Brother Lightfoote's Journal The Recollections of an Eighteenth-Century Gentleman of the Craft March 15th 1783 Feast of Saint Longinus Weather: Bright and cold Outlook: Positive, to begin with… Beware the Ides of March (and Ideas of Mars)!

Good advice from Master Shakespeare, which Master Lightfoote would have done well to heed but did not. There are some days and some people that are best addressed by avoidance and today has witnessed both of them.
    Saint Longinus, I read, was the name of the Roman Soldier who, standing at the foot of the cross, pierced Our Lord’s side with his spear. The name is probably derived from the Greek word for lance – probably – possibly – it could safely be assumed – these words shall evermore put me on my guard! Anyway, our Centurion ended up having his tongue torn out, which, as we all know, is what happens to little boys who go telling tales, isn’t it? At least it should…
    This morning dawned full of promise. I love this time of year when one feels that winter is finally in retreat and that spring is poised to advance with flying colours. I rose clear-headed and partook of a light breakfast that included some excellent Black Pudding, cut thick and fried in goose fat – quite exquisite! Feeling fully fortified, forth I flew to Frith Street to view some amusing illustrations. I partook of luncheon in a favourite haunt of mine, run by a Grecian, in St. Martins Lane. By happy chance a couple of my playmates happened to be there and merrily did we murder a few Burgundians before I had to leave to attend a meeting of the Stonic Lodge at the Yorick Tavern, hard by Drury Lane. The stroll along Long Acre cleared my head and sharpened my wits and I arrived eager for enlightenment!
    Unusually, we had no ceremony to perform. Our candidate for the Third Degree is a serving naval officer and is currently away. I never felt the lure of the sea myself: the hearty, rough and tumble, cheek-by-jowl life of men among men… I suspect that I might find it wearing after quite a short while and the problem is that one’s expected to put up with it for quite a long while, and while women can be immensely irritating, they do have their place. Should that place be vacated for a protracted period, one shudders to think what one might do to fill the resultant void…
    The void in our Lodge meeting was to be filled by a dissertation on the origins of the Masonic Ritual, delivered by two young gentlemen who had recently published a book on the subject: Brothers Palmer and Sloman. Neither had been christened Earnest but both were - and passionate and pompous and protracted and preposterous! The burthen of their argument was that the Masonic system is based purely on the planetary system: the Master and his Wardens marking the daily progress of Apollo’s winged chariot and so on and so forth and so far so good.
    The Lodge, Lightfoote included, was sliding softly toward slumber when I became dimly, and then accutely, aware that the tone of the talk had itself slipped - from the solar to the lunatic. Not only was our ritual based upon the movement of the heavenly bodies, it was brought to us from one of them! Masonry is from Mars! It was created as part of a ‘Universal System’ by the same superior beings who cut the geometric grooves – the origin of the temple’s squared pavement – on the surface of that distant world.
    Now I’m an easy-going fellow, am I not? I enjoy a jest as much as the next man, possibly more. I am quite happy, if it makes them happy, for people to put forward suggestions about masonic ritual being founded on the long-lost practices of the Mediaeval Guilds, the Knights Templar (God bless them!), the Vikings, the Cult of Mithras (whoever she was) or whatever, but men from Mars is going too far – far too far. I could scarce restrain myself. ‘Spheres!’ I cried, though their synonym had first come to mind, ‘Orbs to the pair of you!’ ‘Globes – Celestial and Terrestrial!’ I could see that I had managed to discomfort them but a far more distracting interjection was supplied by our Junior Warden. Leaping on to his chair, he turned, dropped his breeches and announced that the pale moon was rising. It was acknowledged that the night was, indeed, waning fast and the Lodge was duly closed with some hilarity
    Sadly, we decided to celebrate our victory over the forces of obfuscation with a few bottles of Yardy’s ’59 - my favourite port! The Master started us off by proposing a bumper toast to ‘This Island Earth!’ The Senior Warden followed with a line from Milton ‘The Sun to me is dark!’ ‘And as silent as the moon!’ the Lunar Junior Warden followed on. ‘Thank heavens for small mercies!’ cried some wag – and the merry night wore on. We drank to every star and planet in the heavens. Do you know how many planets there are? Nor do I, I passed out at twenty-six.

I have read that the Craft is from Mars,
That the ritual came from the stars!
But Brethren, between us, we’re not all from Venus,
And who says so does talk through his… hat