ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FREEMASONRY AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

A

AHOLIAB

A skillful artificer of the tribe of Dan, who was appointed, together with Bezaleel, to construct the tabernacle in the wilderness and the ark of the covenant (Exodus xxxi, 6). He is referred to in the Royal Arch Degree of the English and American systems.

AHRIMAN

See Ormuzd and Ahriman, also Zoroaster.

AID AND ASSISTANCE

The duty of aiding and assisting, not only all worthy distressed Master Masons, but their widows and orphans also, “wheresoever dispersed over the face of the globe, ” is one of the most important obligations that is imposed upon every Brother of the mystic tie by the whole scope and tenor of the Masonic Institution.

The regulations for the exercise of this duty are few, but rational. In the first place, a Master Mason who is in distress has a greater claim, under equal circumstances, to the aid and assistance of his brother, than one who, being in the Order, has not attained that Degree, or who, is altogether a profane. This is strictly in accordance with the natural instincts of the human heart, which will always prefer a friend to a stranger, or, as it is rather energetically expressed in the language of Long Tom Coffin “a messmate before a shipmate, a shipmate before a stranger, and a stranger before a dog”; and it is also strictly in accordance with the teaching of the Apostle to the Gentiles, who has said: “As we have therefore opportunity, Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (see Galatians vi, 10). But this exclusiveness is only to be practiced under circumstances which make a selection imperatively necessary. Where the granting of relief to the profane would incapacitate us from granting similar relief to our Brother, then must the preference be given to him who is “of the household.” But the earliest symbolic lessons of the ritual teach the Freemason not to restrict his benevolence within the narrow1imits of the Fraternity, but to acknowledge the claims of all men who need it, to assistance. Linwood has beautifully said: “The humble condition both of property and dress, of penury and want, in which you were received into the Lodge, should make you at all times sensible of the distresses of poverty, and all you can spare from the call of nature and the due care of your families, should only remain in your possessions as a ready sacrifice to the necessities of an unfortunate, distressed brother. Let the distressed cottage feel the warmth of your Masonic zeal, and, if possible, exceed even the unabating ardour of Christian charity. At your approach let the orphan cease to weep, and in the sound of your voice let the widow forget her sorrow” (Sermons, page 18).

Another restriction laid upon this duty of aid and assistance by the obligations of Freemasonry is, that the giver shall not be lavish beyond his means in the disposition of his benevolence. What he bestows must be such as he can give “without material injury to himself or family.” No man should wrong his wife or children that he may do a benefit to a stranger, or even to a Brother. The obligations laid on a Freemason to grant aid and assistance to the needy and distressed seem to be in the following gradations, first to his family; next, to his Brethren; and, lastly, to the world at large.

So far this subject has been viewed in a general reference to that spirit of kindness which should actuate all men, and which it is the object of Masonic teaching to impress on the mind of every Freemason as a common duty of humanity, and whose disposition Freemasonry only seeks to direct and guide. But there is another aspect in which this subject may be considered, namely, in that peculiar and technical one of Masonic aid and assistance due from one Freemason to another. Here there is a duty declared, and a correlative right inferred; for if it is the duty of one Freemason to assist another, it follows that every Freemason has the right to claim that assistance from his Brother. It is this duty that the obligations of Freemasonry are especially intended to enforce; it is this right that they are intended to sustain.

The symbolic ritual of Freemasonry which refers, as, for instance, in the First Degree, to the virtue of benevolence, refers to it in the general sense of a virtue which all men should practice. But when the Freemason reaches the Third Degree, he discovers new obligations which restrict and define the exercise of this duty of aid and assistance. So far as his obligations control him, the Freemason, as a Freemason, is not legally bound to extend his aid beyond the just claimants in his own Fraternity. To do good to all men is, of course, inculcated and recommended; to do good to the household of faith is enforced and made compulsory by legal enactment aud sanction.
Now, as there is here, on one side, a duty, and on the other side a right, it is proper to inquire what are the regulations or laws by which this duty is controlled and this right maintained. The duty to grant and the right to claim relief Masonically is recognized in the following passages of the Old Charges of l722:

“But if you discover him to be a true and genuine Brother, you are to respect him accordingly; and if he is in want, you must relieve him if you can, or else direct him how he may be relieved. You must employ him some days, or else recommend him to be employed. But you are not charged to do beyond your ability; only to prefer a poor brother, that is a good man and true, before any other poor people in the same circumstances.”

This written law agrees in its conditions and directions, so far as it goes, with the unwritten law of the Order, and from the two we may deduce the following principles:

1. The applicant must be a Master Mason. In 1722, the charitable benefits of Freemasonry were extended, it is true, to Entered Apprentices, and an Apprentice was recognized, in the language of the law, as “a true and genuine brother.” But this was because at that time only the First Degree was conferred in subordinate Lodges, Fellow Crafts and Master Masons being made in the Grand Lodge. Hence the great mass of the Fraternity consisted of Apprentices, and many Freemasons never proceeded any further. But the Second and Third Degrees are now always conferred in subordinate Lodges, and very few initiates voluntarily stop short of the Master’s Degree. Hence the mass of the Fraternity now consists of Master Masons, and the law which formerly applied to Apprentices is, under our present organization, made applicable only to those who have become Master Masons.
2. The applicant must be worthy. We are to presume that every Freemason is “a good man and true” until a Lodge has pronounced to the contrary. Every Freemason who is “in good standing,” that is, who is a regularly contributing member of a Lodge, is to be considered as worthy, in the technical sense of the term. An expelled, a suspended, or a nonaffiliated Freemason does not meet the required condition of ”a regularly contributing member.” Such a Freemason is therefore not worthy, and is not entitled to Masonic assistance.
3. The giver is not expected to exceed his ability in the amount of relief. The written law says, “you are not charged to do beyond your ability”; the Unwritten law requires that your relief must be “without material injury to yourself or family.” The principle is the same in both.
4. The widow and orphans of a Master Mason have the claim of the husband and father extended to them. The written law says nothing explicitly on this point, but the unwritten or ritualistic law expressly declares that it is our duty “to contribute to the relief of a worthy, distressed brother, his widow and orphans.”
5. And lastly, in granting relief or assistance, the Freemason is to be preferred to the profane. He must be placed “before any other poor people in the same circumstances.”

These are the laws which regulate the doctrine of Masonic aid and assistance.

They are often charged by the enemies of Freemasonry with showing a spirit of exclusiveness. But it has been shown that they are in accordance with the exhortation of the Apostle, who would do good “especially to those who are of the household of faith,” and they have the warrant of the law of nature; for everyone will be ready to say, with that kindest-hearted of men, Charles Lamb, “I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot feel for all alike. I can be a friend to a worthy man, who, upon another account, cannot be my mate or fellow.

I cannot like all people alike.” So also as Freemasons, while we should be charitable to all persons in need or in distress, there are only certain ones who can claim the aid and assistance of the Order, or of its disciples, under the positive sanction of Masonic law.

AITCHISON’S-HAVEN LODGE

Also spelled ATCHESON, ACHISON. This was one of the oldest Operative Lodges consenting to the formation of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736. The age of this Lodge, like many or most of the oldest Lodges of Scotland, is not known. Some of its members signed the Saint Clair Charters in 1600 and 1601. The place of its meeting, Aitchison-Haven, is no longer on the map, but was in the County of Midlothian. The origin of the town was from a charter of James V, dated 1526, and probably the Lodge dated near that period. Aitchison’s-Haven was probably the first meeting-place, but they seem to have met at Musselburgh at a later period.

Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, speaks of trouble in the Grand Quarterly Communication respecting representatives from this Lodge when in May, 1737, it was “agreed that Atcheson’s Haven be deleted out of the books of the Grand Lodge, and no more called on the rolls of the Clerk’s highest peril.”

The Lodge was restored to the roll in 1814, but becoming dormant, it was finally cut off in 1866. The Lodge of Edinburgh has long enjoyed the distinction of having the oldest preserved Lodge Minute, which is dated July, 1599.

Just recently Brother R. E. Wallace-James has brought to light a Minute Book bearing this title: The Buik of the Actis and Ordinans of the Nobile Maisteris and fellows of Craft of the Ludg of Aitchison’s heavine, and contains a catalogue of the names of the fellows of Craft that are presently in the Zeir of God 1598.

The first page of this rare book bears in a bold hand the date 1598.

The Minute to which we have already referred is as follows :
“The IX day of Januerie the Zeir of God upon ye quhilk day Robert Widderspone was maid fellow of Craft in ye presens of Wilzam Aytone Elder, Johne Fender being Warden, Johne Pedden Thomas Pettencrief John Crafurd George Aytone Wilzame Aytone younger Hendric Petticrief all fellowis of Craft upon ye quhilk day he chois George Aytone Johne Pedded to be his intenders and instructouris and also ye said Robert hes payit his xx sh. and his gluffis to everie Maister as efferis” (see ‘volume xxiv, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum).

AITCHISON’S-HAVEN MANUSCRIPT

One of the Old Charges, or records of Freemasonry now in the custody of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, was formerly preserved in the archives of the Aitchison-Haven Lodge, which met later on at Musselburgh in Scotland. The manuscript. is engrossed in the Minute Book of Aitchison-Haven Lodge. The writer attests to his transcription in the following manner:

“Insert by me undersub and the 19″ of May, 1666, Jo. Auchinleck, clerk to the Masones of Achisones Lodge.”

This manuscript. has been reproduced, with 24 lines in facsimile, by D. Murray Lyon in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE

The French name of what is called in German, Aachen. A city of Germany, remarkable in Masonic history for a persecution which took place in the eighteenth century, and of which Gadicke, in his Freimaurer Lexicon, 1818 and 183l, gives the following account:

In the year 1779, Ludwig Grienemann, a Dominican monk, a follower of Dominic de Guzman, who founded an Order whose violent zeal led to the atrocities of the Inquisition in Spain and elsewhere, delivered a course of Lenten sermons, in which he attempted to prove that the Jews who crucified Christ were Freemasons, that Pilate and Herod were Wardens in a Freemason’s Lodge, that Judas, previous to his betrayal of his Master, was initiated into the Order, and that the thirty, pieces of silver, which he is said to have returned, was only the fee which he paid for his initiation. Aix-1a-Chapelle being a Roman Catholic city, the magistrates were induced, by the influence of Grienemann, to issue a decree, in which they declared that anyone who should permit a meeting of the Freemasons in his house should, for the first offense, be fined 100 florins, for the second 200, and for the third, be banished from the city. The mob became highly incensed against the Freemasons, and insulted all whom they suspected to be members of the Order.

At length Peter Schuff, a Capuchin, so called from the capuche, or pointed hood, worn by the monks of this Order, jealous of the influence which the Dominican Grienemann was exerting, began also, with augmented fervor, to preach against Freemasonry, and still more to excite the popular commotion.

In this state of affairs, the Lodge at Aix-la-Chapelle applied to the princes and Masonic Lodges in the neighboring territories for assistance and protection, which were immediately rendered. A letter in French was received by both priests, in which the Writer, who stated that he was one of the former dignitaries of the Order, strongly, reminded them of their duties, and, among other things, said that “Many priests, a pope, several cardinals, bishops, and even Dominican and Capuchin monks, had been, and still were, members of the Order.” Although this remonstrance had some effect, peace was not altogether restored until the neighboring free imperial states threatened that they would prohibit the monks from collecting alms in their territories unless they ceased to excite the popular commotion against the Freemasons.

AKIROP

The name given, in the ritual of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, to one of the ruffians celebrated in the legend of the Third Degree. The word is said in the ritual to signify, an assassin. It might probably be derived from …, KaRaB. to assault or join battle; but is just as probably a word so corrupted by long oral transmission that its etymology can no longer be traced (see Abiram).

ALABAMA

Before the institution of the Grand Lodge of Alabama several Lodges there were organized by other Grand Jurisdictions. The first of these was Madison, No. l, at. Huntsville, established by, the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, under Dispensation dated August 29, 1811. A Charter was issued to this Lodge on August 28, 1812. On June 11, 1821, a Convention was held at Cahaba in the Hall of Halo Lodge for the purpose of constituting a Grand Lodge, Nine Lodges were represented;

namely, Halo Lodge, No. 21; Madison Lodge, No. 21; Saint Stephens Lodge; Rising Virtue Lodge, No. 30; Alabama Lodge, No. 51; Farrar Lodge, No. 41; Alabama Lodge, No. 21; Moulton Lodge, No. 34; Russellville Lodge, No. 36. Brother J. W. Farrar who presided over the meeting was the first Grand Master. Charters were issued to nine Lodges on June 15, l821, and to three others at the Annual Communication of December 11, 1821.

In l826 the Anti-Masonic agitation in the United States caused the Grand Lodge of Alabama, like very many others, to fade out of existence. A meeting was held at Tuscaloosa on December 6, l836, when, as there was not a quorum present, the Grand Lodge was declared extinct. At this meeting were present twelve brethren who declared the meeting a Convention in order to form a new Constitution and create a new Grand Lodge. They appointed William Leigh, Chairman, and John H. Vincent, Secretary. Grand Lodge officers were elected and John C. Hicks was installed the first Most Worshipful Grand Master under the new Constitution. The Grand Lodge was then opened in Ample Form.

Prior to May, 1823, there were four Chapters in Alabama, all chartered by the General Grand Chapter. In May and June, 1823, delegates of these met and decided to form a Grand Chapter of Alabama.

The General Grand Chapter, however, did not sanction it because one year had not elapsed since the establishment of the Junior Chapter of the four. On June 2, 1827, the Grand Chapter was reorganized, and met annually, until l830. On December 8, l837, the delegates from the several Chapters of the State met and recognized the Grand Chapter.

By authority of John Barker, a member of the Southern Supreme Council, several Councils were established and on December 13, 1838, 27 Royal and Select Masters assembled and formed the Grand Council of Alabama.

The first Commandery to be established in Alabama was Washington, No. l, at Marion, which was chartered in l844. This Commandery with four others, Mobile, No. 2; Montgomery, No. 4; Selma, No. 5 ; Tuscumbia, No. 3, agreed to meet of December 1, 1860, and they organized the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar for the State of Alabama. At the actual meeting the representative of Washington, No, l, was absent.

A Consistory of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Alabama, No. 1, at Birmingham, was chartered on December 27, 1900, and a Council of Kadosh was established at Birmingham, No. 1, on September 21, 1599. Hermes, No. 1, at Montgomery, was constituted a Chapter of Rose Croix by Letters Temporary and a Charter was given to Alabama, No. 1, as a Lodge of Perfection on April 13, 1574.

ALAPA

A Latin word signifying a blow on the cheek with the open hand. Such a blow was given by the master to his manumitted slave as a symbol of manumission, and as a reminder that it was the last unrequited indignity which he was to receive. In fact, the very word manumit is derived from two Latin words meaning to send by hand. Hence, in medieval times, the same word was applied to the blow inflicted on the cheek of the newly created knight by the sovereign who created him, with the same symbolic signification. This was sometimes represented by the blow on the shoulder with the flat of a sword, which has erroneously been called the accolade (see Knighthood).

ALARM

The verb to alarm signifies, in Freemasonry, to give notice of the approach of some one desirinq admission. Thus, to alarm the Lodge is to inform the Lodge that there is some one without who is seeking entrance.

As a noun, the word alarm has two significations :

1. An alarm is a warning given by the Tiler, or other appropriate officer, by which he seeks to communicate with the interior of the Lodge or Chapter. In this sense the expression so often used, “an alarm at the door,” simply signifies that the officer outside has given notice of his desire to communicate with the Lodge.
2. An alarm is also the peculiar mode in which this notice is to be given. In modern Masonic works, the number of knocks given in an alarm is generally expressed by musical notes. Thus, three distinct knocks would be designated thus, . . .; two rapid and two slow ones thus,. . . – – and three knocks , three times repeated thus, . . ./. . . /. . . , etc. The word comes from the French alarme, which in return comes from the Italian all’arme, literally a cry to arms, uttered by sentinels surprised by the enemy. The legal meaning of to alarm is not to frighten, but to make one aware of the necessity of defense or protection.

This is precisely the Masonic signification of the world.

ALASKA

The Grand Master of the Territory, of Washington issued, on April 14, 1868, a Dispensation to form a Lodge at Sitka, Alaska. This Dispensation was renewed on October 13, 1868, and on September 17, 1869, a Charter was granted to Alaska Lodge, No. 14. This Charter was revoked on October 28, 1872. A Commission as Deputy Grand Master for Alaska Was, on September 18, 1869, issued under the same authority to Brother W. H. Wood, P.D. G.M. December 9, 1879, a Dispensation was issued by the Grand Lodge of the Territory of Washington for a new Lodge at Sitka and in due course a Charter Was granted to Jamestown Lodge, No. 33, on January 3, 1880. This Charter was returned and canceled on June 4, 1886. A Dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Washington was issued on November 15, 1900, and a Charter granted on June 12, 1901, to White Pass Lodge, No. 113, of Skagway. Other Lodges chartered in Alaska by the same Grand Lodge have been Gastineaux Lodge, No. 124, at Douglas, on June 10, 1903; Anvil Lodge, No. 140, at Nome, on June 14, 1905; Mt. Juneau Lodge, No. 147, at Juneau, on June 14, 1905; Ketchikan Lodge, No. 159, at Ketchikan, on June 12, 1907; Tanana Lodge, No. l62, at Fairbanks, on June 17, 1908; Valdez Lodge, No, 168, at Valdez, on June 17, 1908; Mount McKinley Lodge, No, 183, at Cordova, on June 14, 1911; Seward Lodge, No. 219, at Seward, on June 14, 1917; Anchorage Lodge, No. 221, at Anchorage, on June 14, 1917.

A Royal Arch Chapter was authorized at Fairbanks by Dispensation from the General Grand High Priest Nathan Kingsley, on June 15, 1909, and this Chapter was granted a Charter on November 12, 1909. Seward Chapter at Nome received a Dispensation dated July 13, 1911, from General Grand High Priest Bernard G. Witt, and a Charter was granted on September 12, 1912. A third Chapter received a Dispensation from General Grand High Priest Frederick W. Craig dated January 16, 1919, and Charter was granted on September 29, 1921, to Anchorage Chapter at Anchorage.

The first Council of Royal and Select Masters was authorized at Fairbanks on March 16, 1914, and was granted a Charter as Artic Council, No. l, by the General Grand Council on August 31, 1915.

Alaska Commandery, No. l, was authorized by the Grand Encampment, Knights Templar of the United States, on August 14, 1913, at Fairbanks, and a Dispensation for Anchorage Commandery, No. 2, at Anchorage was issued on July 1, 1920, by Grand Master Joseph K. Orr. Alaska No, I, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, at Juneau, was established a Consistory by Charter granted October 22, 1915.

By Charters granted October 22, 1915, October 23, 1915, and October 16, 1911, respectively, at the same body were established a Council of Kadosh, a Chapter of Rose Croix and a Lodge of Perfection.

ALAVA, MIGUEL RICARDO DE

Famous Spanish General, Aide-de-Camp under the Duke of Wellington and in 1814 imprisoned for being a Freemason.

ALBAN, SAINT

See Saint Alban

ALBERTA

(Canada). The Grand Lodge of Manitoba had jurisdiction over the Lodges in the Northwest Territories of Canada but the division of these into Provinces, on September 1, 1905, influenced Medicine Hat Lodge, No. 31, to invoke the oldest Masonic Body, Bow River Lodge, No. 28, to call a preliminary Convention at Calgary on May 25, 1905.

This was followed by another meeting on October 12, 1905, when seventeen lodges were represented by seventy-nine delegates, the Grand Lodge of Alberta was duly organized, and Brother Dr. George MacDonald elected Grand Master and was installed by Grand Master W. G. Scott of the Grand Lodge of Manitoba.

ALBERTUS MAGNUS

A scholastic philosopher of the Middle Ages, of great learning, but who had among the vulgar the reputation of being a magician.

He was born at Lauingen, Swabia, in 1205, of an illustrious family, his subtitle being that of Count of Bollstadt. He studied at Padua, and in 1223 entered the Order of the Dominicans. In 1249 he became head-master of the school at Cologne. In 1260 Pope Alexander VI conferred upon him the bishopric of Ratisbon. In 1262 he resigned the episcopate and returned to Cologne, and, devoting himself to philosophic pursuits for the remainder of his life, died there in 1280. His writings were very voluminous, the edition published at Lyons, in 1651, amounting to twenty-one large folio volumes.

Albertus Magnus has been connected with the Operative Freemasonry of the Middle Ages because he has been supposed by many to have been the real inventor of the German Gothic style of architecture.

Heideloff, in his Bauhhutte des Mittelalters, says that “he recalled into life the symbolic language of the ancients, which had so long lain dormant, and adapted it to suit architectural forms. ” The Freemasons were said to have accepted his instructions, with a system of symbols which was secretly communicated only to the members of their own body, and served even as a medium of intercommunication. He is asserted to have designed the pian for the construction of the cathedral of cologne, and to have altered the Constitution of the Freemasons, and to have given to them a new set of laws.

ALBRECHT, HEINRICH CHRISTOPH

A German author, who published at Hamburg, in 1792, the first and only part of a work entitled Materialen zu einer kritischen Geschichte der Freimaurerei, meaning Collections towards a Critical History of Freemasonry.

Kloss says that this was one of the first attempts at a clear and rational history of the Order. Unfortunately, the author never completed his task, and only the first part of the work ever appeared. Albrecht was the author also of another work entitled Geheime Geschichte eines Rosenkreuzers, or Secret History of a Rosicrucian, and of a series of papers which appeared in the Berlin Archive der Zeit, containing Notices of Freemasonry in the first half of the Sixteenth Century.

Albrecht adopted the theory first advanced by the Abb‚ Grandidier, that Freemasonry owes its origin to the Steinmetzen of Germany (see Stone-masons of the Middle Ages ).

ALCHEMY

The Neo-Platonicians introduced at an early period of the Christian era an apparently new science, which they called ……………., or the Sacred Science, which materially influenced the subsequent condition of the arts and sciences. In the fifth century arose, as the name of the science, alchemia, derived from the Arabic definite article al being added to chemia, a Greek word used in Diocletian’s decree against Egyptian works treating of the …… or transmutation of metals; the word seems simply to mean “the Egyptian Art,” ……, or the land of black earth, being the Egyptian name for Egypt, and Julius Firmicius, in a work On the Influence of the Stars upon the Fate of Man, uses the phrase scientia alchemiac. From this time the study” Of alchemy was openly followed. In the Middle Ages, and up to the end of the seventeenth century, it was an important science, studied by some of the most distinguished philosophers, such as Avicenna, Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lulli, Roger Bacon, Elias Ashmole, and many others. Alchemy has also been called the Hermetic Philosophy, because it is said to have been first taught in Egypt by Hermes Trismegistus.

Alchemists are those who practised the art or science of alchemy, the pioneer chemistry of the Middle Ages, either alone or in a group with others seeking the transmutation of base metals into gold the elixir of life, etc, The word alchemy is evidently from the same root as chemistry and is related to Khem, the name of the Egyptian god of curative herbs. The Greeks called Egypt Chemita and in the ancient Egyptian, according to Plutarch, the country was called Khem because of the black color of the soil but the standard Dictionary prefers the first of these explanations. An Egyptian priest, Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice-greatest Hermes, supposed to have lived about 2000 B.C., was one of the first to practice alchemy. Although our accounts of him are of a purely legendary character; so closely has the name of alchemy been connected with him that it became generally referred to as the Hermetic Art.

Toward the end of the eighth century. we have another famous alchemist, Geber, who wrote many books and treatises in Latin on the transmutation of metals and kindred subjects, setting forth many of the formulas, as well as the scientific, mystical and philosophical aspects of the art at that early period.

In the tenth century there was an Arabian medical philosopher named Rhazes or Rhasis, who numbered among his writings one, The Establishment of Alchemy, which caused him great misfortune. It is said that he presented a copy of this work to his prince, who immediately demanded that he verify some of his experiments. Failing in this, he was struck across the face with a whip so violently by the prince that he was blinded. During the next three or four centuries alchemy was studied by the scientists or chemists, as they are called today, and to them must be reedited the development of science such as it was until the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the mystical terms in which the art was clothed, the great secrecy in which all knowledge was kept and the esoteric quality of the teaching made it a natural prey of the charlatans, quacks, necromancers and fortune-tellers who thrived upon the ignorance and superstition of the people. There are on record several instances of these adepts being put to death as a result of their inability to demonstrate certain claims made by them. Many sincere and learned scientific men came under the ban owing to the disrepute into which the art had failed and their work had to be done in secret to avoid punishment and death. J. E. Mercer in his Alchenly says that Marie Ziglerin was bummed to death by Duke Julius of Brunswick in 1575. David Benther killed himself in fear of the anger of the Elector Augustus of Saxony. In 1590 the Elector of Bavaria had Bragadino hanged and the Margrave of Bayreuth caused a like fate to befall William de Krohnemann.

A well-known example of the use to which alchemy was put was the case of Cagliostro. Kings and rulers retained alchemists in their employ, consulting them as to future events and often basing their campaigns upon the prophecies of their wise men. It was when these prophecies turned out contrary to expectations that the rulers took their revenge by condemning their counselors to death or imprisonment.

The first man of record to put alchemy to medical use was Paracelsus, probably born near Zurich, in 1493 and dying in 1541. He became a great teacher of medicine and has been proclaimed by the Encyclopedia Britannica as ”the pioneer of modern chemists and the prophet of a revolution in science. ” Many new and powerful drugs were produced in his laboratory among which was laudanum. He was in great disfavor with the medical men of his time, he having done much to destroy many of the traditions and errors practiced by them, After his death a score of alchemists claimed the power of euring bodily ailments by the mystical powers of the philosopher’s Stone, health and long life being among the benefits supposed to be derived from the art. Thory says that there was a society of alchemists at The Hague in 1622 which called itself Rose Croiz. It is claimed that Rosenkreutz founded the Order in 1459 with the ordinance that its existence should be kept a secret for two hundred years. Another organization of alchemists was known to have been in existence in 1790 in Westphalia, the Hermetic Society, which continued to flourish until about 1819. During the Middle Ages alchemy came in for the attention and study at least of many of the foremost men of the time. Raymond.

Lully, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas made it the subject of many of their writings and it was not until the middle of the fifteenth century that the science as practised by the earlier artificers was relegated to the past. At that time an alchemical center was established in England at Oxford, Robert Boyle organizing a class for experiment and research. Such men as Elias Ashmole and Sir Isaac Newton assisted in the project and John Locke and Christopher Wren were among the pupils. A renowned Rosicrucian chemist was brought over from Strasburg. As a result of this determined and consistent work a new understanding of chemistry and physics was developed, marking the beginning of the modern science as it is known today.

For a more detailed account see J. E. Mercer’s Alchemy, M. M. Pattison Muir”s The Story of Alchemy and Lewis Spence’s An Encyclopedia of Occultism.

Astrology and the magic arts are usually associated with alchemy but we may fairly look upon it as having had a wider scientific scope. Indeed alchemy was the pioneer of our modern systematic chemistry. The alchemists of old sought by observation and experiment, by research and reflection, to gain the secret of nature’s operations. Their early dreams were ambitious but not idle of a discovery of the means to change base metals into gold, and the concoction of an elixir to cure all diseases and overcome death.

From these hopes have come less revolutionary results but the gains have nevertheless been wondrously beneficial. Even the language of the ancient alchemists persists with a curious tenacity. They applied moral qualities, virtues and vices, to things of nature and today we still speak of noble and base metals, of gases perfect and imperfect, of good and bad electrical conductors, and so on. A meed of gratitude is due from us to these laborers who trod a thorny path in their zealous studies of physical forces. Against the prevailing superstitions, the lack of ready communications with other investigators and of a complete practical working knowledge of recent or remote discoveries, these hardy students laid the foundation for later conquests.
Fraud was tempting, fakers were easily made, yet honesty and fervor was manifest in so much of what was accomplished that we owe a distinct debt to the alchemists. Poor they were, yet rich, for as Alexander Pope says of them and their successors in his Essay on Man (ii, line 269) : “The starving chemist in his golden views, supremely blest.”

Freemasonry and alchemy have sought the same results (the lesson of Divine Truth and the doctrine of immortal life), and they have both sought it by the same method of symbolism. It is not, therefore, strange that in the eighteenth century, and perhaps before, we find an incorporation of much of the science of alchemy into that of Freemasonry. Hermetic Rites and Hermetic Degrees were common, and their relics are still to be found existing in degrees which do not absolutely trace their origin to alchemy, but which show some of its traces in their rituals.

The Twenty-eighth Degree of the Scottish Rite, or the Knight of the Sun, is entirely a Hermetic study, and claims its parentage in the title of Adept of Masonry, by which it is sometimes known.

ALDWORTH, HON. MRS.

This lady, who is well known as the Lady Freemason, was the Hon.Elizabeth St. Leger, daughter of Lord Doneraile of Doneraile Court, County Cork, Ireland. She was born in 1693, and married in 1713 to Richard Aldworth, Esq., of Newmarket Court, County Cork.

There appears to be no doubt that while a girl she received the First and Second Degrees of Freemasonry in Ireland, but of the actual circumstances of her initiation several different accounts have been given. Of these the most authentic appears to be one issued at Cork, with the authority of the family, in 1811, and afterward republished in London. From this narrative it appears that her father, Viscount Doneraile, together with bisons and a few friends, was accustomed to open a Lodge and carry on the ordinary ceremonies at Doneraile Court, and it was during one of these meetings that the occurrence took place which is thus related:

“It happened on this particular occasion that the Lodge was held in a room separated from another, as is often the case, by stud and brickwork. The young lady, being giddy and thoughtless, and determined to gratify her curiosity, made her arrangements accordingly, and, with a pair of scissors (as she herself related to the mother of our informant), removed a portion of a brick from the wall, and placed herself so as to command a full view of everything which occurred in the next room; so placed, she witnessed the first two degrees in Freemasonry, which was the extent of the proceedings of the Lodge on that night.

Becoming aware, from what she heard, that the Brethren were about to separate, for the first time she felt tremblingly alive to the awkwardness and danger of her situation, and began to consider how she could retire without observation. She became nervous and agitated, and nearly fainted, but so far recovered herself as to be fully aware of the necessity of withdrawing as quickly as possible; in the act of doing so, being in the dark, she stumbled against and overthrew something, said to be a chair or some ornamental piece of furniture.

“The crash was loud ; and the Tiler, who was on the lobby or landing on which the doors both of the Lodge room and that where the Honorable Miss St. Leger was, opened, gave the alarm, burst open the door and, with a light in one hand and a drawn sword in the other, appeared to the now terrified and fainting Lady. He was soon joined by the members of the Lodge present, and luckily; for it is asserted that but for the prompt appearance of her brother, Lord Doneraile, and other steady members, her life would have fallen a sacrifice to what was then esteemed her crime. The first care of his Lordship was to resuscitate the unfortunate Lady without alarming the house, and endeavor to learn from her an explanation of what had occurred; having done so, many of the members being furious at the transaction, she was placed under guard of the Tiler and a member, in the room where she was found. The members reassembled and deliberated as to what, under the circumstances, was to be done, and over two long hours she could hear the angry discussion and her death deliberately proposed and seconded.

“At length the good sense of the majority succeeded in calming, in some measure, the angry and irritated feeling of the rest of the members, when, after much had been said and many. things proposed, it was resolved to give her the option of submitting to the Masonic ordeal to the extent she had witnessed (Fellow Craft), and if she refused, the brethren were again to consult. Being waited on to decide, Miss St. Leger, exhausted and terrified by the storminess of the debate, which she could not avoid partially hearing, and yet, notwithstanding all, with a secret pleasure, gladly and unhesitatingly accepted the offer.

She was accordingly initiated.”

The above reference to Lord Doneraile, her brother, is a mistake ; her father, the first Lord Doneraile, was then alive. He did not die until 1727, when his daughter had been married for fourteen years.

A very different account is given in the Freemason’s Quarterly Review for 1839 (page 322 ), being reprinted from the Cork Standard of May. 29, 1839.

According to this story Mirs. Aldworth was seized with curiosity about the mysteries of Freemasonry and set herself to discover them ; so she made friends with the landlady of an inn in Cork in which a Lodge used to meet, and with her connivance was concealed in a clock case which was placed in the Lodge room; however, she was unable to endure the discomfort of her confinement in such narrow quarters and betrayed herself by a scream, on which she was discovered by the members of the Lodge and then and there initiated.

It will be observed that according to this version the lady. was already married before she was initiated.

The story is said to be supported by the testimony of two members of Lodge 71, at Cork, in which Lodge the initiation is said to have taken place. However, this can hardly be correct, for that Lodge did not meet at Cork until 1777, whereas, Mrs. Aldworth died in1773.

If, however, the commoner version of the story is preferred, according to which Miss St. Leger was initiated as a young girl, then the occurrence must have taken place before her marriage in 1713, and therefore before the establishment of Grand Lodges and the introduction of warranted and numbered Lodges, and it is therefore a proof of the existence of at least one Lodge of Speculative Freemasons in Ireland at an early period.

After her marriage Mrs. Aldworth seems to have kept up her connection with the Craft, for her portrait in Masonic clothing, her apron and jewels, are still in existence, and her name occurs among the subscribers to Dassigny’s Enquiry of 1744, her name being the second on the list and immediately following that of the Grand Master of Ireland, the accompanying names all being brethren ; and it has even been stated that she presided as Master of her Lodge.

The story has been fully discussed by Brothers Conder, Crawley, and others in the eighth volume (1895) of the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, of Quatuor Coronati Lodge of London, to which the curious are referred for further information.

ALETHOPHILES

Greek for Lovers of Truth.
Graf von Manteuffel as president organized this society in Berlin, 1736, upon Wolf’s philosophical teaching, the search after positive truth. Kenning’s Cydopaedia of Freemasonry says they. adopted a hexalogue (from the Greek, six and words) of axioms, of which two only are given by Lenning :

1. Let truth be the only end and only object of your understanding and will.
2. Hold nothing for truth, Hold nothing for falsehood, as long as you are not convinced of either by some sufficient grounds. In the system of the African Builders, the fifth grade was called Alethophile, some connection seeming to have existed between the two societies.

ALETHOPHILOTE

Lover of Truth. Given by Thory as the Fifth Degree of the Order of African Architects (see his Acta Latatomorum, 1, page 292).

ALEXANDER I

I, Emperor of Russia. Alexander I succeeded Paul I in the year 1801, and immediately after his accession renewed the severe prohibitions of his predecessor against all secret societies, and especially Freemasonry. In1803, M. Boeber, counselor of state and director of the military school at St.Petersburg, resolved to remove, if possible, from the mind of the Emperor the prejudices which he had conceived against the Order. Accordingly, in an audience which he had solicited and obtained, he described the object of the Institution and the doctrine of its mysteries in such a way as to lead the Emperor to rescind the obnoxious decrees, and to add these words:
“What you have told me of the Institution not only induces me to grant it my protection and patronage, but even to ask for initiation into its mysteries. Is this possible to be obtained?” To this question M. Boeber replied:

“Sire, I cannot myself reply to the question. But I will call together the Masons of your capital, and make your Majesty`s desire known; and I have no doubt that they will be eager to comply. with jour wishes.”

Accordingly Alexander was soon after initiated, and the Grand Orient of all the Russias was in consequence established with M. Boeber as Grand Master (see Thory’s Acta Latomorum1, page 218)

ALEXANDER III

king of Scotland, and legend tells us that he favored Freemasons and that Kilwinning Abbey was built under his guidance. Claims have been made that these facts refer rather to his son, David I. The ritual of the Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew credits Alexander as Protector of the Masonic Order.

ALEXANDRIA, SCHOOL OF

When Alexander built the city of Alexandria in Egypt, with the intention of making it the seat of his empire, he invited thither learned men from all nations, who brought with them their peculiar notions. The Alexandria School of Philosophy which was thus established, by the commingling of Orientalists, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks, became eclectic in character, and exhibited a heterogeneous mixture of the opinions of the Egyptian priests, of the Jewish Rabbis, of Arabic teachers, and of the disciples of Plato and Pythagoras.

From this school we derive Gnosticism and the Cabala, and, above all, the system of symbolism and allegory which lay at the foundation of the Masonic philosophy. To no ancient sect, indeed, except perhaps the Pythagoreans, have the Masonic teachers been so much indebted for the substance of their doctrines, as well as the esoteric method of communicating them, as to that of the School of Alexandria. Both Aristobulus and Philo, the two most celebrated chiefs of this school, taught, although a century intervened between their births, the same , theory, that the sacred writings of the Hebrews were, by their system of allegories, the true source of all religious and philosophic doctrine, the literal meaning of which alone was for the common people, the esoteric or hidden meaning being kept for the initiated. Freemasonry still carries into practice the same theory.

ALGERIA

The number of Lodges in Algeria is, in comparison with the size of the State, quite large. Several are controlled by the Grand Lodge of France and many more are under the Grand Orient of that country, the Grand Orient having organized Bélisaire Lodge at Alger on March 1, 1832, and Hippone Lodge at Bone on July 13, 1832.

ALINCOURT, FRANÇOIS D’

A French gentleman, who, in the year 1776, was sent with Don Oyres de Ornellas Praçao, a Portuguese nobleman, to prison, by the governor of the island of Madeira, for being Freemasons. They were afterward sent to Lisbon, and confined in a common jail for fourteen months, where they would have perished had not the Freemasons of Lisbon supported them, through whose intercession , with Don Martinio de Mello they were at last released (see Captain George Smith’s Use and Abuse of Freemasonry, page 206).

ALISON, SIR ARCHIBALD

English author, born December 29, 1792, at Kenley, Shropshire, England; died at Glasgow, Scotland, May 23, 1867. A member of Glasgow Kilwinning Lodge, having received his Degrees in 1837 (see New Age, May.,1925).

ALLAH

Assyrian, ilu; Aramaic, elah,’ Hebrew, eloah. The Arabic name of God, derived from hah, god, and the article al, expressing the God by way of eminence. In the great profession of the Unity, on which is founded the religion of Islam, both terms are used, as pronounced La ilaha ill`Allah, there is no god but God, the real meaning of the expression being, There id only one God.

Mohammed relates that in his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, on ascending through the seven heavens, he beheld above the throne of God this formula; and the green standard of the Prophet was adorned with the mystic sentence.

It is the first phrase lisped by the infant, and the devout Moslem utters the profession of the faith at all times, in joy, in sorrow, in praise, in prayer, in battle, and with his departing breath the words are wafted to heaven; for among the peculiar virtues of these words is that they may be spoken without any motion of the lips. The mourners on their way to the grave continue the strain in melancholy tones.

Around the supreme name is clustered the masbaha, or rosary, of the ninety-nine beautiful names of God, which are often repeated by the Mohammedan in his devotions.

ALLEGIANCE

Every Freemason owes allegiance to the Lodge, Chapter, or other body of which he is a member, and also to the Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter or other supreme authority from which that body has received its charter. But this is not a divided allegiance. If, for instance, the edicts of a Grand and a Subordinate Lodge conflict, there is no question which is to be obeyed. Supreme or governing bodies in Freemasonry claim and must receive a paramount allegiance.

ALLEGORY

A discourse or narrative in which there is a literal and a figurative sense, a patent and a concealed meaning ; the literal or patent sense being intended, by analogy or comparison, to indicate the figurative or concealed one. Its derivation from the Greek, … and , to say something different, that is, to say something where the language is one thing and the true meaning another, exactly expresses the character of an allegory. It has been said that there is no essential difference between an allegory and a symbol. There is not in design, but there is in their character.

An allegory may be interpreted without any previous conventional agreement, but a symbol cannot.
Thus, the legend of the Third Degree is an allegory, evidently to be interpreted as teaching a restoration to life ; and this we learn from the legend itself, without any previous understanding. The sprig of acacia is a symbol of the immortality of the soul. But this we know only because such meaning had been conventionally determined when the symbol was first established. It is evident, then, that an allegory whose meaning is obscure is imperfect. The enigmatical meaning should be easy of interpretation ; and hence Lemiére, a French poet, has said: “L`allégorie habits un palais diaphane;” meaning Allegory lives in a transparent palace.

All the legends of Freemasonry are more or less allegorical, and whatever truth there may be in some of them in an historical point of view, it is only as allegories or legendary symbols that they are of importance. The English lectures have therefore very properly defined Freemasonry to be “a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.”

The allegory was a favorite figure among the ancients, and to the allegorizing spirit are we to trace the construction of the entire Greek and Roman mythology. Not less did it prevail among the older Aryan nations, and its abundant use is exhibited in the religions of Brahma and Zoroaster. The Jewish Rabbis were greatly addicted to it, and carried its employment, as Maimonides intimates, in his More Nevochim (III, xliii), sometimes to an excess. Their Midrash, or system of commentaries on the sacred book, is almost altogether allegorical. Aben Ezra, a learned Rabbi of the twelfth century:, says, “The Scriptures are like bodies, and allegories are like the garments with which they are clothed. Some are thin like fine silk, and others are coarse and thick like sackcloth.”

Jesus, to whom this spirit of the Jewish teachers in his day was familiar, taught many truths in parables, all of which were allegories. The primitive Fathers of the Christian Church were thus infected; and Origen, the most famous and influential Christian writer of his time, 186 to 254 A.D., who was especially addicted to the habit, tells us that all the Pagan philosophers should be read in this spirit : “hoe facere solemus quando philosophos legimus.”

Of modern allegorizing writers, the most interesting to Freemasons are Samuel Lee, the author of Orbis Miraculum or the Temple of Solomon portrayed by Scripture Light, and John Bunyan, who wrote Solomon’s Temle Spirituatized.

William Durand, or to use his Latin name, Guillelmus Durandus, who lived A. D, 1230 to 1296, wrote a treatise in Italy before 1286 on the origin and symbolic sense of the Christian Ritual, the ceremonies and teaching related to the church buildings. An English edition of this work entitled The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments, by J. M. Neale and Benjamin Webb, was published at London, 1906, and is a most suggestive treatise.

ALLEN, VISCOUNT JOHN

From 1744 to 1745 Brother Allen was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland.

ALLIANCE, SACRED

An organization of twenty-one brethren possessing the ultimate degree of the Scottish Rite, was formed in New York September 19, 1872, to assemble annually on that day. One by one, in the due course of time, this Assembly was to decrease until the sad duty devolved on some one to banquet alone with twenty draped chairs and covers occupied by the imaginary presence of his fellows. This body was instituted to commemorate the breaking of a deadlock in the close corporation of the Supreme Council by the admission of four very prominent members of the Fraternity.

ALLIED MASONIC DEGREES

A body has been formed in England called the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees, in order to govern various Degrees or Orders having no central authority of their own. The principal degrees controlled by it are those of St. Lawrence the Martyr, Knight of Constantinople, Grand Tiler of King Solomon, Secret Monitor, Red Cross of Babylon, and Grand High Priest, besides a large number, perhaps about fifty, of side degrees, of which some are actively worked and some are not (see Council of Allied Masonic Degrees).

ALLOCUTION

A word of Latin origin and meaning something spoken to. The address of the presiding officer of a Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is sometimes so called. First used by the Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, the expression is derived from the usage of the Roman Church, where certain addresses of the Pope to the Cardinals are called allocations, and this in turn is to be traced to the customs of Pagan Rome, where the harangues or forcible speeches of the Generals to their soldiers were called attocutions.

ALLOWED

In the old manuscript Constitutions, this word that is now unusual is found in the sense of accepted. Thus, “Every Mason of the Craft that is Mason allowed, ye shall do to him as ye would be done unto yourself” as in the Lansdowne Manuscript, of about 1600 A.D., Mason allowed means Mason accepted, that is, approved. Phillips, in his New World of Words, 1690, defines the verb allow, “to give or grant; to approve of; to permit or suffer.”
Latimer, in one of his sermons, uses it in this sense of approving or accepting, thus : ”Saint Peter, in forsaking his old boat and nets, was allowed as much before God as if he had forsaken all the riches in the world.” In a similar sense is the word used in the Office of Public Baptism of Infants, in the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England.

The Bible (see Romans xiv, 22), also has “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words suggests the connection of the word with the Anglo-Norman alone, meaning to praise.

ALL-SEEING EYE

An important symbol of the Supreme Being, borrowed by the Freemasons from the nations of antiquity. Both the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to have derived its use from that natural inclination of figurative minds to select an organ as the symbol of the function which it is intended peculiarly to discharge. Thus, the foot was often adopted as the symbol of swiftness, the arm of strength, and the hand of fidelity.

On the same principle, the open eye was selected as the symbol of watchfulness, and the eye of God as the symbol of Divine watchfulness and care of the universe. The use of the symbol in this sense is repeatedly to be found in the Hebrew writers. Thus, the Psalmist says, Psalm xxxiv, 15 : “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry,” which explains a subsequent passage (Psalm cxxi, 4), in which it is said: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. ”

In the Apocryphal Book of the Conversation of God with Moses on Mount Sinai, translated by the Rev.WT. Cureton from an Arabic manuscript of the fifteenth century, and published by the Philobibion Society of London, the idea of the eternal watchfulness of God is thus beautifully allegorized:

“Then Moses said to the Lord, O Lord, dost thou sleep or not? The Lord said unto Moses, I never sleep: but take a cup and fill it with water. Then Moses took a cup and filled it with water, as the Lord commanded him. Then the Lord cast into the heart of Moses the breath of slumber; so he slept, and the cup fell from his hand, and the water which was therein was spilled. Then Moses awoke from his sleep.

Then said God to Moses, I declare by my power, and by my glory, that if I were to withdraw my providence from the heavens and the earth, for no longer a space of time than thou hast slept, they would at once fall to ruin and confusion, like as the cup fell from thy hand.”

On the same principle, the Egyptians represented Osiris, their chief deity, by the symbol of an open aye, and placed this hieroglyphic of him in all their Temples. His symbolic name, on the monuments, has represented by the eye accompanying a throne, to which was sometimes added an abbreviated figure of the god, and sometimes what has been called a hatchet, but which may as correctly be supposed to be a representation of a square.

The All-Seeing Eye may then be considered as a symbol of God manifested in his omnipresence—his guardian and preserving character-to which Solomon alludes in the Book of Proverbs (xv, 3), where he says: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding (or, as in the Revised Version, keeping watch upon) the evil and the good.” It is a symbol of the Omnipresent Deity.

ALL SOULS’ DAY

A day set apart for prayers in behalf of all the faithful dead. A festival established in 998 A.D. by an Abbot Odilo of Cluny in France.

The feast falls on the 2nd of November, or on the 3rd if the 2nd is a Sunday or a festival of the first class. The celebration of the day was abolished in the Church of England at the Reformation but has had some revival there. On the Continent of Europe the practise has been longer maintained among Protestants. The date is observed as a feast day by Chapters of Rose Croix.

ALMANAC, MASONIC

Almanacs for the special use of the Fraternity are annually published in many countries of Europe, but the custom has not been so favored in America. As early as 1752 we find an Almanach des Francs-Maçons en Ecosse published at the Hague. This, or a similar work, continued to be published annually at the same place until the year 1778 (see Kloss, Bibliographie, Nos. 107-9). The first in English appeared in 1775, under the title of:

The Freemason’s Calendar, or an Almanac for the year 1775, containing, besides an accurate and useful Calendar of all remarkable occurrences for the year, many useful and curious particulars relating to Masonry. Inscribed to Lord Petre, G.M., by a Society of Brethren. London, printed for the Society of Stationers.

This work was without any official authority, but two years later the Freemason’s Calendar for 1777 was Published “under the sanction of the Grand Lodge of England.” A Masonic Year Book has been issued annually by the Grand Lodge of England, and most of the English Provinces have published Masonic Almanacs.

The first German work of this class was the Freimaurer Kalendar auf das Jahr 1771 and the first French was Etrennes Intéressantes, ou Almanach pour les années1796 et 1797, the latter meaning in English Interesting Gifts, or Almanac for the years 1796 and 1797. The Masonic Year, an annual digest of timely facts from reliable sources to show the scope and success of Freemasonry, was first published for the year1920 by the Masonic History Company, Chicago, and edited by R. I. Clegg.

ALMIGHTY

In Hebrew …., pronounced Ale Shad-dahee. The name by which God was known to the patriarchs before He announced Himself to Moses by His Tetragrammatonic name of Jehovah (see Exodus vi, 3). Almighty refers to His power and might as the Creator and Ruler of the universe, and hence is translated in the Septuagint by ….., and in the Vulgate by Omnipotens. The word Tetragrammaton is used for the four consonants of the sacred name YHVH.

ALMANACS

The annual almanac was the Eighteenth Century’s monthly magazine, encyclopedia, calendar, a repository of literature, and what not, and is the mirror of the American mind between 1700 and the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin made his name with one, but his Poor Richard was not the first of the species nor, by long odds, was it the last (it is impossible to draw a line between almanacs and magazines in the history of American journalism).

James Franklin issued his Rhode Island Almanac five years before Poor Richard appeared in Philadelphia; and Nathaniel Ames, of Dedham, Mass., issued his eight years before, in 1725. This last was, except for Poor Richard, the most famous of the almanacs, and it was among the longest lived. Its author was physician, inn-keeper, scholar, wit, orator, and one of the brightest stars in the constellation of the famous Ames family. His biography was written and his works edited in 1891, in a volume entitled The Essays, Humor, and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, father and son, of Dedham, Mass., from their Almanacs, 1726-1775 with notes and comments, by Sam Briggs (Cleveland, Ohio). From this delicious old volume which should be read with a pipe and bowl of apples in front of the fireplace, it transpires that Bro. Ames was a member of Constellation Lodge in Dedham, and more than once aimed his skits and verses at the Fraternity. Thus, on page 116, in a poem are the lines: “So Masonry and Death are both the same, Tho’ of a different name” ; meaning that a man knows nothing of either until be bas been initiated.
Of these words Editor Briggs notes that “These few lines of verse are the first I have noticed in any publication of the kind, adverting to the institution, which had been but lately introduced to the [New England] Colonists, through the office of Henry Price, who established the first Lodge in New England, in 1733.” On page 203 is a verse for the month of October, not easily construed:

“Heaven’s Candidates go clothed with foul Disguise,
And Heaven’s Reports are damned for senseless lies :
Tremendous Mysteries are (so Hell prevails)
Lampooned for Jargon and fantastic Tales.”

Bro. Briggs says be can make nothing of this. As a guess Ames bad been reading exposés and Anti-Masonic lampoons brought over from England. Beginning on page 464 is a long Hudibrastic poem entitled “Entertainment for a Winter’s Evening” which runs to six pages, describes a Masonic church service with wit and satire, and contains dozens of topical allusions, some very obscure ; it was written by Joseph Greene, an alumnus of Harvard University of the class of 1726, a Tory who fled to England, where he resided until his death in 1780. It is recommended to some member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research that he edit this (in its way) important document and publish it in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum.

On page 34: Vol. I of The Book-worm (A. C. Armstrong & Son; 1888) is a paragraph about the first American almanac.

”It is a fact upon which most bibliographers are agreed, that the first almanac printed in America came out in 1639, and was entitled ‘An Almanac Calculated for New England,’ by Mr. Pierce, Mariner: The printer was Stephen Day, or Daye, to whom belongs the title of first printer in North Arnerica. The press was at Cambridge, Mass., and its introduction was effected mainly through the Rev. Jesse Glover, a wealthy Non-conformist minister who had only recently left England. Some Amsterdam gentlemen ‘gave towards furnishing of a printing-pre’ with letters, forty-nine pounds and something more.’ The first book issued was the ‘Bay Psalm-Book,’ in 1640.” (Day is a famous and frequent name in the history of printing. The John Day Company of New York was named in honor of one of them.)

AMERICANISMS

In an article contributed to the New York Masonic Outlook, in 1931, Brother Sir Alfred Robbins, President of the Board of General Purposes of the Grand Lodge of England, and present in America at the time as personal representative of the Grand Master of Masons in England, the Duke of Connaught, com