In the Accadian, Greek, Etruscan, Pelasgian, Gallic, Samaritan, and Egyptian or Coptic, of nearly the same formation as the English letter. It originally meant with or together, but at present signifies one. In most languages it is the initial letter of the alphabet not so, however, in the Ethiopian, where it is the thirteenth. This familiar first letter of the alphabet comes down to our own modern times from the most remote period recorded of the world's history. The common form of the letter corresponds closely to that in use by the Phoenicians at least ten centuries before the Christian Era, as in fact it does to almost all its descendants. Men of Tyre were Phoenicians, and we may trace the sound of the name they gave this letter by noting the pronunciation of the first letters in the alphabets of the Hebrews and the Greeks who took them from the same source. We derive the word alphabet from the first two Greek letters, and these are akin in their names to the Hebrew Aleph, or Awlef, and Bayth. Sounds of these letters, as in English words, must not be confused with the pronunciation of the names for them. The name of the Hebrew Aleph, signifies ox from the resemblance of the letter to the head and horns of that animal.
The sacred Aleph has the numerical value of one and is made up of two Yodes, one on each side of an inclined bar or Vawv. This combination of characters is said to typify the Trinity in Unity. The Divine name in Hebrew connected with this letter is, A H I H.

A. A. O. N. M. S.

These letters are the initials of the words Ancient Arabic Order Nobles Mystic Shrine (see shrine).. They may be rearranged to spell out the words A Mason. The claim has been made in all sincerity that this peculiarity was prearranged and is not at all accidental. Such a probability is not as rare as in type as may at first be imagined.

For instance the York Roll No. 1, about 1600 A.D., starts out quaintly with such an endeavour in the form of an anagram, the letters of words or phrases transposed to make different words or phrases, thus:

An Anagraimee upon the name of Masonrie
William Kay to his friend Robert Preston
upon his Art of Masonrie as Followeth :
Much might be said of the O noble Artt
A Craft that'a worth estieming in each part
Sundry Nations Noobles & their Kings also
Oh how they fought its worth to know
Nimrod & Solomon the wisest of all men
Reason saw to love this Science then
Ile say noe more lest by my shallow verses I
Endeavoring to praise should blemish Masonrie.

AARON

Hebrew, A-har-ohne, a word of doubtful etymology, but generally supposed to signify a mountaineer. Mackenzie says the name means the illuminated. He was the brother of Moses, and the first High Priest under the Mosaic dispensation, whence the priesthood established by that lawgiver is known as the Masonic. He is mentioned in the English lectures of the Second Degree, in reference to a certain sign which is said to have taken its origin from the fact that Aaron and Hur were present on the hill from which Moses surveyed the battle which Joshua was waging with the Amalekites, when these two supported the weary arms of Moses in an upright posture, because upon his uplifted hands the fate of the battle depended (see Exodus xvii, 10-12). Aaron is also referred to in the latter section of the Royal Arch Degree in connection with the memorials that were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant. In the Degree or Grade of Chief of the Tabernacle, which is the Twenty-third of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the presiding officer represents Aaron, and is styled Most Excellent High Priest. In the Twenty-fourth Degree of the same Rite, or Prince of the Tabernacle, the second officer or Senior Warden also personates Aaron.

AARON'S BAND

A Degree instituted in 1824, in New York City, mainly for social purposes, and conferred in an independent body. Its ceremonies were similar to those of the Order of High Priesthood, which caused the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the State to take offence, and the small gathering dispersed in 1825.

AARON'S ROD

The method by which Moses caused a miraculous judgment as to which tribe should be invested with the priesthood, is detailed in the Book of Numbers (chapter xvii). He directed that twelve rods should be laid up in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, one for each tribe; that of Aaron, of course, represented the tribe of Levi. On the next day these rods were brought out and exhibited to the people, and while all the rest remained dry and withered, that of Aaron alone budded and blossomed and yielded fruit. There is no mention in the Pentateuch of this rod having been placed in the ark, but only that it was put before it. But as Saint Paul, or the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews ix, 4), asserts that the rod and the pot of manna were both within the ark, Royal Arch Masons have followed this later authority. Hence the rod of Aaron is found in the ark; but its import is only historical, as if to identify the substitute ark as a true copy of the original, which had been lost. No symbolical instruction accompanies its discovery.

AB

1. The 11th month of the Hebrew civil year and corresponding to the months July and Augustus, beginning with the new moon of the former.
2. It is also a Hebrew word, signifying father, and will be readily recognized by every Freemason as a component part of the name Hiram Abif, which literally means Hiram his father (see Abif).

ABACISCUS

The diminutive of Abacus- and, in architecture, refers to the squares of the tessellated pavement or checkered surface of the ground floor of King Solomon's Temple.

ABACUS

A term which has been erroneously used to designate the official staff of the Grand Master of the Templars. The word has no such meaning ; for an abacus is either a table used for facilitating arithmetical calculations, or is in architecture the crowning plate of a column and its capital. The Grand Master's staff was a baculus, which see.

ABADDON

A Hebrew word ab-ad-done, signifying destruction. By the Rabbis it is interpreted as the place of destruction, and is the second of the seven names given by them to the region of the dead.
In the Apocalypse (Revelation ix, 11) it is rendered by the Greek word Apollyon, and means the destroyer. In this sense it is used as a significant word in the high degrees.

ABAZAR

Probably from the Hebrew word ab-ee-ay-zer, meaning helpful. The title given to the Master of Ceremonies in the Sixth Degree of the Modern French Rite.

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations of technical terms or of official titles are of very extensive use in Freemasonry. They were, however, but rarely employed in the earlier Masonic publications. For instance, not one is to be found in the first edition of Anderson's Constitutions. Within a comparatively recent period they have greatly increased, especially among French writers, and a familiarity with them is therefore essentially necessary to the Masonic student.

Frequently, among English and always among French authors, a Masonic abbreviation is distinguished by three points,.:, in a triangular form following the letter, which peculiar mark was first used, according to Ragon, on the 12th of August, 1774, by the Grand Orient of France, in an address to its subordinates. No authoritative explanation of the meaning of these points has been given, but they may be supposed to refer to the three lights around the altar, or perhaps more generally to the number three, and to the triangle, both important symbols in the Masonic system.

A representative list of abbreviations is given, and these will serve as a guide to the common practice, but the tendency to use such conveniences is limited only by personal taste governed by the familiarity of the Brethren using them with one another. This acquaintance may permit the mutual use of abbreviations little known elsewhere. All that can be done is to offer such examples as will be helpful in explaining the usual custom and to suggest the manner in which the abbreviations are employed. With this knowledge a Freemason can ascertain the meaning of other abbreviations he may find in his Masonic reading.

Before proceeding to give a list of the principal abbreviations, it may be observed that the doubling of a letter is intended to express the plural of that word of which the single letter is the abbreviation.

Thus, in French, F.:, signifies Frére, or Brother, and FF :. Fréres, or Brothers. And in English, L :. is sometimes used to denote Lodge, and LL :, to denote Lodges. This remark is made once for all, because we have not deemed it necessary to augment the size of the list of abbreviations by inserting these plurals. If the reader finds S:.G:.I:. to signify Sovereign Grand Inspector, he will be at no loss to know that SS:.GG:.II:. must denote Sovereign Grand Inspectors. A:.&A:. Ancient and Accepted.

A:.&A:. R :. Ancient and Accepted Rite as used in England.
A:.&A:. S :. R :. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
A:.&P:. R :. Ancient and Primitive Rite.
A:.C:. Anno Coadio. Latin, meaning the Year of Destruction; referring to the year 1314 in Knights Templar history.
A:.D:. Anno Domini. Latin, meaning Year of Our Lord.
A:.Dep:. Anno Depositionis. Latin, meaning In the Year of the Deposit. The date is used by Royal and Select Masters.
A:.F:.M:. Ancient Freemasons.
A:.F:.&A:.M :. Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
A:.H:. Anno Hebraico. Latin, meaning Hebrew Year.
A:.Inv:. Anno Inventionis. Latin, meaning In the Year of the Discovery. The date used by Royal Arch Masons.
A:.L:. Anno Lucis. Latin, meaning In the Year of Light. The date used by Ancient Craft Freemasons.
A.:L:.G:.D:.G:.A:.D:.L:.U:. A la Gloire du Grand Architecte de l'Universe. French, meaning To the Glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe. The usual caption of French Masonic documents.
A:.L:. O:. A L Orient. French, meaning At the East. The Location or seat of the Lodge.A.:M:. Anno Mundi. Latin, meaning In the Year of the World. The date used in the Ancient and Accepted Rite.
A.:O:. Anno Ordinis. Latin, meaning In the Year of the 0rder. The date used by Knights Templar.
A.:Q.:C:. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, the Latin name for the printed reports of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076, London.
A.:V.:L:. An du Vraie Lumiére. French, meaning Year of the True Light.
A.:V:.T:.O:.S.:A.:G:. Ad Universi Terrarum Orbis Summi Architecti Gloriam. Latin, meaning To the glory of the Grand Architect of the Universe.
A.:Y.:M:. Ancient York Masons or Ancient York Masonry.
B.: Bruder. German, meaning Brother.
B.:A.: Buisson Ardent. French, meaning Burning Bush.
B:.B:. Burning Bush.
Bn:. Brudern. German, meaning Brethren.
Comp.: Companion. Used by Brethren of the Royal Arch.
C:.C:. Celestial Canopy.
C:.H:. Captain of the Host.
D:. Deputy.
D:.A:.F:. Due and Ancient Form.
D:.D:.G:.M:. Sometimes abbreviated Dis :.
D:.G:.M:. District Deputy Grand Master.
D:.G:.B:.A:.W:. Der Grosse Baumeister aller Welten. German, meaning The. Grand Architect of all Worlds.
D:.G:.G:.H:.P:. Deputy General Grand High Priest.
D:.G:.H:.P:. Deputy Grand High Priest.
D:.G:.M:. Deputy Grand Master.
D:.M:.J:. Deus Meumque Jus. Latin, meaning God and my right.
D:.Prov:.G:.M:. Deputy Provincial Grand Master.
Deg:. Degree or Degrees. Another way is as in 33 ,meaning Thirty-Third Degree.
Dis:. District.
E:.Eminent; Excellent; also East.
E:.A:. Entered Apprentice. Sometimes abbreviated E:.A:.P:.
E:.C:. Excellent Companion.
Ec:. Ecossaise. French, meaning Scottish; belonging to the Scottish Rite.
E:.G:.C:. Eminent Grand Commander.
E:.G:.M:. Early Grand Master. A central Authority had been made to control the Knights Templar of Ireland independently of the Grand Lodge and at the very first meeting of the Lodge "at High Noon of St. John." 1779, the Worshipful Master appended to his name the letters E. G. M.,that is, Early Grand Master. There was then no governing body in Freemasonry except the Grand Lodge (see "Templar Legends," by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1913, volume xxvi).
E:.O:.L:. Ex Oriente Lux. Latin, meaning Out of the East comes Light. E:.V:. Era Vulgus. Latin, meaning Common Era, also stands for Ere Vulgaire, French, meaning Vulgar Era; Year of the Lord.
F:. Frére. French, meaning Brother.
F:.A:.M:. Free and Accepted Masons.
F:.E:.R:.T:. According to the statutes of the United Orders of the Temple &nd Saint John of Jerusalem, etc., the standard of Saint John is described as gules, on a Cross Argent, the Agnus Dei-meaning Red on a Silver Cross with a representation of the Lamb of God-with the letters F.E.R.T. These letters are the initials of the words of the motto Fortitudine Ejus Rhodum tenuit, meaning By his courage he held Rhodes. Brother Gordon P. G. Hills, Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1914, volume xxvii page 233, says, "I suppose it refers to the gallant defense by the Grand Master in 1522, when however, the Island was surrendered, although the garrison were permitted to depart with the honors of war." A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette, June 4, 1901, states that the legend appears on the coinage of Louis of Savoy in 1301 and on that of Thomas in 1233.
F:.C:. Fellow Craft.
F:.M:. Freemason.
G:.Grand- Sometimes read as Great; Geometry. Also has another meaning well known to the Craft.
G:.A:.O.:T:.U:. Grand Architect of the Universe.
G:.A:.S:. Grand Annual Sojourn.
G.:C:. Grand Chapter; Grand Council; Grand Cross; Grand Commander; Grand Chaplain; Grand Conclave; Grand Conductor; Grand Chancellor.
G:.C:.G:. Grand Captain General; Grand Captain of the Guard.
G :.C:.H.: Grand Captain of the Host; Grand Chapter of Herodom.
G:.Com:. Grand Commandery; Grand Commander.
G:.D:. Grand Deacon.
G:.D:.C:. Grand Director of Ceremonies.
G:.E:. Grand Encampment; Grand Bast; Grand Ezra.
G:.J:.W:. Grand Junior Warden.
G:.G:.C:. General Grand Chapter
. G:.G:.H:.P:. General Grand High Priest.
G:.G:.K:. General Grand King.
G:.G:.M:.F:.V:. General Grand Master of the First Veil.
G:.G.:S:. General Grand Scribe.
G:.G.:T:. General Grand Treasurer.
G:.H:.P:. Grand High Priest.
G:.K:. Grand King.
G:.L:. Grand Lodge. Grande Loge, in French. Grosse Loge, in German.
G:.M:. Grand Master; Grand Marshal; Grand Monarch.
G:.N:. Grand Nehemiah.
G:.O:. Grand Orient; Grand Organist.
G:.P. Grand Pursuivant; Grand Prior; Grand Prelate; Grand Preceptor; Grand Preceptory; Grand Patron; Grand Priory; Grand Patriarch; Grand Principal.
G:.P:.S:. Grand Principal Sojourner
G:.R:. Grand Registrar; Grand Recorder.
G:.R:.A:.C:. Grand Royal Arch Chapter.
G:.S:. Grand Scribe; Grand Secretory; Grand Steward.
G:.S:.B:. Grand Sword Bearer; Grand Sword Bearer.
G:.S:.E.: Grand Scribe Ezra.
G:.S:.N:. Grand Scribe Nehemiah.
G:.S:.W:. Grand Senior Warden.
G:.T:. Grand Treasurer; Grand Tyler.H:.A:.B:. Hiram Abif.
H:.E:. Holy Empire.
H:.J:. Heilige Johannes. German, meaning Holy Saint John.
H:.K:.T:. Hiram, King of Tyre.
H:.R:.D:.M:. Heredom.
Ill:. Illustrious.
I:.N:.R:.I:. Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudoeorum. Latin, meaning Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. The Letters are also the initials of a significant sentence in Latin, namely, Igne Natura Renovatur Integra, meaning by fire nature is perfectly renewed.
I:.P:.M:. Immediate Past Master. English title of an official last promoted from the chair.
I:.T:.N:.O:.T:.G:.A:.O:.T:.U:. In the Name of the Grand Architect of the Universe. Often forming the caption of Masonic documents.
J:.W:. Junior Warden.
K:.King.
K:.E:.P:. Knight of the Eagle and Pelican
K:.H:. Kadash, Knight of Kadosh.
K:.H:.S:. Knight of the Holy Sepulcher
K:.M:. Knight of Malta
K:.S:. King Salomon (Suleiman)
K:.T:. Knights Templar; Knight Templar.
L:. Lodge. Lehrling, the German for Apprentice.
L:.R:. Lonon Rank. A distinction introduced in England in 1908.
L:.V:.X:. Lux Latin, meaning Light.
M:. Mason; Masonry; Marshal; Mark; Minister; Master. Meister, in German. Maitre, in French.
M:.C:. Middle Chamber.
M:.E:. Most Eminent; Most Excellent.
M:.E:.G:.H:.P:. Most Excellent Grand High Priest.
M:.E:.G:.M:. Most Eminent Grand Master (of Knights Templar).
M:.E:.M:. Most Excellent Master.
M:.E:.Z:. Most Excellent Zerubbabel.
M:.K:.G:. Maurer Kunst Geselle. German, meaning Fellow Craft.
M:.L:. Maurer Lehrling. German, meaning Entered Apprentice.
M:.L:. Mére Loge. French, meaning Mother Lodge.
M:.M:. Master Mason. Mois Maçonnique. French, meaning Masonic Month. March 18 the first Masonic month among French Freemasons.
Meister Maurer. German, meaning Master Mason.
M:.P:.S:. Most Puissant Sovereign.
M:.W:.Most Worshipful.
M:.W:.G:.M:. Most Worshipful Grand Master; Most Worthy Grand Matron.
M:.W:.G:.P:. Most Worthy Grand Patron.
M:.W:.M:. Most Wise Master
M:.W:.S:. Most Wise Sovereign
N:. Novice.
N:.E:.C:. North-east Corner.
N'o:.P:.V:.D:.M:. N'oubiez pas vos décorations Maçonniques French, meaning Do not forget your Masonic regalia, a phrase used in France on the corner of a summons.
O:. Orient.
O:.A:.C:. Ordo ab Chao. Latin, meaning Order out of Chaos.
OB:. Obligation.
P:. Past; Prelate; Prefect; Prior.
P:.C:.W:. Principal Conductor of the Work.
P:.G:.M:. Past Grand Master; Past Grand Matron.
P:.J:. Prince of Jerusalem.
P:.K:. Past King.
P:.M:. Past Master.
P:.S:. Principal Sojourner.
Pro:.G:.M:. Pro-Grand Master.
Prov:. Provincial.
Prov:.G:.M:. Provincial Grand Master.
R:.A:. Royal Arch; Royal Art.
R:.A:.C:. Royal Arch Captain; Royal Arch Chapter.
R:.A:.M:. Royal Arch Mason; Royal Arch Masonry; Royal Ark Mariner. R:.C:. or R:.t:. Rose Croiz. Appended to the signature of one having that degree
R:.E:. Right Eminent.
R:.E:.A:.et A:.Rite Ecossaise Ancien et Accepte. French, meaning Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
R:.F:. Respectable Free. French, meaning Worshipful Brother.
R:.L:. or R:.[]:. Respectable Loge. French, meaning Worshipful Lodge.
R:.S:.Y:.C:.S:. Rosy Cross (in the Royal order of Scotland).
R:.W:. Right Worshipful.
R:.W:.M:. Right Worshipful Master.
S:.Scribe,Sentinel, Seneschal, Sponsor.
S:.C:. Supreme Council.
S:.G:.D:. Senior Grand Deacon.
S:.G:.I:.G:. Sovereign Grand Inspector General
S:.G:.W:. Senior Grand Warden.
S:.M:. Secret Master; Substitute Master; Select Master; Secret Monitor; Sovereign Master; Supreme Master; Supreme Magus.
S:.O:. Senior Overseer.
S:.P:.R:.S:. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.
S:.S:. Sanctum Sanctorum. Latin, meaning Holy of Holies. Formerly also used for Soverein of Sovereigns
S:.S:.M:. Senior Substitute Magus.
S:.S:.S:. The initials of the Latin word Salutem, meaning Greeting, repeated thrice and also found similarly in the French, Trois Fois Salut, meaning Thrice Greeting. A common caption to French Masonic circulars or letters
S:.W:. Senior Warden.
Sec:. Secretary.
Soc:.Ros:. Societas Rosicruciana
Sum:. Surveillant. French, meaning Warden.
T:.C:.F:. Tres Cher Frére. French, meaning Very Dear Brother.T:.G:.A:.O:.T:.U:. The Grand Architect of the Universe. T:.S:. Tres Sage. Meaning Very Wise, addressed to the presiding officer of French Rite.
U:.D:. Under Dispensation.
V:.or Ven:. Venerable. French, meaning Worshipful.
V:.D:.B:. Very Dear Brother.
V:.D:.S:.A:. Veut Dieu Saint Amour, or Vult Dei Sanctus Animus. A formula used by Knights Templar. The expression Veut Dieu Saint Amour means literally, Wishes God Holy Love, which in correct English might be expressed by Thus wishes God (who is)holy love. Vult Dei Sanctus Animus is the Latin Version of the same phrase. Only in this case God is in the genitive case and therefore the exact translation would be The holy spirit of God wishes or Thus wishes God's holy spirit.
V:.E:. Viceroy Eusebius; Very Eminent.
V:.F:. Venerable Frére. French, meaning Worshipful Brother.
V:.L:. Vraie Lumiere. French, meaning True Light
V:.S:.L:. Volume of the sacred Law.
V:.W:. Very Worshipful
W:. Worshipful
W:.M:. Worshipful Master. Wurdiger Meister, in German, meaning Worshipful Master.


An equilateral triangle is an emblem of the Trinity and also of the Chapter in Royal Arch Masonry.


The Swastika or Pylfot or Jaina Cross, as it bears all three names which are explained else where, has been used as a part of the signatures of members of Hermetic bodies and is then called the Hermetic Cross, which is attached to documents. The position of such a Cross in relation to the signature and the colour of the ink indicates the rank of the signer and these particulars are subject to change.



This combination of the Maltese Cross and the equilateral triangle is not only sometimes found as a designation for the Knight of Rose Cross but was used as early as 1725 to mean a reference to a Lodge of Saint John.


The supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States, has on page 36 of the book entitled information for Bodies and Officers (this being a part of the report of the Committee on Rituals and Ritualistic Matters in the Proceedings of 1870, pages 64, 65), the following illustrated Instructions :

The Sovereign Grand Commander shall prefix the triple cross, in red ink, to his signature, thus:-


................................................................................................33°


The Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, has in the Statutes as amended to October, 1921, Article xiv, section 3, the following illustrated instructions: The distinctive symbol to be used before the signature of the Sov:.Gr:. Commander is a Cross with three cross-bars, near that extremities of which and of the shaft are small cross-bars, the signature to be followed by a rayed equilateral triangle enclosing the figures 33 (violet ink to be used).

The Symbol Cross to precede the signature of a Sov:.Gr:.Insp:.General has two cross-bars near the extremities of which and of the shaft are small cross-bars, the signature to be followed by a rayed equilateral triangle enclosing the figures 33 (purple ink to be used);  the title to be written Sov:.Gr:.Insp:.Genl:..

The Symbol Cross to precede the signature of an Inspector Honorary is a plain cross with two crossbars (no crossbars at the extremities), followed by a rayed equilateral triangle enclosing the figures 33, the title to be written Insp:.Genl:.Hon:.(crimson ink to be used). The rest of the symbols to precede signatures and titles to remain the same as given in the present edition of the Statutes (the ink to be red). In each of the above the cross-bar are to be horizontal and except where shown differently the shaft is inclined to the right to correspond with the angle of the strokes of slanting writing. The shafts of the crosses used by the Court of Honor are vertical, the ends of the shaft and cross-bars being provided with a cross-bar at the extremities.



For the Rose Croix the symbol is a Passion Cross set on the apex of a pyramid or equatorial triangle.

ABDA

A word used in some of the high degrees. He was the father of Adoniram (see First Kings iv, 6). Lenning in the Encyclopaedia der Freimaurerei is wrong in saying that he is represented by one of the officers in the degree of Master in Israel. He has confounded Abda with his son.

ABDAMON

The name of the Orator in the Fourteenth Degree of the Rite of Perfection, or the Sacred Vault of James VI. The word means a servant, from abed, to serve, although somewhat corrupted in its transmission into the rituals. Lenning says it is the Hebrew Habdamon, meaning a servant; but there is no such word in Hebrew.

ABDIEL

A Hebrew word meaning servant of God. The name of an angel mentioned by the Jewish Cabalists. He is represented in Milton's Paradise Lost, Book V, lines 894-7, as one of the seraphim, who, when Satan tried to stir up a revolt among the angels subordinate to his authority, alone and boldly withstood his traitorous designs :

Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
unshaken un-seduced, un-terrified,
His loyalty be kept, his love, his zeal.

The name Abdiel became the synonym of honor and faithfulness.

ABDITORIUM

A secret place for the deposit of records

ABELITES

A secret Order which existed about the middle of the eighteenth century in Germany, called also the Order of Abel The organization was in possession of peculiar signs, words, and ceremonies of initiation, but, according to Gadicke, Freimaurer Lexicon, it had no connection with Freemasonry. According to Clavel the order was founded at Griefswald in 1745.

ABERCORN, DUKE OF

Grand Master of Ireland 1874 to 1885.

ABERCORN, EARL OF

James Hamilton, Lord Paisley, was named Grand Master of England by the retiring Grand Master, the Duke of Richmond, in 1725. He was at that time the Master of a Lodge, and had served on the Committee of Charity during that year. He succeeded his father as Earl of Abercorn in 1734.

ABERDOUR, LORD

Grand Master of Scotland, 1755 to 1756. Also of England 1757 to 1761.

ABIB

The original name of the Hebrew month Nisan, nearly corresponding to the month of March, the first of the ecclesiastical year. Abib is frequently mentioned in the sacred scriptures, and signifies green ears of com or fresh fruits.

ABIBALE

The name of the first Assassin in the Elu of the Modem French Rite. The word is derived most probably from the Hebrew abi and balah, which mean father of destruction, though it is said to mean le Meurtrier du Pere, this phrase meaning in French the Murder of the Father.

ABIDE BY

See stand to and abide by.

ABIF (or ABIFF, or perhaps more correctly ABIV).

A name appeared in scripture to that celebrated builder who was sent to Jerusalem by King Hiram, of Tyre, to superintend the construction of the Temple. The word, which in the original Hebrew is ...and which may be pronounced Abiv or Abif, is compounded of the noun in the construct-state ....Abi, meaning father, and the pronominal suffix i, which, with. the preceding vowel sound, is to be sounded as iv or if, and which means his; so that the word thus compounded Abif literally and grammatically signifies his father. The word is found in second Chronicles iv, 16, in the following sentence:

The pots also, and the shovels, and the flesh hooks, and all their instruments, did Hiram his father make to King Solomon.

The latter part of this verse is in the original as follows: shelomoh lamelech Abif Huram gnasah

Luther has been more literal in his version of this passage than the English translators, and appearing to suppose that the word Abif is to be considered simply as an appellative or surname, he preserves the Hebrew form, his translation being as follows: "Machte Hiram Abif dem Konige Salomo." The Swedish version is equally exact, and, instead of "Hiram his father," gives us Hiram Abiv. In the Latin Vulgate, as in the English version, the words are rendered Hiram pater ejus. We have little doubt that Luther and the Swedish translator were correct in treating the word Abif as a surname.

In Hebrew, the word ab, or father, is often used as a title of respect, and may then signify friend, counsellor. wise man, or something else of equivalent character.

Thus, Doctor Clarke, commenting on the word abrech, in Genesis XLI, 43, says:

Father seems to have been a name of office, and probably father of the king or father of Pharaoh might signify the same as the king's minister among us.

And on the very passage in which this word Abif is used, he says:

father, is often used in Hebrew to signify master, inventor, chief operator.

Gesenius, the distinguished Hebrew lexicographer, gives to this word similar significations, such as benefactor, master, teacher, and says that in the Arabic and the Ethiopia it is spoken of one who excels in anything.

This idiomatic custom was pursued by the later Hebrews, for Buxtor tells us, in his Talmudic Lexicon, that "among the Talmudists abba, father, was always a title of honour, " and he quotes the following remarks from a treatise of the celebrated Maimonides, who, when speaking of the grades or ranks into which the Rabbinical doctors were divided, says:

The first class consists of those each of whom bears his own name, without any title of honour; the second, of those who are called Rabbanim; and the third, of those who are called Rabbi, and the men of this class also receive the cognomen of Abba, Father.

Again, in Second Chronicles II, 13, Hiram, the King of Tyre, referring to the same Hiram, the widow's son, who is spoken of subsequently in reference to King Solomon as his father, or Abif in the passage already cited, writes to Solomon: "And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father's." The only difficulty in this sentence is to be found in the prefixing of the letter lamed, before Huram, which has caused our translators, by a strange blunder, to render the words Huram abi, as meaning of Huram my father's, instead of Huram my father. Brother Mackey remarked that Huram my father's could not be the true meaning, for the father of King Hiram was not another Hiram, but Abibal.

Luther has again taken the correct view of this subject, and translates the word as a surname: "So sende ich nun einen weisen Mann, der Berstand hat, Huram Abif"; that is, "So now I send you a wise man who has understanding, Huram Abif." The truth, we suspect, is, although it has escaped all the commentators, that the lamed in this passage is a Chaldaism which is sometimes used by the later Hebrew writers, who incorrectly employ, the sign of the dative for the accusative after transitive verbs.

Thus, in Jeremiah XL 2, we have such a construction, vayikach rab tabachim l Yremyahu; that is, literally, "and the captain of the guards took for Jeremiah,"

Where the l, or for, is a Chaldaism and redundant, the true rendering being, "and the captain of the guards took Jeremiah." Other similar passages are to be found in Lamentations IV, 5; Job V, 2, etc.

In like manner we suppose the .. before Huram which the English translators have rendered by the preposition of, to be redundant and a Chaldaic form.

The sentence should be read thus : ''I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, Huram my father;" Or, if considered as a surname, as it should be, Huram Abi.

From all this we conclude that the word Ab, with its different suffixes is always used in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, in reference to Hiram the Builder, as a title of respect. When King Hiram speaks of him he calls him ''my father Hiram," Hiram Abi and when the writer of the Book of Chronicles is speaking of him and King Solomon in the same passage, he calls him "Solomon's father, his father," Hiram Abif. The only distinction is made by the different appellation of the pronouns my and his in Hebrew. To both the kings of Tyre and of Judah he bore the honourable relation of Ab, or father, equivalent to friend, counsellor, or minister. He was Father Hiram.

The Freemasons are therefore perfectly correct in refusing to adopt the translation of the English version, and in preserving, after the example of Luther, the word Abif as an appellative, surname, or title of honour and distinction bestowed upon the relief builder of the Temple, as Dr. James Anderson suggests in his note on the subject in the first edition (1723) of the Constitutions of the Freemasons.

ABIRAM

One of the traitorous craftsmen, whose act of perfidy forms so important a part of the Third Degree, receives in some of the high degrees the name of Abiram Akirop. These words certainly have a Hebrew look; but the significant words of Freemasonry have, in the lapse of time and in their transmission through ignorant teachers, become so corrupted in form that it is almost impossible to trace them to any intelligible root. They may be Hebrew or they may be anagrammatized (see Anagram) ; but it is only chance that can give us the true meaning which the two words in combination undoubtedly possess. The word Abiram means father of loftiness, and may have been chosen as the name of the traitorous craftsman with allusion to the Biblical story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram who conspired against Moses and Aaron. Numbers xvi. In the French ritual of the Second Elu it is said to mean murderer or assassin, but this would not seem to be correct etymologically. Brother Mackenzie suggests that Akirop may be from, Karab, the Hebrew meaning to join battle. He also offers Abi-ramah, to mean in Hebrew destroyer of the father.

ABLE

There is an old use of the word able to signify suitable. Thus, Chaucer says of a monk that "he was able to ben an abbot," that is, suitable to be an abbot. In this sense the old manuscript Constitutions constantly employ the word, as when they say, in the Lansdowne Manuscript, that the apprentice should be "able of Birth that is free borne," the ff then meaning F.

ABLUTION

A ceremonial purification by washing, much used in the Ancient Mysteries and under the Mosaic Dispensation. It is also employed in some of the advanced degrees of Freemasonry. The better technical term for this ceremony is lustration, which see.

ABNET

The band or apron,. made of fine linen, variously wrought, and worn by the Jewish priesthood. It seems to have been borrowed directly from the Egyptians, upon the representations of all of whose gods is to be found a similar girdle. Like the zennaar, or sacred cord of the Brahmans, and the white shield of the Scandinavians, it is the analogue of tho Masonic apron.

ABOMINABLES, LES

Terms of contempt used in some of the foreign rites, referring more particularly to Philippe le Bel and Bertrand de Got, persecutors of the Knights Templar.

ABORIGINES

A secret society which existed in England about the year 1783, and of whose ceremony of initiation the following account is contained in the British Magazine of that date. The presiding officer, who was styled the Original, thus addressed the candidate:

Original. Have you faith enough to be made an Original?

Candidate. I have.

Original. Will you be conformable to all honest rules which may support steadily the honour, reputation, welfare, and dignity of our ancient undertaking?

Candidate. I will.

Original. Then, friend, promise me that you will never stray from the paths of Honour, Freedom, Honesty, Sincerity, Prudence, Modesty, Reputation, Sobriety, and 'True Friendship.

Candidate. I do.

Which done, the Crier of the Court commanded silence, and the new member, being uncovered, and dropping on his right knee, had the following oath administered to him by the Servant, the new member laying his right hand on the Cap of Honour, and Nimrod holding a staff over his head:

You swear by the Cap of Honour, by the Collar of Freedom, by the Coat of Honesty, by the Jacket of Sincerity, by the Shirt of Prudence, by the Breeches of Modesty, by the Garters of Reputation, by the Stockings of Sobriety, and by the Steps of True Friendship, never to depart from these laws.

Then rising, with the staff resting on his head he received a copy of the laws from the hands of the Grand Original, with these words, "Enjoy the benefits hereof."

He then delivered the copy of the laws to the care of the servant, after which the word was given by the secretary to the new member, namely: Eden, signifying the garden where ADAM, the great aboriginal, was formed.

Then the secretary invested him with the sign, namely: resting his right hand on his left side, signifying the first conjunction of harmony.

This organization had no connection with Freemasonry, but was simply one of those numerous imitative societies to which that Institution has given rise.

ABOYNE, GEORGE, EARL OF

From 1802 to 1803 Grand Master of Scotland.

ABRAC

In the Leland Manuscript it is said that the Masons conceal "the wey of wynninge the facultye of Abrac." John Locke (though it is doubtful if it was he who wrote a commentary on the manuscript) is quoted as saying: ''Here I am utterly in the dark.'' However, it means simply the way of acquiring the science of Abrac. The science of Abrac is the knowledge of the power and use of the mystical abraxas, which see ; or very likely Abrac is merely an abbreviation of Abracadabra.

ABRACADABRA

A term of incantation or magic which was formerly worn about the neck as an amulet or protection against various diseases, especially the tertian ague. It was to be written on a triangular piece of parchment in either of the forms here illustrated:

The word may be written or read either way, and the triangles can point up or down, with no alteration of the efficiency according to believers in the value of the idea. The word occurs in the Carmen de Morbis et Remediis of Q. Serenus Sammonicus, a favorite of the Emperor Severus in the second and third centuries, and is generally supposed to be derived from the word abraxas. That the letters contain a hidden spiritual or mystical meaning is doubtless true. Hoefer in his Chemistry, among other curious lore, points out that the first three letters are the initials in Hebrew representative of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the C. A. D. are the Greek letters also indicative of the 'Trinity. Hoefer doubtless had in mind the Ab, Ben, Ruach, Acadosch, Hebrew for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The reader will note these four initials as well as the first four letters of the last word. Much speculation has been expended on the word and the supposition that it comprises the initials of several sacred words is as reasonable as any other.

Godfrey Higgins, (Celtic Druids, page 246), gets the word Abracadabra not from the Latin but from the Erse language, the tongue of the Gaels of Scotland and the Celts of Ireland. Deriving the word from Abra, meaning God, and Cad, meaning holy, Higgins obtains a combination signifying the holy God.

ABRAHAM

The founder of the Hebrew nation. The patriarch Abraham is personated in the Degree or Order of High Priesthood, which refers in some of its ceremonies to an interesting incident in his life, After the friendly separation of Lot and Abraham, when the former was dwelling in the plain in which Sodom and its neighboring towns were situated, and the latter in the valley of Mamre near Hebron, a king from beyond the Euphrates, whose name was Chedorlaomer, invaded lower Palestine. and brought several of the smaller states into a tributary condition.

Among these were the five cities of the plain, to which Lot had retired. As the yoke was borne with impatience by these cities Chedorlaomer, accompanied by four other kings, who were probably his tributaries, attacked and defeated the kings of the plain, plundered their towns, and carried their people away as slaves.

Among those who suffered on this occasion was Lot. As soon as Abraham heard of these events, he armed three hundred and eighteen of his slaves, and, with the assistance of Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, three Amoritish chiefs, he pursued the retiring invaders, and having attacked them near the Jordan, put them to flight, and then returned with all the men and goods that had been recovered from the enemy. On his way back he was met by the King of Sodom, and also by Melchizedek, King of Salem, who was, like Abraham, a worshiper of the true God. Melchizedek refreshed Abraham and his people with bread and wine, and blessed him. The King of Sodom wished Abraham to give up the persons, but retain the goods that he had recovered; however, Abraham positively refused to retain any of the spoils, although, by the customs of the age, he was entitled to them, and declared that he had sworn that he would not take "from a thread even to a shoelatchet" (Genesis XIV). Although the conduct of Abraham in this whole transaction was of the most honorable and conscientious character, the incidents do not appear to have been introduced into the ritual of the High Priesthood for any other reason except that of their connection with Melchizedek, who was the founder of an Order of Priesthood.

ABRAHAM, ANTOINE FIRMIN

A Freemason who made himself notorious at Paris, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, by the manufacture and sale of false Masonic diplomas and by trading in the higher degrees, from which traffic he reaped for some time a plentiful harvest. The Supreme Council of France declared, in 1811, all his diplomas and charters void and deceptive. He is the author of L'Art du Tuileur, dédié à tous les Maçons des deux hémisphéres, French for The Art of the Tiler, dedicated to all the Freemason of the two hemispheres, a small volume of 20 pages, octavo, printed at Paris in 1804, and he published from 1800 to 1808 a periodical entitled Le Miroir de la vérité, dédié à tous les Maçons, French for The Mirror of Truth, dedicated to all the Freemasom, 3 volumes, octavo. This contains many interesting details concerning the history of Freemasonry in France. In 1811 there was published at Paris a Circulaire du Conseil Supréme du 33e degré, etc., relative à la vente, par le Sieur Abraham de grades et cahiers Maçonniques; French, meaning. A Circular from the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree, etc., relative te the sale by the Mr. Abraham of Masonic information in books and grades. This announcement, in octavo, sixteen pages, shows that Abraham was nothing else but a Masonic fraud.

ABRAXAS

Basilides, the head of the Egyptian sect of Gnosties, taught that there were seven outflowings, emanations, or aeons, from the Supreme God ; that these emanations engendered the angels of the highest order; that these angels formed a heaven for their habitation, and brought forth other angels of a nature inferior to their own ; that in time other heavens were formed and other angels created, until the whole number of angels and their respective heavens amounted to 365, which were thus equal to the number of days in a year; and, finally, that over all these an omnipotent Lord—inferior, however, to the Supreme God—presided, whose name was Abraxas. Now this word Abraxas, in the numerical force of its letters when written in Greek, ABPAZAE, amounts to 365 the number of worlds in the Basilidean system, as well as the number of days in the year thus A,1...,B,2..,P,100...,A,1...,Z,60...,A,1...,E 200 = 365. The god Abraxas was therefore a type or symbol of the year, or of the revolution of the earth around the sun. This mystical reference of the name of a god to the annual period was familiar to the ancients, and is to be found in at least two other instances. Thus, among the Persians the letters of the name of the god Mithras, and of Belenus along the Gauls, amounted each to 365.

M = 40
E = 5
I = 10
O = 9
P =100
A = 1
Z = 200
= 365

B = 2
H= 8
A = 30
E = 5
N = 50
O = 70
Z = 200
= 365

The word Abrazas, therefore, from this mystical value of the letters of which it was composed, became talismanic or magical. This was frequently inscribed, sometimes with and sometimes without other superstitious inscriptions, on stones or gems as amulets. Many of these have been preserved or are continually being discovered, and are to be found in the cabinets of the curious.
There have been many guesses and beliefs among the learned as to the source of the word Abrazas.

Beausobre, in his History of Manicheism, volume 2, derives it from the Greek, A., signifying the magnificent Savior, He who heals and preserves.

Bellermann, Essay on the Gems of the Ancients, supposed it to be compounded of three Coptic words signifying the holy word of bliss. Pignorius and Vandelin think it is composed of four Hebrew and three Greek letters, whose numerical value is 365, and which are the initials of the sentence: saving man by wood, that is, the Cross.

ABRAXAS STONES

Stones on which the word Abrazas and other devices are engraved, and which were used by the Egyptian Gnosties as amulets.

ABSENCE

Attendance on the communications of his Lodge, on al convenient occasions, is considered as one of the duties of every Freemason, and hence the Old Charges of 1722 say that ''in ancient Times no Master or Fellow could be absent from it [the Lodge] especially when warned to appear at it, without incurring a severe censure, until it appeared to the Master and Wardens that pure Necessity hindered him."

At one time it was usual to enforce attendance by fines, and the By-Laws of the early Lodges contain lists of fines to be imposed for absence, swearing and drunkenness, but that usage is now discontinued, so that attendance on ordinary communications is no longer enforced by any sanction of law.

Attendance is a duty the discharge of which must be left to the conscientious convictions of every Freemason. In the ease, however, of a positive summons for any express purpose, such as to stand trial, to show cause, etc., the neglect or refusal to attend might be construed into a contempt, to be dealt with according to its magnitude or character in each particular case.

The absence of an officer is a far more important matter and it is now generally held in the case of the absence of the Worshipful Master or Wardens the inferior officer assumes the duties of the office that is vacant The Wardens, as well as the Master, are entrusted with the government of the Lodge and in the case of the absence of the Master at the time of opening, the Senior Warden, if present and, if not, then the Junior Warden may open the Lodge and the business transacted will be, regular and legal.

While this is the practice in the United States of America, the same rule is not followed under the Grand Lodge of England, where it is provided in Rule 141 of the Book of Constitutions that in the absence of the Worshipful Master the Immediate Past Master shall take the chair. In the event that the Immediate Past Master is not present, then the Senior Past Master of the Lodge or, if no Past Masters of the Lodge are in attendance, the Senior Past Master who is a subscribing member of the Lodge shall officiate. But failing all of these, then we have the Senior Warden or, in his absence, the Junior Warden shall rule and govern the Lodge, but shall not occupy the Master's chair and no degree can be conferred unless a Master or Past Master in the Craft presides at the ceremony.

Thus it will be seen that the general rule does not apply to both countries in the same way.

ABSENCE OF WORSHIPFUL MASTER

Rule 141 of the English Book of Constitutions states that the Immediate Past Master or in his absence the Senior Past Master of the Lodge, or, if no Past Master of the Lodge be present, the Senior Past Master who is a subscribing member of the Lodge shall take the chair. Failing all of these the Senior Warden, or, if he is absent, the Junior Warden, is to rule the Lodge, but without occupying the Master's chair. No initiation is to take place or Degree be conferred unless a Master or Past Master in the Craft occupies the chair. In the United States, however, especially where many Candidates await their Degrees, the custom has developed for the Worshipful Master at his pleasure to place in the chair temporarily any Brother in his judgment competent to properly give the ritualistic work.

ABYSSINIA

A Lodge at Adis-Ababa was constituted by the 'Grand Orient of France on October 20, 1909.

ABERDEEN ALTER, THE LODGE

The second quarter of the Twentieth century in the 'Literature of Freemasonry was characterized above everything else by the publication (in some twenty languages) of Lodge histories. Taken collectively, and in their impact as a single body of writings, these histories have worked some two, or possibly three, fundamental changes in the older conception of the history of the Fraternity, and their data have caused the revisions of many details-this last applying particularly to the work of the pioneers of modern historical scholarship, Gould, Hughan, Crawley, Lane, Sadler, etc., and Gould especially. Of the Lodge histories some five or six are indubitable masterpieces, both in their literary form and in their scholarship.

Among the more slender books of the last named class is Notes on the Early History and Records of The Lodge, Aberdeen, No. Alter,
by A. L. Miller, a Past Master of it;
Aberdeen; University Press; 1919.

It is written modestly, with a fine spirit, and with a just sense of proportion ; it is a model for Lodge historians everywhere to pattern on; moreover it contains the clearest of pictures of a Lodge of the Transition Period, as it was and as it worked, a century before the first Grand Lodge of 1717.

Only three Lodges take precedence of it on the rolls of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, Mother Kilwinning, Mary's Chapel, and Melrose St. John.

There is a written record of a Mason in Aberdeen in 1264, a Provost. In 1357 Andrew Scott came with other Masons from Melrose to rebuild the Cathedral. The records of the Burgh of Aberdeen, unbroken since 1398, contain many references to Masons. Masons came from everywhere to build King's College, In those same records is a reference to the Mason "Lodge" (a building) in 1483. In the Burgh minutes of 1483 is the wording of an oath taken by the masonry of the luge; offenders were to be "excluded" (expelled). In 1486 the Burgh adopted rules governing Masons. In 1493 three Masons were permanently employed by the Burgh (now called "town"). A record of 1544 refers to the Lodge building, which was a permanent Masonic headquarters.

In 1527 the Masons were incorporated (by a Seal of Cause) and given disciplinary powers over their own members.

A Warden over the Masons was appointed in 1590. Masons, unlike most workers, could work inside or away from the town; they were "free." An early Masons' Lodge "supposed to have been situated on the southern slope near the top of st Katharine's Hill, was built of Wood and was burned by enemies of the Craft, who were said to have been numerous, and to have included the clergy "(From Wycliff down "the clergy"have been the hardest workers in it. The Roman Church has been officially against it ever since the General Council of Afignon, when all secret societies"were condemned) Another Lodge was afterwards built near where Aberdeen's St. Paul's now stands, but was burned down, and many old records with it, probably by the Marquis of Huntly when be ravaged Aberdeen with 2000 soldiers.

In 1700 the members built yet another Lodge, out upon the links, well apart ; the father of the famous architect James Gibbs lived in part of it.

Thus the written records prove a continuing existence of Masonry in Aberdeen from 1264, and doubtless Aberdeen is in a direct and unbroken line of descent from the Thirteenth Century. It is probable that the Masons have had a separate and organized society, self-governing, since at least as early as 1541, which was in the earliest period of Protestantism.

The Work Book written in 1670 contains pictures of Working Tools. Of the members at that date ten of the forty-nine were Operative Masons; among the non-operatives were four noblemen. The oldest known written record of a non-Operative in Scotland is 1600.

In Aberdeen records mention is made of "the Mason Word" : of "the oaths we received." The Officers in 1670 were a Master, Warden, Boxmaster, Clerk and Officer (Tiler). Masons' sons (the "Lewis") received special privileges. Until 1754 "intrants" (apprentices) made presents of aprons and gloves; they were trained by "Intenders." A permanent Charity Fund (in the "Box") was set up in 1670.

The most interesting among the records are these two: "No Lodge be holden within a dwelling house where there is people living in but in the open fields, except it be ill weather, and then let there be a house chosen that no person shall hear nor see us." And : "We ordain likewise that all entering Prentices be entered in our ancient outfield Lodge in the Mearns in the parish of Nigg at the sources [piers or bulwarks] at the point of the Ness." the principal point made by the members when they wrote the Work Book of 1670 was that they were making sure that old customs were to be continued.

The first Freemason to come to America was John Skene, in 1684, of which the record was discovered by Bro. David McGregor. John Skene was a member of the Aberdeen Lodge. the first name in the list of members in the Work Book of 1670 was Harrie Elphingston, the Master; be was the booking agent who arranged passage on the vessel Henry and Francis on which a number of Aberdeenians emigrated to New Jersey, in America. The arrangement was made under the patronage of the Earl of Perth, one of the chief proprietors of New Jersey, also a Freemason, Robert Gordon, George Alexander, John Forles, also on the same list of members, purchased an interest in New Jersey. John Forbes came to East Jersey in 1684, then returned to Scotland. John Skene settled at Burlington, capital of East Jersey, and was Deputy Governor from 1685 until his death in 1690.

ACACIA

An interesting and important symbol in Freemasonry. Botanically, it is the acacia vera of Tournefort, and the mimosa nilotica of Linnaeus, called babul tree in India. The acacia arabica grew abundantly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, where it is still to be found, and is familiar in its modern use at the tree from which the gum arabic of commerce is derived.

Oliver, it is true,'says that "there is not the smallest trace of any tree of the kind growing so far north as Jerusalem" (Landmarks, volume 2, page 1490). But this statement is refuted by the authority of Lieutenant Lynch, who saw it growing in great abundance in Jericho, and still farther north (Expedition to the Dead Sea, page 262).

The Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, who is excellent authority, says: "The Acacia (Shittim) tree, Al Sunt, is found in Palestine of different varieties, it looks like the Mulberry tree, attains a great height, and has a hard wood. The gum which is obtained from it is the gum arabic" (Descriptive Geography and Historical Sketch of Palestine, page 308, Leeser's translation, Philadelphia, 1850). Schwarz was for sixteen years a resident of Palestine, and wrote from personal observation. The testimony of Lynch and Schwarz should, therefore, forever settle the question of the existence of the acacia in Palestine.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, page s51, states that the acacia seyal and the acacia tortilis are plentiful around the Dead Sea.

The acacia is called in the Bible Shittim, which is really the plural of Shittah, which last form occurs once only, in Isaiah XLI, 19. It was esteemed a sacred wood among the Hebrews, and of it Moses was ordered to make the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the table for the shewbread, and the rest of the sacred furniture (Exodus xxv-xxvii).

Isaiah (XLI, 19), in recounting the promises of God's mercy to the Israelites on their return from the captivity, tells them that, among other things, he will plant in the wilderness, for their relief and refreshment, the cedar, the acacia, (or, as it is rendered in our common version, the shittah), the fir, and other trees.

The first thing, then, that we notice in this symbol of the acacia, is that it had been always consecrated from among the other trees of the forest by the sacred purposes to which it was devoted. By the Jew, the tree from whose wood the sanctuary of the tabernacle and the holy ark had been constructed would ever be viewed as more sacred than ordinary trees. The early Freemasons, therefore, very naturally appropriated this hallowed plant to the equally sacred purpose of a symbol, which was to teach an important divine truth in all ages to come.

Having thus briefly disposed of the natural history of this plant, we may now proceed to examine it in its symbolic relations.

First. The acacia, in the mythic system of Freemasonry, is pre-eminently the symbol of the IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL--that important doctrine which it is the great design of the Institution to teach. As the evanescent nature of the flower, which "cometh forth and is cut down," reminds us of the transitory nature of human life, so the perpetual renewal of the evergreen plant, which uninterruptedly presents the appearance of youth and vigor, is aptly compared to that spiritual life in which the soul, freed from the corruptible companionship of the body, shall enjoy an eternal spring and an immortal youth. Hence, in the impressive funeral service of our Order, it is said that "this evergreen is an emblem of our faith in the immortality of the soul. By this we are reminded that we have an immortal part within us, which shall survive the grave, and which shall never, never, never die." And again, in the closing sentences of the monitorial lecture of the Third Degree, the same sentiment is repeated, and we are told that by "the evergreen and ever-living emblem of immortality, the acacia" the Freemason is strengthened "with confidence and composure to look forward to a blessed immortality." Such an interpretation of the symbol is an easy and a natural one ; it suggests itself at once to the least reflective mind; and consequently, in some one form or another, is to be found existing in all ages and nations.

There was an ancient custom-which is not, even now, altogether disused-for mourners to carry in their hands at funerals a sprig of some evergreen, generally the cedar or box, or the cypress, and to deposit it in the grave of the deceased.

According to Dalcho, the Hebrews always planted a sprig of the acacia at the head of the grave of a departed friend.

Dalcho says, in his Second Oration (page 23),

"This custom among the Hebrews arose from this circumstance. Agreeably to their laws, no dead bodies were allowed to be interred within the walls of the City; and as the Cohens, or Priests, were prohibited from crossing a grave, it was necessary to place marks thereon, that they might avoid them. For this purpose the Acacia was used.''

Brother Mackey could not agree to the reason assigned by Dalcho, but of the existence of the custom there can be no question, notwithstanding the denial or doubt of Doctor Oliver. Blount, Travels in the Levant (page 197), says, speaking of the Jewish burial customs,

"those who bestow a marble stone over any [grave) have a hole a yard long and a foot broad, in which they plant an evergreen, which seems to grow from the body and is carefully watched."

Hasselquist, Travels (page 28), confirms his testimony. We borrow the citations from Brown, Antiquities of the Jews (volume 2, page 356), but have verified the reference to Hasselquist. Potter, Antiquities of Greece (page 569), tells us that the ancient Greeks "had a custom of bedecking tombs with herbs and flowers." All sorts of purple and white flowers were acceptable to the dead, but principally the amaranth and the myrtle.

The very name of the former of these plants, which signifies never fading, would seem to indicate the true symbolic meaning of the usage, although archeologists have general supposed it to be simply an exhibition of love on the part of the survivors. Ragon says that the ancients substituted the acacia for all other plants because they believed it to be incorruptible, and not liable to injury from the attacks of any kind of insect or other animal thus symbolizing the incorruptible nature of the soul.

Hence we see the propriety of placing the sprig of acacia, as an emblem of immortality, among the symbols of that degree, all of whose ceremonies are Intended to teach us the great truth that "the life of man, regulated by morality, faith, and justice, will be rewarded at its closing hour by the prospect of Eternal Bliss'' as in the manuscript of Doctor Crucefix quoted by Brother Oliver in his Landmarks (11, 20). So, therefore, says Doctor Oliver, when the Master Mason exclaims, "My name is Acacia," it is equivalent to saying, "I have been in the grave, I have triumphed over it by rising from the dead, and being regenerated in the process, I have a claim to life everlasting" (see Landmarks 11, 151, note 27).

The sprig of acacia, then, in its most ordinary signification, presents itself to the Master Mason as a symbol of the immortality of the soul, being intended to remind him, by its ever-green and unchanging nature, of that better and spiritual part within us, which, as an emanation from the Great Architect of the Universe, can never die. And as this is the most ordinary, the most generally accepted signification, so also is it the most important; for thus, as the peculiar symbol of immortality, it becomes the most appropriate to an Order all of whose teachings are intended to inculcate the great lesson that "life rises out of the grave." But incidental to this the acacia has two other interpretations which are well worthy of investigation.

Secondly, then, the acacia is a symbol of INNOCENCE.

The symbolism here is of a peculiar and unusual character, depending not on any real analogy in the form or use of the symbol to the idea symbolized, but simply on a double or compound meaning of the word.

For ....., in the Greek language, signifies both the plant in question and the moral quality of innocence or purity of life. In this sense the symbol refers, primarily, to him over whose solitary grave the acacia was planted, and whose virtuous conduct, whose integrity of life and fidelity to his trusts have ever been presented as patterns to the craft, and consequently to all Master Masons, who, by this interpretation of the symbol, are invited to emulate his example.

Hutchinson, indulging in his favorite theory of Christianizing Freemasonry, when he comes to this signification of the symbol, thus enlarges on the interpretation. We Masons, describing the deplorable estate of religion under the Jewish law, speak in figures.

Her tomb was in the rubbish and filth east forth of the temple, and ACACIA wove its branches over her monument, acacia being the Greek word for innocence, or being free from sin, implying that the sins and corruptions of the old law, and devotees of the Jewish altar, had hid religion from those who sought her, and she was only to be found where INNOCENCE survived, and under the banner of the divine Lamb ; and as to ourselves professing that we were to be distinguished by our ACACY, or as true ACACIANS in our religious faith and tenets" (see Hutehinson's Spirit of Masonry, Lecture IX, page 160, edition of 1775).

But, lastly, the acacia is to be considered as the symbol of INITIATION. This is by far the most interesting of its interpretations, and was, we have every reason to believe, the primary and original ; the others being but incidental. It leads us at once to the investigation of the significant fact that in all the ancient initiations and religious mysteries there was some plant peculiar to each, which was consecrated by its own esoteric meaning, and which occupied an important position in the celebration of the rites. Thus it was that the plant, whatever it might be, from its constant and prominent use in the ceremonies of initiation, came at length to be adopted as the symbol of that initiation.

Thus, the lettuce was the sacred plant which assumed the place of the acacia the mysteries of Adonis (see Lettuce). The lotus was that of the Brahmanical rites of India, and from them adopted by the Egyptians (see Lotus). The Egyptians also revered the erica or heath; and the mistletoe was a mystical plant among the Druids (see Erica and Mistletoe). And, lastly, the myrtle performed the same office of symbolism in the mysteries of Greece that the lotus did in Egypt or the mistletoe among the Druids (see Myrtle).

In all of these ancient mysteries, while the sacred plant was a symbol of initiation, the initiation itself was symbolic of the resurrection to a future life, and of the immortality of the soul. In this view, Freemasonry is to us now in the place of the ancient initiations, and the acacia is substituted for the lotus, the erica, the ivy, the mistletoe, and the myrtle. The lesson of wisdom is the same-the medium of imparting it is all that has been changed.

Returning, then, to the acacia, we find that it is capable of three explanations. It is a symbol of immortality, of innocence, and of initiation. But these three significations are closely connected, and that connection must be observed, if we desire to obtain a just interpretation of the symbol. Thus, in this one symbol, we are taught that in the initiation of life, of which the initiation in the Third Degree is simply emblematic, innocence must for a time lie in the grave, at length, however, to be called, by the word of the Great Master of the Universe, to a blissful immortality.

Combine with this instruction the recollection of the place where the sprig of acacia was planted-Mount Calvary-the place of sepulture of Him who "brought life and immortality to light," and Who, in Christian Freemasonry, is designated, as He is in Scripture, as the lion of the tribe of Judah; and remember, too, that in the mystery of His death, the wood of the cross takes the place of the acacia.

Therefore, in this little and apparently insignificant symbol, but which is really and truly the most important and significant one in Masonic science, we have a beautiful suggestion of all the mysteries of life and death, of time and eternity, of the present and of the future.

ACACIAN

A word introduced by Hutchinson, in his book, The Spirit of Masonry, to designate a Freemason in reference te the akakia, or innocence with which he was to be distinguished, from the Greek word axaxia (see the preceding article on the Acacia). The Acacians constituted a heretical seat in the primitive Christian Church, who derived their name from Acacius, Bishop of Caesarea from 340 to 365. The doctrine of these Acacians was that Christ is not of the same substance as God, but merely resembles Him. There was subsequently another sect of the same name under Acacius, who was Patriarch of Constantinople from 471. He died in the year 489. But it is needless to say that the Hutchinsonian application of the word Acacian to signify a Freemason has nothing to do with the theological reference of the term.

ACADEMIE DES IILLUMINES D'AVIGNON

meaning, literally, the School of the Enlightened Ones at Avignon. The words Illumines and Illuminati have been used by various religious sects and secret societies in their names. A Hermetic system of philosophy created in 1785, and making some use of the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg.

ACADEMY

The Fourth Degree of the Rectified Rose Croix of Schroeder who founded a Rite by this name.

ACADEMY OF ANCIENTS OR OF SECRETS

The French name is Académie des Secrets. A society instituted at Warsaw, in 1767, by M. Thoim de Salverte, and founded on the principles of another which bore the same name, and which is said to have been established at Rome, about the end of the sixteenth century, by John Baptiste Porta. The object of the institution was the advancement of the natural sciences and their application to the occult philosophy.

ACADEMY OF SAGES

An order which existed in Sweden in 1770, deriving its origin from one credited with being founded in London by Elias Ashmole, on the doctrines of the New Atlantis of Bacon. A few similar societies were subsequently founded in Russia and France, one especially noted by Thory in his book, Acta Latomorum, as having been established in 1776 by the Mother Lodge of Avignon.

ACADEMY OF SECRETS

See Academy of Ancients

ACADEMY OF SUBLIME MASTERS OF THE LUMINOUS RING

The French name of this society is Académie des Sublimes Maîtres de l'Anneau Lumineux. Founded in France, in 1780, by Baron Blaerfindy, one of the Grand Officers of the Philosophy Scotch Rite. The Academy of the Luminous Ring was dedicated to the philosophy of Pythagoras, and was divided into three Degrees.

The first and second were principally occupied with the history of Freemasonry, and the last with the dogmas of the Pythagorean school, and their application to the highest grades of science. The historical hypothesis which was sought to be developed in this Academy was that Pythagoras was the founder of Freemasonry.

ACADEMY OF TRUE MASONS

The French name of the society is Académie des Vraies Maçons. Founded at Montpelier, in France, by Dom Pernetty in 1778, and occupied with instructions in Hermetic Science, which were developed in six Degrees, namely :

1. The True Mason ;
2. The True Mason in the Right Way;
3. Knight of the Golden Key;
4. Knight of Iris;
5. Knight of the Argonauts;
6. Knight of the Golden Fleece.
The Degrees thus conferred constituted the Philosophic Scotch Rite, which was the system adopted by the Academy. It afterward changed its name to that of Russo-Swedish Academy, which circumstance leads Thory to believe that it was connected with the Alchemical Chapters which at that time existed in Russia and Sweden. The entirely Hermetic character of the Academy of True Masons may readily be perceived in a few paragraphs cited by Clavel (page 172, third edition, 1s44), from a discourse by Goyer de Jumilly at the; installation of an Academy in Martinique. "To seize," says the orator, "the graver of Hermes to engrave the doctrines of natural philosophy on your columns; to call Flamel the Philalete, the Cosmopolite, and our other masters to my aid for the purpose of unveiling the mysterious principles of the occult sciences,-these, Illustrious Knights, appear to be the duties imposed on me by the ceremony of your installation. The fountain of count Trevisan, the pontifical water, the peacock's tail, are phenomena with which you are familiar."

ACADEMY, PLATONIC

Founded in 1480 by Marsilius Ficinus, at Florence, under the patronage of Lorenzo de Medicis. This organization is said by the Freemasons of Tuscany to have been a secret society, and is supposed to have had a Masonic character, because in the hall where its members held their meetings, and which Doctor Mackey reported was remaining in his time, many Masonic symbols are to be found. Clavel (page 65, third edition, 1844) supposes it to have been a society founded by some of the honorary members and patrons of the Fraternity of Freemasons who existed in the Middle Ages, and who, having abandoned the material design of the Institution, confined themselves to its mystic character. If his suggestion be correct, this is one of the earliest instances of the separation of Speculative from Operative Masonry.

ACANTHUS

A plant, described by Dioseorides, a Greek physician and botanist of the first century,. with broad, flexible, prickly leaves, which perish in the winter and sprout again at the return of spring. Found in the Grecian islands on the borders of cultivated fields or gardens, it is common in moist, rocky situations. It is memorable for the tradition which assigns to it the origin of the foliage carved on the capitals or upper parts of Corinthian and Composite columns. Hence, in architecture, that part of the Corinthian capital is called the Acanthus which is situated below the abacus or slab at the top, and which, having the form of a vase or bell, is surrounded by two rows of leaves of the acanthus plant.

Callimachus, who invented this ornament, is said to have had the idea suggested to him by the following incident: A Corinthian maiden who was betrothed, fell ill, and died just before the appointed time of her marriage. Her faithful and grieving nurse placed on her tomb a basket containing many of her toys and jewels, and covered it with a flat tile. It so happened that the basket was placed immediately over an acanthus root, which afterward grew up around the basket and curled under the weighty resistance of the tile, thus exhibiting a form of foliage which was, on its being seen by the architect, adopted as a model for the capital of a new order; so that the story of affection was perpetuated in marble.

Dudley ( Naology, page 164) thinks the tale puerile, and supposes that the acanthus is really the lotus of the Indians and Egyptians, and is symbolic of laborious but effectual effort applied to the support of the world.

With him, the symbolism of the acanthus and the lotus are identical (see Lotus).

ACCEPTED

The Worshipful Company of Masons of the City of London-a flourishing Gild at the Present day-possesses as its earliest document now existing an account book headed:

1620.

The Account of James Gilder Mr William Warde & John Abraham wardens of the Company of freemasons within the City of London beginning the first day of Julie 1619 And ending the day of Julie 1620 of all receipts & payments for & to the use the same company as followeth, viz.

From the entries in this book it appears that besides the ordinary Freemen and Liverymen of this Company there were other members who are termed in the books the Accepted Masons and that they belonged to a Body known as the Accepcon or Acception, which was an Inner Fraternity of Speculative Freemasons.

Thus in the year 1620 the following entry is found:

"They charge themselves also with Money Received of the Persons hereafter named for they're gratuities at they're acceptance into the Lyvery viz" (here follow six names). Among the accounts for the next year (1621) there is an entry showing sums received from several persons, of whom two are mentioned in the entry of 1620, "Att the making masons," and as all these mentioned were already members of the Company something further must be meant by this.

In 1631 the following entry of the Clerk's expenses occurs, " Pel in going abroad at a meeting at the hall about the Masons that were to be accepted vi- vid," that is, Paid in going about and at a meeting at the hall about the Masons that were to be accepted.

Now the Company never accepted its members; they were always admitted to the freedom either by apprenticeship, patrimony, or redemption. Thus the above entries suggest that persons who were neither connected with the trade nor otherwise qualified were required, before being eligible for election on the livery of the Company, to become Accepted Masons, that is, to join the Lodge of Speculative Masonry that was held for that purpose in the Company's Hall. Thus in the accounts for 1650, payments are entered as made by several persons ''for coming on the Liuerie & admission upon Acceptance of Masonry," and it is entered that Mr. Andrew Marvin, the present Warden, and another paid 20 shillings each "for coming on the Accepcon," while two others are entered as paying 40 shillings each "for the like," and as the names of the last two cannot be found among the members of the Masons Company it would seem as if it was possible for strangers to join "the Accepcon" on paying double fees.

Unfortunately no books connected with this Acception, or Lodge, as it may be called, have been preserved. But there are references to it in several places in the account books which show that the payments made by newly accepted Freemasons were paid into the funds of the Company, that some or all of this amount was spent on a banquet and the attendant expenses. Any further sum required was paid out of the ordinary funds of the Company, proving that the Company had entire control of the Lodge and its funds.

Further evidence of the existence of this Symbolical Lodge within the Masons Company is given by the following entry in an inventory of the Company's property made in 1665.

"Item. The names of the Accepted Masons in a faire inclosed frame with lock and key."' In an inventory of the Company's property for 1676 is found:

"Item. One book of the Constitutions of the Accepted Masons." No doubt this was a copy of one of the Old Charges.

"A faire large table of the Accepted Masons."

Proof positive of its existence is derived from an entry in the diary of Elias Ashmole-the famous antiquary-who writes:

"March 10th. 1682. About 5 p.m. I received a summons to appear at a Lodge to be held next day at Masons Hall London.

"March 11th. Accordingly I went and about noon were admitted into the. Fellowship of Free Masons:

Sir William Wilson Knight, Capt. Rich Borthwick, Mr Will Woodman, Mr Wm Grey, Mr Samuell Taylor, and Mr William Wise."

In the edition of Ashmole's diary published in 1774 the above paragraph was changed into "I went, and about noon was admitted, by Sir William Wilson &c.," an error which has misled many Masonic historians (see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, volume xi, page 6).

"I was the Senior Fellow among them (it being 35 years since I was admitted)."

Ashmole then mentions the names of nine others who were present and concludes: "We all dinned at the half Moone Taverne in Cheapeside, at a noble dinner prepared at the charge of the New-Accepted Masons."

All present were members of the Masons Company except Ashmole himself, Sir W. Wilson and Capt. Borthwick, and this entry proves conclusively that side by side with the Masons Company there existed another organization to which non-members of the Company were admitted and the members of which were known as Accepted Masons.

It may here be mentioned that Ashmole has recorded in his diary that he was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire on October 16, 1646. In that entry the word Accepted does not occur.

No mention is made of the Accepted Masons in the accounts of the Masons Company after 1677, when £6, the balance remaining of the last Accepted Masons' money-was ordered to be laid out for a new banner. It would seem that from that time onward the Lodge kept separate accounts, for from the evidence of Ashmole's diary we know it was at work in 1682, but when and why it finally ceased no evidence is forthcoming to show.

However, it may fairly be assumed that this Masons Hall Lodge had ceased to exist before the Revival of Freemasonry in 1717, or else Anderson would not have said in the Constitutions of 1723 (page 82), "It is generally believed that the said Company, that is the London Company of Freemen Masons, is descended of the ancient Fraternity; and that in former Times no Man was made Free of that Company until he was installed in some Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, as a necessary Qualification. But that laudable Practice seems to have been long in Desuetude." This passage would indicate that he was aware of some tradition of such a Lodge as has been described attached to the Masons Company admitting persons in no way operatively connected with the Craft, who were called Accepted Masons to distinguish them from the Operative or Free Masons (see Conder's Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masonry and Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, volume ix).

Anderson in the 1738 Constitutions quotes from a copy of the old Constitutions some regulations which he says were made in 1663, and in which the phrases accepted a Free Mason and Acceptation occur several times. These regulations are found in what is known as the Grand Lodge Manuscript No. 2, which is supposed to have been written about the middle of the 17th century, so that Anderson's date in which he follows the Roberts Old Constitution printed in 1722 as to the year, though he changes the day from December 8th to December 27th, may quite possibly be correct. Brother Conder (Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masonry, page 11), calls special attention to these regulations on account of the singular resemblance that one of them bears to the rules that govern the Masons Company.

The extracts given above from the books of the Masons Company, the Ancient Regulations, if that date be accepted, and the quotation from Ashmole's diary, are the earliest known instances of the term Accepted Masons. Although the Inigo Jones Manuscript is headed "The Ancient Constitutions of the Free and Accepted Masons 1607," yet there is a consensus of opinion among experts that. such date is impossible and that the document is really to be referred to the end of the seventeenth century or even the beginning of the eighteenth.

The next instance of the use of the term is in 1686 when Doctor Plot in The Natural History of Staffordshire wrote with reference to the secret signs used by the Freemasons of his time "if any man appear, though altogether unknown, that can shew any of these signs to a Fellow of the Society, whom they otherwise call an Accepted Mason, he is obliged presently to come to him from what company or place soever he be in, nay, though from the top of steeple."

Further, in 1691, John Aubrey, author of The Natural History of Wiltshire, made a note in his manuscript: "This day (May 18, 1691) is a great convention at St. Paul's Church of the fraternity of the free Masons," in which he has erased the word free aud substituted accepted, which, however, he changed into adopted in his fair copy.

In the ''Orders to be observed by the Company and Fellowship of Freemasons att a Lodge held at Alnwick, Sept. 29, 1701, being the Gen Head Meeting Day," we find: "There shall not be apprentice after he have served seven years be admitted or accepted but upon the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel."

From that time onward the term Accepted Masons becomes common, usually in connection with Free.
The term Free and Accepted Masons thus signifying both the Operative members who were free of their Gild and the Speculative members who had been accepted as outsiders. Thus the Roberts Print of 1722 is headed, "The Old Constitutions belonging to the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons." In the Constitutions of 1723 Anderson speaks (on page 48) of wearing "the Badges of a Free and Accepted Mason" and uses the phrase in Rule 27, though he does not use the phrase so frequently as in the 1738 edition in which "the Charges of a Free-Mason" become "the old Charges of the Free and Accepted Masons," the "General Regulations" become "The General Regulations of the Free and Accepted Mason," and Regulation No. 5: "No man can be made or admitted a Member" becomes "No man can be accepted a Member, " while the title of the book is The new book of Constitutions of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons instead of The Constitution of the Free-Masons as in the earlier edition.

ACCEPTION or ACCEPCON

This term occurs in the records of the Company of Masons of London in the years 1620 and 1621 aud Brother Hawkins thought it to be the name of the non-operative or speculative body attached to that Company, this being the Lodge that Ashmole visited in 1682. Brother Edward Couder, Jr., says (in his work, The Hole craft and Fellowship of Masons, page 155), "It is evident that these Accepted Masons were on a different footing to those who were admitted to the freedom of the Company by servitude or patrimony. The word Accepted only occurs a few times in the whole of the accounts, and from the inventories of the Company's goods and the other entries concerning these members, proof is obtained that the Accepted Masons who joined this London Masons' Gild, did so not necessarily for the benefit of the freedom of the Company but rather for the privilege of attending the Masons' Hall Lodge at which Ashmole was present." Brother Conder points out that the item of 1631, referring to the Masons that were to be Accepted, together with the entries in the Minute Book of 1620, are the earliest post-reformation notices of speculative Freemasonry yet discovered in England (see Accepted).

ACCEPTION, THE

The Masons Company of London show this phrase in one of their records, 1620-1, in connection seemingly with a non-operative or speculative body which was associated with them. In 1682 Elias Ashmole visited this Lodge.

ACCLAMATION

A certain form of words used in connection with the battery. In the Scottish Rite it is hoshea; in the French vivat; in Adoptive Masonry it was Eva; and in the Rite of Misraim, hallelujàh (see Battery).

ACCOLADE

From the Latin ad and collum, meaning around the neck. Generally but incorrectly it is supposed that the accolade means the blow given on the neck of a newly created knight with the flat of the sword. The best authorities define it to be the embrace, or a slight blow on the cheek or shoulder, accompanied with the kiss of peace, by which the new knight was at his creation welcomed into the Order of Knighthood by the sovereign or lord who created him (see Knighthood).

ACCORD

We get this word from the two Latin ones ad cor, meaning to the heart, and hence it means hearty consent. Thus in Wiclif's translation we find the phrase in Philippians, which in the Authorized Version is "with one accord," rendered "with one will, With one heart." Such is its signification in the Masonic formula, "free will and accord," that is, "free will and hearty consent." The blow given among the Romans to a slave was a necessary part of the manumission ceremony in bestowing freedom upon him, the very word manumit in Latin being derived from manus, hand; and mitto, send (see Free Will and Accord).

ACCUSER

In every trial in a Lodge for an offense against the laws and regulations or the principles of Freemasonry any Master Mason may be the accuser of another, but a profane cannot be permitted to Prefer charges against a Freemason. Yet, if circumstances are known to a profane upon which charges ought to be predicated, a Master Mason may avail himself of that information, and out of it frame an accusation to be presented to the Lodge. Such accusation will be received and investigated although remotely derived from one who is not a member of the Order.

It is not necessary that the accuser should be a member of the same Lodge. It is sufficient if he is an affiliated Freemason; but it is generally held that an unaffiliated Freemason is no more competent to prefer charges than a profane.

In consequence of the Junior Warden being placed over the Craft during the hours of refreshment, and of his being charged at the time of his installation to see "that none of the Craft be suffered to convert the purposes of refreshment into those of intemperance and excess," it has been very generally supposed that it is his duty, as the prosecuting officer of the Lodge, to prefer charges against any member who, by his conduct, has made himself amenable to the penal jurisdiction of the Lodge. We know of no ancient regulation which imposes this unpleasant duty upon the Junior Warden; but it does seem to be a very natural deduction, from his peculiar prerogative as the custosmorum or guardian of the conduct of the Craft, that in all cases of violation of the law he should, after due efforts toward producing a reform, be the proper officer to bring the conduct of the offending Brother to the notice of the Lodge.

ACELDAMA

From the Syro-Chaldaic, meaning field of blood, so called because it was purchased with the blood-money which was paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying his Lord (see Matthew xxvii, 7-10; also Acts 1, 19 ). The reader will note that the second letter of the word is sounded like k. It is situated on the slope of the hi1ls beyond the valley of Hinnom and to the south of Mount Zion. The earth there was believed, by early writers, to have possessed a corrosive quality, by means of which bodies deposited in it were quickly consumed; and hence it was used by the Crusaders, then by the Knights Hospitaler, and afterward by the Armenians, as a place of sepulture, and the Empress Helena is said to have built a charnel-house in its midst. Doctor Robinson (Biblical Researches, volume 1, page 524) says that the field is not now marked by any boundary to distinguish it from the rest of the field, and the former charnel-house is now a ruin. The field of Aceldama is referred to in the ritual of the Knights Templar.

ACERRELLOS, R. S.

A nom de plume or pen name assumed by Carl Rössler, a German Masonic writer (see Rossler).

ACHAD

One of the names of God. The word Achad, in Hebrew signifies one or unity. It has been adopted by Freemasons as one of the appellations of the Deity from the passage in Deuteronomy (vi, 4): "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is (Achad) one Lord'' which the Jews wear on their phylacteries, and pronounce with great fervor as a confession of their faith in the unity of God. Speaking of God as Achad, the Rabbis say, "God is one (Achad) and man is one (Achad). Man, however, is not purely one, because he is made up of elements and has another like himself; but the oneness of God is a oneness that has no boundary.

ACHARON SCHILTON

In Hebrew signifying the new kingdom Significant words in some of the advanced degrees. The Latin term is given in the Manuel Maçonnique (1830, page 74) as Novissimus lmperium.

ACHIAS

A corruption of the Hebrew Achijah the brother of Jah; a significant word in some of the advanced degrees.

ACHISHAR

Mentioned in first Kings iv, 6, under the name of Ahishar, and there described as being "over the household" of King Solomon. This was a situation of great importance in the East, and equivalent to the modern office of Chamberlain. The Steward in a Council of Select Masters is said to represent Achishar. In Hebrew the word is pronounced ak-ee-shawr.

ACHMETA

See Echatana

ACHTARIEL

A Cabalistic name of God belonging to the Crown or first of the ten sephiroth ; and hence signifying the Crown or God. The sephiroth refer in the Cabalistic system to the ten persons, intelligence or attributes of God.

ACKNOWLEDGED

When one is initiated into the degree of Most Excellent Master, he is technically said to be received and acknowledged as a Most Excellent Master. This expression refers to the tradition of the degree which states that when the Temple had been completed and dedicated, King Solomon received and acknowledged the most expert of the Craftsmen as Most Excellent Masters. That is, he received them into the exalted rank of perfect and acknowledged workmen, and acknowledged their right to that title. The verb to acknowledge here means to own or admit, to belong to, as, to acknowledge a son.

ACOUSMATICI

The primary class of the disciples of Pythagoras, who served a five years' probation of silence, and were hence called acousmatici or hearers. According to Porphyry or Porphyrius, a Greek philosopher who lived about 233-306 A.D., they received only the elements of intellectual and moral instruction, and, after the expiration of their term of probation, they were advanced to the rank of Mathematici (see Pythagoras).

ACQUITTAL

Under this head it may be proper to discuss two questions of Masonic law.

1. Can a Freemason, having been acquitted by the courts of the country of an offense with which he has been charged, be tried by his Lodge for the same offense?

2. Can a Freemason, having been acquitted by his Lodge on insufficient evidence, be subjected, on the discovery and production of new and more complete evidence, to a second trial for the same offense?

To both of these questions the correct answer would seem to be in the affirmative.

1. An acquittal of a crime by a temporal court does not relieve a Freemason from an inquisition into the same offense by his Lodge. Acquittals may be the result of some technicality of law, or other cause, where, although the party is relieved from legal punishment, his guilt is still manifest in the eyes of the community. If the Order were to be controlled by the action of the courts, the character of the Institution might be injuriously affected by its permitting a man, who had escaped without honor from the punishment of the law, to remain a member of the Fraternity. In the language of the Grand Lodge of Texas, "an acquittal by a jury, while it may, and should, in some circumstances, have its influence in deciding on the course to be pursued, yet has no binding force in Masonry. We decide on our own rules, and our own view of the facts" (Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Texas, volume ii page 273). The Code Governing Procedure and Practice in Masonic Trials, in the Book of Constitutions edited by Brother Henry Pirtle for the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, says, on page 195, fifth edition, "Conviction or acquittal by a civil or military court for the same offense can not be pleaded in bar of trial by a Masonic Lodge.

"2. To come to a correct apprehension of the second question, we must remember that it is a long-settled principle of Masonic law, that every offense which a Freemason commits is an injury to the whole Fraternity, inasmuch as the bad conduct of a single member reflects discredit on the whole Institution. This is a very old and well-established principle of the Institution. Hence we find the Old Constitutions declaring that Freemasons ''should never be thieves nor thieves' mountaineers''(Cooke Manuscript line 916 ).

The safety of the Institution requires that no evil-disposed member should be tolerated with impunity in bringing disgrace on the Craft. Therefore, although it is a well-known maxim of the common law - Nemo debet bis puniri pro uno delicto - that is, No one should be twice placed in peril of punishment for the same crime, yet we must also remember that other and fundamental maxim - Salus populi suprema lex-which may, in its application to Freemasonry, be well translated. The well-being of the Order is the first great law. To this everything else must yield. Therefore, if a member, having been accused of a heinous offense and tried, shall, on his trial, for want of sufficient evidence, be acquitted, or, being convicted, shall, for the same reason, be punished by an inadequate penalty, and if he shall thus be permitted to remain in the Institution with the stigma of the crime upon him, ''whereby the Craft comes to shame, " then, if new and more sufficient evidence shall be subsequently discovered, it is just and right that a new trial shall be had, so that he may, on this newer evidence, receive that punishment which will vindicate the reputation of the Order. No technicalities of law, no plea of autrefois acquit, already acquitted, nor mere verbal exception, should be allowed for the escape of a guilty member, for so long as he lives in the Order, every man is subject to its discipline. A hundred wrongful acquittals of a bad member, who still bears with him the reproach of his evil life, can never discharge the Order from its paramount duty of protecting its own good fame and removing the delinquent member from its fold. To this great duty all private and individual rights and privileges must succumb, for the well-being of the Order is the first great law in Freemasonry.

ACTA LATOMORUM

ou Chronologie de l'Histoire de la Franche-Maçonnerie française et étrangére, etc. That is: The Acts of the Freemasons, or a Chronological History of French and Foreign Freemasonry, etc. This work, written or complied by Claude Antoine Thory, was published at Paris, in two volumes, octavo, in 1815. It contains the most remarkable facts in the history of the Institution from obscure times to the year1814; the succession of Grand Masters; a nomenclature of rites, degrees, and secret associations in all the countries of the world ; a bibliography of the principal works on Freemasonry published since 1723; and a supplement in which the author has collected a variety of rare and important Masonic documents. Of this work, which has never been translated into English, Lenning says in his Encyclopädie der Freimaurerei that it is, without dispute, the most scientific work on Freemasonry that French literature has ever produced. It must, however, be confessed that in the historical portion Thory has committed many errors in respect to English and American Freemasonry, and therefore, if ever translated, the work wi1l require much emendation (see Thory)

ACTING GRAND MASTER

The Duke of Cumberland, grandson of George II, brother of George III, having, in April, 1782, been elected Grand Master of England, it was resolved by the Grand Lodge "that whenever a prince of the blood did the Society the honor to accept the office of Grand Master, he should be at liberty to nominate any peer of the realm to be the Acting Grand Master" (Constitutions of Grand Lodge of England, edition 1784, page 341). The officer thus provided to be appointed was subsequently called in the Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of England (edition 1841), and is now called the Pro Grand Master.

In the American system, the officer who performs the duties of Grand Master in case of the removal, death, or inability of that officer, is known as the Acting Grand Master. For the regulations which prescribe the proper person to perform these duties, see Grand Master.

ACTIVE LODGE

A Lodge is said to be active when it is neither dormant nor suspended, but regularly meets and is occupied in the labors of Freemasonry.

ACTIVE MEMBER

An active member of a lodge is one who, in contradistinction to an honorary member, assumes all the burdens of membership, such as contributions, arrears, and participation in its labors, and is invested with all the rights of membership, such as speaking, voting, and holding office.

ACTUAL PAST MASTERS

This term is sometimes applied to those who have actually served as Master of a Craft Lodge in order to distinguish them from those who have been made Virtual Past Masters, in Chapters of the United States, or Past Masters of Arts and Sciences, in English Chapters, as a preliminary to receiving the Royal Arch degree (see Past Master).

ADAD

The name of the principal god among the Syrians, and who, as representing the sun, had, according to Macrobius, a Roman author of about the early part of the fifth century, in the Satualiorum (I, 23), an image surrounded by rays.

Macrobius, however, is wrong, as Selden has shown, De Diis Syris, volume I, page 6, in confounding Adad with the Hebrew Achad, or one-a name, from its signification of unity, applied to the Great Architect of the Universe.

The error of Macrobius, however, has been perpetuated by the inventors of the high degrees of Freemasonry, who have incorporated Adad, as a name of God, among their significant words.

ADAM

The name of the first man. The Hebrew word, Adam, signifies man in a generic sense, the human species collectively, and is said to be derived from , Adamah, the ground, because the first man was made out of the dust of the earth, or from Adam, to be red, in reference to his ruddy complexion. Most probably in this collective sense. as the representative of the whole human race, and, therefore, the type of humanity, that the presiding officer in a Council of Knights of the Sun, the Twenty-eighth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is called Father Adam, and is occupied in the investigation of the great truths which so much concern the interests of the race. Adam, in that degree, is man seeking after divine truth. The Cabalist and Talmudists have invented many things concerning the first Adam, none of which are, however, worthy of preservation (see Knight of the Sun). Brother McClenachan believed the entered Apprentice Degree symbolizes the creation of man and his first perception of light. The argument in support of that belief continues: In the Elohist form of the Creation we read, Elohim said, "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, over the fowls of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every Reptilia that creeps upon the earth. And Elohim created man in His image, in the image of Elohim He created him, male and female He created them. And Yahveh Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and man was made a living being."

Without giving more than a passing reference to the speculative origin and production of man and to his spontaneous generation, Principe Générateur, as set forth by the Egyptians, when we are told that "the fertilizing mud left by the Nile, and exposed to the vivifying action of heat induced by the sun's rays, brought forth germs which spring up as the bodies of men," accepted cosmogonies only will be hereinafter mentioned ; thus in that of Peru, the first man, created by the Divine Omnipotence, is called Alpa Camasca, Animated Earth. The Mandans, one of the North American tribes, relate that the Great Spirit molded two figures of clay, which he dried and animated with the breath of his mouth, one receiving the name of First Man, and the other that of Companion. Taeroa, the god of Tahiti, formed man of the red earth, say the inhabitants; and so we might continue.

But as François Lenormant remarks in the Beginnings of History, let us confine ourselves to the cosmogony offered by the sacred traditions of the great civilized nations of antiquity. "The Chaideans call Adam the man whom the earth produced. And he lay without movement, without life, and without breath, just like an image of the heavenly Adam, until his soul had been given him by the latter," The cosmogonic account peculiar to Babylon, as given by Berossus, says: "Belos, seeing that the earth was uninhabited, though fertile, cut off his own head, and the other gods, after kneading with earth the blood that flowed from it, formed men, who therefore are endowed with intelligence, and share in the divine thought," etc. The term employed to designate man, in his connection with his Creator, is admu, the Assyrian counterpart of the Hebrew Adam (G. Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis). Lenormant further says that. the fragments of Berossus give Adoros as the name of the first patriarch, and Adiuru has been discovered on the cuneiform inscriptions.

Zoroaster makes the creation of man the voluntary act of a personal god, distinct from primordial matter, and his theory stands alone among the learned religions of the ancient world.

According to Jewish tradition in the Targumim and the Talmud, as also to Moses Maimonides, Adam was created man and woman at the same time, having two faces, turned in two opposite directions, and that during a stupor the Creator separated Hawah, his feminine half, from him, in order to make of her a distinct person. Thus were separated the primordial androgen or first man-woman.

With Shemites and Mohammedans Adam was symbolized in the Lingam, whilst with the Jews Seth was their Adam or Lingam, the masculine symbol, and successively Noah took the place of Seth, and so followed Abraham and Moses. The worship of Adam as the God-like, idea, succeeded by Seth, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, through the symbolism of pillars, monoliths, obelisks, or Matsebas (images), gave rise to other symbolic images, as where Noah was adored under the emblems of a man, ark, and serpent, signifying heat, fire, or passion.

Upon the death of Adam, says traditional history, the pious Gregory. declared that the "dead body should be kept above ground, till a fulness of time should come to commit it to the middle of the earth by a priest of the most high God.'' This traditional prophecy was fulfilled, it is said, by the body of Adam having been preserved in a chest until about 1800 B.C., when "Melchizedek buried the body in Salem (formerly the name of Jerusalem), which might very well be the middle of the habitable world."

The Sethites used to say their prayers daily in the Ark before the body of Adam. J. G. R. Foriong, in his Rivers of Life, tells us that ''It appears from both the Sabid Aben Batric and the Arabic Catena, that there existed the following 'short litany, said to have been conceived by Noah.' Then follows the prayer of Noah, which was used for so long a period by the Jewish Freemasons at the opening of the Lodge.

'' O Lord, excellent art thou in thy truth, and there is nothing great in comparison of thee. Look upon us with the eye of mercy and compassion. Deliver us from this deluge of waters, and set our feet in a large room. By the sorrows of Adam, the first made man ; by the blood of Abel, Thy holy one ; by the righteousness of Seth, in whom Thou art well pleased ; number us not amongst those who have transgressed Thy statutes, but take us into Thy merciful care, for Thou art our Deliverer, and Thine is the praise for all the works of Thy hand for evermore. And the sons of Noah said, Amen, Lord."

The Master of the Lodge would omit the reference to the deluge and add the following to the prayer:

"But grant, we beseech Thee, that the ruler of this Lodge may be endued with knowledge and wisdom to instruct us and explain his secret masteries, as our holy brother Moses did (in His Lodge) to Aaron, to Eleazar, and to Ithamar (the sons of Aaron), and the several elders of Israel."

ADAM KADMON

In the Cabalistic doctrine, the name given to the first emanation or outflowing from the Eternal Fountain. It signifies the first man, or the first production of divine energy, or the son of God, and to it the other emanations are subordinate.

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY

Sixth President of the United States, who served from 1825 to 1829. Adams, who has been very properly described as "a man of strong points and weak ones, of vast reading and wonderful memory, of great credulity and strong prejudices," became notorious in the latter years of his life for his virulent opposition to Freemasonry. The writer already quoted, who had an excellent opportunity of seeing intimately the workings of the spirit of Anti-Masonry, says of him: "He hated Freemasonry, as he did many other things, not from any harm that he had received from it or personally knew respecting it, but because his credulity had been wrought upon and his prejudices excited against it by dishonest and selfish politicians, who were anxious, at any sacrifice to him, to avail themselves of the influence of his commanding talents and position in public life to sustain them in the disreputable work in which they were enlisted. In his weakness, he lent himself to them. He united his energies to theirs in an impracticable and unworthy cause" (IV. Moore, Freemasons magazine, volume vii, page 314).

The result was a series of letters abusive of Freemasonry, directed to leading politicians, and published in the public journals from 1831 to 1833. A year before his death they were collected and published under the title of Letters on the Masonic Institution, by John Quincy Adams (published at Boston, 1847, 284 pages).

Some explanation of the cause of the virulence with which Adams attacked the Masonic Institution in these letters may be found in the following paragraph contained in an Anti-Masonic work written by one Henry Gassett, and affixed to his Catalogue of Books on the Masonic Institution (published at Boston, 1852). "It had been asserted in a newspaper in Boston, edited by a Masonic dignitary, that John Adams was a Freemason. In answer to an inquiry from a person in New York State, whether he was so, Mr. Adams replied that 'he was not, and never should be'.

These few words, undoubtedly, prevented his election a second time as President of the United States. His competitor, Andrew Jackson, a Freemason, was elected."

Whether the statement contained in the italicized words be true or not, is not the question. It is sufficient that Adams was led to believe it, and hence his ill-will to an association which had, as he supposed, inflicted this political evil on him, and baffled his ambitious views.

Above reference to Adams being a member of the Craft is due to a confusion of the President's name with that of a Boston printer, John Quincy Adams, who was proposed for membership in St. Johns Lodge of that city on October 11, 1826. He was admitted on December 5.

But on the latter date the President was busily engaged at Washington as may be seen by reference to his Memoirs. This diary' also shows (on page 345, volume vii, Lippincott edition), a statement by Adams himself which settles the question. He says "I told Wilkins he might answer Tracy, that I am not and never was a Freemason."

ADAR

Hebrew, pronounced ad-awr; the sixth month of the civil and the twelfth of the ecclesiastical year of the Jews. It corresponds to a part of February and of March. The word has also a private significance known to advanced Brethren.

ADAREL

Angel of Fire. Referred to in the Hermetic Degree of Knight of the Sun. Probably from ... pronounced eh-der, meaning splendor, and .., El, God' that is, the splendor of God or Divine splendor.

ADRRESSES, MASONIC

Doctor Oliver, speaking oi the Masonic discourses which began to be published soon after the reorganization of Freemasonry, in the commencement of the eighteenth century, and which he thinks were instigated by the attacks made on the Order, to which they were intended to be replies, says :

"Charges and addresses were therefore delivered by Brethren in authority on the fundamental principles of the Order, and they were printed to show that its morality was sound, and not in the slightest degree repugnant to the precepts of our most holy religion. These were of sufficient merit to insure a wide circulation among the Fraternity, from whence they spread into the world at large, and proved decisive in fixing the credit of the Institution for solemnities of character and a taste for serious and profitable investigations."

There can be no doubt that these addresses, periodically delivered and widely published, have continued to exert an excellent effect in behalf of the Institution, by explaining and defending the principles on which it is founded.

Not at all unusual is it now as formerly for Grand Lodges to promote the presentation of such addresses in the Lodges. For example, the Grand Lodge of Ohio (in the Masonic Code of that State, 1914, page 197, section 82), says of the several Subordinate Lodges:

"It is enjoined upon them, as often as it is feasible, to introduce into their meetings Lectures and Essays upon Masonic Polity, and the various arts and sciences connected therewith."

The first Masonic address of which we have any notice was delivered on the 24th of June, 1721, before the Grand Lodge of England, by the celebrated John Theophilus Desagullers, LL.D, and F.R.S. The Book of Constitutions (edition 1738, page l13), under that date, says "Brother Desaguliers made an eloquent oration about Masons and Masonry." Doctor Oliver, in his Revelations of a Square (page 22), states that this address was issued in a printed form, but no copy of it now remains---at least it has escaped the researches of the most diligent Masonic bibliographers.

On the 20th of May, 1725, Martin Folkes, then Deputy Grand Master, delivered an address before the Grand Lodge of England, which is cited in the Freemason's Pocket Companion for 1759, but no entire copy of the address is now extant.

The third Masonic address of which we have any knowledge is one entitled "A Speech delivered to the Worshipful and Ancient Society of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand Lodge held at Merchants' Hall, in the City of York, on Saint John's Day, December 27, 1726, the Right Worshipful Charles Bathurst, Esq., Grand Master. By the Junior Grand Warden. Olim meminisse juvabit. York: Printed by Thomas Gent, for the benefit of the Lodge."

The Latin words Olim meminisse juvabit, as given on the above copy of the title page of this printed address, are taken from the works of the Roman epic poet Vergil, Who writes thus: Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit meaning Perchance even these things it will be hereafter delightful to remember.

The author of the above address was Francis Drake, M.D., F.R.S., who was appointed Junior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of All England at York on December 27, 1725 (see Drake, Francis). The first edition of the speech bears no date, but was probably issued in 1727, and it was again published at London in 1729, and a second London edition was published in 1734, which has been reprinted in Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Reprints (American edition, page 106). This is, therefore, the earliest Masonic address to which we have access. It contains a brief sketch of the history of Freemasonry, written as Masonic history was then written. The address is, however, remarkable for advancing the claim of the Grand Lodge of York to a superiority over that of London, and for containing a very early reference to the three degrees of Craft Masonry. The fourth Masonic address of whose existence we have any knowledge is "a Speech Delivered to the Worshipful Society of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Lodge, held at the Carpenters Arms in Silver-Street, Golden Square, the 31st of December, 1728. By the Right Worshipful Edw. Oakley, Architect, M.M., late Provincial Senior Grand Warden in Carmarthen, South Wales." This speech was reprinted by Cole in his Ancient Constitutions at London in 1731.

America has the honor of presenting the next attempt at Masonic oratory. The fifth address, and the first American, which is extant, is one delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 24, 1734. It is entitled "A Dissertation upon Masonry, delivered to a Lodge in America, June 24th, 1734. Christ's Regm."

This last word is doubtless an abbreviation of the Latin word for kingdom. Discovered by Brother C. W. Moore in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, it was published by him in his magazine in 1849. This address is well written, and of a symbolic character, as the author represents the Lodge as a type of heaven.

Sixthly, we have "An Address made to the body of Free and Accepted Masons assembled at a Quarterly communication, held near Temple Bar, December 11, 1735, by Martin Clare, Junior Grand Warden."

Martin Clare was distinguished in his times as a Freemason, and his address, which Doctor Oliver has inserted in his Golden Remains, has been considered of value enough to be translated into the French and German languages.

Next, on March 21, 1737, the Chevalier Ramsay delivered an oration before the Grand Lodge of France, in which he discussed the Freemasonry and the Crusaders and traced an imaginary history of its course through Scotland and England into France, which was to become the center of the reformed Order.

Ramsay and his address are discussed at length in Doctor. Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry. A report of this speech is to be found in the Histoire &c. de la tre ven. Confratenité des F. M. &c. Traduit par 1e Fr. de la Tierce. Francfort, 1742. This French title means History of the very Worshipful Fraternity of Freemasons, etc. Translated by the Brother of the Third Degree. Frankfort, 1742. An English version of this much discussed address by the Chevaller Ramsey is given in Robert F. Gould's History of Freemasonry, vo1unle 3, pages 84-9 (see Ramsay).
After this period, Masonic addresses so rapidly multiplied, that it would be impossible to record their titles or even the names of their authors.

What Martial in the first century, said of his own epigrams, that some were good, some bad, and a great many middling, may, with equal propriety and justice, be said of Masonic addresses. Of the thousands that have been delivered, many have been worth neither printing nor preservation.

One thing, however, is to be remarked : that within a few years the literary character of these productions has greatly improved. Formerly, a Masonic address on some festal occasion of the Order was little mor than a homily on brotherly love or some other Masonic virtue. Often the orator was a clergyman, selected by the Lodge on account of his moral character or his professional ability. These clergymen were frequently among the youngest members of the Lodge, and men who had no opportunity to study the esoteric construction of Freemasonry. In such cases we will find that the addresses were generally neither more nor less than sermons under another name.

They contain excellent general axioms of conduct, and sometimes encomiums or formal praises on the laudable design of our Institution.

But we look in vain in them for any ideas which refer to the history or to the occult philosophy of Freemasonry. Only in part do they accept the definition that Freemasonry is a science of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. They dwell on the science of morality, but they say nothing of the symbols or the allegories. But, as has been already said, there has been an evident improvement. Many of the addresses now delivered are of a higher order of Masonic literature. The subjects of Masonic history, of the origin of the Institution, of its gradual development from an operative art to a speculative science, of its symbols, and of its peculiar features which distinguish it from all other associations, have been ably discussed in many recent Masonic addresses. Thus have the efforts to entertain an audience for an hour become not only the means of interesting instruction to the hearers, but also valuable contributions to the literature of Freemasonry.

Masonic addresses should be written in this way.

All platitudes and old truisms should be avoided.

Sermonizing, which is good in its place, is out of place there. No one should undertake to deliver a Masonic address unless he knows something of the subject on which he is about to speak, and unless he is capable of saying what will make every Freemason who hears him a wiser as well as a better man, or at least what will afford him the opportunity of becoming so.

ADELPH

From the Greek, meaning a brother. The first degree of the Order of the Palladium. Reghellini says that there exists in the archives of Douai the ritual of a Masonic Society, called Adelphs, which has been communicated to the Grand Orient, but which he thinks is the same as the Primitive Rite of Narbonne.

ADEPT

One fully skilled or well versed in any art; from the Latin word Adeptus, meaning having obtained, because the Adept claimed to be in the possession of all the secrets of his peculiar mystery.

The Alchemists or Hermetic philosophers assumed the title of Adepts (see Alchemy). Of the Hermetic Adepts, who were also sometimes called Rosicruzians, Spence thus writes, in 1740, to his Mother:

"Have you ever heard of the people called Adepts? They are a set of philosophers superior to whatever appeared among the Greeks and Romans. The three great points they drive at, are, to be free from poverty, distempers, and death; and, if you believe them, they have found out one secret that is capable of freeing them from all three. There are never more than twelve of these men in the whole world at a time ; and we have the happiness of having one of the twelve at this time in Turin.

I am very well acquainted with him, and have often talked with him of their secrets, as far as he is allowed to talk to a common mortal of them"

(Spence's Letter to his Mother, in Singer's Anecdotes, page 403).

In a similar allusion to the possession of abstruse knowledge, the word is applied to some of the advanced degrees of Freemasonry.

ADEPT, PRINCE

One of the names of the Twenty-eighth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (see Knight of the Sun). It was the Twenty-third Degree of the System of the Chapter of Emperors of the East and West of Clermont.

ADEPT, THE

A Hermetic Degree of the collection of A. Viany. It is also the Fourth Degree of the Rite of Relaxed Observance, and first of the advanced degrees of the Rite of Elects of Truth. "It has much analogy, " says Thory, "with the degree of Knight of the Sun." It is also called Chaos Dismantled.

ADEPTUS ADOPTATUS

The Seventh Degree of the Rite of Zinnendorf, consisting of a kind of chemical and pharmaceutical instruction.

ADEPTUS CORONATUS

Called a1so Templar Master of the Key. The Seventh Degree of the Swedish Rite.

ADEPTUS EXEMPTUS

The Seventh Degree of the system adopted by those German Rosicrucians who were known as the Gold und Rosenkreutzer, or the Gold and Rosy Cross, and whom Lenning supposes to have been the first who engrafted Rosicrucianism on Freemasonry.

ADHERING MASON

Those Freemasons who, during the anti-Masonic excitement in America, on account of the supposed abduction of Morgan, refused to leave their Lodges and renounce Freemasonry, were so called. They embraced among their number some of the wisest, best, and most influential men of the country.

ADHUC STAT

Latin phrase meaning It yet stands or She yet stands and frequently found on Masonic medals (see Mossdorf's Denkmûnzen). Probably originally used by the Strict Observance and then refers to the preservation of Templary.

ADJOURNMENT

C. W. Moore (Freemasons Magazine xii, page 290) says:

"We suppose it to be generally conceded that Lodges cannot properly, be adjourned. It has been so decided by, a large proportion of the Grand Lodges in America, and tacitly, at least, concurred in by all. We are not aware that there is a dissenting voice among them. It is, therefore, safe to assume that the settled policy is against adjournment."

The reason which he assigns for this rule, is that adjournment is a method used only in deliberative bodies, such as legislatures and courts, and as Lodges do not partake of the character of either of these, adjournments are not applicable to them. The rule which Brother Moore lays down is undoubtedly correct, but the reason which he assigns for it is not sufficient. If a Lodge were permitted to adjourn by the vote of a majority of its members, the control of the labor would be placed in their hands. But according to the whole spirit of the Masonic system, the Master alone controls and directs the hours of labor.

In the fifth of the Old Charges, approved in 1722, it is declared that "All Masons shall meekly receive their Wages without murmuring or mutiny, and not desert the Master till the Lord's work is finished." Now as the Master alone can know when "the work is finished," the selection of the time of closing must be vested in him. He is the sole judge of the proper period at which the labors of the Lodge should be terminated, and he may suspend business even in the middle of a debate, if he supposes that it is expedient to close the Lodge. Hence no motion for adjournment can ever be admitted in a Masonic Lodge. Such a motion would be an interference with the prerogative of the Master, and could not therefore be entertained.

The Earl of Zetland, when Grand Master of England, ruled on November 19, 1856, that a Lodge has no power to adjourn except to the next regular day of meeting. He said:

"I may, say that Private Lodges are governed by much the same laws as Grand Lodges, and that no meeting of a Private Lodge can be adjourned; but the Master of a Private Lodge may, and does, convene Lodges of Emergency. "

This is in the Freemasons Magazine (1856, page 848).

This prerogative of opening and closing his Lodge is necessarily vested in the Master, because, by the nature of our Institution, he is responsible to the Grand Lodge for the good conduct of the body over which he presides. He is charged, in those questions to which he is required to give his assent at his installation, to hold the Landmarks in veneration, and to conform to every edict of the Grand Lodge, and for any violation of the one or disobedience of the other by the Lodge, in his presence, he would be answerable to the supreme Masonic authority. Hence the necessity that an arbitrary power should be conferred upon him, by the exercise of which he may at any time be enabled to prevent the adoption of resolutions, or the commission of any act which would be subversive of, or contrary to, those ancient laws and usages which he has sworn to maintain and preserve.

ADMIRATION, SIGN OF

A mode of recognition alluded to in the Most Excellent Master's Degree, or the Sixth of the American Rite. Its introduction in that place is referred to a Masonic legend in connection with the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Kings Solomon, which states that, moved by the widespread reputation of the Israelitish monarch, she had repaired to Jerusalem to inspect the magnificent works of which she had heard so many encomiums.

Upon arriving there, and beholding for the first time the Temple, which glittered with gold, and which was so accurately adjusted in all its parts as to seem to be composed of but a single piece of marble, she raised her hands and eyes to heaven in an attitude of admiration, and at the same time exclaimed, Rabboni! equivalent to saying A most excellent master hath done this! This actions has since been perpetuated in the ceremonies of the Degree of Most Excellent Master. The legend is, however, of doubtful authority, and is really to be considered only as allegorical, like so many other of the legends of Freemasonry (see Sheba, Queen of).

ADMISSION

Although the Old Charges, approved in 1722, use the word admitted as applicable to those who are initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry, yet the General Regulations of 1721 employ the term admission in a sense different from that of initiation. By the word making they imply the reception of a profane into the Order, but by admission they designate the election of a Freemason into a Lodge. Thus we find such expressions as these clearly indicating a difference in the meaning of the two words. In Regulation v-"No man can be made or admitted a member of a particular Lodge." In Regulation vi-"But no man can be entered a Brother in any particular Lodge, or admitted to be a member thereof." And more distinctly in Regulation viii-"No set or number of Brethren shall withdraw or separate themselves from the Lodge in which they were made Brethren or were afterwards admitted members." This distinction has not always been rigidly preserved by recent writers; but it is evident that, correctly speaking, we should always say of a profane who has been initiated that he has been made a Freemason, and of a Freemason who has been affiliated with a Lodge, that he has been admitted a member. The true definition of admission is, then, the reception of an unaffiliated Brother into membership (see Affiliated Freemason).

ADMONITION

According to the ethics of Freemasonry, it is made a duty obligatory upon every member of the Order to conceal the faults of a Brother; that is, not to blazon forth his errors and infirmities, to let them be learned by the world from some other tongue than his, and to admonish him of them in private. So there is another but a like duty or obligation, which instincts him to whisper good counsel in his Brother's ear and to warn him of approaching danger. This refers not more to the danger that is without and around him than to that which is within him ; not more to the peril that springs from the concealed foe who would waylay him and covertly injure him, than to that deeper peril of those faults and infirmities which lie within his own heart, and which, if not timely crushed by good and earnest resolution of amendment, will, like the ungrateful serpent in the fable, become warm with life only to sting the bosom that has nourished them.

Admonition of a Brother's fault is, then, the duty of every Freemason, and no true one will, for either fear or favor, neglect its performance. But as the duty is Masonic, so is there a Masonic way in which that duty should be discharged. We must admonish not with self-sufficient pride in our own reputed goodness-not in imperious tones, as though we looked down in scorn upon the degree offender---not in language that, by its hardness, will wound rather than win, will irritate more than it will reform; but with that persuasive gentleness that gains the heart- with the all-subduing influences of "mercy unrestrained"-with the magic' might of love---with the language and the accents of affection, which mingle grave displeasure for the offense with grief and pity for the offender.

This, and this alone is Masonic admonition. I am not to rebuke my Brother in anger, for I, too, have my faults, and I dare not draw around me the folds of my garment lest they should be polluted by my neighbor's touch; but I am to admonish in private, not before the world, for that would degrade him; and I am to warn him, perhaps from my own example, how vice ever should be followed by sorrow, for that goodly sorrow leads to repentance, and repentance to amendment, and amendment to joy.

ADONAI

In Hebrew, pronounced ad-o-noy, being the plural of excellence for Aden, meaning to rule, and signifying the Lord. The Jews, who reverently avoided the pronunciation of the sacred name JEHOVAH, were accustomed, whenever that name occurred, to substitute for it the word Adonai in reading. As to the use of the plural form instead of the singular, the Rabbis say, "Every word indicative of dominion, though singular in meaning, is made plural in form." This is called the pluralis excellentiae. The Talmudists also say, as in Joannes Buxtorfius, Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et Rabbinicum, that the Tetragrammaton is called Shem hamphorash, the name that is separated or explained, because it is explained, uttered, and set forth by the word Adonai (see Jehovah and Shem Hamphorasch).

Adonai is used as a significant word in several of the advanced degrees of Freemasonry, and may almost always be considered as allusive to or symbolic of the True Word.

ADONHIRAM

This has been adopted by the disciples of Adonhiramite Freemasonry as the spelling of the name of the person known in Scripture and in other Masonic systems as Adoniram (which see). They correctly derive the word from the Hebrew Adon and hiram, signifying the master who is exalted, which is the true meaning of Adoniram, the ..or h being omitted in the Hebrew by the union of the two words. Hiram Abif has also sometimes been called Adonhiram, the Adon having been bestowed on him by Solomon, it is said, as a title of honor.

ADONHIRAMITE FREEMASONRY

Of the numerous controversies which arose from the middle to near the end of the eighteenth century on the Continent of Europe, and especially in France, among the students of Masonic philosophy, and which so frequently resulted in the invention of new Degrees and the establishment of new Rites, not the least prominent was that which related to the person and character of the Temple Builder. The question, Who was the architect of King Solomon's Temple? was answered differently by the various theorists, and each answer gave rise to a new system, a fact by no means surprising in those times, so fertile in the production of new Masonic systems. The general theory was then, as it is now, that this architect was Hiram Abif, the widow's son, who had been sent to King Solomon by Hiram, King of Tyre, as a precious gift, and as a curious and cunning workman.

This theory was sustained by the statements of the Jewish Scriptures, so far as they threw any light on the Masonic legend. It was the theory of the English Freemasons from the earliest times; was enunciated as historically correct in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions (published in 1723, page 11) ; has continued ever since to be the opinion of all English and American Freemasons; and is, at this day, the only theory entertained by any Freemason in the two countries who has a theory at all on the subject. This, therefore, is the orthodox faith of Freemasonry.

But such was not the case in the last century on the Continent of Europe. At first the controversy arose not as to the man himself, but as to his proper appellation.

All parties agreed that the architect of the Temple was that Hiram, the widow's son, who is described in the First Book of Kings (chapter vii, verses 13 and 14), and in the Second 'Book of Chronicles (chapter ii, verses 13 and 14), as having come out of Tyre with the other workmen of the Temple who had been sent by King Hiram to Solomon. But one party called him Hiram Abif, and the other, admitting that his original name was Hiram, supposed that, in consequence of the skill he had displayed in the construction of the Temple, he had received the honorable affix of Adon, signifying, Lord or Master, whence his name became Adonhiram.

There was, however, at the Temple another Adoniram, of whom it will be necessary in passing to say a few words, for the better understanding of the present subject.

The first notice that we have of this Adoniram in Scripture is in the Second Book of Samuel (chapter xx, verse 24), where, in the abbreviated form of his name, Adoram, he is said to have been over the tribute in the house of David ; or, as Gesenius, a great authority on Hebrew, translates it, prefect over the tribute service, or, as we might say in modem phrase, principal collector of the taxes.

Seven years afterward, we find him exercising the same office in the household of Solomon; for it is said in First Kings (iv, 6) that Adoniram, "the son of Abda, was over the tribute." Lastly, we hear of him still occupying the same station in the household of King Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon. Forty-seven years after he is first mentioned in the Book of Samuel, he is stated under the name of Adoram, First Kings (xii, 1s), or Hadoram, Second Chronicles (x, 18), to have been stoned to death, while in the discharge of his duty, by the people, who were justly indignant at the oppressions of his master.

The legends and traditions of Freemasonry which connect this Adoniram with the Temple at Jerusalem derive their support from a single passage in the First Book of Kings (v, 14), where it is said that Solomon made a levy of thirty thousand workmen from among the Israelites; that he sent these in courses of ten thousand a month to labor on Mount Lebanon, and that he placed Adoniram over these as their superintendent.

The ritual-makers of France, who were not all Hebrew scholars, nor well versed in Biblical history, seem at times to have confounded two important personages, and to have lost all distinction between Hiram the Builder, who had been sent from the court of the King of Tyre, and Adoniram, who had always been an officer in the court of King Solomon. This error was extended and facilitated when they had prefixed the title Aden, that is to say, lord or master, to the name of the former, making him Aden Hiram, or the Lord Hiram.

Thus, about the year 1744, one Louis Travenol published at Paris, under the name of Leonard Gabanon, a work entitled Catéchisme des Francs Maçons, ou Le Secret des Maçons, in which he says:

"Besides the cedars of Lebanon, Hiram made a much more valuable gift to Solomon, in the person of Adonhiram, of his own race, the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali. His father, who was named Hur, was an excellent architect and worker in metals. Solomon, knowing his virtues, his merit, and his talents, distinguished him by the most eminent position, intrusting to him the construction of the Temple and the superintendence of all the workmen"

(see Louis Guillemain de Saint Victor's Recueil Précieuz, French for Choice Collection, page 76).

From the language of this extract, and from the reference in the title of the book to Adoram, which we know was one of the names of Solomon's tax collector, it is evident that the author of the catechism has confounded Hiram Abif, who came out of Tyre, with Adoniram, the son of Abda, who had always lived at Jerusalem ; that is to say, with unpardonable ignorance of Scriptural history and Masonic tradition, he has supposed the two to be one and the same person.

Notwithstanding this literary blunder, the catechism became popular with many Freemasons of that day, and thus arose the first schism or error in relation to the Legend of the Third Degree. In Solomon in all His Glory, an English exposure published in 1766, Adoniram takes the place of Hiram, but this work is a translation from a similar French one, and so it must not be argued that English Freemasons ever held this view.

At length, other ritualists, seeing the inconsistency of referring the character of Hiram, the widow's son, to Adoniram, the receiver of taxes, and the impossibility of reconciling the discordant facts in the life of both, resolved to cut the Gordian knot by refusing any Masonic position to the former, and making the latter, alone, the architect of the Temple. It cannot be denied that Josephus (viii, 2) states that Adoniram, or, as he calls him, Adoram, was, at the very beginning of the labor, placed over the workmen who prepared the materials on Mount Lebanon, and that he speaks of Hiram, the widow's son, simply as a skillful artisan, especially in metals, who had only made all the mechanical works about the Temple according to the will of Solomon (see Josephus, viii, 3). This apparent color of authority for their opinions was readily claimed by the Adoniramites, and hence one of their most prominent ritualists, Guillemain de Saint Victor (in his Recueil Précieux de la Maçonnerie Adonhiramite, Pages 77-s), propounds their theory thus: "we a11 agree that the Master's Degree is founded on the architect of the Temple. Now, Scripture says very positively, in the 14th verse of the 5th chapter of the Third Book of Kings, that the person was Adonhiram. In the Septuagint, the oldest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the two books of Samuel are called the First and Second of Kings. Josephus and all the secrete writers say the same thing, and undoubtedly distinguish him from Hiram the Tyrian, the worker in metals. So that it is Adonhiram then whom we are bound to honor.

There were therefore, in the eighteenth century, from about the middle to near the end of it, three schools of Masonic ritualists who were divided in opinion identity of this Temple Builder:

1. Those who supposed him to be Hiram the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whom the King of Tyre had sent to King Solomon, and whom they designated as Hiram Abif. This was the original and most popular school, and which we now suppose to have been the orthodox one.

2. Those who believed this Hiram that came out of Tyre to have been the architect, but who supposed that, in consequence of his excellence of character, Solomon had bestowed upon him the appellation of Adon, Lord or Master, calling him Adonhiram. As this theory was wholly unsustained by Scripture history or previous Masonic tradition, the school which supported it never became prominent or popular, and soon ceased to exist, although the error on which it is based is repeated at intervals in the blunder of some modern French ritualists.

3. Those who, treating this Hiram, the widow's son, as a subordinate and unimportant character, entirely ignored him in their ritual, and asserted that Adoram, or Adoniram, or Adonhiram, as the name was spelled by these ritualists, the son of Abda, the collector of tribute and the superintendent of the levy on Mount Lebanon, was the true architect of the Temple, and the one to whom all the legendary incidents of the Third Degree of Freemasonry were to be referred.

This school, in consequence of the boldness with which, unlike the second school, it refused all compromise with the orthodox party and assumed a wholly independent theory, became, for a time, a prominent schism in Freemasonry. Its disciples bestowed upon the believers in Hiram Abif the name of Hiramite Masons, adopted as their own distinctive appellation that of Adonhiramites, and having developed the system which they practiced into a peculiar rite, called it Adonhiramite Freemasonry.

Who was the original founder of the rite of Adonhiramite Freemasonry, and at what precise time it was first established, are questions that cannot now be answered with any certainty. Thory does not attempt to reply to either in his Nomenclature of Rites, where, if anything was known on the subject, we would be most likely to find it. Ragon, it is true, in his Orthodoxie Maçonnique, attributes the Rite to the Baron de Tschoudy. But as he also assigns the authorship of the Recueil Précieux (a work of which we shall directly speak more fully) to the same person, in which statement he is known to be mistaken, there can be but little doubt that he is wrong in the former as well as in the latter opinion. The Chevalier de Lussy, better known as the Baron de Tschoudy, was, it is true, a distinguished ritualist. He founded the Order of the Blazing Star, and took an active part in the operations of the Council of Emperors of the East and West; but we have met with no evidence, outside of Ragon's assertion, that he established or had anything to do with the Adonhiramite Rite.

We are disposed to attribute the development into a settled system, if not the actual creation, of the Rite of Adonhiramite Freemasonry to Louis Guillemain de Saint Victor, who published at Paris, in the year 1781, a work entitled Recueil Precieux de la Maçonnerie Adonhiramite, etc.
As this volume contained only the ritual of the first four degrees, it was followed, in 1785, by another, which embraced the higher degrees of the Rite. No one who peruses these volumes can fail to perceive that the author writes like one who has invented, or, at least, materially modified the Rite which is the subject of his labors. At all events, this work furnishes the only authentic account that we possess of the organization of the Adonhiramite system of Freemasonry.

The Rite of Adonhiramite Freemasonry consisted of twelve degrees, which were as follows, the names being given in French as well as in English:<

1. Apprentice-Apprenti.
2. Fellow-Craft-Compagnon.
3. Master Mason-Maître.
4. Perfect Master-Maitre parfait.
5. Elect of Nine---Premier Elu, qu L'Elu des Neuf.
6. Elect of Perignan-Second Elu nommé Elu de Pérignan.
7. Elect of Fifteen-Troisiéme Elu nommé Elu des Quinze.
8. Minor Architect-Petit Architecte.
9. Grand Architect, or Scottish Fellow Craft-Grand Archirecte, ou Compagnon Ecossais.
10. Scottish Master-Maître Ecossais.
l1, Knight of the Sword, Knight of the East, or of the Eagle-Chevalier de l'Épée surnommé Chefalier de l'Orient ou de l'Aigle.
12. Knight of Rose Croix-Chevalier de la Rose Croiz.

This is the entire list of Adonhiramite Degrees.

Thory and Ragon have both erred in giving a Thirteenth Degree, namely, the Noachite, or Prussian Knight. They have fallen into this mistake because Guillemain has inserted this degree at the end of his second volume, but simply as a Masonic curiosity, having been translated, as he says, from the German by M. de Bérage. It has no connection with the preceding series of degrees, and Guillemain positively declares in the second part (2nd Ptie, page l18) that the Rose Croix is the ne plus ultra, the Latin for nothing further, the summit and termination, of his Rite.

Of these twelve degrees, the first ten are occupied with the transactions of the first Temple; the eleventh with matters relating to the construction of the second Temple; and the twelfth with that Christian symbolism of Freemasonry which is peculiar to the Rose Croix of every Rite. All of the degrees have been borrowed from the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, with slight modifications, which have seldom improved their character. On the whole, the extinction of the Adonhiramite Rite can scarcely be considered as a loss to Freemasonry.

Before concluding, a few words may be said on the orthography of the title. As the Rite derives its peculiar characteristic from the fact that it founds the Third Degree on the assumed legend that Adoniram, the son of Abda and the receiver of tribute, was the true architect of the Temple, and not Hiram, the widow's son, it should properly have been styled the Adoniramite Rite, and not the Adonhiramite. So it would probably have been called if Guillemain, who gave it form, had been acquainted with the Hebrew language, for he would then have known that the name of his hero was Adoniram and not Adonhiram.

The term Adonhiramite Freemasons should really have been applied to the second school described in this article, whose disciples admitted that Hiram Abif was the architect of the Temple, but who supposed that Solomon had bestowed the prefix Adon upon him as a mark of honor, calling him Adonhiram. But Gui1lemain having committed the blunder in the name of his Rite, it continued to be repeated by his successors, and it would perhaps now be inconvenient to correct the error.

Ragon, however, and a few other recent writers, have ventured to take this step, and in their works the system is called Adoniramite Freemasonry.

ADONIRAM

The first notice that we have of Adoniram in Scripture is in the Second Book of Samuel (xx, 24), where, in the abbreviated form of his name Adoram, he is said to have been over the tribute in the house of David, or, as Gesenius translates it prefect over the tribute service, tribute master, that is to say, in modern phrase, he was the chief receiver of the taxes.

Clarke calls him Chancellor of the Exchequer. Seven years afterward we find him exercising the same office in the household of Solomon, for it is said, First Kings (iv, 6), that "Adoniram the son of Abda was over the tribute."

Lastly, we hear of him still occupying the same station in the household of King Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon. Forty-seven years after he is first mentioned in the Book of Samuel, he is stated under the name of Adoram, First Kings (xii, 18), or Hadoram, Second Chronides (X,18), to have been stoned to death, while in the discharge of his duty, by the people, who were justly indignant at the oppressions of his master.

Although commentators have been at a loss to determine whether the tax-receiver under David, under Solomon, and under Rehoboam was the same person, there seems to be no reason to doubt it; for, as Kitto says, ''It appears very unlikely that even two persons of the same name should successively bear the same office, in an age when no example occurs of the father's name being given to his son. We find, also, that not more than forty-seven years elapse between the first and last mention of the Adoniram who was 'over the tribute and as this, although a long term of service, is not too long for one life and as the person who held the office in the beginning of Rehoboam's reign had served in it long enough to make himself odious to the people, it appears, on the whole, most probable that one and the same person is intended throughout" (John Eitto in his Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature).

Adoniram plays an important part in the Masonic system, especially in advanced degrees, but the time of action in which he appears is confined to the period occupied in the construction of the Temple. The legends and traditions which connect him with that edifice derive their support from a single passage in the First Book of Kings (V, 14),where it is said that Solomon made a levy of thirty thousand workmen from among the Israelites ; that he sent these in courses of ten thousand a month to labor on Mount Lebanon, and that he placed Adoniram over these as their superintendent. From this brief statement the Adoniramite Freemasons have deduced the theory, as may be seen in the preceding article, that Adoniram was the architect of the Temple; while the Hiramites, assigning this important office to Hiram Abif, still believe that Adoniram occupied an important part in the construction of that edifice. He has been called "the first of the Fellow Crafts'' is mid in one tradition to have been the brother-in-law of Hiram Abif, the latter having demanded of Solomon the hand of Adoniram's sister in marriage; and that the nuptials were honored by the kings of Israel and Tyre with a public celebration. Another tradition, preserved in the Royal Master's Degree of the Cryptic Rite, informs us that he was the one to whom the three Grand Masters had intended first to communicate that knowledge which they had reserved as a fitting reward to be bestowed upon all meritorious craftsmen at the completion of the Temple. It is scarcely necessary to say that these and many other Adoniramic legends, often fanciful, and without any historical authority, are but the outward clothing of abstruse symbols, some of which have been preserved, and others lost in the lapse of time and the ignorance and corruptions of sundry ritualists.

Adoniram, in Hebrew .... compounded of .. Adon, Lord, and ... Hiram, altitude, signifies the Lord of altitude. It is a word of great importance, and frequently used among the sacred words of the advanced degrees in all the Rites.

ADONIRAMITE FREEMASONRY

See Adonhiramite Freemasonry

An organization which bears a very imperfect resemblance to Freemasonry in its forms and ceremonies, and which was established in France for the initiation of females, has been called by the French Maçonnerie d'Adoption, or Adoptive Freemasonry, and the societies in which the initiations take place have received the name of Loges d'Adeption, or Adoptive Lodges. This appellation is derived from the fact that every Female or Adoptive Lodge is obliged, by the regulations of the association, to be, as it were, adopted by, and thus placed under the guardianship of, some regular Lodge of Freemasons.

As to the exact date which we are to assign for the first introduction of this system of Female Freemasonry, there have been several theories, some of which, undoubtedly, are wholly untenable, since they have been founded, as Masonic historical theories too often are, on an unwarrantable mixture of facts and fictions---of positive statements and problematic conjectures. M. J. S. Boubee, a distinguished French Freemason, in his Études Maçonniques (Masonicstudies), places the origin of Adoptive Freemasonry in the seventeenth century, and ascribes its authorship to Queen Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles I of England. He states that on her return to France, after the execution of her husband, she took pleasure in recounting the secret efforts made by the Freemasons of England to restore her family to their position and to establish her son on the throne of his ancestors. This, it will be recollected, was once a prevalent theory, now exploded, of the origin of Freemasonry-that it was established by the Cavaliers, as a secret political organization, in the times of the English civil war between the king and the Parliament, and as an engine for the support of the former.

M. Boubee adds that the queen made known to the ladies of her court, in her exile, the words and signs employed by her Masonic friends in England as their modes of recognition, and by this means instructed them in some of the mysteries of the Institution, of which, he says, she had been made the protectress after the death of the king. This theory is so full of absurdity, and its statements so flatly contradicted by well-known historical facts, that we may at once reject it as wholly without authority.

Others have claimed Russia as the birthplace of Adoptive Freemasonry; but in assigning that country and the year 1712 as the place and time of its origin, they have undoubtedly confounded it with the chivalric Order of Saint Catharine, which was instituted by the Czar, Peter the Great, in honor of the Czarina Catharine, and which, although at first it consisted of persons of both sexes, was subsequently confined exclusively to females. But the Order of Saint Catharine was in no manner connected with that of Freemasonry. It was simply s Russian order of female knighthood.
The truth seems to be that the regular Lodges of adoption owed their existence to those secret associations of men and woman which sprang up in France before the middle of the eighteenth century, and which attempted in all of their organization, except the admission of female members, to imitate the Institution of Freemasonry. Clavel, who, in his Histoire Pitoresque de la Franc-Maçonnery, an interesting but not always a trustworthy work, adopts this theory, says (on page iii, third edition) that female Masonry was instituted about the year 1730, that it made its first appearance in France, and that it was evidently a product of the French mind. No one will be disposed to doubt the truth of this last sentiment. The proverbial gallantry of the French Freemasons was most ready and willing to extend to women some of the blessings of that Institution, from which the churlishness, as they would call it, of their Anglo-Saxon Brethren had excluded them.

But the Freemasonry of Adoption did not at once and in its very beginning assume that peculiarly imitative form of the Craft which it subsequently presented, nor was it recognized as having any connection with our own Order until more than thirty years after its first establishment. Its progress was slow and gradual. In the course of this progress it affected various names and rituals, many of which have not been handed down to us. Evidently it was convivial and gallant in its nature, and at first seems to have been only an imitation of Freemasonry, inasmuch as that it was a secret society, having a form of initiation and modes of recognition. A specimen of one or two of these associations of women may be interesting.

One of the earliest of these societies was that which was established in the year 1743, at Paris, under the name of the Ordre des Félicitaires, which we might very appropriately translate as the Order of Happy Folks.

The vocabulary and all the emblems of the order were nautical. The sisters made symbolically a voyage from the island of Felicity, in ships navigated by the brethren. There were four degrees, namely, those of Cabin-boy, Captain, Commodore, and Vice-Admiral, and the Grand Master, or presiding officer, was called the Admiral. Out of this society there sprang, in 1745, another, which was called the Knights and Ladies of the Anchor, which is said to have been somewhat more refined in its character, although for the most part it preserved the same formulary of reception.

Two years afterward, in 1747, the Chevalier Beauchaine, a very zealous Masonic adventurer, and the Master for life of a Parisian Lodge, instituted an androgynous society, or system of men and women, under the name of the Ordre des Fendeurs, or the Order of Wood-Cutters, whose ceremonies were borrowed from those of the well-known political society of the Carbonari. All parts of the ritual had a reference to the sylvan vocation of wood-cutting, just as that of the Carbonari referred to coal-burning. The place of meeting was called a wood-yard, and was supposed to be situated in a forest; the presiding officer was styled Pére Maître, which might be idiomatically interpreted as Goodman Maser; and the members were designated as cousins, a practice evidently borrowed from the Carbonari.

The reunions of the Wood-Cutters enjoyed the prestige of the highest fashion in Paris; and the society became so popular that ladies and gentlemen of the highest distinction in France united with it, and membership was considered an honor which no rank, however exalted, need disdain. It was consequently succeeded by the institution of many other and similar androgynous societies, the very names of which it would be tedious to enumerate (see Clavel's History, pages lll-2).

Out of al1 these societies-which resembled Freemasonry only in their secrecy, their benevolence, and a sort of rude imitation of a symbolic ceremonial --at last arose the true Lodges of Adoption, which did far claimed a connection with and a dependence on Freemasonry as that Freemasons alone were admitted among their male members-a regulation which did not prevail in the earlier organizations.

It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that the Lodges of Adoption began to attract attention in France, whence they speedily spread into other countries of Europo-into Germany, Poland, and even Russia; England alone, always conservative to a faut, steadily refusing to take any cognizance of them.

The Freemasons, says Clavel in his History (page 112), embraced them with enthusiasm as a practicable means of giving to their wives and daughters some share of the pleasures which they themselves enjoyed in their mystical assemblies. This, at least, may be said of them, that they practiced with commendable fidelity and diligence the greatest of the Masonic virtues, and that the banquets and balls which always formed an important part of their ceremonial were distinguished by numerous acts of charity.

The first of these Lodges of which we have any notice was that established in Paris, in the year 1760, by the Count de Bemouville. Another was instituted at Nijmegen, in Holland, in 1774, over which the Prince of Waldeck and the Princess of Orange presided. In 1775 the Lodge of Saint Antoine, at Paris, organized a dependent Lodge of Adoption, of which the Duchess of Bourbon was installed as Grand Mistress and the Duke of Chartres, then Grand Master of French Freemasonry, conducted the business.

In 1777 there was an Adoptive Lodge of La Candeur, or Frankness, over which the Duchess of Bourbon presided, assisted by such noble ladies as the Duchess of Chartres, the Princess Lamballe, and the Marchioness de Genlis; and we hear of another governed by Madame Helvetius, the wife of the il1ustrious philosopher; so that it will be perceived that fashion, wealth, and literature combined to give splendor and influence to this new order of Female Freemasonry.

At first the Grand Orient of France appears to have been unfavorably disposed to these imitation pseudo Masonic and androgynous associations, but at length they became so numerous and so popular that a persistence in opposition would have evidently been impolitic, if it did not actually threaten to be fatal to the interests and permanence of the Masonic Institution. The Grand Orient, therefore, yielded its objections, and resolved to avail itself of that which it could not suppress. Accordingly, on the 10th of June, 1774, it issued an Edict by which it assumed the protection and control of the Lodges of Adoption. Rules and regulations were provided for their government, among which were two: first, that no males except regular Freemasons should be permitted to attend them; and, secondly, that each Lodge should be placed under the charge and held under the sanction of some regularly constituted Lodge of Freemasons, whose Master, or in his absence, his deputy, should be the presiding officer, assisted by a female President or Mistress; and such has since been the organization of al1 Lodges of Adoption.

A Lodge of Adoption, under the regulations established in 1774, consists of the following officers: Grand Master, a Grand Mistress, an Orator, dressed as a Capuchin or Franciscan monk, an Inspector, an Inspectress, a Male and Female Guardian, a Mistress of Ceremonies. All of these officers wear a blue watered ribbon over the shoulder, to which is suspended a golden trowel, and all the brothers and sisters have aprons and white gloves.

The Rite of Adoption consists of four Degrees, whose names in French and English are as follows :

1. Apprentice, or Female Apprentice.
2. Compagnonne, or Craftswoman.
3. Maîtresse, or Mistress.
4. Parfaite Maçonne, or Perfect Masoness.

It will be seen that the Degrees of Adoption, in their names and their apparent reference to the gradations of employment in an operative art, are assimilated to those of legitimate Freemasonry; but it is in those respects only that the resemblance holds good. In the details of the ritual there is a vast difference between the two Institutions.

There was a Fifth Degree added in1817-by some modern writers called Female elect-Sublime Dame Ecossaise, or Sovereign Illustrious Scottish Dame, but it seems to be a recent and not generally adopted innovation. At all events, it constituted no part of the original Rite of Adoption. The First, or Female Apprentice's Degree, is simply preliminary in its character, and is intended to prepare the Candidate for the more important lessons which she is to receive in the succeeding Degrees. She is presented with an apron and a pair of white kid gloves. The apron is given with the following charge, in which, as in all the other ceremonies of the Order, the Masonic system of teaching by symbolism is followed:

"Permit me to decorate you with this apron, kings, princes, and the most illustrious princesses have esteemed, and will ever esteem it an honor to wear it, as being the symbol of virtue."

On receiving the gloves, the candidate is thus addressed:

"The color of these gloves will admonish you that candor and truth are virtues inseparable from the character of a true Freemason. Take your place among us, and be pleased to listen to the instructions which we are about to communicate to you."

The following Charge is then addressed to the members by the Orator.

''MY DEAR SISTERS Nothing is better calculated to assure you of the high esteem our society entertains for you, than your admission as a member. The common herd, always unmannerly, full of the most ridiculous prejudices, has dared to sprinkle on us the black poison of calumny; but what judgment could it form when deprived of the light of truth, and unable to feel all the blessings which result from its perfect knowledge? You alone, my dear sisters, having been repulsed from our meetings, would have the right to think us unjust; but with what satisfaction do you learn to-day that Freemasonry is the school of propriety and of virtue, and that by its laws we restrain the weaknesses that degrade an honorable man, in order to return to your side more worthy of your confidence and of your sincerity. However, whatever pleasure these sentiments have enabled us to taste, we have not been able to fill the void that your absence left in our midst ; and I confess, to your glory, that it was time to invite into our societies some sisters who, while rendering them more respectable will ever make of them pleasures and delights. We call our Lodges Temples of Virtue, because we endeavor to practice it. The mysteries which we celebrate therein are the grand art of conquering the passions and the oath that we take to reveal nothing is to prevent self-love and pride from entering at all into the good which we ought to do. The beloved name of Adoption tells you sufficiently that we choose you to share the happiness that we enjoy, in cultivating honor and charity. It is only after a careful examination that we have wished to share it with you. Now that you know it we are convinced that the light of wisdom will illumine all the actions of your life, and that you will never forget that the more valuable things are the greater is the need to preserve them. It is the principle of silence that we observe, it should be inviolable.

May the God of the Universe who hears us vouchsafe to give us strength to render it so." Throughout this Charge it will be seen that there runs a vein of gallantry, which gives the true secret of the motives which led to the organization of the society, and which, however appropriate to a Lodge of Adoption, would scarcely be in place in a Lodge of the legitimate Order.
In the Second Degree, or that of Compagnonne, or Craftswoman, corresponding to our Fellow Craft, the Lodge is made the symbol of the Garden of Eden, and the candidate passes through a mimic representation of the temptation of Eve, the fatal effects of which, culminating in the deluge and the destruction of the human race, are impressed upon her in the lecture or catechism.

Here we have a scenic representation of the circumstances connected with that event, as recorded in Genesis. The candidate plays the part of our common mother. In the center of the Lodge, which represents the garden, is placed the tree of life, from which ruddy apples are suspended. The serpent, made with theatrical skill to represent a living reptile, embraces in its coils the trunk. An apple plucked from the tree is presented to the recipient, who is persuaded to eat it by the promise that thus alone can she prepare herself for receiving a knowledge of the sublime mysteries of Freemasonry. She receives the fruit from the tempter, but no sooner has she attempted to bite it, than she is startled by the sound of thunder; a curtain which has separated her from the members of the Lodge is suddenly withdrawn, and she is detected in the commission of the act of disobedience. She is sharply reprimanded by the Orator, who conducts her before the Grand Master.

This dignitary reproaches her with her fault, but finally, With the consent of the Brethren and sisters Present, he pardons her in the merciful spirit of the Institution, on the condition that she will take a vow to extend hereafter the same clemency to others.

All of this is allegorical and very pretty, and it cannot be denied that on the sensitive imaginations of females such ceremonies must produce a manifest impression. But it is needless to say that it is nothing like Freemasonry.

There is less ceremony, but more symbolism, in the Third Degree, or that of Mistress. Here are introduced, as parts of the ceremony, the tower of Babel and the theological ladder of Jacob. Its rounds, however, differ from those peculiar to true Freemasonry, and are said to equal the virtues in number. The lecture or catechism is very long, and contains some very good points in its explanations of the symbols of the degree. Thus, the tower of Babel is said. to signify the pride of man-its base, his folly-the stones of which it was composed, his passions---the cement which united them, the poison of discord-and its spiral form, the devious and crooked ways of the human heart. In this manner there is an imitation, not of the letter and substance of legitimate Freemasonry, for nothing can in these respects be more dissimilar, but of that mode of teaching by symbols and allegories which is its peculiar characteristic.

The Fourth Degree, or that of Perfect Masoness, corresponds to no Degree in legitimate Freemasonry.

It is simply the summit of the Bite of Adoption, and hence is also called the Degree of Perfection. Although the Lodge, in this , is supposed to represent the Mosaic tabernacle in the wilderness, yet the ceremonies do not have the same reference. In one of them, however, the liberation, by the candidate, of a bird from the vase in which it had been confined is said to symbolize the liberation of man from the dominion of his passions; and thus a far-fetched reference is made to the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian bondage. On the whole, the ceremonies are unrelated, they are disconnected, but the lecture or catechism contains some excellent lessons. Especially does it furnish us with the official definition of Adoptive Freemasonry, which is in these words.

It is a virtuous amusement by which we recall a part of the mysteries of our religion; and the better to reconcile humanity with the knowledge of its Creator, after we have inculcated the duties of virtue, we deliver ourselves up to the sentiments of a pure and delightful friendship by enjoying in our Lodges the pleasures of society-pleasures which among us are always founded on reason, honor, and innocence.

Apt and appropriate description is this of an association, secret or otherwise, of agreeable and virtuous well-bred men and women, but having not the slightest application to the design or form of true Freemasonry.

Guillemain de Saint Victor, the author of Manuel des Franches-Maçonnes, on La Vraie Maçonnerie d'Adoption, meaning Handbook of the Women Freemasons or the True Freemasonry of Adoption, which forms the third part of the Recueil Précieux, or Choice Collection, who has given the best ritual of the Rite and from whom the preceding account has been taken, thus briefly sums up the objects of the Institution :

"The First Degree contains only, as it ought, moral ideas of Freemasonry ; the Second Degree is the initiation into the first mysteries, commencing with the sin of Adam, and concluding with the Ark of Noah as the first favor which God granted to men ; the Third and Fourth Degrees are merely a series of types and figures drawn from the Holy Scriptures, by which we explain to the candidate the virtues which she ought to practice" (see page 13, edition 1785).

The Fourth Degree, being the summit of the Rite of Adoption, is furnished with a Table Lodge, or the ceremony of a banquet, which immediately succeeds the dosing of the Lodge, and which, of course, adds much to the social pleasure and nothing to the instructive character of the Rite.

Here, also, there is a continued imitation of the ceremonies of the Masonic Institution as they are practiced in France, where the ceremoniously conducted banquet, at which Freemasons only are present, is always an accompaniment of the Master's Lodge. Thus, as in the banquets of the regular Lodges of the French Rite, the members always use a symbolical language by which they designate the various implements of the table and the different articles of food and drink, calling, for instance, the knives swords, the forks pickaxes, the dishes materials, and bread a rough ashlar (see Clavel's History, page 30).

In imitation of this custom, the Rite of Adoption has established in its banquets a technical vocabulary, to be used only at the table. Thus the Lodge room is called Eden, the doors barriers, the minutes a ladder, a wineglass is styled a lamp, and its contents oil-water being white oil and wine red oil. To fill your glass is te trim your lamp, to drink is to extinguish your lamp, with many other eccentric expressions (Clavel's History, page 34).

Much taste, and in some instances, magnificence, are displayed in the decorations of the Lodge rooms of the Adoptive Rite. The apartment is separated by curtains into different divisions, and contains ornaments and decorations which of course vary in the different degrees.

The orthodox Masonic idea that the Lodge is a symbol of the world is here retained, and the four sides of the hall are said to represent the four continents-the entrance being called Europe, the right side Africa, the left America, and the extremity, in which the Grand Master and Grand Mistress are seated, Asia. There are statues representing Wisdom, Prudence, Strength, Temperance, Honor, Charity, Justice, and Truth. The members are seated along the sides in two rows, the ladies occupying the front one, and the whole is rendered as beautiful and attractive as the taste can make it (Recueil Précieuz, page 24).

The Lodges of Adoption flourished greatly in France after their recognition by the Grand Orient. The Duchess of Bourbon, who was the first that received the title of Grand Mistress, was installed with great pomp and splendor, in May, 1775, in the Lodge of Saint Antoine, in Paris. She presided over the Adoptive Lodge La Candeur until 1780, when it was dissolved. Attached to the celebrated Lodge of the Nine Sisters, which had so many distinguished men of letters among its members, was a Lodge of Adoption bearing the same name, which in 1778 held a meeting at the residence of Madame Helvetius in honor of Benjamin Franklin then American ambassador at the French court.

During the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, Lodges of Adoption, like everything that was gentle or humane, almost entirely disappeared. But with the accession of a regular government they were resuscitated, and the Empress Josephine presided at the meeting of one at Strasburg in the year 1805. They continued to flourish under the imperial dynasty, and although less popular, or less fashionable, under the Restoration, they, subsequently recovered their popularity, and are still in existence in France .

As interesting additions to this article, it may not be improper to insert two accounts, one, of the installation of Madame Cesar Moreau, as Grand Mistress of Adoptive Masonry, in the Lodge connected with the regular Lodge La Jarusalem des Vallées Egyptiennes, on the 8th of July, 1854, and the other, of the reception of the celebrated Lady Morgan, in 1819, in the Lodge La Belle et Bonne, meaning-the Beautiful and Good, as described in her Diary.

The account of the Installation of Madame Moreau, which is abridged from the Franc-Maçon, a Parisian periodical, is as follows :

The fête was most interesting and admirably arranged. After the introduction in due form of a number of brethren and sisters, the Grand Mistress elect was announced, and she entered, preceded by the Five Lights of the Lodge and escorted by the Inspectress, Depositress, Oratrix, and Mistress of Ceremonies. M. J. S. Boubee, the Master of the Lodge La Jerusalem des Vallées Egyptiennes, conducted her to the altar, where, having installed her into office and handed her a mallet as the symbol of authority, he addressed her in a copy of verses, whose merit will hardly claim for them a repetition. To this she made a suitable reply, and the Lodge then proceeded to the reception of a young lady, a part of the ceremony of which is thus described:

Of the various trials of Virtue and fortitude to which she was subjected, there was one which made a deep impression, not only on the fair recipient, but on the whole assembled company. Four boxes were placed, one before each of the male officers.

The candidate was told to open them, which she did, and from the first and second drew faded flowers, and soiled ribbons and laces, which being placed in an open vessel were instantly consumed by fire, as an emblem of the brief duration of such objects.

From the third she drew an apron, a blue silk scarf, and a pair of gloves, and from the fourth a basket containing the working tools in silver gilt. She was then conducted to the altar, where, on opening a fifth box, several birds which had been confined in it escaped, which was intended to teach her that liberty is a condition to which all men are entitled, and of which no one can be deprived without injustice. After having taken the vow, she was instructed in the modes of recognition, and having been clothed with the apron, scarf, and gloves, and presented with the implements of the Order, she received from the Grand Mistress an esoteric explanation of all these emblems and ceremonies. Addresses were subsequently delivered by the Orator and Oratrix, an ode was sung, the poor or alms box was handed round, and the labors of the Lodge were then closed.

Madame Moreau lived only six months to enjoy the honors of presiding officer of the Adoptive Rite, for she died of a pulmonary affection at an early age, on the eleventh of the succeeding January.

The Lodge of Adoption in which Lady Morgan received the degrees at Paris, in the year 1819, was called La Belle et Bonne or the Beautiful and Good. This was the pet name which long before had been bestowed by Voltaire on his favorite, the Marchioness de Villette, under whose presidency and at whose residence in the Faubourg St. Germain the Lodge was held. Hence the name with which all France, or at least all Paris, was familiarly acquainted as the popular designation of Madame de Villette (see Clavel's History, page 114).

Lady Morgan, in her description of the Masonic fête, says that when she arrived at the Hotel la Villette, where the Lodge was held, she found a large concourse of distinguished persons ready to take part in the ceremonies. Among these were Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, the Count de Cazes, elsewhere distinguished in Freemasonry, the celebrated Denon, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and the illustrious actor Talma.

The business of the evening commenced with an installation of the officers of a sister Lodge, after which the candidates were admitted.

Lady Morgan describes the arrangements as presenting, when the doors were opened, a spectacle of great magnificence.

A profusion of crimson and gold, marble busts, a decorated throne and altar, an abundance of flowers, and incense of the finest odor which filled the air, gave to the whole a most dramatic and scenic effect. Music of the grandest character mingled its harmony with the mysteries of initiation, which lasted for two hours, and when the Lodge was closed there was an adjournment to the hall of refreshment, where the ball was opened by the Grand Mistress with Prince Paul of Wurtemberg.

Lady Morgan, upon whose mind the ceremony appears to have made an impression, makes one remark worthy of consideration: "That so many women," she says, "young and beautiful and worldly, should never have revealed the secret, is among the miracles which the much distrusted sex are capable of working." In fidelity to the Vow of Secrecy, the Female Freemasons of the Adoptive Rite have proved themselves fully equal to their brethren of the legitimate Order.

Notwithstanding that Adoptive Freemasonry has found an advocate in no less distinguished a writer than Chemin Dupontés, who, in the Encyclopédie Maçonnique, calls it "a luxury in Freemasonry, and a pleasant relaxation which cannot do any harm to the true mysteries which are practiced by men alone," it has been very generally condemned by the most celebrated of French, German, English, and American Freemasons. Chemin Dupontés, by the way, published in 1819-25 his Encyclopédie Maçonnique or Masonic Encyclopedia at Paris in four volumes. Gaedicke, in the Freimaurer Lezicon, or Dictionary for the Freemason, speaks lightly of it as established on insufficient grounds, and expresses his gratification that the system no longer exists in Germany.

Thory, in his History of the Foundation of the Grand Orient (page 361), says that the introduction of Adoptive Lodges was a consequence of the relaxation of Masonic discipline; and he asserts that the permitting of women to share in mysteries which should exclusively belong to men. is not in accordance with the essential principles of the Masonic Order. The Abbé Robin, the author of an able work entitled Recherches sur les initiations, Anciennes et Modernes, or Inquiries upon Ancient and Modern initiations, maintains on Page 15 that the custom of admitting women into Masonic assemblies will perhaps be, at some future period, the cause of the decline of Freemasonry in France. The prediction is not, however, likely to come to pass; for while legitimate Freemasonry has never been more popular or prosperous in France than it is at this day, it is the Lodges of Adoption that appear to have declined.

Other writers in various countries have spoken in similar terms, so that it is beyond a doubt that the general sentiment of the Fraternity is against this system of Female Freemasonry.
Lenning is however, more qualified in his condemnation, and says, in his Encycloadie der Freimaurerei, or Freemason's Encyclopedia, that while leaving it undecided whether it is prudent to hold assemblies of women with ceremonies which are called Masonic, yet it is not to be denied that in these Lodges of women a large amount of charity has been done.

Adoptive Freemasonry has its literature, although neither extensive nor important, as it comprises only books of songs, addresses, and rituals. Of the latter the most valuable are:

1. La Maçonnerie des Femmes, or Feminine Freemasonry, published in 1775, and containing only the first three degrees, for such was the system when recognized by the Grand Orient of France in that year.

2. La Vraie Maçonnerie d'Adoption, or The True Freemasonry of Adoption, printed in 1787. This work, which is by Guillemain de Saint Victor, is perhaps the best that has been published on the subject of the Adoptive Rite, and is the first that introduces the Fourth Degree, of which Guillemain is supposed to have been the inventor, since all previous rituals include only the three degrees.

3. Maçonnerie d'Adoption pour les Femmes, or The Freemasonry of Adoption for Women, contained in the second part of E. J. Chappron's Necessaire Maçonnique, or Essential Freemasonry, and printed at Paris in 1817. This is valuable because it is the first ritual that contains the Fifth Degree.

4. La Franc-Maçonnerie des Femmes, or The Freemasonry of Women. This work, which is by Charles Monselet, is of no value as a ritual, being simply a tale founded on circumstances connected with Adoptive Freemasonry.

In Italy, the Carbonari, or Wood Burners, a secret political society, imitated the Freemasons of France in instituting an Adoptive Rite, attached to their own association. Hence, an Adoptive Lodge was founded at Naples in the beginning of the nineteenth century, over which presided that friend of Freemasonry, Queen Caroline, the wife of Ferdinand II. The members were styled Giardiniere, or Female Gardeners ; and they called each other Cugine, or Female Cousins, in imitation of the Carbonari, who were recognized as Buoni Cugini, or Good Cousins. The Lodges of Giardiniere flourished as long as the Grand Lodge of Carbonari existed at Naples (see also Eastern Star, and Adoptive Freemasonry, American).

ADONIS, MYSTERIES OF

An investigation of the Mysteries of Adonis peculiarity claims the attention of the Masonic student. First, because, in their symbolism and in their esoteric doctrine, the religious object for which they were instituted, and the mode in which that object is attained they bear a nearer analogical resemblance to the Institution of Freemasonry than do any of the other mysteries or systems of initiation of the ancient world. Secondly, because their chief locality brings them into a very close connection with the early history and reputed origin of Freemasonry. These ceremonies were principally celebrated at Byblos, a city of Phoenicia, whose Scriptural name was Gebal, and whose inhabitants were the Giblites or Gebalites, who are referred to in the First Book of Kings (v; 18), as being the stone-squares employed by King Solomon in building the Temple (see Gebal and Giblin). Henee there must have evidently been a very intimate connection, or at least certainly a very frequent intercommunication, between the workmen of the first Temple and the inhabitants of Byblos, the seat of the Adonisian Mysteries, and the place whence the worshipers of that Rite were spread over other regions of country.

These historical circumstances invite us to an examination of the system of initiation which was practiced at Byblos, because we may find in it something that was probably suggestive of the symbolic system of instruction which was subsequently so prominent a feature in the system of Freemasonry.

Let us first examine the myth on which the Adonisiac initiation was founded. The mythological legend of Adonis is that he was the son of Myrrha and Cinyras, King of Cyprus. Adonis was possessed of such surpassing beauty, that Venus became enamored of him, and adopted him as her favorite. Subsequently Adonis, who was a great hunter, died from a wound inflicted by a wild boar on Mount Lebanon. Venus flew to the succor of her favorite, but she came too late Adonis was dead. On his descent to the infernal regions, Proserpine became, like Venus, so attracted by his beauty, that, notwithstanding the entreaties of the goddess of love, she refused to restore him to earth. At length the prayers of the desponding Venus were listened to with favor by Jupiter, who reconciled the dispute between the two goddesses, and by whose decree Proserpine was compelled to consent that Adonis should spend six months of each year alternately with herself and Venus.

This is the story on which the Greek poet Bion founded his exquisite idyll entitled the Epitaph of Adonis, the beginning of which has been thus rather inefficiently "done into English":
I and the Loves Adonis dead deplore:

The beautiful Adonia is indeed
Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more
In purple, Cypris! but in watchet weed,
All'wretched! beat thy breast and all aread-
" Adonis is no more." The Loves and I
Lament him. " Oh! her grief to see him bleed,
Smitten by white tooth on whiter thigh,
Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the mountain high."

It is evident that Bion referred the contest of Venus and Proserpine for Adonis to a period subsequent to his death, from the concluding lines, in which he says:

"The Muses, too, lament the son of Cinyras, and invoke him in their song; but he does not heed them, not because he does not wish, but because Proserpine will not release him." This was, indeed, the favorite form of the myth, and on it was framed the symbolism of the ancient mystery. But there are other Grecian mythologies that relate the tale of Adonis differently. According to these, he was the product of the incestuous connection of Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha. Cinyras subsequently, on discovering the crime of his daughter, pursued her with a drawn sword, intending to kill her.

Myrrha entreated the gods to make her invisible, and they changed her into a myrrh tree. Ten months after the myrrh tree opened, and the young Adonis was born. This is the form of the myth that has been adopted by the poet Ovid, who gives it with all its moral horrors in the Tenth Book (lines 298-559) of his Metamorphoses.

Venus, who was delighted with the extraordinary beauty of the boy, put him in a coffer or chest, unknown to all the gods, and gave him to Proserpine to keep and to nurture in the under world. But Proserpine had no sooner beheld him than she became enamored of him and refused, when Venus applied for him, to surrender him to her rival. The subject was then referred to Jupiter, who decreed that Adonis should have one-third of the year to himself, should be another third with Venus, and the remainder of the time with Proserpine. Adonis gave his own portion to Venus, and lived happily with her till, having offended Diana, he was killed by a wild boar.

The mythographer Pharnutus gives a still different story, and says that Adonis was the grandson of Cinyras, and fled with his father, Ammon, into Egypt, whose people he civilized, taught them agriculture, and enacted many wise laws for their government. He subsequently passed over into Syria, and was wounded in the thigh by a wild boar while hunting on Mount Lebanon.

His wife, Isis, or Astarte, and the people of Phoenicia and Egypt, supposing that the wound was mortal, profoundly deplored his death. But he afterward recovered, and their grief was replaced by transports of joy.

All the myths, it wi1l be seen, agree in his actual or supposed death by violence, in the grief for his loss, in his recovery or restoration to life, and in the consequent joy thereon. On these facts are founded the Adonisian mysteries which were established in his honor.

While, therefore, we may grant the possibility that there was originally some connection between the Sabean worship of the sun and the celebration of the Adonisian festival, we cannot forget that these mysteries, in common with all the other sacred initiations of the ancient world, had been originally established to promulgate among the initiates the once hidden doctrine of a future life.

The myth of Adonis in Syria, like that of Osiris in Egypt, of Atys in Samothrace, or of Dionysus in Greece, presented, symbolically, the two great ideas of decay and restoration. This doctrine sometimes figured as darkness and light, sometimes as winter and summer, sometimes as death and life, but always maintaining, no matter what was the framework of the allegory, the inseparable ideas of something that was lost and afterward recovered, as its interpretation, and so teaching, as does Freemasonry at this day, by a similar system of allegorizing, that after the death of the body comes the eternal life of the soul. The inquiring Freemason will thus readily see the analogy in the symbolism that exists between Adonis in the Mysteries of the Gebalites at Byblos and Hiram the Builder in his own Institution.

ADOPTION MASONIC

The adoption by the Lodge of the child of a Freemason is practiced with peculiar ceremonies in some of the French and German Lodges, and has been introduced, but not with the general approval of the Craft, into one or two Lodges of this country.

Clavel, in his Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie, meaning in French The Picturesque History of Freemasonry (page 40, third edition), gives the following account of the ceremonies of Adoption :

"It is a custom, in many Lodges, when the wife of a Freemason is near the period of her confinement, for the Hospitaller, if he is a physician, and if not, for some other Brother who is, to visit her, inquire after her health, in the name of the Lodge, and to offer her his professional services, and even pecuniary aid if he thinks she needs it.

Nine days after the birth of her child, the Master and Wardens call upon her to congratulate her on the happy event. If the infant is a boy, a special communication of the Lodge is convened for the purpose of proceeding to its adoption.

The hall is decorated with flowers and foliage, and censers are prepared for burning incense. Before the commencement of labor, the child and its nurse are introduced into an anteroom. The Lodge is then opened, and the Wardens, who are to act as godfathers, repair to the infant at the head of a deputation of five Brethren. The chief of the deputation, then addressing the nurse, exhorts her not only to watch over the health of the child that has been intrusted to her care, but also to cultivate his youthful intellect, and to instruct him with truthful and sensible conversation. The child is then taken from the nurse, placed by its father upon a cushion, and carried by the deputation into the Lodge room. The procession advances beneath an arch of foliage to the pedestal of the east, where it halts while the Master and Senior Warden rehearse this dialogue: "'Whom bring you here, my Brethren? says the Master to the godfathers.

"'The son of one of our Brethren whom the Lodge is desirous of adopting, is the reply of the Senior Warden.

"'What are his names, and what Masonic name will you give him?'

"The Warden replies, adding to the baptismal and surname of the child a characteristic name, such as Truth, Devotion, Benevolence, or some other of a similar nature.

"The Master then descends from his seat, approaches the Louveteau or Lewis, for such is the appellation given to the son of a Freemason, and extending his hands over its head, offers up a prayer that the child may render itself worthy of the love and care which the Lodge intends to bestow upon it.

He then casts incense into the censers, and pronounces the Apprentice's obligation, which the godfathers repeat after him in the name of the Louveteau.

Afterwards he puts a white apron on the infant, proclaiming it to be the adopted child of the Lodge, and causes this proclamation to be received with honors.

"As soon as this ceremony has been performed, the Master returns to his seat, and having caused the Wardens with the child to be placed in front of the north column, he recounts to the former the duties which they have assumed as godfathers. After the Wardens have made a suitable response, the deputation which had brought the child into the Lodge room is again formed, carries it out, and restores it to its nurse in the anteroom.

"The adoption of a Louveteau binds all the members of the Lodge to watch over his education, and subsequently to aid him, if it be necessary, in establishing himself in life. A circumstantial account of the ceremony is drawn up, which having been signed by all the members is delivered to the father of the child.

This document serves as a Dispensation, which relieves him from the necessity of passing through the ordinary preliminary examinations when, at the proper age, he is desirous of participating in the labors of Freemasonry. He is then only required to renew his obligations." Louveteau in French with Lewis in English, mean the same. Two meanings may be applied to each of the words in both countries. Among members of the trade as distinct from Brethren of the Craft, a Louveteau or Lewis means a wedge of iron or steel to support a stone when raising it, a chain or rope being attached to the wedge which grips a place cut for it in the stone.

The words Louveteau and Lewis are thus applied to sons of Freemasons as supports of their fathers.
In the United States, the ceremony has been practiced by a few Lodges, the earliest instance being that of Foyer Maçonnique Lodge of New Orleans, in 1859.

The Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has published the ritual of Masonic Adoption for the use of the members of that Rite. This ritual under the title of offices of Masonic Baptism, Reception of a Louveleau and Adoption, is a very beautiful one, and is the composition of Brother Albert Pike. It is scarcely necessary to say that the word Baptism there used has not the slightest reference to the Christian sacrament of the same name (see Lewis).

ADOPTIVE FREEMASONRY, AMERICAN

The Rite of Adoption as practiced on the continent of Europe, and especially in France, has never been introduced into America. The system does not accord, with the manners or habits of the people, and undoubtedly never would become popular. But Rob Morris attempted, in 1855, to introduce an imitation of it, which he had invented under the name of the American Adoptive Rite. This consisted of a ceremony of initiation, which was intended as a preliminary trial of the candidate, and of five degrees, named as follows:

1. Jephthah`s Daughter, or the Daughter's Degree.
2. Ruth, or the Widow's Degree.
3. Esther, or the Wife's Degree.
4. Martha or the Sister's Degree.
5. Electa, or the Christian Martyr's Degree.

The whole assemblage of the five degrees was called the Eastern Star.

The objects of this Rite, as expressed by the framer, were "to associate in one common bond the worthy wives, widows, daughters, and sisters of Freemasons, so as to make their adoptive privileges available for all the purposes contemplated in Freemasonry; to secure to them the advantages of their claim in a moral, social, and charitable point of view, and from them the performance of corresponding duties." Hence, no females but those holding the above recited relations to Freemasons were eligible for admission.

The male members were called Protectors; the female, Stellae; the reunions of these members were styled Constellations; and the Rite was presided over and governed by a Supreme Constellation. There is some ingenuity and even beauty in many of the ceremonies, although it is by no means equal in this respect to the French Adoptive system.

Much dissatisfaction was, however, expressed by the leading Freemasons of the country at the time of its attempted organization; and therefore, notwithstanding very strenuous efforts were made by its founder and his friends to establish it in some of the Western States, it was slow in winning popularity.

It has, however, gained much growth under the name of The Eastern Star. Brother Albert Pike has also printed, for the use of Scottish Rite Freemasons, The Masonry of Adoption.

It is in seven degrees, and is a translation from the French system, but greatly enlarged, and is far superior to the original.

The last phrase of this Female Freemasonry to which our attention is directed is the system of androgynous degrees which are practiced to some extent in the United States.

This term androgynous is derived from two Greek words, a man, and a woman, and it is equivalent to the English compound, masculo-feminine. It is applied to those side degrees which are conferred on both males and females.

The essential regulation prevailing in these degrees, is that they can be conferred only on Master Masons, and in some instances only on Royal Arch Masons, and on their female relatives, the peculiar relationship differing in the various degrees.

Thus there is a degree generally called the Mason's Wife, which can be conferred only on Master Masons, their wives, unmarried daughters and sisters, and their widowed mothers. Another degree, called the Heroine of Jericho, is conferred only on the wives and daughters of Royal Arch Masons; and the third, the only one that has much pretension of ceremony or ritual, is the Good Samaritan, whose privileges are confined to Royal Arch Masons and their wives.

In some parts of the United States these degrees are very popular, while in other places they are never practiced, and are strongly condemned as modern innovations.

The fact is, that by their friends as well as their enemies these so-called degrees have been greatly misrepresented. When females are told that in receiving these degrees they are admitted into the Masonic Order, and are obtaining Masonic information, under the name of Ladies' Freemasonry, they are simply deceived. When a woman is informed that, by passing through the brief and unimpressive ceremony of any one of these degrees, she has become a Freemason, the deception is still more gross and inexcusable. But it is true that every woman who is related by ties of consanguinity to a Master Mason is at all times and under all circumstances peculiarly entitled to Masonic protection and assistance.

Now, if the recipient of an androgynous degree is candidly instructed that, by the use of these degrees, the female relatives of Freemasons are put in possession of the means of making their claims known by what may be called a sort of oral testimony, which, unlike a written certificate, can be neither lost nor destroyed; but that, by her initiation as a Mason's Wife or as a Heroine of Jericho, she is brought no nearer to the inner portal of Freemasonry than she was before---if she is honestly told all this, then there can hardly be any harm, and there may be some good in these forms if prudently bestowed. But all attempts to make Freemasonry of them, and especially that anomalous thing called Female Freemasonry, are reprehensible, and are well calculated to produce opposition among the well-informed and cautious members of the Fraternity.

ADOPTIVE FREEMASONRY, EGYPTIAN

A system invented by Cagliostro (see Cagliostro).

ADORATION

The act of paying divine worship. The Latin word adorare is derived from ad, to, and os, oris, the mouth, and we thus etymologically learn that the primitive and most general method of adoration was by the application of the fingers to the mouth.

Hence we read in Job (xxxi, 26). "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God that is above." Here the mouth kissing the hand is equal in meaning and force to adoration, as if he had said, If I have adored the sun or the moon.
This mode of adoration is said to have originated among the Persians, who, as worshipers of the sun, always turned their faces to the east and kissed their hands to that luminary. The gesture was first used as a token of respect to their monarchs, and was easily transferred to objects of worship. Other additional forms of adoration were used in various countries, but in almost all of them this reference to kissing was in some degree preserved.

It is yet a practice of quite common usage for Orientals to kiss what they deem sacred or that which they wish to adore---as, for example, Wailing Place of the Jews at Jerusalem, the nearest wall to the Temple where they were permitted by the Mahommedans to approach and on which their tears and kisses were affectionately bestowed before the British General Allenby, took possession of the city in the World War and equalized the rights of the inhabitants.

The marble toes of the statue of Saint Peter in the Cathedral of Saint Peter's at Rome have been worn away by the kissings of Roman Catholics and have been replaced by bronze.

Among the ancient Romans the act of adoration was thus performed: The worshiper, having his head covered, applied his right hand to his lips, thumb erect, and the forefinger resting on it, and then, bowing his head, he turned round from right to left. Hence, Lucius Apuleius, a Roman author, born in the first century, in his Apologia sive oratio de magia, a defense against the charge of witchcraft, uses the expression to apply the hand to the lips, manum labris admovere, to express the act of adoration.

The Grecian mode of adoration differed from the Roman in having the head uncovered, which practice was adopted by the Christians. The Oriental nations cover the head, but uncover the feet.
They also express the act of adoration by prostrating themselves on their faces and applying their foreheads to the ground.

The ancient Jews adored by kneeling, sometimes by prostration of the whole body, and by kissing the hand. This act, therefore, of kissing the hand was an early and a very general symbol of adoration.

But we must not be led into the error of supposing that a somewhat similar gesture used in some of the high degrees of Freemasonry has any allusion to an act of worship. It refers to that symbol of silence and secrecy which is figured in the statues of Harpocrates, the god of silence.

The Masonic idea of adoration has been well depicted by the medieval Christian painters, who represented the act by angels prostrated before a luminous triangle.

ADULTERINE GILDS

In the Anglo-Saxon period of English history the majority of gilds ("frith gilds," "crich ten gilds") were religious, military, or social fraternities. In the Twelfth Century a number of "secular gilds" began to arise, and it was these which later came to be called City Companies or (because certain of their members wore a prescribed costume) Livery Companies. The Exchequer Rolls of London show that by 1180 a number of these were legally organized; and because they could enforce laws, enact rules, levy fines and other penalties, etc., they had to have legal sanction for these governmental functions. This sanction was obtained in two ways : first, by having their rules and records approved at certain times by the Court of Aldermen, which was called Prescription ; or, second, by receiving a Charter of Incorporation from the King.

If a company, society, fraternity, or gild undertook to perform gild functions without the required legal authorization it was called an Adulterine (illegal) Gild; and after being tried and found guilty was heavily fined or otherwise punished, or was destroyed.

In 1181 no fewer than 18 such gilds were found in London, and each was heavily fined. The fact is important in Masonic history because it shows why Masons attached so much importance to their Charters, Old Charges, etc. To act in association or hold assemblies or enforce rules and regulations without legal authorization would have made of them an adulterine Gild. The Masons Company of London became a recognized body not later than 1220, and by prescription. In 1481 it received its "Enfranchisement," or permission to wear Livery. In 1677 it received a Charter (a very expensive luxury) from Charles II. What Prescription, Enfranchisement, and Charter were to a City Company, the Old Charges must have been to Lodges; once such a Lodge set itself up as a permanent society its first thought would be to have a written sanction lest it be condemned as adulterine. By the same token the new Grand Lodge of 1717 began as soon as possible to have a written legal instrument of its own, which took the form of the Book of Constitutions in 1723, and it compelled each new Lodge to have written warrant from it, and later, it began to issue Charters of its own to new Lodges.

A clandestine Lodge of the present time, which is a body without a regular Charter, is nothing other than the modern form of the ancient ''adulterine gild."

ADVANCED

This word has two technical meanings in Freemasonry.

l. We speak of a candidate as being advanced when he has passed from a lower to a higher degree; as we say that a candidate is qualified for advancement from the Entered Apprentice Degree to that of a Fellow Craft when he has made that "suitable proficiency in the former which, by the regulations of the Order, entitle him to receive the initiation into and the instructions of the latter." When the Apprentice has thus been promoted to the Second Degree he is said to have advanced in Freemasonry.

2. However, this use of the term is by no means universal, and the word is peculiarly applied to the initiation of a candidate into the Mark Degree, which is the fourth in the modification of the American Rite.

The Master Mason is thus said to be "advanced to the honorary degree of a Mark Master," to indicate either that he has now been promoted one step beyond the degrees of Ancient Craft Freemasonry on his way to the Royal Arch, or to express the fact that he has been elevated from the common class of Fellow Crafts to that higher and more select one which, according to the traditions of Freemasonry, constituted, at the first Temple, the class of Mark Masters (see Mark Master).

ADVANCEMENT HURRIED

Nothing can be more certain than that the proper qualifications of a Candidate for admission into the mysteries of Freemasonry, and the necessary proficiency of a Freemason who seeks advancement to a higher degree, are the two great bulwarks which are to protect the purity and integrity of our Institution. Indeed, we know not which is the more hurtful-to admit an applicant who is Unworthy, or to promote a candidate who is ignorant of his first lessons. The one affects the external, the other the internal character of the Institution. The one brings discredit upon the Order among the profane, who already regard us, too often, with suspicion and dislike; the other introduces ignorance and incapacity into our ranks, and dishonors the science of freemasonry in our own eyes. The one covers our walls with imperfect and worthless stones, which mar the outward beauty and impair the strength of our temple the other fills our interior apartments with confusion and disorder, and leaves the edifice, though externally strong, both inefficient and inappropriate for its destined uses.

But, to the candidate himself, a too hurried advancement is often attended with the most disastrous effects. As in geometry, so in Freemasonry, there is no royal road to perfection. A knowledge of its principles and its science, and consequently an acquaintance with its beauties, can only be acquired by long and diligent study. To the careless observer it seldom offers, at a hasty glance, much to attract his attention or secure his interest. The gold must be deprived, by careful manipulation, of the dark and worthless ore which surrounds and envelops it, before its metallic luster and value can be seen and appreciated.

Hence, the candidate who hurriedly passes through his degrees without a due examination of the moral and intellectual purposes of each, arrives at the summit of our edifice without a due and necessary appreciation of the general symmetry and connection that pervade the whole system. The candidate, thus hurried through the elements of our science, and unprepared, by a knowledge of its fundamental principles, for the reception and comprehension of the corollaries which are to be deduced from them, is apt to view the whole system as a rude and undigested mass of frivolous ceremonies and puerile conceits, whose intrinsic value will not adequately pay him for the time, the trouble, and expense that he has incurred in his forced initiation. To him, Freemasonry is as incomprehensible as was the veiled statue of Isis to its blind worshipers, and he becomes, in consequence, either a useless drone in our hive, or speedily retire in disgust from all participation in our labors.

But the candidate who by slow and painful steps has proceeded through each apartment of our mystic Temple, from its porch to its sanctuary, pausing in his progress to admire the beauties and to study the uses of each, learning, as he advances, line upon line, and precept upon precept, is gradually and almost imperceptibly imbued with so much admiration of the Institution, so much love for its principles, so much just appreciation of its design as a conservator of divine truth, and an agent of human civilization, that he is inclined, on beholding, at last, the whole beauty of the finished building, to exclaim, as did the wondering Queen of Sheba: ''A Most Excellent Master must have done all this!"

The usage in many jurisdictions of the United States, when the question is asked in the ritual whether the candidate has made suitable proficiency in his preceding degree, is to reply, ''Such as time and circumstances would permit." We have no doubt that this was an innovation originally invented to evade the law, which has always required a due proficiency. To such a question no other answer ought to be given than the positive and unequivocal one that "He has.'' Neither lime nor circumstances of candidate should be permitted to interfere with his attainment of the necessary knowledge, nor excuse its absence. This, with the wholesome rule, very generally existing, which requires an interval between the conferring of the degrees, would go far to remedy the evil of too hurried and unqualified advancement of which all intelligent Freemasons are now complaining.

After these views of the necessity of a careful examination of the claims of a candidate for advancement in Freemasonry, and the necessity, for his own good as well as that of the Order, that each one should fully prepare himself for this promotion, it is proper that we should next inquire into the laws of Freemasonry, by which the wisdom and experience of our predecessors have thought proper to guard as well the rights of those who claim advancement as the interests of the Lodge which is called upon to grant it. This subject has been so fully treated in Mackey's Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence that we shall not hesitate to incorporate the views in that work into the present article.

The subject of the petition of a candidate for advancement involves three questions of great importance: First, how soon, after receiving the First Degree, can he apply for the Second? Second, what number of black balls is necessary to constitute a rejection? Third, what time must elapse, after a first rejection, before the Apprentice can renew his application for advancement?

l. How soon, after receiving a former degree, can a candidate apply for advancement to the next? The necessity of a full comprehension of the mysteries of one degree, before any attempt is made to acquire those of a second, seems to have been thoroughly appreciated from the earliest times; thus the Thirteenth Article in the Regius Manuscript, which is the oldest Masonic document now extant, provides that "if the master a prentice have, he shall teach him thoroughly and tell him measurable points, that he may know the Craft ably, wherever he goes under the sun. " Similar direction is found in most all the Manuscripts.

But if there be an obligation on the part of the Master to instruct his Apprentice, there must be, of course, a correlative obligation on the part of the latter to receive and profit by those instructions. Accordingly, unless this obligation is discharged, and the Apprentice makes himself acquainted with the mysteries of the degree that he has already received, it is, by general consent, admitted that he has no right to be entrusted with further and more important information.

The modern ritual sustains this doctrine, by requiring that the candidate, as a qualification in passing onward, shall have made suitable proficiency in the preceding degree. This is all that the general law prescribes. Suitable proficiency must have been attained, and the period in which that condition will be acquired must necessarily depend on the mental capacity of the candidate. Some men will become proficient in a shorter time than others, and of this fact the Master and the Lodge are to be the judges.

An examination should therefore take place in open Lodge, and a ballot immediately following will express the opinion of the Lodge on the result of that examination, and the qualification of the candidate. Such ballot, however, is not usual in Lodges under the English Constitution.

Several modern Grand Lodges, looking with disapprobation on the rapidity with which the degrees are sometimes conferred upon candidates wholly incompetent, have adopted special regulations, prescribing a determinate period of probation for each degree.

Thus the Grand Lodge of England requires an interval of not less than four weeks before a higher degree can be conferred. This, however, is a local law, to be obeyed only in those jurisdictions in which it is in force. The general law of Freemasonry makes no such determinate provision of time, and demands only that the candidate shall give evidence of suitable proficiency.

2. What number of black balls is necessary to constitute a rejection ? Here we are entirely without the guidance of any express law, as all the Ancient Constitutions are completely silent upon the subject. It would seem, however, that in the advancement of an Apprentice or Fellow Craft, as well as in the election of a profane, the ballot should be unanimous. This is strictly in accordance with the principles of Freemasonry, which require unanimity in admission, lest improper persons be intruded, and harmony impaired.

Greater qualifications are certainly not required of a profane applying for initiation than of an initiate seeking advancement; nor can there be any reason why the test of those qualifications should not be as rigid in the one case as in the other. It may be laid down as a rule, therefore, that in all cases of balloting for advancement in any of the degrees of Freemasonry, a single black ball will reject.

3. What time must elapse, after a first rejection, before the Apprentice or Fellow Craft can renew his application for advancement to a higher degree ? Here, too, the Ancient Constitutions are silent, and we are left to deduce our opinions from the general principles and analogies of Masonic law. As the application for advancement to a higher degree is founded on a right ensuring to the Apprentice or Fellow Craft by virtue of his reception into the previous degree---that is to say, as the Apprentice, so soon as he has been initiated, becomes invested with the right of applying for advancement to the Second Degree---it seems evident that, as long as he remains an Apprentice in good standing, he continues to be invested with that right.

Now, the rejection of his petition for advancement by the Lodge does not impair his right to apply again, because it does not affect his rights and standing as an Apprentice; it is simply the expression of the opinion that the Lodge does not at present deem him qualified for further progress in Freemasonry.

We must never forget the difference between the right of applying for advancement and the right of advancement. Every Apprentice possesses the former, but no one can claim the latter until it is given to him by the unanimous vote of the Lodge. As, therefore, this right of application or petition is not impaired by its rejection at a particular time, and as the Apprentice remains precisely in the same position in his own degree, after the rejection, as he did before, it seems to follow, as an irresistible deduction, that he may again apply at the next regular communication, and, if a second time rejected, repeat his applications at all future meetings. The Entered Apprentices of a Lodge are competent, at all regular communications of their Lodge, to petition for advancement. Whether that petition shall be granted or rejected is quite another thing, and depends altogether on the favor of the Lodge. What is here said of an Apprentice, in relation tn advancement to the Second Degree, may be equally said of a Fellow Craft in reference to advancement to the Third Degree.

This opinion has not, it is true, been universally adopted, though no force of authority, short of an opposing landmark, could make one doubt its correctness. For instance, the Grand Lodge of California decided, in 1857, that "the application of Apprentices or Fellow Crafts for advancement should, after they have been once rejected by ballot, be governed by the same principles which regulate the ballot on petitions for initiation, and which require a probation of one year." Brother Mackey commented on this action as follows:

"This appears to be a singular decision of Masonic law. If the reasons which prevent the advancement of an Apprentice or Fellow Craft to a higher degree are of such a nature as to warrant the delay of one year, it is far better to prefer charges against the petitioner, and to give him the opportunity of a fair and impartial trial. In many cases a candidate for advancement is retarded in his progress from an opinion, on the part of the Lodge, that he is not yet sufficiently prepared for promotion by a knowledge of the preceding degree ---an objection which may sometimes be removed before the recurrence of the next monthly meeting.

In such a case, a decision like that of the Grand Lodge of California would be productive of manifest injustice. It is, therefore, a more consistent rule, that the candidate for advancement has a right to apply at every regular meeting, and that whenever any moral objections exist to his taking a higher degree, these objections should be made in the form of charges, and their truth tested by an impartial trial. To this, too, the candidate is undoubtedly entitled, on all the principles of justice and equity."

ADYTUM

The most retired and secret part of the ancient temples, into which the people were not permitted to enter, but which was accessible to the priests only, was called the adytum. Hence the derivation of the word from the Greek privative prefix a, and, to enter = that which is not to be entered. In the adytum was generally to be found a or tomb, or some relics or sacred images of the god to whom the temple was consecrated. It being supposed that temples owed their origin to the superstitious reverence paid by the ancients to their deceased friends, and as most of the gods were men who had been deified on account of their virtues, temples were, Perhaps, at first only stately monuments erected in honor of the dead. Thus the interior of the temple was originally nothing more than a cavity regarded as a Place for the reception of a person interred, and in it was to be found the ‚or coffin, the T…os, or tomb, or, among the Scandinavians, the barrow or mound grave. In time, the statue or image of a god took the place of the coffin; but the reverence for the spot as one of peculiar sanctity remained, and this interior part of the temple became, among the Greeks, the ....or Chapel, among the Romans the adytum, or forbidden place, and among the Jews the kodesh hakodashim, the Holy of Holies (see Holy of Holies). "The sanctity thus acquired, " says Dudley ( Naology, page 393 ), "by the Cell of interment might readily and with propriety be assigned to any fabric capable of containing the body of the departed friend, or the relic, or even the symbol, of the presence or existence of a divine personage." Thus it has happened that there was in every ancient temple an adytum or most holy place.

The adytum of the small temple of Pompeii is still in excellent preservation. It is carried some steps above the level of the main building, and, like the Jewish sanctuary, is without light.

AENEID

Bishop Warburton (Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated) has contended, and his opinion has been sustained by the great majority of subsequent commentators, that Vergil, in the Sixth Book of his immortal epic, has, under the figure of the descent of Aeneas into the infernal regions, described the ceremony of initiation into the Ancient Mysteries.

An equally noteworthy allusion is to be found in the Third Book of the Aeneid by Vergil. Here the hero, Aeneas, by means of a message given to him by the uprooting of a plant on the hillside, discovers the grave of a lost prince. A free translation is given as follows of this interesting story by the ancient Roman poet:

"Near at hand there chanced to be sloping ground crested by trees and with a myrtle rough with spear like branches. Unto it I came. There I strove to tear from the earth its forest growth of foliage that the altars I might cover with the leafy boughs. But at that I saw a dreadful wonder, marvelous to tell.

That tree when torn from the soil, as its rooted fibers were wrenched asunder, distilled black blood in drops and gore smeared the ground. My limbs shook with cold terror and the chill veins froze with fear.

"Again I essayed to tear off one slender branch from another and thus thoroughly search for the hidden cause. From the bark of that bough there descended purpled blood. Awaking in my mind many an anxious thought, I reverently beseeched the rural divinities and father Mars, who presides over these Thracian territories, to kindly bless the vision and divert the evil of the omen. So a third time I grasped the boughs with greater vigor and on my knees struggled again with the opposing ground. Then I heard a piteous groan from the depths of the hill and unto mine ears there issued forth a voice :

"'Aeneas, why dost thou strive with an unhappy wretch? Now that I am in my grave spare me. Forbear with guilt to pollute thy pious hands. To you Troy brought me forth no stranger. Oh, flee this barbarous land, flee the greedy shore. Polydore am I. Here an iron crop of darts hath me overwhelmed, transfixed, and over me shoots up pointed javelins.'

"Then indeed, depressed with perplexing fear at heart, was I stunned. On end stood my hair, to my jaws clung my tongue. This Polydore unhappy Priam formerly had sent in secrecy with a great weight of gold to be stored safely with the King of Thrace when Priam began to distrust the arms of Troy and saw the city blocked up by close siege.

The King of Thrace, as soon as the power of the Trojans was crushed and gone their fortune, broke every sacred bond, killed Polydore and by violence took his gold. Cursed greed of gold, to what don't thou not urge the hearts of men! When fear left my bones I reported the warnings of the gods to our chosen leaders and especially to my father, and their opinion asked. All agreed to quit that accursed country, abandon the corrupt associations, and spread our sails to the winds. Thereupon we renewed funeral rites to Polydore. A large hill of earth was heaped for the tomb. A memorial altar was reared to his soul and mournfully bedecked with grey wreaths and gloomy cypress. Around it the Trojan matrons stood with hair disheveled according to the custom. We offered the sacrifices to the dead, bowls foaming with warm milk, and goblets of the sacred blood. We gave the soul repose in the grave, and with loud voice addressed to him the last farewell."

Egyptian mythology also supplies us with a similar legend to the above in the story of the search for the body of slain Osiris. This was placed in a coffin and thrown into the sea, being cast upon the shores of Phoenicia at the base of a tamarisk tree. Here it was found by Isis and brought back to Egypt for ceremonious burial (see Mysteries).

AEON

This word, in its original Greek, ...., signifies the age or duration of anything. The Gnostics, however, used it in a peculiar mode to designate the intelligent, intellectual, and material powers or natures which flowed as emanations from the B.... or Infinite Abyss of Deity, and which were connected with their divine fountain as rays of light are with the sun (see Gnostics).

AERA ARCHITECTONICA

This is used in some modern Masonic lapidary or monument inscriptions to designate the date more commonly known as anno lucis, the year of light.

AFFILIATE, FREE

The French gave the name of Free Affiliates to those members of a Lodge who are exempted from the payment of dues, and neither hold office nor vote. These Brethren are known among English-speaking Freemasons as honorary members. There is a quite common use of Affiliate in Lodges of the United States to designate one who has joined a Lodge by demit.

AFFILIATED FREEMASON

A Freemason who holds membership in some Lodge. The word affiliation in Freemasonry is akin to the French affilier, which Richelet, Dictionnaire de la langue Française, Dictionary of the French Language, defines, "to communicate to any one a participation in the spiritual benefits of a religious order,'' and he says that such a communication is called an affiliation. The word, as a technical term, is not found in any of the old Masonic writers, who always use admission instead of affiliation.

There is no precept more explicitly expressed in the Ancient Constitutions than that every Freemason should belong to a Lodge. The foundation of the law which imposes this duty is to be traced as far back as the Regius Manuscript, which is the oldest Masonic document now extant, and of which the "Secunde poynt" requires that the Freemason work upon the workday as truly as he can in order to deserve his hire for the holiday, and that he shall "truly labor on his deed that he may well deserve to have his meed" (see lines 269-74). The obligation that every Freemason should thus labor is implied in all the subsequent Constitutions, which always speak of Freemasons as working members of the Fraternity, until we come to the Charges approved in 1722, which explicitly state that "every Brother ought to belong to a Lodge, and to be subject to its By-Laws and the General Regulations." Opportunity to resign one's membership should therefore involve a duty to affiliate.

AFFIRMATION

The question has been mooted whether a Quaker, or other person having peculiar religious scruples in reference to taking oaths, can receive the degrees of Freemasonry by taking an affirmation. Now, as the obligations of Freemasonry are symbolic in their character, and the forms in which they are administered constitute the essence of the symbolism, there cannot be a doubt that the prescribed mode is the only one that ought to be used, and that affirmations are entirely inadmissible.

The London Freemason's Quarterly (1828, page 28G) says that "a Quaker's affirmation is binding." This is not denied. The only question is whether it is admissible. Can the obligations be assumed in any but one way, unless the ritual be entirely changed?

Can any "man or body of men" at this time make such a change without affecting the universality of Freemasonry? Brother Chase (Masonic Digest, page 448) says that "Conferring the degrees on affirmation is no violation of the spirit of Freemasonry, and neither overthrows nor affects a landmark." In this he is sustained by the Grand Lodge of Maine (1823).

On the report of a Committee, concurred in by the Grand Lodge of Washington in 1883 and duly incorporated in the Masonic Code of that State (see the 1913 edition, page 130), the following was adopted: "The solemn obligation required from all persons receiving the degrees may be made equally binding by either an oath or an affirmation without any change in the time-honored Landmarks. " A decision of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island on November 13, 1867 (see also the 1918 edition of the Constitution, General Regulations, etc., of that State, page 34) was to the effect that "An affirmation can be administered instead of an oath to any person who refuses, on conscientious grounds, to take the latter." But the other Grand Lodges which expressed an opinion on this subject-namely, those of Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania made an opposite decision.

During the latest revision of this work the Masonic authorities in each of these States were invited to give the latest practice in their respective Jurisdictions. Their replies are given substantially as below, and in the main the early custom has been continued.

Missouri has not recognized the word affirmation in the work, and unless the candidate is willing to conform to the wording of the obligation the instructions have been to not accept him and this has been the rule of successive Grand Masters in that State.

Tennessee has not made any change in the law, and in 1919 the Grand Lodge held that the Grand Master had no right to allow the Ritual to be changed in order to suit the religious views of a profane.

There has been no change in the attitude of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky in the matter of affirmation. That State has required the candidate to take the obligation in the usual manner. Delaware reported that there had been no change in the approved decision adopted by the Grand Lodge in 1890 which is as follows: "An applicant who desires to affirm instead of swear to the obligation cannot be received." The Grand Lodge of Virginia allows the use of an affirmation, not by the written law, but by the decision of a Grand Master of that State.

In Pennsylvania a petitioner becomes a member of the Lodge by initiation and dues begin from that time. He may, if he desires, remain an Entered Apprentice Freemason, a member of the Lodge, or he may resign as such. There is only one way of making an Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, or Master Freemason, in this Jurisdiction, which is by use of the greater lights, without any equivocation, deviation, or substitution.

One decision of Grand Master Africa of Pennsylvania, on October 24, 1892, does not state precisely at what point the candidate for initiation refused to obey, and even the original letter written by Grand Master Africa does not show it.

Presumably the reference was in regard to the candidate's belief in a supreme Being, yet it covers other points as follows:

"After having been duly prepared to receive the First Degree in Freemasonry, a candidate refused to conform with and obey certain landmarks of the craft. This refusal disqualifies him from initiation in any Lodge in this jurisdiction, and you will direct your Secretary to make proper record thereof, and , to make report to the Grand Secretary accordingly.

Freemasonry does not proselyte. Those who desire its privileges must seek them of their own free will, and must accept and obey, without condition or reservation, all of its ancient usages, customs, and landmarks."

The general practice of Lodges in America is also against the use of an affirmation. But in England Quakers have been initiated after affirmation, the principle being that a form of obligation which the candidate accepts as binding will suffice.

AFRICA

Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, page195) has recorded that in 1735 Richard Hull, Esq., was appointed "Provincial Grand Master at Gambay in West Africa," that in 1736 David Creighton, M.D., was appointed "Provincial Grand Master at Cape Coast, Castle in Africa," and that in 1737 Capt. William Douglas was appointed "Provincial Grand Master on the Coast of Africa and in the Islands of America, excepting such places where a Provincial Grand Master is already deputed." . However, in spite of these appointments having been made by the Grand Lodge of England, there is no trace of the establishment of any Lodges in West Africa until 1792, in which year a Lodge numbered 586 was constituted at Bulam, followed in 1810 by the Torridzonian Lodge at Cape Coast Castle. There have been, on the West Coast of Africa, Lodges Warranted by the Grand Lodge of England, or holding an Irish Warrant, as Lodge 197 at Calabar, founded in 1896, or under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, or by authority from Grand Bodies in Germany. In the Negro Republic of Liberia a Grand Lodge was constituted in 1867, with nine daughter Lodges subordinate to it, and with headquarters at Monrovia.

In the north of Africa there was founded the Grand Lodge of Egypt with headquarters at Cairo. Both England and Scotland have established District Grand Lodges in Egypt by consent of the former, While Italy, France, and Germany have organized Lodges at Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said and Suez.

In Algeria and Morocco French influence has been predominant, but in Tunis an independent Grand Lodge was established in 1881.

Freemasonry was introduced into South Africa by the erection of a Dutch Lodge, De Goede Hoop, at Cape Town in 1772, followed by another under the same Jurisdiction in 1802. Not until nine years later was it that the first English Lodge was established there, which was gradually followed by others. The Dutch and English Freemasons worked side by side with such harmony that the English Provincial Grand Master for the District who was appointed in 1829 was also Deputy Grand Master for the Netherlands. In 1860 a Scotch Lodge was set up at Cape Town. Thirty-five years later a Lodge was erected at Johannesburg, under the Grand Lodge of Ireland, so that there have been four independent Masonic Bodies exercising jurisdiction and working amicably together in South Africa, namely, the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and the Grand Orient of the Netherlands.

Under the Grand Lodge of England the subordinate Lodges were arranged in five Districts, namely, Central, Eastern and Western South Africa, Natal, and the Transvaal. At the same time there were Lodges owing allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, as well as those under the Scotch Constitution, divided among the Districts of Cape Colony, Cape Colony Western Province, Natal, Orange River Colony, Rhodesia, and the Transvaal, and those under the Jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands, in addition to the German Lodges at Johannesburg.

Under the Jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands there was appointed a Deputy Grand Master and two Districts, one being the Provincial Grand Lodge of South Africa and the Provincial Grand Lodge of the Transvaal. The first of these had its headquarters at Cape Town, the other at Johannesburg.

The Grand Orient of Belgium chartered a Lodge in 1912 at Elizabethville, in Northern Rhodesia. On the East Coast of the Dark Continent there were erected two Lodges at Nairobi, one of them being English and the other Scotch, and there was also established in 1903 an English Lodge at Zanzibar.

(See also the following references to other geographical divisions of Africa: Abyssinia, Algeria, Belgian Congo, British East Africa, Cape Colony, Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, Eritrea, French Guinea, German Southwest Africa, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Mauritius, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Portuguese East Africa, Portuguese West Africa, Reunion Island, Rhodesia, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, Somaliland, Tripoli, Tunis and Uganda.)

AFRICA

In the French Rite of Adoption, the South of the Lodge is called Africa.

AFRICA, GERMAN SOUTHWEST

See German Southwest Africa.

AFRICAN ARCHITECTS, ORDER OF

Sometimes called African Builders; or in French, Architectes de l'Afrique; and in German, Afrikanische Bauherren.

Of all the new sects and modern Degrees of Freemasonry which sprang up on the continent of Europe during the eighteenth century, there was none which, for the time, maintained so high an intellectual position as the Order of African Architects, called by the French Architectes de l'Afrique, and by the Germans Afrikanische Bauherren. A Masonic sect of this name had originally been established in Germany in the year 1756, but it does not appear to have attracted much attention, or indeed to have deserved it; and hence, amid the multitude of Masonic innovations to which almost every day was giving birth and ephemeral existence it soon disappeared.

But the Society which is the subject of the present article, although it assumed the name of the original African Architects, was of a very different character.

It may, however, be considered, as it was established only eleven years afterward, as a remodification of it.

The Society admitted to membership those possessing high intellectual attainments rather than those possessing wealth or preferment.

There was probably no real connection between this Order and the Freemasonry of Germany, even if the members of the latter organization did profess kindly feelings for it. Brethren of the former based their Order on the degrees of Freemasonry, as the fist of degrees shows, but their work began in the Second Temple. while they had a quasi-connection with Freemasonry, we cannot call them a Masonic body according to the present day standards.

The degrees of the Order of African Architects were named and classified as follows:

First Temple
1. Apprentice.
2. Fellow Craft.
3. Master Mason.
Second Temple
4. Architect, or Apprentice of Egyptian Secrets. Thory (Acta Latomorum I, page 297) gives the ...title as Bosonien.
5. Initiate into Egyptian Secrets. Acta Latomorum (1, page 292) gives the title as Alethophile.
6. Cosmopolitan Brother.
7. Christian Philosopher. Thory calls this the Fourth Degree in his Acta Latomorum (1, page ....632).
8. Master of Egyptian Secrets.
9. Esquire of the Order.
10. Soldier of the Order.
ll. Knight of the Order.

The last three were called superior Degrees, and were conferred only, as a second or higher class, with great discrimination, upon those who had proved their worthiness to receive promotion.

The assemblies of the Brethren were called Chapters.

The central or superintending power was styled a Grand Chapter, and it was governed by the following twelve officers:

1. Grand Master.
2. Deputy Grand Master.
3. Senior Grand Warden.
4. Junior Grand Warden.
5. Drapier.
6. Almoner.
7. Tricoplerius, or Treasurer.
8. Graphiarius, or Secretary.
9. Seneschal.
10. Standard Bearer.
l1. Marshal.
12. Conductor.

Mackenzie says the Order was instituted between 1756 and 1767, under the patronage of Frederick II of Prussia, by Baucheren, and that the objects were chiefly historical but the ritual was a compound of Freemasonry, Christianity, Alchemy, and Chivalry. He quotes from its claims thus: "When the Architects were by wars reduced to a very small number, they determined to travel together into Europe, and there to form together new establishments. Many of them came to England with Prince Edward, son of Henry III, and were shortly afterward called into Scotland by Lord Stewart. They received the protection of King Ing of Sweden in l125; of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England in l190; and of Alexander III of Scotland in 1284. " He further states that the Order came to an end in 1786, that the three last degrees conferred offices for life, that the Order possessed a large building for the Meetings of the Grand Chapter, containing a library, a museum, a chemical laboratory', and that for many, years they gave annually a gold medal of the value of fifty ducats for the best essay on the history of Freemasonry, Lenning does not mention any connection of Frederick the Great with the Order and Woodford is inclined to limit its activity to ten years, presumably from 1767, though he points out that it has been said to have had an existence into the year 1806. A claim has been made that it was but an enlargement of a Lodge in action at Hamburg in 1747, and the further assertion has been offered of the French origin of the Order. The names of the degrees have also been named as:

1. Knight or Apprentice.
2. Brother or Companion.
3. Soldier or Master.
4. Horseman or Knight.
5. Novice.
6. Aedile, or Builder.
7. Tribunus, or Knight of the Eternal Silence.

The members are said by Woodford to have all been Freemasons and men of learning, the proceedings being, it is claimed, conducted in the Latin language, a circumstance that has a parallel in the Roman Eagle Lodge, No. 160, Edinburgh, Scotland, founded in 1785. This Lodge had its By-Laws and Minutes written in Latin, the object being "to erect and maintain a Lodge whose working and records should be in the classical Latin tongue" (see Historical Notes, Alfred A. A. Murray, Edinburgh, 1908, also The Jacobite Lodge at Romne, William J. Hughan, 1910, page 14).

For a helpful guide to the conditions under Frederick the Great's control favoring the existence of such organizations as the African Architects. the student may refer to volume ii, pages 60--73, The Beautiful Miss Craven, by Broadley and Melville, 1914.

The African Architects was not the only. society which in the eighteenth century sought to rescue Freemasonry from the impure hands of the charlatans into which it had well-nigh fallen.

AFRICAN BROTHER

One of the degrees of the Rite of the Clerks of Strict Observance, according to Thory (Acta Latorum 1, page 291), but it is not mentioned in other lists of the degrees of that Rite.

AFRICAN BROTHERS

One of the titles given to the African Architects, which see.

AFRICAN BUILDERS

See African Architects

AFRICA, CONTINENT OF

The historic mission of Freemasonry in Africa has been for its Lodges and other Bodies to serve as a center of union and unity in communities of which the majority of citizens belong to a conglomerate of nationalities, languages, and races. The first Lodge in South Africa was Goede Hoop, of Holland origins, constituted in the Transvaal in 1772. (See article in this Supplement under Slavery, etc. ) The English founded British Lodge, No. 334, at Cape Town, in 1811. In 1860 a Lodge under Scotland was constituted as Southern Cross, No. 398. The earliest Lodge under an Irish warrant was Abercom No. 159, in 1895. Haille Selassie, the Emperor, was preparing to establish Lodges in Abyssinia shortly before the Italian conquest.

By 1936 there were on the Continent 389 Lodges recognized by Grand Lodges in the United States, and an undiscoverable number not recognized, many of the latter being of French, Spanish, and Italian origin. There were 254 Lodges under English Constitutions 103 under Scotland, 31 under Ireland. Since very little of Africa is under any Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction the way is open for Lodges for America; nationals, of which there are many in port cities businessmen, sailors, men of the Navy, airmen etc. In size African Lodges range from 25 to 301 members.

Egypt at the Sudan had in 1936, 25 Lodges; Province of Natal, 46; Union of South Africa and the Transvaal, 228; Johannesburg, 31; Cape Town, 12 Nigeria, 21; Rhodesia, 24; West Africa, 17; East Africa, 11; Tanganyika Territory, 6; Cape Colony, 9 Orange Free State, 2; etc. The English Lodges have five District Grand Lodges, Ireland has a Provincial Grand Lodge of South Africa, Southern. The Scottish Rite has two Grand Inspectors General among Lodges under English Constitutions. The Knights Templar and the Royal Arch are vigorous. The Transvaal Bodies have a Masonic Home. the majority of Bodies have a Benevolence Fund. A possible United Grand Lodge for South Africa is discussed, but appears unlikely.

AFRICAN LODGE

See Negro Lodges

AGAPAE

The Agapae, or love feasts, were banquets held during the first three centuries in the Christian Church. They were called love feasts, because, including the partaking of the Sacrament, the Brethren met, both rich and poor, at a common feast-the former furnishing the provisions, and the latter, who had nothing, being relieved and refreshed by their more opulent Brethren. Tertullian (Apologia, chapter xxxix) thus describes these banquets: "We do not sit down before we have first offered up prayers to God; we eat and drink only to satisfy hunger and thirst, remembering still that we are to worship God by night: we discourse as in the presence of God, knowing that He hears us: then, after water to wash our hands, and lights brought in, every one is moved to sing some hymn to God, either out of the Scripture, or, as he is able, of his own composing.

Prayer again concludes our feast, and we depart, not to fight and quarrel, or to abuse those we meet, but to pursue the same care of modesty and chastity, as men that have fed at a supper of philosophy and discipline, rather than a corporeal feast."

The agapae united the group meal and the Lord's Supper because that Sacrament was first observed at a feast (see Matthew xxvi, 26-9). This custom was readily adopted among Gentile converts as such meals were usual practices by both the Greeks and Romans. Even in Bible times the observance was not always free of fault as is shown by Paul's rebuke at Corinth (see First Corinthians xi, 17-34; also in this connection note Second Peter 11, 13; and Jude 12).

These disorders marred the religious value of the function and led to its suppression in churches. The merit of the purpose, when properly carried out. gives substantial service to right living and has therefore much ceremonial and social importance.

Dr. August Kestner, Professor of Theology, published in Jena, in 1819, a work in which he maintains that the agapae, established at Rome by Clemens, in the reign of Domitian, were mysteries which partook of a Masonic, symbolic, and religious character.

In the Rosicurcian Degrees of Freemasonry we find an imitation of these love feasts of the primitive Christians; and the ceremonies of the banquet in the Degree of Rose Croix of the Ancient and accepted Rite, especially as practiced by French Chapters, are arranged with reference to the ancient agapae.

Reghellini, indeed, finds an analogy between the Table Lodges of modern Freemasonry and these love feasts of the primitive Christians.

AGATE

A stone varying in color, but of great hardness, being a variety of the flint. The agate, in Hebrew ..., SheBO, was the center stone of the third row in the breastplate of the High Priest.

Agates often contain representations of leaves, mosses, etc., depicted by the hand of nature. Some of the representations on these are exceedingly singular. Thus, on one side of one in the possession of Velschius was a half moon, and on the other a star.

Kircher mentions one which had a representation of an armed heroine ; another, in the church of Saint Mark in Venice, which had a representation of a king's head, adorned with a diadem; and a third which contained the letters I. N. R. I. (see Oliver's Historical Landmarks ii, page 522). In the collections of antiquaries are also to be found many gems of agate on which mystical inscriptions have been engraved, the significations of which are for the most part no longer understood.

AGATE, STONE OF

Among the Masonic traditions is one which asserts that the Stone of Foundation was formed of agate. This, like everything connected with the legend of the stone, is to be mystically interpreted. In this view, agate is a symbol of strength and beauty, a symbolism derived from the peculiar character of the agate, which is distinguished for its compact formation and the ornamental character of its surface (see Stone of Foundation).

AGATHOPADES

A liberal ecclesiastical order founded in Brussels in the sixteenth century. Revived and revised by Schayes in 1846. It had for its sacred sign the pentastigma, a term meaning the stamp of the five points.

AGBATANA

See Echatana

AGE, LAWFUL

One of the qualifications for candidates is that they shall be of lawful age. What that age must be is not settled by any universal law or landmark of the Order. The Ancient Regulations do not express any determinate number of years at the expiration of which a candidate becomes legally entitled to apply for admission.

The language used is, that he must be of "mature and discreet age."

But the usage of the Craft has differed in various countries as to the construction of the time when this period of maturity and discretion is supposed to have arrived. The sixth of the Regulations, which are said to have been made in 1663, prescribes that "no person shall be accepted a Freemason unless he be one and twenty years old or more"; but the subsequent Regulations are less explicit. At Frankfort-on-the-Main, the age required is twenty; in the Lodges of Switzerland, it has been fixed at twenty-one. The Grand Lodge of Hanover prescribes the age of twenty-five, but permits the son of a Freemason to be admitted at eighteen see Lewis).

The Grand Lodge of Hamburg decrees that the lawful age for initiation shall be that which in any country has been determined by the laws of the land to be the age of majority. The Grand Orient of France requires the candidate. to be twenty-one, unless he be the son of a Freemason who has performed some important service to the Order, or unless he be a young man who has served six months in the army, when the initiation may take place at the age of eighteen.

In Prussia the required age is twenty-five. Under the Grand Lodge of England the Constitutions of 1723 provided that no man should be made a Freemason under the age of twenty-five unless by Dispensation from the Grand Master. This remained the necessary age until it was lowered in the Constitutions of 1784 to twenty-one years, as at present, though the Ancient Freemasons still retained the requirement of twenty-five until the Union of 1813. Under the Scotch Constitution the age was eighteen until 1891, when it was raised to twenty-one. Under the Irish Constitution the age was twenty-one until 1741, when it was raised to twenty-five and so remained until 1817, when it was lowered again to twenty-one. In the United States, the usage is general that the candidate shall not be less than twenty-one years of age at the time of his initiation, and no Dispensation can issue for conferring the degrees at an earlier period.

AGE, MASONIC

In some Masonic Rites a mystical age is appropriated to each degree, and the initiate who has received the degree is said to be of such an age. Thus, the age of an Entered Apprentice is said to be three years ; that of a Fellow Craft, five; and that of a Master Mason, seven. These ages are not arbitrarily selected, but have a reference to the mystical value of numbers and their relation to the different degrees.

Thus, three is the symbol of peace and concord, and has been called in the Pythagorean system the number of perfect harmony, and is appropriated to that degree, which is the initiation into an Order whose fundamental principles are harmony and brotherly love. Five is the symbol of active life, the union of the female principle two and the male principle three, and refers in this way to the active duties of man as a denizen of the world, which constitutes the symbolism of the Fellow Craft's Degree ; and seven, as a venerable and perfect number, is symbolic of that perfection which is supposed to be attained in the Master's Degree. In a way similar to this, all the ages of the other degrees are symbolically and mystically explained.

The Masonic ages are---and it will thus be seen that they are all mystic numbers-3, 5, 7, 9, 15, 27, 63, 81.

AGENDA

A Latin word meaning things to be done. Thus an "Agenda Paper" is a list of the matters to be brought before a meeting.

AGLA

One of the Cabalistic names of God, which is composed of the initials of the words of the following sentence: ..........., Atah Gibor Lolam Adonai, meaning "Thou art mighty forever, O Lord." This name the Cabalists arranged seven times in the center and at the intersecting points of two interlacing triangles, which figure they called the Shield of David, and used as a talisman, believing that it would cure wounds, extinguish fires, and perform other wonders (see Shield of David). The four Hebrew letters forming the initials of the above words were used on the floor cloths of Lodges in the eighteenth century.

AGNOSTUS, IRENAEUS

This is supposed by Kloss (Bibliographie der Friemaurerei, Nos. 2442, 2497, etc. ) to have been a nom-de-plume or pen name of Gotthardus Arthusius, a co-rector in the Gymnasium of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and a writer of some local celebrity in the beginning of the seventeenth century (see Arthusius).

Under this assumed name of Irenaeus Agnostus, he published, between the years 1617 and 1620, many works on the subject of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, which John Valentine Andrea had about that time established in Germany, Among those works were the Fortaliciuni Scientiae, 1617; Clypeum Veritatis, 1618 ; Speculum Constantiae, 1618; Fons Gratiae, 1619; Frater non Frater, 1619; Thesaurus Fidei, 1619; Portus Tranquillitatis, 1620, and several others of a similar character and equally quaint title.

AGNUS DEI

The Agnus Dei, meaning the Lamb of God, also called the Paschal Lamb, or the Lamb offered in the Pascal Sacrifice, is one of the jewels of a Commandery of Knights Templar in America, and is worn by the Generalissimo.

The lamb is one of the earliest symbols of Christ in the iconography of the Church, and as such was a representation of the Savior, derived from that expression of Saint John the Baptist (John 1, 29), who, on beholding Christ, exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God."

"Christ," says Didron (Christian Iconography 1, page 318), "shedding his blood for our redemption, is the Lamb slain by the children of Israel, and with the blood of which the houses to be preserved from the wrath of God were marked with the celestial tau.

The Paschal Lamb eaten by the Israelites on the night preceding their departure from Egypt is the type of that other divine Lamb of whom Christians are to partake at Easter, in order thereby to free themselves from the bondage in which they are held by vice."

The earliest representation that is found in Didron of the Agnus Dei is of the sixth century, and consists of a lamb supporting in his right foot a cross. In the eleventh century we find a banneret attached to this cross, and the lamb is then said to support "the banner of the resurrection." This is the modern form in which the Agnus Dei is represented.

AGRIPPA, HENRY CORNELIUS

Born in 1486 at Cologne, Germany, his real name being Von Nettesheim. Died in 1535 at Grenoble, France. Author of On the Vanity of the Sciences, published in 1527 at Cologne, and Libri Tres de Occulta Philosophia, published in 1533 at the same place. A scholarly and learned man whose writings led him into many controversies. Lenning and Gädicke say that Agrippa founded a secret literary and mystical society at Paris and during his life was reputed to have been a magician (see Henry Morley's Life of Cornelius Agrippa).

Agrippa was, as well as being a writer, a soldier, a physician and a well-known alchemist.A writer in the Quarterly Review of 1798 states that Cornelius Agrippa came to London in 1510 and founded there a secret alchemical society and was practically the founder of Freemasonry.

There does not seem to be any foundation for such a statement. Many of his writings dealt with Rosicrucianism.

AHABATH OLAM

Two Hebrew words signifying eternal love. The name of a prayer which was used by the Jews dispersed over the whole Roman Empire during the times of Christ. It was inserted by Dermott in his Ahiman Rezon (page 45, edition 1764), and copied into several others, with the title of A Prayer repeated in the Royal Arch Lodge at Jerusalem. The prayer was most probably adopted by Dermott and attributed to a Royal Arch Lodge in consequence of the allusion in it to the "holy, great, mighty, and terrible name of God."

AHIAH

So spelled in the common version of the Bible (First Kings iv, 3 ), but according to the Hebrew orthography the word should be spelled and pronounced Achiah, or akh-ee-yaw according to Strong.
He and Elihoreph or Elichoreph were the Sopherim, the Scribes or Secretaries of King Solomon. In the ritual of the Seventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, according to the modern American system, these personages are represented by the two Wardens.

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