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The President's Corner

by John Mauk Hilliard, FPS

The most important thing to me in my
Masonic life has been my Lodge, Inde-
pendent Royal Arch No. Two, F. and
A . M ., " Old Number Two, " founded in
the 1750's in New York City by a British
Regimental Lodge. I was its Master in
1979, and have served as its Socretary for
a decade. Its Masonic antiquity, its
scrupulous preservation and fierce per-
~etuation of its Royal Arch and ritual
andmarks, its rich mix of powerful and
independent personalities have made it
the very symbol in my life of what
Freemasonry ought to be. Without Old
Number Two, my Masonic life would
have a paucity of meaning. The friend-
ships I have made there, the Masonic,
fraternal, and social intercourse that I
have experienced there are as lasting and
profoundly significant as any that I have
encountered in any other arena of my
life. I can say without too much immod-
esty that my role in Old Number Two has
been a pivotal one over the past decade
and one-half. I have devoted the bulk of
my Masonic energies to assuring its sur-
vival, encouraging its Masonic indepen-
dence, and maintaining its proud tra-
ditions, landmarks, and customs.

It is ironic, therefore, for me to contem-
plate one unexpected consequence of
that passionate attachment to my Lodge.
Independent Royal Arch Lodge in
colonial times and well into the nine-
teenth century worked not only the three
degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry, but
also the degrees of Mark Master, Past
Master, and Holy Royal Arch. The
Lodge's aprons are bordered in red, its
furnishings are ornamental in red, its
Masters and Wardens must be Royal
Arch Masons to hold those stations, and
its Masters and Past Masters wear the
triple tau of the Royal Arch upon the
flaps of their aprons. Old Number Two's
cofonial fathers, through their service in
the regimental lines of the Continental
Army, founded several Royal Arch
Chapters, and promulgated the Red De-
grees throughout the colonies. My ab-
sorption in the Lodge's history and tradi-
tions led me to a compelling interest in
the arcane world of Freemasonry's York
Rite. From the bedrock of the Lodge, I
launched what has become an involved
and demanding career of York Rite ac-
tivity. My appendant body involvement
has represented a great personal adven-
ture in my life. The irony lies in the fact
that it may also have been a personal
indulgence, for I am obliged to admit
that my great old Lodge has suffered
through the diffusion of my time, energy,
and attention represented by my other
Masonic allegiances. What is true for me
is, I believe, equally true for many other
Masonic leaders who engage in a broad
spectrum of Masonic involvements.
Notwithstanding my Lodge' s recent
successes, what would its situation have
been if I had concentrated all my Ma-
sonic energies on it alone?

My York Rite experience has been
happy and productive. I have lately com-
pleted a year as High Priest of Ancient
Chapter No. One, New York's original
chapter founded in 1763, probably by
the members of my Lodge. It is a black-
tie chapter which invokes its ancient
right, as guaranteed to its forbearers and
founders by the Grand Chapter of New
York over two centuries ago, to use its
traditional late-eighteenth century ver-
sion of the work instead of the current
standard work. "The Old Chapter"
thus reaffirms and rediscovers its own
precious history, and simultaneously
celebrates and preserves for future gen-
erations the birthright represented by
these venerable Masonic rituals. In a
Masonically corrupt age which finds the
ancient workings and symbols of the
Craft under attack both within and
without the Fraternity, the maintenance
of this vital heritage of myth, symbol,
and legend preserves the fundamental
identity of meaning upon which the
Royal Arch and all of Freemasonry ulti-
mately rests. The formal attire and the
precise ritual is essential to that spirit of
excellence which motivates each of the
companions of the Old Chapter to reach
beyond himself to do his utmost to sup-
port the mission of the Gentle Craft.
Because it is full of younger Masons at
the height of their business and profes-
sional careers, and who are in the midst
of raising families, the Chapter has
yoked itself to Columbian Council No.
One, the Mother Council of Cryptic Ma-
sonry, and Morton Commandery No.
Four, New York's oldest continuous
Templar commandery. The Chapter
meets only in the autumn months, the
Council only in the Winter, and the
Commandery only in the Spring. This
careful apportioning of meetings enables
these younger Freemasons to meet
family, business or professional, and
Blue Lodge involvements with a min-
imum of distraction by the demands of
active York Rite involvement. I wish
such a system had been in place during
the long years which I spent toiling
through the lines in my original York
Rite bodies. By Blue Lodge and per-
sonal involvements might be in better
repair today had such an arrangement
been obtained then.

Be that as it may, I will always cherish
the memory of my years in the York
Rite. The opportunity to confer the
York degrees in the company of
talented companions whose ritual skills
and enthusiasms for the traditions and
symbols of the Craft were a profound
inspiration to me, and my great personal
pleasure in presiding over numerous
Table Chapters, Table Councils, and
Masonic Feasts and Assemblies were the
high points of my York Rite life. These
things reinforced my strongly-held belief
in the mission of the York Rite. And that
mission, as I envision it, while supportive
of that of the Blue or Symbolic Lodge, is
not the same as that of the primary body.
To keep the degree work of the Royal
Arch, the Cryptic Rite, and the Temple
alive and in high relief in the minds and
hearts of Freemasons is the sublime and
happy duty of the York Rite. It is not its
role to compete with the Blue Lodges,
nor to drain them of the talent and ener-
gies and precious time of their junior
officers and sideliners. The primary re-
sponsibility of the Blue or Symbolic
Lodge is to make Masons, to Masoni-
cally educate them, and to foster the
social, fraternal, and charitable ameni-
ties that should adorn Craft life in the
primary community of the Lodge. The
role of the Royal Arch Chapter, and of
all of the York, Scottish, and appendant
bodies is more circumscribed: it is the
simple and elegant task of working the
great degrees of the Masonic canon with
precision, exactitude, and style. The Ap-
pendant Bodies, in this sense, are noth-
ing more, and should be nothing more,
than reliquary societies. They preserve
and foster the ancient mythic and sym-
bolic treasure represented by the com-
plex of Freemasonry's appendant
degrees. They enhance and elaborate
upon the consciousness to which each
brother is awakened in the Sublime De-
gree of Master Mason.

Freemasons in this modern age no
longer have the luxury of treating each
Masonic body as if it were a miniature
Lodge, of insisting on monthly meetings
of each York and Scottish Rite body, of
giving each a full program of Masonic
education, lectures, films, ladies nights,
and social events. To perpetuate the no-
tion that each appendant body in the
Craft must be a full-service institution in
the way that a Blue Lodge should be, is
to do a grave injustice to the leaders of
the Craft. They will inevitably diffuse
their time, talent, and energies, which
should of right be concentrated in their
Lodges, and which will be spread over all
the Masonic institutions in which they
and none more so than the Lodge, for the
greatest injury will be the inexorable
leaching of critical talent from it alone.
In the York Rite, in the Scottish Rite, in
all the maze of additional Masonic
orders, societies, and institutions, we
seek not to replace or imitate the Ma-
sonic life we experience and share in the
Lodges. Rather, we strive to broaden, for
the thoughtful, mature, and serious Blue
Lodge Mason, the sense of personal
growth and adventure in the Craft rep-
resented by the wealth of degrees in the
keeping of our Gentle and Royal Art.

The Philalethes, February, 1991
