‘Indian Degree Team coming to St. Alban Lodges’ Gathering’

    

Happy St. Alban’s Day!

Today is the Feast Day of the first Christian martyr in the British Isles, an anniversary previously employed by Freemasons for convivial observance. Maybe in some places it is still, but Bro. Pete, at St. Alban’s Lodge 1455 and Texas Lodge of Research, says St. Alban’s Day was the summertime celebration occasion for English Freemasons before St. John’s Day, on the 24th, was chosen.

Why switch? Pete says it simply was because the Baptist’s Feast Day was an official holiday in English life, so it made more sense to delay the festivities for two days and synchronize the Masonic partying with everyone else’s.

I think we deserve both, but no one listens to me. Here’s more on St. Alban.

So, a couple years ago, I told you about the International Gathering of Lodges Named for St. Alban that was scheduled for Long Island, home of St. Alban’s 56. As you recall, the pandemic resulted in everything being canceled. (The brethren did get together last year at St. Alban’s 6 in Rhode Island.) But this party—the seventieth—is on!

October 13-15 in Rockville Centre.

One added feature I heard about will be the appearance of the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team. Founded circa 1950, according to OMIDT Secretary David Dill, the Degree Team travels the United States (and has a few times to England) to confer the Third Degree in full Native American ceremonial attire. I saw them in New Jersey about twenty years ago, and remember that the ritual is Grand Lodge of Oklahoma standard work, which differs slightly from what we know in New York, but the treat is the ritual garb in the Masonic setting. It means a lot.

OMIDT

The team’s last visit to New York was 1999, Bro. Dill says. “The team is loosely based out of Tulsa. Members belong to multiple lodges in northeast Oklahoma, and we also belong to several different tribes,” he adds.

“Right now, the tribes represented are Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Pawnee, Ottawa, Apache, Choctaw, and Seminole. In the past there have been many other tribes represented as well. To be on the the team, you must belong to a tribe, know multiple parts in the Master Mason Degree (Oklahoma ritual), have regalia, be able to dance (a native dance like what you would see at typical pow-wow), and be able to travel up to two times per month,” Dill continues.

“Our outfits are actually dance clothes you would normally see at a pow-wow. The different outfits belong to different dances. We make our outfits ourselves. We all have real eagle feathers. New members must serve a year-long apprenticeship. Full membership is attained by a vote of the team at one of our biannual meetings. We have had non-native members in the past. These are special exceptions and in these cases these members are ‘adopted’ into the team, much like a tribe can adopt non-members.”

“For us to travel, we require three things: transportation costs, lodging, and meals while we’re away. We do not charge for degree work.”

It could be another couple of decades before the team returns to New York, so try to get to this event. For information, contact Bro. Scheu here.

     

‘From the Library of Publicity Lodge No. 1000’

  

Latin mottos: ‘Let There Be Light’
and ‘Know Thyself.’

Speaking of fine arts (see post below), there was one lot on eBay last week of particular interest to my lodge. I didn’t bid, but I hope one of the brethren won it when the gavel dropped last night. I’d told them about it via our Faceypage.

It is a bookplate from what, I suppose, was a library maintained by Publicity Lodge. I don’t know where the stacks might have been, but I’ll guess the lodge once upon a time leased one of those small offices that inconspicuously occupy the odd-numbered floors of Masonic Hall. Maybe part office for the treasurer and secretary, and lodge library, and storage, and smoking lounge. I wish we could do that today.

You’re wondering why the lodge would keep a library when the Livingston Library is on 14. From the look of this bookplate, I’ll guess it dates to the 1930s, and that’s when the Livingston Library was born. Maybe there was no Publicity library. The lodge published a history in the early ’30s, and maybe this bookplate was commissioned specially for the book’s print run. This is all guesswork on my part. I’ll have to delve into the voluminous lodge minutes to see what was going on there.

     

‘Mucha merchandising’

   

Galartsy

Speaking of the fine arts (see post below), if you are a Freemason and a lover of Art Nouveau, then you cherish Bro. Alphonse Mucha, the Bohemia-born master who made the style his own at the turn of the last century. Well, I guess he has achieved a vendible status he didn’t ask for, because an online retailer is offering decorative and functional items, including pillow cases and ceramic mugs, with Mucha’s art on them. (This edition of The Magpie Mason is not an endorsement of any product. Caveat emptor.)

Galartsy

Galartsy

Galartsy

From the venerable website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon:

Alphonse Maria Mucha

July 24, 1860 - July 14, 1939

Mucha was born in Bohemia (Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic) in 1860 and moved to Paris in 1890 where he became the star of the poster-art movement under the patronage of Sarah Bernhardt. After World War I, he returned to Czechoslovakia, inspiring a slavic arts and crafts movement which combined elements of art nouveau with classic national themes. In addition to commercial art, jewellery design, interior decoration, sculpture and stage design, Mucha experimented with lettering and calligraphy to produce excellent source material for unique typefaces. Mucha’s style is widely considered synonymous with French Art Nouveau and he is one of the most imitated artists and designers of all time.

Initiated 1898, Paris;

Founder of Czech Freemasonry; and

Sovereign Grand Commander, Supreme Council Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Czechoslovakia, 1923.

From the Mucha Foundation:

Mucha’s sensitive and meditative spirit drew him to the esoteric aspects of Freemasonry. He was initiated into a Masonic Lodge in Paris in 1898. The influence of Masonic symbolism is evident throughout his work, especially in his decorated book Le Pater. After the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Mucha was instrumental in establishing the first Czech-speaking Lodge, the Komensky Lodge in Prague, and he soon became Sovereign Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Freemasonry for Czechoslovakia. He later became the second Sovereign Grand Commander of Czechoslovakia.

Mucha Foundation

This self-portrait captures him in ceremonial Masonic regalia complete with the hat, jewels, and sash decorated with the embroidered number 33, indicating the highest rank of the Scottish Rite, surrounded by the sacred triangle. Standing in front of Art Nouveau style wallpaper, Mucha deliberately framed himself against an aureole made of stars, a signature motif of the “Style Mucha.”

And from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

From the 1880s until the First World War, western Europe and the United States witnessed the development of Art Nouveau (“New Art”). Taking inspiration from the unruly aspects of the natural world, Art Nouveau influenced art and architecture especially in the applied arts, graphic work, and illustration. Sinuous lines and “whiplash” curves were derived, in part, from botanical studies and illustrations of deep-sea organisms such as those by German biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834–1919) in Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature, 1899). Other publications, including Floriated Ornament (1849) by Gothic Revivalist Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) and The Grammar of Ornament (1856) by British architect and theorist Owen Jones (1809-74), advocated nature as the primary source of inspiration for a generation of artists seeking to break away from past styles.

The unfolding of Art Nouveau’s flowing line may be understood as a metaphor for the freedom and release sought by its practitioners and admirers from the weight of artistic tradition and critical expectations. . .

The term Art Nouveau first appeared in the 1880s in the Belgian journal L’Art Moderne to describe the work of Les Vingt, twenty painters and sculptors seeking reform through art. Les Vingt, like much of the artistic community throughout Europe and America, responded to leading nineteenth-century theoreticians such as French Gothic Revival architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79) and British art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), who advocated the unity of all the arts, arguing against segregation between the fine arts of painting and sculpture and the so-called lesser decorative arts.

Deeply influenced by the socially aware teachings of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau designers endeavored to achieve the synthesis of art and craft, and further, the creation of the spiritually uplifting Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) encompassing a variety of media. The successful unification of the fine and applied arts was achieved in many such complete designed environments as Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde’s Hôtel Tassel and Hôtel Van Eetvelde (Brussels, 1893-5), Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald’s design of the Hill House (Helensburgh, near Glasgow, 1902-4), and Josef Hoffmann and Gustav Klimt’s Palais Stoclet dining room (Brussels, 1905-11).

     

‘Embodying Masonic Values art contest’

   

Even more Pennsylvania news! It’s time for your entires in the Grand Lodge’s sixth annual Embodying Masonic Values contest, sponsored by the Masonic Library and Museum in Philadelphia. Click here to apply. From the publicity:

Criteria

All artwork entries must display a visual interpretation of some aspect of Freemasonry in Pennsylvania, whether it be philosophical, historical, scientific, social, fraternal, charitable, architectural, etc. Selected artwork will be exhibited in the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia. 

Jurors

Brother Travis Simpkins, Artist

John McDaniel, Artist

Elaine Erne, Artist/Teacher

Eligibility

Any amateur or professional artist or college art student may enter, but all will be judged as equals for competition purposes. Artists must be at least eighteen years of age. All submissions must be original; they may have been created within the past two years and may have been previously exhibited. No work previously produced on a commission will be accepted. All submissions must be available for purchase.

Categories

Oil, Three-dimensional, Drawing and Print-making, Water-Based Medium, Digital Imagery

Awards

$200 Prize per winner, per category

$500 Grand Master’s Prize

$1,000 Best in Show Prize

Entrance Fee

First entry: $25

Second and Third Entry: $10

(Limit of 3 entries per artist)

Auction

If the artists in the Grand Exhibition choose to participate, their entered works may be auctioned at the Exhibition Gala, with 80 percent of the auction value going to them and 20 percent to The Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania. The artist may set a reserve price, as well as a direct purchase price for the original work to be revealed after the auction.

Calendar

Entry deadline: Thursday, August 10, by midnight, E.D.T. Submissions must be made here.

Jury selection to be announced Friday, August 25.

Opening Reception: The Grand Exhibition Gala will be held at the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia on Friday, October 6, featuring a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception, live music, announcement of winners, and a silent auction of selected artwork.

Exhibition: The Grand Exhibition will be open to the public to view starting on Tuesday, October 10, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, until November 11. Masonic Temple, 1 North Broad Street, Philadelphia.

     

‘For Your Love book release party’

    

The New York book release party for Bro. Francis Dumaurier’s For Your Love will take place on Tuesday the 27th. For Your Love is the biography of Bro. Giorgio Gomelsky, the rock and roll impresario of Swinging Sixties London who later became a Freemason in l’Union Française Lodge 17 in Manhattan. From the publicity:

For Your Love

Book Release Party

Tuesday, June 27 at 6:30

Free admission, but RSVP here

Journey NYC

27 West 24th Street, Manhattan

Francis Dumaurier, author and close friend of Giorgio, will present his recently published book about the incredible life of Giorgio Gomelsky. Raul Gonzalez, musician, late friend, and last manager of Giorgio’s Red Door, will co-host the event and share some of the works his band, Barra Libre, produced with Giorgio.

If you would like to collaborate in this event and have something about Giorgio you would like to share (multimedia, videos, photos, etc.), or share a story about Giorgio, please contact Raul here.

A limited number of copies of the book will be available for sale ($20) and will be signed by the author upon request.

To order a copy, click here.

RSVP by Friday, June 23 here.

Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

     

‘Masonic researchers to visit Gettysburg’

   

CWLR1865

And speaking of Pennsylvania (see post below), Civil War Lodge of Research 1865, chartered in Virginia, will meet at Gettysburg next month.

As it has done before, the lodge will travel to Good Samaritan Lodge 336 for a meeting before heading into Gettysburg National Military Park for a tour that will include little known facts imparted by local brethren, and then a cookout on the grounds. This will be the weekend following the calamitous battle’s 160th anniversary, so the area will be more crowded than usual. From the publicity:

Friday, July 7

Dinner at 6:30

Blue and Gray Bar and Grill

2 Baltimore Street

Saturday, July 8

Good Samaritan Lodge 336

9 Lincoln Square

Coffee and pastries at 8:30 a.m.

9 a.m. - officer rehearsal

(time permitting)

10 a.m. - lodge meeting

Noon - lunch (TBD)

1 p.m. - Gettysburg battlefield tour

6 p.m. - Cookout at camp site MG4

3340 Fairfield Road

The Worshipful Master will grill burgers, brats, and hot dogs; and sides, soft drinks/beer, and dessert will be served. A good idea to bring a chair.

     

‘Philly Masonic Temple re-dedication’

   

GL of Pennsylvania

Are you busy on St. John’s Day? The brethren of Pennsylvania will re-dedicate the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, the Grand Lodge’s headquarters with all the cool rooms and artwork, that day. From the scant publicity:

Join us on Saturday, June 24 at a re-dedication ceremony for the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year! The event will begin at 3 p.m., with free guided tours of the building before and after. Livestream the ceremony here.

Disclaimer: I pitched the idea of attending to a trusted brother in NJLORE as an ideal way to enjoy a Masonic St. John the Baptist Day, and his answer was returned: “It’s a good thought. Problem is, it’s part of the annual Philly summer festival in Center City. Crowds be like absolute madness. Music concerts, street venders. Nearly impossible to get into the city and impossible to park anywhere. Even public transportation will be chaotic.”

So traveler beware.

A sign of the times.

     

‘Thrice in 24 hours’

    

In some places, the tide might ebb and flow twice in twenty-four hours, but what can you do when you have three Masonic meetings in the same period? If you’re like me, meaning you have nothing better to do, then you attend them all.

This is the only weekend this year when my Cryptic council, research lodge, and AMD council have stated meetings on top of each other. Hectic, but enjoyable.

Scott Council 1

R&SM

If you followed the travails of Scott Council 1 these past eight or so months, you might recall we were marked for euthanasia. Long story. Today, the prognosis is improved. Big challenges remain, like in personnel, but with committed leadership and help from Grand Council, there’s a good chance the situation will continue to improve.

No, we typically do not serve cake. It was our District Deputy’s birthday.

The help Friday night came in the form of a Council of Instruction. The MIGM himself guided us through a relaxed (casual attire!), but informative, exploration of the RM Degree. I’ve never been a ritualist in the Cryptic Rite, so this was more valuable to me than it may have been to the others. We dissected the ceremony and examined the floor work section by section, posing questions throughout. A very positive experience. Fun, even.

We expect to confer the degree a few meetings hence, which could be next February.

LORE 1786

Saturday morning, it was time for New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786. Three speakers were scheduled, but we wound up with four.

First, Bro. Harry, a Past Master of historic Brearley Lodge 2, presented his findings on the dues and fees structure of his lodge during its earliest years. In short, it cost a man dearly at Brearley to receive the degrees of Freemasonry in the 1790s, and to remain a member in good standing, and even to cover the fines levied for unexcused absences, whereas none of that is true today, resulting in a neglected lodge building and other familiar headaches. Oh, and the brethren meet in the lodge’s original building from the 1790s.

Naturally, being a Knight of the North, I could not be more sympathetic; and, hearing Brearley 2 is increasing its dues and fees, I couldn’t be happier for them. Harry, however, made it sound like it may be too late.

As an editor, I’ll correct the writer in his many conversions of eighteenth century money to our current worthless currency. No such calculations are possible. Not only was the Federal Reserve not even a spark of a nightmare in Thomas Jefferson’s psyche, but American money itself was in its infancy. The average guy on the street was walking around with coins minted by states, or even by private hands, plus money from Britain, France, and Spain. (If you ever wondered why the New York Stock Exchange, founded 1792, denominated shares in eighths of a dollar, it’s because of pieces of eight.) But his point is well taken.

Brearley Lodge is named for David Brearley, a Founding Father, first chief justice of New Jersey, and first grand master of the grand lodge there. Yesterday was the anniversary of his birth in 1745.

Bro. Glenn discusses Psalm 133 while Senior Deacon David looks on.

Next, Bro. Glenn, our Tyler, delved into the meaning of Psalm 133. I know not every grand lodge’s rituals employ this song of King David in the First Degree, but many of us do, and Glenn enchanted his listeners with explanations of ointments, beards, Hermon, and even a certain postulate concerning divine energy passing downward through the body. Nicely done.

Thirdly, Bro. Jim of Hightstown-Apollo 41, encouraged us to seek the elusive book The Early Masonic Catechisms by Knoop, Jones, and Hamer. If you are the one in 10,000 Freemasons interested in the embryonic years of Freemasonry, then this book is for you—except you probably will have to be content with an online version, as printed copies are rare and consequently very expensive. (I don’t have a copy. I’ve been getting by for fifteen years with photocopied pages in a binder that Bro. Franklin gave me.)

It’s essential reading. Check out the second edition here.

Bro. Jim alerts the brethren to the existence of a rare book we need to read.

Things that Jim found intriguing were the citation of cassia, a variety of cinnamon, once placed at a certain burial site to camouflage foul odor, where we today would place acacia; and the various ritual practices that were discarded over the years as the Grand Lodge of England gave shape to the three-tier initiation system.

A final presentation was not on the meeting agenda. Bro. Jay, of Livingston Lodge 11, had a clipping from a trestleboard from the eighties, when his father was Master of his lodge, from which he read short essay titled “An Estate.” Perfect for our meeting before Fathers Day.

The lodge wants a new ‘logo,’ and solicited designs from the brethren. I think about a dozen were submitted. All had our name worded incorrectly.

J. William Gronning

Council 83

Finally, on Saturday night, it was time for the Allied Masonic Degrees. J. William Gronning Council 83 is where I’ve been for more than two decades. I was Master there in 2003, but I’m really doubting I will continue my membership for much longer. There’s not much going on there. We had one presentation that a) was not original writing; b) had nothing to do with Freemasonry; and c) started with a few paragraphs that made some of us twitchy.

I’m twenty-six years into this fraternity, and I foresee myself soon specializing in my Craft lodge and two research lodges only. The rest can be nice, but I don’t find any of it compelling any longer. Selah.

     

‘The Meaning of Masonry in the Reading Room’

   

It’s been a long time since I visited W.L. Wilmshurst’s The Meaning of Masonry, but I’ll have to take it up again this month because the Reading Room at Craftsmen Online has Chapter V slated for a conversation in three weeks. From the publicity:

The Reading Room

The Meaning of Masonry, Chapter V

by W.L. Wilmshurst

Thursday, June 29 at 7 p.m.

Our panel for the evening will be RW Clifford T. Jacobs, Bro. Jason W. Short, RW Bill Edwards, and VW Michael LaRocco. This meeting is open to the public, as all persons with an interest in the Craft are welcome.

The Reading Room is sponsored by RW Steven Adam Rubin, Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York.

For reading material, click here. The Reading Room is here.

While this widely read classic is not for everyone, it is, in my view, essential reading. The thinking Mason ought to have a familiarity with The Meaning of Masonry and its author. As is always the case with speculative explorations of Freemasonry, the reader should remember how the text is just one man’s opinion, but anyone can receive pleasure and profit from these pages.

W.L. Wilmshurst

Walter Leslie Wilmshurst (1867-1939) was an English Mason who wrote beautifully and prolifically on the spiritual aspects of Craft ritual and symbol. He was made a Mason at Huddersfield Lodge 290, having been raised in 1890; he later affiliated with Lodge of Harmony 275, where he served as Worshipful Master in 1909. Better known is his being inaugural Master of Lodge of Living Stones in 1928. And he held grand rank, as Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies in UGLE, in 1929.

Even if The Meaning of Masonry isn’t meaningful to you, I encourage reading his other titles, particularly the inspiring The Ceremony of Initiation (1932) and The Ceremony of Passing (1933). The various times I’ve started book clubs, I have put these brief texts in the curriculum to the brethren’s praise.

     

‘Publicity Lodge’s new officers’

    

Publicity and visiting Masons last night.

Publicity Lodge 1000 will enter its second century this fall with its newly installed officer team, they having been made legal last night.

It was a fine affair. And public, so we enjoyed the company of family and friends of Freemasonry.

etymonline.com

The Installing Master, one of our venerable PMs, guided us through the ceremony as Leonard Bernstein would conduct the Philharmonic. Multiple Right Worshipfuls attended to demonstrate their friendship to the new Master. (I withhold his name, unsure if he is known publicly as a Freemason.) A contingent of Prince Hall brethren did likewise. And our Fourth Manhattan VIPs supported our special night too. And Oscar stopped in to say hello as well, before heading upstairs to Allied Lodge, where he had a speaking engagement.

It was a full house in the Doric Room.

Several Publicity Masons we haven’t seen in a while turned out, which is a big part of the fun too.

Past Master Chris transmits Solomonic wisdom to his duly installed successor, Worshipful Master Tom, as Installing Master William looks on.

For my part, I continue as Tiler, keeping away the cowans and eavesdroppers. However I struck out in my bid to serve as Historian also. Apparently our bylaws didn’t create the position, so there’s no way to install anyone as such. I foresee a proposed amendment this fall when we resume our labors. (Our Grand Lodge’s Grand Historian has the goal of seeing every lodge include a Historian.) I’ll keep busy doing the relevant work in the meantime.

Aside from our summer outing, probably one Saturday next month, Publicity Lodge will meet next on September 11. We’re known for hospitality, so come visit—and check in with the Tiler.

     

‘William Morgan at The ALR this month’

   

The ALR

The American Lodge of Research will meet again on the twenty-seventh of the month—that’s a Tuesday—at Masonic Hall. Seven o’clock in the Colonial Room on ten.

From the Worshipful Master:

At our June meeting, the Lodge will receive a paper and presentation from one of our Active Members, R.W. Bro. Ron Murad. The topic of his paper is “The Truth—Maybe—of the Morgan Affair: Its Impact on Anti-Masonry.”

The painting that graces the cover of this meeting notice is Skaneateles Lake by the artist Mike Kraus. While Skaneateles Lake is only somewhat geographically close to the town of Batavia, New York, it is more emblematic of what that part of New York must have looked like around the time of Morgan’s disappearance. Morgan’s departure from the town of Batavia, whether voluntary or coerced, has been a subject of intense research by Masons and non-Masons alike since the time the event took place in 1826.

The fallout was swift and impactful to Masonry, with his disappearance and the minimal punishment for his accused kidnappers giving rise to public outrage, protests, the closure of many Masonic lodges, and the rise of a national Anti-Masonic Party.

On a trip to Buffalo, New York about ten years ago, I had the opportunity to stop by the memorial to William Morgan at the Batavia Cemetery. It is an imposing column with a depiction of Morgan on top. I am looking forward to Bro. Murad’s presentation and the new light it will shine on this time in Masonic history.

Bro. Ron is becoming a fixture at The ALR.

Our other attraction that evening will be elections and installation of officers for the ensuing year. W. Bro. Conor will be exiting the East after two years of restoring order from chaos, to say the least. We have been lucky to have him at the helm. The task still outstanding is our book of transactions, and that’s my fault. Still working on it. The goal was to distribute copies at this June 27 meeting, and I apologize for taking so long. Look for a summertime mailing.

Unless something goes awry on the twenty-seventh, I will find myself in the West by the time we close. Hope to see you there.

     

‘Charges from the old and to the new lodge Masters’

  

From Etsy

’Tis the season of Installations of Officers here in New York Freemasonry. I’m eager to get to lodge Monday night for ours.

The Master-elect has been a Master Mason for more than twenty years, but the rest of the officer line is comprised of Masons who have been around for, I think, five years or less. It’s fun for me to observe their efforts and palpable sincerity, and even to hear their worries and frustrations because they don’t know how good they have it! Without uttering—or perhaps knowing—the “O word,” Publicity Lodge upholds most of the Observant suite of best practices simply from tradition. I guess that makes sense, as in Traditional Observance.

But, while I look forward to Monday, I look back today at one of the essential seminal works of Masonic literature. With the installation of a new Worshipful Master and the “outstallation” of our current Master, I am reminded of two essays by William Hutchinson from The Spirit of Masonry, first printed in 1775.

In my view, there are about ten books from eighteenth century England that are essential reading for those who want to understand what Freemasons do and why, and The Spirit of Masonry is among them. (Without listing all, I’ll just say they are books of constitutions, ritual exposures, and individuals’ expoundings of Masonic thought. Nearly all that have followed are derivative.)

William Hutchinson

These pieces from Hutchinson originally were charges. William James Hutchinson (1732-1814) was a lawyer, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, and an author of poetry and prose. He would come to be dubbed “The Father of Masonic Symbolism,” to give an idea of his significance to what we do in lodge. Sunday, the fourth of June, happens to be the anniversary of his initiation into Freemasonry in 1770—meaning he had composed these orations and published Spirit within five years of being made a Mason.

What follow are, first, an excerpt of one of the charges from The Spirit of Masonry and then the ensuing charge in its entirety. Enjoy.

A Charge Delivered

by the Worshipful Master

on Resigning the Chair

By the rules of this lodge, I am now to resign the chair. But I cannot do this with entire satisfaction until I have testified the grateful sense I feel of the honor I received in being advanced to it.

Your generous and unanimous choice of me for your Master demands my thankful acknowledgments, though, at the same time, I sincerely wish that my abilities had been more adequate to the charge which your kind partiality elected me to. But this has always been, and still is, my greatest consolation, that, however deficient I may have been in the discharge of my duty, no one can boast a heart more devoted to the good of, the institution in general, and the reputation of this lodge in particular.

Though I am apprehensive I have already trespassed on your patience, yet, if I might be indulged, I would humbly lay before you a few reflections, adapted to the business of the day, which, being the effusions of a heart truly Masonic, will, it is hoped, be received with candor by you.

Title page.

Every association of men, as well as this of Freemasons must, for the sake of order and harmony, be regulated by certain laws, and, for that purpose, proper officers must be appointed, and empowered to carry those laws into execution, to preserve a degree of uniformity, at least to restrain any irregularity that might render such associations inconsistent. For we may as reasonably suppose an army may be duly disciplined, well provided, and properly conducted, without generals and other officers, as that a society can be supported without governors and their subalterns; or, which is the same, without some form of government to answer the end of the institution. And, as such an arrangement must be revered, it becomes a necessary requisite that a temper should be discovered in the several members adapted to the respective stations they are to fill.

This thought will suggest to you, that those who are ratified to preside as officers in a lodge, will not be sated with that honor, but, losing sight of it, will have only in view the service their office demands. Their reproofs will be dictated by friendship, softened by candor, and enforced with mildness and affection; in the whole of their deportment they will preserve a degree of dignity, tempered with affability and ease. This conduct, while it endears them to others, will not fail to raise their own reputation; and as envy should not be so much as once named among Freemasons, it will effectually prevent the growth of it, should it unfortunately ever appear.

Such is the nature of our constitution, that as some must of necessity rule and teach, so others must of course learn to obey; humility, therefore, in both, becomes an essential duty; for pride and ambition, like a worm at the root of a tree, will prey on the vitals of our peace, harmony, and brotherly love.

Had not this excellent temper prevailed when the foundation of Solomon’s Temple was first laid, it is easy to see that that glorious edifice would never have risen to a height of splendour which astonished the world.

Had all employed in this work been masters or superintendants, who must have prepared the timber in the forest, or hewn the stone in the quarry? Yet, though they were numbered and classed under different denominations, as princes, rulers, provosts, comforters of the people, stone-squarers, sculptors, &c., such was their unanimity, that they seemed actuated by one spirit, influenced by one principle.

Grand Lodge of New York Past Master apron.

Merit alone, then, entitled to preferment; an indisputable instance of which we have in the Deputy Grand Master of that great undertaking, who, without either wealth or power, or any other distinction than that of being the widow’s son, was appointed by the Grand Master, and approved by the people for this single reason—because he was a skillful artificer.

Let these considerations, my worthy brethren, animate us in the pursuits of so noble a science, that we may all be qualified to fill, in rotation, the most distinguished places in the lodge, and keep the honors of the Craft, which are the just rewards of our labor, in a regular circulation.

And, as none are less qualified to govern than those who have not learned to obey, permit me, in the warmest manner, to recommend to you all a constant attendance in this place, a due obedience to the laws of our institution, and a respectful submission to the direction of your officers, that you may prove to mankind the propriety of your election, and secure the establishment of this society to the latest posterity.

A Short Charge

Delivered to the Master

on Being Invested and Installed

Worshipful Sir,

By the unanimous voice of the members of this lodge, you are elected to the mastership thereof for the ensuing half-year; and I have the happiness of being deputed to invest you with this ensign of your office, be it ever in your thoughts that the ancients particularly held this symbol to be a just, a striking emblem of the Divinity. They said the gods, who are the authors of every thing established in wisdom, strength, and beauty, were properly represented by this figure. May you, worthy brother, not only consider it a mark of honor in this assembly, but also let it ever remind you of your duty both to God and man. And, as you profess the Sacred Volume to be your spiritual tressel-board, may you make it your particular care to square your life and conversation according to the rules and designs laid down therein.

You have been of too long standing, and are too good a member of our community, to require now any information in the duty of your office. What you have seen praiseworthy in others, we doubt not, you will imitate; and what you have seen defective, you will in yourself amend.

We have, therefore, the greatest reason to expect you will be constant and regular in your attendance on the lodge, faithful and diligent in the discharge of your duty, and that you will make the honor of the Supreme Architect of the Universe, and the good of the Craft, chief objects of your regard.

We likewise trust you will pay a punctual attention to the laws and regulations of this society, as more particularly becoming your present station; and that you will, at the same time, require a due obedience to them from every other member, well knowing that, without this, the best of laws become useless.

For a pattern of imitation, consider the great luminary of Nature, which, rising in the east, regularly diffuses light and lustre to all within its circle. In like manner it is your province, with due decorum, to spread and communicate light and instruction to the brethren in the lodge.

From the knowledge we already have of your zeal and abilities, we rest assured you will discharge the duties of this important station in such a manner as will redound greatly to the honor of yourself, as well as of those members over whom you are elected to preside.

     

‘Maybe Freemasons aren’t devil worshipping lesbians’

   

Richard Brookhiser is an author and historian I have followed since his days long ago at National Review. And literally following today—on Twitter. Saturday, Freemasonry came up in conversation among some of his acquaintances, and you can appreciate how that word stands out, so I couldn’t help but notice. And then I saw strange comments.

Anyway, the tweeting about Freemasonry mentioned the appearance last Thursday of author John Dickie on The Rest Is History, a podcast I’m very pleased to have found. Dickie wrote the popular The Craft: How the Freemasons Made the Modern World. (I haven’t read it yet.)

It’s a fun interview. If you’ve been around a long time, you might not find it particularly informative, but I think it’s a fair discussion—with some humor too. (Ergo the title of this edition of The Magpie Mason. And catch the mentions of cricket.) Actually, I learned something about the Cathars.