by:
Unknown
An
experience in freemasonry usually upsetting to the newly raised brother
is his
first visit to a lodge in another jurisdiction than his
own.
Having carefully been taught a certain ritual, in all probability with
positive
emphasis upon the necessity of being “letter
perfect,” he learns with a
distinct shock that the ritual in other States differs from his own,
and these
differ each from the other. If he converses with those
“well informed
brethren who will always be as ready to give as you will be to receive
instruction” he is more than apt to be met with a puzzled,
“I don’t know, I’m
sure, just why they are different from us, but of course. Ours is
correct.” The
riddle becomes much plainer as the neophyte studies Masonic history -
but,
alas, many never open a Masonic book! Yet divergences in
ritual cannot be
understood without some historical background. It is
necessary to
understand, for instance, that Freemasonry came to this country, some
time
prior to 1731, at a time when English ritual was in a process of
formation. We did not receive our Masonry from one central
source. But
from several; nor did we obtain it as a whole. Several
different
localities, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) received
Freemasonry
from across the sea and from them our forms and ceremonies radiated to
other
sections. The schism in the first Grand Lodge in England
(1753) resulted
in two Grand Lodges; the “Ancients” (the younger,
schismatic body) and the
“Moderns”” (the older. original Grand
Lodge). Each had its own ritual;
our rituals sometimes lean to one, sometimes to the other, and often to
both. Literal ritualism is comparatively a modern matter; and
“mouth to
ear” in the early days meant nothing more than giving of
information, not
transmitting it in a set form of words. Most of our Grand
Lodges have
been formed by a union of particular Lodges, many of which received
each its
ritual from a different source, with the result that the ritual finally
adopted
is a combination of several. And finally, Grand Lodges have
not
infrequently changed, added to and taken from their own rituals, either
as
matter of legislation or by the easier course (in early days) of
adopting with
little or no question the variations suggested by positive minded
ritualists,
Grand Lecturers, Custodians of the Work, ritual committees and so
on.
Some of these, unfortunately, had little or no Masonic background, and
changed
and altered, added and subtracted with no better reason than
“this seems much
better to us!”
Certain
fundamentalists are to all intents and purposes the same in every one
of our
forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions. All American Lodges have a
Master and two
Wardens, a Secretary and Treasurer, an Alter with the V.S.L. and the
other
Great Lights, three degrees; unanimous ballot required; make Masons
only of
men; have the same Substitute Word given in the same way; are tiled;
have a
ceremony of opening and closing. To some extent all dramatize
and exemplify
the Master’s Degree, although the amount of drama and
exemplification differs
widely. But beyond these and a few other simple essentials
are wide
variations. Aprons are worn one way in one degree in one Jurisdiction
and
another way in the same degree in another. Some Jurisdictions
have more
officers in a Lodge than others. In some Jurisdictions
Lodges open
and close on the Master Mason’s degree; others on the First
degree; others only
in the degree which it to be “worked.”
Lesser Lights are grouped closely
about the Altar, in the stations of the Master and Wardens.
In some
Lodges the I.P.M. (immediate Past Master) plays an important part, as
in
England. Other Lodges know him not. Some Lodges
have Inner Guards
and two Masters of Ceremonies - others will have none of
these. Dividing,
lettering, syllabling are almost as various in practice as the
Jurisdictions. Obligations show certain close similarities in
some
requirements; but what is a part of the obligation in one jurisdiction
may be
merely an admonition in another, and “vice versa.”
Discovering all this (and
much more) the thoughtful initiate is apt to wonder why it is deemed so
important that he memorize his own particular
“work” so closely; when he
travels he finds that what he knows as familiar words and forms and
phrases are
strange to the Lodges he visits. Not is this the place to
ague for purity
of the ritual as taught. There are good and sufficient
reasons why we
should hand on to our sons and their sons the ritual as we received it
- if
only to preserve without further alteration and change that which was
formed by
the fathers. Suffice it that while uniformity in work within
a
Jurisdiction is fairly well established as good American Masonic
practice, it
is not universal. there are several “workings” for
instance, permitted in
English Lodges, and even in some American Jurisdictions
(“vide” Connecticut)
not all Lodges use the same ritual. The reasons for all this
are so
involved, complex, and cover such a long period; that a complete
understanding
is difficult even for the student willing to read the enormous amount
of
history and authority which may make it plain. Briefly, and
in general,
the matter becomes clearer if we visualize our sources of ritual.
We
received our Masonry from:
The Mother Grand Lodge of England 1717-1753
The Grand Lodge of the “Ancients” 1753-1813
The Grand Lodge of the “Moderns” 1753-1813
The United Grand Lodge 1813 and on -
The Grand Lodge of Ireland 1724- and on -
The Grand Lodge of Scotland 1736 and on -
and
From the Pre-Grand Lodge era of Lodges of England, Ireland and
(or) Scotland.
Unfortunately
for the historian, this list does not signify six or seven different
but “pure”
forms. The ritual of the original Grand Lodge changed as it
flowed,
through many years after 1717. The Grand Lodges of
“Ancients” and
“Moderns both made alterations in ritual so that rival
members of each body
found it impossible to make themselves known Masonically in the
other.
Ireland and Scotland were, and are, as different as Pennsylvania and
California. From pre-Grand Lodges members came to this
country to form
themselves into Lodges without Warrant or Charter (as was the custom in
early
days). A dozen men, bringing “what they remembered
of the” ritual they
heard when “made,” to form a Lodge, would naturally
include in their ritual a
little of one original source, some phrases from another beginning, a
paragraph
from a third wellspring, and so on.
The
Mother Grand Lodge ritual (1717 to 1753) was not the ritual of the
United Grand
Lodge which came into existence in 1813, when the two parts of the
original
Mother Grand Lodge (“Ancients” and
“Moderns”) again came together. The
United Grand Lodge, or Grand Lodge of Reconciliation, formed its ritual
from
the best of the divergent rituals of the “Ancients”
and the “Moderns.”
Thus,
Lodges in this country, which received ritual, in any and all states of
purity
or impurity, from either of these several sources, would differ
decidedly each
from the other.
Come
we now to the spread of Masonry in the thirteen colonies, and later,
through
the forty-eight states, territories, and the District of
Columbia. To
write even one paragraph of Masonic history of ritual in so many
subdivisions
would make this Bulletin unreadably long. But a few high
lights may be
noted.
From
our primary American sources of ritual, in one way or another all other
American Grand Jurisdictions, in part at least, received their
“work;”
Massachusetts, which at first sent forth what must have been at least
an
approximation of the work of the original Mother Grand Lodge, though
her ritual
today is derived from both “Moderns” and
“Ancients;” Pennsylvania and Virginia,
both giving forth individual variants of a combination of
“Modern” and
“Ancient,” and North Carolina, almost purely
“Modern.”
In
1915 Dean Roscoe Pound showed how various were the next groups of
States which
received their rituals from the first four American sources.
He developed
that Maine derived from Massachusetts since the fusion; Vermont derived
from
the Grand Lodge of “Ancients” in Massachusetts
before the fusion; Ohio derived
from Massachusetts, from Connecticut, a strictly
“Modern” Jurisdiction, and
from Pennsylvania;
Indiana
derived from Ohio and Kentucky, which later represents Virginia after
the
fusion, Michigan derived from the “Ancient” Grand
Lodge of Canada and from New
York, which since the Revolution was a Strictly
“Ancient” Jurisdiction;
Kentucky derived from Virginia; Tennessee derived from North Carolina,
a purely
“Modern” Jurisdiction; Alabama derived
from North Carolina, from South
Carolina and from Tennessee, thus representing Virginia and North
Carolina; Louisiana
derived from South Carolina, from Pennsylvania and from
France; Florida
derived from Georgia and from South Carolina; Missouri derived from
Pennsylvania and from Tennessee, representing therefore, the fusion in
Pennsylvania and the “Modern Masonry” of North
Carolina; Illinois derived from
Kentucky and so represents Virginia; and the District of Columbia
derived
Maryland (a fusion of “Modern Masonry from Massachusetts and
from England
direct, with the “Ancient Masonry” from
Pennsylvania), and from Virginia.
The
further west we go, the more we find a mixture of sources, complicated
rather
than simplified by such matters as the splitting of the Grand Lodge of
Dakota
into the Grand Lodge the of South Dakota and North Dakota, when these
two
States were formed, and the formation of the Grand Lodge of California,
which
drew its work from many different sources. California Lodge
No.13, of the
District of Columbia, was formed for the purpose of carrying Masonry to
the
Golden Gate at the time of the gold rush. That Lodge is now
No.1 on the
California Grand Lodge Register. But California’s
ritual is not more
similar to the District of Columbia working than that of any other
State, since
the District Lodge was but one of several which formed the Grand Lodge
of California.
There
have been certain unifying influences; the Baltimore Convention of
1843, the
conclusions of which were adopted in whole or in part by several
American Grand
Jurisdictions, and the work of Bob Morris and his conservators, which,
despite
its chilly reception by many Grand Jurisdictions, undoubtedly left its
impression on American ritual. A third unifying influence has
been the
tremendous impress made on almost all American Jurisdictions by Thomas
Smith
Webb, and Jeremy Cross, plainly evident in the exoteric paragraphs
printed in
many State Monitors or Manuals. A fourth has been the honest
desire and
strenuous efforts of many Grand Lodges through District Deputies, Grand
Lecturers, Schools of Instruction and similar machinery, to preserve
what they
have in its supposedly ancient perfection. But by the time
these latter
were in operation, ritual was more or less fixed. Because of
the
reverence of the average Mason for what he is taught, and his fierce
resentment
of any material change in that which he learns, rituals and degree
forms,
ceremonies and practices, usages and customs continue to be what he
believes
them to have been “from time immemorial” even when
sober fact shows that they
have an antiquity of (in all probability) less than two hundred years.
For
the benefit of those Masons to whom divergence of ritual is not the
less
distressing thing, but that it is understandable, it may be said that
most
authorities agree that it is really not a matter of great
moment. All
over the world Freemasonry teaches the same truths, offers the same
spiritual
comfort, creates and continues the same fraternal bond. In
“non
essentials, variety; in essentials, unity” might have been
written of
Masonry. It matters little how we wear the apron in a given
degree - so
be it that it is worn with honor. The method of giving a sign
or a pass
matters much less than that what we do is done with understanding.
While
Freemasonry continues to observe and revere those few Landmarks which
are
undisputed everywhere - those which Joseph Fort Newton says are
“The Fatherhood
of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the hope of Life
Everlasting,” it becomes
of less moment that different men, in different times, in different
localities,
have found more than one way to phrase and to teach the ancient
verities of the
old, old Craft.