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

16 ADAREL
ADDRESSES
the civil and the twelfth of the ecclesiastical
year of the Jews . It corresponds to a part of
February and of March.
Adarel . Angel of Fire. Referred to in the
Hermetic degree of Knight of the Sun. Probably
from TItt, Adr, splendor, and Sit, El,
God, i . e ., the splendor of God or Divine splendor
.
Addresses, Masonic. Dr . Oliver, speaking
of the Masonic discourses which began to be
published soon after the reorganization of
Masonry, in the commencement of the eighteenth
century, and which he thinks were instigated
by the attacks made on the Order, to
which they were intended to be replies, says :
" Charges and addresses were therefore delivered
by, brethren in authority on the fundamental
principles of the Order, and they were
printed to show that its morality was sound,
and not in the slightest degree repugnant to
the precepts of our most holy religion . These
were of sufficient merit to insure a wide circulation
among the Fraternity, from whence
they spread into the world at large and
proved decisive in fixing the credit of tie Institution
for solemnities of character and a
taste for serious and profitable investigations
."
There can be no doubt that these addresses,
periodically delivered and widely published,
have continued to exert an excellent effect in
behalf of the Institution, by explaining and
defending the principles on which it is founded .
The first Masonic address of which we have
any notice was delivered on the 24th of June,
1721, before the Grand Lodge of England, by
the celebrated John Theophilus Desaguliers,
LL.D . and F .R .S . The Book of Constitutions
(ed . 1738, p. 113) under that date, says
" Bro . Desaguliers made an eloquent oration
about Masons and Masonry ." Dr . Oliver
(Revelations of a Square, p . 22) states that
this address was issued in a printed form, but
no copy of it now remains-at least it has escaped
the researches of the most diligent Mar
sonic bibliographers .
On the 20th of May, 1725, Martin Folkes,
then Deputy Grand Master, delivered an address
before the Grand Lodge of England,
which is cited in the Freemason's Pocket Companion
for 1759, but no entire copy of the address
is now extant .
The third Masonic address of which we have
any knowledge is one entitled " A Speech delivered
to the Worshipful and Ancient Society
of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand
Lodge held at Merchants' Hall, in the city of
York, on St . John's Day Dec . 27, 1726, the
Right Worshipful Charces Bathurst, Esq.,
Grand Master . By the Junior Grand Warden .
Olim meminisse juvabit . York: Printed by
Thomas Gent, for the benefit of the Lodge . '
The author was Francis Drake, M .D., F.R.S.,
who was appointed Junior Grand Warden of
the Grand Lodge of All England at York on December
27, 1725 . (See Drake, Francis .) The
first edition of the speech bears no date, but
was probably issued in 1727, and it was again
published at London in 1729, and a second
London edition was published in 1734, which
has been reprinted in Hughan's Masonic
Sketches and Reprints (American edition,
p . 106) . This is, therefore, the earliest Masonic
address to which we have access . It
contains a brief sketch of the history of Masonry,
written as Masonic history was then
written. It is, however, remarkable for advancing
the claim of the Grand Lodge of York
to a superiority over that of London, and for
containing a very early reference to the three
degrees of Craft Masonry .
The fourth Masonic address of whose existence
we have any knowledge is " a Speech
Deliver'd to the Worshipful Society of Free
and Accepted Masons, at a Lodge, held at the
Carpenters Arms in Silver-Street, Golden
Square, the 31st of December, 1728. By the
Right Worshipful Edw . Oakley, Architect,
M .M ., late Provincial Senior Grand Warden
in Carmarthen South Wales." This s eech
was reprinted ~y Cole in his Ancient Constitutions
at London in 1731 .
America has the honor of presenting the
next attempt at Masonic oratory . The fifth
address, and the first American, which is extant,
is one delivered in Boston, Mass . on
June 24, 1734 . It is entitled "A :Dissertation
upon Masonry, delivered to a Lodge
in America, June 24th 1734 . Christ's Regm ."
It was discovered by i3ro . C. W . Moore in the
archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts,
and published by him in his magazine in 1849 .
This address is well written, and of a symbolic
character, as the author allegorizes the Lodge
as a type of heaven.
And, sixthly , we have " An Address made to
the body of Free and Accepted Masons assembled
at a Quarterly Communication, held
near Temple Bar, December 11, 1735, by Martin
Clare, Junior Grand Warden." Martin
Clare was distinguished in his times as a
Mason, and his address, which Dr. Oliver has
inserted in his Golden Remains, has been considered
of value enough to be translated into
the French and German languages .
Next, on March 21, 1737, the Chevalier
Ramsay delivered an oration before the Grand
Lodge of France, in which he attributed the
origin of Freemasonry to the Crusaders and
traced an imaginary history of its course
through Scotland and England into France .
which was to become the center of the reformed
Order. The best report of this speed
is to be found in the Histoire &c . de la tr .
ven. Confraternitk des F . M . &c. Traduit pa ;
le Fr . de la Tierce. Francfort, 1742 ; and an
English version of it is given in Gould's His.
tory of Freemasonry (iii ., 84-9) . (See Ram-
'say Ater this period, Masonic addresses rapidly
multiplied, so that it would be impossible to
record their titles or even the names of their
authors .
What Martial (i ., 17) says of his own apigrams,
that some were good, some bad, and s
great many middling, may with equal pro.
priety and justice, be said of Masonic ad •
dresses. Of the thousands that have been de