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Article ANECDOTES. ← Page 2 of 2
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Anecdotes.
pain of death , to withdraw ( before five moments ) the bandage which he hacl on his eyes . The history adds , that after this event , he lost his reason . As for us , we believe that he lost it before ; ancl we are so much the more sorry for him , as , apparently , he would have been received as a Mason , at the end of this trial , by those who played this trick upon him . The poor man imagines that he has made a niche ; ancl it is
probable , on the contrary , that it was a niche which had been made for him ; and that the subterranean place which has caused him so much fear , was nothing more than a Lodge of Masons , where his friends amused themselves by rendering him a fool . "
RECONCILIATION BY FREEMASONRY . —The anecdote which follows is related in a manuscript of 1740 , entitled " The Freemason . " The two last candidates were churchmen , of contrary parties , both valiant champions in the field of controversy ; more than once they had written against each other without coming to an agreement . In their works the brilliancy of their wit had shone at the expense of the sentiments of the heart ; in a word , their different -ways of thinking and writing on
religion had made them irreconcilable enemies . But , by ( if we may so say ) a miracle unheard of except in the temples of friendship , when the subject at issue between these two new Brothers was to pass the signs , touches , and the words , every member of the Lodge ( attentive to the event ) was affected and delighted when they beheld them mutually begging a thousand pardons , embracing each other , and drowning in a torrent of tears even the least causes of division , after they hacl sworn eternal friendship . A Brother present declared a similar circumstance had occurred in another Lodge at which he had assisted .
TRAIT OF MASONIC GENEROSITY . —Smith states , in his book entitled "Use and Abuse of Masonry , " published iu 1785 , "there are several Lodges at Prague under the direction of Scotland , or at least they call themselves Scotch . The first which 1 became acquainted with is that of 1749 . A Scotch officer , in the service of Prussia , was made prisoner at the battle of Lutzen ; as this officer was recognized as a Mason , he had permission to go out of the prison , and dine every day with the best
society of Prague . Three months after , an exchange of prisoners was made , the Scotch officer was included in the list , ancl as the Brothers of Prague knew he was deprived , from want of money , of the means of travelling comfortably , they begged him to accept a purse from them which contained sixty ducats . This circumstance , " adds Smith , " was communicated to me by the officer himself , in a letter dated Glasgow , the 13 th May , 1760 . " .
A MASONIC ORIGIN . —If at the table of the Lodge a Brother commits a fault , he is condemned by the Venerable to drink a glass of water mixed with weak powder , and the instrument of punishment is presented to him b y the Master of the Ceremonies . This usage is traced to the farthest antiquity . " The fable informs us , " says Bailly , in his Essay on Fables , " that in the celestial legion they followed the same rule . The gods who perjured themselves , after having sworn by the Styx , were condemned to drink a cup of this poisoned water ; the cup was presented to them by Isis . "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Anecdotes.
pain of death , to withdraw ( before five moments ) the bandage which he hacl on his eyes . The history adds , that after this event , he lost his reason . As for us , we believe that he lost it before ; ancl we are so much the more sorry for him , as , apparently , he would have been received as a Mason , at the end of this trial , by those who played this trick upon him . The poor man imagines that he has made a niche ; ancl it is
probable , on the contrary , that it was a niche which had been made for him ; and that the subterranean place which has caused him so much fear , was nothing more than a Lodge of Masons , where his friends amused themselves by rendering him a fool . "
RECONCILIATION BY FREEMASONRY . —The anecdote which follows is related in a manuscript of 1740 , entitled " The Freemason . " The two last candidates were churchmen , of contrary parties , both valiant champions in the field of controversy ; more than once they had written against each other without coming to an agreement . In their works the brilliancy of their wit had shone at the expense of the sentiments of the heart ; in a word , their different -ways of thinking and writing on
religion had made them irreconcilable enemies . But , by ( if we may so say ) a miracle unheard of except in the temples of friendship , when the subject at issue between these two new Brothers was to pass the signs , touches , and the words , every member of the Lodge ( attentive to the event ) was affected and delighted when they beheld them mutually begging a thousand pardons , embracing each other , and drowning in a torrent of tears even the least causes of division , after they hacl sworn eternal friendship . A Brother present declared a similar circumstance had occurred in another Lodge at which he had assisted .
TRAIT OF MASONIC GENEROSITY . —Smith states , in his book entitled "Use and Abuse of Masonry , " published iu 1785 , "there are several Lodges at Prague under the direction of Scotland , or at least they call themselves Scotch . The first which 1 became acquainted with is that of 1749 . A Scotch officer , in the service of Prussia , was made prisoner at the battle of Lutzen ; as this officer was recognized as a Mason , he had permission to go out of the prison , and dine every day with the best
society of Prague . Three months after , an exchange of prisoners was made , the Scotch officer was included in the list , ancl as the Brothers of Prague knew he was deprived , from want of money , of the means of travelling comfortably , they begged him to accept a purse from them which contained sixty ducats . This circumstance , " adds Smith , " was communicated to me by the officer himself , in a letter dated Glasgow , the 13 th May , 1760 . " .
A MASONIC ORIGIN . —If at the table of the Lodge a Brother commits a fault , he is condemned by the Venerable to drink a glass of water mixed with weak powder , and the instrument of punishment is presented to him b y the Master of the Ceremonies . This usage is traced to the farthest antiquity . " The fable informs us , " says Bailly , in his Essay on Fables , " that in the celestial legion they followed the same rule . The gods who perjured themselves , after having sworn by the Styx , were condemned to drink a cup of this poisoned water ; the cup was presented to them by Isis . "