‘Let the benign Genius of the Mystic Art preside’

    

Monitor of the Work, Lectures and Ceremonies of Ancient Craft Masonry in the Jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York is available from Lodge Services or your lodge secretary. (Okay, maybe a graphic designer might have helped a little with the cover but, hey, it’s done.)

Many years in the making, Grand Lodge’s Monitor is published and is available from Lodge Services. Its proper title, Monitor of the Work, Lectures and Ceremonies of Ancient Craft Masonry in the Jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, the book is copyrighted 2025, but I learned of its existence—again, after anticipation of years—just a week ago through a comment on Faceypage. Got my copy yesterday.

Immediately, I searched for content unknown to me, and no sooner than on Page 7 are Opening Charges.

Opening Charges?

Opening Charges!

You probably know a Closing Charge, delivered at, yes, the close of the lodge communication. I doubt it is ubiquitous throughout the country, but it is found near and far. In New York, we call it the Harris Charge (“…you are now about to quit this sacred retreat of friendship and virtue…”). It is an optional coda to the meeting, although I don’t know why a Master would opt out of it. When it was my privilege to serve in the East twenty-one years ago in New Jersey, that was possibly my favorite piece of Work. It differs slightly from New York’s version.

Who’s Harris?

Bro. Thaddeus Harris

The Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D. (1768-1842) was a Massachusetts Freemason. More than that, he was that Grand Lodge’s first Grand Chaplain. (Synchronously enough, he laid down his working tools on this very date, April 3.) He also served as Corresponding Grand Secretary and, in 1812, was appointed Deputy Grand Master! A remarkable seminal figure in Massachusetts Freemasonry, but he is a topic for another edition of The Magpie Mason. (This portrait of Harris hangs, if I remember right, on the ground floor of the Boston Masonic Building, home of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts.)

Where was I going with this? Yes! These Opening Charges.

They are not new to Freemasonry, but they’re news to me and they are terrific brief orations you’ll be proud to hear at the start of your lodge meetings. There are two, prefaced with this:

Performance of an Opening Charge is optional. One charge or the other, without alteration or combination, may be given in full immediately following the prayer in the Ritual of Opening, or at the commencement of any untiled Masonic event. Only The Monitor or The Chaplain’s Book are to be used if the charge is read in a tiled lodge.

The first Charge:

The ways of science are beautiful. Knowledge is attained by degrees. Wisdom dwells with contemplation. There are we to seek her. Though the passage be difficult, the farther we proceed, the easier it will become. If we are united, our society must flourish. Let all things give place to peace and good fellowship. Uniting in the grand design, let us be happy in ourselves, and endeavor to contribute to the happiness of others. Let us promote the useful arts; and by them mark our superiority and distinction. Let us cultivate the moral virtues; and improve in all that is good and amiable. Let the genius of Masonry preside over our conduct; and under its sovereign sway let us act with becoming dignity. Let our recreations be innocent, and pursued with moderation. Never let us expose our character to derision. Thus shall we act in conformity to our precepts, and support the name we have always borne, of being a respectable, a regular, and a uniform society.

The second Charge:

The ways of Virtue are beautiful. Knowledge is attained by degrees. Wisdom dwells in contemplation: there we must seek her. Let us then, Brethren, apply ourselves with becoming zeal to the practice of the excellent principles inculcated by our Order. Let us ever remember that the great objects of our association are the restraint of improper desires and passions, the cultivation of an active benevolence, and the promotion of a correct knowledge of the duties we owe to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves. Let us be united and practice with assiduity the sacred tenets of our order. Let all private animosities, of any unhappily exist, give place to affection and brotherly love. It is useless parade to talk of the subjection of irregular passions within the walls of the Lodge, if we permit them to triumph in our daily intercourse with each other. Uniting in the grand design, let us be happy ourselves, and endeavor to promote the happiness of others. Let us cultivate the great moral virtues which are laid down on our Masonic Trestleboard, and improve in everything that is good, amiable and useful. Let the benign Genius of the Mystic Art preside over our councils, and under her sway let us act with a dignity becoming the high moral character of our venerable institution.

So, if these stirring words did not flow from RW Harris’ heart and mind, whence came they? I thought some of the phrases sounded familiar, but wasn’t sure if my memory was tricking me, so I asked Sam.

RW Samuel Kinsey, of Mariners 67, is Chairman of the Custodians of the Work, the team that preserves Grand Lodge’s Standard Work and Lectures and that publishes these books we need to learn our rituals and orations. He provided me a snippet of the Custodians’ report to Grand Lodge, which will meet next month:

The antecedents of the Opening Charges may be found in A Vindication of Masonry and its Excellency demonstrated in a Discourse at the Consecration of the Lodge of Vernon Kilwinning, on May 15, 1741 by Charles Leslie. This lengthy discourse was later incorporated into the first edition of William Preston’s Illustrations of Masonry, with increasingly revised and reorganized forms of the Vindication continuing to feature in all subsequent editions. In the early decades of the nineteenth century Thaddeus Mason Harris adapted one of Preston’s later versions into the first Opening Charge given above (the shorter of the two). The second Opening Charge originates in Charles Whitlock Moore’s The Masonic Trestle-board, which purported to contain the working from the Baltimore Convention of 1843. This is the Opening Charge that can be found in Monitors with relevancy to our jurisdiction throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century. Although the two Opening Charges reference the same source material and evoke a similar sentiment, your committee believes both are beautiful expressions that deserve to be authorized for use.

There’s a lot more marrow in the bone of this edition of The Monitor, the first published since 1989. The Installation of Officers is revised, just in time for our Installation nights. Now I have to see what The Chaplain’s Book is. Never heard of it.

From the 1740s to the 1840s to the second quarter of the twenty-first century, what we, as Free and Accepted Masons, think, say, and do in lodge remains continuous and relevant, no doubt thanks to our own consistency when we “mix again with the world.”

If you are of these households of the faithful, I wish you a Happy Passover or Happy Easter.

     

‘A look inside the Masonic Building in Boston’

    

Magpie coverage of the Boston Tea Party anniversary celebration last weekend continues belatedly with a quick tour of the Masonic Building, headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in Boston. The following photos were shot both during a formal guided tour and while I was exploring on my own. Some items are permanently displayed; others were exhibited for the special weekend. Descriptions are mostly the official histories, but some also have my editorializing, which you’ll be able to discern. Enjoy.

The seal of the Grand Lodge greets you upon entering the side door. Not a typical mosaic, but each tile is a stone shaft of (I think) two inches bored into the floor by artisans from Italy who labored several years throughout the building in the early twentieth century. A shame everyone trods across, but evidently it can take it. You might recognize ‘Follow Reason,’ which also is the motto of St. John’s Lodge 1 in New York. A tour guide was unsure where the motto originates, but it may come from the coat of arms of the Duke of Montague, sixth Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England. Those are beavers flanking the shield; a nineteenth century study by Grand Lodge said they were lizards! (Don’t tell David Icke.) The tour guide didn’t know what to make of the left side, saying the castles may have something to do with Henry Knox, but of course that comes from the arms of the first Grand Lodge of England, and is still used on the UGLE’s arms.

I was told this portrait of Bro. George Washington was painted by Gilbert Stuart, which is not impossible, I suppose, considering the artist’s Athenaeum Portrait is displayed in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The brother also mentioned it had undergone very extensive restoration in recent years.

The Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, (1767-1842) first Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

Christmastime is a good time to visit Boston.

The immortal Warren!
That such men lived is miraculous.

A sample of the Boston Tea Party tea! Said to have come out of the boots of one of the participants, and donated to the Grand Lodge by W. Bro. Paul F. Dudley of Milton Lodge.

Read the description below.

Click to enlarge.

A copy of the very rare first edition of Ahiman Rezon, Pennsylvania’s Masonic constitutions, dedicated to George Washington.

Joseph Warren’s King James Bible, printed 1614.

Until modern scholarship, which I’ll get to in the next edition of The Magpie Mason, this eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party by George Hewes is the most reliable source. (I was told on Faceypage last week that the Tea Party was a revolt against the Stamp Act. ‘Tea tax,’ I reminded the brother. He told me to read the lodge secretary’s minutes. Ooh boy.)

Certificate of Rising States Lodge, Boston, signed by Paul Revere, September 3, 1800.

You know St. Andrew’s Lodge was the Scottish lodge that met in the Green Dragon Tavern, but you might not have known that the tavern got its name on account of the oxidized copper dragon employed as signage above the door. It turned green over time. And this is it! The actual green dragon!

Note the dragon above the entrance.

Detail.

Henry Price. The reason Massachusetts claims to have the first grand lodge in the Western Hemisphere is because Provincial Grand Master Henry Price constituted the original grand lodge there. Knowledge of the original Grand Lodge of England’s way of doing things is needed, I think, because while we today might assume provincial grand lodges were akin to our current Masonic districts, the truth is the Premier Grand Lodge considered provincial grand lodges to be local sovereign authorities.

Henry Price’s headstone. At some point, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts obtained permission from Price’s family to take possession of this headstone and move it to the Masonic Building to prevent damage caused by time and weather. It now is installed in a wall upstairs. In exchange, the brethren commissioned a massive monument for their founder.

MW John T. Heard, Grand Master 1856-58, was said to have weighed more than 400 pounds...

…consequently, this eight-legged chair was made for him.

Click to enlarge to read the card.

Franklin + Pallas Athena = Wisdom. Corinthian Hall.

And finally, a portrait of Ned Flanders. No inscription accompanies his portrait because he was not a grand master, but his picture hangs in respect for (I think) a massive donation he made to the Grand Lodge. Remind me to tell Tabbert there’s a Ned Flanders!

I shot many more photos, but these are the most interesting. Thanks for looking.