they accomplished when in the following year they elected a Grand Master and two Grand Wardens, the latter being thought of as assistants to the Grand Master. It was not the purpose to "revive" Masonry, which did not need revival, or to set up a new authority over Masons everywhere, or to constitute a "new system" of Masonry. The step was taken by London Lodges, and for London Lodges; each joining Lodge vas to retain its own charter (or Old Charges) and sovereignty as before; the only purpose was to have a center where once every three months the member Lodges could meet together.
The gradual development which followed, and which resulted in a Grand Lodge for England, and the formation of a whole national system of Speculative Masonry, was not complete until about 1735. A Grand Secretary was appointed in 1723, with William Cowper, clerk to the Parliament, the first incumbent; but it was some years before the Grand Secretaryship became a Grand Lodge office.
A Committee on Charity was formed in 1725 (now the Board of Benevolence); it looked after general affairs as well as Relief.
A Treasurer for the Charity Fund was first appointed in 1724; he did not become a Grand Treasurer until 1753.
An Acting Grand Master was appointed in 1782, when the Duke of Cumberland was Grand Master; since 1834 the office has been called Pro Grand Master.
The office of Deputy Grand Master was first set up in 1721.
In 1724 Past Grand Masters were given a vote in Grand Lodge.
The Office of Grand Chaplain was set up in 1775.
Grand Deacons were first appointed after the Union in 1813.
Grand Stewards were first appointed in 1728; the Grand Stewards Lodge was constituted in 1735. The Ancient Grand Lodge (1751) had a Committee on Charity in 1754 which it called Stewards Lodge.
At the Union in 1813 seven boards or committees were set up, chief among them being the Board of General Purposes, which has a President, a staff, and is the continuing administrative body, a "cabinet council." Subordinate Grand Bodies outside England were called Provincial Grand Lodges until 1865, since which time they have been called District Grand Lodges. New Grand Lodge Officers have been created as late as 1914.
Neither histories nor encyclopedias describe the office of Provincial Grand Master for Foreign Lodges but such an office must have existed because in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of England (Modern) for the Quarterly Grand Communication on February 6, 1771 "John Devignoles, Esq., Prov. G. M. for Foreign Lodges" is listed as present.
At no time did the first Grand Lodge give evidence of administrative genius, for its machinery of organization was never completed, and did not work very well, and it was weakest in its provisions for looking after Provincial Grand Lodges in England, and, still morels Provincial Grand Lodges abroad. From 1730 until the Revolutionary War the American Provincial Grand Lodge System was not a system but a continuing series of improvisations; some Lodges obtained their Charters directly from London, others from one of the few Provincial Grand Lodges; the latter could seldom obtain answers to their letters; a Charter voted on in London might not reach a Lodge here for two or three years (seven years in one instance); the foreign Grand Bodies levied taxes and maintained control but they did not govern; at one time two Provincial Grand Masters were over the seal of the Grand Lodge designated Grand Masters for the whole of America; and though the four Grand Lodges in Great Britain between 1751 and the Revolutionary War period had Lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges here, and were near neighbors at home, they made no attempt to correlate or unify their many rival and sometimes conflicting Lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges either here or in Canada.
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GRAND MASTERSHIP, THE
Ever since its beginning as a Fraternity Freemasonry has made changes in its rules, customs, rites; it has even made alterations, and as it had to make them in order to hold its place in a changed world; but throughout these changes certain principles and tenets (the Landmarks is a name for them) in its teachings and its form of organization have persisted unchanged; this also had to be, or Freemasonry would have been altered into something else and ceased, except in name (and probably not even in name), to be itself. They are inherent in it. Among these Landmarks is the fact that Freemasons (properly so called) have always worked and assembled in bodies, and these bodies have been governed and administered by a head (a Master, Worshipful Master, Superintendent, etc.), assisted by a set of officers. This headship or governorship belongs to the substance of the Fraternity, is needed if it is to retain its identity; and is therefore, as just said, a Landmark. That Landmark does not require that the head shall everywhere and always have the same title, or wear the same regalia, or have in detail the same set of duties, but requires only that it belongs to any body of regular Freemasons that the body shall be thus ruled and governed.
Since this is true of every Lodge it is for the same reason true of every Grand Lodge, which also is a body of Masons who assemble and work as a unit. The first official act taken by a group of London Lodges to form the Mother Grand Lodge (1717) was to select and to install a Grand Master. There had never been a Grand Lodge before, and therefore not any Grand Master; nevertheless the powers and pre negatives vested in the Grand Master were not new, d less were an innovation, because they belonged to the age-old need for a Masonic Body to have a head to age and govern it. The very operations of that ancient Landmark itself brought the new office and the new title into Craft organization.
Grand Lodge laws were adopted to name and define the office of Grand Master, but those laws only recognized and declared what already, in principle, was there. The rulership and governorship already were in force, and ever had been; the laws declared them, and made new rules for Masons to follow them, for the powers and authority were not created by the laws, but were inherent.
The assembly of Masons, either as a local body or in a more general meeting, also was as old as the Craft, and inhered in its organization; when this age-old principle (also a Landmark) led to the formation of a Grand Lodge, the shape of it and the name of it were new, but in principle it only perpetuated what always had been. Its powers and authorities therefore also are inherent and indefeasible, and the laws which define it do not create it but only declare what it is.
There are thus two sovereignties, each one time immemorial each one a Landmark, which work together and which at some points interlock but which are independent of each other in original authority. The Grand Master is for that reason not merely an agent or officer of Grand Lodge, not merely its president, and answerable to it only for such of his duties as belong to its sphere; in his own sphere he has sovereignty of his own, and acts independently.
Instead of "Office of Grand Masters a more correct description would be "The Grand Mastership." The jurisdiction within which one who stands in the Grand Mastership carries on his work coincides at many points with the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, does not coincide at others. The jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge is primarily and generally over the Lodges working under its Charters; the jurisdiction of the Grand Master is primarily and generally over individual Masons. He is therefore not the Grand Master of his State or Country, or of his Grand Jurisdictions, or of his Grand Lodge, but is Grand Master of Masons in his Grand Jurisdiction. He can exercise his authority within the Lodges only as they are in his Grand Jurisdiction, but he is a Grand Master wherever he goes or in whatever Body he visits, is recognized, received, entitled, and honored as such; and, subject to the rules of comity, he can exercise his authority over any Master Mason holding membership in any Lodge in his Grand Jurisdiction even if that Master Mason is in another State as a visitor or as a resident.
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"GRAND MASTERS," OPERATIVE
The Medieval Operative Masons did not work according to blue-prints drawn in an architect's office but under the superintendency of one of their own number, who was himself present and at work in the building, and who also was the Freemasons' link with the office of administration belonging to the foundation, or the king, or some lord, or abbey for whom the structure was being built; the title "Grand Master" was not in use, but the office in Operative Masonry corresponded to the Grand Mastership in Speculative Masonry. William de Sens rebuilt Canterbury in 1174. At Windsor. Robert of St. Albans; Arnold, at Croyland Abbey; Ailnoth (called "engineer") at Windsor in 1166; Elias de Derham was overseer of the cathedral of Salisbury from 1220 to 1245; Walter de Colchester at Canterbury in 1239, (one of the greatest of Medieval Masters); Henry Yevele, Master of Kings Work at Westminster (associated with Geoffrey Chaucer); Abbott Segur of Abbey of St. Denis in 1140; Villard de Honnecourt at Cambrai; Geoffrey de L'oiers at Lincoln; Walter of Colchester at St. Albans (1213 circa); Master Baldwin at St. Albans (1186 circa); Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren w ere architects in the modern sense of the word. A number of titles were used, either from one country to another, or from one period to another: devysor, magister operis, mgister fabricae, ecclesia, capo, maestro, cap maestro, etc.
The literature is abundant:
English Industries of the Middle Ages, by L. F. Salzman; Oxford; 1923.
Medieval Architecture, by A. K. Porter.
The Guilds of Florence, by Edgoumbe Staley. Art and Reformation, by G. G. Gordon (detailed account of the famous Master Arnolfo). Westminster Abbey, by W. R. Lethaby.
The Cathedral Builders in England, by Edward S. Prior; E. P. Dutton & Co.; New York; 1905.
The Builders of Florence, by J. Wood Brown; Methuen & Co.; London; 1907.
Notes on the Superintendents of English Buildings in the Middle Ages, by Wyatt Papworth. An Historical Essay on Architecture, by Thomas Hope; John Murray; London.
James Dallazay incorporated a long list of Masters (page 421) in his Series of Discourses Upon Architecture in England.
Architecture, by Wm. R. Lethaby.
The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland and their Works, by Robert Scott Mylne; Scott, Ferguson; 1893;
chapters on famous "Grand Masters."
History of Freemasonry, by R. F. Gould.
History of Freemasonry, by A. G. Mackey.
Historical Studies of Church Buildings in the Middle Ages, by Charles Eliot Norton;
Harper & Bros.; New York; 1880; contains chapter on Arnolfo, Brunellschi, etc. see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum; in particular,
"Chaucer and Henry Yevele," by Lionel Vibert;
Vol. XLIV., page 239; and "Henry Yvele," by W. Wonnacott; XXI., page 244.
Until the period of modern research it was assumed that the famous buildings of the Middle Ages had been anonymous. Matthew Paris, the savant, when writing of the Thirteenth Century, w as one of the first to explode this fallacy; he explained it by saying that the chronicles of architecture were most of them written by monks who were jealous and contemptuous of lay workmen, and nearly always gave as the name of the builder some Abbott (or Lord, or Bishop, etc.); such a one was described as fecit, the maker; the Benedictines explained this mis-ascription of honor as being "for the glory of the office." Each building was designed and erected under the superintendency of a chief Master Mason; this latter w as famous in his time and place, and made no attempt to hide his identity; it was only afterwards, and when chronicles were written, that his headship was ignored or suppressed.
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GRAND STEWARDS LODGE
In 1719 Grand Master Desaguliers "forthwith revived the old regular and peculiar Toasts or Healths of the Free Masons." "In 1728 he proposed that a certain number of Stewards should be chosen, who should have the entire care and direction of the Annual Festival." It was thus that the rank of Grand Stewards was instituted in the Mother Grand Lodge, 1717, England. In American Grand Lodges Grand Stewards have few set duties; in the Mother Grand Lodge they had almost the whole care of preparing for a Quarterly Grand Communication, and divided with the Committee on Charity much of the administrative work of the infant Grand Lodge. In 1731 they were given Red Aprons to wear (Lodges which regularly sent Grand Stewards were called Red Apron Lodges), and it is believed that just as the thistle blue adopted by Grand Lodge as the color for Grand Lodge Aprons was borrowed from the Order of the Garter, the red of the Grand Stewards was adopted from the Order of Bath. A Grand Stewards Lodge was constituted in 1735. (See page 421.) From Minutes of early Lodges it appears that an appointment to wear the Red Apron was costly, either to the wearer or to his Lodge; it also appears from the same Minutes that the office of Lodge Stewards did not come into vogue until later, perhaps by following the lead of the Grand Lodge. In Bro. Oxford's history of Lodge No. 4 he states that it was in 1774 that the By-laws provided for two Stewards, one to act as Master of Ceremonies, one to order supper and liquors.
In American Lodges and Grand Lodges a "feast" is seldom more than a supper, dinner, or banquet, usually accompanied by a program of music and speeches. The English Lodge or Grand Lodge Feast was an occasion of a different kind. In Grand Lodge itself much Grand Lodge business was conducted at the table. Many constituent Lodges were "table Lodges"; their members assembled around the table, set up in the middle of the room, and remained there to open Lodge, conduct business, initiate Candidates, etc.; this custom continued in some Lodges into the first decade of the Nineteenth Century.
The Grand Stewards not only "provided" the feast, but also no doubt arranged for items of Grand Lodge business, and for that reason came to have an official standing second only to the Grand Master, his Deputy, and his Wardens. For at least two centuries in England, from about 1600 (and in lesser degree to the present) the social life of the Lodge, especially its eating and drinking, was not a mere adjunct to Lodge activity but stood near the center of it; the history of the Fraternity proves that Lodge Stewards exist to have charge of a Lodge's social life, that they should do so as Lodge officers, and that it is a departure from the original design of the Lodge to leave that function to Special or to Standing Committees.
In Vol. II, of Records of the Lodge of Antiquity, page 234, Bro. and Captain C. W. Firebrace says: "In the early days of Grand Lodge the Feast was provided by the voluntary efforts of one or more Stewards. It was not till 1728 [eleven years after erection of the Grand Lodge] that they were constituted into a Board of 12 members, and in March, 1731/2, a law was made 'giving a privilege to every Acting Steward of nominating his successor in that office for the year ensuing. [During the years when the Grand Stewards chose the appointive Grand Officers, and also chose their own successors it is evident that Grand Lodge was ruled by an oligarchy it is one of the many facts of a like kind which aroused resentment among Lodges and led to the formation of a now and more democratic Grand Lodge in 1751.1 In 1771 lt was proposed in Grand Lodge:
"(1) That the Law of 1731/2 be abrogated.
"(2) That there be 15 Stewards instead of l2.
"(3) That the Stewards be nominated by the Lodges within the Bills of Mortality in rotation beginning with the Senior Lodge, each of such Lodges having power to nominate one person at the annual Grand Feast to serve that Office for the year ensuing."
These Resolutions were approved at the next Meeting on November 29, but were not confirmed on February 24,1772, and the old practice continued until the Union (of the Modern (1717) and Ancient (1751) Grand Lodges in 1813. From a distance it looks as if Grand Lodge had become a closed circle ruled by a few London Lodges. In Minute Books it is referred to, now and then, not as Grand Lodge, but as 'the London Grand Lodge. Lodges which resented this Londonism, or local oligarchy, were willing to unite with the new Grand Lodge of 1751. For the Festivals of 1814 and 1815 the Grand Stewards were nominated by the Grand Master and the number increased to 18. Two years later it was decided that the 18 Lodges from which the Stewards of 1814 had been chosen should elect their Stewards annually, and it has so remained until now, the number being increased to 19 by the addition of an old Lodge which had been one of those from which they were originally drawn, but which had afterwards dropped out.
Note. It will be noted that Anderson's Constitutions state that Dr. Desaguliers revived "the old regular and peculiar Toasts or Healths," etc. It is not difficult to understand why a Toast list had to be "regulated," for an unregulated member might propose a Toast to some man or cause which would disturb peace and harmony— thus, when the feelings between Jacobites and Hanoverians were most intense, a Toast to the Pretender would have aroused a storm; as would a toast to a Republican or to a Democratic candidate at an American Grand Lodge banquet. One of the most satisfactory books is The Grand Stewards and Red Apron Lodges, by Albert F. Calvert; Kenning & Son; London; 1917.
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GREENLEAF, SIMON
More than one American Masonic scholar or statesman has declared (and the writer concurs) that the Achilles heel of American Freemasonry is its neglect of, or its ignoring, or its refusal to recognize or honor, its own scholars and its own literature. As one of the "horrible examples" in testimony to the truth of this charge is the case of A Brief Inquiry into the Origin and Principles of Free Masonry, by Simon Greenleaf, published in Portland, Ale., in 1820. Our British Brothers in the Craft have used, revered, honored, and countlessly quoted Calcott's Candid Disquisition, Hutchinson's Spirit of Freemasonry, Preston's Illustrations, and Laurence Dermott's Ahiman Rezon, to say nothing of a score or more of lesser books (of the Eighteenth Century), but no one of those books is on a literary level with A Brief Inquiry; nor was one of those writers possessed of Greenleaf's massive scholarship, power and greatness of mind, or literary ability. If those books are masterpieces, his is one also; yet his book is nowhere reprinted, is nowhere in use, is wholly forgotten; and in andex rerum covering the bound volumes of American and foreign Masonic periodicals Greenleaf's book is nowhere mentioned, and the only reference to his name is in a short letter about George Washington published in an obscure Masonic periodical, long forgotten.
Simon Greenleaf was born in Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 5, 1783, almost on the spot where his English ancestor Edmund Greenleaf had settled in 1635, only fifteen years after the landing at Plymouth Rock. He received a thorough classical training in the Latin School there, and then went to live at New Gloucester, gaine, where his parents had moved, and where he entered the law office of Ezekiel Whitman, who was later to become Chief Justice. Greenleaf settled in the town of Gray, but since his practice was light he spent twelve years in an intensive study of the source materials of the common law, so that when in 1818 he moved to Portland his reputation as a learned man already had preceded him; and in 1820, as reporter for the new Supreme Court of Maine he published vols. 1-9 of Report of Cases, of which a historian of the law writes that "their accuracy has never been impugned, and they have always been highly valued by the profession." In 1833 he moved to Cambridge, brass., to become Royal Professor at the Harvard Thaw school, being invited to that distinguished position by Justice Joseph Story, himself a professor.
It was he and Story between them who lifted the Harvard Law School to that high position from which it has never since declined. In 1842 he published the first volume of A Treatise on the Law of Endence, the second in 1846, and the third in 1853, since which it has been re-issued by a long succession of editors. After his retirement he edited and published in seven volumes an American edition of Cruises' Digest of the Law, Etc. He was a leader in framing a constitution for Maine when it became independent of Massachusetts. Among a number of other publications was his great eulogy of Story published in 1845. He died October 5, 1853. (The Greenleaf family for generations produced a succession of men eminent in mathematics, geography, law, literature, public life. see articles beginning at page 580 of the Dictionary of American Biography; Vol. VII; 1931.
The American Freemason, of which Rob Morris was then the editor, published on page 53 of its issue for Jan. 1, 1855, a letter which had been written by Bro. Greenleaf June 24, 1852, and which was read at the next ensuing meeting of the General Grand Chapter. It reads in part: "You are already aware that during the war of the Revolution there was a Lodge of Freemasons in the main army called Washington Lodge, of which my father, the late Captain Moses Greenleaf, of the 11th Massachusetts regiment, was Master. I have often heard him mention the visits of the Commander-in-Chief to his Lodge, and the high gratification they afforded to the officers and members, especially as he came without ceremony as a private Brothers (The official record of the warranting of Washington Lodge is given on page 277, Oct. 6, 1779, of Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.)
Until Maine became a State, its Lodges worked under the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The name of Bro. Greenleaf first appears in the Proceedings of Massachusetts as a member of a temporary committee, March 14, 1814; and on September 12 of the same year is again mentioned in the same connection. On August 25, of 1814, he delivered the oration when the Grand Lodge consecrated York Lodge, at Kennebunk, bie. On Dec. 27, 1816, Grand Master Benjamin Russell appointed him District Deputy Grand Master, for the Ninth District (Maine), with residence at Gray; he was re-appointed in 1817.
At a Communication of the Grand Lodge in 1818, Greenleaf "and others" requested "that a stated portion of the Revenues of the Grand Lodge may be annually appropriated in aid of the funds of the American Bible Society," and this was referred to a committee of which Thaddeus Mason Harris was chairman. Grand Lodge in 1819 refused to appropriate its own (ear-marked) funds but agreed to recommend the Bible Society to the Lodges. Greenleaf next appears in the 1819 Proceedings to propose that Maine should have a Grand Lodge of its own. At that time he was a member of Portland Lodge, No. 1, which had been constituted in 1769.
By a happy turn of fortune when the history of that famous Lodge was written its author was none other than Judge Josiah H. Drummond, himself one of the great New England jurisconsults of his period, and, in addition, was the greatest authority on Masonic Jurisprudence the American Craft has had. On page 240 he gives a biographical sketch of Greenleaf:
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SIMON GREENLEAF
"The first Brother elected an Honorary Member of the Lodge, was the distinguished jurist, SIMON GREENLEAF.
"He was born in Newburyport, Mass., December 5, 1783, and was educated at the Academy in that town. He came to New Gloucester and studied law with Judge Whitman, and was admitted to the bar in this County in 1805. He commenced practice in Standish, then moved to Gray, and afterwards to Portland (about 1811). He was the first Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court in this State and the nine volumes published by him attest his ability, accuracy and fidelity. He published a Treatise on Evidence, in three volumes, which at once became, and has ever since remained, the standard work upon that important subject. In 1833, he was appointed Law Professor in Harvard University, and removed to Cambridge. He performed the duties with signal ability for fifteen years, and then resigned. He died in Cambridge in 1853, at the age of seventy years.
"He was made a Mason in Cumberland Lodge, in 1804 and became a member in 1805, and was elected Secretary the same year. In 1807, he was elected Master, served three years, and then declined a unanimous election, being about to remove from town. He dimitted from his Lodge and became a member of PORTLAND LODGE.
"In 1817 and 1818, he was District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, for the Portland District, and performed the duties with great ability and zeal.
"He was the leading spirit in the formation of the Grand Lodge—in fact is justly entitled to be called the father of the movement. Upon its organization, he was elected Senior Grand Warden, was afterwards Deputy Grand Master, and in 1822 and 1823, M. . W. . Grand Master.
"He delivered several Masonic addresses, and also published a work entitled 'A Brief Inquiry into the Origin and Principles of Freemasonry, ' printed by Arthur Shirley (also an Honorary Member of the Lodge), which is now quite rare.
"In addition to his ability as a lawyer, he acquired such reputation as an orator, that he was called 'the silver-tongued GREENLEAF.' In character, and in all respects, he was one whom the Craft may well be proud to mention in their ranks."
A Brief Inquiry into the Origin and Principles of Free Masonry was published by Arthur Shirley, in 1820, at which time Maine was still "The District of Maine." The copy in hand is 5 by 9 inches; the title page is an engraving, and made by a competent artist; it is bound in boards (probably a re-binding), and once belonged to "United Lodge." It has no index, and contains 117 pages. The Preface is of VII pages, and is signed "Simon Greenleaf, Portland, Jan. 1, 1820," in the first sentence the author states that, "The following pages comprise the substance of official lectures, delivered in the years 1817 and 1818, to the several Lodges of the Ninth Masonic District of Massachusetts."' Lecture I is on the historical evidences for the antiquity of the Craft.
Lecture II discusses whether Freemasonry did not arise in Operative Masonry rather than from it. Lecture III is on the Eleusinia, Pythagoreans, and Druids. Lecture IV is on Jewish Masonry (Solomon's Temple).
Lecture V is on the Ancient Mysteries.
Lecture VI is on the Three Degrees.
Lecture VII is on "The Ultimate Design of Masonry."
The Appendix, Section 1, is on the Locke MS. (so called); section 2 is a list of Grand Masters; section 3 is a quotation from Preston; section 4 is a collection of Charges; section 5 is a review of a number of (then) recent Masonic developments. (At the time of publication of the book there mere 854 Lodges in the United States, and they were initiating about 4000 new members per year.)
*
GRUBER, PATER HERMANN
The Abbe Pater Hermann Gruber, of the Society of Jesuits, made a life-long profession of Anti-Masonry. He is known to American Masons by his article on the Craft in the Catholic Encyclopedia; in Europe he is known for books, hundreds of articles in periodicals, speeches, and a Europe-wide correspondence in which he everywhere undertook to show that Freemasonry is the enemy of Christianity. When, after General Eric Ludendorff's violent Anti-Masonic campaign in Germany and the equally violent Anti-Masonic campaign which was conducted so Scrupulously in France after the Leo Taxil affair, the Fascists in France and Italy, the Phalangists in Spain, and the Nazis in Germany coupled their war on the Jews with a war on Masonry, and began to burn, demolish and pillage Lodge rooms, and mob, shoot, and imprison Masons, Abbe Gruber appealed to those who had taken his own arguments too literally to be more moderate. It was to his credit. His endeavors at moderation were made the more difficult because the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII (Humanum Genus) against Freemasonry was the official platform upon which he based his Anti-Masonic campaign, and that Encyclical as mendacious, violent in judgment, harsh in language, completely un- Christian in spirit, and an open invitation, set down in so many words, to Roman Catholics to use once again the machinery of the Holy Inquisition. What the Abbe Gruber has always lacked is what Leo XIII always lacked: a complete honorableness, a high sense of truthfulness. This is exhibited by them both in their Anti-Masonic writings as a whole; it is most clearly shown by the fact that in both their denunciations and descriptions of Freemasonry they carefully ignored the fact—known to both of them that more than 90% of the Freemasonry of the world is in English-speaking countries, and that this Regular Masonry alone has consistently conformed to the Ancient Landmarks.
In a series of articles which Gruber published in Das neue Reich, the Catholic weekly of Austria, he himself stated the fundamentals of his "criticisms" of Freemasonry:
1. He accused it of being grounded on "liberalism." There is no means to define "liberalism," because it is a political catch-word which is made to mean whatever a partisan wishes it to mean; but one may guess that the Abbe Gruber meant by it what Leo XIII meant by it in his Eneyclical; if so, it means democracy, public schools free speech, a free press, representative government, civil; liberties, free worship, and the absence of serfdom, slavery, etc., under an ecclesiastical hierarchy or ruling clique or class. These things are taken for granted by Free masonry, and ever have been; but it has never existed for the sole purpose of teaching them as a doctrine. Its teachings belong to a different region, one into which Abbe Gruber never penetrated and of which he had no; knowledge.
2. He accused Masonry of "naturalism," by which he meant materialism, Darwinism, etc. It is difficult to know why, because a belief in God and a use of prayer are required of every Candidate. He also accused it of "human itarianism." That also is a word impossible to define; but in the context of the whole body of his writings the Abbess accusation may be taken to mean that Masons treat other men with respect, consideration, and kindliness even if they are not white men, or are not Roman Catholics, or even if they are not Christians. His accusation is true. Masons do those things.
3. He accused Masonry of "Deism." The writer has elsewhere stated that the Abbe did not begin, as a scholar should, by a thorough and impartial study of the history of Freemasonry but began without it; this accusation is one of many proofs. If anything is certain, Freemasonry began centuries before the doctrines of Deism were invented; there is not one Deistical statement in the Land marks, Constitutions, or the Ritual; the Deists themselves were not Masons; in the 200 or 80 Minutes or Histories of the oldest Lodges there is nowhere a mention of Deists, or any record of the presence of Deists, except in one or two instances where Candidates were excluded because they were Deists.
See Freemasonry and Roman Catholmsm, by H. L. Haywood; Masonic History Company; Chicago; 1944. The Freemason, by Eugen Lennhof; Oxford University Press; 1934. In an essay on Freemasonry and "natural religion" Bros. Knoop and Jones discuss the point of Deism; unless they intended to say what they do not appear to have said they have confused Deism with any one of a number of theologies, such as Monotheism, or with Unitarianism; or with the attempt of a group of Eighteenth Century philosophers and theologians to show that "Christianity" can be proved by facts and arguments drawn from science. Deism was a new doctrine, unique, almost a new religion, and cannot be explained away in terms of something else. (See Bishop Butler's "Analogy." On the subject in general see the works of George Park Fisher.) The whole subject of Masonic philosophy is so far removed from the fields of naturalism, Deism, etc., that it is difficult to find sufficient grounds to reason from one to the other. Gruber, trained man that he was, could easily have discovered for himself (as could Pope Leo XIII, who was not a trained man) that there never was a link between Freemasonry and Deism if he had mastered Masonic history, to do which, as stated above, was his first duty, because it belongs to the "Hippocratic oath" of the gild of scholars. It is not the business of scholars to go about gathering materials for arguments, accusations, propaganda; their business is solely to find the truth.
In June, 1928, the Abbe Gruber held a day's conversation with Bros. Eugen Lennhof, Dr. Kurt Reichel, and Ossian Lang at Aachen, Germany. On that occasion he expressed the hope that Anti-Masons in Europe and Anti-Roman Catholics in America would raise the debate to a more dignified level—afterwards French Anti-Masonic periodicals accused him of having accepted bribes from the Masons! Bro. Lang was Secretary of the Foreign Department of the Grand Lodge of New York at the time; after returning from Europe he stated to the present writer that the Abbe had regretted that his career had been to make war on Freemasonry which he had come to admire; that his superiors had started him off with a collection of inferior and misleading books; and he was afraid his article on Freemasonry in the Catholic Encyclopedia had lowered him in the eyes of impartial scholars as it had. American Freemasonry did not need that any man read it a lesson in moderation; it had forbidden Lodges to so much as discuss Roman Catholicism under the Order of Business.
*
GREUZE, JEAN BAPTISTE
Born August 21, 1725; died at Paris, March 4, 1805. A celebrated French painter and engraver, his work highly praised by Dixmerie and Diderot of his own generation and still maintains its early reputation. His name apse pears on the list for 1779 of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters at Paris (see Une Loge Maçonnique, d'Avant 1789, Louis Amiable, 1897, page 329).
*
GRIDLEY, JEREMY
Born March 10, 1701/2, Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard, 1725. taught school, on June 28, 1728, given Degree of Master of Arts by Harvard, in 1731 founded the Weekly Rehearsal, early Boston newspaper. Past Grand Master Isaiah Thomas (History of Printing, volume I, page 3 7, 1810 edition) says the Weekly Rehearsal "was carried on at the expense of some gentlemen who formed themselves into a political or literary club and wrote for it. At the head of this club was the late celebrated Jeremy Gridley who was the real editor of the paper." This, the first newspaper or magazine published in America having substantial claim to literary merit, secured this reputation largely from Brother Gridley's masterly contributions.
Practically a complete volume of this paper is on file with the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts. Gridley severed his connection with the Meekly Rehearsal April, 1733, and until June 10, 1742, practiced law and on this date was chosen Attorney General by both Houses of Assembly. April 13, 1748 Gridley was proposed to the First Lodge by Past Grand Master Henry Price, elected April 27, and made May 11. December 7, 1750, he was Raised in the Masters Lodge. At that time few progressed beyond the grade of Entered Apprentice. Gridley became a member of the First Lodge January 24, 1753.
He was elected Junior Warden, Masters Lodge, December 1, 1752, and Senior Warden July 6, 1753. here tired from office in the Masters Lodge December 7, 1753, and received unanimous election as Master of the First Lodge, December 6, 1753. On October 1, 1755, Jeremy Gridley was appointed Grand Master of Masons in North America. The Boston Marine Society, formerly the Fellowship Club, on February 26, 1754, in acknowledgment of his services, voted him the "freedom of the society for life." Prior to May 19, 1755, Brother Gridley moved to Brookline and on May 25, 1767, he was appointed Kinffl's Attorney General. From 1767 his health failed and the last time he presided over Grand Lodge was January 23, 1767. His death occulted September 10, 1767, when he was Grand Master of Masons, Attorney General for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a member of the Great and General Court of the Province and a Justice, Colonel of the First Regiment of Militia, President of the Marine Society, Selectman and Assessor of Brookline. The following was written in memory of Brother Gridley by James Otis, an eminent lawyer, raised in the Masters Lodge OD January 4, 1754:
Of Parts and Learning, Wit and Worth possess'd
Gridley shone forth conspicuous o'er the rest:
In native Powers robust, and smit with Fame.
The Genius brighten d and the Spark took Flame
Nature and Science wove the laurel Crown,
Ambitious, each alike, conferr'd Renown.
High in the Dignity and Strength of Thought,
The Maze of Knowledge sedulous he sought,
With Mind Superior Studied and retain'd.
And Life and Property by Law Sustain'd.
Generous and free. his lib'ral Hand he spread
Th' Oppress'd relieved, and for the Seedy Plead
Awake to Friendship, with the ties of Mood
His Heart expanded and his Soul o'erflow'd.
Social in Converse. in the Senate brave.
Gay e en in Dignity, with Wisdom grave;
Long to his country and to Courts endear'd
The Judges honor'd and the Bar rever'd.
Rest! Peaceful Shade! innoxious as they Walk
May slander babble and may censure talk,
Ne'er on thy Mem'ry east a Blot
But human Frailties in thy Worth forgot
(See Beginnings of Freemasonry in America, 1924, pages 119, 326 47, also Grand Master's address, both by Brother Melvin M. Johnson, Proceedings, Massachusetts, 1916, pages 309-530.)
*
GRIP
In early Masonic works this is called the gripe. German Freemasons call it der Griff, and the French ones, I'Attouchement.
*
GROTON
In the Leland Manuscripts a corruption of Crotona, where Pythagoras established his school of philosophy.
*
GROTTO
The complete name of this organization is Mystic Order Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm. Al Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet, bears also the name of Hakem ben Haschem, and according to Persian records lived sometime between the seventh and eighth centuries. Some authorities give the name of the prophet, Al Mokanna, the Veiled One, as Al Hakim ibn Otto, and the date of his activity as about the year 760. His prophecies were uttered from behind a veil, hence the term applied to him. Thomas Moore wrote a poem interesting on account of the details regarding Al Mokanna, as well for the mention of places and persons useful in the naming of the Grottoes. However, in the case of the Grotto, the poem by Moore was not the source of inspiration which produced the Ritual.
Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm was the name finally chosen because of the enchanting goodfellowship the members had found within the mystical realm of the Order. As expressed by Commodore W. C. Eaton, the Order was planned to be the most secluded of Secret Orders; it was to be veiled, and the Mokanna of the poem was adopted as the mask or veil of secrecy which the Order was supposed to wear before the world. Thus the Al Mokanna of the poem is not indicative of the ideals taught by the Order; he is only the veil, and the use of Persian names by Grottoes simply fringes the veil with the peculiar charm of mysticism and imagery associated with all that comes from the mysterious East. The real Mokanna of the Prophets dwells in the hearts of the faithful and is so opposite in character to the false Mokanna of the poem that he is known only to those who have looked behind the veil and beheld the Enchanted Realm.
Dr. Oren Root of Hamilton College gave at an early meeting of the Supreme Council a response to a toast discussing the Why of the organization. From this we take the following: Freemasonry deals with manhood, square and upright; it is practical and earnest. Speculative minds have built upon the practical tenets of Freemasonry extended systems having abstruse and complicated meanings. Others, fully realizing that "Life is real, life is earnests have felt that the real would be no less real, the earnestness no less strong, if there came the warmth of humor, the gleam of wit, and the glow of sympathy. We need sunshine in life as well as in the air. Master Masons, good and true, of Hamilton Lodge, No. 120, averse to trespassing upon the dignified earnestness of the Lodge, yet feeling the need and value of closer, warmer communion, were wont, after the Lodge closed, to tarry for social intercourse. In the flowing humor and the sparkling wit, in the joke and song, the heart warmth oft and long remembered of these tarryings, they entered a Realm Enchanted, and by and by they became its Prophets. To perpetuate what gave them pleasure, and as true warm souls are generous to widen the scope of it, they organized. As they were Freemasons.
they limited its boundary to the Masonic Fraternity though it makes no claim to be Freemasonry. So the Order came: Mystic in its subtle lessons as in its form; Veiled because no human heart stands all revealed: of an Enchanted Realm, because who does not know how duties wear and sorrows burden in any un-enchanted realm? If Rites are framed to teach higher speculative tenets and we honor them, so too may Rites well be framed to gather and scatter the warm-heart sunshine of life. The Grand Alchemist has tested it; it is elixir.
The origin and development of the Order is explained at length in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry (pages 198S91). The Grotto was born of an effort for stronger sociability among the Brethren of Hamilton Lodge No. 120, Free and Accepted Masons, Hamilton, New York. The very informality did not tend to the keeping of complete records but any uncertainty later about the facts was met by the circumstance that several of the original members long continued their able activities in the Grotto, Brother Sidney D. Smith becoming the Grand Secretary. Brother LeRoy Fairchild and other Brethren of Hamilton Lodge had often met for fun and frolic.
Their lively social relations, some times mischievous but never mean, resulted during the summer of 1889 in an initiation promising rich enjoyment. This project received a warm welcome and a more permanent organization seemed necessary. September 10, 1889, there was an organization meeting held in the Masonic Hall at Hamilton of the following Brethren: LeRoy Fairchild, George Beal, Sidney D. Smith, Thos. H. Beal, Wm. M. West, J. W. Clark, U. C. Van Vleck, B. J. Stimson, Adon N. Smith, H. S. Gardiner, C. J. Griswold. Robert Patterson, A. M. Russell, John A. Holmgren, John F. Howe, G. G. Waldron, and Edwin L. Peet. At this first meeting the following officers were elected: LeRoy Fairchild, K. D.; B. J. Stimson, C. J.; George Beal, C.; J. W. Clark, C.; Thos. H. Beal, W. D. R.; and Sidney D. Smith, Secretary.
This organization developed into the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, but there was at the start nothing more intended than a local affair. Of this we are assured by the name. The assembled Brethren chose as a title the Fairchild Deviltry Committee, and the presiding officer was called the King Devil . Membership was decided at this first meeting to be confined exclusively to Master Masons in good standing. Brothers R. R. Riddell and H. P. Tompkins were proposed as the first candidates and a date was set for their initiation. The ceremony proved a great success. A Ritual had been written by Brothers George Beal and Adon N. Smith. This work evoked warm praise and a Ritual Committee comprising Brothers R. R. Riddell, George Beal, A. N. Smith, LeRoy Fairchild, T. H. Beal, and W. M. West, was appointed to further perfect the ceremonial.
When contributing his recollections freely for this account of the Grotto, Grand Secretary Smith accorded to Prophets R. R. Riddell and George Beal the credit for successfully working out the revision. Brother Riddell brought ideal qualifications to the task, brilliantly embellishing the revised work with gems fanciful and sparkling, and inspiring much of the showy dash, urge and glitter. His suggestion was that the characters be given mythological names. This idea worked out splendidly though there was scarcely anything of classical mythology in the drama. Prophet George Beal was the author of the original Ritual and received valuable assistance from Brother Riddell and others in working out the first revision but all the later work was done by him alone. The pioneer labor of Brother Beal survived. Brother Smith so s that none of the changes since made in the Ritual disturbed the main lines laid down by Brother Beal.
The services of Prophet Beal were officially recognized by the Supreme Council at the Annual Session held in June, 1917, at Washington, District of Columbia, when a suitable resolution was unanimously adopted and a Committee comprising Past Grand Monarchs Charles E. Lansing, Hiram D. Rogers and J. F. McGregory was appointed to have it engrossed and presented. The following quotation is from this testimonial:
Resolved, that the Supreme Council in conjunction with all Veiled Prophets of the Realm do assure our worthy and esteemed Prophet George Beal of our appreciation of his work as Committee on Ritual, embracing as it does all the essential and beautiful Seets of the Order, the promulgation of which has been a potent factor and conducive to the advancement and upbuilding of the Order.
Brother Smith contradicts the statement that the Grotto was founded on Chapter Twenty-four of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, as the original Ritual will show. A copy of this as well as every revised edition is preserved in the safe of the Grand Secretary and nearly all are in the handwriting of Prophet George Beal who, Brother Smith tells us, never saw the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Minor modifications became advisable and another Committee was appointed. This comprised Brothers LeRoy Fairchild, George Beal, W. C. Eaton, and J. F. McGregory. They eliminated some features and some additions were made by this Committee, and these proved most acceptable. These amendments left the Ritual in a form which at once became practically permanent.
Temporary and local as the organization may have appeared at the beginning the success attained such proportions that the growing institution needed a suitable governing and organizing body. May 28, 1890, the Brethren of the F. D. C. met and studied the extension of the Order. They unanimously resolved to establish a Supreme Council with power to control affairs. Measures to that end were adopted. Thereby the Supreme Council of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm was duly set in operation on Friday, June 13, 1890, to carry systematically onward to Master Masons everywhere the fun and frolic of the Grotto. When the Supreme Council was organized there were fourteen members present, Brother LeRoy Fairchild presiding, with Brother Sidney D. Smith acting as Secretary. The Constitution and Statutes of the Supreme Council of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm were read and approved. Officers were elected as follows:
Thomas L. James, Grand Monareh, New York City.
LeRoy Fairchild, Deputy Grand Monarch, Hamilton, New York.
George H. Raymond, Grand Chief Justice, New York City.
J. C. Terry, Grand Master Ceremonies, St. Paul, Minnesota.
William M. West, Grand Treasurer, Hamilton, New York.
Sidney D. Smith, Grand Seeretary, Hamilton New York
Oren Root, Grand Keeper of Archived Clinton, New York.
James Byron Murray, Grand Orator, Auburn New York
V. G. Prophet, Hnmilton, New York.
U. C. Van Vleek, Trustee, Hamilton, New York.
Adon N. Smith, Trustee, Hamilton, New York
D. B. West, Trustee, Hamilton, New York.
The remaining offices were filled by the appointment of the following Brothers:
Thomas II. Beal, Grand Captain of Guard, Hamilton New York.
J. F. Gregory, Grand Alchemist, Hamilton, New York.
Samuel J. Todd, Standard Bearer, New Orleans, Louisiana.
John Cunningham, Grand Marshal, Utiea. New York.
J. W. Clark. Grand Steward, Hamilton, New York
B. J. Stimson, Deputy Grand Chief Justice, Hamilton, New York.
George Beal, Deputy Grand Master of Ceremonies, Hamilton, New York.
These Brethren were installed by Grand Chief Justice George H. Raymond and the elected Grand Officers were empowered to complete the organization. A Charter was granted to Druid Grotto No. 1 at Hamilton, New York, but this name was afterwards changed to Mokanna Grotto at a meeting of the Supreme Council held on July 5, 1890. An Obligation presented by Brother W. C. Eaton was formally adopted, and on his motion also, the Deputy Grand Monarch, the Deputy Grand Chief Justice and the Deputy Grand Master of Ceremonies were appointed a Committee to act upon reports submitted by various Committees of the Supreme Council. After a banquet in the evening, the Supreme Council adjourned to the following afternoon of June 14, 1890, at 3 P.M., when Deputy Grand Monarch LeRoy Fairchild installed Brother Thomas L. James as Grand Monarch of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm. At this session the seal and badge of the Order were adopted. The turhans of the Veiled Prophets were by resolution at a later session of 1890 permitted to be of any color a Grotto might select but to be used with a silver veil. All turbans of the same Grotto were to be alike as to color, but no purple to be worn except by members of the Supreme Council.
The Supreme Council meeting at the Masonic Hall, Hamilton, June 11 l891, was memorable because a Dispensation for the second Grotto was granted. This Body received a Charter from the Supreme Council June 9, l892, as Khorassan Grotto No. 2, of Ilion, New York, and at the same session a Charter was issued to Zeba Grotto, No. 4, at Rome in that State. Dispensations had previously been given on August 26, 1891, to Lalla Rookh Grotto, No. 3, of Rochester, New York, and to Zeba Grotto Lalla Rookh receiving a Charter on June 27, 1893 at the first New York City meeting of the Supreme Council when a Charter was also issued to Mirzola Grotto, No. 5. at Amsterdam, New York. Hiawatha Grotto, No. 8, at Anoka, Minnesota; Azim Grotto, No. 7, of Nest York City, and Shiras Grotto, No. 8. at Antwerp, New York, were granted Dispensations at this session. Charters were given to these three Bodies together with one to Zelica Grotto, No. 9, at Kinderhook, New York, on June 14, 1894, at the annual meeting held in the Scottish Rite Hall, New York City.
Brother Adon Smith Was elected Grand Monarch at the session of 1894 succeeding Brother James who had served in 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1893. Grand Monarch Smith was reselected at the Supreme Council annual sessions from June 14, 1894, to October 31, 1899. He was also Monarch of Azim Grotto, No. z. A revision of the Constitution and Statutes, and a Password were adopted at the New York City session of the Supreme Council on June 6, 1895. The genial founder and constant inspiration of the Grotto was Brother LeRoy Fairchild who died at his home in Hamilton, New York, January 23, 1897, aged but 51 years. He was Deputy Grand Monarch from the institution of the Supreme Council up to his death. Brother George F. Loder of Rochester, New York;, was Grand Monarch in 1901 and 1902. He presided at the Buffalo session on October 19, 1900, of the Supreme Council, Grand Monarch Adon Smith dying in his 65th year on June 13, 1900, the tenth anniversary of the organization of the Supreme Council. Grand Secretary Sidney D. Smith resigned his office at the annual meeting in June, 1924, and was succeeded in that position by Brother George Edward Hatch of Rochester, New York, a Past Grand Monarch of 1910. In the Proceedings, Thirteenth Annual Convention, 1902, there is a tribute on pages 12S7 to Brother Smith by his old associate, Prophet George Beal, from which the following extract is taken:
"Grand Monarch Balston in writing on this matter said, 'Surely, no one is more entitled to recognition than our Grand Secretary who by his zealous work in the cause has done so much toward the success of the Order.' To be thus mentioned by the Grand Monarch is indeed a distinguished honor, but it is no more than is justly due Sidney D. Smith for the eminent ability zeal and fidelity with which he has ever discharged his duties as Grand Secretary." Of this we also bear tribute for he generously co-operated in making this account of the Grotto accurate and complete. Brother Smith died on November 12. 1924.
*
GROUND FLOOR OF KING SOLOMON"S TEMPLE
This is said to have been a Mosaic pavement, consisting of black and white stones laid lozengewise, and surrounded by a tesselated border. The tradition of the Order is that Entered Apprentices Lodges were held on the ground floor of King, Solomon's Temple; and hence a Mosaic pavement, or a carpet representing one, is a very common decoration of Masonic Lodges (see Mosaic Pavement and Grand Offerings).
*
GROUND FLOOR OF THE LODGE
Mount Moriah, on which the temple of Solomon was built, is symbolically called the ground floor of the Lodge, and hence it is said that "the Lodge rests on holy ground." This ground floor Of the Lodge is remarkable for three great events recorded in Scripture, which are called the three grand of erings of Freemasonry It was here that Abraham prepared, as a token of his faith, to offer up his beloved son Isaac this was the first rand offering; it was here that David, when his people were afflicted with pestilence, built an altar, and offered thereon peace-offerings and burnt offerings to appease the wrath of God this was the second grand offering; and lastly, it was here that when the Temple was completed, King Solomon dedicated that magnificent structure to the service of Jehovah, with the offering of pious prayers and many costly presents and this was the third grand offering. This sacred spot was once the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and from him David purchased it for fifty shekels of silver. The Cabalists delight to invest it with still more solemn associations, and declare that it was the spot on which Adam was created and Abel slain (see Holy Ground).
*
GRUMBACH, SYLVESTER
Mentioned in the legend of the Strict Observance, and was the reputed Grand Master of the Templars from 1330 to 1339, and the twenty-second Grand Master.
*
GUARD
See Due Guard
*
GUARD OF THE CONCLAVE
See Knight of the Christian Maria
*
GUARDS
Officers used in working the ceremonies of the Red Cross and Templar Degrees. They do not constitute regular officers of a Council or Commandery, but are appointed for a particular purpose.
*
GUATEMALA
A republic of Central America. The Grand Orient of Colombia organized in 1881 Constance Lodge at Cartagena. This divided into three others affiliated with the Grand Orient of Central America. On October 20, 1903, the Grand Orient of Guatemala was opened at Guatemala City.
*
GUERRIER DE DUMAST
A distinguished French Freemason, born at Nancy on February 26, 1796. He was the author of a poem entitled La Maçonnerie, in three cantos, enriched with historical, etymological, and critical notes, published in 1820. For this work he received from the Lodge Freres Artistes, Brother Artists, of which he was the Orator, a gold medal. He was the author of several other works, both Masonic and secular.
*
GUGLIELMUS TYRIUS
Wrote a history of the crusades having many references to the Knights Templar. An edition of this work was published at London in 1640.
*
GUGOMOS, GOTTLIEB FRANZ, FREIHERR VON,
An impostor in Freemasonry, who, in 177O, appeared in Germany, and, being a member. of the Order of Strict Observance, claimed that he had been delegated by the Unknown Superiors of the Holy See, or principal office, at Cyprus to establish a new Order of Knights Templars. Calling himself Duz, or the Ruler, and High Priest, he convoked a Masonic Congress at Wiesbaden, which, notwithstanding the warning of Doctor Bode, was attended by many influential members of the Fraternity. His pretensions were so absurd, that at length his imposture was detected, and he escaped secretly out of Wiesbaden. In 1786, Gugumos confessed the imposition, and, it is said asserted that he had been employed as a tool by the Jesuits to perform this part, that Freemasonry might be injured.
*
GUIANA
See British Guiana, Cayenne, and Surinam
*
GUIBBS
The names given to the Assassins of the Third Degree by some of the inventors of the advanced Degrees, are of so singular a form as to have almost irresistibly led to the conclusion that these names were bestowed by the adherents of the house of Stuart upon some of their enemies as marks of infamy. Such, for instance, is Romsel, the name of one of the Assassins in certain Scottish Degrees, which is probably a corruption of Cromwell. Jubelum Guibbs, another name of one of these traitors, has much puzzled the Masonic etymologists. Brother Mackey believed that he had found its origin in the name of the Rev. Adam Gib, who was an antiburgher clergyman of Edinburgh.
When that city was taken possession of by the young Pretender, Charles Edward in 1745, the clergy generally fled. But Gib removed only three miles from the city, where, collecting his loyal congregation, he hurled anathema's for five successive Sundays against the Pretender, and boldly prayed for the downfall of the rebellion. He subsequently joined the loyal army, and at Falkirk took a rebel prisoner. So active was Gib in his opposition to the cause of the house of Stuart, and so obnoxious had he become, that several attempts were made by the rebels to take his life. On Charles Edward's return to France, he erected in 1747 his Primordial Chapter at Arras; and in the composition of the advanced Degrees there practiced, it is very probable that he bestowed the name of his old enemy Gib on the most atrocious of the Assassins who figure in the legend of Third Degree. The letter u was doubtless inserted to prevent the French, in pronouncing the name, from falling into the soft sound of the G and called the word Jib. The additional b and s were the natural and customary results of a French attempt to spell a foreign proper name (see Arras, Primoraial Chapter of ).
An old handbook in French, Thuileur des Trentetrois Degrees use l'Ecossisme, published in l815 at Paris, mentions on page 79 that some had derived the word Jabulum from Zabulon, a Hebrew word meaning habitation.
*
GUICHARD, JEAN FRANÇOIS
A famous literary Freemason; born at Chartrettes, near Melun, France, May 5, 1731; died there on February 23, 1811. He wrote a number of books including some comic operas and sprightly verse. His name is on both lists of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters for 1806, as having taken part in the Lodge after its revival but he is also on the roster for 1779 (see Une Loge Maconnique, Louis Amiable, 1897, pages 298 and 313).
*
GUILD, MASONIC GRAND SECRETARIES
See Masonic Grand Secretaries Guild
*
GUILLEMAIN DE ST. VICTOR, LOUIS
A distinguished French writer, who published several works on Freemasonry, the most valuable and best known of which is his Recueil Précieus de la Maçonnerie Adonhiraanite, meaning Choice Selections of Adonhiramite Masonry, first issued at Paris in 1782. This work, of which several editions were published, contains the catechisms of the first four Degrees of Adonhiramite Freemasonry, and an account of several other Degrees, and is enriched with many learned notes. Ragon, who speaks highly of the work, erroneously attributes its authorship to the celebrated Baron de Tschaldy.
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GUILLOTIN, DOCTOR JOSEPH IGNACE
Famous French physician and zealous Freemason. Born at Saintes, May 28, 1738; died at Paris, March 26, 1814. Often credited with inventing the guillotine, a machine for beheading those condemned to death in France, but this is untrue; neither did he die by this means, as has been asserted. As Deputy to the Assembly, he urged, on December 1, 1789, that capital punishment should be inflicted as speedily and painlessly as possible, and argued for a machine. Although such contrivances were not new, and in fact the one adopted at the time was perfected by Antoine Louis, secretary of the Academy of Surgeons, and a mechanic, Schmidt, the machine unjustly bears the name of him who pleaded for its use on humane grounds.
One of the founders of the Grand Orient of France, Doctor Guillotin was first the Orator of the Chamber of the Provinces, becoming President, October 27, 1775, and was Worshipful Master of Concorde Fraternelle Lodge at Paris, his name being on the list of Lodges for 1776 with the address "at Schools of Medicine," and among the officers of the Grand Orient, that year, he is qualified as professor of the medical faculty in the University of Paris. He was in 1778 the founder of the society which became the Academy of Medicine, and in 1784 he was with Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, and Jean Sylvain Bailly, French astronomer, all three members of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters, appointed the Royal Commission to report on the animal magnetism claims of Mesmer (see Une Loge Maçonnique d'Avant 1789, Louis Amiable, 1897, page 282).
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GUINEA, FRENCH
See French Guinea
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GUSTAVUS IV,
King of Sweden. He was initiated into Freemasonry, at Stockholm, on Starch 10, 1793. Ten years after, on March 9, 1803, Gustavus issued an Ordinance by which he required all the secret societies in his dominions to make known to the Stadtholders of the cities where they resided, and in the provinces to his Governors, not only the formula of the oath which they administered to their members but the duties which they prescribed, and the object of their association; and also to submit at any time to a personal inspection by the officers of government. But at the end of the Ordinance the lsing says: "The Freemasons, who are under our immediate protection, are alone excepted from this inspection, and from this Ordinance in general."
GUTTURAL POINT OF ENTRANCE
From the Latin guttur, meaning the throat. The throat is that avenue of the body which is most employed in the sins of intemperance, and hence it suggests to the Freemason certain symbolic instructions in relation to the virtue of temperance (see Points of Entrance, Perfect).
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GYMNOSOPHIST
The Eighth Degree of the Cabalistic Rite.
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GYMNOSOPHISTS
Signifying naked sages. A name given by the Greeks to those ancient Hindu philosophers who lived solitarily in the woods, wore little or no clothing, and addicted themselves to mystical contemplation and. the practice of the most rigorous asceticism. Strabo divides them into Brahmans ant Samans, the former of whom adhered to the strictest principles of caste, while the latter admitted any one into their number regarding whose character and kindred they were satisfied. They believed in the immortality of the soul and its migration into other bodies. They practiced celibacy, abstained from wine, and lived on fruits. They held riches in contempt, and abstained from sensual indulgences.
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GYPSIES
Cornelius Van Paun, more generally known as De Paun, in his Philosophical Researches on the Egyptians and Chinese, published at Paris, 1774, advances the theory that Freemasonry originated with the Gypsies. He says: ' Every person who was not guilty of some crime could obtain admission to the lesser mysteries. Those vagabonds called Egyptian priests in Greece and Italy required considerable sums for initiation; and their successors, the Gypsies, practice similar mummeries to obtain money.
And thus was Freemasonry introduced into Europe. "But De Paun is remarkable for the paradoxical character of his opinions. James Simpson, who has written a rather exhaustive History of the Gypsies, published in 1866, points out (page 387)," a considerable resemblance between Gypsyism, in its harmless aspect, and Freemasonry with this difference, that the former is a general, while the latter is a special, society; that is to say, the Gypsies have the language, or some of the words and the signs peculiar to the whole race, which each individual or class will use for different purposes. The race does not necessarily, and does not in fact, have intercourse with every other member of it. In that respect they resemble any ordinary community of men."
And he adds: "There are many Gypsies Freemasonry; indeed, they are the very people to push their way into a Freemasons Lodge; for they have secrets of their own, and are naturally anxious to pry into those of others, by which they may be benefited. I was told of a Gypsy who died, lately, the Master of a Freemasons' Lodge. A friend, a Freemason, told me the other day of his having entered a house in Yetholm where were five Gypsies, all of whom responded to his Masonic signs." But it must be remembered that Simpson is writing of the Gypsies of Scotland, a kingdom where the race is considerably advanced above those of any other country in civilization and in social position.
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