THE BUILDER JANUARY 1918

THE RENASCENCE OF THE SCOTTISH RITE
BY BRO. FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, 33d ACTIVE, GRAND SECY., MASS.

THIS momentous event was far more than a union or reunion of bodies
which had unfortunately fallen into separation and discord. Had it
been only that, it would well deserve our rejoicings. Its inner
significance, however, was so much greater that, so far as the
Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States is concerned,
the title which I have chosen for this paper does not go beyond the
facts.

Only the briefest historical resume is desirable at this time. We
all remember how two movements purporting to be beginnings of the
Scottish Rite were started in New York at nearly the same time, one
by Bideau, the other by Cerneau. Judged by modern standards the
Bideau movement was of doubtful regularity, the Cerneau movement
undoubtedly irregular. We know how any irregularities which may
have attached to the Bideau movement were healed by the action of
the Southern Supreme Council, and we know how the Cerneau movement,
again and again dying and as often revived, managed to maintain a
precarious existence. We know the story of the unfortunate break in
the ranks of the body descending from Bideau when the majority of
the members of the Supreme Council repudiated the leadership of
Raymond and chose Van Rensellaer for their head. We know also how
the Raymond body combined with the Cerneau body and in turn
reunited fifty years ago with the followers of Van Rensellaer.

We can never fully understand what occurred until we realize where
the real root of the trouble is to be found. It lay in the
unregulated and sometimes reckless use of the unquestionably great
powers belonging to a Sovereign Grand Inspector General. A man who
had attained to this rank was and is a Masonic monarch. Excepting
so far as his powers were limited by the Constitutions of Frederick
the Great, he was a Masonic autocrat. Even the Constitutional
limitations were not always observed. The Sovereign Grand
Inspectors General not only possessed these great powers, but they
possessed the right of conferring them upon others without
diminution. Unfortunately, these powers carried with them the
opportunity for personal emolument, as it was entirely within the
right of a Sovereign Grand Inspector General to take fees for
degrees and deputations, and to convert those fees to his own use.
Theoretically, these powers still belong to the office of a
Sovereign Grand Inspector General. In practice, as I need not
remind you, they are generally held in abeyance, at least so far as
their exercise by individuals is concerned. In the earlier phase of
the Scottish Rite in America, however, the Sovereign Grand
Inspectors General took themselves and their powers very seriously
indeed. We find them founding new bodies by their own authority and
without conference with other Masons of like grade: We find them
admitting others by patent to their own exalted rank, and these
others, in turn, extending the Rite and passing on their powers by
deputation. We find any Sovereign Grand Inspector General, without
always exercising much care as to the letter of his authority and
jurisdiction, conferring degrees on whomsoever-he chose.

The powers of a Sovereign Grand Inspector General were ad vitam,
and he could confer powers ad vitam upon others by deputation. All
the officers of Supreme Councils, whether elected or appointed,
served ad vitam. It is only necessary to recall these conditions to
see how practically inevitable it was that confusion should occur,
that acts of doubtful regularity should be done, that questions of
authority should arise practically impossible of solution, and that
arbitrary and improper use should be made of power.

Indeed under those circumstances it would be very difficult to
decide how far the powers of an individual Sovereign Grand
Inspector General or of a Sovereign Grand Commander did really
extend, or to pass authoritatively upon the regularity of many acts
which might be seriously questioned though committed with the best
of intentions. In fact the schism in the Northern Supreme Council
arose out of just such a condition.

Fortunately we are not called upon to sit in judgment today upon
the men of the period before 1867 or upon their acts. We are
concerned only with the facts and we are happily able to say that
the most important facts involve constitutional questions about
which equally good men might wisely differ, questions which,
indeed, have not been settled to this day. No one can question the
absolute sincerity and entire conscientiousness of Edward A.
Raymond. His distinguished career as a Mason in Massachusetts,
leading through many honors and culminating in the great office of
Grand Master of that ancient jurisdiction, is sufficient testimony
to the quality of the man. Acting with a high sense of
responsibility he interpreted in the largest sense the powers which
he held not only as a Sovereign Grand Inspector General but as
Sovereign Grand Commander. He undoubtedly felt that this last
position gave him a measure of authority over the other Sovereign
Grand Inspectors General which was in some respects even greater
than the prerogatives of a Grand Master. The majority of the other
Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, whom we should today consider
as his peers, took a different view. They were men whose sincerity
and conscientiousness are no more open to question than Raymond's.
Among them were some of the wisest and most accomplished Masons of
their day. Moved by the same high sense of duty and responsibility
they not only refused to recognize the powers which Raymond claimed
and exercised, but they went farther and claimed the right to
depose him, a right which he in turn refused to recognize.

There was here an irreconcilable difference of opinion upon a grave
question of Constitutional Law concerning which equally well
intentioned men with equal knowledge of the Constitutions and equal
Masonic vision and experience might and did differ irreconcilably.
We are not called upon today to say that either party was wrong or
that either was right. As we shall presently see, the question was
removed from the region of practical importance by the conditions
of the reunion.


The schism once created, the inevitable evil consequences ensued.
It is not necessary to go into the details of mutual attack and
defense, of competition and rivalry, or of desperate plans laid to
meet desperate conditions. It is enough to say that in the storm
and stress of the struggle between the rival councils, both were
led to do things which neither would have thought of doing under
normal conditions. It is significant that after the reunion the
brethren were unwilling to discuss those days which seemed like
nightmares in their recollections.

Our Ill. Brother Gallagher made earnest and repeated efforts to
induce Ill. Brother Samuel C. Lawrence to record his memory of
those days, offering to send a stenographer to whom General
Lawrence could talk informally, and to do the work of editing these
informal notes, submitting them to General Lawrence for his final
approval, but in vain! Even to this day Ill. Brother Daniel W.
Lawrence, the Nestor of Massachusetts Freemasonry, is unwilling to
go into these discussions.

But after all these occurrences did not indicate the real nature of
the brethren of those days. Most, if not all, of the members of
both Supreme Councils were clear of head and sound of heart.
Consider for a moment who and what they were. All men have a right
to have their words and deeds, real or alleged, judged in the light
of their personality and of their entire records. A certain man
said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." The words
themselves might well have fallen from the lips of the arch enemy
of mankind. Their true value appears when we consider them in the
light of the life and character of the man who uttered them, the
man who has been called for nineteen centuries the Prince of Peace.

The members of the Rival Supreme Councils were picked and chosen
from the body of Masonry, that is to say, from a body of men
already selected with care. They had been tried and tested by many
years of experience and of service. They had won the love and
respect of their Brethren. Many of them stood very high in the
esteem of their fellow citizens generally. They were outstanding
individuals in the splendid body of American manhood and
citizenship. Such men could not fail to perceive and to deplore the
conditions which existed, nor could they fail earnestly to desire
their amendment.

It was only necessary that they should be brought together face to
face and kept together long enough to wear away the first
antipathies and asperities and to bring their real natures to the
surface, to bring about an amicable adjustment. Fortunately there
were those among them who were ready to promote and assist such a
conference, and who had the tact, the persistency, and the sweet
reasonableness which would enable them to do away with surface
difficulties and to keep at their task of peacemaking until the
heart of the matter was reached. These peacemakers set about their
task with a patience and a devotion worthy of their purpose.
Without a trace of selfish ambition or desire for personal
aggrandizement they set themselves wholeheartedly to the noble and
glorious world of saving our beloved Institution from the condition
into which it had fallen and making possible the realization of the
splendid ideals of Scottish Rite Masonry. How gloriously successful
they were, we know. How they labored and what sacrifices they made,
we can never fully know. How full and free the mutual surrender and
renunciation was which actually took place we have many times been
told. It is no wonder that these men, not weaklings or callow
youths, but strong men, mature, distinguished, flung themselves
into each other's arms with shouts of joy, that they wept and sang,
and danced and shouted like a group of school boys. They did not
rejoice with the calm satisfaction of the statesmen who sees the
fruition of plans long cherished. They rather rejoiced with the
exuberant satisfaction of those who throw off an intolerable
burden, who escape from thraldom and who feel that at last they can
be themselves.

Had they stopped to think about it as statesmen they could hardly
have adequately estimated the importance of what they had done.
They had done more than bring together two rival bodies. They had
brought together into a harmonious and effective whole two widely
different temperaments and sets of ideals. The old Scottish Rite
Masonry was deeply imbued with the political and social ideals of
Continental Europe before the French Revolution, the age of the
benevolent despots. It was deeply tinctured with the philosophical
universalism and independent free thinking of a time when these
intellectual qualities had to be cherished in secret. In spirit it
was thoroughly monarchical. All power was inherent in and proceeded
from the Sovereign Grand Inspectors General. Authority devolved
downward from the head. It was not derived from the members. It was
no accident that Frederick of Prussia was its great patron and
organizer. The complex character of Frederick, the most autocratic
of monarchs who yet considered himself the first functionary of the
state, the military genius who found his greatest pleasure in
writing verses and playing the flute, the widely read philosopher
who regarded all religions with toleration not quite free from
disdain, and who spent his life in the service of his fellow men as
he understood it, but without ever learning to love them, finds
many a reflection in the temper and spirit of the older Scottish
Rite Masonry.

Blue Lodge Masonry, however, was of different origin and of a
different spirit. In its organized form it came from England and
brought with it the traditions of English liberty and democracy.
Descended from a long line of organizations of intelligent
workingmen, it was full of sturdy independence, of democratic
self-reliance, of the wholesome scorn of artificial social
distinction native to those who have learned in the school of
breadwinning that true aristocracy restores efficiency and service.

While free from the narrow limitations of sect or creed, it was in
fact mainly Christian and not a little disposed to be Puritan. In
spirit it was thoroughly democratic. Its Grand Masters possessed
great inherent powers and prerogatives. They were monarchs, it is
true, but they were elected, Constitutional monarchs, serving for
but a short time and returning into the body of the Brethren by
whom they had been chosen and from whom they had derived their
powers. The distinguishing characteristic of Blue Lodge Masonry of
British origin is that the seat of power is not in a monarch or in
a House of Peers; it is in the great body of the Brethren.

The happy blending of these widely differing temperaments and
methods gave the newly organized Supreme Council union, stability,
and power. The old lawless fashion of exercising the great powers
of the Sovereign Grand Inspector General without regulation and
without responsibility to his peers was distinctly ended. The
introduction of the system of the election and appointment of the
officers of the Supreme Council, including the Sovereign Grand
Commander, for terms of short duration settled the question of the
responsibility of the Sovereign Grand Commander to the Supreme
Council. The question of the power of the Council to depose its
Commander is hardly more than an academic one when that officer is
elected for a term of only three years. He may well serve so long
as health and strength may permit, but his peers by their triennial
exercise of the suffrage pass judgment upon his stewardship.

The powers of a Sovereign Grand Inspector General are today in no
wise really diminished or impaired, but his use of them is
carefully regulated and remedies are provided for their abuse. More
important than all the Constitutional regulations is the new spirit
of solemn responsibility in the exercise of a great trust. The
Sovereign Grand Inspector General no longer considers himself a
ruler over his brethren, but a servant among them, recognizing in
the high office to which he has been called, not a personal honor,
a gift of power, or an opportunity for enrichment, but seeing in it
only the call to a great service which his Brethren deem him better
fitted than another to render.

The powers of the Supreme Council are unimpaired. It is still the
source of all power and authority in the Rite. There is neither
power nor authority anywhere in the Rite which does not devolve
from it, but the Council as a body feels a solemn sense of
responsibility in the exercise of these powers. It does not work
for itself or for its members, it works for the good of the
brethren.

The philosophy of the Rite is as broad and inclusive as ever. It
knows no distinction among men who strive to find and serve God. It
does not inquire into their philosophy or their theology. It does
not ask in what sacred book they find their instruction and
inspiration, it does not inquire into the form or substance of
their prayers or even ask the name by which they address the one
God when offering to him their petitions. It believes that God is
God, no matter what men name Him, no matter how they pray to Him,
no matter how they think about Him, for, after all, these matters
depend largely on the accident of birth. The Christian Bishop might
well be a Brahmin, if he had been born in India, and the Jewish
Rabbi might well be a Protestant minister, if he were born in New
England of Mayflower ancestry, but the new sense of responsibility
extends here as well and the Scottish Rite Masonry of today, though
not less tolerant, is more devout.

It is to these inner qualities more than to the external union that
we owe the prosperity of the present and the splendid prospects for
the future. Union, stability, and power have been realized. Like
all of the finest things in the world, they are in their essence
spiritual and not material. We are not strong because divisions
have been banished from among us or because we are daily increasing
in numbers and wealth, although the Rite enjoys a growth of
prosperity undreamed of, indeed undesired, fifty years ago, but
because we have learned better the Royal Secret, because into the
new body created by the union of 1867 there has come a new soul. It
is like the old stories which tell us how by some experience a
being strong, beautiful, but mortal, became endowed with
immortality through the infusion or the awakening of a soul. The
future of our beloved Rite through the long vista of the years is
safe because it has found its soul.

