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an organised antagonism to such laws and the motives from which they spring . It is by them that all the crimes
against humanity have been c Tried on . The martyrs of every right cause who have bled and writhed on the rack or in flames have suffered according : to such laws . It has
been the curse of the ages to this hour , that the malefactors of spiritual and regal despotism had more law on their side than their victims had on theirs . Laws to enforce oppression even to torture and death
have indeed " grown up" in the world through long spaces of time ; none knowing how : bad laws always grow that way , under the ] fostering hand of the lust of dominion over body or soul . They cannot grow up by
Masonry , or in Masonry as any part thereof ; even if every Mason on earth should join in enacting them , they would only be more sweeping and destructive forms of outrages against Masonry . Masonry may be trampled under foot
by Lodges , Grand and Constituent ; bnt it will not be because of laws to that effect ; but because there can be found in them enough Masons who are capable of making such laws , whether they make them or not .
We hear the forfeiture of a Mason ' s rights and privileges justified because of what is called a " common law , " which is the name given to an opinion lately ascertained to have grown up in and about this continent , by a certain evolution
of thought among active Masonic minds . Doubtless many new opinions of different values have made temporary lodgment in Masonic minds at various times since Masonry began : and to discover that something new has taken place
in the minds of some portion of the Craft , is one thing ; but to discover that such a thing as a " common law "which only exists because it dates from beyond the knowledge and-memory of men—that is , was always the law—is
quite another thing , and truly marvellous , not to say miraculous . When did this law begin to grow ? Whenever it began , it must at that time have been certainly new . This is admitted by saying that it has grown up since a former time . The same writers who assert its
present existence speak in the same sentence which so asserts , of a time mentioned by Bro . Gould in his history when this law did not exist , which time was not long ago . This making an immemorial law grow up in a few years is
the same as causing a twenty year old gourd vine to grow in one season . But such a law can never begin to grow if there be any positive ( enacted ) law covering the same subject : and let that positive law be the same or contrary to
the supposed law , the latter would be no law at all ; for if it were the same iu effect , it could add nothing ; and if it differed , it wonld only be an attempted violation . As such a law cannot begin , so there can never be a time when it
can end in being a law . Its beginning is its end . In short , there is no common law , which can have living witnesses to its growth , or positive law confronting it . It must not only be immemorial , but it must be common to
the entire community whose law it is ; otherwise it can onl y be a local custom . It must be universal—in this case throughout the Masonic world—for it concerns all Masonic bodies wherever dispersed . Think of a local custom of
admitting states into our Union , or of naturalization ; and then of a local custom of creating Grand Lodges and forfeiting the Masonic ri ghts and possessions of older Lodges If any one desire to find the proper authorities to show
a common law in Masonry on this subject sufficient to support a forfeiture of rights , let him put aside all lucubrations and opinions promulgated by individuals , and ascertain how many times , if ever , and when a new Grand Lodge
has proceeded to coercion to bring into its jurisdiction Lodges which chose to stay where they were ; and the other Grand Lodges of the world , on hearing both sides , have decided that the laws of Masonry at the time of the
first enactment of the law concerning making innovations in the body of Masonry , provided for the forfeitures and penalties involved in such coercion . If he can find nothing __ . . _____ _ &
of the sort , why should he be " as one who filleth his bell y with the east wind " of mere disputation , and go out on a crusade for an idea which contains nothing but " vanity and vexation of spirit " for all concerned ?
Showing that a hundred Grand Lodges , lately from the shell , have mounted the winged horse of an American 01 Canadian Idea or both , at once , and have issued edicts accordingly ; and that several other Grand Lodges old
enoug h to stay where they were put , have climbed up to r » de behind , does not show where the law is to be had , but ° nly that those Grand Lodges enjoy the excursion . According to the lately developed common law , which its
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expounders unthinkingly treat as an " idea —which verily it is—merely a local custom of thinking—a number of Masons , representing as some say a majority of Lodges ( the Australian idea is a minority ) in a state or other political
division in which there is no Grand Lodge , may form ono of their own ; and thereby , on securing recognition by other Grand Lodges , are at once empowered to warn in all the other Lodges in that territory ; and in case they
decline to unite , the Grand Lodge so formed may proceed to destroy them by promulgating an edict of non-intercourse . By this procedure , or other fulminations to follow as occasion may require , Master Masons by the hundred , who have never failed in Masonic duties towards their own
Lodges or the Grand Lodge to which they owe allegionce ; who have never trenched upon the American idea by attempting to set up a rival Grand Lodge or accepting a charter from any Grand Lodge outside the territory
claimed by the new Grand Lodge , but remain obedient to their own Grand Lodge where the new Grand Lodgo found them , may be declared clandestine with their lawful charters in their hands , and cast out utterly , as Masonic felons .
" The end crowns the work . " The end of all this shows
that the supposed law is wholly impossible in Masonry , because no common law can possibly " grow up " destructive of the first principle of the Craft , or of the statutory or other enacted laws in furtherance of the same .
If any one demands the production of the positive or enacted law , the answer is waiting ; the constitutions , charges and obligations of Masonry , and the law that no change shall be made in the body thereof . This last law
has been personally ratified by every Worship ful Master who has sat in the Grand Lodge , and by every Warden or other Master Mason who has ever stood present at the installation of a Master or Grand Master .
Whoever desires to fully understand the Masonic idea , let him explore these last mentioned laws ; they are the laws which change not , and they will indicate enough Masonic duties which he owes to those who are assailed
by an edict of Masonic despoiliation for no breach of their obligation ' s , to remove any inclination he may have to take a hand in fabricating a new law to despoil a body of Masons who observe the law as laid down by their own Grand Lodge—the only Grand Body to whom they owe
allegiance . It is plainly big ' .: time that every Mason who proposes to join in holding the garments of the Grand Lodge of
Quebec , while she stones to Masonic death some three hundred Masons—that is , if she can find supporters—to begin to ascertain where he stands . It is no idle question whether or not there is un-Masonic conduct involved in a
procedure to drive out regular Masons from their Masonic domicile ; that is , whole Lodges of them from their Grand Lodge ; and wresting from each individual his wages ; that
is , his rights and privileges , and the benefits ot his Lodge , and finally destroying the latter , and setting up the beams thereof as posts for his Masonic gibbet .
If the law under which sucn work can be done is valid
for any purpose , it is , of course , sufficient to push every Mason adjudged " recusant" under it to expulsion . Expulsion is Masonic death—it is the capital punishment in Masonry . But whether it be good or bad law , it is the
law which those who vote to approve such proceedings in advance , prefer to see in force ; themselves being out of danger of having it applied to a case of their own , unless , perhaps , they may remove to some Mexican or other State ,
and there fall into the pit they now help to dig ; or , unless , which is much more likely to happen , some of them find themselves situated as Bro . A . B . is supposed to have been—there can and will be thousand of such cases—and
what will be their line of argument then , when the ' common law " mentioned shall so further grow up as to include this case of an individual Mason when the nearest Lodge orders him . to leave his own Lodge aud comj in ,
under pain of being driven from tho Craft as " recusant ? , ; Such a law would be , and indeed is , tho same as the other , and is every whit as valid now . All that is lacking to make the two identical in all respects is that some Lodge
commence proceedings and the Grand Lodge utter an edict , and a few other Grand Lodges ratify it , and it will instantly appear to those who desire it so that it has been law all the time by force of an idea recently occurring to the minds of certain Masonic jurists . There is one thing yet which is more than all above mentioned : These proceedings are penal . Whoever heard
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
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an organised antagonism to such laws and the motives from which they spring . It is by them that all the crimes
against humanity have been c Tried on . The martyrs of every right cause who have bled and writhed on the rack or in flames have suffered according : to such laws . It has
been the curse of the ages to this hour , that the malefactors of spiritual and regal despotism had more law on their side than their victims had on theirs . Laws to enforce oppression even to torture and death
have indeed " grown up" in the world through long spaces of time ; none knowing how : bad laws always grow that way , under the ] fostering hand of the lust of dominion over body or soul . They cannot grow up by
Masonry , or in Masonry as any part thereof ; even if every Mason on earth should join in enacting them , they would only be more sweeping and destructive forms of outrages against Masonry . Masonry may be trampled under foot
by Lodges , Grand and Constituent ; bnt it will not be because of laws to that effect ; but because there can be found in them enough Masons who are capable of making such laws , whether they make them or not .
We hear the forfeiture of a Mason ' s rights and privileges justified because of what is called a " common law , " which is the name given to an opinion lately ascertained to have grown up in and about this continent , by a certain evolution
of thought among active Masonic minds . Doubtless many new opinions of different values have made temporary lodgment in Masonic minds at various times since Masonry began : and to discover that something new has taken place
in the minds of some portion of the Craft , is one thing ; but to discover that such a thing as a " common law "which only exists because it dates from beyond the knowledge and-memory of men—that is , was always the law—is
quite another thing , and truly marvellous , not to say miraculous . When did this law begin to grow ? Whenever it began , it must at that time have been certainly new . This is admitted by saying that it has grown up since a former time . The same writers who assert its
present existence speak in the same sentence which so asserts , of a time mentioned by Bro . Gould in his history when this law did not exist , which time was not long ago . This making an immemorial law grow up in a few years is
the same as causing a twenty year old gourd vine to grow in one season . But such a law can never begin to grow if there be any positive ( enacted ) law covering the same subject : and let that positive law be the same or contrary to
the supposed law , the latter would be no law at all ; for if it were the same iu effect , it could add nothing ; and if it differed , it wonld only be an attempted violation . As such a law cannot begin , so there can never be a time when it
can end in being a law . Its beginning is its end . In short , there is no common law , which can have living witnesses to its growth , or positive law confronting it . It must not only be immemorial , but it must be common to
the entire community whose law it is ; otherwise it can onl y be a local custom . It must be universal—in this case throughout the Masonic world—for it concerns all Masonic bodies wherever dispersed . Think of a local custom of
admitting states into our Union , or of naturalization ; and then of a local custom of creating Grand Lodges and forfeiting the Masonic ri ghts and possessions of older Lodges If any one desire to find the proper authorities to show
a common law in Masonry on this subject sufficient to support a forfeiture of rights , let him put aside all lucubrations and opinions promulgated by individuals , and ascertain how many times , if ever , and when a new Grand Lodge
has proceeded to coercion to bring into its jurisdiction Lodges which chose to stay where they were ; and the other Grand Lodges of the world , on hearing both sides , have decided that the laws of Masonry at the time of the
first enactment of the law concerning making innovations in the body of Masonry , provided for the forfeitures and penalties involved in such coercion . If he can find nothing __ . . _____ _ &
of the sort , why should he be " as one who filleth his bell y with the east wind " of mere disputation , and go out on a crusade for an idea which contains nothing but " vanity and vexation of spirit " for all concerned ?
Showing that a hundred Grand Lodges , lately from the shell , have mounted the winged horse of an American 01 Canadian Idea or both , at once , and have issued edicts accordingly ; and that several other Grand Lodges old
enoug h to stay where they were put , have climbed up to r » de behind , does not show where the law is to be had , but ° nly that those Grand Lodges enjoy the excursion . According to the lately developed common law , which its
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expounders unthinkingly treat as an " idea —which verily it is—merely a local custom of thinking—a number of Masons , representing as some say a majority of Lodges ( the Australian idea is a minority ) in a state or other political
division in which there is no Grand Lodge , may form ono of their own ; and thereby , on securing recognition by other Grand Lodges , are at once empowered to warn in all the other Lodges in that territory ; and in case they
decline to unite , the Grand Lodge so formed may proceed to destroy them by promulgating an edict of non-intercourse . By this procedure , or other fulminations to follow as occasion may require , Master Masons by the hundred , who have never failed in Masonic duties towards their own
Lodges or the Grand Lodge to which they owe allegionce ; who have never trenched upon the American idea by attempting to set up a rival Grand Lodge or accepting a charter from any Grand Lodge outside the territory
claimed by the new Grand Lodge , but remain obedient to their own Grand Lodge where the new Grand Lodgo found them , may be declared clandestine with their lawful charters in their hands , and cast out utterly , as Masonic felons .
" The end crowns the work . " The end of all this shows
that the supposed law is wholly impossible in Masonry , because no common law can possibly " grow up " destructive of the first principle of the Craft , or of the statutory or other enacted laws in furtherance of the same .
If any one demands the production of the positive or enacted law , the answer is waiting ; the constitutions , charges and obligations of Masonry , and the law that no change shall be made in the body thereof . This last law
has been personally ratified by every Worship ful Master who has sat in the Grand Lodge , and by every Warden or other Master Mason who has ever stood present at the installation of a Master or Grand Master .
Whoever desires to fully understand the Masonic idea , let him explore these last mentioned laws ; they are the laws which change not , and they will indicate enough Masonic duties which he owes to those who are assailed
by an edict of Masonic despoiliation for no breach of their obligation ' s , to remove any inclination he may have to take a hand in fabricating a new law to despoil a body of Masons who observe the law as laid down by their own Grand Lodge—the only Grand Body to whom they owe
allegiance . It is plainly big ' .: time that every Mason who proposes to join in holding the garments of the Grand Lodge of
Quebec , while she stones to Masonic death some three hundred Masons—that is , if she can find supporters—to begin to ascertain where he stands . It is no idle question whether or not there is un-Masonic conduct involved in a
procedure to drive out regular Masons from their Masonic domicile ; that is , whole Lodges of them from their Grand Lodge ; and wresting from each individual his wages ; that
is , his rights and privileges , and the benefits ot his Lodge , and finally destroying the latter , and setting up the beams thereof as posts for his Masonic gibbet .
If the law under which sucn work can be done is valid
for any purpose , it is , of course , sufficient to push every Mason adjudged " recusant" under it to expulsion . Expulsion is Masonic death—it is the capital punishment in Masonry . But whether it be good or bad law , it is the
law which those who vote to approve such proceedings in advance , prefer to see in force ; themselves being out of danger of having it applied to a case of their own , unless , perhaps , they may remove to some Mexican or other State ,
and there fall into the pit they now help to dig ; or , unless , which is much more likely to happen , some of them find themselves situated as Bro . A . B . is supposed to have been—there can and will be thousand of such cases—and
what will be their line of argument then , when the ' common law " mentioned shall so further grow up as to include this case of an individual Mason when the nearest Lodge orders him . to leave his own Lodge aud comj in ,
under pain of being driven from tho Craft as " recusant ? , ; Such a law would be , and indeed is , tho same as the other , and is every whit as valid now . All that is lacking to make the two identical in all respects is that some Lodge
commence proceedings and the Grand Lodge utter an edict , and a few other Grand Lodges ratify it , and it will instantly appear to those who desire it so that it has been law all the time by force of an idea recently occurring to the minds of certain Masonic jurists . There is one thing yet which is more than all above mentioned : These proceedings are penal . Whoever heard