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

CENSURE
CERTIFICATE 139
found where the Lodge has its own private
house, in which, on certain days, mixed assemblies
are held of Freemasons and their
families and friends. Of those assemblies the
Censor has the superintendence .
Censure . In Masonic law, the mildest
form of punishment that can be inflicted, and
may be defined to be a formal expression of
disapprobation, without other result than the
effect produced upon the feelings of him who
is censured . It is adopted by a resolution of
the Lodge on a motion made at a regular communication
; it requires only a bare majority
of votes, for its passage does not affect the
Masonic standing of the person censured, and
may be revoked at any subsequent regular
communication .
Centaine, Order of. A mystical society
of the last century which admitted females .
It was organized at Bordeaux, in 1735 . (Thory,
Acta Latomorum, i ., 298 .)
Centennial. That which happens every
hundred years. Masonic bodies that have
lasted for that period very generally celebrate
the occasion by a commemorative festival .
On the 4th of November, 1852, almost all of
the Lodges of the United States celebrated the
centennial anniversary of the initiation of
George Washington as a Freemason .
Centralists . A society which existed in
Europe from 1770 to 1780. It made use of
Masonic forms at its meetings simply to conceal
its secrets . Lenning calls it an alchemical
association, but says that it had religious and
political tendencies . Gadicke thinks that its
object was to propagate Jesuitism .
Central Point. See Point within a
Circle.
Center, Opening on the. In the English
ritual, a Master Mason's Lodge is said to be
opened on the center, because the Brethren
present, being all Master Masons, are equally
near and equally distant from that imaginary
central point which among Masons constitutes
perfection . Neither of the preliminary
degrees can assert the same conditions, because
the Lodge of an Entered Apprentice
may contain all the three classes, and that of a
Fellow-Craft may include some Master Masons
; and therefore the doctrine of perfect
equality is not carried out in either. An attempt
was made, but without success, in the
Trestle Board, published under the sanction of
the Baltimore Masonic Convention, to introduce
the custom into the American Lodges .
Cephas . A word which in the Syriac signifies
a rock or stone, and is the name which
was bestowed by Christ upon Simon, when
he said to him, "Thou art a rock," which the
Greeks rendered by n€-rpos, and the Latins
by Petrus, both words meaning "a rock." It
is used in the degree of Royal Master, and
there alludes to the Stone of Foundation, which
see .
Ceremonies. The outer garments which
cover and adorn Freemasonry as clothing does
the human body. Although ceremonies give
neither life nor truth to doctrines or principles,
yet they have an admirable influence, since by
their use certain things are made to acquire a
sacred character which they would not otherwise
have had ; and hence, Lord Coke has
most wisely said that "prudent antiquity
did, for more solemnity and better memory
and observation of that which is to be done,
express substances under ceremonies ."
Ceremonies, Master of. See Master of
Ceremonies .
Ceres . Among the Romans, the goddess
of agriculture ; but among the more poetic
Greeks she was worshiped under the name of
Demeter, as the symbol of the prolific earth .
To her is attributed the institution of the
Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, the most popular
of all the ancient initiations .
Ceridwen. The Isis of the Druids .
Cerneau, Joseph . A French jeweler,
born at Villeblerin, in 1763, who in the be inning
of the nineteenth century remove to
the City of New York, where in 1807 he established
a spurious body under the title of
"Sovereign Grand Consistory of the United
States of America, its Territories and Dependencies
." This Masonic charlatan, who
claimed the right to organize bodies of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was
expelled and his pretensions denounced, in
1813, by the legal Supreme Council sitting at
Charleston, South Carolina. Cerneau and his
adherents gave much trouble in the Scottish
Rite for many years, and the bodies which he
had formed were not entirely dissolved until
long after the establishment of a legal Supreme
Council for the Northern Jurisdiction .
Certificate . A diploma issued by a Grand
Lodge or by a subordinate Lodge under its
authority, testifying that the holder thereof
is a true and trusty Brother, and recommending
him to the hospitality of the Fraternity
abroad . The character of this instrument
has sometimes been much misunderstood.
It is by no means intended to act
as a voucher for the bearer, nor can it be
allowed to supersede the necessity of a strict
examination . A stranger, however, having
been tried and proved by a more unerring
standard, his certificate then properly comes in
as an auxiliary testimonial, and will be permitted
to afford good evidence of his correct
standing in his Lodge at home ; for no body of
Masons, true to the principles of their Order,
would grant such an instrument to an unworthy
Brother, or to one who, they feared,
might make an improper use of it . But though
the presence of a Grand Lodge certificate
be in general required as collateral evidence
of worthiness to visit, or receive aid, its accidental
absence, which may arise in various
ways, as from fire, captivity, or shipwreck,
should not debar a strange Brother from the
rights guaranteed to him by our Institution,
provided he can offer other evidence of his
good character . The Grand Lodge of New
York has, upon this subject, taken the proper
stand in the following regulation : "That no
Mason be admitted to any subordinate Lodge
under the jurisdiction of this Grand Lodge, or
receive the charities of any Lodge, unless he