FAITH LODGES

Sir,

    I query the publication of a letter in the official publication of UGLE calling for members to found a multi-faith lodge.
    My concern is twofold. First, as far as I am aware all regular masonic lodges should accept members who accept the existence of a Supreme Being and are therefore by default multifaith. I cannot see any useful masonic purpose in establishing a lodge whose formation could cast doubt on the nature of others.
    Secondly, from a management perspective the figures published on page 20 of the same edition show a continuous nine-year decline in members being issued with Grand Lodge certificates in addition to a marginal fall in the number of lodges on the register.
    I am in principle against the founding of new lodges when we have established lodges folding at an alarming rate. I would rather that those in charge took the decision to instruct any Brethren so minded to take on an ailing Lodge and so preserve our heritage.
    I trust you will publish my letter and allow a wider debate on this sensitive issue.
    Martyn Bolt
    Mirfield, West Yorkshire, Cambodunum Lodge, No. 2546

SPIRITUAL MEANING

Sir,

    In the last issue of Freemasonry Today, Bro. Fray asked why some of us ‘look for hidden spiritual meanings in Freemasonry’ and added ‘If they do not get spiritual filling from their church it is sad and they should go to another church’.
    There may be a small minority among us who, like Weatherby in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Land of Mist, ‘wander about on the obscure edges of Masonry, talking in whispers and reverence of mysteries where no mystery is’. For most of us, though, the only mysteries alluded to in the Craft are, as we learn in the Second Degree, the hidden mysteries of Nature and Science and few would doubt that life and the universe and especially our inner natures are abounding in mystery and that an insatiable need to delve into these mysteries is a prime characteristic of the human race. If a Brother finds the answers to his quest in his church - or mosque, synagogue or temple - then that is excellent; but many, who for a multitude of reasons do not get spiritual fulfilment from their church or who have even been hurt by the church, seek other spiritual paths.
    My own experience, for which I owe an enormous debt to the Craft, is that the first of our Grand Principles, Love, is the beginning and end of spirituality. Many mystics, including John the Evangelist, Julian of Norwich and Roger of Taizé, have emphasised that God is Love. The great Sufi mystic Jelalludin Rumi remarked that all love is a bridge to the love of God and that love is the only true religion, all others being like cast off bandages.
    Our vocation is not to delve into arcane spiritual blind alleys, but to live by the ‘open mysteries’ of our Grand Principles and, thereby, ‘to prove to the world the happy and beneficial effects of our Ancient Institution’.
    John Grange
    Northwood, Middlesex, Rahere Lodge, No. 2546

CHURCHES AND FREEMASONRY

Sir,

    Since Freemasonry Today was first issued I have really enjoyed reading it and look forward to it arriving each quarter, with its many interesting articles and comment. I found the article on Italian Freemasonry and the appointment of a Catholic priest as Grand Chaplain encouraging, but it was sad about the Bishop of Rochester.
    Perhaps he should have a chat with the Bishop of Gloucester, whose Cathedral Gloucestershire Freemasons use each year for their annual service and have supported the Cathedral with several large donations. I am sure they will keep up the good work.
    Roger Powell
    Bristol, Staple Hill Lodge, No. 6043

Sir,

    In Freemasonry Today Spring 2006 edition, on page 9 you have an article entitled ‘Bishop of Rochester Opposes Freemasons.’ Perhaps the Bishop would care to comment on, or explain, the display of a plaque in the Cathedral which bears the following inscription:
    In commemoration of the appointment to a Grand Chaplaincy in the Grand Lodge of England of the Very Rev. Samuel Reynolds Hole, D.D., Dean of this Cathedral and a Freemason for 56 years, these windows representing famous builders under the law and the Gospel were offered by his brother masons to the glory of God and the adornment of His house, and were dedicated by Edward, Lord Bishop of Rochester on the feast of St. Andrew in the year of our Lord 1899.
    Presumably the Bishop does not feel strongly enough to have it removed!
    Name witheld by request

RANK IS BUT THE GUINEA STAMP

Sir,

    Regarding Julian Rees’ article Rank is but the Guinea Stamp (Freemasonry Today Spring 2006), what he has to say is timely and necessary. I was initiated in 1946 and have seen many example of the chap who deliberately arrives late at a meeting so as to ‘make an entrance’ in his latest regalia, through the gang who accompany the District Grand Master to all the installations at which he presides. My prize example is a father and son who kept a list of District Grand Lodge officers on their computer with dates of their promotions. They resigned from the Craft when they did not get the preferments their computer predicted! In my view a mason should be known as a man of honour, not a man with honours.
    Peter Barker
    Lyndhurst, South Africa

Sir,

    I read with interest the article Rank is but the Guinea Stamp.
    I am afraid this is a problem in most humanitarian organisations. The question of ego and vanity is not easy to deal with. However, it should be different in masonry. I view masonry as a method of self betterment to serve humanity.
    As with all ideals, masonry needs an organisation to be created, but then the organisation seems to have an inbuilt tendency to take over the ideals. As it has a hierarchy, it invites in a way competition and rivalry. Why him and not me? In competition, the ideals are pushed aside and the striving to look important in the eyes of others takes over. This is very sad.
    I have seen this again and again in my Order, and I presume it is present in all forms of Freemasonry. I believe it is a part of the tests we have to pass to become real masons. In my experience the most dangerous members are those who feel they have not received the recognition and success due to them in the profane world, and are using masonry to compensate and to reach personal importance. They often become abusive and arrogant, and can do a lot of damage.
    Nobody knows who is the best mason. It has nothing to do with degrees or offices. The true mason is the one who can live masonic ideals in his or her daily life.
    Njördur P. Njardvík
    Grand Master, International Order of Co-Freemasonry Le Droit Humain

BRAILLE RITUALS

Sir,

    I am writing to you about Braille editions of the masonic ritual for blind Brethren. Over recent years demand for Braille rituals has all but disappeared and we are having to consider the disposal of this range of products. I am concerned that some blind Brethren may not be aware that these versions of the ritual are available so am writing to you to request that you publicise their existence in your pages, so that Brethren who do know of a Brother who would want such a title can pass on the message. The Emulation Ritual and the Lectures of the Three Degrees are both still available.
    Martin Faulks
    Marketing Manager, Lewis Masonic Tel: 01986 895433

FREEMASONS’ HALL, DUBLIN

Sir,

    I was pleased to read in the Winter edition of Freemasonry Today in the article entitled Specialists in Freemasonry the review of Freemasons’ Hall in Dublin.
    However I must come to the defence of Lady Elizabeth St Ledger. It is on record that she attended a meeting of Grand Lodge in 1744. Not only her apron, but her jewel also is on display in Cork. Laurence Gardner also gives credence to her story, in his latest book The Shadow of Solomon.
    As secretary of the Irish Lodge of Research, I am often surprised that the history of Freemasonry in Ireland is almost completely ignored by so many masonic researchers, especially when one realises that the Secretary of the Antients, Laurence Dermott, was initiated in Ireland. His part in the framing of the rituals as worked in the United Grand Lodge of England cannot be ignored, (or perhaps it is all part of the Hanoverian plot!). On my last visit to Great Queen Street in London his name was not even mentioned in connection with the schism in the order.
    J.A. Penny
    Secretary, Lodge of Research, Ireland.

DISCRIMINATION?

Sir,

    I refer to Ken Ingham’s letter (Freemasonry Today No. 36) headed ‘Discrimination?’. I dare say that I am in the company of most Brethren in deploring discrimination against Freemasonry, whatever form it takes, but to be fair I wonder if it is possible to place a different construction on the response to Bro Ingham’s request for an explanation from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
    The response was imprecise, clumsy and unhelpful, but it is possible that it was attempting to convey that in previous instances the requirement ‘to declare conflicts of interest ... and to disclose information of personal connections which ... might be open to misconception’ was not followed by the specific reference to ‘Membership of Freemasons’ [sic], and that this reference was subsequently added because Freemasons, more than any other class of applicants, had indicated that they were Freemasons, and as such sought clarification about the need to declare this fact.
    Sydney Gibson
    Deal, Spirit of St George Lodge, No. 9373

BATH AND THE ‘LOST’ FURNITURE

Sir,

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the article published in the Spring 2006 issue of Freemasonry Today.
    Laugh because it is such a well presented paper on a special Masonic Temple: the photographs are a credit to the photographer and show the Temple and some of its effects very well indeed.
    Cry because the storyline involved so much romantic fiction.
    Amongst other imprecisions Yasha Beresinger writes that the east part of the Temple is decorated with the original Corinthian columns that have supported the ceiling for over two centuries. Not true; these columns are basically decorative and were erected by the Church authorities when the use of the building was changed from a theatre to a church.
    He fairly describes the reredos as the most striking object as you enter the Temple, but fails to take the opportunity to inform his reader that, uniquely, it is an extremely rare original Georgian reredos rescued from a Georgian church or chapel and has been attributed by one 19th century historian to the architect John Wood the younger.
    The part of the article that really muddies the historical waters is where he speaks about the Royal Cumberland Lodge, No.41. He says that the lodge tracing boards are a reminder of an unpleasant event in Bath’s masonic history in the mid 1800s: the ‘Bath Furniture’ incident. They are not.
    He states that when the furniture was purchased by the Loyal Lodge, No.251 in 1843 and taken to Barnstaple, the tracing boards were left behind. They were not.
    The lodge tracing board was taken to Barnstaple and as far as I know is still there. The truth of the matter is much more interesting, for the tracing board was a single table board used in all three degrees. Historically it represents an important phase in the evolution of tracing boards, from the chalked floor drawing to the present day boards. The current lodge tracing boards follow Harris’s design and were painted in 1852 for the Lodge by a Past Master Charles Haseler; the Lodge paid him ten guineas for the job. Similarly he says that the toast to the Bath Furniture is a long standing custom, fallen into abeyance but now reinstated; this is unknown to the Lodge. It is my Mother Lodge, I have been a member for 28 years and I have never heard of it.
    Dennis Mosely
    Trowbridge, Royal Cumberland Lodge, No. 41