Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Memory;
MEMORY ;
WHAT IT HAS DONE , WHAT IT MAY TX ) .
FROM THE VOICE OF MASONRY . MEMORY plays an important part in Freemasonry , and every applicant should possess the ability of acquiring and retaining knowledge of tho art . Without memory the science could not be disseminated and there could be no " wise and accomplished Freemasons . " Tho attention of the Fellow Craft is continually directed to
a consideration of the measnre of Gon ' s bounty to man , and in the summary of His munificence MEMORY is mentioned as a subject which " far exceeds human enquiry and is a peculiar mystery known only to nature and to nature's GOD . " When we panse in the bustle of onr bnsiness occupations and permit onr thoughts to revert to ourselves ,
and the wonderful faculties with which we are endowed , and consider onr ntter inability to create anything approaching to tho perfectness of mankind , it seems impossible that any sane mind will question the existence of a Deity to whose wisdom alone is to be attributed our complete and complex organization .
What would have been man s condition without tho power of memory ? The most extensive experience would have been of no value , and human progress and improvement would have beon impossible- As a faculty it consists in the ability of retaining knowledge and of recalling it instantly when we have occasion to make use of it . Bnt this power varies much in individuals ; thus : somo persons
can express themselves fluently in conversation or upon tho rostrum , while others require the slower process of writing to convey their ideas and knowledge to others ; some can recall events with astonishing accuracy of detail , while others with equal facilities for observation have but a confused impression of the circumstances . Rut it is not my purpose to deal with memory in a philosophical
mannersimply to show what it has done and what it may do . There are many instances on record of the extraordinary achievements of human memory , and nearly every child has had soino experience in the way of memorizing chapters and verses from the Bible . It is related that Daniel Webster had a remarkable ability in this direotion—when a bny at least . Upon one occasion a jack-knife wns
exhibited to the school and promised to the boy who should , by the succeeding evening , commit to memory the greatest number of verses in the Bible . The reward was a tempting one , and the boys all entered for the prize , many of them did well , but Daniel recited some sixty or seventy verses , and said he had a few chapters to spare , and won the knife .
A poor girl named Jnlia Warner , taken from a country pnor house , once undertook the task of committing the entire New Testament to memory in order to secure the proffered prize of a handsome Bible . She memorized so rapidly that her teacher found it difficult to spare the time to hear her recite . She won the Book at tho expense of mnoh headache and mental torture .
Bev . John Jewell , Bishop of Salisbury , who died 22 nd September 1571 , had a mcst wonderful memory . He conld repeat verbatim what he had once written , after a single reading , and it was his oustom to commit his sermons while the bells were ringing to summon the people to worship . He said that when he had the heads impressed upon his memory , nothing could confuse the order . of his
thought . His ability as a memorizer was put to numerous severe tests . Two of his brother divines upon one occasion sought to put his powers to a full trial , and one of them uttered twice some of the most difficult and barbarous words he conld find in a calendar , while the other gave him a list of forty Welsh , Irish , and foreign words , which he read twice ; after a little reflection he repeated the lists
both forward and backward . He professed to have reduced his ability to a science , and to be able to communicate it to others , and succeeded so well with one of his friends that after twenty-eight days tuition of one hour each day , the pupil was able to recite the entire Gospel according to Matthew , as well as to recall instantly any verse , and state what was before and after it .
A Massachusetts divine who died some thirty years ago was accustomed to commit his sermons to memory . He had been pastor of one church for seventy years , and when upwards of ninety-five years of age he preached from memory , without any variation , a sermon he had written half a century before . In the afternoon of the same Sunday he repeated the same
sermon , but utterly unconscious of the fact that he had preached it in the morning . When his grand-danghter told him of his repetition he saw it at once , but without admitting it , said , " Why , daughter , how can you be so mistaken ? " " Bnt , father , you did , and all the congregation knew it . " " Daughter , " be replied , " was tbe bread you made last week the same as yon made this ? " " Why . no , of
course not . " "But , " he continued , "it was made out of the same flour , from thesame barrel , iu the same way , and baked in the same oven , and I think it must have been jnst so with my sermon . " But the most astonishing instance of memorizing is that of Cardinal Giuseppe Gaspardo Mezzofanti , the Italian linguist , who wag corn 17 th September 1774 , and died loth March 1849 . He was the
son of a carpenter , and wns designed for the same occupation , but a Pnest observed his extraordinary intellectual power and had birn educated for the priesthood . Before he had completed his universit y course he had mastered the Latin , Greek , Hebrew , Arabic , Spanish , rencb , Coptic , German and Swedish torques , and at the a _ e of went y-two was appointed professor of Arabic at Bologna and after . ards of
the oriental languages . Political changes caused him to lose tio ° ' utmen . > but he pursned the study oflanguage without cessn-? ' He was in the habit of calling upon strangers at the hotels a learning the pronunciation of their tongues . He says this did th ! " ntn mnch *™<» ble , for he had a " remarkable flexibility of eipht 1-810 ! ° P eeoh - " Afc forty-three he read twenty and spoke abnnfi .-I ! guage 8 ; three years later he had acquired thirty-two , « nc which time Lord Byron desoribed him as " a walking polyglot ,
Memory;
a monster of languages , and a Briarous of parts of speech , " an opinion that was indnced by tho Cardinal ' s familiarity with English slang , in which he showed himself to be more profioiont than tho English Lord . In 1838 ho was elovatod to the Cardiualato , and his residence at Rome gave him more opportunities for pursuing his favourito study . to
C-i ^ es aro recorded of persons coining Rome who spoke some out of the way language which debarred them from coming to confossiou ; on such occasions three weeks was all tho time tho Cardinal wanted to make himself familiar with their peculiarities . He is said to havo spoken each language with tho precision and fluency of a native ; his pronunciation , idioms , & o ., were nnexceptionablo ; even the familiar
words of every day life , the little niceties and peoularities that characterise every tongue , wero known to him . He conld detect the particular part of a country a person came from by the dialect , and was frequently mistaken by foreigners as a countryman . He said he never forgot anything he ever read , and his accomplishments certainly warrant such an assertion . It is asserted that at his death ho
was acquainted with 114 languages , bnt it is thonght that many of these wore but variations of the same tongue . The activity of the memory has always been rogarded as subject to the physioal condition of the body , and anoient philosophers prescribed plasters , powders , and perfumes to stimulate and strengthen it . Albertus Magnus , a learned Dominican , who lived in
tho thirteenth century , is regarded by some as tho anthor of a book of Secrets , in which the following receipt is given : "If the heart , eye or brain of a lapwing or black plover be hanged upon a man ' s neck , it is profitable against forgetfulness , and sharpenoth man's understanding . " The art of improving the memory by artificial means has been a
subject of much thonght by scholars , aud it is supposed that the art originated with the Egyptians . Cicero states that the poet Simonides of Cos first reduced it to a system about 500 B . C . He had been in attendance at a banquet , and during his temporary absence the building fell and crushed the guests : the bodies were so mutilated that they were beyond recognition , but his recolleotion of the
position each occupied at the table enabled him to distinguish them , and he was thus led to contrive a process for aiding the memory . There havo been various systems originated to aid the memory , but they have been so complex that little good has resulted . Indeed , the systems have been employed chiefly by their inventors to exhibit feat . ? of memory , which Lord Bacon stated he regarded as " no more
than rope-dancing , antic-postures and feats of activity ; and , indeed , they are nearly the same things—the ono being the abuse of the bodily as the other is of tho mental powers ; and though they may cause admiration , thoy cannot be highly esteemed . " Tho principle of artificial memory is to associate some material object with the idea we wish to remember . Almost every person has
experienced the principle when revisiting familiar places from which he has been long absent , or meeting some old friend of bygone days . The annual reunions of the soldiers of our late war tend more to keop alive reminiscences of the strife than anything that could be devised ; we see an old comrade ' s face or form , scarred or mutilated as it may be , and at once our memory goes back to the
day we saw him . fall , or to some scrape in which we were conoernod . Antietam , Gettysburg , Libby , Andersonville are simple words , but the mere mention of them brings up hosts of memories . The second sight mystery is an application of the principle , and every one who has occasion to depend upon the memory has a system more or less elaborate as an aid to the recollection .
Dnring the seventeenth century there was one Robert Pasfield , a servant to an English gentleman , who ' could neither read nor write . He was a zealous churchman and fond of sermons , and as an aid to his memory he invented a girdle of leather which went twice around his body ; this he divided into parts and allotted a part to each book of the Bible , in the proper order ; the chapters he represented by
thongs of leather , with knots and points for verses . With this girdle npon him he made notes of the sermon , and with suchjsuccess that he could repeat it through its several heads and quote the various texta mentioned in it . It is not many years since school teachers insisted upon their pupils " learning by heart . " The exact words of the author were
enjoined as essential to a perfect comprehension of the lesson , and even in history was this senseless practice enforced . In some studies the exact phraseology is necessary , as on'the stage and in the rites of Masonry . Where this " learning by rote " is attempted , a sitting postnro should be avoided , as it soon produces restlessness , and the mind becomes diverted from the task . It will be found that walking
to and fro iu tho room and repeating the language aloud will be both healthful exercise and an easy way of impressing the words of the tpxt upon the memory . As an aid to the memory in committing written or printed text my own experience has been that b y associating the several paragraphs with the position they occupy on the page , a cue is given by which the order of language is observed . We
sometimes forget a very important clause , and by a system of association , such as I suggest , the mind has before it aft imaginary page from which the language is , as it were , read . Some Officers in Masonic bodies have mnch memorizing to do in order to gracefully discharge their duties , and it might not be uninteresting or nnprofitable if brethren of experience were to give us their systems of fixing words upon their memories .
We understand from the Portsmouth Times that H . E . H . the Prince of Wales has granted the petition for a warrant for a new Masonic Lodge in Portsmouth , to be called the Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar , No . 1903 . The ceremony of consecration will be performed
by the I ' . G . M . of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight ( Bro . W . W . B . Beach , M . P . ) , at an early date , on which occasion the first W . M . of the new Lodge ( Bro . Cwn "' Tw ! e-r Lord Charles Beresford P . M . ) will bo present and instal the Officers of the new Lodge , which promises to be a great succesi .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Memory;
MEMORY ;
WHAT IT HAS DONE , WHAT IT MAY TX ) .
FROM THE VOICE OF MASONRY . MEMORY plays an important part in Freemasonry , and every applicant should possess the ability of acquiring and retaining knowledge of tho art . Without memory the science could not be disseminated and there could be no " wise and accomplished Freemasons . " Tho attention of the Fellow Craft is continually directed to
a consideration of the measnre of Gon ' s bounty to man , and in the summary of His munificence MEMORY is mentioned as a subject which " far exceeds human enquiry and is a peculiar mystery known only to nature and to nature's GOD . " When we panse in the bustle of onr bnsiness occupations and permit onr thoughts to revert to ourselves ,
and the wonderful faculties with which we are endowed , and consider onr ntter inability to create anything approaching to tho perfectness of mankind , it seems impossible that any sane mind will question the existence of a Deity to whose wisdom alone is to be attributed our complete and complex organization .
What would have been man s condition without tho power of memory ? The most extensive experience would have been of no value , and human progress and improvement would have beon impossible- As a faculty it consists in the ability of retaining knowledge and of recalling it instantly when we have occasion to make use of it . Bnt this power varies much in individuals ; thus : somo persons
can express themselves fluently in conversation or upon tho rostrum , while others require the slower process of writing to convey their ideas and knowledge to others ; some can recall events with astonishing accuracy of detail , while others with equal facilities for observation have but a confused impression of the circumstances . Rut it is not my purpose to deal with memory in a philosophical
mannersimply to show what it has done and what it may do . There are many instances on record of the extraordinary achievements of human memory , and nearly every child has had soino experience in the way of memorizing chapters and verses from the Bible . It is related that Daniel Webster had a remarkable ability in this direotion—when a bny at least . Upon one occasion a jack-knife wns
exhibited to the school and promised to the boy who should , by the succeeding evening , commit to memory the greatest number of verses in the Bible . The reward was a tempting one , and the boys all entered for the prize , many of them did well , but Daniel recited some sixty or seventy verses , and said he had a few chapters to spare , and won the knife .
A poor girl named Jnlia Warner , taken from a country pnor house , once undertook the task of committing the entire New Testament to memory in order to secure the proffered prize of a handsome Bible . She memorized so rapidly that her teacher found it difficult to spare the time to hear her recite . She won the Book at tho expense of mnoh headache and mental torture .
Bev . John Jewell , Bishop of Salisbury , who died 22 nd September 1571 , had a mcst wonderful memory . He conld repeat verbatim what he had once written , after a single reading , and it was his oustom to commit his sermons while the bells were ringing to summon the people to worship . He said that when he had the heads impressed upon his memory , nothing could confuse the order . of his
thought . His ability as a memorizer was put to numerous severe tests . Two of his brother divines upon one occasion sought to put his powers to a full trial , and one of them uttered twice some of the most difficult and barbarous words he conld find in a calendar , while the other gave him a list of forty Welsh , Irish , and foreign words , which he read twice ; after a little reflection he repeated the lists
both forward and backward . He professed to have reduced his ability to a science , and to be able to communicate it to others , and succeeded so well with one of his friends that after twenty-eight days tuition of one hour each day , the pupil was able to recite the entire Gospel according to Matthew , as well as to recall instantly any verse , and state what was before and after it .
A Massachusetts divine who died some thirty years ago was accustomed to commit his sermons to memory . He had been pastor of one church for seventy years , and when upwards of ninety-five years of age he preached from memory , without any variation , a sermon he had written half a century before . In the afternoon of the same Sunday he repeated the same
sermon , but utterly unconscious of the fact that he had preached it in the morning . When his grand-danghter told him of his repetition he saw it at once , but without admitting it , said , " Why , daughter , how can you be so mistaken ? " " Bnt , father , you did , and all the congregation knew it . " " Daughter , " be replied , " was tbe bread you made last week the same as yon made this ? " " Why . no , of
course not . " "But , " he continued , "it was made out of the same flour , from thesame barrel , iu the same way , and baked in the same oven , and I think it must have been jnst so with my sermon . " But the most astonishing instance of memorizing is that of Cardinal Giuseppe Gaspardo Mezzofanti , the Italian linguist , who wag corn 17 th September 1774 , and died loth March 1849 . He was the
son of a carpenter , and wns designed for the same occupation , but a Pnest observed his extraordinary intellectual power and had birn educated for the priesthood . Before he had completed his universit y course he had mastered the Latin , Greek , Hebrew , Arabic , Spanish , rencb , Coptic , German and Swedish torques , and at the a _ e of went y-two was appointed professor of Arabic at Bologna and after . ards of
the oriental languages . Political changes caused him to lose tio ° ' utmen . > but he pursned the study oflanguage without cessn-? ' He was in the habit of calling upon strangers at the hotels a learning the pronunciation of their tongues . He says this did th ! " ntn mnch *™<» ble , for he had a " remarkable flexibility of eipht 1-810 ! ° P eeoh - " Afc forty-three he read twenty and spoke abnnfi .-I ! guage 8 ; three years later he had acquired thirty-two , « nc which time Lord Byron desoribed him as " a walking polyglot ,
Memory;
a monster of languages , and a Briarous of parts of speech , " an opinion that was indnced by tho Cardinal ' s familiarity with English slang , in which he showed himself to be more profioiont than tho English Lord . In 1838 ho was elovatod to the Cardiualato , and his residence at Rome gave him more opportunities for pursuing his favourito study . to
C-i ^ es aro recorded of persons coining Rome who spoke some out of the way language which debarred them from coming to confossiou ; on such occasions three weeks was all tho time tho Cardinal wanted to make himself familiar with their peculiarities . He is said to havo spoken each language with tho precision and fluency of a native ; his pronunciation , idioms , & o ., were nnexceptionablo ; even the familiar
words of every day life , the little niceties and peoularities that characterise every tongue , wero known to him . He conld detect the particular part of a country a person came from by the dialect , and was frequently mistaken by foreigners as a countryman . He said he never forgot anything he ever read , and his accomplishments certainly warrant such an assertion . It is asserted that at his death ho
was acquainted with 114 languages , bnt it is thonght that many of these wore but variations of the same tongue . The activity of the memory has always been rogarded as subject to the physioal condition of the body , and anoient philosophers prescribed plasters , powders , and perfumes to stimulate and strengthen it . Albertus Magnus , a learned Dominican , who lived in
tho thirteenth century , is regarded by some as tho anthor of a book of Secrets , in which the following receipt is given : "If the heart , eye or brain of a lapwing or black plover be hanged upon a man ' s neck , it is profitable against forgetfulness , and sharpenoth man's understanding . " The art of improving the memory by artificial means has been a
subject of much thonght by scholars , aud it is supposed that the art originated with the Egyptians . Cicero states that the poet Simonides of Cos first reduced it to a system about 500 B . C . He had been in attendance at a banquet , and during his temporary absence the building fell and crushed the guests : the bodies were so mutilated that they were beyond recognition , but his recolleotion of the
position each occupied at the table enabled him to distinguish them , and he was thus led to contrive a process for aiding the memory . There havo been various systems originated to aid the memory , but they have been so complex that little good has resulted . Indeed , the systems have been employed chiefly by their inventors to exhibit feat . ? of memory , which Lord Bacon stated he regarded as " no more
than rope-dancing , antic-postures and feats of activity ; and , indeed , they are nearly the same things—the ono being the abuse of the bodily as the other is of tho mental powers ; and though they may cause admiration , thoy cannot be highly esteemed . " Tho principle of artificial memory is to associate some material object with the idea we wish to remember . Almost every person has
experienced the principle when revisiting familiar places from which he has been long absent , or meeting some old friend of bygone days . The annual reunions of the soldiers of our late war tend more to keop alive reminiscences of the strife than anything that could be devised ; we see an old comrade ' s face or form , scarred or mutilated as it may be , and at once our memory goes back to the
day we saw him . fall , or to some scrape in which we were conoernod . Antietam , Gettysburg , Libby , Andersonville are simple words , but the mere mention of them brings up hosts of memories . The second sight mystery is an application of the principle , and every one who has occasion to depend upon the memory has a system more or less elaborate as an aid to the recollection .
Dnring the seventeenth century there was one Robert Pasfield , a servant to an English gentleman , who ' could neither read nor write . He was a zealous churchman and fond of sermons , and as an aid to his memory he invented a girdle of leather which went twice around his body ; this he divided into parts and allotted a part to each book of the Bible , in the proper order ; the chapters he represented by
thongs of leather , with knots and points for verses . With this girdle npon him he made notes of the sermon , and with suchjsuccess that he could repeat it through its several heads and quote the various texta mentioned in it . It is not many years since school teachers insisted upon their pupils " learning by heart . " The exact words of the author were
enjoined as essential to a perfect comprehension of the lesson , and even in history was this senseless practice enforced . In some studies the exact phraseology is necessary , as on'the stage and in the rites of Masonry . Where this " learning by rote " is attempted , a sitting postnro should be avoided , as it soon produces restlessness , and the mind becomes diverted from the task . It will be found that walking
to and fro iu tho room and repeating the language aloud will be both healthful exercise and an easy way of impressing the words of the tpxt upon the memory . As an aid to the memory in committing written or printed text my own experience has been that b y associating the several paragraphs with the position they occupy on the page , a cue is given by which the order of language is observed . We
sometimes forget a very important clause , and by a system of association , such as I suggest , the mind has before it aft imaginary page from which the language is , as it were , read . Some Officers in Masonic bodies have mnch memorizing to do in order to gracefully discharge their duties , and it might not be uninteresting or nnprofitable if brethren of experience were to give us their systems of fixing words upon their memories .
We understand from the Portsmouth Times that H . E . H . the Prince of Wales has granted the petition for a warrant for a new Masonic Lodge in Portsmouth , to be called the Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar , No . 1903 . The ceremony of consecration will be performed
by the I ' . G . M . of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight ( Bro . W . W . B . Beach , M . P . ) , at an early date , on which occasion the first W . M . of the new Lodge ( Bro . Cwn "' Tw ! e-r Lord Charles Beresford P . M . ) will bo present and instal the Officers of the new Lodge , which promises to be a great succesi .