THE BUILDER JANUARY 1926
A Suggestion for the Collection of Masonic Data
BY BRO. J. HERON LEPPER, Ireland

BRO. LEPPER, as most readers of The Builder are aware is a Past
Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 E.C. He is also Past
Superintendent of the Tabernacle of the Supreme Royal Arch Chapter
of Ireland. The present article was his inaugural address at his
installation in 1919 as Master of the Lodge of Research No. 200
under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The suggested
method of building up a mass of classified information accessible
to Masonic students seemed so applicable to the circumstances and
uses of the National Masonic Research Society that we have obtained
permission to reproduce it here. We have to thank the officers and
members of the Lodge of Research for their courtesy in granting
this request and also Bro. Lepper himself, who most kindly acted as
intermediary in obtaining it.

AS the time at my disposal tonight is extremely short, I will
indicate in the fewest possible words a way in which, as it seems
to me, each member of Lodge 200 could help the progress of Masonic
Research, the main object wherewith our lodge was founded.

Fortunately my scheme does not need much explanation. It is this:
that every one of us who in the course of his reading comes across
any passage in any book which has a possible bearing upon a Masonic
matter should copy out this passage and send it to the Secretary of
Lodge 200 to be filed. Such extracts taken singly in themselves may
not seem very important or add much to our knowledge, but I have no
doubt but that in process of time they would prove very valuable to
students in the aggregate.

Let me indicate a few of the sources whence they may be gathered,
and give you a few examples of the kind I mean taken from my own
note-books, and originally copied from many different sorts of
books and manuscripts. To take one part of the field--books of
travel and exploration are full of unrecorded material. My first
instance is taken from Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, published in
1853:

"The Sidonians and other inhabitants of the Phoenician coast were
the most renowned workers in metal of the ancient world and their
intermediate position between the two great nations by which they
were alternately invaded and subdued, may have been the cause of
the existence of a mixed art among them. In the Homeric Poems they
are frequently mentioned as the artificers who fashioned the
embossed cups and bowls . . . Homer particularly mentions Sidonian
goblets as used at the funeral games of Patroclus." (Op. cit. page
192.)

To cull another example at random from books of travel, take the
following from Sir Richard Burton's account of his journeys among
the Mormons, where, by the way, he gives a most interesting account
of the signs whereby the different tribes of Indians recognize each
other:

"Mr. Little (a prominent Mormon) also recounted to us his
experiences among the Indians, whom he, like all the Mormons,
firmly believed to be the Children of Israel under a cloud. He
compared the Medicine Lodge to a Masonic Hall and declared that the
so-called Red Men had signs and grips like ourselves: and he
related how an old chief, when certain symbolic actions were made
to him, wept and wailed, thinking how he and his had neglected
their observances. The Saints (Mormons) were at one time good
Masons; unhappily they wanted to be better. The angel of the Lord
brought to Mr. Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) the last
key-words of several degrees, which caused him when he appeared
among the brotherhood of Illinois to 'work right ahead' of the
highest, and to show them their ignorance of the greatest truths
and benefits of Masonry. The natural result was that their diploma
was taken from them by the Grand Lodge, and they are not admitted
to a Gentile gathering. Now heathens without the gate, they still
cling to their heresy, and declare that other Masonry is, like the
Christian faith founded upon truth, and originally of the eternal
Church, but fallen away and far gone in error." 'City of the
Saints'; London, 1861; page 426.

Mr. Fiennes Moryson was a gentleman who in the days of Shakespere
made the grand tour of Europe, and happily published an account of
his travels in the year 1617. Here is his description of some
Masonic Rites, as practiced in Germany almost 400 years ago.

"This city of Dresden is very faire and strongly fortified, in
which the Elector of Saxony keeps his Court, having been forty
years past onely a village. When the first stone of the wals was
laid there were hidden a silver cup guilded, a Booke of the Lawes,
another of the coynes, and three glasses filled with wine the
ceremonies being performed with all kinds of musicke and solemnity.
The like ceremony was used when they laid the first stone of the
stable." Fynes Moryson's Itinerary. Reprint Glasgow, 1907, Vol. 1;
page 18.

Memoirs and published collections of letters also yield grist for
the diligent copyist. Casanova, the prince of adventurers, was
initiated into the Craft at Lyons in the year 1750, and what the
arch-rogue thought of Freemasonry is so interesting that it seems
to merit translation in full, but I have time to give only one
short extract from his rather lengthy dissertation:

"No one person in the world can possibly know everything, but every
man in possession of his faculties and who desires to make use of
his moral force should seek to know as much as possible. A young
man of good station who wishes to travel and see the world, and
what is known as good society, and who on certain occasions does
not wish to find himself inferior to his social equals and excluded
from participation in all their pleasures, ought to have himself
initiated into what is called Freemasonry, even if only to learn
superficially what it is. Freemasonry is a beneficent institution
which at certain times and in certain places may have served as a
pretext for acts criminal and subversive of good order; but, good
Heavens, what is free from abuse?

"To sum up, I advise every young man of good station who wishes to
see the world to become accepted as a Mason; but I charge him to
choose his Lodge carefully; for although bad company cannot make
itself felt inside the Lodge, it may be there, and the candidate
ought to avoid dangerous acquaintances." Translated from Casanova's
Memoires, Paris, Garnier Freres edition, 1910; Vol. II.; page 276.

Passages illustrating the esoteric parts of our mysteries are also
to be found in the most unexpected places. I had one interesting
discovery in a book entitled: Old Time Punishments by William
Andrews, F.R.H.S., 1890. As yet I have had no opportunity of
checking the author's statement, or of comparing it with the
original document whereon he bases it:

"In the curious ordinances which were observed in the reign of
Henry VI for the conduct of the Court of Admiralty for the Humber,
are enumerated the various offences of a maritime connection, and
their punishments. In view of the character of the court, the
punishment was generally to be inflicted at low-water mark, so as
to be within the proper jurisdiction of the Admiralty, the chief
officer of which, the Admiral of the Humber, being from the year
1451 the Mayor of Hull. The court being met, and consisting of
'masters, merchants and marines, with all others that do enjoy the
King's stream with hook, net or engine', were addressed as follows:

"'You masters of the quest, if you, or any of you, discover or
disclose anything of the King's secret counsel, or of the counsel
of your fellows (for the present you are admitted to be the King's
counsellors) you are to be and shall be, had down to the low-water
mark, where must be made three times O Yes ! for the King, and then
and there this punishment, by the law prescribed, shall be executed
upon them; that is their hands and feet bound, their throats cut,
their tongues pulled out, and their bodies thrown into the sea.'"
Op. cit. page 212.

The salt of the foregoing extract seems to me to consist in the
fact of the punishment being incurred as a penalty for disclosing
"secret counsel."

In making our collections we must not forget the daily press, and
anything appearing in it with a Masonic flavor should be either cut
out or copied; but be most careful to append the name of the paper
and the date of issue. Otherwise the unhappy scholar who attempts
to verify the reference will soon qualify for Bedlam; and nothing
can be more pernicious or heartbreaking than an assemblage of loose
quotations to which chapter and verse are not appended.

Now to conclude let me give you an idea of what can be gathered by
those who read poetry as well as prose. In the year 1810 there was
printed at the Newsletter Office in Belfast a volume of verse by a
peasant poet named Andrew M'Kenzie, who lived at Donaghadee, and
was, therefore, under the jurisdiction of the same great Masonic
province that tonight is offering us its hospitality. M'Kenzie
wrote a Masonic poem, and one of its verses runs:

"Let none to this temple of friendship repair, 
But those who in dealing with men will be square. 
May virtue's strict compass our actions confine 
In the bonds of true masonry's precepts divine;
The level shall teach us no rank to despise . . 
The beggar's our brother, if upright and wise: 
And oh till the hour-glass of time shall stand still, 
May peace, love and harmony crown the Greenhili!"

To this poem the author appended the following note:

"Greenhill is an appellation given to a farm in Drumawhey, in the
vicinity of Newtownards, where a respectable body of Freemasons
hold their meetings. There no intemperance disunion or misbehavior,
casts an odium on the ancient and honourable order; but men of fair
and unblemished characters: associate themselves for the purpose of
establishing the dominion of virtue."

The extract is chiefly interesting as showing that up till a
hundred years ago lodges in the North of Ireland still could and
did meet in private houses.

My last excerpt is a very short one, and is taken from a poem
called The Picture of a Happy Man, by John Davies of Hereford
(1565-1618):

"That striveth but with frail desire,
Desiring nothing that is ill;
That rules his soul by Reason's squire
And works by Wisdom's compass still."

If the-writer of the foregoing lines was not a Mason he was well
worthy of the honor; and the simple and noble words will have a
very familiar sound to all of us here.

And now, brethren, my task is finished, and I have tried to
indicate a way wherein each of us can help in collecting materials
for future historians of the Order; and though it may not be given
to us all to be Solomons, yet each of us may emulate David who
prepared the way for the work of better men.



In further illustration some stray notes from the Editor's own
reading may be added. In the monumental extravaganza of Francois
Rabelais are a number of phrases that have a curiously Masonic
flavor. The square is mentioned a number of times, as "Thou fallest
downright square upon the business," "My actions shall be regulated
by the rule and square of your counsel," "out of all square, frame
and order"; and "made shift to tope to him on the square." Panurge,
in his great eulogy of debt, says it is "the whole cement whereby
the race of men is kept together." The most curious thing is that
these and other like phrases have no counterpart at all in the
original French, but are evidently the additions of Sir Thomas
Urquhart, who translated the first books of this work into English
in the middle of the seventeenth century.

In a little work locally published entitled "The Customs,
Superstitions and Legends of the County of Stafford," is the story
of the murder of Kenelm, the boy king of Mercia. His body is
discovered under a thorn bush, and is taken up and carried in grand
procession and devout rejoicing to the Minster at Winchelcombe. The
murderer, the servant of the boy's wicked aunt, dug a grave first,
but the boy told him he was not to be killed there, "and to prove
it stuck an ash branch into the ground, which grew and blossomed,
and afterwards grew into a great tree." The place where the body
was found was marked by a wondrous pillar of light.

Quite recently a discovery was made in the tower of the Parish
Church of Chelsea, London. In the upper part of the tower a
carefully formed cavity was discovered in which apparently a
lighted candle had been walled in. It had gone out half burned for
lack of air. Evidently a substitute builder's sacrifice. This last
note will serve as a dreadful warning. It was taken from the
columns of one of the London daily papers a few years ago, but
which and when there is, alas, no record. So dangerous is it in
these matters to put off making the full entry at the time,
thinking that one will remember.

