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

In the Ahiman Rezon published by Laurence Dermott in 1764, and adopted
for
the government of the Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons in England,
and
many of the Provincial Grand and subordinate lodges of America, the
regulation is laid down that candidates must be "men of good report,
free-born, of mature age, not deformed nor dismembered at the time of
their making, and no woman or eunuch." It is true that at the present
day
this book possesses no legal authority among the craft; but I quote it,
to
show what was the interpretation given to the ancient law by a large
portion, perhaps a majority, of the English and American Masons in the
middle of the eighteenth century.
A similar interpretation seems at all times to have been given by the
Grand Lodges of the United States, with the exception of some, who,
within
a few years past, have begun to adopt a more latitudinarian
construction.
In Pennsylvania it was declared, in 1783, that candidates are not to be
"deformed or dismembered at the time of their making."
In South Carolina the book of Constitutions, first published in 1807,
requires that "every person desiring admission must be upright in body,
not deformed or dismembered at the time of making, but of hale and
entire
limbs, as a man ought to be."
In the "Ahiman Rezon and Masonic Ritual," published by order of the
Grand
Lodge of North Carolina and Tennessee, in the year 1805, candidates are
required to be "hale and sound, not deformed or dismembered at the time
of
their making."[62]
Maryland, in 1826, sanctioned the Ahiman Rezon of Cole, which declares
the law in precisely the words of South Carolina, already quoted.
In 1823, the Grand Lodge of Missouri unanimously adopted a report,
which
declared that all were to be refused admission who were not "sound in
mind
and _all their members_," and she adopted a resolution asserting that
"the
Grand Lodge cannot grant a letter or dispensation to a subordinate
lodge
working under its jurisdiction, to initiate any person maimed,
disabled,
or wanting the qualifications establishing by ancient usage."[63]
But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. There never seems to have
been any deviation from the principle that required absolute physical
perfection, until, within a few years, the spirit of expediency[64] has
induced some Grand Lodges to propose a modified construction of the
law,