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

FRANKS
FREDERICK 279
no record of the fact can be found . In 1734,
Franklin edited an edition of Anderson's Constitutions,
which was probably the first Masonic
work published in America .
In 1743 Thomas Oxnard was appointed Provincial
Grand Master of all North America
and he appointed Franklin Provincial Gram
Master of Pennsylvania.
While Franklin was in France as the Ambassador
from this country, he appears to
have taken much interest in Masonry . He
affiliated with the celebrated Lodge of the
Nine Sisters, of which Lalande, Count de
Gebelin, and other celebrities of French literature,
were members . He took a prominent
part in the initiation of Voltaire, and on his
death acted as Senior Warden of the Lodge
of Sorrow held in his memory . The Lodge
of the Nine Sisters held Franklin in such
esteem that it struck a medal in his honor, of
which a copy, supposed to be the only one
now in existence, belongs to the Provincial
Grand Lodge of Mecklenburg. [E . L . H .]
Franks, Order of Regenerated . A polittical
brotherhood that was instituted in
France in 1815, flourished for a while, and
imitated in its ceremonies the Masonic
fraternity .
Frater. Latin, Brother . A term borrowed
from the monks by the Military Orders
of the Middle Ages, and applied by the members
to each other . It is constantly employed
in England by the Masonic Knights Templays,
and is beginning to be adopted, although not
very generally,, in the United States. When
speaking of two or more, it is an error of
ignorance, sometimes committed, to call them
fraters . The correct plural is fratres.
Fraternally. The usual mode of subscription
to letters written by one Mason to
another is, "I remain, fraternally, yours ."
Fraternity . The word was originally used
to designate those associations formed m the
Roman Catholic Church for the pursuit of
special religious and ecclesiastical purposes,
such as the nursing of the sick, the support of
the poor, the practise of particular devotions,
etc. They do not date earlier than the thirteenth
century . The name was subsequently
applied to secular associations, such as the
Freemasons . The word is only a Latin form
of the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood.
In the earliest lectures of the last century
we find the word fraternity alluded to in the
following formula :
"Q . How many particular points pertain
to a Freemason?
"A . Three : Fraternity, Fidelity, and Taciturnity
.
"Q. What do they represent?
"A . Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth
among all Right Masons ."
Fraternize. To recognize as a brother ; to
associate with Masonically .
Frederick of Nassau . Prince Frederick,
son of the King of the Netherlands, and for
many years the Grand Master of the National
Grand Lodge of that kingdom . He was ambitious
of becoming a Masonic reformer, and
in addition to his connection with the Charter
of Cologne, an account of which has been
given under that head, he attempted, in 1819,
to introduce a new Rite . He denounced the
high degrees as being contrary to the true
intent of Masonry ; and in a circular to all the
Lodges under the obedience of the National
Grand Lodge, he proposed a new system, to
consist of five degrees, namely, the three
symbolic, and two more as complements or
illustrations of the third, which he called
Elect Master and Supreme Elect Master .
Some few Lodges adopted this new system
but most of them rejected it . The Grand
Chapter, whose existence it had attacked,
denounced it . The Lodges practising it in
Belgium were dissolved in 1830, but a few of
them probably still remain in Holland . The
full rituals of the two supplementary degrees
are printed in the second volume of Hermes,
and an attentive perusal of them does not give
an exalted idea of the inventive genius of the
Prince.
Frederick the Great. Frederick II .,
King of Prussia, surnamed the Great, was born
on the 24th of January, 1712, and died on the
17th of August, 1786, at the age of seventyfour
years and a few months. He was initiated
as a Mason, at Brunswick, on the night
of the 14th of August, 1738, not quite two
years before he ascended the throne .
In English, we have two accounts of this
initiation,-one by Campbell, in his work on
Frederick the Great and his Times and the
other by Carlyle in his History of Frederick
the Second . Both are substantially the same,
because both are merely translations of the
original account given by Bielfeld in his
Freundschaftliche Briefe, or Familiar Letters.
The Baron von Bielfeld was, at the time,
an intimate companion of the Prince, and was
present at the initiation .
Bielfeld tells us that in a conversation
which took place on the 6th of August at Loo
(but Carlyle corrects him as to time and
place, and says it probably occurred at Minden,
on the 17th of July), the Institution of
Freemasonry had been enthusiastically lauded
b~y the Count of Lippe Buckeburg. The
Crown Prince soon after privately expressed
to the Count his wish to join the society . Of
course, this wish was to be gratified . The
necessary furniture and asistance for conferring
the degrees were obtained from the Lodge
at Hamburg. Biefeld gives an amusing account
of the embarrassments which were
encountered in passing the chest containing
the Masonic implements through the customhouse
without detection . Campbell, quoting
from Bielfeld, says :
"The whole of the 14th (August) was spent
in pre ations for the Lodge, and at twelve
at ni t the Prince Royal arrived, accompani
by Count Wartensleben, a captain in
the king's regiment at Potsdam . The Prince
introduced him to us as a candidate whom he
very warmly recommended, and begged that he
might be admitted immediately after himself .
At the same time, he desired that he might be