Multum In Parbo, Or Masonic Notes And Queries.

Multum in Parbo , or Masonic Notes and Queries .

THE RED CROSS OF CONSTANTINE . I am happy to explain to your correspondent " jSTemo" that I used the title " old" Masonic Red Cross Order for the purpose of distinguishin ? is from the " new " Masonic Constantinian

Order . I referred to a Red Cross Order , a venerable member of which I met some five years since at Cheltenham . He wore , as the decoration of the Order , a gold Greek cross , enamelled red . He told me simply that it was

the jewel of the Masonic Red Cross Order . I believe he had been a member for half a century . The same cross is indicated in the only published document found in the celebrated box . Whether this was the " Red Cross of Babylon "

or not , I am incompetent to say ; but perhaps some brother can inform us whether the decoration of the latter Order is a plain red cross of the Greek form ? If so , they are no doubt identical . The " Constantinian " part of the business is ,

I take it , an entirely modern invention . Bro . "Nemo " will find in ihe Freemasons ' Magazine the correspondence which first occasioned my using the term "Old" Red Cross Order . LUPUS .

NINE INDIVIDUALS THE RULING POWER OVER ALL LEGITIMATE LODGES . Your contemporary informs Freemasons that , " The Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand Inspectors General , 33 ° , of the Ancient Accepted

Rite , " is the " ruling power over all legitimate lodges , chapters , etc . " I confess , although a Craft Mason for nearly fifteen years , and a Royal Arch Mason for over twelve years , this is-the first time I ever heard that they had any

jurisdiction whatever over either lodges or chapters . Perhaps one of the nine members will kindly explain how , and by what authority , they claim to be " the ruling power overall legitimate lodges and chapters" ? A ROYAL ARCH COMPANION .

HONORARY MEMBERSHIP . Honorary membership is quite a recent invention , and should only be conferred as a mark of distinction on brethren of great talents or merits , who have been of service , by their

labours or their writings , to the Fraternity . It confers no power on the recipient like those which are the results of full membership , and

amounts to no more than a testimonial of the esteem and respect entertained by the lodge which confers it , for the individual upon whom it is conferred . CHALMERS I . PATON .

THE WORD AND CEREMONIES OF THE EARLY

CHRISTIANS . "The secret word which the associated brethren used among themselves for purposes of mutual recognition and confirmation was Maranal / ia , ' The Lord will come . ' They fancied that

they remembered a declaration of Jesus , according to which their preaching would not have time to reach all the- towns of Israel before the Son of Man appeared in his Majesty . Baptism was the sign of entrance into the sect . The rite

was the same in form as the baptism of John , but it was administered in the name of Jesus . Baptism was , however , considered an insufficient initiation into the Society . It should be followed by a conferring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit ,

which was produced ny means of a prayer pronounced by the apostles over the head of the neophyte , with the imposition of hands . This imposition of hands , already so familiar to Jesus ( Matthew xix . 13 , Markx . 16 , Luke iv . 40 ) , was the crowning sacramental act . " B .

OPERATIVE AND SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY . At page 345 , Bro . Hughan says : " I believe strongly that the ' true history of Freemasonry in this country is the history of an operative body . '" Now , / believe that such is not the case , so far as our system of speculative Freemasonry is con-

Multum In Parbo, Or Masonic Notes And Queries.

cerned ; and I should like Bro . Hughan to prove his asse 2 tion . I challenge him to prove that there was any more of our Freemasonry among the pre-eighteenth-century masons than there was among the coeval carpenters or tailors ?

I am aware the old " masons ' had a word , but what that one particular , word was I do not know—only I have been led to understand it had nothing to do with any of the words belonging to our system . W . P . B .

TOLERATION BEFORE 1717 . Toleration is a great principle of our Freemasonry . We find it enunciated as the " Great Fundamental " in the series of twenty-four

articles which William Penn drew out in 1681 as the constitution of his new colony , Pennsylvania . The idea was noble and humane , and deserved success . * W . P . B .

THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE . The legend of King Arthur and the Round Table is always an inviting subject for the poets ; and we know not how many have tried their hands at it with more or less success . Mr .

Tennyson has added to his laurels largely in his "Idylls of the King ; " and Lord Lytton has followed not ignobly in the wake of the Laureate . But we have a slight quarrel to pick with these Arthurian singers . We hear of the good Sit

Lancelot , and Galahad the pure ; but where is Tom Thumb ? From the sublime to the ridiculous is proverbially an easy descent ; but the fact remains , that the original Tom Thumb—foi Mr . Stratton is not the original Simon Pure

after all , whatever Mr . Barnum may say to the contrary—the real , original Tom Thumb was an important character at King Arthur's Round Table . A work was printed in the year 1630 , which bears the following title : — " Tom Thumb ,

his Life and Death : wherein is declared many maruailous Acts of Manhood , full of Wonder and strange Merriments . Which little . Knight lived in King Arthur's time , and famous in the Court of Great Brittaine ! " It begins thus : —

In Arthur ' s court Tom Thumb did Hue , A man of niickle might ; The best of all the Table Round , And eke a doughty knight .

His stature but an inch in height , Or quarter of a span ; Then think you not this little knight Was proved a valiant man ?

Freemasonry And Judaism.

FREEMASONRY AND JUDAISM .

Our Brother Carpenter has done well in introducing to the notice of the Craft the anomalous fact that Freemasonry , so much believed in by Christian professors , should derive all its charms from the Hebrew ritual , which they affect to despise as a thing of the past , and which has been

tried and found wanting . I do not know upon what logic they base such a result , but so it is . My firm impression is , and I take scripture as my authority , that the law as given by Moses nearly 3 , 400 years ago , is as much in force now , and the awful words pronounced then as much

concern us now , as they did the wandering tribe of Heber then ; and that we shall be rewarded or punished as we have obeyed or disregarded these Divine laws . "The law of Jehovah is perfect , converting the soul , " is the inspired language of David . " Think not that I have come to

destroy the law and the prophets ; I am not come to destroy , but to fulfil , " were the words used among the first sentences uttered by Divine lips upon the Mount of Beatitudes . The internal or spiritual meaning of that law is faintly shadowed forth by the display and setting forth

of the ornaments , furniture , and jewels of outlodge , and the ritual of our R . A . ceremony . The arrangements of both Craft and Arch lodges are no doubt faulty and conglomerous , and many innovations have been made to suit our notions

of ease and handiness , than by the rigid rule of the science which dictated it . Our lodge should be set out on the model of a Jewish synagogue ( I am not a Jew ) , and that I think is meant to be in accordance with the Tabernacle in the wilder-

Freemasonry And Judaism.

ness , which became afterwards the perfect model for the building of King Solomon ' s Temple . The Almighty gave strict commandment to Moses how to make all those things : " And see and make in the form of those things

which thou wast made to see in the mount . ' [ The critic will observe here that the preposi-IS in not on . ] One of the oldest aphorisms we have is from Thales , one of the reputed seven wise men of Greece . He said : " There is nothing in

heaven but is also on the earth , but in an earthly degree ; and there is nothing on the earth but is also in heaven , but in an heavenly degree ;" and no doubt the aphorism was borrowed from the Hebrews . It could not have been an earthly

pattern that Moses " was made to see in the mount ;" it must therefore have been a vision of the spiritual world ; and , if so , a lesson to us of the life and habits of spiritual beings . I believe

that much concern is taken by the Jewish priesthood to preserve the identical arrangements of the tabernacle , although it is asserted by Jew and Gentile that the Talmudistic gloss has defaced much of its original purity .

The Jewish history may be called a macrosmatic history , since the history of every known nation , ancient or modern , is identified with the Jew . With Terah the . Noetic dynasty appears to have closed , and the , to us , world's history

seems to open . The descendants of Noah appear to have sunk into the grossest idolatry , and Abraham was called to be the harbinger of a new theism , which should acknowledge the one only true God and His triune essence . In no

history can the workings of Divine Providence be more beautifully displayed than in the Almighty ' s dealings with the Jewish people . Abram was called to leave his father's home , his household gods , and all dear to him , and go into a

land of which he knew nothing , on the bare promise that his seed after him should inherit that land and become a great and mighty people . The nomadic life led by the patriarchs prevented , all intercourse with the outer world . The patriarch

was the Sheik or the family , and they had little intercourse with other tribes . Abraham appears to have been very scrupulous in this respect , by refusing to bury his dead with the dead of another powerful tribe ; and the care he took to

procure a wife for his son Isaac out of his own country and kindred . The cruel and treacherous murder of the Shechemites was occasioned by strong feeling which the Hebrew tribe had against intermixture with any other tribe , either

in life or death , as they only had received the covenant of circumcision . By a series of provident steps , upon which even the infantine mind loves to dwell , we find this simple-minded pastoral people brought into contact with the

most scientific and polished nations upon the earth . The introduction of Jacob to Pharoah is , perhaps , as touching a scene as any recorded in sacred history . " How old art thou ? " was the question put by Pharoah ; and mark the

sublimity of the reply : " Few and evil have the days and years of my life been . " And at the close of the interview , the aged patriarch blessed Pharoah , who was the mightiest ruler on the earth , " and went out from before him . " Jacob ,

true to his traditions , would not mix his bones with the bones of the stranger , nor would his son Joseph after him . The death of Jacob was considered to be a great calamity , and his funeral was attended by the chief rulers of the country ,

who gave it the name of " Abel Mizraim , or the " Mourning of Egypt . " I have alluded to this because I have observed through the medium of THE FREEMASON that among the many exotics that have lately been produced in Masonry there is one called the " Rite of Mizraim , "

and I have wondered what could be its meaning . In my endeavours to find out , I find that Mizraim was the son of Ham , who was the son of Noah . The antecedents of Ham are not proposing . It must be borne in mind by all biblical readers that in the Sacred Volume the

word NAME denotes a principle , either good or bad , and that the word city corresponds to doctrine , and that to build a city corresponds to the establishment or foundinga school of thought . In this sense it has been asserted that Mizraim was the founder of those called the Magi , or as