Lodge St. Andrew #518

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND KINDRED SCIENCES

by ALBERT G. MACKEY M.D.

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, 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 and 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' Guild, 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.

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 ?
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.

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.
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".

DARA

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 all 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:

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.
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.
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:

This is the entire list of Adonhiramite Degrees
No:	English	French
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
11	Knight of the Sword, Knight of the East Eagle	Chevalier de l'Épée surnommé Chefalier de l'Orient ou de l'Aigle
12	Knight of Rose Croix	Chevalier de la Rose Croiz

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 (Masonic Studies), 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;
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 all Lodges of Adoption.

A Lodge of Adoption, under the regulations established in 1774, consists of the following officers:

Grand Master
Grand Mistress
Orator, dressed as a Capuchin or Franciscan monk
Inspector
Inspectress
a Male and Female Guardian
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:
No:	French	English
1	Apprentice	Female Apprentice
2	Compagnonne	Craftswoman
3	Maîtresse	Mistress
4	Parfaite Maçonne	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 in 1817-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 today 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:

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.
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.
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.
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).