LECTURE XVII. DIVERSITY OF PRACTICE IN THE TRANSATLANTIC GRAND LODGES. "If a master Have any man of craft That be not also perfect as he ought, He may change him soon anon, And take for him a perfect man. Such a man, through rechelaschepe, -YORK CONSTITUTIONS. "The proper residence of Faith or Fidelity was thought to be in the right hand, and, therefore, this deity was sometimes represented by two right hands joined together; sometimes by two images shaking each other by the right hand; so that the right hand was esteemed by the ancients as a sacred symbol.”— DR. ANDERSON. To return to our subject of admitting maimed or deformed candidates, which our motto pronounces inexpedient. In the United States the Lodges have generally dispensed with this ancient prohibition. For instance, the Grand Lodge of Mississippi has decided that "a loss or partial deprivation of those physical organs which minister to the action of the body, does not disqualify a man from being made a Mason." The Grand Lodges of Alabama, Florida, and others, have enunciated the same opinion. Some few years ago, Governor Pope, who had lost an arm, was proposed; and on reference being made to the Grand Lodge at Kentucky, it was decided that "if the deformity of a candidate for initiation, occasioned by a partial deprivation of limbs, is not such as to prevent him from being instructed in the arts and mysteries of Freemasonry, his admission will not be an infringement of the Ancient Landmarks, but will be perfectly consistent with the spirit of the Institution." The Grand Lodge of Louisiana, however, interprets the primitive disqualifications literally, by resolving "that the physical qualifications for initiation required by the ancient laws cannot be dispensed with, or changed without creating an innovation in the body of Masonry." In the year 1843, a question on this subject arose in the Grand Lodge of New York. "The R. W. Bro. Coffin offered a resolution excluding a deformed person (as club-footed) from a seat in the Grand Lodge, and also to refuse admission to any officer of a Lodge who has, or shall hereafter, initiate such deformed person. The motion being duly seconded, was laid on the table. The next day Bro. Beckwith, J. W., of Mariner's Lodge, No. 67, being announced, was admitted, but Bro. Coffin objected to his admission by reason of a physical deformity, and the Brother retired until the question of his right should be decided; when Bro. Coffin offered a resolution that he should not be admitted. The chief argument in support of his resolution was, that the Constitutions of Masonry had been violated by the initiation of Bro. Beckwith. The question was discussed at some length, and two hostile opinions were enter tained on the subject; but when it was put to the vote, it was decided to admit the Brother to a seat in Grand Lodge." Bro. Mackey delivers it as his firm belief, in the first edition of his book on "Masonic Law" (p. 176), "that the spirit as well as the letter of our ancient Landmarks requires that a candidate for admission should be perfect in all his parts; that is, neither redundant nor deficient, neither deformed nor dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs as a man ought to be." Amongst the Brethren of Ohio, however, "there is not only a great diversity in work and Lectures, but in some instances old and constitutional laws have been disregarded. Men without arms have been admitted, and others with wooden legs. Petitions for initiation have been entertained from men entirely blind, and we have been informed that the records of at least one Lodge show that even women have been recognized, and mock degrees conferred upon them in open Lodge. "Unless such practices are arrested," says the editor of The Masonic Review, published at Cincinnati, who furnishes the above information (Vol. III. p. 355), "farewell to Ancient Masonry. Men placed in the responsible position of Masters of Lodges, should be required to possess a more accurate knowledge of the laws of Masonry, and should be held to a stricter accountability." The great difficulty of reconciling the ancient ceremonies of Masonry with the modification of particular Landmarks, arises out of the ceremony of initiation; and if it be imperative that none of the usual forms can be dispensed with, then the initiation of a candidate who has lost arms and legs would be absolutely impracticable; for in several instances, which I need only allude to, as every Brother will understand me, the active use of both arms and both legs appears to be indispensable. For instance, Freemasonry teaches that the Ancient Symbol of Fidelity was the union of two right hands; and it is a well-known fact that the Greek and Roman warriers worshipped their right hands. Thus in Virgil, Mezentius, when going into battle, invoked his right hand as an all-powerful deity. Dextra mihi deus, et telum quod missile libro, nunc adsint. Others swore by their right hand as a Turk does by his beard, and the oath was sealed by laying it on the pommel of the sword, as we do on the First Great Light. But how could a man, whose right arm has been amputated, accomplish any of those ceremonies; for the left was not allowed to be substituted, because the use of it was ever accounted an inauspicious omen, and the harbinger of evil. A still more illustrative instance of the same position occurs in the following passage, from the old laws of Masonry, which will clearly show the impossibility of compliance by a candidate who has lost one or both of his arms. In sealing the obligation, unus ex senioribus tenet Librum (the Holy Bible) et illi (the candidates) ponent manum suam super librum. But there are other ceremonies of equal importance, which must be omitted at the initiation of a candidate without arms or legs. LECTURE XVIII. ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS. Freemasonry is to be considered as divided into two parts, -the operative and speculative; and these are again subdivided, the operative (that is, Craft Masonry) into three distinct branches,—the manual, the instrumental, and the scientific. The manual consists of such parts of business as are performed by hand labour alone, or by the help of some simple instru ments, the uses whereof are not to be learned by any problems or rules of art, but by labour and practice only; and this is more peculiarly applicable to our Brethren of the first degree, called Entered Apprentices."-DUNCKERLEY. "To each faithful Brother, both ancient and young, Who governs his passions and bridles his tongue." -SECTIONAL CHARGE. THE essential requisite of mature age, which I have already explained in the fifteenth Lecture, has been constituted into the leading member of another triad, which more minutely exemplifies the subject of our present inquiry. This triad is-Mature Age -Sound Judgment-Strict Morality; the two latter being necessarily connected with the former, as indispensable qualifications for admission into a Lodge of Masons; and it is the neglect of the Brethren in demanding a strict compliance with these qualifications in the first instance that originates disputes at our periodical meetings, and causes so much mis |