Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

120 BRITHERING
BROTHERIIOOI'
Brithering. The Scotch term for Masonic
initiation .
British Columbia . The first Lodge established
in this Province was Victoria, No .
783, by the Grand Lodge of England, March
19, 1859, and the first chartered by the
Grand Lodge of Scotland was Vancouver
Lodge in, 1862 .
In 1871 the Grand Lodge of England had
three Lodges in the Province, and the Grand
Lodge of Scotland six Lodges . A convention
was held on the 21st day of October, 1871,
and the Grand Lodge of British Columbia
duly organized . Eight out of the nine Lodges
in the Province were represented . The Provincial
Grand Master of Scotland and the
District Grand Master of England both took
an active interest in the formation of the new
Grand Body, and M . W. Bro . Israel Wood
Powell, M .D ., was unanimously elected Grand
Master .
[Will H . Whyte.]
Broached Thurnel . In the lectures of
the early part of the eighteenth century the
Immovable Jewels of the Lodge are said to be
"the Tarsel Board, Rough Ashlar, and
Broached Thurnel " ; and in describing their
uses it is taught that "the Rough Ashlar is for
the Fellow Crafts to try their jewels on and
the Broached Thurnel for the Entered Apprentices
to learn to work upon ." Much difficulty
has been met with in discovering what
the Broached Thurnel really was . Dr. Oliver,
most probably deceived by the use to which
it was assigned, says (Diet. Symb . Mas.) that
it was subsequently called the Rough Ashlar .
This is evidently incorrect because a distinction
is made in the original lecture between it
and the Rough Ashlar, the former being for
the Apprentices and the latter for the Fellow-
Crafts. Krause (Kunsturkunden, i., 73) has
translated it by Drehbank, which means a
turning-lathe an implement not used by
Operative Masons . Now what is the real
meaning of the word? If we inspect an old
tracing board of the Apprentice's Degree of
the date when the Broached Thurnel was in
use, we shall find depicted on it three symbols,
two of which will at once be recognized as the
Tarsel, or Trestle Board, and the Rough
Ashlar, just as we have them at the present
day ; while the third symbol will be that depicted
in the margin, namely, a cubical stone
with a pyramidal apex . This is the Broached
Thurnel . It is the symbol which is still to be
found, with precisely the same form, in all
French tracing boa, under the name of the
pierre cubique, or cubical stone, and which has
been replaced in English and American tracing
boards and rituals by the Perfect Ashlar .
For the derivation of the words, we must go
to old and now almost obsolete terms of architecture
. On inspection, it will at once be seen
that the Broached Thurnel has the form of a
little square turret with a spire springing
from it . Now, broach, or broche, says Parker
(Gloss . of Terms in Architect ., p . 97), is "an old
English term for a spire, still in use in some
parts of the country, as in Leicestershire,
where it is said to denote a spire springing
from the tower without any intervening parapet
. Thurnel is from the old French tournelle,
a turret or little tower . The Broached Thurnel,
then, was the Spired Turret. It was a
model on which apprentices might learn the
principles of their art, because it presented to
them, in its various outlines, the forms of the
square and the triangle, the cube and the
pyramid ."
[But in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (xii ., 205),
Bro . G. W. Speth quotes from the Imperial
Dictionary :
"Broach, in Scotland, a term among masons,
signifying to rough hew . Broached Work, in
Scotland, a term among masons, signifying
work or stones that are rough-hewn, and thus
distinguished from Ashlar or polished work .
Broaching-Thurmal, Thurmer, Turner, names
given to the chisels by which broached work is
executed ."
And he suggests that the Broached Thurnel
was really a chisel for the Entered Apprentices
to learn to work with.
The new English Dictionary explains
"Broached " as a term used "of stone- chiselled
with a broach," or narrow-pointed chisel
used by masons ; but this still leaves it uncertain
what a "Thurnel " is.-E . L. H .]
Broken Column. Among the Hebrews,
columns, or pillars, were used metaphorically
to signify princes or nobles, as if they were
the pillars of a state . Thus, in Psalm xi . 3, the
passage, reading in our translation, "If the
foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous
do? " is, in the original, "when the columns
are overthrown," i . e., when the firm
supporters of what is right and good have perished
. So the passage in Isaiah xix . 10 should
read : "her (Egypt's) columns are broken
down," that is, the nobles of her state . In
Freemasonry, the broken column is, as Master
Masons well know, the emblem of the fall of
one of the chief supporters of the Craft. The
use of the column or pillar as a monument
erected over a tomb was a very ancient custom,
and was a very significant symbol of the
character and spirit of the person interred .
It is accredited to Jeremy L. Cross that he
first introduced the Broken Column into the
ritual, but this may not be true. (See Monument.)
Brother. The term which Freemasons
apply to each other . Freemasons are Brethren,
not only by common participation of the
human nature, but as professing the same
faith ; as being jointly engaged in the same
labors, and as being united by a mutual covenant
or tie, whence they are also emphatically
called "Brethren of the Mystic Tie ."
(See Companion .)
Brotherhood . When our Savior designated
his disciples as his brethren, he implied
that there was a close bond of union existing
between them, which idea was subsequently
carried out by St . Peter in his direction to
"love the brotherhood ." Hence the early
Christians designated themselves as a brotherhood,
a relationship unknown to the Gentile
religions ; and the ecclesiastical and other con-