The Charlestown Mother Supreme Grand Council Of The World.

at Charleston from 1801 to 18 t > 0 . What minutes we had were destroyed , with many papers , pamphlets , and hooks of the Secretary General during tho war . [ Query , what proof has he that anything belonging to tho Rite was destroyed during the war ?] I never saw any of them , ancl

do not know how full or how meagre they were . There is not in the Secretariat , so far as I can find , any minute of any session from May 1801 to the session of 1860 , except what is called a session at New Orleans in 1857 ; not even of that of 1859 , at Charlestown , when our membership was

enlarged , and several new members wero added . Except some papers of which I have spoken , and some old letters , thero is nothing to show what the Supremo Council did ,

from its birth until I 860 , I do not know when I was elected a member , or when Grand Commander . The memory of the Secretary General , is the only means of proof of the election of any dignitary or member from 1802 to 1859 .

"Ifc is certain that no regular record book of transactions was ever kept in 1874 . The Secretary General has had 111 . Bro . Webber to copy into a record book all our printed Transactions . But this is , of conrso , no better or higher evidence of what it contains than the printed Transactions are . It is a mere waste of labour .

"By the same resolution the Secretary General was directed to record all confidential communications of the Grand Commander , and the action taken thereon , as had heretofore been done , in the Book of Gold . Bnt nothing of the sort had theretofore been recorded , and nothing of the sort has been recorded since .

" The Book of Gold contains only copies of old documents , many of them older than the Supreme Council , and large part of them in print ancl published long before they were copied into the Book . The contents are , historically , of very little value .

" The Supreme Council existed all the time , bufc it was not always awake . It dozed , and was dormant afc least once , for quite a number of years . When I first heard of it , in 1851 , I think its members were Bros . Honour , Thurman , Mackey , and Le Prince , at Charleston , Bro . McDaniel

afc Lynchburg , Bro . Rockwell afc Savannah , and Bro . Quitman afc Mississi ppi . The three last I think never went to Charleston , consequently there were never more than three or four at a meeting . As to the Northern Jurisdiction , Bros . Gourgas and Yates used to meet and transact

business as a Supreme Council , but they did not preserve a record or minutes of what they did . [ What did they do ?] " The truth is that the Rite was nothing , and the rituals

almost naught ; for the most part a lot of worthless trash , until 1855 . Some Consistories were created , and there were very few other bodies , and a Consistory without subordinates at Louisiana . In 1859 the Rite had little life

anywhere except in that State . Things have changed somewhat since then . " On reading the above curious confession of Bro . Albert Pike , I could not help thinking that , suppose the yellow fever , or some other epidemic , had swept off a few of the

most active of the above-named worthies , North and South , before 1844 , how many tons of paper used for printing their reports , & c , and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars might have been used for better purposes ; how many lies would never have been printed ;

and how much disharmony would never have been engendered among American Masons . If such a catastrophe had then happened , Bro . Pike would not have been sovereign of any jurisdiction , Gourgas would not have impregnated Charles W . Moore and a few others with the

Scotch degrees ; there would never have been a Northern or Southern jurisdiction in the United States of America , and a certain house in Golden-square would never have had a big brass plate on its front door ; our American Masons would not now have been split up into a half-dozen

factions of high degreers , and our English brethren would not in a like manner have been arrayed against each other ; each party excommunicating the other ; all doubts about the genuineness of the Frederick the Great charter would have been hushed up ; the legitimacy , purity , and

orthodoxy of Cerneau ' s pretensions would not have been questioned ; Joseph Cerneau and Frederick the Great would have been venerated as the " two parallel lines " of Scotch Rite Masonry ; and last , and not least , the Grand

Lodge of Massachusetts would have been spared from committing the folly of assuming sovereignty over about forty degrees , the majority of which are antagonistic to the fundamental Masonic idea , viz ., " Masonic universality . " But the most ridiculous feature of her hypocrisy is , that

The Charlestown Mother Supreme Grand Council Of The World.

while she denounced some degrees as Masonic frauds , she hugged similar Masonic frauds to her bosom , and declared them eminently and orthodoxly Masonic . But a question may be asked ,-viz ., have the high degrees

dime no good at all ? To this I answer , Yes ; bufc only indirectly . There is an adage , viz ., " When knaves quarrel the honest man gets his own ; " and in that sense the high degrees havo served a good purpose , for their quarrels stimulate inquiry .

Up to the period in question there were scarcely any Masonic book hunters iu America , and tho then Masonic books , whether printed in England or in America , were as a rule worthless . These were , however , praised up as Masonic gospel by a few . And the many , who never

troubled themselves to read anything about Masonry , took it for granted that whatever was in a book was " gospel truth . " Looking over the writings of American Masons , I find that a reverend luminary taught in 1801 that Joseph in Egypt originated Freemasonry . In 1821 , a

Professor of Law proved that Masonry came from the Mysteries . We have any quantity of printed St . John ' s Day orations , some more absurd than the others ; but the mosfc absurd one I have ever read was delivered I believe in 1826 , by one of the most distinguished lawyers of

Boston , viz ., Rufus Cheats . But I need not look back so far as 1826 , to find Masonio ignorance . For " The American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry , " edited by Bro . Mackey in 1858 and 1859 , is , with little exception , full of all kind of learned Masonic twaddle . As to the

Masonic press in general , every editor of a Masonic paper was of course a Knight Templar , and every Knight Templar believed that he was a veritable Sir Knight , and

that Templarism was a higher degree in Masonry ; hence , every editor considered himself bound in duty to defend Templarism and other Masonic moonshines , and so both writers and readers were alike deluded .

To shine as a luminary in the Grand Lodge one had to be a Knight Templar ; and if , in addition , he knew the rituals , then he was a " bright Mason . " Grand Lodge Libraries were not in existence . They may have had the Constitutions and some printed Reports , but that was all

they cared for . Indeed , even a knowledge of the Constitutions was not essential fco Masonic greatness , for the Grand Secretary was supposed in those days to be a walking Masonic Cyclopaedia , and hence all questions about

Masonic law , usage , history , Ac , was left to the decision of that officer ; and this again tended to raise the Grand Secretary up into a Masonic Pope ; he became " the power behind the throne , greater than the throne . " Such was the case in Massachusetts , in Illinois , and in other jurisdictions .

Now , the high degreers' fight between 1860 and 1867 divided the Masons in the Northern States into hostile camps , but as our Masonic Sir Knights do not know any other mode of warfare than by quibbling , bluffing , and arguing , and as each party had to appeal to the

public , new Masonic papers were started . The new editors and new orators began to hunt after Masonic books . For seven years in succession excited Masons talked about nothing else bufc the rival bogus , spurious , illegitimate , Masonic impostures , & o . Masonic

books became a necessity to the respective combatants ; Grand Lodges began fco collect libraries ; the result was , the newly awakened readers exposed the old Masonic oracles as mere pretenders . Free discussion was necessarily followed by freedom of the Masonic press , and

although American Masons are still far from being enlightened , and I am sorry to say thafc Masonic charlatans and Masonic dreamers still abound in our midst , yefc it cannot

be said that they possess any power either to punish or coerce those who differ from them , and here is a very curious illustration of the present state of liberty of the Masonic press .

A few months ago , Bro . Carson , owner of the greatest collection of Masonic books , a Masonic student of the highest degree , and , withal , a first-rate obliging good fellow . But , unfortunately , he is steeped over head and ears in Templarism , A . ancl A ,-isms , and is a great stickler

for what he calls " the American system of Masonry ;" which means , that only what Bro . Carson calls Masonic , was Masonic . And there must not be in America any

more or less Masonics than Bro . Carson sanctions ; and that it was the bounden duty of a Masonic editor to cry up Bro . Carson ' s Masonics , and cry down all other Masonics . The editor of the Cincinnatti Masonic Beview