CHAPTER XXIV

ARCANA OF THE PERIOD
There are radical differences between the degree system of this period and the present time. Because of the secrecy surrounding the ritual it is impossible to know the whole story or to write it even if we did know it.
Let us first collate what little there is to guide us and draw our conclusions afterwards.
As early as June 24, 1731, we have the record of an “entrance’’ fee.
On July 30, 1733, certain Brethren signed a petition in which it was recited that some of them were ‘“‘made here.” The words “entered” and “made” have a tech- nical reference to the first degree, which is now familiar by constant use.
The word “admitted” appears first on October 24, 1733, meaning then as now “admitted to membership in a Lodge,” but having no reference to any degree.
The earliest American By-Laws or Regulations of a Lodge were adopted October 24, 1733, but there is no reference therein to any degrees. We find that Masons were “made” and a certain limited number of them were “admitted.” Nothing more until February 9, 1736/7, when the degree of Fellow-Craft is mentioned for the first time. ‘The language of the vote quoted under that date, above, shows that the second degree had thereto- fore been worked. It is more than three years and a half later, however, before we have any written record
of the working of this degree. ‘Then, in Portsmouth, 373
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New Hampshire, “Capt. Andrew Tombes was made a Mason and razsed to a Fellow-Craft.” (The italics are mine.) From then on there is confusion in terminology. Sometimes Brethren are recorded as ‘made Fellow Craft,” more often “raised Fellow Craft.” On July 22, 1747, Brother McKenzie was “Rais’d Fellow Craft in due Form” and yet when Brother Pelham made up his list (1751) he says that Brother McKenzie was “‘pass’d Fellow Craft.» From and after October 11, 1749, the record of the First Lodge in Boston usually uses the word “passed” when referring to the second degree, although as late as December 22, 1749, we still find ‘“‘raised Fel- low Craft.”
The records which we have of Tun Tavern Lodge, Philadelphia, beginning June 28, 1749, use the words “entered,” “passed”’ and ‘“‘raised’”’ as we use them now.
Those who are familiar with the history of the ritual and its development in England, Ireland and Scotland, will at once, I think, conclude rightly that the first de- gree, in these early days in America, contained what has now been expanded into the first and second; also that the second degree corresponds to what is now the third. But few Brethren advanced beyond Entered Apprentices, upon which degree all general business was transacted.
But what shall we say when we find a Masters Lodge constituted December 22, 1738% Before then the only references to Masters were to the Masters of Lodges. The Masters, who were then in Boston, gathered together to form “The Masters Lodge.” It is practically certain that the founders of this Lodge had not all been actual presiding Masters of Lodges. All then in Boston who are known to have been such are recorded as present at
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the first regular meeting, January 2, 1738/9, but there were others. At the next monthly meeting, with ten present and Henry Price in the Chair, George Monerieff was “raised a Master.” Under the By-Laws of the Lodge, the candidate had to pass an examination in open Lodge on the two previous degrees before he could be advanced. He must, accordingly, prove that he had pre- viously been “raised a Fellow Craft.’”’ What then was the Masters’ degree? Again we must appeal to the ritualistic history of Freemasonry in the British Isles. I believe the answer to be that the degree worked by the Masters Lodge was what is sometimes known as the “Chair Degree” or installation of a Master, absorbed nowadays in the United States by the Royal Arch Chap- ter and transformed into the degree of “Past Master.”
Until nearly the end of the eighteenth century the Masters’ degree was conferred in Boston by this Masters Lodge, which was the child of the ‘Moderns’ and by another Masters Lodge which met under the charter of the Lodge of St. Andrew, which was the child of the Grand Lodge of Scotland which in the second half of the eighteenth century had affiliations with the “Antients’ and used a similar ritual. Even to-day the degree of ‘Past Master” is conferred by authority of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania upon Brethren who never have been elected to preside over a Lodge.
Here I begin to tread upon dangerous ground, for if I write anything plainly enough for the initiated to understand, it must not be said in a way whereby it may become legible or intelligible to the profane. Let me attempt it by saying that there were many clauses in the Fellow-craft degree of the middle of the eighteenth century which are only to be found in the present third
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degree. If the Master Mason of to-day could transport himself back to that period and see the second degree worked, he would, for instance, hear distinct allusions to five points of fellowship. And why, indeed, should not these things which appertain to fellowship be imparted to a Fellow of the Craft? Likewise, he would have found in the making, not in the crafting, the inculcation of charity toward a worthy brother. Many other clauses of our present second would have been found in the then first, many of the third in the then second. ‘These things we learn from across the sea. The actual ritual of the early days in America is an unfathomable mystery, ex- cept what we learn by applying our present knowledge gained through generations of instructive tongues, atten- tive ears and not too accurate memories to the few known American facts hereinbefore mentioned, and to the re- sults of studies of the situation in London at the time of the emigration from there of the founders of Masonry here.
Those who brought Freemasonry from England to New England, to Pennsylvania, to South Carolina, to Georgia, to New York, and to its other earliest homes in what is now the United States, came here before the drastic changes in ritual made by the English Grand Lodge about the end of the fourth decade of the eight- eenth century.
Due largely to some alleged exposés and to the un- willingness of certain Lodges located within its juris- diction to yield allegiance and submission, the Grand Lodge of England, between 1730 and 1740, but prin- cipally in 1739,
(1) Abolished the installation ceremony of the Wor- shipful Master;
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(2) Handed some of the secrets of the office of In- stalled Master over to the third degree;
(3) Remodelled the third degree;
(4) Exchanged certain vital secrets between the first and second degrees;
(5) Essentially changed the symbolism of prepara-~ tion;
(6) Materially condensed the lectures;
(7) Omitted and cut down parts of the ceremonies; and
(8) Made some minor additions.
These ritualistic changes and some structural altera- tions in Grand Lodge gave occasion for a Masonic war. A rival Grand Lodge sprang up in 1751, called them- selves the ‘‘Antients,’’ dubbed the older body the ““Mod- erns,’ and grew in number and power. They propa- gated the art both in England and America, and even gained international alliances alienating other grand bodies from the ‘“‘Moderns.”
The changes made by the “Moderns” and the strength of the “Antients’” both had their influence in America. The effect was felt more especially later than the period with which this book deals. The changes of 1739 doubt- less found their way across the sea more or less during the following decade. Visits were constantly being ex- changed, new deputations were being issued covering various parts of the new world, and new Lodges were being constituted.
Doubtless the Masters Lodge was one of the results of this period of transition. But what happened here has never been put in writing, full records were not kept, and what few books of record were made are mostly lost. There is little more which probably can ever be
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said on the subject, for the radical changes were aban- doned when, on April 12, 1809, the Grand Lodge (Moderns) voted: “‘That this Grand Lodge do agree in opinion with the Committee of Charity that it is not necessary any longer to continue in force those measures which were resorted to in or about the year 1739 respect- ing irregular Masons, and do therefore enjoin the sev- eral lodges to revert to the Antient Landmarks of the Society.” Reconciliation, amalgamation, unity and har- mony did not come, in England, until 1813, although in the United States it soon followed the close of the Revo- lutionary War.
The facts stated in this chapter are demonstrable. The conclusions are my own inferences from the few, the very few, known facts, and are offered merely for what they are worth.
NoTE: See discussion by Ball in 5 Q.C.A. 136; “The difference be- tween English and Irish Rituals treated Historically,’ by J. H. Lepper, published by Irish Lodge of Research, 200, in 1920; “The Causes of Divergence in Ritual,” by Roscoe Pound, 1915 Mass. 143, reprinted in The Builder for November, 1917.