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

198 DEACON'S
DECALOGUE
Deacons were always the rvxwpol, pylori or
doorkeepers, and in the Apostolical Constitutions
the Deacon was ordered to stand at the
men's door, and the Subdeacon at the women's,
to see that none came in or went out during
the oblation .
In the earliest rituals of the last century,
there is no mention of Deacons, and the
duties of those officers were discharged partly
by the Junior Warden and partly by the
Senior and Junior Entered Apprentices, and
they were not generally adopted in England
until the Union of 1813 .
Deacon's Rod . See Rod, Deacon's.
Deaf and Dumb. Deaf mutes, as imperfect
men, come under the provisions of the
Old Constitutions, and are disqualified for initiation.
Some years ago, however, a Lodge
in Paris, captivated by the eclat of the
proceeding, and unmindful of the ancient landmark,
initiated a deaf mute, who was an intelligent
professor in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum.
All the instructions were given through
the medium of the language of the deaf mutes .
It scarcely need be said that this cannot be
recognized as a precedent .
Death . The Scandinavians, in their Edda,
describing the residence of Death in Hell,
where she was cast by her father, Loke, say
that she there possesses large apartments,
strongly built, and fenced with gates of iron .
Her hall is Grief ; her table, Famine ; Hunger,
her knife ; Delay, her servant ; Faintness,
her porch ; Sickness and Pain, her bed ; and
her tent, Cursing and Howling . But the
Masonic idea of death, like the Christian's, is
accompanied with no gloom, because it is represented
only as a sleep, from whence we
awaken into another life . Among the ancients,
sleep and death were fabled as twins . Old
Gorgias, when dying, said, "Sleep is about to
deliver me up to his brother" ; but the death
sleep of the heathen was a sleep from which
there was no awaking. The popular belief was
annihilation, and the poets and philosophers
fostered the people's ignorance, by describing
death as the total and irremediable extinction
of life . Thus Seneca says-and he was too
philosophic not to have known better-
"that after death there comes nothing" ;
while Virgil, who doubtless had been initiated
into the Mysteries of Eleusis, nevertheless calls
death "an iron sleep, an eternal night" : yet
the Ancient Mysteries were based upon the
dogma of eternal life, and their initiations
were intended to represent a resurrection .
Masonry, deriving its system of symbolic
teachings from these ancient religious associations,
presents death to its neophytes as
the gate or entrance to eternal existence. To
teach the doctrine of immortality is the great
object of the Third Degree . In its ceremonies
we learn that life here is the time of labor, and
that, working at the construction of a spiritual
temple, we are worshiping the Great Architect,
for whom we build that temple . But we
learn also that, when that life is ended, it
closes only to open upon a newer and higher
one, where, in a second temple and a purer
Lodge, the Mason will find eternal truth .
Death, therefore, in Masonic philosophy, is
the symbol of initiation completed, perfected,
and consummated .
Death of the Mysteries . Each of the
ancient religious Mysteries, those quasi-Masonic
associations of the heathen world was
accompanied by a legend-which was always
of a funereal character-representing the
death, by violence, of the deity to whom it was
dedicated, and his subsequent resurrection or
restoration to life . Hence, the first part of the
ceremonies of initiation was solemn and lugubrious
in character, while the latter part
was cheerful and joyous. These ceremonies
and this legend were altogether symbolical,
and the great truths of the unity of God and
the immortality of the soul were by them intended
to be dramatically explained .
This representation of death, which finds
its analogue in the Third Degree of Masonry,
has been technically called the Death of the
Mysteries. It is sometimes more precisely
defined, in reference to any special one of the
Mysteries, as "the Cabiric death" or "the
Bacchic death," as indicating the death represented
in the Mysteries of the Cabiri or of
Dionysus.
Debate. Debates in a Masonic Lodge
must be conducted according to the fraternal
principles of the Institution . In the language
of Dr. Oliver, "the strictest courtesy should
be observed during a debate, in a Mason's
Lodge, on questions which elicit a difference
of opinion ; and any gross violation of decorum
and good order is sure to be met by an admonition
from the chair." It must be always remembered
that the object of a Masonic discussion
is to elicit truth, and not simply to
secure victory.
When, in a debate, a brother desires to
speak, he rises and addresses the chair . The
presiding officer calls him by his name, and
thus recognizes his right to the floor . While he
is speaking, he is not to be interrupted by any
other member, except on a point of order. If
called to order by any member, the speaker is
immediately to take his seat until the point is
stated, when the Master will make his decision
without debate . The speaker will then rise
and resume his discourse, if not ruled out by
the Master. During the time that he is speaking,
no motion is permissible . Every member
is permitted to speak once on the subject
under discussion ; nor can he speak a second
time, except by permission of the Master,
unless there is a more liberal provision in the
by-laws of the Lodge. There are to this rule
two exceptions, namely, when a member rises
to explain, and when the mover of the resolution
closes the debate by a second speech to
which he is entitled by parliamentary law .
Decalogue. The ten commandments of
the Masonic law, as delivered from Mt .
Sinai and recorded in the twentieth chapter
of Exodus, are so called . They are not obligar
tory upon a Mason as a Mason, because the
Institution is tolerant and cosmopolite, and
cannot require its members to give their ad-