Chapter VII: Part 7

Henceforth the masons of England were no longer a society of handicraftsmen, but an association of men of all orders and every vocation, as also of every creed, who met together on the broad basis of humanity, and recognized no standard of human worth other than morality, kindliness and love of truth. The new Freemasons retained the symbolism of the operative masons, their language and their ritual. No longer did they build houses and churches, but the spiritual temple of humanity; they used the square no more to measure right angles of blocks of stone, but for evening the inequalities of human character, nor the compass any more to describe circles on stone, but to trace a ring of brother-love around all mankind. It was, perhaps, a picture of the young league of the Freemasons that Toland drew in his “Socratic Society” (1720), which, however, he clothed in a vesture the reverse of Grecian. The symposia or brotherly feasts of this society, their give-and-take of questions and answers, their aversion to the rule of mere physical force, to compulsory religious belief, and to creed hatred, as well as their mild and tolerant disposition and their brotherly regard for one another, remind us strongly of the ways of the Freemasons.

Though differences of creed played no part in the new masonry, nevertheless the brethren held religion in high esteem, and were steadfast upholders of the only two articles of belief that never were invented by man, but which are borne in on the mind and heart of every man, the existence of God, to wit, and the soul’s immortality. Accordingly every lodge was opened and closed with prayer to the “Almighty Architect of the universe”; and in the lodge of mourning in memory of a deceased brother, this formula was used: “He has passed over into the eternal East”—to that region whence light proceeds. Political parties, also, were not regarded among Freemasons: one principle alone was common to them all—love of country, respect for law and order, desire for the common welfare.

Inasmuch as the league must prize unity, one of the first decrees of the Grand Lodge was one declaring illegitimate all lodges created without its sanction. Hence to this day no lodges are recognized as such which are not founded originally and mediately from London. Despite this restriction there sprung up even in the first years after the institution of the Grand Lodge a multitude of new lodges, which received authorization from the Grand Lodge. With these numerous accessions the need of general laws became pressing, and at request of the Grand Lodge, Anderson, one of the founders, undertook to compare the existing statutes of the order with the ancient records and usages of the Stonemasons, and to compile them in one body of law. The result was the “Book of Constitutions,” which is still the groundwork of Freemasonry. It has been printed repeatedly, and is accessible to every one. Another foundation stone of Freemasonry was laid by the Grand Lodge in 1724, when it instituted the “committee for beneficence,” thus giving play to one of the most admirable features of the order—that of giving help to the needy and unfortunate, whether within the order or without.

The inner organization of the order, finally, was completed by the introduction of the Degrees. Brothers who had filled the post of Masters, on retiring from office, did not return to the grade of Fellows, but constituted a new degree, that of Masters: on the other hand, newly admitted members were no longer forthwith Fellows, but only apprentices: these degrees were instituted probably in 1720; at that time no other higher degrees were known. The right to promote apprentices to the degree of Fellow, and Fellows to that of Master, previously a function of the Grand Lodge, was accorded to the subordinate lodges in 1725.

Soon Freemasonry spread abroad. Lodges arose in all civilized countries, founded by English masons or by foreigners who had received masonic initiation in England; these lodges, when sufficiently numerous, united under Grand Lodges. The Grand Lodge of Ireland was created in 1730, those of Scotland and of France in 1736, a provincial lodge of England at Hamburg in 1740, the Unity Lodge of Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1742, and in the same year a lodge at Vienna, the Grand Mother Lodge of the Three World-spheres at Berlin in 1744, etc. A lodge was instituted at Boston, Mass., in 1733, and from Boston the order spread to Philadelphia. Thus in the space of thirty years from its origin freemasonry existed in all civilized lands, and so did not lag behind its opposite pole, Jesuitism, in respect of rapidity of propagation. Opposite poles these two societies are, for each possesses precisely those qualities which the other lacks. The Jesuits are strongly centralized, the freemasons only confederated. Jesuits are controlled by one man’s will, Freemasons are under majority rule. Jesuits bottom morality in expediency, Freemasons in regard for the wellbeing of mankind. Jesuits recognize only one creed, Freemasons hold in respect all honest convictions. Jesuits seek to break down personal independence, Freemasons to build it up.

2. CONSTITUTION OF THE ORDER.

The Society of Freemasons, because of its historic propagation, through sets from the English stock and through further budding and branching of these, forms no unitary organic whole. It has no central or supreme authority, no common head, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged. Its sole unity consists in a common name and a common end, in the common recognition signs, in agreement as to the general internal polity, and in a general uniformity of usages, though these show marked differences also. But very different between one country and another are the methods employed for attaining the ends of Freemasonry; different also is the organization of the lodge and the arrangement of the work.

Regarding the common end and aim of Freemasonry there is lack of perfect definiteness. In this regard Freemasonry presents a strong contrast to its rival, Jesuitism, which has only too clear perception of its aim. But so much is absolutely indisputable, that the end of Freemasonry is neither religious nor political, but purely moral. “Freemasonry labors to promote the wellbeing of mankind”: here all Freemasons are at one, though some of them may lay more stress on material wellbeing, some on purely moral, some on spiritual welfare, while again others will consider the wellbeing of the whole, and still others, the wellbeing of individuals as the object of the society. But as these several views are by no means mutually exclusive, but, in fact, complementary of one another, this lack of definition in the end of the society cannot be any hindrance to the society’s beneficent labors. And as matter of fact the society has wrought much good. Not only does it help its own members in need; no worthy person in need ever appeals to the order for relief in vain.

But as it is impossible that in so widely diffused a society the members should know one another personally, it became necessary to establish tokens by which a mason may be able to recognize the masonship and the degree of a fellow mason. These tokens consist of a word uttered in a peculiar way, a sign made by various motions of the hand and a peculiar pressure given in shaking hands (the grip). The mason is also recognized by his knock on a door, his way of drinking, etc., provided he cares to make use of these methods of intimating his masonry.

Besides these peculiarities common to all Freemasons there are specialties shared only by particular sections of the masonic body. The whole body of Freemasons, because of its diffusion among diverse nationalities, is divided into a number of “systems” differing one from another in the ceremonies of initiation, of promotion to higher degrees, of the lodge of sorrow, and of other occasions. The differences consist largely in the form and tenor of the solemn addresses and counter-addresses, or questions and answers with which the meetings are opened and closed: these forms are an imitation of the rituals of the ancient stonemason lodges, and of other secret organizations. The ritual for the reception of an applicant into the first degree, that of apprentice, is modeled on the stonemasons’ ritual; and the ceremonies of the higher degrees are amplifications of the same originals, with embellishments. In brief, the ritual of admission is such as was used by the monkish and the knightly orders; but the prototype of all these rituals was undoubtedly the ceremonial of baptism in the Catholic Church.

No doubt many persons are desirous of knowing what takes place on the admission of a would-be Freemason. For the sake of such persons it may be remarked that these ceremonies are different in different systems, and that consequently an exposition of them would require a more than ordinarily voluminous work; that, furthermore, when communicated in writing, they lose all the effect they have when employed in the act of initiation; and that they would be likely to make no impression whatever on one who should desire to know them out of mere curiosity.

In the ceremonial of Freemasonry symbols or emblematic devices hold a prominent place. Of these the most ancient are borrowed from the stonemasons’ lodges, and, therefore, represent masons’ tools and implements; other symbolic devices are reminiscent of various secret societies or of ecclesiastical rites. But both in symbolism and in ceremonial many abuses have, in the course of time, crept in, and innovations have been made which mar the native simplicity of the order and divert it from the pursuit of more useful ends.

The recognition signs, the ceremonial, and the symbols are the only secrets in Freemasonry. Mysteries, that is to say, knowledge of things that are hidden from all other persons, the order has none, and the claims that have been made in that regard are without foundation. Discretion, with respect to the business of the lodges and the membership, Freemasonry enjoins in common with many other societies; and so far the order is a close society, or a private society, and not a secret society. Of secret machinations and intrigues such as are hatched in the Jesuit order and in the secret political associations of our time, there is no trace in Freemasonry.

The masonic organization of each country exists for itself and in entire independence of other countries. A minor union of Freemasons, consisting of members, all of whom, as a rule, attend its meetings, is called a Lodge. The place (city, town, village, etc.,) in which there are one or more lodges is called Orient; the presiding officer of a lodge is the Master, and with him are associated two Wardens besides other officers. The assemblage of the members, as well as the place in which they meet, is called a lodge. A lodge may be an isolated one, that is, entirely independent; but that is rarely the case; as a rule each lodge belongs to a union of lodges, called Grand Lodge, or Grand Orient. The several lodges of such a union work sometimes on one common system, sometimes on different systems. Again, the grand lodges differ greatly in their organization. As a rule they have a Grand Master, with several Grand Officers, and these are either elected by delegates from all the associate lodges, or are named by certain specially privileged lodges. The freest masonic constitution is that of Switzerland, adopted in 1844: there the seat of the Grand Lodge is changed in every five years. In monarchical countries the royal residence city is usually the seat of the Grand Lodge. There are in Germany eight grand lodges, whose jurisdictions overlap one another, so that often there may be in a given city several lodges belonging to as many different grand lodges: but that does no prejudice to fraternal harmony. France, Belgium, Spain, and Brazil have each two grand lodges, each with a distinct system of ritual. But in Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Greece all the lodges of each country belong to one grand lodge. In each of the states of the American Union there is a grand lodge, and the same is to be said of the larger states of Central and South America. In the British colonies and dependencies, India, the Cape, Australasia, etc., the lodges are under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of the United Kingdom: British America, however, has its own Grand Lodge. The grand lodges of the world number more than 90, the subordinate lodges more than 15,000, and the members, perhaps, one million, reckoning only those in good and regular standing; but this is only a rough estimate; precise figures are not obtainable in default of a unitary organization.

3. THE LODGE.

The several lodges are named after persons, virtues, masonic emblems, historic events, etc. In America and England they are often designated by numbers indicative of the time of their foundation. A lodge may be erected wherever a certain number of resident accepted brethren, among them at least three masters, desire to effect an organization, and obtain the approval of the grand lodge having jurisdiction. An indispensable requisite for a lodge is a “well tiled” apartment—one well protected against the intrusion of outsiders, spies, or eavesdroppers. Usually the lodge is a square oblong hall or room, furnished after the manner of the time and country, and decorated with the masonic insignia. The attire of the assembled brethren is usually black, with white gloves (emblematic of hands not soiled by unjust gain) and a short white leather apron, a memento of the stonemasons and of the obligation to labor. The use of other insignia and of tokens to indicate the rank of the officials is left to the discretion of the several lodges. In England and her colonies, in the United States, Belgium and France on festive occasions Freemasons appear in public and on the streets in full masonic regalia, bearing the emblematic insignia of the order: in Germany and Switzerland such parade is frowned upon by Freemasons as unbecoming.

A Freemason lodge is an Apprentice Lodge, a Fellowcraft Lodge, or a Masters’ Lodge, according to the degree of its members. In the Apprentice lodge, masons of all degrees take part: its business is to deliberate upon the affairs of the lodge, and to admit new apprentices. In the Fellowcraft lodge the Fellows and the Masters take part: its function is simply to promote members from the first to the second degree. The Masters’ lodge is for masters exclusively: the masters direct the work of the apprentices and promote Fellowcrafts to the master’s degree. Besides, in each degree there is given instruction upon the symbolism and work of the same—this is called a “Lodge of Instruction.” Each degree has its special meaning, a sum of doctrines and a certain number of symbols. The purport of the Apprentice degree is the seeing of the light in the spiritual sense—the spiritual birth of man: an explanation is given of the nature of the order, its aims and its constitution. The Second degree deals with the life of man, its joys, its griefs, its fears: teaches to withstand passion and temptation, to know oneself, and to form an idea of the model human career. Finally, the teaching of the master’s degree treats of the end of life, death, its inevitableness; proposes for imitation the examples of great men who have given up their life for humanity; suggests thoughts concerning the immortal life. Sometimes, also, the three degrees are explained as the embodiment of the masonic motto: Beauty, Strength, and Wisdom. These degrees are also known as the Saint John degrees, and the lodges as lodges of St. John, the Baptist being the chosen patron of the order, as he was also of the medieval stonemasons and of the Templars. The fact that the masons are under the patronage of Saint John the Baptist is interpreted to mean that the order is the forerunner of a happier condition of mankind, as John was the forerunner of Jesus. On the feast of Saint John (June 24th) or thereabout, in the year 1717, the first meeting of the Grand Lodge of London was held; and on that same day there is held in every masonic lodge throughout the world a festival at once grave and joyful.[3]

Footnote 3:

We make no mention here of the so-called “higher degrees,” which are,
in fact, but amateurish fabrications, without any practical aim. They
are distasteful forms of the true freemasonry; they differ as to name
and number between one system and another; and the true lodges of
Saint John freemasons recognize no such “supergraduation.” The higher
degrees are considered in another part of this work.

All males who have attained legal majority, and who are of good repute and their own masters, are eligible for admission to the order, without regard to race, station, calling, or creed. Unfortunately, Freemasons have not always and everywhere been free from antiquated prejudices in the admission of new members. Down to this day lodges in the United States shut their doors in the face of men of color, i. e., of those who are not whites; and many German, Danish, and Swedish lodges, both grand and particular, exclude Jews; in consequence, there are very many lodges of colored men and in Germany some Jewish lodges, whereas in the British colonies brethren of all colors and creeds work together in the same lodges.

Women and children are not altogether shut out from Freemasonry everywhere. It is the almost universal custom to admit, before the attainment of majority, masons’ sons, who may have been instructed by their fathers as to the meaning of Freemasonry. There are also special meetings which the wives, the betrothed, the sisters, and the daughters of masons are permitted to attend. But we have an unmasonic excrescence and an abuse when, as in French lodges, with doors open to the public, a masonic baptism and a masonic marriage ceremony are performed with special ritual; still more worthy of reprobation are the Adoption lodges or Women’s lodges, instituted at various times in France: in these women were initiated with a ceremonial adapted to the occasion, and were promoted to various degrees; thus, before the Revolution the luckless Princess de Lamballe, in the time of Napoleon the Empress Josephine, and under the Restoration the Duchess de Larochefoucauld were presidents of lodges. In other quarters also the cry has been raised for the admission of the fair sex: but needless to say that such an innovation would very seriously compromise the gravity, the dignity, and the secrecy of the order, and breed trouble, both in the lodges and in the families of the members. Once a woman was unwittingly admitted to the secrets of Freemasonry. Elizabeth Aldworth, daughter of the Irish viscount Donneraile, in whose house a lodge used to hold its meetings, on one occasion, in her young girlhood, peeped through a crack in a partition and witnessed the admission of a mason. She was caught in the act, and, to prevent betrayal, was herself initiated. In her after life she was noted for her acts of benevolence, and once, wearing the masonic togs, headed a public walk of the brethren. The Empress Maria Theresa also, it is said, dressed in man’s apparel, once stole into a lodge in Vienna, having been informed that her husband, the Emperor Francis, was in the habit of meeting women there; but as she saw no women in the lodge, she withdrew in haste. Quite recently a Hungarian lodge admitted to membership a countess resident in its locality; but the Grand Lodge of Hungary canceled the act.

_PART TENTH._
_Secret Societies of the Eighteenth Century._

1. MISCELLANEOUS SECRET SOCIETIES.

Conditions in the 18th century were specially favorable to the vogue of secret organizations: illuminism was making headway, but at the same time there remained many a relic of medieval barbarism. The manifest contrasts of opinion naturally inclined men of like mind to come together in secret societies for the advancement of their favorite principles. These societies copied the methods of Freemasonry, and were, in a greater or less degree its rivals. Some of them admitted women to membership.

The societies of both sexes were intended to compensate women for their exclusion from the Freemason lodge. The “Order of Woodsplitters” (fendeurs), founded in 1747 by the Chevalier Beauhaine, a distinguished Freemason, took its symbolism entirely from the work of the woodsplitter or woodchopper; the lodges were yards (i. e., woodyards, chantiers), the members were cousins (cousins, cousines; i. e., male and female cousins), the candidate was a Steel (used to strike fire from a flint), and so forth. The “Order of Hope” (esperance) was founded expressly for the behoof of Freemasons’ wives, and they alone were admitted; but masons of the higher degrees could visit the lodges without initiation. The president was a woman. There were Esperance lodges in several cities of Germany; at Goettingen the university students joined the order for the sake of the refinement of manners got from association with the ladies. There is some doubt as to the true character of the “Order of Saint Jonathan” (afterward of Saint Joachim), qualified as “for True and Perfect Friendship,” or “for the Defense of the Honor of Divine Providence.” Its end would seem to have been to propagate belief in the Trinity, to refrain from the dance (especially the waltz), and from games of chance; also (this for the female members) to nurse their own children. It was founded by some German nobles, and its first grandmaster was Christian Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg. Though Protestants and Catholics were members of the order, it took on a strongly Catholic character, and in 1785 adopted the style of “the knightly Secular Chapter of the Order of Saint Joachim, the blessed Father of the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (ritterlich-weltliches ordenskapitel von St. Joachim, etc.) The society passed quietly out of existence. The “Order of the Pilgrims’ Chain” (Kette der Pilgrime), in Germany and Denmark, whose members belonged to the higher classes, had for its motto “Courtesy, Steadfastness, and Silence” (Willfaehrigkeit, Bestaendigkeit, Stillschweigen), and wore in a buttonhole a white ribbon bearing the initial letters of those three words. The members, male and female, were called Favorites (favoriten); to admit a new member was “to add a link to the chain”; and any member could add any “link” whom he might have known for half a year. The symbolism was borrowed from travel. The “Order of Argonauts” was founded in 1772 by Conrad von Rhetz, a Brunswick Freemason. On an islet in a pond leased to him by the state he built a temple in which the members were initiated. They approached the temple in barges and there were entertained by the Grand Admiral, as the founder was styled. There was no fee for admission. The motto was “Long Live Gladness”; the badge of the order was a green-enameled anchor of silver. The officers, besides the Grand Admiral, were the Pilot, the Ship’s Chaplain, and so forth, and the members were Argonauts. After the founder’s death the order went to wreck, and the temple disappeared, leaving no vestige. The renowned Fenelon founded at Douai an order called “the Palladium,” its secret dialect was taken from his romance “Telemasque.”

The “Order of the Mustardseed,” said to have been founded in England in 1708: it spread over Holland and Germany: it assumed the form of a Protestant clerico-knightly order, and concerned itself chiefly with religious affairs: its emblem was a gold cross, with mustard tree in the middle. This society was reputed to be connected with the Herrnhuters (Moravian brethren).

The “Order of the Leal” (Orden der Echten), founded in 1758, at Landeshut, by Bessel, a Prussian military officer, had for its end simply good-fellowship: it labored to win over to Prussia the Silesian nobility.

The “Society of the Ducats” (Dukatensocietat) had for its founder (1746) Count Louis of Neuwied, colonel in the Prussian Army. The members contributed one ducat a month; but when a member induced outsiders to join the society, then for the first outsider his own contribution for the month current was remitted; for the third, fifth and each following odd-numbered new accession procured by him he received a ducat. This vulgar swindle, which was the sole end of the society, worked finely, and the membership grew rapidly: but the Society of the Ducats was suppressed by the government after an existence of two years.

Attempts to establish other fraudulent orders were made by a swindler who understood the foible of his contemporaries for mysteries. Matthew Grossinger, or as he styled himself, Francis Rudolf von Grossing, son of a butcher, born 1752, at Komorn, in Hungary, would seem to have been once a Jesuit. After the suppression of his order, he offered to sell to Frederic the Great some Austrian official documents, but met with a repulse; then he represented himself to Joseph II. as a victim of the reactionary policy of the preceding reign, and in 1784 founded in the interest of his own pocket the “Order of the Rose,” and again in 1788, donning women’s clothes, the “Order of Harmony,” both orders admitting members of either sex. He named “Frau von Rosenwald,” a non-existent personage, as head of the order, with the title Stiftsrose (The Institute’s Rose). The several local societies were known as Roses, and their presiding officers as Rosylords and Rosyladies (Rosenherren, Rosendamen). But in fact Grossing was all in all, and he appropriated to himself the very liberal contributions and all other income: for that end alone were the societies established. He died in wretched circumstances, having always squandered his gains in luxury and extravagance.

2. OBSCURANTIST INFLUENCES.

The daybreak of illuminism in the 18th century gave to the partisans of the ancient despotism of creed and privilege matter of most serious concern. They saw all their contrivances for keeping the people ignorant and submissive baffled. For them, as for the Papacy at the daybreak of the Reformation the question was, To be or Not to be. But theirs was a war with a far more redoubtable foe than Protestantism ever was. Illuminism did not aim merely at separation from the Roman Church: it declared a war of extermination against Rome, it aimed at abolition of all authority that presumed to determine the beliefs of men or to dictate their opinions. To down this hateful spirit of illuminism with one blow—what satisfaction that would afford to the obscurantists of that time! But where should they begin? It was vain to think of silencing the literary champions of illuminism. The age of witch trials and courts of Inquisition was past. The problem was to find an organized institution in which the odious spirit of illuminism was, as it were, incorporated, and that could be no other than the society of the Freemasons. But the experience of the Popes and the Inquisition had shown that Freemasonry was not to be overmastered by persecution, by prisons, or by the stake. Hence, other champions must take the place of the Dominican inquisitors: the Freemasons must be won over to the good cause by flatteries and cajoleries. Among the illuminists of that day the Jesuits were regarded as the agents chosen for carrying out this plan; and though it cannot be demonstrated that they had an actual part in the business, the scheme surely was one quite consonant with the spirit of their order. The plan was shrewdly contrived. It dealt with political considerations affecting England, the native home of freemasonry; and thus the conspiracy aimed, so to speak, at capturing the den of the “dragon” of illuminism. The Stuart dynasty, which had returned to the Catholic fold, was in exile from the end of the 17th century, but, aided by France materially and by Rome intellectually, was ever striving to regain the lost throne. The efforts of kings and kings’ sons in exile possess a poetical and romantic quality. It was possible to win over all sympathetic enthusiasts by exploiting their foibles, the nobles and legitimists (the Tories) by preaching legitimacy, and the whole body of the Catholics by appealing to their loyalty to the Church. Now, the masonic order was a secret society, and as such, of course, was a rallying point for all enthusiasts, mystics, and dreamers. Besides, the nobility was strongly represented in the society: after the first four grandmasters of the Grand Lodge of England, who were all practical masons (architects), all the succeeding grandmasters belonged to the highest nobility of the realm. Among them we find dukes of Montague, Richmond, Norfolk, Chandos, to say nothing of a long series of viscounts, earls, and marquises. As for the Catholic element, it had many things in common with Freemasonry—ceremonies and mysticism, hierarchic degrees, and cosmopolitan extension; hence, with a little Jesuit finesse, the order might gradually and insensibly be made Catholic, as had been done with the Buddhist ceremonial in India: in this way the Society of Saint John might be transformed into a preparatory school for the Society of Jesus. And now, if we consider what a scandal it must have been to the coronetted chiefs of Freemasonry that their order originated among mechanics, we can see how easy it would be, by dishing up a few fables in proof of a nobler origin, to make converts of them for any ends whatever. In the event of success, the stronghold of illuminism would be captured, and with the help of its former champions the most powerful kingdom in Europe, and a great centre of illuminism, would be given back to a Catholic King, and thereby the road to conquest opened for the Church of Rome. Of course, these vast designs could not be carried out all at once. The work had to proceed by stages, as thus: 1. Aristocratic sentiment would be gratified by the institution of higher masonic degrees; 2. These degrees would be connected with the religious orders of knighthood by a chain of fable; 3. Obstinate Protestants would be quieted by the offer of a cryptic Catholicism which apparently would be in accordance with their own beliefs; 4. Persons inaccessible to religious considerations would be influenced by hopes of riches to be acquired through the secret arts of alchemy, and the like; 5. The whole purpose of the order would be directed toward spiritual and Catholic ends; finally, 6. when the process was completed, there would stand forth in all its nakedness the savage fury of the Inquisition.

3. THE “HIGH DEGREES” SWINDLE.

Without any sufficient reason assigned, there arose in England between the years 1741 and 1743 a new degree, Royal Arch, at first as a higher division of the master’s degree afterward as an independent degree. Its content was a hotchpotch of New Testament passages, religious dogmas, and masonic, or, rather, unmasonic fables. Its tradition went back to the building of the second Temple of Jerusalem, after the return from Babylonian captivity; hence the president of a Royal Arch lodge took the name of Zerubbabel, and wore a vesture of scarlet and purple. The meeting was called a “chapter”; the three masonic degrees were dubbed “probationary degrees”; and soon, on the title page of the rules of the degree was represented an ark, with the inscription “Nulla Salus Extra” (no safety outside), whereby we are reminded that according to Catholic doctrine the ark of Noah was a type of the Church. Afterward the Royal Arch degree published a program of its work, in which masonry is divided into Operative and Speculative, and the former subdivided into manual, instrumental, and scientific; the aim of the “order” was defined to be, to gather the human race in one fold under the great Shepherd of souls. For the rest, the work of this degree was childish play.

Even before this fruit was borne in England, there came into circulation in France, how or why nobody knows, a statement that Freemasonry arose in Palestine during the Crusades, and was there consolidated with the Knights of St. John (Hospitalers), wherefore the lodges came to be called Saint John’s lodges; that after the Crusades the order was established in Scotland, was thence afterward introduced into England, and later into other countries. This historic lie was, of course, welcomed by the nobles who were members of the order; as for the many uneducated members who had been admitted into the French lodges, they were easily deluded. Thenceforward there were High Degrees of all sorts in France. And as the fable assigned to Scotland the foremost place in the history of masonry, the highest degrees began to be known as Scottish, or, after the name of Scotland’s patron, Saint Andrew, Saint Andrew’s degrees, and the lodges Scottish or Saint Andrew’s lodges. In their rites of admission they adopted from the traditions of the English and French stonemasons a lot of myths about the death of Hiram, and taught the aspirants for admission to avenge that death, the meaning being that they were to avenge the expulsion of the Stuarts, and the wrongs done the Catholic Church by the Reformation and by illuminism.

But as degrees were multiplied the Hiram myth no longer sufficed, and for the higher steps it was necessary to have recourse to other myths. Meanwhile it was seen that the story of the consolidation of the Freemasons and the Knights of Saint John would not work, for that knightly order was still in existence; therefore, if the aristocratic brethren were to have their vanity flattered, recourse must be had to a suppressed order of knighthood. True, that was not pleasing to strict Catholics, but there was no alternative—and a bond of connection had to be formed between Masonry and the order of the Templars—the heretical Templars.

So here is the story of the relation of the Freemasons to the Templars: A few Templars, fleeing from papal and royal persecution—among them Grand Comptroller Harris and Marshal Aumont—reached Scotland, and in that country, in order to gain a livelihood, worked as common masons. Advised of the death of the Grandmaster Molay, and of his last will, wherein he had directed the brethren to perpetuate the order, these fugitive knights that same year established the “Freemasons’ league,” and on the Scotch Isle of Mull held the first “chapter” in 1314. Now, to say nothing of the fact that, as we shall see, the story took more than one different shape afterward, it is on other grounds quite unworthy of belief. It is beyond question that documentarily the Freemason league can assign for itself no other origin but the constitution of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. But, besides, the story is ridiculous, not only in that Harris and Aumont are purely fictitious personages, but also in that the Grand Lodge of Scotland and the oldest lodges of that ancient kingdom know nothing of any such creation of a society; and, furthermore, the objects and the sentiments of Templarism and masonry differ too widely for any unification to take place between them. In the one body free thinking through levity of temperament: in the other repudiation of odium theologicum out of love of fellowmen; on one side egotism: on the other regard for the general weal; on one side pride of aristocracy: on the other regard only for the dignity of manhood.

And yet the most eminent men of the 18th century were fooled into believing that the Freemasons are descended from the Templars. The first serious and formal introduction of spurious Templarism into masonry took place in France. The Chevalier de Boneville, on November 24, 1764, founded at Paris a chapter of the high degrees called (apparently in honor of the then grandmaster of Freemasons, Louis de Bourbon, count of Clermont) the “Clermont chapter”; its members were, for the most part, partisans of the Stuarts, and therefore of the Jesuits also. Here it was that the story of the wondrous transformation of Templars into Freemasons in Scotland was invented, taught, and employed as part of the ceremonial of admission to the higher degrees. The members wore the masonic togs, and in their ritual the death of the Grandmaster Molay took the place of that of Hiram; and, in fact, by Hiram, as some asserted, Molay was meant. From this chapter the influence of the Jesuits extended soon over the whole field of French Freemasonry. Surely, it was not by accident nor out of patriotism that the very next year the French Grand Lodge, till then dependent on England, declared itself independent, and adopted statutes according to which the “Scottish Masters” (unknown both in England and Scotland) were to have oversight of the work.

4. APOSTLES OF NONSENSE.

Soon the craze spread further still, and first, of course, through Germany, where, in those degenerate days, whatever bore the French stamp was received with reverence and conscientiously aped. The Scottish lodges got entrance into Berlin as early as 1742. The dubious honor of this importation belongs to Baron E. G. von Marschall, who had been initiated into the new Templarism at Paris. Dying soon afterward, he was succeeded by a man who presented the curious spectacle of noblest and most strenuous endeavor toward a fantastic goal, of the nature of which he knew nothing. Charles Gotthilf, Imperial Baron of Hund and Altengrottkau (so he was styled), born in 1722, was a nobleman of Lusatia and actual privy councilor of the Emperor; he was a man of narrow mind, without high education, but he was an idealist, a chivalrous, hospitable and kindly gentleman. At Paris he was received into the Catholic Church and into the spurious order of Templars, to which he was devoted heart and soul: he was commissioned “Master of the Host” in Germany. He founded a lodge on one of his estates, which bore the ominous name of Unwurde (unworth), and soon had several subordinate lodges under his jurisdiction.

“About this time,” says a contemporary writer, “the Seven-Years War broke out. The French troops came into Germany, and with them many Jesuits. With the French Army, and particularly in its commissariat, were a great many Freemasons of the higher degrees, and some of those gentlemen had calculated to make a good deal of money by the sale of merchandise in Germany. I knew one French commissary who had a whole wagonload of decorations for some forty-five degrees, and these he peddled all the way from Strasburg to Hamburg. Thereafter no German lodge was any longer content with the three symbolic degrees, but nearly every one of them had a series of higher degrees of one brand or another, according to the particular windbag each fell victim to; and so they dropped one system and took up another when a new apostle came that way and reformed them.”

Such an apostle of fraud was the Marquis de Lernais or Lerney. Taken prisoner of war to Berlin, he there made known the Jesuitical doctrine of the Chapter of Clermont, and even founded a chapter in the Grand Lodge of the Three World-Spheres. To spread these chapters over the rest of Germany, or, in plain terms, to give the whole country into the hands of the Jesuits, a character by no means ambiguous, one Philip Samuel Rosa, once a Protestant clergyman, counsel to the consistory, and superintendent, but afterward deposed for immorality, was employed. Rosa’s whole endeavor was to make money. Joining the Chapter of Clermont he got the title “Knight of Jerusalem and Prior of the Chapter of Halle.” As he traveled up and down the land, the lodge at Halle paid his expenses. The eyes of the deluded brethren were at last opened, on the discovery of the relations between Rosa and another swindler, one Leuchte, who palmed himself off as an Englishman, Baron Johnson, and who founded a Grand Chapter, admitted novices and knights, boasted of armies and fleets at his command, and sent forth to all Templars in Germany an encyclical letter summoning them to his standard. Many were his dupes, among them Rosa, who visited him at Jena, humbled himself before him, and consented to the expulsion of the Berlin chapter from the “order.” But as Rosa was loth to admit at Halle his submission to Johnson, and counseled the “knights” there not to recognize Johnson, his double-dealing was betrayed to his dupes at Halle by the “Baron,” and he was dismissed from their service in disgrace. The “Baron” himself, after the discovery of his frauds, was repudiated by his followers, and in 1765 was imprisoned in the famous castle of Wartburg, and there remained till his death in 1775.

This was the opportunity of the Baron von Hund, the Don Quixote of the 18th century. He became now the acknowledged head of the “order,” and ruled it as his fancy dictated. He always spoke of “Unknown Superiors” of the order as though his policy was guided by them; but the “Superiors” who imposed on the guileless gentleman were the intriguants at Paris. Because of the unconditional obedience required of the members, Hund called the system of the order that of “Strict Observance,” in contradistinction to the “lax observance” of ordinary Freemasons. The Strict Observance comprised seven degrees; viz., the three masonic degrees, the degree of the Scottish Master, that of the Novice, that of the Knight-Templar, finally the degree of the Eques Professus, or Professed Knight (one who has “professed” or taken the monastic vows!). All knights assumed Latin names or surnames. Hund was Eques ab Ense (Knight of the Sword); others were Knight of the Sun, of the Lion, of the Star, even of the Whale, of the Chafer, of the Golden Crab, of the Mole, etc. Soon Strict Observance was dominant in the German lodges, while genuine Freemasonry was forgotten. No less than twenty-six German princes joined the order, and so puffed up were its directors in consequence that forthwith they divided Europe up into provinces, after the manner of the Templars and the Jesuits, naming for each province a Master of the Host. The subdivisions of provinces were called, as among the Templars, Priories, Prefectures, Comptrollerships, etc. To give these subdivisions something more than an existence on paper, Hund dispatched the Baron G. A. von Weiler, Knight of the Golden Ear (of wheat, barley, etc.) to France and Italy, where he founded several chapters: even the Grand Orient of France united itself with the Strict Observance. Toward those German lodges which held aloof from this bastard masonry the Hundian Templars were supremely disdainful, and but few of the lodges had the spirit to speak out against the “obscurantist innovations.” Chief among the few was the gallant old Lodge of Unity, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, which declared itself an English provincial lodge, to show its independence of pseudo-Templarism.

A zealous apostle of the Strict Observance was John Christian Schubart of Kleefeld, Knight of the Ostrich, who was constantly on the road converting lodges to that system. Schubart devised a plan by which the order was to acquire great wealth. Hund’s financial affairs were in confusion, in consequence of the war, and he proposed to bequeath his property to the order, in consideration of a certain sum in cash: but the order had not the money. Schubart now proposed to exact enormous fees for initiations and admissions to high degrees (for example, 350 thalers for admission). But the scheme could not be worked, and Schubart withdrew from the order.

The order had no longer any use for Hund. The time had come for the Jesuit influence to assert itself: it would have no more fooleries with helmets, swords, accoutrements, and Templar’s mantles. It was seen by the original projectors of the “order” that if they would succeed in their design of winning over Freemasonry to the plan of catholizing Germany, they must betimes provide a clerical directorate for the organization, which till now had worn the mask of knighthood. They found a convenient instrument in the person of the Protestant theologian, John Augustus von Stark, born at Schwerin in 1741. While a student in Goettingen Stark was admitted (1761) to the masonic order; then he was a teacher in Petersburg, where he adopted the mystic system of one Melesino, a Greek. The ceremonial of Melesino’s system comprised a number of prayers and genuflections, and even a mass; the high-degree meetings were called Conclaves, and the members wore surplices. Later, at Paris, Stark took an interest in Oriental manuscripts, and joined the Catholic Church, but all the same, on his return home he served as professor of theology at Koenigsberg, and then as court preacher and general ecclesiastical superintendent in the same city, and afterward in Darmstadt. Through some acquaintances, who were members of the Strict Observance, he got an introduction to Hund, to whom he revealed the great secret which he had learned at Petersburg, namely, that the grand mysteries of the Templars were revealed not to the knights, but only to the clerical members, and that these mysteries had been kept and handed down to that time; further, that the true chief of the order of Templars was none other but the Knight of the Golden Sun, Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender, then resident in Florence. Delighted at the prospect of an enhancement of what he fancied to be his sciences, Hund recognized Stark and two of Stark’s friends as Clerics of the Order of Templars. These clerical Templars thereupon drew up a ceremonial and created degrees of their own, and as a special favor initiated some secular knights into their mysteries. But because Hund declined to accommodate Stark with a loan of two hundred thalers to defray the expenses of a journey to Petersburg, where Pylades, head of the Templar clerics, resided, the two fell out, and Stark announced his purpose to keep the “Clericate” independent of the “Order.” Nevertheless, he begged a friend to negotiate on his behalf with the secular Templars. This friend was a noble personage, Ernest Werner von Raven, Knight of the Pearl, a wealthy landowner, “prior” in the “order,” member of a Chapter under Rosa and Hund, and also an initiate in Stark’s own clerical order of Templars. Like Hund, he was a man of honor, but vain and narrow-minded, a mystic and an alchemist. Raven, in 1772, attended a convention held at Kohlo, in Lusatia, for the purpose of bringing about an understanding between the Knights and the clerics. He appeared in the costume of the Templar clerics, viz.; white cassock with red cross on the breast and a hat like that of a cardinal. He presented to the meeting a project of union drawn up by Stark, which the knights received with plaudits of satisfaction. Hund was deposed from his high office, and appointed one of the Masters of the Host, while Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick was made Grandmaster, and other princes were named to be Superiors and Protectors under him.

But the ritualistic pomp of the Clerics had already awakened suspicion in the minds of the Protestant members, and they began to cry out against mysteries of foreign origin and against the dictation of unknown Superiors. This discontent found expression in the convention held at Brunswick in 1775. There Hund was questioned as to the legitimacy of his appointment as a Master of the Host and the Clerics as to the authenticity of their mysteries. Hund was deposed from office; the following year he died of a broken heart, and, clothed in the regalia of Master of the Host, was interred in the church at Melrichsstadt in front of the altar. The seat of the Grandmaster was fixed permanently at Brunswick.

Thus the machinations of the Jesuits seemed to have come to naught. But now they sent forth a new apostle, a man who was an enigma, whose place of birth and of death are unknown, and who himself admitted to his confidants that he was an agent of the Jesuits. Gugomos—such was his name—styled baron and professor of art, and as a member of the Strict Observance Knight of the Triumphant Swan, in 1776, in his capacity as dignitary of the order of Templars with a long string of titles, invited the Grandmaster, the Directorate, and the Prior of the Clerics to attend a convention at Wiesbaden, in order, as he said, to instruct them in the genuine Templarism. And many “Knights” obeyed this singular invitation, among them several princes. Gugomos made loud boasts of the great number of mysteries into which he had been initiated, and in telling of them used phrases and terms that remind us strongly of the “Exercitia Spiritualia;” he exhibited his insignia and the commission of a “Most Holy See” in Cyprus; and declared that the Order to which he belonged, and of which the ancient order of Templars was only an offshoot, was founded by Moses, whose successors in the office of Grandmaster had been Egyptian, Judean, and other kings, Grecian philosophers, Christ himself and his apostles, finally popes. The Templar succession, he said, had been perpetuated in Cyprus (not in Scotland, then), and the archbishops of Cyprus were the successors of the Grandmasters. The degrees of Freemasonry (thus he driveled on) were a later innovation on the original clerical and knightly system, which in its organization was, he said, exactly the same as the Jesuit order. The one thing needed in order to instruct men in the occult sciences was a holy temple. On the completion of such a temple the “natural fire” would fall from heaven, etc. Many persons recognized the fraud; others walked into the trap, and were initiated. But seeing how little confidence was placed in him, Gugomos absconded, and that was the end of Jesuit Freemasonry.

But the farce of Templarism lived a few years yet, though people were growing tired of it. Some of the members went back to the old-fashioned masonry; others turned to new lights of mysticism that had for some time been looming on the horizon—the Swedish Rite and the New Rosicrucianism.

5. THE SWEDISH RITE.

Swedish Freemasons, as early as the middle of the 18th century, had found the genuine English masonry too simple and inornate: they longed for more glitter and pomp, mysteries and degrees. King Gustavus III. attempted to satisfy this want by concocting a new system, the ingredients being genuine freemasonry, the Strict Observance, and the system then known at “Rosicrucianism,” and in largest proportion the Clermont system: the doctrines of the famous mystic and seer, Swedenborg, may also have given a flavor to the compound. In founding the Swedish Rite or System, Gustavus counted on obtaining the help of the members in his effort to rid himself of the party of the nobles. The Swedish Rite has ten degrees. It is founded on two stories, one that certain secrets have descended to it from Christ through the Apostles, the clerical Templars, and the Freemasons; the other, that a nephew of the Grandmaster Beaulieu, a predecessor of Molay, visited Molay in prison, and, at the suggestion of Molay, went down into his uncle’s sepulchre, where, in a casket, he found the insignia and the records of the order; that from Paris he took these into Scotland, and thence into Sweden. The symbols of the higher degrees refer to Templarism and Catholicism. The ceremonies of the highest degree are said closely to resemble the mass. Other alleged usages are, the wearing of the red cross of the Templars on the breast, reciting every night Saint Bernard’s prayer to the Lamb of God, fasting on Good Friday till sundown, then eating three slices of bread, with oil and salt. The title of the head of the System is Vicar of Solomon. Several distinguished members of the Swedish System, among them the celebrated poet J. H. Voss, have characterized its ceremonies as “vain, useless and ridiculous.”

6. THE NEW ROSICRUCIANISM AND ALLIED SYSTEMS.

The New Rosicrucianism had its rise in Southern Germany about the year 1760, while Rosa and Johnson were busy with their systems. Its originators had no connection with Freemasonry, and of its nine degrees not even the first three were named after the masonic degrees. Several discontented members of the Strict Observance joined the new order. The members assumed fanciful names, as Foebron, Ormesus, Cedrinus; the lodges were called “Circles.” Unquestioning obedience was to be rendered to the Superiors. The members learned only the mysteries of their own particular circle. The motto was: “May God and His Word be with us.” They claimed to possess a cryptic Book containing a sacred history of events prior to the creation of the world, especially of the Fall of the Angels.