Table Of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Answers to "Masonic Student" > - > j COHltl-Sl-ONllENCE : — Naval and Military Brethren j ^ , The Masonic Schools j " ™ Notes on the Orders of the Temple and Hospital ... i \ u

A'otit \ x 1 emplarite ! ,,, Innovations in Masonry [ j n Festival of thc Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution ... 14 c Masonic Tidings ,. 2 Masonic Meetings for next week ... " j ^ Advertisements 133 134 13 $ r , *? fi 144 145 146 J 47 14 S

Answers To " Masonic Student.'

ANSWERS TO " MASONIC STUDENT . '

By J ACOB NORTON , of Boston , U . S . A . Bro . " Masonic Student" is courteous in his remarks , and I shall endeavour to be equally so . I am labouring , however , under a disadvantage which my friendl ) opponent is not . His

replies appeal in The Freemason . 1 week , or at most two weeks after mine , while my answers cannot appear until two months have expired after the appearance of his questions . This necessitates the reproduction of his question anti arguments .

m order , therefore , to save time , and space , I shall preface the paragraphs with our respective initials •and now for his remarks in The Freemason of November 2 , 3 rd , page 7 , 34 . M . S . — " What does Bro . Norton mean by the

Edward III . Constitution ? I have heard of many Constitutions , but never heard of this one before . " N . —Anderson says ( Hyneman ' s editon , page 59 ) , " The Constitutions wore now meliorated ; for : m old record imports that in the glorious reign of

Edward III ., when lodges were many nnd frequent , the G . M ., with his Wardens , at the head of the Grand Lodge , with the consent of the realm , then generally Freemasons , ordained . " That for the future , at the making or admission

of a brother the Constitutions shall be read , and tie charges hereunto annexed . " Here follow four paragraphs , which it is needless to transcribe , nnd these wind up with " concluding with Amen , so mote it be . "' Again , in Bro . Mackey ' s

"Text Book on Masonic Jurisprudence , " I hud the above quotation from Anderson , headed "The Constitutions of Edward III ., and followed with rive paragraphs , each regularly numbered . The fifth paragraph , which is more than twice

the length of the four preceding . I cannot lind in Anderson ' s Edward III . Constitution . This , however , is in perfect accordance with the style of most Masonic writers , that is , to add a little , and in Bro . Chalmers I . Paton ' s " Alasonic

Jurisprudence" ( which , by tlie bye , Bro . Robert Macoy , the well-known Alasonic publisher of New York , assured me was a wholesale plagiarism from the above-named work by Bro . Mackey ) , Bro . Student may also find an Edward III . Constitution .

M . S . — " When Bro . Norton goes on to say , ' We are also satisfied that the operative Alasons were an ignorant and credulous body of men , is he not speaking very wide ofthe mark , very much at random r "

N . —Certainly not , Cor if the y had not been ignorant and credulous they never would have swallowed the story of Abraham ami Euclid being contemporaries of Greens , a builder of Solomon ' s temnle , initiating Chai les Martel , etc .,

etc ., and other stories too numerous to mention . M . S . — "Is Bro . Norton aware that Master Alasons , for instance in the 1 . 3 th and 14 th centuries , received very high salaries , indeed , ranked very * often as " Generosi , " and were men

of education and position . " N .- ^ If by AIaster Masons , " my brother means the chief architect , then I shall not dispute his assertion . But the question is , can Bro . AL S . prove that the then architects ever concerned

themselves with the affairs of the working men : or even took an interest in their lodge meetings ? or were ever initiated into the mysteries of the brotherhood ? lint even supposing that our brother could prove all that , which I very much

doubt , what then ? Why , it would prove that the then architect , though * he understood certain geometrical rules , and was master of the art design required by his profession , must nevertheless have been ignorant of history and

Answers To " Masonic Student.'

cnronology , and also exceedingly credulous if he swallowed the fables handed down in the old MSS . Al . S . — " As regards the operative Alasons generally , there is also evidence to prove that they received wages considerably above the average of other Crafts . "

N . —I have asked for that evidence in my " Hints to Masonic Students , " ( Freemason , Sept . sist ) , and unless Bro . Student furnishes the source of his information , he must pardon me for doubting his opinion .

Our brother next < jives mc a dissertation on the mistake inseparable from oral traditions . That is true j but he does not seem to know that most of the Alasonic traditions had no foundation whatever , but were invented hundreds and even thousands of years after the supposed events .,

Take for instance the legend ofthe four crowned martyrs . Does Bro . S . believe that four kings who were Alasons and gravers of images , had ever suffered martyrdom for refusing to make an idol for au Emperor r—bosh . Again , wc know that Euclid flourished about three hundred years before the Christian era , and that he was a famous

mathematician , but does Hro . Student believe that there is the least foundation about his organizing the children of the Egyptian nobility ? This part of Euclid ' s doings originated in the brain of a priestly romancer of the middle ages . It was not a perversion of some former legend , but an entire new creation , and a poor creation too .

AL S . — " Bro . Norton seems to forget that the compiler nnd transcriber both of the Masonic poem and tlie additional AISS . of our so far two oldest legends were ecclesiastics , not operatives , and they only repeated and handed down wha they had seen in older AISS ., etc .

N . —In the first p lace , I cannot understand wh y Bro . S . doubts the originality of the Matthew Cooke MS . •what proof has lie that the copy in the British Museum is a transcript of some older copy . Hut supposing it to lie so ; what then ? If tlie present copy is a correct transcript of a

former one , the original one could not have been written before the latter part of tlie 1 , 5 th century , because the author , and hecer tainly deserves that appel lationas much as Anderson , Preston , Findel , Dickens , etc . ( as it is immaterial on this point whether a book contains a true narrative or

a romance ) , tlie writer must be called its author . Now , the author of the Cooke AIS . alludes to a printed chronicle , hence he must have written after the invention of printing . We know that Anderson has put many things into his book not found in the older MSS ., and which he did not learn

from the old members of the Craft . Ramsey added the Crusade legend to the history of Alasonry , some other luminiary added the story of St . John becoming G . AL when upwards of ninety years of age . Oliver also added a great deal of nonsense , and this was generally the style

among Alasonic authors until tho appearance of Bro . Findel ' s history . Some manufactured legends , for the purpose of glorifying the society and others , for the purpose of Christianizing it , why , then , should my opponent be reluctant to

admit that the authors of the oldest AISS ., were also actuated by the some motives to manufacture their legends ? True , they were not operatives , but yet they were oflicers of the lodge , and were evidently disposed to enhance its respectability . And let me assure Bro . AL S . that it was no

trifling undertaking to write a poem of such length ia thc 14 th century . The cost of thc parchment alone in those days was equal to a man ' s wages of a week or more , and this desire t « glorify the Craft doubtless induced them , as it did Anderson and others afterwards , to manufacture their legends . I must only here add , that

if the elder Disraeli had known anything of the Alasonic legends , he would doubtless have placed them in his " history of events which have not happened . " AL S . — " Were 1 to write a history of the operative Alasons in England , etc ., 1 should , judging from their works , speak far more respectfully of them than Bro . Norton does . "

N . —Were I to write such a history , I would divest it of every particle of partisanship , and would endeavour to give the truth , thc whole and nothing but the truth . AL S . —When Bro . Norton says , we know now

Answers To " Masonic Student.'

that their Masonry is not our Masonry ! What does he , what can he mean ? N . —Simply this , that our ceremonies , signs , ice , as well as the reli gious ideas of our charges , were not those of the operatives . Suppose , now , that either of the authors ofthe oldest MSS . was

again brought to life , and attempted to visit a lodge , his signs , & c , would not get him or them admission ; they would be marched off from the door as impostors . Supposing still further that the whole or either of theirlodges was resuscitated and Bro . Alasonic Student attempted to visit the

said lodge , he would in a like manner be treated as a cowan . Suppose , however , in the course of his remonstrances with either of the rev . authors ofthe oldest AISS ., Bro . Student was to declare that "Alasonry unites men of every sect and opinion , " & c , I veril y believe that his reverence

upon hearing this , would order immediately two or more of the stoutest bricklayers in lodge to seize poor Bro . Student , and would have him sent to the ecclesiastical authorities to be disposed of in Smithfield as other heretics used to be disposed of in those days . The charge of the

operatives was " to be true to the Church , " which in those days meant to hate every one who dissented from its creed , while our charge enjoins to unite the good and true of every creed , hence our Alasonry was not their Alasonry . M . S . — " To ignore the operative connection is ,

•. . . to cut away completely the ground from beneath our feet , historically . " N . —I have nowhere denied the connection of the modern society of Freemasons with the operatives , but have always intimated that one is a development of the other , but yet I

maintun that there is a wide difference between the two . For instance , there are certain creatures that are hatched in water , they live , eat , and grow in water ; water , is as much their element as it is ofthe tinny tribes , but at a certain period those creatures burst their skins , from which

issues a mosquito , or a lly of some other shape ; this new developement changes its nature entirely , and if it is then forced to descend to the bottom of a glass of water , it is surel y drowned . The religious teachings of the Alasons of the middle ages was intolerance to all who did not believe

in the Catholic Church ; the teachings of tha early Protestant Alasons in England ; werejust as intolerant as those ofthe Catholic times , but our Alasonry is based on universality , and to attempt to introduce their ' sectarian / logmas into our lodges will as surely tend to destroy the life of the

institution as that of the mosquito when forced to immerge in water . Bro . Student refers to a discussion carried on by himself and others in the Freemasons' Magazine and The Freemason , relative to the 1717 theory . I confess that [ have not read thc discussion in

the former , but I did read the discussion in The Freemason . I further confess , that I never could understand wherein Bros . Buchan and Ilughnn really differed . They both agree that the operatives had secret signs , & c , also that Anderson Desaugliers and others were initiated Jin

one or more of these lodges ; also that the then Alasons conferred but one degree , and they differ simply in this : —one maintains that the 1717 epoch , should be called a revival , and the other calls it a creation . But so far as I can judge , Hro . Student differed with both the above named

brethren , by maintaining the antiquity of the thirtl degree , and he must pardon my frankness , that in that discussion he assigned the same degree of importance which he does in the present one , viz ., of asserting , without proving . Thus in The Freemason of September , 1871 , Bro . Buchan said' ( Bro . Student ) " has for a

long tune been a capital promiser but a very poor performer ; he is always going to produce something in the indisputable way , but somehow it never comes . " And Bro . Hughan , in the "' Kingston Annual , " is no less severe in his remarks . Bro . Hughan says : — " We find that Alasonic Student in the Freemasons' Magazine declares that he has numismatic evidence of the

antiquity < n the second part of the third degree , coeval with the operative lodges of the York Alasons , certainl y in the 15 th century , . . . and although we have since , and during the discussion in which this statement formed a part , frequently asked for such evidence , or indeed for any evidence that would prove or even shadow forth the