Bernard.txt
             A HOUSE OF

               PRAYER 

           FOR ALL PEOPLE

   HUGH Y. BERNARD, 32, KCCH
 3563 S. Leisure World Blvd, No. 1A 
    Silver Spring, Maryland 20906

    SHORTLY after these words reach print, a towering crane will
have elevated a piece of Indiana limestone, weighing well in
excess of a ton and carved in the ornamental form of a finial
(shaped like a cross when viewed from any angle), to the topmost
southwest pinnacle of the southwest tower in the facade of the
Washington National Cathedral. (See arrow in the illustration on
this page.)

  There, waiting craftsmen will set it in place as they have done
with its many mates over a span of eight decades.  A vast crowd of
ecclesiastic and civic dignitaries, and members of the general
public, will have witnessed this dramatic act, the completion of
the construction of a great cathedralthe sixth largest in the
world and the second in size in this country, and many believe the
most beautiful and best proportioned Gothic structure ever
reared.  The date, September 29, 1990, is exactly eighty-three
years to the day since that other Michaelmas (Feast of St. Michael
and All Angels) in 1907, when the foundation stone of the splendid
edifice was laid by the first bishop of the new Episcopal Diocese
of Washington, Henry Yates Satterlee.

  Although this stone was not a cornerstone laid by the Grand Lodge
of the District of Columbia or of any jurisdiction, there was
nevertheless a Masonic presence at the 1907 ceremony.  The
President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, a Mason,
delivered the oration on that occasion.  By invitation of Bishop
Satterlee, the noted George Washington gavel, used by him in 1793
in laying the cornerstone of the United States Capitol and
subsequently presented by him to Potomac Lodge No. 5 (as it is
now designated), was lent by its Masonic custodians and employed by
the bishop during the stone-laying ritual.  As always when on loan,
the gavel was accompanied by a committee of the Lodge, headed by
its then Master, Lemuel Towers, who in 1918 was to serve D.C.
Masonry as its Grand Master.

  In fact, George Washington's spiritual presence hovered over the
cathedral's inception in another way.  A fairly well-founded
tradition has it that during Washington's administration as first
President, his Registrar of the Treasury, Joseph Nourse, accom-
panied Washington and Major Pierre L'Enfant, designer of the young
Capital City, on a horseback ride northwestward to Nourse's farm,
occupying what is now the cathedral's close.  Pointing out the
commanding height of what was to be named Mount Saint Alban, Nourse
is said to have spoken of the ideal nature of the site for a grand
church at some later time.

  A granddaughter of Nourse, at her death in 1850, left some $50 in
gold, earned from her needlework, to help set up "a free church
on Alban's Hill."  From this and other donations came the erection
of St. Alban's Parish Church, still located on the Cathedral's
grounds and closely allied with it over the generations.

  It remained for a member of a prominent Masonic family in
Washington, Charles C. Glover of the Riggs National Bank, to set
the financial ball rolling in the early 1890's for a cathedral and
for a separate diocese for Washington, which was at that time still
in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

  From a meeting in Glover's home came the impetus to have Congress
charter a Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation (January 6,
1893), with broadly defined powers.  This was followed by the
consecration of Henry Satterlee in 1896 as the first Bishop of
Washington.  For years, Bishop Satterlee succeeded in acquiring
land, raising funds, and obtaining gifts for the planned structure.
Finally, the foundation stone laying took place in 1907 just a few
months before his death.

  Dr. George Bodley, an Englishman, and his student, Henry
Vaughan of Boston, were the first architects.  Bishop Satterlee
insisted from the outset that the new edifice must be in the
English Gothic style of its finest period, the fourteenth century,
but was not to copy any specific building. He selected a "House of
Prayer for all People" as the guiding ideal.

  It was not to have "members," parishioners or pew-renters in the
ordinary church sense, but was to be open to any and all who wished
to visit, worship, and share in its ministries.

  In addition to Brother Glover's early influence, Masonic ties to
the cathedral abound.  Only a few can be mentioned here.  The
motion to have the first plans accepted in 1907 was made by Admiral
George Dewey of Manila Bay fame, a Mason.  On the Building
Committee for many years was the Masonic architect, Leon Chatelain,
Jr., who designed the Scottish Rite Temple at 2800 Sixteenth
Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

  The Masonic Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and
Gerald Ford all participated in events at the Cathedral.  A special
memorial service for Truman was held early in 1973, and President
Ford accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and the Archbishop of Can-
terbury in the dedication of the Nave and Rose Window in 1976.

  One of the great Masons of modern times, Sir Winston Churchill,
is honored in the cathedral by the Churchill Porch, located at Nave
level in the southwest or St. Paul Tower.  This memorial also
commemorates the closeness of Great Britain and the United States,
exemplified by the fact that Sir Winston was the son of an English
father and an American mother.

  Other noted Masons honored in the Cathedral include the greatest
of the early Chief Justices, John Marshall, and the English archi-
tect, Sir Christopher Wren, builder of St. Paul's Cathedral in
London, who in all probability was a speculative as well as an
operative Mason.

  The cathedral's most prominent physical object relating to Mason-
ry, the George Washington Bay near the southwest end of the Nave,
is mentioned here only in passing, since it was described in detail
in the February 1990 Scottish Rite Journal.  Its impressive
statue of George Washington, donated in 1947, is a gift of The
Supreme Council, 33, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction.

  Also, the Bettelheim Bay, off the north aisle of the Nave, is a
memorial to a prominent military man and author whose son, Edwin
S. Bettelheim, Jr., served as Grand Master of D.C. Masons in 1949.

  In 1907 no one dreamed  that by 1974 there would be dedicated in
the Cathedral a special window commemorating man's conquest of the
moon and other space accomplishments.  Among the Masons honored
for their achievements are Walter Schirra, Virgil "Gus" Grissom,
and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., one of the two men who first
walked on the moon's surface (July 20, 1969)  and who, with his
partner Neil Armstrong, brought back for display in the Space
Window a piece of lunar stone.  Other Masonic astronauts honored by
this window are Brothers Gordon L. Cooper and Thomas P. Stafford.

  There are many other Masonic aspects of the Cathedral.  In the
Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimethea, for instance, the steps to the
altar number three, five, and seven.  In the High Altar are twelve
perfect ashlars from the same quarry outside Jerusalem where the
stones for King Solomon's Temple were hewn.  The third Bishop of
Washington, Rt. Rev. James E. Freeman, was an active Mason.  Even
before his time, starting in 1910 and continuing  at least  until
1961, Masonic services have been held at the Cathedral, including
celebration of the 240th anniversary of the Grand Lodge of
England (1957) and the 150th anniversary of D. C. Grand Lodge
(1961).

  May the Grand Architect continue to smile upon this vast under-
taking  as it celebrates its completion  and continues  to
embody in stone, wood, glass and, more than that, in human souls,
all that His Word teaches men to follow in their relationships with
each other and with Him.



Brother Hugh Y. Bernard is Professor Emeritus of Law and retired
Law Librarian of The George Washington University, Washington,
D.C.  A Mason since 1949, he served Hope Lodge No. 20, as Master
twice (1956 and 1985) and is a past Venerable Master of Mithras
Lodge of Perfection in the Valley of Washington.  He is the author
of an article in The Scottish Rite Journal on Architect John
Russell Pope (August 1988) and of several book reviews.
