FRATERNAL REVIEW

Editor - Ralph A. Herbold        (2-15-94)                        No. 686

TROWEL
The Quatuor Coronati Lodge (England) Summons for 10 September 1992 included:

Q.  It is to me a matter of some surprise that, among the working tools upon
which we moralize in the ceremonies of the three Craft degrees, no mention is
made of the trowel and yet it must have been in use among the operative masons
of the Middle Ages.  Is there some reason for its omission?

A.  One would hesitate to give a reason for the present-day absence of mention
of the trowel, but let it be said that it is still very much alive under some
of our sister Constitutions and is retained in Bristol as a working tool of the
Master Mason.  It is also worthy of note that it had a place in the early
exposures of Freemasonry and must therefore be presumed to have figured in the
workings of the early lodges on which those exposures would have been based.
It was included in some of the diagrams which represented the comtemporary
drawings which at first had to be chalked on the floor of the lodge-room (and
later cleaned off by the candidate) and which afterwards developed into 'floor-
cloths' and then into the tracing boards which we know today.

It would be difficult to arrive at a date for the trowel's removal from the
forms of ritual and the lectures generally in use.  Preston was continuing to
mention it in 1801 so it may have been one of the 'casualties' of the Union of
1813.  Among known instances of its use is that the Inner Guard was at one time
provided with a trowel and that the Entered Apprentice wore it as a badge.

In lodges in Scotland and America, among others, the trowel is among the tools
of a Master Mason, its symbolic use being to spread the cement of brotherly
love.  In Scandinavia it is worn as a breast jewel and it is included in the
jewel which is peculiar to the Pilgrim Lodge of London, which works an old
German ritual.

Of course, it has quite recently been re-introduced to the English Craft as the
collar jewel of the Charity Steward, and Royal Arch masons, Royal and Select
Masters and members of the Royal Order of Scotland will know of its place in
their workings.                              - Frederick Smyth

Ed. note:  In the Emulation Work, I gather the most popular in England, the
Third Degree Working Tools are the skirrett, the pencil and the compasses.  You
will also note the remark that the trowel is retained in Bristol as a working
tool of the Master Mason.  Harry Carr tells us that the United Grand Lodge of
England does not publish, nor does it give its authorization to any specific
form of ritual, either written, printed or spoken.  In other words, there is no
prescribed ritual in England.

LANDMARKS
The November 1993 Northern Light of the N.M.J. Scottish Rite quoted from Louis
L. Williams, Making a Mason at Sight, published by the Illinois Lodge of
Research, 1983.  With all of the confusion on what they are or what they are
not, this would, taken seriously, put the question at rest - but it won't:


When Dr. James Anderson, in his famous Constitutions of 1723, used the phrase,
"Provided always that the old Landmarks be carefully preserv'd," one writer has
charged, and we believe correctly so, that Anderson "was merely using a fine-
sounding phrase, as was his custom, without actually attaching to it, or
intending to attach to it, any precise meaning whatever."  Whether Anderson
meant to or not, he has certainly thrown Masonry into a state of confusion
forever trying to determine what those "old landmarks" are, and how to
"carefully preserv'" them.

Did you know, for example, that even though Mackey's Landmark 21 stated that, "a
book of the law of God must constitute an indispensable part of the furniture of
every lodge," and that it must lie open on the altar of every legally opened
lodge, that this practice did not even begin until about 1760, some 40 years or
more after the formation of the First Grand Lodge and after William Preston by
motion induced the Grand Lodge of England to name the Bible as one of the great
lights.

JOHN J. ROBINSON
A bit from "Tribute' to a Masonic legend" by Richard H. Curtis, 33 in the same
issue:

A memorial service for John was held at the Cincinnati Scottish Rite Cathedral
on September 15 with more than 1500 in attendance.  Participating in the
service, among others, were Thomas W. Jackson, 33, Grand Secretary for the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and Ohio Grand Master H. Ray Evans.

In a tribute, Brother Jackson said, "The influence John Robinson created upon
Freemasonry in three short years is greater than all of us in this room will
create in all the combined years we will put into the craft."

"1 have heard it expressed that what a trajedy for Freemasonry to lose a man of
his calibre after we had just found him," said Jackson.  "My friends, we did
not find him; he found us."

But perhaps the greatest tribute was paid by Grand Master Evans.  "In our
lifetime we will not be privileged to meet another John Robinson," he said. 
"A Masonic legend is dead, but his memory will live in our hearts forever."

HAWAII
A bit of Hawaiian history in the 2nd Quarter 1993 Cable-Tow of Hawaiian Lodge:

The story came about when Brother Nathan Tracy, at the time he was presented
with his 50-year Golden Anniverary Pin, presented the Lodge with a framed
photograph of the "1895 Masonic Temple Citizens Guard" taken in front of the
old Masonic Temple at Hotel and Alakea Streets.

On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii was created, replacing a Provisional
Government that was created on January 17, 1893, when Queen Liliuokalani was
deposed.  A Citizen Guard was commissioned in 1893 as an organized volunteer
militia functioning as an emergency police force assisting the Sheriff's
Departments on Oahu, Hawaii, Maui and Kauai to maintain law and order.  On
January 6-7, 1895, the Royalists staged an unsuccessful rebellion in which two
Royalists and one Government soldier were killed.  The Masonic Temple Unit of
the Citizens Guard was Company 4 of First Division - Honolulu.  With the United
States annexation of the Republic of Hawaii in 1898, the Guard disbanded.


