’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.