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

"I received from the lodge at Ashley a petition to initiate into our
Order
a gentleman of high respectability, who, unfortunately, has been
maimed. I
refused my assent.... I have also refused a similar request from the
lodge
of which I am a member. The fact that the most distinguished masonic
body
on earth has recently removed one of the landmarks, should teach _us_
to
be careful how we touch those ancient boundaries."--_Address of the
Grand
Master of New Jersey in 1849._
"The Grand Lodge of Florida adopted such a provision in her
constitution,
[the qualifying clause permitting the initiation of a maimed person, if
his deformity was not such as to prevent his instruction], but more
mature reflection, and more light reflected from our sister Grand
Lodges,
caused it to be stricken from our constitution."--_Address of Gov. Tho.
Brown, Grand Master of Florida in_ 1849.
"As to the physical qualifications, the Ahiman Rezon leaves no doubt on
the subject, but expressly declares, that every applicant for
initiation
must be a man, free-born, of lawful age, in the perfect enjoyment of
his
senses, hale, and sound, and not deformed or dismembered; this is one
of
the ancient landmarks of the Order, which it is in the power of no body
of
men to change. A man having but one arm, or one leg, or who is in
anyway
deprived of his due proportion of limbs and members, is as incapable of
initiation as a woman."--_Encyclical Letter of the Grand Lodge of South
Carolina to its subordinates in_ 1849.
Impressed, then, by the weight of these authorities, which it would be
easy, but is unnecessary, to multiply--guided by a reference to the
symbolic and speculative (not operative) reason of the law--and
governed
by the express words of the regulation of 1683--I am constrained to
believe that the spirit as well as the letter of our ancient landmarks
require that a candidate for admission should be perfect in all his
parts, that is, neither redundant nor deficient, neither deformed nor
dismembered, but of hale and entire limbs, as a man ought to be.
Section III.
_Of the Intellectual Qualifications of Candidates._