CHAPTER III

Accepted Masons I
HATEVER may be dim in the history of
Freemasonry, and in the nature of things much must remain hidden, its symbolism may be traced in unbroken succession through the cen- turies; and its symbolism is its soul. So much is this true, that it may almost be said that had the order ceased to exist in the period when it was at its height, its symbolism would have survived and de- veloped, so deeply was it wrought into the mind of mankind. When, at last, the craft finished its labors and laid down its tools, its symbols, having served the faith of the worker, became a language for the thoughts of the thinker.
Few realize the service of the science of numbers to the faith of man in the morning of the world, when he sought to find some kind of key to the mighty maze of things. Living amidst change and seeming chance, he found in the laws of numbers a path by which to escape the awful sense of life as a series of accidents in the hands of a capricious
*
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Power; and, when we think of it, his insight was not invalid. “All things are in numbers,” said the wise Pythagoras; “the world is a living arithmetic in its development —a realized geometry in its re- pose.” Nature is a realm of numbers; crystals are solid geometry. Music, of all arts the most divine and exalting, moves with measured step, using geo- metrical figures, and cannot free itself from num- bers without dying away into discord. Surely it is not strange that a science whereby men obtained such glimpses of the unity and order of the world should be hallowed among them, imparting its form to their faith. Having revealed so much, mathe- matics came to wear mystical meanings in a way . quite alien to our prosaic habit of thinking — faith in our day having betaken itself to other symbols. Equally so was it with the art of building —a living allegory in which man imitated in miniature
1 There is a beautiful lecture on the moral meaning of Geometry by Dr. Hutchinson, in The Spirit of Masonry —one of the oldest, as it is one of the noblest, books in our Masonic literature. Plu- tarch reports Plato as saying, “God is always geometrizing” (Diog. Laert., iv, 2). Elsewhere Plato remarks that “Geometry rightly treated is the knowledge of the Eternal” (Republic, 527b), and over the porch of his Academy at Athens he wrote the words, “Let no one who is ignorant of Geometry enter my doors.” So Aristotle and all the ancient thinkers, whether in Egypt or India. Pythag- oras, Proclus tells us, was concerned only with number and mag- nitude: number absolute, in arithmetic; number applied, in music; and so forth— whereof we read in the Old Charges (see “The Great Symbol,” by Klein, 4. Q. C., x, 82).
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the world-temple, and sought by every device to dis- cover the secret of its stability. Already we have shown how, from earliest times, the simple symbols of the builder became a part of the very life of hu- manity, giving shape to its thought, its faith, its dream. Hardly a language but bears their impress, as when we speak of a Rude or Polished mind, of an Upright man who is a Pillar of society, of the Level of equality, or the Golden Rule by which we would Square our actions. They are so natural, so inevit- able, and so eloquent withal, that we use them with- out knowing it. Sages have always been called Builders, and it was no idle fancy when Plato and Pythagoras used imagery drawn from the art of building to utter their highest thought. Every- where in literature, philosophy, and life it is so, and naturally so. Shakespeare speaks of “square-men,” and when Spenser would build in stately lines the Castle of Temperance, he makes use of the Square, Circle, and Triangle: * The frame thereof seem’d partly circulaire And part triangular: O work divine! Those two the first and last proportions are; The one imperfect, mortal, feminine.
The other immortal, perfect, masculine, And twixt them both a quadrate was the base,
1 Faerie Queene, bk. ii; canto ix, 22.
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Proportion’d equally by seven and nine; Nine was the circle set in heaven’s place All which compacted made a goodly diapase.
During the Middle Ages, as we know, men rev- elled in symbolism, often of the most recondite kind, and the emblems of Masonry are to be found all through the literature, art, and thought of that time. Not only on cathedrals, tombs, and monu- ments, where we should expect to come upon them, but in the designs and decorations of dwellings, on vases, pottery, and trinkets, in the water-marks used by paper-makers and printers, and even as initial let- ters in books — everywhere one finds the old, famil- iar emblems.* Square, Rule, Plumb-line, the per- fect Ashlar, the two Pillars, the Circle within the parallel lines, the Point within the Circle, the Com- passes, the Winding Staircase, the numbers Three, Five, Seven, Nine, the double Triangle — these and other such symbols were used alike by Hebrew Kabbalists and Rosicrucian Mystics. Indeed, so abundant is the evidence —if the matter were in dispute and needed proof — especially after the re- vival of symbolism under Albertus Magnus in 1249,
1Lost Language of Symbolism, by Bayley, also A New Light on the Renaissance, by the same author; Architecture of the Renats- sance in England, by J. A. Gotch; and “Notes on Some Masonic Symbols,” by W. H. Rylands, A. Q. C., viii, 84. Indeed, the litera- ture is as prolific as the facts.
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that a whole book might be filled with it. Typical are the lines left by a poet who, writing in 1623, sings of God as the great Logician whom the con- clusion never fails, and whose counsel rules without command: *
Therefore can none foresee his end
Unless on God is built his hope.
And if we here below would learn
By Compass, Needle, Square, and Plumb,
We never must o’erlook the mete
Wherewith our God hath measur’d us.
For all that, there are those who never weary of trying to find where, in the misty mid-region of con- jecture, the Masons got their immemorial emblems. One would think, after reading their endless essays, that the symbols of Masonry were loved and pre- served by all the world—except by the Masons themselves. Often these writers imply, if they do not actually assert, that our order begged, borrow- ed, or cribbed its emblems from Kabbalists or Rosi- crucians, whereas the truth is exactly the other way round—those impalpable fraternities, whose vague, fantastic thought was always seeking a local habi- tation and a body, making use of the symbols of Masonry the better to reach the minds of men. Why
1J. V. Andreae, Ehreneich Hohenfelder von Aister Haimb. A verbatim translation of the second line quoted would read, “Unless in God he has his building.”
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all this unnecessary mystery — not to say mystifica- tion — when the facts are so plain, written in rec- ords and carved in stone? While Kabbalists were contriving their curious cosmogonies, the Masons went about their work, leaving record of their sym- bols in deeds, not in creeds, albeit holding always to their simple faith, and hope, and duty — as in the lines left on an old brass Square, found in an an- cient bridge near Limerick, bearing date of 1517:
Strive to live with love and care Upon the Level, by the Square.
Some of our Masonic writers — more than one likes to admit — have erred by confusing Freema- sonry with Guild-masonry, to the discredit of the
1 When, for example, Albert Pike, in his letter, “Touching Ma- sonic Symbolism,” speaks of the “poor, rude, unlettered, unculti- vated working Stone-masons,” who attended the Assemblies, he is ob- viously confounding Free-masons with the rough Stone-masons of the Guilds. Over against these words, read a brilliant article in the Contemporary Review, October, 1913, by L. M. Phillips; en- titled, “The Two Ways of Building,’ showing how the Free-masons, instead of working under architects outside the order, chose the finer minds among them as leaders and created the different styles of architecture in Europe. “Such,” he adds, “was the high limit of talent and intelligence which the creative spirit fostered among workmen. . . The entire body being trained and educated in the same principles and ideas, the most backward and inefficient, as they worked at the vaults which their own skillful brethren had planned, might feel the glow of satisfaction arising from the con- scious realization of their own aspirations. Thus the whole body of constructive knowledge maintained its unity. . . Thus it was by free associations of workmen training their own leaders that
ACCEPTED MASONS ro
former. Even Oliver once concluded that the secrets of the working Masons of the Middle Ages were none other than the laws of Geometry — hence the letter G; forgetting, it would seem, that Geometry had mystical meanings for them long since lost to us. As well say that the philosophy of Pythagoras was repeating the Multiplication Table! Albert Pike held that we are “not warranted in assuming that, among Masons generally —in the body of Masonry —the symbolism of Freemasonry is of earlier date then 1717.” * Surely that is toerr. If we had only the Mason’s Marks that have come down to us, nothing else would be needed to prove it an error. Of course, for deeper minds all em- blems have deeper meanings, and there may have been many Masons who did not fathom the sym- bolism of the order. No more do we; but the sym- bolism itself, of hoar antiquity, was certainly the common inheritance and treasure of the working Masons of the Lodges in England and Scotland be- fore, indeed centuries before, the year 1717.
the great Gothic edifices of the medieval ages were construct- ed. . . Astyle so imaginative and so spiritual might almost be the dream of a poet or the vision of a saint. Really it is the creation of the sweat and labor of workingmen, and every iota of the bold- ness, dexterity and knowledge which it embodies was drawn out of the practical experience and experiments of manual labor.” This describes the Comacine Masters, but not the poor, rude, unlettered Stone-masons whom Pike had in mind. 1Letter “Touching Masonic Symbolism.”
160 THE BUILDERS II
Therefore it is not strange that men of note and learning, attracted by the wealth of symbolism in Masonry, as well as by its spirit of fraternity — perhaps, also, by its secrecy — began at an early date to ask to be accepted as members of the order: hence Accepted Masons.* How far back the cus- tom of admitting such men to the Lodges goes is not clear, but hints of it are discernible in the oldest documents of the order; and this whether or no we accept as historical the membership of Prince Ed- win in the tenth century, of whom the Regius Poem says,
Ot speculatyfe he was a master. This may only mean that he was amply skilled in the knowledge, as well as the practice, of the art, although, as Gould points out, the Regius MS con- tains intimations of thoughts above the heads of many to whom it was read.* Similar traces of Ac- cepted Masons are found in the Cooke MS, com- piled in 1400 or earlier. Hope suggests * that the
1 Some Lodges, however, would never admit such members. As late as April 24, 1786, two brothers were proposed as members of Domatic Lodge, No. 177, London, and were rejected because they were not Operative Masons (History Lion and Lamb Lodge, 192, London, by Abbott).
2“On the Antiquity of Masonic Symbolism,” 4. Q. C., iii, 7.
3 Historical Essay on Architecture, chap. xxi.
ACCEPTED MASONS FOI
earliest members of this class were ecclesiastics who wished to study to be architects and designers, so as to direct the erection of their own churches; the more so, since the order had “‘so high and sacred a destination, was so entirely exempt from all local, civil jurisdiction,” and enjoyed the sanction and pro- tection of the Church. Later, when the order was in disfavor with the Church, men of another sort — scholars, mystics, and lovers of liberty — sought its degrees.
At any rate, the custom began early and contin- ued through the years, until Accepted Masons were in the majority. Noblemen, gentlemen, and schol- ars entered the order as Speculative Masons, and held office as such in the old Lodges, the first name recorded in actual minutes being John Boswell, who was present as a member of the Lodge of Edin- burgh in 1600. Of the forty-nine names on the roll of the Lodge of Aberdeen in 1670, thirty-nine were Accepted Masons not in any way connected with the building trade. In England the earliest refer- ence to the initiation of a Speculative Mason, in Lodge minutes, is of the year 1641. On the 2oth of May that year, Robert Moray, “General Quarter- master of the Armie off Scottland,” as the record runs, was initiated at Newcastle by members of the “Lodge of Edinburgh,” who were with the Scottish
ie THE BUILDERS
Army. A still more famous example was that of Ashmole, whereof we read in the Memoirs of the Life of that Learned Antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Drawn up by Himself by Way of Diary, published in 1717, which contains two entries as follows, the first dated in 1646: Octob 16.4 Hor. 30 Minutes post merid. I was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Colonel Henry Wainwaring of Kartichain in Cheshire; the names of those that were there at the Lodge, Mr. Richard Panket Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Richard San- key, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Richard Ellam and Hugh Brewer.
Such is the record, italics and all; and it has been shown, by hunting up the wills of the men present, that the members of the Warrington Lodge in 1646 were, nearly all of them — every one in fact, so far as is known — Accepted Masons. Thirty-five years pass before we discover the only other Masonic en- tries in the Diary, dated March, 1682, which read as follows:
About 5 p. m. I received a Summons to appear at a Lodge to be held the next day, at Masons Hall, London. Accordingly I went, and about Noone were admitted into the Fellowship of Free Masons, Sir. William Wilson, Knight, Capt. Richard Borthwick, Mr. Will. Woodman, Mr. Wm. Grey, M. Samuell Taylor and Mr. William Wise.
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I was the Senior Fellow among them (it being 35 years since I was admitted). There were present beside myselfe the Fellowes afternamed: [Then follows a list of names which conveys no information.] Wee all dyned at the halfe moone Taverne in Cheapside at a Noble Dinner prepared at the charge of the new-accept- ed Masons.
Space is given to those entries, not because they are very important, but because Ragon and others have actually held that Ashmole made Masonry — as if any one man made Masonry! ’Tis surely strange, if this be true, that only two entries in his Diary refer to the order; but that does not discon- cert the theorists who are so wedded to their idols as to have scant regard for facts. No, the circum- stance that Ashmole was a Rosicrucian, an Alche- mist, a delver into occult lore, is enough, the absence of any allusion to him thereafter only serving to confirm the fancy —the theory being that a few adepts, seeing Masonry about to crumble and decay, seized it, introduced their symbols into it, making it the mouthpiece of their high, albeit hidden, teach- ing. How fascinating! and yet how baseless in fact! There is no evidence that a Rosicrucian fraternity existed — save on paper, having been woven of a series of romances written as early as 1616, and as- cribed to Andrea — until a later time; and even when it did take form, it was quite distinct from
164 THE BUILDERS
Masonry. Occultism, to be sure, is elusive, coming we know not whence, and hovering like a mist trail- ing over the hills. Still, we ought to be able to find in Masonry some trace of Rosicrucian influence, some hint of the lofty wisdom it is said to have add- ed to the order; but no one has yet done so. Did all that high, Hermetic mysticism evaporate entire- ly, leaving not a wraith behind, going as myste- riously as it came to that far place which no mortal may explore? * Howbeit, the fact to be noted is that, thus early — and earlier, for the Lodge had been in existence some time when Ashmole was initiated — the War- rington Lodge was made up of Accepted Masons. Of the ten men present in the London Lodge, men-
1Those who wish to pursue this Quixotic quest will find the literature abundant and very interesting. For example, such essays as that by F. W. Brockbank in Manchester Association for Re- search, vol. i, 1909-10; and another by A. F. A. Woodford, A. Q. C., i, 28. Better still is the Real History of the Rosicrucians, by Waite (chap. xv), and for a complete and final explosion of all such fancies we have the great chapter in Gould’s History of Ma- sonry (vol. ii, chap. xiii). It seems a pity that so much time and labor and learning had to be expended on theories so fragile, but it was necessary; and no man was better fitted for the study than Gould. Perhaps the present writer is unkind, or at least impatient; if so he humbly begs forgiveness; but after reading tomes of con- jecture about the alleged Rosicrucian origin of Masonry, he is weary of the wide-eyed wonder of mystery-mongers about things that never were, and which would be of no value if they had been. (Read The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, or Christian Occult Science, by Max Heindel, and be instructed in matters whereof no mortal knoweth.)
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tioned in the second entry in the Diary, Ashmole was the senior, but he was not a member of the Ma- sons’ Company, though the other nine were, and also two of the neophytes. No doubt this is the Lodge which Conder, the historian of the Company, has traced back to 1620, “and were the books of the Company prior to that date in existence, we should no doubt be able to trace the custom of re- ceiving accepted members back to pre-reformation times.” * From an entry in the books of the Com- pany, dated 1665, it appears that There was hanging up in the Hall a list of the Accept- ed Masons enclosed in a “faire frame, with a lock and key.” Why was this? No doubt the Accepted Masons, or those who were initiated into the esoteric aspect of the Company, did not include the whole Company, and this was a list of the “enlightened ones,” whose names were thus honored and kept on record, probably long after their decease. . . This we cannot say for certain, but we can say that as early as 1620, and inferentially very much earlier, there were certain members of the Masons’ Com- pany and others who met from time to time to form a Lodge for the purpose of Speculative Masonry.”
Conder also mentions a copy of the Old Charges, or Gothic Constitutions, in the chest of the London Masons’ Company, known as The Book of the Con-
1The Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masons, by Edward Con-
der. 2 Tbid., Introduction.
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stitutions of the Accepted Masons; and this he iden- tifies with the Regius MS. Another witness during this period is Randle Holme, of Chester, whose ref- erences to the Craft in his Acadamie Armory, 1688, are of great value, for that he writes “as a mem- ber of that society called Free-masons.” The Har- leian MS is in his handwriting, and on the next leaf there is a remarkable list of twenty-six names, in- cluding his own. It is the only list of the kind known in England, and a careful examination of all the sources of information relative to the Chester men shows that nearly all of them were Accepted Ma- sons. Later on we come to the Natural History of Staffordshire, by Dr. Plott, 1686, in which, though in an unfriendly manner, we are told many things about Craft usages and regulations of that day. Lodges had to be formed of at least five members to make a quorum, gloves were presented to candi- dates, and a banquet following initiations was a custom. He states that there were several signs and passwords by which the members were able “to be known to one another all over the nation,” his faith in their effectiveness surpassing that of the most credulous in our day.
Still another striking record is found in The Nat- ural History of Wiltshire, by John Aubrey, the MS of which in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is
ACCEPTED MASONS 167
dated 1686; and on the reverse side of folio 72 of this MS is the following note by Aubrey: “This day [May 18, 1681] is a great convention at St. Pauls Church of the fraternity, of the free [then he cross- ed out the word Free and inserted Accepted] Ma- sons; where Sir Christopher Wren is to be adopted a Brother: and Sir Henry Goodric of ye Tower and divers others.” * From which we may infer that there were Assemblies before 1717, and that they were of sufficient importance to be known to a non- Mason. Other evidence might be adduced, but this is enough to show that Speculative Masonry, so far from being a novelty, was very old at the time when many suppose it was invented. With the great fire
1 Whether Sir Christopher Wren was ever Grand Master, as tradition affirms, is open to debate, and some even doubt his mem- bership in the order (Gould, History of Masonry). Unfortunately, he has left no record, and the Parentalia, written by his son, helps us very little, containing nothing more than his theory that the or- der began with Gothic architecture. Ashmole, if we may trust his friend, Dr. Knipe, had planned to write a History of Masonry re- futing the theory of Wren that Freemasonry took its rise from a Bull granted by the Pope, in the reign of Henry III, to some Italian architects, holding, and rightly so, that the Bull “was comfirmatory only, and did not by any means create our fraternity, or even estab- lish it in this kingdom” (Life of Ashmole, by Campbell). ‘This item makes still more'absurd the idea that Ashmole himself created Masonry, whereas he was only a student of its antiquities. Wren was probably never an Operative Mason — though an architect — but he seems to have become an Accepted member of the fraternity in his last years, since his neglect of the order, due to his age, is given as a reason for the organization of the first Grand Lodge.
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of London, in 1666, there came a renewed interest in Masonry, many who had abandoned it flocking to the capital to rebuild the city and especially the Cathedral of St. Paul. Old Lodges were revived, new ones were formed, and an effort was made to renew the old annual, or quarterly, Assemblies, while at the same time Accepted Masons increased both in numbers and in zeal.
Now the crux of the whole matter as regards Ac- cepted Masons lies in the answer to such questions as these: Why did soldiers, scholars, antiquarians, clergymen, lawyers, and even members of the no- bility ask to be accepted as members of the order of Free-masons? Wherefore their interest in the or- der at all? What attracted them to it as far back as 1600, and earlier? What held them with in- creasing power and an ever-deepening interest? Why did they continue to enter the Lodges until they had the rule of them? There must have been something more in their motive than a simple de- sire for association, for they had their clubs, so- cieties, and learned fellowships. Still less could a mere curiosity to learn certain signs and passwords have held such men for long, even in an age of quaint conceits in the matter of association and when architecture was affected as a fad. No, there is only one explanation: that these men saw in
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Masonry a deposit of the high and simple wisdom of old, preserved in tradition and taught in symbols — little understood, it may be, by many members of the order — and this it was that they sought to bring to light, turning history into allegory and legend into drama, and making it a teacher of wise and beautiful truth.
aAV Si}
GRAND LODGE OF ENGLAND
The doctrines of Masonry are the most beauti- ful that it is possible to imagine. They breathe the simplicity of the earliest ages animated by the love of a martyred God. That word which the Puritans translated CuHarity, but which is really Love, is the key-stone which supports the entire edifice of this mystic science. Love one another, teach one another, help one another. That is all our doctrine, all our science, all our law. We have no narrow-minded prejudices; we do not debar from our society this sect or that sect; it is sufficient for us that a man wor- ships God, no matter under what name or in what manner. Ah! rail against us bigoted and ignorant men, if you will. Those who listen to the truths which Masonry inculcates can readily forgive you. It is impossible to be a good Mason without being a good man.
— Winwoop Reape, The Veil of Isis