The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 32 - The early Ritual of Speculative Freemasonry

THE ritual is an important part of the organization of Speculative Freemasonry. It is not a mere garment intended to cover the institution and conceal its body from unlawful inspection. It is the body itself and the very life of the institution. Eliminate from Freemasonry all vestiges of a ritual and you make it a mere lifeless mass. Its characteristic as a benevolent or as a social association might continue, but all its pretensions as a speculative system of science and philosophy would be lost.

As a definition of this important and indispensable element in the Masonic system, it may be said that the ritual is properly the prescribed method of administering the forms of initiation into the society, comprising not only the ceremonies but also the explanatory lectures, the catechismal tests, and the methods of recognition.

Every secret society, that is to say, every society exclusive in its character, confining itself to a particular class of persons, and isolating itself by its occult organization from other associations and from mankind in general, must necessarily have some formal mode of admission, some meaning in that form which would need explanation, and some method by which its members could maintain their exclusiveness.

Every secret society must, then, from the necessity of its organization, be provided with some sort of a ritual, whether it be simple or complex.

The Operative Freemasonry of the Middle Ages is acknowledged to have been a secret and exclusive society or guild of architects and builders, who concealed the secret processes of their art from all who were not workers with them.

As a secret association, the old Operative Freemasons must have possessed a ritual. And we have, to support this hypothesis, not only logical inference but unquestionable historical evidence.

German archaeologists have given us the examination or catechism which formed a part of the ritual of the German Steinmetzen or Stonecutters.

The Sloane MS. No. 3329 contains the catechism used by the Operative Freemasons of England in the 17th century. A copy of this manuscript has already been given in a preceding parts of the present work, and it is therefore unnecessary to reproduce it here.

As the Sloane MS. has been assigned to a period between 1640 and 1700, we may safely conclude that it contains the ritual then in use among the English Operative Freemasons. At a later period it may have suffered considerable changes, but we infer that the ritual exposed in that manuscript was the foundation of the one which was in use by the Operative lodges which united in the formation of the Grand Lodge in the year 1717.

If the new society did not hesitate to adopt, at first, the old laws of the Operative institution, it is not at all probable that it would have rejected the ritual then in use and frame a new one. Until the Grand Lodge was securely seated in power, and the Operative element entirely eliminated, it would have been easier to use the old Operative ritual. In time, as the Operative laws were replaced by others more fitting to the character of the new Order, so the simple, Operative ritual must have given way to the more ornate one adapted to the designs of Speculative Freemasonry.

But during the earlier years of the Grand Lodge, this old Operative ritual continued to be used by the lodges under its jurisdiction.

The precise ritual used at that time is perhaps irretrievably lost, so that we have no direct, authentic account of the forms of initiation, yet by a careful collation of the historical material now in possession of the Fraternity, we may unravel the web, to all appearance hopelessly entangled, and arrive at something like historic truth.

It was not until 1721 that by the approval of the "Charges" which had been compiled the year before by Grand Master Payne, the Grand Lodge took the first bold and decisive step toward the

(1) See Part II., chap. xii., p. 626.

total abolishment of the Operative element, and the building upon its ruins a purely Speculative institution.

The ritual used by the four old Lodges must have been very simple. It probably consisted of little more than a brief and unimpressive ceremony of admission, the communication of certain words and signs, and instruction in a catechism derived from that which is contained in the Sloane MS. But I do not doubt that this catechism, brief as it is, was greatly modified and abridged by the lapse of time, the defects of memory, and the impossibility of trans mitting oral teachings for any considerable length of time.

It is probable that Dr. Desaguliers, the great ritualist of the day, may have begun to compose the new ritual about the same time that Payne, the great lawmaker of the day, began to compile his new laws.

What this ritual was we can only judge by inference, by comparison, and by careful analysis, just as Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphics by a collation of the three inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone.

For this purpose we have a very competent supply of documents which we may employ in a similar comparison and analysis of the primitive ritual of the Speculative Freemasons.

Thus we have had the book called The Grand Mystery, which was published just a year after the appearance of the first edition of Anderson's Book of Constitutions.

Dr. Oliver, it is true, calls this production a "catchpenny." (1) It would be great folly to assert that it did not contain some shadowing forth of what was the ritual at the time of its publication. When, a few years aftenvard, Samuel Prichard published his book entitled Masonry Dissected, which is evidently based on The Grand Mystery, and in fact an enlargement of it, showing the improvements and developments which had taken place in the ritual, Dr.

(1) "Revelations of a Square," chap. ii., note 6. But in a posthumous work entitled "The Discrepancies of Freemasonry," published by Hogg & Co. in 1874 (page 79), he treats it with more respect, and says that it was the examination or lecture used by the Craft in the 17th century, the original of which, in the handwriting of Elias Ashmole, was given to Anderson when he made his collections for the history contained in the "Book of Constitutions." All this is very possibly correct, but as Oliver must have derived his information from some traditional source in his own possession solely, and as he has cited no authentic authority, we can hardly make use of it as an historical fact.

Anderson replied to it in the pamphlet entitled A Defense of Masonry.

In this work it will be remarked that Anderson does not directly deny the accuracy of Prichard's formulas, but only attempts to prove, which he does very successfully, that the ceremonies as they are described by Prichard were neither "absurd nor pernicious."

The truth is that Anderson's Defense is a very learned and interesting interpretation of the symbols and ceremonies which were described by Prichard, and might have been written, just in the same way, if Anderson had selected the ritual as it was then framed on which to found his commentaries.

Krause accepted both of these works, as he gave them a place in his great work on The Three Oddest Documents of the Masonic Brotherhood.

For myself, I am disposed to take these and similar productions with some grains of allowance, yet not altogether rejecting them as utterly worthless. From such works we may obtain many valuable suggestions, when they are properly and judiciously analyzed.

Krause thinks that The Grand Mystery was the production of one of the old Masons, who was an Operative builder and a man not without some learning.

This is probably a correct supposition. At all events, I am willing to take the work as a correct exposition, substantially, of the condition of the ritual at the time when it was published, which was seven years after what was called the "Revival" in London.

It will give us a very correct idea of the earliest ritual accepted by the Speculative Masons from their Operative brethren, and used until the genius of Desaguliers had invented something more worthy of the Speculative science.

Adopting it then as the very nearest approximation to the primitive ritual of the Speculative Freemasons, it will not be an unacceptable gift, nor useless in prosecuting the discussion of the subject to which this chapter is devoted.

It has not often been reprinted, and the original edition of 1724 is very scarce. I shall make use of the almost fac-simile imitation of that edition printed in 1867 by the Masonic Archaeological Society of Cincinnati, and under the supervision of Brother Enoch T. Carson, from whose valuable library the original exemplar was obtained.

The title of the pamphlet is as follows:

"The Grand Mystery of Free-Masons Discover'd. Wherein are the several Questions, put to them at their Meetings and Intstallations: As also the Oath, Health, Signs and Points to know each other by. As they were found in the Custody of a Free-Mason who Dyed suddenly. And now Publish'd for the Information of the Publick. London .- Printed for T. Payne near Stationer's-Hall 1724 (Price Six Pence) "

THE CATECHISM. (1)

1. Q. Peace be here. A. I hope there is.

2. Q. What a-clock is it? A. It is going to Six or going to Twelve. (2)

3. Q. Are you very busy ? (3) A. No.

4. Q. Will you give or take? A. Both; or which you please.

5. Q. How go Squares? (4) A. Straight.

6. Q. Are you Rich or Poor ? A. Neither.

7. Q. Change rrle that. (5) A. I will.

(1) The object of this reprint being only to give the reader some idea of what was the earliest form of the ritual that we possess, the Preface, the Free-Mason's Oath, A FreeMason's Health and the signs to know a Free Mason have been omitted as being unnecessary to that end. The questions have been numbered here only for facility of reference in future remarks. (2) This may be supposed to refer to the hours of labor of Operative Masons who commenced work at six in the morning and went to their noon-meal at twelve. This is the first indication that this was a catechism originally used by Operative Free Masons. (3) Otherwise, "Have you any work? " Krause suggests that it was the question addressed to a traveling Fellow who came to the lodge. "Every Mason," say the Old Constitutions," shall receive or cherish strange Fellows when they come over the Country and sett them on work." - Landsdowne MS. (4) Halliwell, in his Dictionary, cites "How gang squares?" as meaning "How do you do?" He also says that "How go the squares?" means, how goes on the game, as chess or draughts, the board being full of squares. Krause adopts this latter interpretation of the phrase, but I prefer the former. (5) Here it is probable that the grip was given and interchanged. The mutilation of this catechism which Krause suspects is here, I think, evident. The answer " I will " and

8. Q. In the name of, &c., (1) are you a Mason ? 9. Q. What is a Mason ? A. A Man begot of a Man, born of a woman, Brother to a king.

10. Q. What is a Fellow? A. A Companion of a Prince.

11. Q. How shall I know that you are a Free-Mason ? A. By Signs, Tokens, and Points of my Entry.

12. Q. Which is the Point of your Entry ? A. I hear (2) and conceal, under the penalty of having my Throat cut, or my Tongue pulled out of my Head.

13. Q. Where was you made a Free-Mason ? A. In a just and perfect Lodge.

14 Q. How many make a Lodge ? A. God and the Square with five or seven right and perfect Masons, on the highest Mountains, or the lowest Valleys in the world. (3)

15. Q. Why do Odds make a Lodge ? A. Because all Odds are Men's Advantage. (4)

16. Q. What Lodge are you of ? A. The Lodge of St. John. (5)

the expression "In the name of, &c.," are connected with the interchange of the grip. The answer to the question "Are you a Mason?" is omitted, and then the catechism goes on with the question "What is a Mason?"

(1) The omission here can not be supplied. It was a part of the formula of giving the grip. Krause suggests that the words thus omitted by the editor of the catechism might be "In the name of the Pretender" or probably "In the name of the King and the Holy Roman Catholic Church." But the former explanation would give the catechism too modern an origin and the latter would carry it too far back. However, that would suit the hypothesis of Dr. Krause. I reject both, but can not supply a substitute unless it were " In the name of God and the Holy Saint John." (2) The Sloane MS., in which the same answer occurs, says, "I heal and conceal," to heal being old English for to hide. It is very clear that the word hear is a typographical error. (3) Krause thinks that in this answer an old and a new ritual are mixed. God and the Square he assigns to the former, the numbers five and seven to the latter. But the Harleian MS. requires five to make a legal lodge. (4) We must not suppose that this was derived from the Kabbalists. The doctrine that God delights in odd numbers, "numero Deus impare gaudet" (Virgil, Ed. viii.), is as old as the oldest of the ancient mythologies. It is the foundation of all the numerical symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry. We here see that it was observed in the oldest ritual. (5) This hieroglyphic appears to have been the early sign for a lodge, as the oblong square is at the present day.

17. Q. How does it stand ? A. Perfect East and West, as all Temples do.

18. Q. Where is the Mason's Point ? (1) A. At the East-Window, waiting at the Rising of the Sun, to set his men at work.

9. Q. Where is the Warden's Point ? A. At the West-Window, waiting at the Setting of the Sun to dismiss the Entered Apprentices.

20. Q. Who rules and governs the Lodge, and is Master of it ? A. Irah, Iachin or the Right Pillar.'

21. Q. How is it govern'd? A. Of Square and Rule.

22. Q. Have you the Key of the Lodge ? A. Yes, I have.

23. Q. What is its virtue ? A. To open and shut, and shut and open.

24. Q. Where do you keep it ? A. In an Ivory Box, between my Tongue and my Teeth, or within my Heart, where all my Secrets are kept.

25. Q. Have you the Chain to the Key ? A. Yes, I have.

26. Q. How long is it ? A. As long as from my Tongue to my Heart. (3)

(1) I find this question thus printed in all the copies to which I have had access. But I have not the slightest doubt that there has been a typographical error, which has been faithfully copied. I should read it "Where is the Master's point?" The next question confirms my conviction. The Master sets the Craft to work, the Warden dismisses them. This has been followed by the modern rituals. (2) Various have been the conjectures as to the meaning of the word Irah. Schneider, looking to the theory that modern Freemasonry was instituted to secure the restoration of the House of Stuart, supposes the letters of the word to be the initials of the Latin sentence "lacobus Redibit Ad Hereditatem" - James shall return to his inheritance. Krause thinks it the anagram of Hiram, and he rejects another supposition that it is the Hebrew Irah, reverence or holy fear, i.e., the fear of God. It may mean Hiram, but there is no need of an anagram. The wonted corruption of proper names in the old Masonic manuscripts makes Irah a sufficiently near approximation to Hiram, who is called in the Old Constitutions, Aynon, Aman, Amon, Anon, or Ajuon. The German Steinmetzen called Tubal Cain Walcan. (3) Speaking of tests like this, Dr. Oliver very wisely says: "These questions may be considered trivial. but in reality they were of great importance and included some of the

27. Q. How many precious Jewels ? A. Three; a square Asher, a Diamond, and a Square.

28. Q. How many Lights ? A. Three; a Right East, South and West. (1)

29. Q. What do they represent ? A. The Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (2)

30. Q. How many Pillars? A. Two; Iachin and Boaz.

31. Q. What do they represent ? A. A Strength and Stability of the Church in all Ages. (3)

32. Q. How many Angles in St. John's Lodge ? A. Four bordering on Squares.

33. Q. How is the Meridian found out ? A. When the Sun leaves the South and breaks in at the West-End of the Lodge.

34. Q. In what part of the Temple was the Lodge kept ? A. In Solomon's Porch, (4) at the West-End of the Temple, where the two Pillars were set up.

35. Q. How many Steps belong to a right Mason ? A. Three.

36. Q. Give me the Solution. A. I will . . . The Right Worshipful, Worshipful Master and Worshipful Fellows of the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence I came, greet you well.

That Great God to us greeting, be at this our meeting

profoundest mysteries of the Craft. . . . A single Masonic question, how puerile soever it may appear, is frequently in the hands of an expert Master of the Art, the depository of most important secrets." On "The Masonic Tests of the Eighteenth Century " in his "Golden Remains," vol. iv.,pp. 14, 15. (1) The Bauhutten or Operative lodges of the Germans probably had, says Krause, only three windows corresponding to the cardinal points, and the three principal officers of the lodge had their seats near them so as to obtain the best light for their labors. (2) This is ample proof that the earliest Freemasonry of the new Grand Lodge was distinctly Christian. The change of character did not occur until the adoption of the "Old Charges" as printed in Anderson's first edition. But more of this in the text. (3) There is an allusion to strength in the German Steinmetzen's catechism: "What is the Strength of our Craft?" Strength continued to be symbolized as a Masonic attribute in all subsequent rituals and so continues to the present day. (4) An allusion to the Temple of Solomon is common in all the old Constitutions. But no hypothesis can be deduced from this of the Solomonic origin of Freemasonry. The subject is too important to be discussed in a note.

and with the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence you came, and you are. (1)

37. Q. Give me the Jerusalem Word. (2) A. Giblin.

38. Q. Give me the Universal Word. A. Boaz.

39. Q. Right Brother of ours, your Name ? A. N. orM. Welcome Brother M. or N. to our Society.

40. Q. How many particular Points pertain to a Free-Mason ? A. Three; Fraternity, Fidelity, and Tacity.

41. Q. What do they represent? A. Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth among all Right Masons; for all Masons were ordain'd at the Building of the Tower of Babel and at the Temple of Jerusalem. (3)

42. Q. How-many proper Points? A. Five: Foot to Foot, Knee to Knee, Hand to Hand, Heart to Heart, and Ear to Ear. (4)

43. Q. Whence is an Arch derived ? A. From Architecture. (5)

(1) It is most probable that this answer was given on the three steps which were made while the words were being said. (2) The "Jerusalem Word" was probably the word traditionally confined to the Craft while they were working at the Temple, and the "Universal Word" was that used by them when they dispersed and traveled into foreign countries. The old "Legend of the Craft" has a tradition to that effect which was finally developed into the Temple Allegory of the modern rituals. (3) 0f this answer Krause gives the following interpretation - "Perhaps the Tower of Babel signifies the revolution under and after Cromwell, and the Temple of Jerusalem the restoration of the Stuart family in London" - which may be taken for what it is worth and no more, especially as the stories of the Tower and the Temple formed prominent points in the Craft legend which was formulated some two centuries at least before the time of Cromwell or of the restored Stuarts. (4) At first glance this answer would seem to be adverse to the theory that the Third was not known in the year 1717, unless it were to be supposed that the passage was an interpolation made subsequent to the year 1720. But the fact is that, as Krause remarks these expressions were not originally a symbol of the Master's degree (Meisterzeichen), but simply a symbol of Fellowship, where heart and heart and hand and hand showed the loving-kindness of each brother. Afterward, under the title of "The Five Points of Fellowship," it was appropriated to the Third Degree and received the symbolic history which it still retains. (5) Here, say Schneider and Krause, is a trace of Royal Arch Masonry. Not so. Architecture was the profession of the Operative Freemasons and became naturally a point in the examination of a craftsman. Such as this catechism evidently was.

44. Q. How many Orders in Architecture ? A. Five: The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.

45. Q. What do they answer ? A. They answer to the Base, Perpendicular, Diameter, Circumference, and Square.

46. Q. What is the right Word, or right Point of a Mason ? A. Adieu.

End of the Catechism.

Such is this important document, but of whose real value different opinions have been expressed. Oliver, as we have seen, calls it a "catchpenny." This epithet would, however, refer to the motives of the printer who gave the public the work at sixpence a copy and not to the original writer against whom no such charge, nor no such mercenary views should be imputed. The Rev. Mr. Sidebotham, who reprinted it in the Freemasons' Monthly Magazine, for August, 1855, from a copy found among the collection of Masonic curiosities deposited in the Bodleian Library, calls it "only one of the many absurd attempts of ignorant pretenders;" but his attempts to prove absurdities are themselves absurd.

The learned Mossdorf who, in 1808, found a copy of the second editions in the Royal Library at Leipsic, which Dr. Krause reprinted in his Three Oldest Documents of the Masonic Fraternity, designates it as a delicately framed but very bitter satire against the old lodges in London, which had just established the Grand Lodge. But a perusal of the document will disclose nothing of a satirical character in the document itself, and only a single paragraph of the preface in which the design of the institution is underrated, and the depreciation illustrated by a rather coarse attempt at a witticism.

But the preface was the production of the editor or printer, and must not be confounded with the catechism, which is free from anything of the kind. The very title, which might be deemed ironical, was undoubtedly an assumed one given to the original document by the same editor or printer for the purpose of attracting purchasers.

(1) It was the 2d edition, 1725, with which Mossdorf was acquainted, and to this were annexed "Two Letters to a Friend," which are not contained in the 1st edition. These gave him the opinion of the satirical character of the work.

Bro. Steinbrenner, of New York, who has written one of our most valuable and interesting histories of Freemasonry, (1) thus describes it, and has given it what I think must have been its original title.

"The oldest fragment of a ritual or Masonic lecture in the English Language (2) which we have met with is the 'Examination upon Entrance into a Lodge,' as used at the time of the Revival."

Dr. Krause is the first writer who seems to have estimated this old catechism at anything like its true value. He calls it a remarkable document, and says that after a careful examination he has come to the conclusion that it was written by one of the old Operative Masons, who was not without some scholarship, but who esteemed Masonry as an art peculiarly appropriate to builders only, and into which a few non-Masons were sometimes admitted on account of their scientific attainments.

He thinks that this catechism presents the traces of a high antiquity, and so far as its essential constituent parts are concerned, it might have derived its origin from the oldest York ritual, probably as early as the 12th or 13th century.

I am not inclined to accept all of the Krausean theory on the subject of the origin or of the antiquity of this document. It is not necessary for the purpose of employing it in the investigation of the primitive ritual adopted by the Speculative Freemasons when they organized their Grand Lodge, to trace its existence beyond the first decade of the 18th century, though it might be reasonably extended much farther back.

The statement in the preface or introduction, that the original manuscript was printed, and had "been found in the custodv of a Freemason who died suddenly," may be accepted as a truth. There is nothing improbable about it, and there is no reason to doubt the fact.

Connecting this with the date of the publication, which was just seven years after the establishment of the Grand Lodge, and only four years after what is supposed to be the date of the fabrication of

(1) "The Origin and Early History of Masonry," by G. W. Steinbrenner, Past Master. New York, 1864. (2) When Steinbrenner wrote the above the Sloane MS. No. 3339 had not been discovered. And yet it is doubtful whether it and the original manuscript of "The Grand Mystery" are not contemporaneous.

the three degrees; and comparing it with the Sloane MS. 3329, where we shall find many instances of parallel or analogous passages; and seeing that the Sloane MS. was undeniably an Operative ritual, since its acknowledged date is somewhere between the middle and the close of the 17th century; considering all these points, I think that we may safely conclude that the original manuscript of the printed document called The Grand Mystery was the "Examination upon Entrance into a Lodge" of Operative Freemasons.

The following inferences may then be deduced in respect to the character of this document with the utmost plausibility:

1. That it was a part, and the most essential part, of the ritual used by the Operative Freemasons about the close of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, and if anything was wanting toward a complete ritual it was supplemented by the Sloane MS. No. 3329

2. That it was the ritual familiar to the four Lodges which in 1717 united in the establishment of the Speculative Grand lodge of England.

3. That on the establishment of that Grand Lodge it was accepted as the ritual of the Speculative Freemasons and so used by them until they perfected the transition from wholly Operative to wholly Speculative Freemasonry by the fabrication of degrees and the development of a more philosophical ritual, composed, as it has always been conjectured, by Desaguliers and Anderson, but principally always by the former.

Having premised these views, we may now proceed to investigate, with some prospect of a satisfactory result, the character and condition of Speculative Freemasonry so far as respects a ritual during the earliest years of the Grand Lodge.

In the first place, it may be remarked that internal evidence goes to prove that this catechism is appropriate solely for Operative Freemasons. It was undoubtedly constructed at a time when Speculative Freemasonry, in the modern sense, was not in existence, and when the lodges which were to use it were composed of Operatives the Theoretic members not being at all taken into consideration.

This is very clearly shown by various passages in the catechism. Thus, Question 2 alludes to the hours of labor; Question 3 is an inquiry whether the brother who is being examined is in want of work, because the old Operative Constitutions directed the Craft "to receive or cherish strange Fellows when they came over the country and set them to work." Hence, in view of this hospitable duty, the visitor is asked if he is busy, that is to say, if he has work to occupy and support him.

Questions 18 and 19 make reference to the time and duty of setting the men to work, and of dismissing them from labor.

Questions 14 and 21 refer to the square and rule as implements of Operative Masonry employed in the lodge. Question 27 speaks of the ashlar, and 43 and 44 of the orders of architecture. All of these are subjects appropriate and familiar to Operative Masons, and indicate the character of the catechism.

The next point that calls for attention is that in this Operative ritual there is not the slightest reference to degrees. They are not mentioned nor alluded to as if any such system existed. The examination is that of a Freemason, but there is no indication whatever to show that he was a Master, Fellow, or an Apprentice. He could not probably have been the last, because, as a general rule, Apprentices were not allowed to travel. The German Steigmetzen, however, sometimes made an exception to this regulation, and the Master who had no work for his Apprentice would furnish him with a mark and send him forth in search of employment.

If a similar custom prevailed among the English Freemasons, of which there is no proof for or against, the wandering Apprentice woulds on visiting a strange lodge, doubtless make use of this catechism. There is nothing in its text to prevent him from doing so, for, as has already been said, there is no mention in it of degrees.

There does not seem to be any doubt in the minds of the most distinguished Masonic scholars, with perhaps a very few exceptions, that in the Operative ritual there were no degrees, the words Apprentice, Fellow, and Master referring only to gradations of rank. It is also believed that the ceremonies of admission were exceedingly simple, and that all these ranks were permitted to be present at a reception.

According to this catechism a lodge consisted of five or seven Masons, but it does not say that they must be all Master Masons.

The Sloane M S. says that there should be in a lodge two Apprentices, two Fellow-Crafts, and two Master Masons.

The Statutes of the Scottish Masons explicitly require the presence of two Apprentices at the reception of a Master.

The Old Constitutions, while they have charges specially for Masters and Fellows, between whom they make no distinction, have other "charges in general" which, of course, must include Apprentices, and in these they are commanded to keep secret "the consells of the lodge," from which it is to be inferred that Apprentices formed a constituent part of that body.

It has been usual to say that from 1717 to 1725 there were only Apprentices' lodges. The phraseology is not correct. They were lodges of Freemasons, and they so continued until the fabrication of a system of degrees. After that period the lodges might properly be called Apprentice lodges, because the first degree only could be conferred by them, though Fellow-Craft and Master Masons were among their members, these having until 1725 been made in the Grand Lodge exclusively.

The fact that this ritual, purposely designed for Operative Freemasons only, and used in the Operative lodges of London at the beginning of the 18th century, was adopted in 1717 when the four Lodges united in the organization of a Grand Lodge, is, I think, a convincing proof that there was no expressed intention at that time to abandon the Operative character of the institution, and to assume for it a purely Speculative condition.

I use the word "expressed" advisedly, because I do not contend that there was no such covert intention floating in the minds of some of the most cultivated Theoretic Freemasons who united with their Operative brethren in the organization.

But these Theoretic brethren were men of sense. They fully appreciated the expediency of the motto, festina lente. They were, it is true, anxious to hasten on the formation of an intellectual society, based historically on an association of architects, but ethically on an exalted system of moral philosophy; they perfectly appreciated, however, the impolicy of suddenly and rudely disrupting the ties which connected them with the old Operative Freemasons. Hence, they fairly shared with these the offices of the Grand Lodge until 1723, after which, as has been shown, no Operative held a prominent position in that body. The first laws which they adopted, and which were announced in the "Charges of a Free Mason," compiled by Payne and Anderson about 1719, had all the features of an Operative Code, and the ritual of the Operative Freemasons embodied in the document satirically called The Grand Mystery was accepted and used by the members of the Speculative Grand Lodge until the fabrication of degrees made it necessary to formulate another and more philosophical ritual.

But it is not necessary to conclude that when the system of degrees was composed, most probably in 1720 and 1721, principally by Dr. Desaguliers, the old Operative ritual was immediately cast aside. In all probability it continued to be used in the lodges, where the Fellow-Crafts and Masters' degrees were unknown, until 1725, the conferring of them having been confined to the Grand Lodge until that year. There were even Operative lodges in England long after that date, and the old ritual would continue with them a favorite. This will account for the publication in 1724, with so profitable a sale as to encourage the printing of a second edition with appendices in 1725.

But the newer ritual became common in 1730 or a little before, and the able defense of it by Anderson in the 1738 edition of the Book of Constitutions shows that the old had at length been displaced, though some of its tests remained for a long time in use among the Craft, and are continued, in a modified form, even to the present day.

The early Operative ritual, like the Operative laws and usages, has made an impression on the Speculative society which has never been and never will be obliterated while Freemasonry lasts.

The next feature in this Operative ritual which attracts our attention is its well-defined Christian character. This is shown in Question 29, where the three Lights of the Lodge are said to represent "The Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

Originating as it did, and for a long time working under ecclesiastical control, being closely connected with the Church, and engaged exclusively in the construction of religious edifices, it must naturally have become sectarian.

In the earliest times, when the Roman Catholic religion was the prevailing faith of Christendom, Operative Freemasonry was not only Christian but Roman Catholic in its tendencies. Hence, the oldest of the manuscript Constitutions contains an invocation to the Virgin Mary and to the Saints. In Germany the patrons of the Freemasons were the Four Crowned Martyrs.

But when in England the Protestant religion displaced the Roman Catholic, then the Operative Freemasons, following the sectarian tendencies of their countrymen, abandoned the reference to the Virgin and to the Saints, whose worship had been repudiated by the reformed religion, and invoked only the three Persons of the Trinity. The Harleian MS. commences thus:

"The Almighty Father of Heaven with the Wisdom of the Glorious Sonne, through the goodness of the Holy Ghost, three persons in one Godhead, bee with our beginning & give us grace soe to governe our Lives that we may come to his blisse that never shall have end."

All the other manuscript Constitutions conform to this formula, and hence we find the same feature presented in this catechism, and that in the ritual used when the Grand Lodge was established the three Lights represented the three Persons of the Trinity.

Operative Freemasonry never was tolerant nor cosmopolitan. It was in the beginning ecclesiastical, always Christian, and always sectarian.

Of all the differences that define the line of demarcation between Operative and Speculative Freemasonry, this is the most prominent.

The Theoretic Freemasons, that is, those who were non-Masons, when they united with their Operative fellow-members in the organization of a Grand Lodge, did not reject this sectarian character any more than they did the ritual and the laws of the old association.

But the non-Masonic or non-Operative element of the new Society was composed of men of education and of liberal views. They were anxious that in their meetings a spirit of toleration should prevail and that no angry discussions should disturb the hours devoted to innocent recreation. Moreover, they knew that the attempt to revive the decaying popularity of Freemasonry and to extend its usefulness would not be successful unless the doors were thrown widely open to the admission of moral and intellectual men of all shades of political and religious thought. Hence, they strove to exclude discussions which should involve the bitterness of partisan politics or of sectarian religion.

Dr. Anderson describes the effect produced by this liberality of sentiment when he says, speaking of this early period of Masonic history:

"Ingenious men of all faculties and stations, being convinced that the cement of the lodge was love and friendship, earnestly requested to be made Masons, affecting this amicable fraternity more than other societies then often disturbed by warm disputes." (1)

Thus it was that the first change affected in the character of the institution by which the ultimate separation of Speculative from Operative Freemasons was foreshadowed, was the modification of the sectarian feature which had always existed in the latter.

Therefore, in 1721, the Grand Lodge, "finding fault" with the "Old Gothic Constitutions" or the laws of the Operative Freemasons, principally, as the result shows, on account of their sectarian character, instructed Dr. Anderson "to digest them in a new and better method."

This task was duly accomplished, and the "Charges of a Freemason," which were published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions, announce for the first time that cosmopolitan feature in the religious sentiments of the Order which it has ever since retained.

"Though in ancient times," so runs the first of these " Charges," "Masons were charged in every country to be of the religion of that country or nation, whatever it was; yet it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves."

In consequence of this declaration of tolerance, the ritual which was framed after the old Operative one, exemplified in The Ground Mystery, ceased to derive any of its symbolism from purely Christian dogmas, though it can not be denied that Christian sentiments have naturally had an influence upon Speculative Freemasonry.

But the institution, in all the countries into which it has since extended, has always, with a very few anomalous exceptions, been true to the declaration made in 1721 by its founders, and has erected its altars, around which men of every faith, if they have only a trusting belief in God as the Grand Architect of the universe, may kneel and worship.

But before this sentiment of perfect toleration could be fully developed, it was necessary that the tenets, the usages, and the influence of the Operative element should be wholly eliminated from the new society. The progress toward this disruption of the two systems, the old and the new, would have to be slow and gradual.

(1) "Book of Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 114.

Very justly has Bro. Gould remarked that "Speculative Masonry was, so to speak, only on its trial during the generation which succeeded the authors of the Revival. The institution of a society of Free and Accepted Masons on a cosmopolitan and unsectarian basis was one thing; its consolidation, however, opposed as its practical working showed it to be to the ancient customs and privileges of the Operatives, was another and a very different affair." (1)

Therefore, as a matter of sheer policy, and also because it is probable that no intention of effecting such a change had, in the beginning, entered into the minds of the future founders of Speculative Freemasonry, it was deemed necessary to continue the use of the simple ritual which had so long been familiar to the Operatives, and it was accordingly so continued to be used until, in a few years, the opportune time had arrived for the fabrication of a more complex one, and one better adapted to the objects of a Speculative Society.

As it appears, then, to be clearly evident that the Operative ritualwas practiced by the Grand Lodge from 1717 until 1721 or 1722, and for a much longer period by many of the lodges under its jurisdiction, it is proper that we should endeavor, so far as the materials in our possession will permit, to describe the character of that ritual.

Masonic scholars who have carefully investigated this subject do not now express any doubt that the rite practiced by the mediceval Freemasons of every country, and which, under some modifications, was used by the Operative Freemasons when the Grand Lodge of England was established, was a very simple one, consisting of but one degree.

In fact, as the word degree literally denotes a step in progression, and would import the possible existence of a higher step to which it is related, it would seem to be more proper to say that the Operative rite was without degrees, and consisted of a form of admission with accompanying esoteric instructions, all of which were of the simplest nature.

Master, Fellow, and Apprentice were terms intended to designate the different ranks of the Craftsmen, which ranks were wholly unconnected with any gradations of ritualistic knowledge.

(1) "The Four Old Lodges," p. 33.

Masters were those who superintended the labors of the Craft, or were, perhaps, in many instances the employers of the workmen engaged on an edifice. Paley suggests that they were probably architects, and he says that they must have been trained in one and the same school, just as our clergy are trained in the universities, and were either sent about to different stations or were attached to some church or cathedral, or took up their permanent residence in certain localities. (1)

This description is very suitable to the most flourishing period of Gothic architecture, when such Craftsmen as William of Sens or Erwin of Steinbach were the Masters who directed the construction of those noble works of architecture which were to win the admiration of succeeding ages.

But in the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, when there was a decadence in the old science of Gothic architecture, every Fellow who was appointed by an employer or selected by his brethren to govern a lodge and to direct the works of the Craftsmen, became by that appointment or selection a Master Mason.

We know that this usage was for some time observed by the Speculative Freemasons, for in the form of constituting a new lodge as prescribed in 1723 by the Duke of Wharton, who was then Grand Master, it is said that the Master who is to be installed, "being yet among the Fellow-Craft," must be taken from among them, and be inducted into office by the Grand Master; by which act he became a Master Mason, and not by the reception of a degree; and the investiture of certain additional secrets. (2)

The Fellows were workmen who had served an apprenticeship of several years, and had at length acquired a knowledge of the trade. They constituted the great body of the Craft, as is evident from the constant reference to them in the Old Constitutions.

The Apprentices, as the etymology of the word imports, were learners. They were youths who were bound to serve their Masters for a term of five or seven years, on the condition that the Master shall instruct them in the trade, that at the expiration of their term of service they might be admitted into the rank or class of Fellows.

As there was but one ceremony of admission common to all

(1) "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p. 209. (2) See the form in the 1st edition of Anderson, p. 71.

classes of the Craft, it follows that there could be no secrets of a ritual character which belonged exclusively to either of the three classes, and that whatever was known to Masters and Fellows must also have been communicated to Apprentices; and this is very evident from the well- known fact that the presence of members of each class was necessary to the legal communications of a lodge.

The Mason Word is the only secret spoken of in the minutes of the Scotch lodges, but the German and English rituals show that there were other words and methods of recognition besides an examination which constituted the esoteric instructions of Operative Masonry.

The most important of these points is, however, the fact that at the time of the organization of the Grand Lodge in 1717, and for a brief period afterward, there was but one degree, as it is called, which was known to the Operatives, and that for a brief period of three or four years this simple system was accepted and practiced by the founders of Speculative Freemasonry.

But the discussion of this fact involves a thorough investigation, and can not be treated at the close of a chapter.

The inquiry, so far as it has advanced, has, I think, satisfied us that the Operative ritual was that which was at first adopted by the founders of Speculative Freemasonry.

When, afterward, they discarded this ritual as too simple and as unsuitable to their designs, they were obliged, in the construction of their new system, to develop new degrees.

The task, therefore, to which our attention must now be directed, is first to demonstrate that the primitive ritual accepted in 1717 by the Speculatives consisted of but one degree, if for convenience I may be allowed to use a word not strictly and grammatically correct; and, secondly, to point out the mode in which and the period when a larger ritual, and a system of degrees, was invented.

And these must be the subjects of the two following chapters.

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