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

140 CHAILLOU
CHALDEAN
shall, on such application, exhibit a Grand
Lodge certificate, duly attested by the proper
authorities, except he is known to the Lodge to
be a worthy brother."
The certificate system has been warmly discussed
by the Grand Lodges of the United
States, and considerable opposition to it has
been made by some of them on the ground
that it is an innovation . If it is an innovation,
it certainly is not one of the present day,
as we may learn from the Regulations made in
General Assembly of the Masons of En gland,
on St . John the Evangelist's day, 1663, during
the Grand Mastership of the Earl of St .
Albans, one of which reads as follows :
"That no person hereafter who shall be
accepted a Freemason shall be admitted into
any Lodge or Assembly, until he has brought
a certificate of the time and place of his acceptation
from the Lodge that accepted him,
unto the Master of that limit or division where
such Lodge is kept ." (Constitutions, 1738, p .
101 .)
ChaWou de Joinville. He played an
important part in the Freemasonry of France
about the middle of the last century, especially
during the schisms which at that time
existed in the Grand Lodge . In 1761, he was
an active member of the Council of Emperors
of the East and West, or Rite of Perfection,
which had been established in 1758 .
Under the title of "Substitute General of the
Order, Ven . Master of the First Lodge in
France, called St . Anthony's, Chief of the
Eminent Degrees, Commander, and Sublime
Prince of the Royal Secret, etc ., etc ., etc .,"
he signed the Patent of Stephen Morin, authorizing
him to extend the Royal Order in
America, which was the first step that subsequently
led to the establishment of the Ancient
and Accepted Rite in the United States .
In 1762, the Prince of Clermont, Grand Master
of the Grand Lodge of France, removed
the dancing-master Lacorne, whom he had
previously appointed his Substitute General,
and who had become distasteful to the respectable
members of the Grand Lodge, and
put Chaillou de Joinville in his place. This
action created a schism in the Grand Lodge,
during which De Joinville ap pears to have
acted with considerable energy, but eventually
he became almost as notorious as his predecessor,
by issuing irregular charters and de putations
. On the death of the Prince of Clermont,
in 1771, the Lacornists regained much of
their influence, and De Joinville appears
quietly to have passed away from the field of
French Masonry and Masonic intrigues .
Chain, Mystic . To form the mystic chain
is for the Brethren to make a circle, holding
each other by the hands, as in surrounding a
grave, etc . Each Brother crosses his arms in
front of his body, so as to give his right hand
to his left-hand neighbor, and his left hand to
his right-hand neighbor . The French call it
chaine d'union . It is a symbol of the close connection
of all Masons in one common brotherhood
.
Chain of Flowers. In French Masonry,
when a Lodge celebrates the day of its foundation,
or the semicentennial membership of
one of the Brethren, or at the initiation of a
louveteau (q . v .) the room is decorated with
wreaths of flowers called "chaine de fleurs ."
Chain of Union . See Chain, Mystic .
Chain, Triangular. One of the legends
of Freemasonry tells us that when the Jewish
Masons were carried as captives from Jerusalem
to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar they
were bound by triangular chains, which was
intended as an additional insult, because to
them the triangle, or delta, was a symbol of
the Deity, to be used only on sacred occasions .
The legend is of course apocryphal, and is
worth nothing except as a legendary symbol .
Chair. A technical term signifying the
office of Master of a Lodge . Thus "he is eligible
to the chair " is equivalent to "he is eligible
to the office of Master ." The word is
ap lied in the same sense to the presiding
officer in other Masonic bodies .
Chairman. The presiding officer of a
meeting or committee . In all committees of a
Lodge, the Worshipful Master, if he chooses to
attend, is ex-officio chairman ; as is the Grand
Master of any meeting of the Craft when he is
present .
Chair, Master in the . The German
Masons call the Worshipful Master "der
Meister im Stuhl," or the Master in the
Chair.
Chair, Oriental . The seat or office of the
Master of a Lodge is thus called-sometimes,
more fully, the "Oriental Chair of King Solomon
."
Chair, Passing the . The ceremony of
inducting the Master-elect of a Lodge into his
office is called "passing the chair ." He who
has once presided over a Lodge as its Master
is said to have "passed the chair," hence the
title "Past Master ."
Chaldea. A large tract of country, lying
in a nearly northwest and southeast direction
for a distance of four hundred miles along the
course of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris,
with an average width of one hundred miles .
The kingdom of Chaldea, of which Babylon
was the chief city, is celebrated in Masonic
history as the place where the Jewish captives
were conducted after the destruction of Jerusalem
. At that time Nebuchadnezzar was the
king. His successors during the captivity,
were Evilmerodach, N'eriglissar, Labosordacus
and Belshazzar. In the seventeenth year ol
his reign, the city of Babylon was taken and
the Chaldean kin gdom subverted by Cyrus,
King of Persia, who terminated the captivity
of the Jews, and restored them to their native
countr y
Chaldean Cylinder . The cylinder so
recently discovered by Mr . Rassam in the
course of his excavations in Babylonia, which
has greatly attracted the attention of the London
Society of Biblical Archeology, is one of the
most remarkable yet made known, by reason
of the lig ht it throws upon the ancient chronology
of the Chaldean Empire . It dates from
the time of Nabonides, and records, among