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

twenty-six names, including his own. It is the only list of the kind
known in England, and a careful examination of all the sources of
information relative to the Chester men shows that nearly all of them
were Accepted Masons. Later on we come to the _Natural History of
Staffordshire_, by Dr. Plott, 1686, in which, though in an unfriendly
manner, we are told many things about Craft usages and regulations of
that day. Lodges had to be formed of at least five members to make a
quorum, gloves were presented to candidates, and a banquet following
initiations was a custom. He states that there were several signs and
passwords by which the members were able "to be known to one another
all over the nation," his faith in their effectiveness surpassing that
of the most credulous in our day.
Still another striking record is found in _The Natural History of
Wiltshire_, by John Aubrey, the MS of which in the Bodleian Library,
Oxford, is dated 1686; and on the reverse side of folio 72 of this MS
is the following note by Aubrey: "This day [May 18, 1681] is a great
convention at St. Pauls Church of the fraternity, of the free [then he
crossed out the word Free and inserted Accepted] Masons; where Sir
Christopher Wren is to be adopted a Brother: and Sir Henry Goodric of
ye Tower and divers others."[112] From which we may infer that there
were Assemblies before 1717, and that they were of sufficient
importance to be known to a non-Mason. Other evidence might be
adduced, but this is enough to show that Speculative Masonry, so far
from being a novelty, was very old at the time when many suppose it
was invented. With the great fire of London, in 1666, there came a
renewed interest in Masonry, many who had abandoned it flocking to the
capital to rebuild the city and especially the Cathedral of St. Paul.
Old Lodges were revived, new ones were formed, and an effort was made
to renew the old annual, or quarterly, Assemblies, while at the same
time Accepted Masons increased both in numbers and in zeal.
Now the crux of the whole matter as regards Accepted Masons lies in
the answer to such questions as these: Why did soldiers, scholars,
antiquarians, clergymen, lawyers, and even members of the nobility ask
to be accepted as members of the order of Free-masons? Wherefore their
interest in the order at all? What attracted them to it as far back as
1600, and earlier? What held them with increasing power and an
ever-deepening interest? Why did they continue to enter the Lodges
until they had the rule of them? There must have been something more
in their motive than a simple desire for association, for they had
their clubs, societies, and learned fellowships. Still less could a
mere curiosity to learn certain signs and passwords have held such men
for long, even in an age of quaint conceits in the matter of
association and when architecture was affected as a fad. No, there is
only one explanation: that these men saw in Masonry a deposit of the
high and simple wisdom of old, preserved in tradition and taught in
symbols--little understood, it may be, by many members of the
order--and this it was that they sought to bring to light, turning
history into allegory and legend into drama, and making it a teacher
of wise and beautiful truth.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] There is a beautiful lecture on the moral meaning of Geometry by
Dr. Hutchinson, in _The Spirit of Masonry_--one of the oldest, as it is
one of the noblest, books in our Masonic literature. Plutarch reports