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

450 LODGE
LODGE
meeting over which he had presided, unless the
Lodge was permanently established at any
particular place . To the general assembly of
the Craft, held once or twice a year, all the
brethren indiscriminately were amenable, and
to that power alone . But on the formation of
Grand Lodges, this inherent right of assembling
was voluntarily surrendered by the
brethren and the Lodges, and vested in the
Grand Lodge . And from this time Warrants
of Constitution date their existence .
The mode of bringing a Lodge into existence
under the present system in America is as follows
: Seven Master Masons, being desirous
of establishing a Lodge, apply by petition to
the Grand Master, who will, if he thinks
proper, issue his dispensation authorizing
them to congregate as Masons in a Lodge, and
therein to confer the three degrees of Ancient
Craft Masonry . This instrument is of force
during the pleasure of the Grand Master. At
the next meeting of the Grand Lodge it expires,
and is surrendered to the Grand Lodge,
which, if there be no objection, will issue a
Charter, technically called a Warrant of Constitution,
whereby the body is permanently
established as a Lodge, and as one of the constituents
of the Grand Lodge .
The power of granting Warrants of Constitution
is vested in the Grand Lodges of Scotland,
Ireland, Germany, and France, as it is in
America ; but in England the rule is different,
and there the prerogative is vested in the
Grand Master.
A Lodge thus constituted consists, in the
American system, of the following officers :
Worshipful Master, Senior and Junior Wardens,
Treasurer, Secretary, Senior and Junior
Deacons, two Stewards, and a Tiler .
Under the English Constitution the officers
are, in addition to these, a Director of Ceremonies,
a Chaplain, an Inner Guard, an Organist
and an Almoner .
In a Lodge of the French Rite, the officers
are still more numerous . They are Le Venerable
or Worshipful Master, Premier and
Second Surveillants or Senior and Junior
Wardens, Orator, Treasurer, Secretary, Hospitaler
or Collector of Alms, the Expert, combining
the duties of the Senior Deacon and an
examining committee, Master of Ceremonies,
Architecte, who attends to the decoration of
the Lodge, and superintends the financial
department, Archiviste or Librarian, Keeper
of the Seal, Master of the Banquets or Steward,
and Guardian of the Temple or Tiler .
The officers in a Lodge of the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite are a Master, two
Wardens, Orator, Treasurer, Secretary, Almoner,
Expert, Assistant Expert, Master of
Ceremonies, Almoner Steward, Tiler, and
sometimes a few others as Pursuivant, and
Keeper of the Seals .
In other Rites and countries the officers
vary to a slight extent, but everywhere there
are four officers who always are found, and who
may therefore be considered as indispensable,
namely, the Master, two Wardens and Tiler .
A Lodge thus constituted is a Lodge of
Master Masons . Strictly and legally speaking,
such a body as a Lodge of Entered Apprentices
or of Fellow-Crafts is not known
under the present Masonic system . No Warrant
is ever granted for an Apprentices' or
Fellow-Crafts' Lodge, and without a Warrant
a Lodge cannot exist . The Warrant granted
is always for a Masters' Lodge, and the members
composing it are all Master Masons . The
Lodges mentioned by Wren and Hope, to
which allusion has been made, and which were
congregated, in the Middle Ages, around the
edifices which the Masons were constructing,
were properly Fellow-Crafts' Lodge, because
all the members were Fellow-Crafts ; even the
Master being merely a gradation of rank, not
a degree of knowledge . So at the revival of
Masonry in 1717, the Lodges were Entered
Apprentices' Lodges, because in them nothing
but the First Degree was conferred, and nearly
all the members were Entered Apprentices .
But when the Grand Lodge, where only at
first the Fellow-Craft and Master's Degree
were conferred, permitted them to be conferred
in the subordinate Lodges, then the degree of
Master Mason was sought for by all the
Craft, and became the object of every Mason's
ambition. From that time the Craft became
master Masons, and the First and Second
degrees were considered only as preliminary
steps. So it has remained to this day ; and
all modern Lodges, wherever Masonry has extended,
are Masters' Lodges, and nothing less .
Sometimes secretaries, ignorant of these
facts, will record in their minutes that "the
Lodge of Master Masons was closed and a
Lodge of Entered Apprentices was opened ."
Neither written nor unwritten law sanctions
any such phraseology . If the Lodge of Master
Masons is closed, there is an end of the
Masonic congregation . Where is the Warrant
under which a Lodge of Entered Apprentices
is opened, and how can a Lodge, in which
there is not, probably, a single Apprentice,
but where all the officers and all the members
are Master Masons, be called a Lodge of Apprentices?
The ritual has wisely provided for
the avoidance of such an anomaly, and, seeing
that the Warrant says that the Lodge of Master
Masons is empowered to make Apprentices
and Fellow-Crafts, it says "the Lodge
was opened on the first degree ." That is to
say, the Lodge of Masters still retaining its
character as a Masters' Lodge, without which
it would lose its legality, and not venturing to
open a kind of Lodge for which its members
had no Warrant nor authority, simply placed
itself on the points of a degree in which it was
about to give instruction .
Some of the rituals speak, it is true, of
Lodges composed in ancient times of Masters
and Fellow-Crafts or Masters and Apprentices
; and the Webb lectures tell us that at
the Temple of Solomon the Lodges of Entered
Apprentices consisted of one Master
and six Apprentices, and the Lodges of Fellow-Crafts
of two Masters and three Fellow-
Crafts . But all this is purely symbolic, and
has no real existence in the practical working