Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

ARS QUATUOR CORONATORUM

( VI . PART 2 ) . BT BRO , R . F . GOULD . ( Continued from page 202 ) . A GLANCE at the Ancient Regulations of the Craft will therefore be expedient , and the " short study " I am proceeding with , of the opening history of the earliest of

Grand Lodges may , perhaps , be made a little clearer , if I also present a picture , in miniature , of the Symbolical Masonry which was in existence at the same time . Tbe old laws of tbe Freemasons are contained in tbe

Manuscript Constitutions , of which many " forms " have been published by the Lodge , and can bo easily referred to in our series of reprints . They are called the " Old Gothic Constitutions " in the narrative of Dr . Anderson ( 1738 ) ,

by whom they wero printed in a very altered shape s the " Charges' ' and the "Old Charges" respectively , in his publications of 1723 and 1738 . According to the M . C . ( Manuscript Constitutions' ) ,

" ye first aud principall charge is " I . —Tbafc ye Shall be true man or true men to God " and ye holy Church . "

This , I extract from the W . W . MS ., but the first injunction , in nearly every other prose version of tho M . G ., will be found to yield a similar if not quite identical reading .

In January 1721 , therefore , the spirit of toleration which now breathes in the Masons' Creed , had no existence , and tho profession of Christianity , a custom which still survives in some foreign jurisdictions , was required of every candidate for initiation .

Also , No . XIII . of the General Regulations , forbidding the working of the 2 nd , or as it has since become , tho 3 rd degree , bad not been enacted .

Of the Masonic Symbolism , inherited in 1717 , and presumably still existing in 1721 , let mo begin with the frank avowal ,

" I cannot mako this matter plain , But I would shoot , howe ' er in vain , A random arrow from the brain . " I shall begin by saying , that the actual lecture delivered

by our J . W , Bro . Ball , m June 1802 , of which some fragments only , and those fie least important of the whole , could be printed ( A . Q . O . v . 136 ) , seems to me to settle Vpyond dispute , not only tint what we now call the

3 rd degree existed before the era of Grand Lodges , but that having passed through a long decline its symbols had become corrupted , and their meaning forgotten , when the

step itself—then known aa " the Master ' s part , " is first beard of ( i . e ., unequivocally referred to ) , in any print or manuscript to which a date can be assigned ( 1723 ) .

Tbe written traditions of the Society ( M . C . ) inform us that in Ancient times there were two classes of English Freemasons , Apprentices , and Masters or Fellows . From ot her sources we gain the fact that there were two steps ,

or as we should now say degrees , corresponding therewith . One , the Apprentice part ; the other , the Master ' s part . The former comprising the degrees of E . A . and F . C . ; and the latter that of M . M . —as we now have them . But it

may be well to state , that tbe now familiar titles of Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft , are operative terms which were peculiar to Scottish , and unheard of in English Masonry , until their appearance in Anderson ' s Book of Constitutions , 1723 .

To what extent the "Master ' s part" was wurlced in Stukeley ' s time there are no means of determining . Ashmole ' s diary records , under 11 th March 1682 , that ho was

tho " Senior Fellow at a Lodge held in the Masons' Hall , London . This may and I think does mean , that he had acquired the . higher step as well as grade .

Albert Pike observes : — " Ashmole had some inducement that led him to seek admission into Masonry— : ome object to attain , some purpose to carry out . Even his utter silence as to the objects , nature , crstoms and work of the

Institution is significant . There was something in the Institution that made it seem to him worth his while to join it : and what was in it then may have been in it centuries before . He is even more reticent about it than

Herodotus wt . 3 about the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priests . " Stukc'oy ' s aiotive iu becoming a Frjemason . on the

Ars Quatuor Coronatorum

contrary is plainly stated . " Suspecting it , " ho says , " to be the remains [ italics mine ] of the mysterys of tho antients , " and it is highly probable that a similar " curiosity" was experienced by Ashmole , and satisfied in the same way ?

What grounds he may have had for the abovo " suspicion " Stnkeley does not tell us , but in 1721 he had been for some years an F . R . S ., and at that date Peter le Neve ( Norrey King-at-Arms , President of the Society of Antiqnaries , 1718 , died 1730 ) , Martin Folkes , Richard

Rawhnson , Dr . Desaguliers , and Sir Richard Manningbam , were also Fellows of the Royal Society . All of them , too , were Freemasons , though whether initiated before or after Stnkeley must remain doubtful , except in the caso of Desagulier ? , who was Grand Master in 1719 .

From any one of these brethren Stukeloy may have derived his " suspicion , " but at nil events it had got into his mind , and must have had an origin of somo

kindfrom which the inference may be drawn , that both the steps of Masonry worked ( or known ) at the time , were in the mind of tho person from whom his information wa 8 obtained .

This conclusion is fortified by the language of Old Regulation XIII . ( 1723 ) , forbidding ( in effect ) the working of the " Master ' s part" in private Lodges—a prohibition which must , indeed , havo been utterly devoid of meaning , unless there was in existence at the time

( 1723 ) a ' Master ' s part" to be worked ? It is likewise worthy of consideration whether the difficulty , at Stukeley ' s admission in 1721 , in finding " members enough to perform the ceremony , " may not have consisted in getting together a sufficient number of brethren to work loth stops of

Masonry ? Tho 1 st or " Apprentice part" was communicated in a very simple manner in Scotland , and the practice lingered until the present century . One Mason unaided , could and often did , mako another . Without

contending that thero was an equal simplicity of ritual in the South , the usage in the North goes a long way towards proving that there could not have been any very elaborate ceremony , in London , at the reception of an Apprentice in 1721 .

The "difficulty , " however , in finding a sufficiency of brethren to constitute tho dramatis persmue in working I he " Master ' s part" may well have boon , aud probably was , a veal one . ( To be continued ) .

It has been decided to form a new Lodge in Birkenhead under tho title of the Wirral , and tho arrangements are practically complete . Tho now Lodge is to be an off-shoot

from the Combez-mcre , which has grown too large for con venience , and the first W . M . will be Alderman T . Shaw The first Wardens will be Bros . T . E . Tomlinsou and W Gamlin .

The Duke of Cambridge has consented to bocome a brother and patron of the Great Eastern Lodgo of tho Ancient Order of Buffaloes at Southcud-ou-Sea . The

ceremony of initiation was to take place at tho Institute , Southend , on the 5 th inst ., when Major Rasch , M . P ., and the Mayor of Southend were expected .

r lhe Bishop of Grenoble is an ultra anti-Masonic fanatic . In a recent discourse Mgr . Fava exemplified to an amusing degree his craze that the Lodges of tho Brotherhood are federated centres of political intrigue . He said : — " It was

the English Freemasons who pushed on France to join in the Crimean War against Russia in order that she might exhaust her gold and treasure in that needless combat ; it

was the French Freemasons who incited France to fight Austria , a Catholic nation , in order to bring about the unity of Italy . . . resisting the temporal power of the Pope . "—Sheffield Daily Telegraph .

His Imperial Majesty tbo Emperor of Germany lias boeu pleased to accept copies of " Tbo Queen ' s March Past , " by Bro . Algernon Rose ( of the Ledge of Asaph ) , recantly published in London by Messrs . Chappell & Co .

Mr . Harry Hunter , tbo popular interlocutor of the Mohawk Minstrels , will take his annnal benefit at the Agricultural Hall , on the 12 th inst ., when be will have the assistance of the principal London Variety artists . Mr . Hunter has written twenty songs for ~ e uouusior .