THE BUILDER February 1915

OLD LANDMARKS OF MASONRY
BY THE LATE THEODORE S. PARVIN

Founder of the Library of the Grand Lodge of Iowa

(Among many MSS left by Mr. Parvin--some of which we shall publish
as occasion may offer--was the following paper, written in the
forthright and pungent style characteristic of a man who had
positive convictions, and knew how to express them. Recent students
are not so sure, as Brother Parvin seems to have been, that there
was only one degree in Craft-masonry. But no matter, the paper
speaks for itself- and the editor ventures to add a brief
discussion as showing its importance in view of the present
situation in world-Masonry.)

"Every annual Grand Lodge has the inherent Power and Authority to
make new Regulations, or to alter those for the real Benefit of
this ancient Fraternity; provided always that the Old Landmarks be
carefully preserved."--Art. XXXIX, General Regulations of the Grand
Lodge of England, 1723.

The term "Landmarks" does not occur in the Charges of a Freemason
which are universally regarded as of bin ling authority upon all
Grand Lodges. The quotation above made is from the "General
Regulations," binding only upon those Grand Lodges which by
enactment have made them so. These By-laws of the Grand Lodge of
England--- for such they are--are no more binding upon the Grand
Lodge of Iowa than are our By-laws upon any other Grand Lodge of
the land.

Save the one subject of the History of Freemasonry, there has been
more nonsense written upon the subject of Ancient Landmarks than
upon any other Masonic subject. Neither the Charges of a Freemason
nor the General Regulations, together usually styled Ancient
Constitutions; anywhere define what a Landmark is, nor do the
historians of Freemasonry, or anyone else endowed with authority,
enumerate them. Dr. Mackey, a learned Mason--though not so learned
as Findel, Lyon, Hughan, or Gould--in his Lexicon of Freemasonry,
as also in his Encyclopedia, gives a list of Landmarks which he
made and promulgated as "the" Landmarks of the Order. His judgment,
when based upon historic or legal truth, is entitled to weight, but
he followed his prejudices or speculations, as he did, he commands
no more respect than others. one Mason in ten gives adhesion to his
Sched Landmarks.

A writer of equal ability, if not so learned, a few years ago tried
his hand at enumerating the Landmarks, and almost doubled Mackey's
last list; I say list, because Mackey two and his second contained
some not in the first. Thus every writer has his ipse dixit. For
many I have invited, urge and begged Grand Master and Grand Reports
to furnish me with a list of Landmarks. None have ever essayed to
do so--further than to refer me Dr. Mackey, as if a man who was
born, lived and died in this century could make an "ancient"
Landmark.

Quite recently a Masonic editor has told us that "every Mason ought
to understand exactly what the Old Landmarks are." How can
everybody be expected to know what nobody knows, ever has known, or
ever will know; because there is no supreme authority to declare
what they are. Scarcely any two jurisdictions, or any two men in
the same jurisdiction, agree on the question.

Again hear a learned brother: "The Old Landmarks are those customs
of the fraternity which became fixed rules at a time so remote that
even their origin is lost, but which have been handed down as the
fundamental laws of Freemasonry." Then he gives a list of
twenty-five rules which he calls Landmarks. His second rule is "the
division of symbolic Masonry into three degrees." Every schoolboy
in Masonry knows that until the eighteenth century--this is only
the nineteenth--there was only one degree. His third is, "the
legend of the Temple Builder in the Third Degree." As a fact,
neither the Temple Builder nor the legend was ever known or heard
of two centuries ago in connection with Freemasonry. And so I might
go on.

Such Landmarks are like ten-pins; knock one over and many others
fall with it. Talk about rules established in 1700-1799 as having
been "fixed at a time so remote that even their origin is lost !"
It is too ridiculous to merit sober refutation. Yet the good
brother says that "these twenty-five unalterable rules are now
accepted as Landmarks." Accepted by whom? Not by the Grand Lodge of
Iowa. In the number of her Lodges, in the intelligence of her
membership, in enterprise and true devotion to the genuine
principles of Freemasonry, the Grand Lodge of Iowa is the peer of
the oldest, the largest and the best Grand Lodge, but she does not
accept this list, nor the half of it. She refuses to bow at the
altar of this modern Baal.

--II--

So far Parvin. As showing the wide divergence of opinion both as
regards the nature and number of the Old Landmarks--the latter
varying from six to sixty, and usually fixed at twenty-five--the
article is interesting. Its criticisms of the lists of Landmarks
proposed are as sound as they are keen. Nevertheless, the essayist
leaves us still up in the air with little hope of getting down to
the land, much less of finding our landmarks. Nor does it take due
account of the injury done to the order, and the impediments put in
the way of a wider fellowship and a mutual understanding by
this uncertainty and confusion.

Hence we have the spectacle of Masons in one part of the world
refusing to recognize their brethren in another part, because,
forsooth, they do not use exactly the same words, when the
differences in the most important Masonic principles, or their
form, is so slight that they could never stand in the way of a
greater and closer fellowship. Such bigotry--for it is nothing else
--reminds one of the exclusiveness of the ecclesiastic who holds
that the sacrament is only valid when administered in a certain
way, when certain words are accurately recited, and when a certain
person set apart and properly ordained by recognized authorities,
is there to administer it.

Moreover, we accuse our brethren abroad--in France, for instance--
of having departed from the ancient Landmarks of Masonry, but we
have not yet defined what a Landmark is. Instead, we take some
Tradition, Custom or Usage, of comparatively recent date, and erect
it into a barrier with which to exclude our brethren--forgetting
that a Landmark is one thing and a high board fence is another. Not
only so, but we actually take some detail of organization, of whose
antiquity no one dare make claim, and use it in the same way. What
a queer outcome of the gracious and free spirit of Masonry whose
genius it is, or should be, to make men friends and fellow-workers.

For example, in 1858 Mackey made his list of "ancient" Landmarks,
twenty-five in number--that seems to be the sacred number in
respect of Landmarks--one of which was as follows: "The Bible,
being an indispensable symbol, must be present in every Lodge." If
that be so, then a Mohammedan or a Buddhist, who reveres other
sacred books than our own, cannot be a Mason. Even a Hebrew is in
part disqualified, for he does not accept all of the Bible.
Confronted with this glaring absurdity, Mackensie modified the
Mackey article on this wise: "The Bible is indispensable in Lodge,
but it need not be the Bible in all cases. It can be replaced by
the Koran, by the Zend-Avesta, or by the Vedas, according to the
religious faith of the Lodge." That is to say, the Bible is
indispensable but it may be dispensed with!

Now ye editor is a firm believer in Christianity and the Bible, of
which he is an humble teacher, but he does not make his
Christianity a test of his Masonic fellowship. To do so would be to
make Masonry sectarian-- that is, something utterly alien to
itself, only one more atom in a world of factional feud and
ferment. Instead, he welcomes to his Masonic fellowship his brother
Masons of every faith, Catholic or Protestant, Hebrew or Hindu,
thanking God the while for one altar where men of all faiths may
meet without reproach and without regret.

Obviously, any other attitude is un-Masonic, and a violation of the
fundamental, far-shining principle of Freemasonry set forth by the
Grand Lodge of England in 1723, and reaffirmed in 1815; the
cornerstone from which we must begin our survey if we are ever to
find the Landmarks of the Order; the forever memorable words:

"But though in ancient times, Masons were charged in every country
or nation to be of the religion of that country, whatever it was,
yet it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that
religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions
to themselves; that is, to be good men and true, or men of honor
and honesty by whatever denominations or persuasions they may be
distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes the centre of union and the
means of conciliating true friendship among persons that must have
remained at a perpetual distance."

--III--

What, then, are the Landmarks of Masonry? Manifestly, by a Landmark
we must mean, if it is to have any meaning at all, a limit set
beyond which Masonry cannot go, some boundary within which it must
labor; a line drawn as against any innovation subversive of the
spirit and purpose of the Order. So, and naturally so, the
Landmarks of Masonry are its great fundamental principles, not any
usage or custom, much less mere details of organization, save in so
far as these are identical with the spread of its spirit and the
fulfillment of its purpose and mission in the world. Since this is
so, there has never been a better attempt to state the Landmarks of
the Order than that made by Findel in his "Spirit and Form of
Freemasonry," the sum and substance of which is as follows:

First, and chiefly, its universality, and the obligation of every
Mason to believe and practice that universal religion in which all
men agree and understand each other, and the avoidance of such
debates as mar its fellowship.

Second, the organization of a secret society, a centre of
fraternity, an alliance of men of good repute, without regard to
the distinctions made by the outside world, such as rank, position,
religion, nationality, race, or political party; and the right of
every initiated Mason to be admitted on a footing of friendship in
all regular Lodges--Masonry being universal, and all Masons forming
a single Lodge in which all are equal in the sight of each other.

Third, the requirement of certain qualifications for the reception
of neophytes, such as moral independence, a sufficient degree of
general education, a certain age, and good repute; and the
injunction that no external circumstances, but only moral value and
service to the Order, entitles any one to distinction or honor.
Fourth, the immutable necessity for the Lodges to teach their
members to exercise brotherly love, relief, and truth, to work for
their moral advancement and the betterment of mankind, and to keep
strict discretion towards all outsiders regarding Masonic usages,
and especially the signs and symbols of the Order.

Upon such a broad basis as this the Masons of all the world may
unite in mutual recognition and goodwill for the advancement of the
Order, and that is what our European brethren ask us to do. How can
we refuse to listen to their appeal, the more so when all that they
ask is that we return to the original platform as laid by the Grand
Lodge of England from which we derive. No one has stated their plea
with more point and force, or in a better spirit, than William
Conrad, in his paper setting forth the aims of the International
Bureau for Masonic Relations:

"We do not ask our American brethren to relinquish their opinions
or their Landmarks; all that we wish them to do is to recognize us
as good Freemasons, faithful to the traditions laid down by the
Grand Lodge of London in the year 1717. We desire them to enter
into fraternal relations with us, to inquire, in a benevolent
spirit, into our History, our leading principles, our activity and
our deeds, and to convince themselves that we have the same right
to be acknowledged as good and true Freemasons, as they claim for
themselves."

