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Article "THE ALBURY MS."AN ANALYSIS. ← Page 4 of 5 →
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"The Albury Ms."An Analysis.
Dec . 1 of the same year . E . R . H . the Duke of Sussex was installed the Graud Master of the United Grand Lodge of England on St . John's Day , 27 th of December , 1813 . The " Lodge of Reconciliation " was composed of "nine worthy and expert Past Masters or Master Masons" from each
Graud Lodge , making eighteen members in all , and was not founded until after December 1 , 1813 , but before St . John ' s Day , and had nothing whatever to do with the proceedings narrated in tho " Albury M . S ., " their duty having simply to do with the " work . " The meeting of
tho two Grand Masters took place at the "Athol" Grand Lodge on Doc . 1 , when thoDuke of Sussex was made an " Ancient Mason , " andalso on the 27 th , at the Festival of St . John the Evangelist . The writer of the " Albury MS . " also
notices the "Articles of Union " with respect to tho Chivalric Masonic Degrees , stating that they arc antagonistic to the assumption of the title or prefix " Masonic " which is confined to the three above mentioned degrees ( i . e . tho craft )
, ; at the same time it implies that a Masonic qualification is required for such orders . " We think this is written in the interests of the new body of Templars , which , under the recent rules , drops the prefix
Masonic , contrary to the custom for many years of the previous society of the Masonic Knights Templars . If this society is not a Alasonic body , it is nothing ; and hence many complain of the shortened title , which disconnects it from its adopted
parent . " As the clause in question ( ' But this article is not intended to prevent any Lodge or Chapter from holding a meeting in any of the degrees of the orders of Chivalry , according to the Constitution of
tlie said orders' ) does not appear in the printed book of Constitutions of Grand Lodge , " we axe gravely told by the same writer , " it is said to have been omitted by the influence of the Grand Master , who , being a Unitarian , was , anxious to ignore
the Trinitarian element of the Temple and the Rose Croix degrees , and , having become the head of all the degrees , used his position to suppress all but the craft degrees , which were purely deistic ! " A more unfounded and unfair charge could not have been made , and certainly a more
insulting attempt to misrepresent the motives of the revered Duke of Sussex could not have been imagined by the most rabid of anti-Masons . None of the clauses of the " Articles of Union " were printed in the editions of the Book of Constitutions , save
of late years , when the first part of the 2 d Article ( of which the concluding portion is the foregoing ) has been inserted , viz ., " It is declared and pronounced that pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degreesand no moreviz . ; those of Entered
, , Apprentice , the Fellow Craft , and the Master Mason—' including the Supremo Order of the Holy Royal Arch . " There were XXI Articles , and as only a part of the 2 d has been published in the authorized Books of Constitutions , it seems quite
inexplicable why H . R . H . the Duke of Sussex has thus been singled out for attack , when during his lifetime , not one of the "Articles of Union" were ever printed in the Regulations , though they were issued separately , and also to all Lodges with the Quarterly Communication
papers . Next , we are assured that " The Royal Arch degree , dating only from 1790 , was composed and put together out of several of those so-called hi gher degrees—the Knights of the Sword , the Knights of the East and Westtho Red Cross of Babylon
, , and others , eliminating the Christian element , so as to bring it within the building allegory and deistic principle . It is , however , not the old Royal Arch , but a new invention of very recent date , founded on ignorance and an error of the meaning of
the French word ach , or # ( J ) , or triple crux ansata—a symbol of life and Trinitarianism . " The astounding intelligence that the Royal Arch dates " only from 1790 , " when we have it referred to in print A . D . 1744 , and in the Records of
the "Ancients" A . D ., 1752 , as well as in many other works and MSS . about the middle of the last century , makes the fact palpable that the "Albury MS . " was written by a novice in Masonic history , and renders it quite unnecessary for us to exhibit any more erroneous references to that degree which disfigure pages 40 and 41 .
The chapter on " French Lodges " is an epitome of Rebold ' s Historie des Trois Grande Logos en France , and so acknow-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
"The Albury Ms."An Analysis.
Dec . 1 of the same year . E . R . H . the Duke of Sussex was installed the Graud Master of the United Grand Lodge of England on St . John's Day , 27 th of December , 1813 . The " Lodge of Reconciliation " was composed of "nine worthy and expert Past Masters or Master Masons" from each
Graud Lodge , making eighteen members in all , and was not founded until after December 1 , 1813 , but before St . John ' s Day , and had nothing whatever to do with the proceedings narrated in tho " Albury M . S ., " their duty having simply to do with the " work . " The meeting of
tho two Grand Masters took place at the "Athol" Grand Lodge on Doc . 1 , when thoDuke of Sussex was made an " Ancient Mason , " andalso on the 27 th , at the Festival of St . John the Evangelist . The writer of the " Albury MS . " also
notices the "Articles of Union " with respect to tho Chivalric Masonic Degrees , stating that they arc antagonistic to the assumption of the title or prefix " Masonic " which is confined to the three above mentioned degrees ( i . e . tho craft )
, ; at the same time it implies that a Masonic qualification is required for such orders . " We think this is written in the interests of the new body of Templars , which , under the recent rules , drops the prefix
Masonic , contrary to the custom for many years of the previous society of the Masonic Knights Templars . If this society is not a Alasonic body , it is nothing ; and hence many complain of the shortened title , which disconnects it from its adopted
parent . " As the clause in question ( ' But this article is not intended to prevent any Lodge or Chapter from holding a meeting in any of the degrees of the orders of Chivalry , according to the Constitution of
tlie said orders' ) does not appear in the printed book of Constitutions of Grand Lodge , " we axe gravely told by the same writer , " it is said to have been omitted by the influence of the Grand Master , who , being a Unitarian , was , anxious to ignore
the Trinitarian element of the Temple and the Rose Croix degrees , and , having become the head of all the degrees , used his position to suppress all but the craft degrees , which were purely deistic ! " A more unfounded and unfair charge could not have been made , and certainly a more
insulting attempt to misrepresent the motives of the revered Duke of Sussex could not have been imagined by the most rabid of anti-Masons . None of the clauses of the " Articles of Union " were printed in the editions of the Book of Constitutions , save
of late years , when the first part of the 2 d Article ( of which the concluding portion is the foregoing ) has been inserted , viz ., " It is declared and pronounced that pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degreesand no moreviz . ; those of Entered
, , Apprentice , the Fellow Craft , and the Master Mason—' including the Supremo Order of the Holy Royal Arch . " There were XXI Articles , and as only a part of the 2 d has been published in the authorized Books of Constitutions , it seems quite
inexplicable why H . R . H . the Duke of Sussex has thus been singled out for attack , when during his lifetime , not one of the "Articles of Union" were ever printed in the Regulations , though they were issued separately , and also to all Lodges with the Quarterly Communication
papers . Next , we are assured that " The Royal Arch degree , dating only from 1790 , was composed and put together out of several of those so-called hi gher degrees—the Knights of the Sword , the Knights of the East and Westtho Red Cross of Babylon
, , and others , eliminating the Christian element , so as to bring it within the building allegory and deistic principle . It is , however , not the old Royal Arch , but a new invention of very recent date , founded on ignorance and an error of the meaning of
the French word ach , or # ( J ) , or triple crux ansata—a symbol of life and Trinitarianism . " The astounding intelligence that the Royal Arch dates " only from 1790 , " when we have it referred to in print A . D . 1744 , and in the Records of
the "Ancients" A . D ., 1752 , as well as in many other works and MSS . about the middle of the last century , makes the fact palpable that the "Albury MS . " was written by a novice in Masonic history , and renders it quite unnecessary for us to exhibit any more erroneous references to that degree which disfigure pages 40 and 41 .
The chapter on " French Lodges " is an epitome of Rebold ' s Historie des Trois Grande Logos en France , and so acknow-