‘How many Apprentices can dance on the head of a pin?’

    

Honestly, some guys look to be confounded.

This question was posed on Faceypage several weeks ago:

A good friend recently asked me the following great question: ‘Which is the correct reading? To learn to subdue my passions and improve myself in Masonry; or To learn, to subdue my passions, and improve myself in Masonry? One of my brothers brought this to my attention and I’m curious as to how different lodges put this into their ritual. It doesn’t change overall purpose, but is it two commands or three commands?’

You recognize the phrase from the Entered Apprentice Degree. In the Grand Lodge of New York, this appears in Part I of the Second Section. There is no ambiguity thanks to the absence of that first preposition, so it reads: “Learn to subdue my passions and improve myself in Masonry,” meaning there are two purposes, not three. In my previous grand lodge, the catechism does say “To learn to subdue my passions…” I’ve never seen a comma after “to learn” in any ritual text.

Sure, some of us came here to learn, but the Entered Apprentice is introduced to personal growth, not formal education. Instruction in thinking, speaking, and understanding the world will come in the Second Degree.

Subduing the passions is not human nature; it must be cultivated through deliberation and diligent action. That’s why we, as Free and Accepted Masons, must learn to subdue our passions and improve ourselves. Instruction in subduing the passions is revealed in the discussion of the Four Cardinal Virtues and is symbolized by the Common Gavel working tool. Capisce?

From my initiation almost twenty-nine years ago, I understood “to learn to subdue my passions” to mean something like I must train to restrain the impulses of enmity and anger; to gain a victory over myself; to be not merely kind to men of virtue, but also be indulgent and reconcilable to the injurious. Thanks, Plutarch.

In his Parallel Lives, the second century biographer, writing of the ancient Greek philosopher Dion of Syracuse, puts these words in his mouth: “...by being long conversant in the academy, I have learned to subdue my passions, and to restrain the impulses of enmity and anger. To prove that I have really gained such a victory over myself, it is not sufficient merely to be kind to men of virtue, but to be indulgent and reconcilable to the injurious.” It is possible this 1784 translation is influenced by our ritual. And you see the Four Cardinal Virtues at work here.

As for a documented entry point of this idea into Masonic ritual, it helps to consult Masonry Dissected, that early ritual exposure from 1730, which gives us reliable insight into what the lectures of the degrees sounded like at that time. Please understand that a lecture in a degree back then was not the long monologue delivered from memory that most of us in America have today, but was in question-and-answer format, with the lodge Master asking the brethren in lodge, who took turns responding. (Also, you should know Q&A dialogue lives on in our candidate examinations and Opening and Closing ceremonies.)

Query three is: What do you come here to do? 

Answer:

Not to do my proper Will,

But to subdue my Passion still;

The Rules of Masonry in hand to take,

And daily Progress therein make.

It is safe to say Masonry Dissected reports how ritual worked during the 1720s, if not earlier, and I believe much of our thinking derives from Christian life in England, for which we’d delve further back for subduing the passions.

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor (1613-67), the famous Anglican theologian, who wrote so poetically for the common man (he was called the Shakespeare of Divines), published The Worthy Communicant in 1660. This text instructs the faithful on receiving the Eucharist, and it ranks character and conduct over knowledge of the church’s laws.

He writes:

Thou givest thy self to be the food of our souls in the wonders of the Sacrament, in the faith of thy Word, in the blessings and graces of thy Spirit: Perform that in thy Servant, which thou hast prepared and effected in thy Son; strengthen my infirmities, heal my sicknesses; give me strength to subdue my passions, to mortifie my inordinations, to kill all my sin: increase thy Graces in my soul; enkindle a bright devotion; extinguish all the fires of hell, my lust and my pride, my envy, and all my spiritual wickednesses; pardon all my sins, and fill me with thy Spirit, that by thy Spirit thou maist dwell in me, and by obedience and love I may dwell in thee, and live in the life of grace till it pass on to glory and immensity, by the power and the blessings, by the passion and intercession of the Word incarnate; whom I adore, and whom I love, and whom I will serve for ever and ever.

This is too much for a reply to a Facebook post, but if Bro. Gilbert happens to see this, I hope it helps. Two commands, not three.

     

’The First Degree, 1717 style!’

    

RCI Lodge 3556

A lodge in London, which specializes in unconventional communications augmented with finer dining, has an exemplification of a rare initiation planned for next month. Royal Colonial Institute Lodge 3556, meeting at Freemasons’ Hall, will demonstrate how the First Degree of Masonry might have looked in 1717.

I’m assuming this will be based on ritual exposures from later in the eighteenth century, but still I’d expect a faithful recreation of the experience. Click here for tickets for the June 13 meeting, demonstration, and dinner.

The lodge has a fascinating history. According to the Metropolitan Grand Lodge’s website:

It was consecrated on January 10, 1912 for the purpose of enhancing the ties of the then Empire and Craft; and between the resident and non-resident Fellows and Members of the Royal Commonwealth Society (formerly the Royal Colonial Institute).

Connections with brethren abroad remained strong throughout the First World War and when, in 1939, the Duke of Connaught resigned as Grand Master of UGLE, he remained as Worshipful Master of the lodge and was able to welcome the District Grand Master of Japan, as well as representatives of the grand lodges of Cuba, Peru, Greece, Yugoslavia, and more. Upon Connaught’s death in 1942, the Grand Master noted at his successor’s Installation “…it is the meeting place of brethren who are now in London but whose homes are many thousands of miles away… Though the members of this Lodge may be drawn from many parts of the Empire, they meet in lodge on common ground and for a common purpose.”

It was in the 1950s that the lodge began a tradition of hosting talks and lectures. Fast forward to 1972, and the links with the Commonwealth were further strengthened at an emergency meeting of the lodge where members were joined by 203 members of other Commonwealth lodges. This meeting was to be the forerunner of the Commonwealth Lodges’ Association, a relationship which the Royal Colonial Lodge proudly still retains.

The Centenary History of the Lodge, written in 2012, concludes: “…the lodge has provided a meeting place for Commonwealth brethren through two World Wars and through times of hardship, financial depression and financial prosperity... Perhaps in looking back we can gain more strength to move forward.”

The Royal Colonial Institute Lodge is a Metropolitan Lodge, meeting at Freemasons’ Hall twice a year. The June meeting is aligned to UGLE’s Quarterly Communication so that members and brethren visiting from abroad can maximise their time in London. It attracts Past Masters with an appetite for finer dining across London in a more relaxed atmosphere, with Festive Boards held at private clubs and non-mainstream specialist venues.

The lodge does not take initiates and therefore performs no ceremonial work other than the annual Installation. Instead, the aim of the lodge is to have fun, unique, and educational meetings. Aiming to reach 100+ members by the end of this year [2023], the RCI supports the development of the Commonwealth Lodges’ Association (of which it is a member).

But about this event, the lodge says:

The regular business meeting of Royal Colonial Institute Lodge 3556 will tyle at 5 p.m. and will last approximately thirty minutes. After the lodge has closed, the Elizabethan Lodge will quickly set up, and the demonstration will begin, which is anticipated to finish around 6:15.

Please note: this event is for Master Masons and above only. No EAs or FCs are allowed to attend, as per Information for the Guidance of Members of the Craft.

For those who wish to dine afterwards, there will be pre-dinner drinks at 7 p.m. in the private drawing room at Fortnum & Mason (Piccadilly) with dinner served at 7:30.

Click here to see the impressive dinner menu and to purchase tickets.

     

‘Scottish EA° Working Tools’

    

My lodge had the honor of initiating two candidates for the mysteries of Freemasonry Monday night. I’ve always enjoyed the variety shown in rituals around the Masonic world; the following example offers not only different language in defining the familiar Working Tools of the Entered Apprentice Mason, but also reveals a Working Tool unknown to lodges in the United States.

Under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, there is no single ritual promulgated by headquarters. Instead, lodges are free to customize the work. This doesn’t produce anarchy. Masons are responsible. It just means there isn’t a down-to-the-letter standardization of ritual.

What follows comes from The Scottish Ritual of the Three Degrees of St. John’s Masonry, printed by Lewis in London in 1895.

I now present to you the Working Tools of an Entered Apprentice Free Mason, which are, the Twenty-four inch Gauge, the Common Gavel, and the Chisel.

The Twenty-four inch Gauge is to measure our Work, the Common Gavel to knock off all superfluous knobs and excrescences, and the Chisel to further smooth and prepare the stone, and render it fit for the hands of the more expert Craftsman.

The Twenty-four inch Gauge is the first instrument placed in the hands of a workman, as it enables him to measure the work he is about to begin, so that he may estimate the time and labour it will cost.

The Gavel is an instrument of labour. Known to Artists under various appellations, it is still admitted by them all that no work of manual skill can be completed without its aid.

The Chisel is a small instrument, solid in its form, but of such exquisite sharpness as fully to compensate for the diminutiveness of its size. It is calculated to make impression on the hardest substances, and the loftiest structures are indebted to its aid.

But as we are not operative, but rather Free and Accepted, or Speculative Masons, we apply those Tools to our Morals.

In this sense the Twenty-four inch Gauge represents the twenty-four hours of the day,—part to be spent in Prayer to Almighty God; part in Labour, Refreshment, and Sleep; and part to serve a friend or Brother in time of need, that not being detrimental to ourselves or our connections.

The Common Gavel represents the force of conscience, which should keep down all vain and unbecoming thoughts, so that our words and actions may appear before the Throne of Grace pure and unpolluted.

The Chisel points out to us the advantages of Education and Perseverance, by which means alone we are rendered fit members of regularly organized Society. That the rude material can receive a fine polish from repeated efforts alone. From the whole we deduce this moral: That Knowledge, aided by Labour and prompted by Perseverance, will finally overcome all difficulties, raise ignorance from despair, and establish truth in the paths of Nature and Science.

I can’t locate this quotation, but it fits Aristotelian thought.