1-34 Ritual Differences
THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic Service Association of the United States VOL. 12 January
1934 NO. 1
An experience in Freemasonry usually upsetting to the newly Raised brother is his first visit to a Lodge in another Jurisdiction than his own. Having carefully been taught a certain ritual, in all probability with positive emphasis upon the necessity of being "letter perfect", he learns with a distinct shock that the ritual in other States differs from his own, and that these differ each from the other.
If he converses with those "WELL INFORMED BRETHREN WHO WILL ALWAYS BE AS READY TO GIVE AS YOU WILL BE TO RECEIVE INSTRUCTION" he is more than apt to be met with a puzzled, "I don't know, I'm sure, just why they are different from us, but, of course, ours is correct."
The riddle becomes much plainer as the neophyte studies Masonic history - but alas, many never open a Masonic book! Yet divergences in ritual cannot be understood without some historical background. IT is necessary to understand, for instance, that Freemasonry came to this country, some time prior to 1731, at a time when English ritual was in process of formation. We did not receive our Masonry from one central source, but from several; nor did we obtain it as a whole. Several different localities (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia) received Freemasonry from across the sea and from them our forms and ceremonies radiated to other sections. The schism in the first Grand Lodge in England (1753) resulted in two Grand Lodges; the "Ancients" (the younger, schismatic body) and the "Moderns" (the older, original Grand Lodge). Each had its own ritual; our rituals sometimes lean to one, sometimes to the other, and often to both. Literal ritualism is comparatively a modern matter; and "mouth to ear" in early days meant nothing more than the giving of information, not transmitting it in a set form of words. Most of our Grand Lodges have been formed by a union of particular Lodges many of which received each its ritual from a different American source, with the result that the ritual finally adopted is a combination of several. And finally, Grand Lodges have not infrequently changed, added to and taken from their own rituals, either as a matter of legislation or by the easier course (in early days) of adopting with little or no question the variations suggested by positive minded ritualists, Grand Lecturers, Custodians of the Work, Ritual Committees and so on. Some of these, unfortunately, had little or no Masonic background, and changed and altered, added and subtracted with no better reason than "this seems much better to us!
Certain fundamentals are to all intents and purposes the same in every one of our forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions. All American Lodges have a Master and two Wardens, a Secretary and Treasurer, and Altar with the V. S. L. and the other Great Lights; lesser lights, three degrees; unanimous ballot required; make Masons only of men; have the same Substitute Word given in the same way; are tiled; have a ceremony of opening and closing. To some extent all dramatize and exemplify the Master's Degree, although the amount of drama and exemplification differs widely.
But beyond these and a few other simple essentials are wide variations.
Aprons are worn one way in one degree in one Jurisdiction and another
way in the same degree in another. Some Jurisdictions have more officers
in a Lodge than others. In some Jurisdictions Lodges open and close on
the Master Mason's Degree; others on the First Degree; others only in
the degree which is to be worked." Lesser Lights are grouped closely
about the Altar, in a triangle to one side of the Altar, in the stations
of the Master and Wardens. In some Lodges the I. P. M. (Immediate Past
Master) plays an important part, as in England. Other Lodges know him
not. Some Lodges have Inner Guards and two Masters of Ceremonies -
others will have none of these. Dividing, lettering, syllabling are
almost as various in practice as the Jurisdictions. Obligations show
certain similarities in some requirements; but what is a part of the
obligation in one Jurisdiction may be merely an admonition in another,
and vice versa.
Discovering all this (and much more!) the thoughtful initiate is apt to
wonder why it is deemed so important that he memorize his own particular
"work" so closely; when he travels he finds that what he knows as
familiar words and forms and phrases are strange to the Lodges he
visits. Nor is this the place to argue for purity of the ritual as
taught. There are good and sufficient reasons why we should hand on to
our sons and their sons the ritual as we received it - if only to
preserve without further alteration and change that which was formed by
the fathers. Suffice it that while uniformity in work within
Jurisdictions is fairly well established as good American Masonic
practice, it is not universal. There are several "workings" for
instance, permitted in English Lodges, and even in some American
Jurisdictions (vide Connecticut) not all Lodges use the same ritual.
The reason for all this are so involved, complex and cover such a long
period, that a complete understanding is difficult even for the student
willing to read the enormous amount of history and authority which may
make it plain. Briefly, and in general, the matter becomes clearer if we
visualize our sources of ritual.
We receive our Masonry from
The Mother Grand Lodge of England 1717-1753
The Grand Lodge of the "Ancients" 1753-1813
The Grand Lodge of the "Moderns" 1753-1813
The United Grand Lodge 1813 and on
The Grand Lodge of Ireland 1724 and on
The Grand Lodge of Scotland 1736 and on
And from pre-Grand Lodge era Lodges of England, Ireland
and (or)
Scotland........................................................
Unfortunately for the Historian, this list does not signify six or seven
springs from which ritual welled in six or seven different but "pure"
forms. The ritual of the original Grand Lodge changed as it flowed,
through many years after 1717. The Grand Lodges of "Ancients" and
"Moderns" both made alterations in ritual so that rival members of each
body found it impossible to make themselves known Masonically in the
other. Ireland and "Scotland were, and are, as different as Pennsylvania
and California. From pre-Grand Lodge Lodges members came to this country
to form themselves into Lodges without warrant or charter (as was the
custom in early days). A dozen men, bringing what they remembered of the
ritual they heard when "made" to from a Lodge, would naturally include
in their ritual a little of one original source, some phrases from
another beginning, a paragraph from a third wellspring, and so on.
The Mother Grand Lodge ritual (1717 to 1753) was not the ritual of the
United Grand Lodge which came into existence in 1813, when the two parts
of the original Mother Grand Lodge ("Ancients" and "Moderns") again came
together. The United Grand Lodge, or Grand Lodge of Reconciliation,
formed ins ritual from the best of the divergent rituals of the
"Ancients" and the "Moderns".
Thus, Lodges in this country which received their ritual, in any or all
states of purity or impurity, from either of these several sources,
would differ decidedly each from the other.
Come we now to the spread of Masonry in the thirteen colonies, and
later, through the forty-eight states and territories and the District
of Columbia. To write even one paragraph of Masonic history of ritual in
so many subdivisions would make this Bulletin unreadably long. But a few
high lights may be noted.
From four primary American sources of ritual, in one way or another all
other American Grand Jurisdictions, in part at least, received their
"work"; Massachusetts, which at first sent forth what must have been at
least an approximation of the work of the original Mother Grand Lodge,
through her ritual today is derived from "Moderns" and "Ancients";
Pennsylvania and Virginia, both giving forth individual variants of a
combination of "Modern" and "Ancient", and North Carolina, almost purely
"Modern."
In 1915 Dean Roscoe Pound showed how various were the next groups of
States which received their rituals from the first four American
sources. He developed that Maine derived from Massachusetts since the
fusion; Vermont derived from the Grand Lodge of "Ancients" in
Massachusetts before the fusion; Ohio derived from Massachusetts, from
Connecticut, a strictly "Modern" Jurisdiction, and from Pennsylvania;
Indiana derived from Ohio and Kentucky, which latter represents Virginia
after the fusion; Michigan derived from the "Ancient" Grand Lodge of
Canada and from New York, which since the Revolution was a strictly
"Ancient" Jurisdiction; Kentucky derived from Virginia; Tennessee
derived from North Carolina, a purely "Modern" Jurisdiction; Alabama
derived from North Carolina, from South Carolina and from Tennessee,
thus representing Virginia and North Carolina; Louisiana derived from
South Carolina, from Pennsylvania and from France; Florida derived from
Georgia and from South Carolina; Missouri derived from Pennsylvania and
from Tennessee, representing therefore, the fusion in Pennsylvania and
the "Modern Masonry" of North Carolina; Illinois derived from Kentucky
and so represents Virginia; and the District of Columbia derived from
Maryland (a fusion of "Modern Masonry" from Massachusetts and from
England direct, with "Ancient Masonry" from Pennsylvania, and from
Virginia.
The further west we go, the more we find of a mixture of sources,
complicated rather than simplified by such matters as the splitting of
the Grand Lodge of Dakota into the Grand Lodges of South Dakota and
North Dakota, when these two states were formed, and the formation of
the Grand Lodge of California, which drew its work from many different
sources. California Lodge No. 13, of the District of Columbia, was
formed for the purpose of carrying Masonry to the Golden Gate at the
time of the Gold Rush. That Lodge is now Number 1 on the California
Grand Lodge register. But California's ritual is not more similar to the
district of Columbia working than that of any other state, since the
District Lodge was but one of several which formed the Grand Lodge of
California.
There have been certain unifying influences; The Baltimore Masonic
Convention of 1843, the conclusions of which were adopted in whole or in
part by several American Grand Jurisdictions, and the work of Rob Morris
and his conservators, which despite its chilly reception by many Grand
Jurisdictions, undoubtedly left its impress on American Ritual. A third
unifying influence has been the tremendous impress made on almost all
American Jurisdictions by Thomas Smith Webb and Jeremy Cross, plainly
evident in the exotic paragraphs printed in many State monitors or
manuals. A fourth has been the honest desire and strenuous efforts of
many Grand Lodges, through District Deputies, Grand Lecturers, Schools
of Instruction and similar machinery, to preserve what they have in its
supposedly ancient perfection. But by the time these latter were in
operation, ritual was more or less fixed. Because of the reverence of
the average Mason for what his is taught, and his fierce resentment of
any material change in that which he learns, rituals and degree forms,
ceremonies and practices, usage's and customs, continue to be what he
believes them to have been "from time immemorial" even when sober fact
shows that they have an antiquity of (in all probability) less than two
hundred years.
For the benefit of those Masons to whom divergence of ritual is not the
less distressing that it is understandable, it may be said that most
author
THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic Service Association of the United States
VOL. 12 January 1934 NO. 1