THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

also its grace and charm of friendship, of sympathy, service, and
community of interest, and the joy that comes of devotion to a high
and noble art.
When a Mason wished to leave one Lodge and go elsewhere to work, as he
was free to do when he desired, he had no difficulty in making himself
known to the men of his craft by certain signs, grips, and words.[90]
Such tokens of recognition were necessary to men who traveled afar in
those uncertain days, especially when references or other means of
identification were ofttimes impossible. All that many people knew
about the order was that its members had a code of secret signs, and
that no Mason need be friendless or alone when other Masons were
within sight or hearing; so that the very name of the craft came to
stand for any mode of hidden recognition. Steele, in the _Tatler_,
speaks of a class of people who have "their signs and tokens like
Free-masons." There were more than one of these signs and tokens, as
we are more than once told--in the _Harleian MS_, for example, which
speaks of "words and signs." What they were may not be here discussed,
but it is safe to say that a Master Mason of the Middle Ages, were he
to return from the land of shadows, could perhaps make himself known
as such in a Fellowcraft Lodge of today. No doubt some things would
puzzle him at first, but he would recognize the officers of the Lodge,
its form, its emblems, its great altar Light, and its moral truth
taught in symbols. Besides, he could tell us, if so minded, much that
we should like to learn about the craft in the olden times, its hidden
mysteries, the details of its rites, and the meaning of its symbols
when the poetry of building was yet alive.
III
This brings us to one of the most hotly debated questions in Masonic
history--the question as to the number and nature of the degrees made
use of in the old craft lodges. Hardly any other subject has so deeply
engaged the veteran archaeologists of the order, and while it ill
becomes any one glibly to decide such an issue, it is at least
permitted us, after studying all of value that has been written on
both sides, to sum up what seems to be the truth arrived at.[91]
While such a thing as a written record of an ancient degree--aside
from the _Old Charges_, which formed a part of the earliest
rituals--is unthinkable, we are not left altogether to the mercy of
conjecture in a matter so important. Cesare Cantu tells us that the
Comacine Masters "were called together in the Loggie by a grand-master
to treat of affairs common to the order, to receive novices, and
_confer superior degrees on others_."[92] Evidence of a sort similar
is abundant, but not a little confusion will be avoided if the
following considerations be kept in mind:
First, that during its purely operative period the ritual of Masonry
was naturally less formal and ornate than it afterwards became, from
the fact that its very life was a kind of ritual and its symbols were
always visibly present in its labor. By the same token, as it ceased
to be purely operative, and others not actually architects were
admitted to its fellowship, of necessity its rites became more
formal--"_very formall_," as Dugdale said in 1686,[93]--portraying in
ceremony what had long been present in its symbolism and practice.